what’s on my mind

I heard the other day from a friend that revenue from ticket sales for the flick Avatar  is more than enough to rebuild Haiti.   Sure Haiti has its problems, institutional, political, social etc.    But I haven’t been thinking about that.   I’ve been thinking about how I bought one of those tickets to Avatar.   

Last night I sat watching the superbowl (ok I watched a few of the commercials) and all I could think about was how much money one of those commercials cost to make and then run during the superbowl.   And my mind immediately went to wondering how much of Haiti could be reubilt for that one commercial.   

And it’s not just Haiti.  It’s Africa.   It’s India.   It’s Cabrini Green in Chicago.   It’s Grundy County, TN.    It’s Dorothy, a woman who is homeless in Franklin and has been sleeping in our sanctuary at night.   

I keep thinking about the ticket I bought to Avatar.   I really wanted to see it.   I really enjoyed it:  Its profundity still pursues me.   In fact I wanted to see it again.     But what’s on my mind now is that I can go see it again.   I can buy another ticket and I can go see Avatar again.   That’s my lot in life.   That’s the luxury of the world I live in.     

Sure I realize natural disaster like earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricaines, tsumani’s can and do hit anywhere.   Money and luxury can’t save your life from the wrong twist of a twister.    But devastation does seem, at least on the surface, to be far more visible and long-suffering when the house you live in has no foundations to begin with.   

Now please know I’m not poo pooing money or possessions or solid built houses.  This really isn’t about you, this is about me.   And  I am acknowledging that I live a luxurious life, next to most people of the world.  

What’s on my mind is the world into which I was born.    And the ticket that I, along with 120,000,000 others bought – totalling enough to rebuild Haiti.  

I don’t really have any answers.   I’m not sure I’m really asking any questions.    I am really stating a fact that I just can’t seem to shake from my mind  -  I was born into a world where I buy tickets to see movies that cost  280 million dollars to make and companies spend 2.6 million dollars to air their 30 second commercial during a football game.   

That’s the world I was born into.   
That’s what’s been on my mind.
And I’m just not sure what to do about any of it but pray because the abyss seems to great to conquer between my world and even Dorothy’s.  

your kingdom come, your way be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

to everything…

So though it may surprise very few -  the snow we’ve had here in Nashville has been sheer delight!  Granted it’s not the 20 inches that DC got but hey- we got real snow in Nashville that stuck around.   It has felt actually like winter here.

Even my car getting stuck in the middle of the road during our “big” snow storm. (After what just hit the eastern states, I use the word “big” very lightly).  But you know, my car getting stuck made my brother’s birthday the “best ever”  because he got to use his truck and chains!  

But as the snow turned to messy sludge, my assistant asked me one day:  Sally, aren’t you tired of winter now?    And I said, “no.  it’s only just February.”

I love winter.   I love spring, summer and fall, too.   I love spring and the cherry blossoms; I love summer as the season of long days and restful play; I love the colors and glory of fall.   But I love winter, too.   I love that we have a “darker” season (granted I say this not living in Alaska)… a season to have fires and curl on the couch with a book or a movie… a season to hibernate and stay home… a season of rest and dormancy.    I find it’s essential –   I love to offer evening prayers with the sunset in summer but I love to offer evening prayers with a candle in winter.    Both are good.   Having both brings balance and movement and rhythm.  

Seasons are how life works on so many levels.   And so yes I love winter.   I’m not ready for spring because it’s still winter.  And it seems very holy to me, to dwell fully here in this season.   

So bring on the snow…  stoke the fire…  curl up in that snuggie … wrap your hands around a warm drink… make soup and  hibernate just a little more… 

because to everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven.  

hold it up to the light.

So I now have this old song stuck in my head by David Wilcox.   Takes me back to college days… makes me think of old church friends.    

 Hold It Up to the Light – Dave Wilcox

But as it would go, it happens to still work for me today all these years later.    It’s profound really the idea of holding something up to the light especially regarding choices and direction and sight.  

I’ve been reading this great book this week – fiction kinda (needed a break after the New Testament Origins Textbook).   It’s called Chasing Francis.  And go figure, it’s a story about one man’s pilgrimage to see clearly again.    He ends up following the story of St. Francis through Italy, hence the title.  I do wonder whether he’s actually chasing Francis or if Francis is pulling him along.  

At one point some of the characters are talking about the power and beauty of music and the arts:  beauty is subversve because it flies under the radar of people’s critical filters and points them to God.     So the song stuck in my head, the new image I’m praying with,  flew in under the radar.    Smart guy the creator of music and art and beauty.    Something tells me, he knew exactly what he was doing.  

So this song and this book?   I’m realizing more and more that I’ve been on a pilgrimage the past few years - as far as I can tell, it  took momentum November 18, 2005.  The day dad died.    Yes, all of life is a journey – as Tony Jones says: all life east of eden is pilgrimage.    But it seems this has been a particular journey.    Still not sure what I’m chasing on it? Or what I’m looking for through it, but at least  I do  know the light that leads the way.  

It does seem that this pilgrimage is about seeing, as the psalmist offers; in your light we see light.   Seeing in color not just black and white.   Seeing and choosing  and being.   

Thanks to my pilgrim friend Chase and his adventure thru Italy — I’m struck with how much of this pilgrimage has been about holding my church, my foundations, my faith, my relationships and myself up to the light and seeing them all as if for the first time.  

“something important was birthing in me.   I was holding my church and my faith up to the light, like a prism and I was discovering new colors in them.   And yet my gut told me that this pilgrimage wasn’t finished…  (yet).” 
 - Chase in Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron.  

It really is all about the journey.   And the light that shows the way. 

More David Wilcox music on iLike

a splash of color.

So I’ve spent the last week in a community that has forgotten how to be creative…   and though we probably could talk about how theological education has forgotten how to be creative or the institutional church for that matter, that’s not where I’m going and that’s not exactly the community I’m referring too.  

I’m actually still thinking about the towns of Ambridge and Alquippa (just across the river from Ambridge).   Both were steel mill towns.  And both people and place are hurting now, not so much because of the current recession but because the steel mills were shut down 30 years ago.  

 Over the best latte in the town of Alquippa last night (yes it might be the only latte in town) I learned about how this coffee shop, uncommon grounds, is trying to help the community remember how to be creative. 

In the time of the steel mills, creativity wasn’t really needed.   The mills employed so many people that it was easy – you did enough school until you could walk down the hill and get a job in the mill.  That was it.  That was the plan.  No need for creativity of thought, plan or life.  

To help the people begin to think creatively again, they have filled their coffee shop with splashes of color.   Color in it’s lamps and splashes of color painted on the walls.    Murals in different rooms.   Art classes and art projects.    And for as much as loved the literal splashes of color on the cement block wall (and I really loved the splashes of paint) my favorite bit? the plants.    There are all these house plants all over the place.   and a garden outside.   The community is invited to come and plant in the garden – grow food even.     They are taught how to care for and nurture the plants -another way of creating beauty in the world around them.   

last night they had an open mic night.   I walked in to the stage rowded with 20+ teens and pre-teens.     Clearly I have a soft spot for teenagers but later in the evening after they had moved on, a couple of middle aged-men took a turn at the mic.    A place to sing?  a place to be heard.  A place to be known.  

Creativity births life.   Re-creation births new life.  The open mic wasn’t just a place to sing it was a place to remember – and practice – the song they’ve been given to sing in this world.    And those splashes of color all over the place:  a visible representation of creativity that paints the world not so black and white, not so predefined and not so choiceless.  They paint Alquippa with a little more hope.   

I left praying for a similar place in Ambridge.

theological education

Credo Ut Intelligam.

I believe so that I may understand
-Anselm

I’ve decided that it makes a big difference which order belief and understanding go in.     Especially when it comes to knowledge: teaching, studying, learning and researching.     Because belief does shape what we find, what we learn and what we understand in so many ways.  

jono

I didn’t realize that my instructor (of the last three days) was actually ordained a priest until late this afternoon when I went looking as to how to spell his name to search for something he’d written.   

I knew he was an alumni of Trinity; I knew he was a PhD student at Durham University in England (one of my favorite places if I can sideline for a moment) but not once did it strike me that he was a “reverened.”      I’d like to think it was more than just the mere fact that he wasn’t wearing a collar but most of my experience in the church has been “reverend” means the collar is a regular and integrated and necesary part of your wardrobe.   I guess I thought he was just maybe a smart me  – smart because he specializes in all the big words like eschatology and soterology  (words that I’m not sure I’m even spelling right).   

But Jono as they call him here at the seminary got me thinking.   Not once in my many conversations with people who dwell here for more than week not once has anyone ever asked if I was ordained or not.   I’m asked about the ministry I participate in not whether I have a title in front of my name.   In fact I’m realizing I don’t think I could tell you who was ordained and who wasn’t: who has a “rev” in front of their name and who doesn’t.    I got to hang with the dean yesterday for a short while and he has a “rev” by his name but I don’t think that actually occurred to me during our conversation even though he told me the places in England where he had been a rector.     

With no disrespect intended, I have to admit, I like it.   I like not being able to tell.    I like not having to tell.   And if I’m honest, I like that it almost doesn’t matter.     What does  matter here  is what we do to particpate in the work of Restoration  in this world, not our name.

atomic clock

I missed chapel again this morning.   I confess I was probably looking as forward to chapel as I was the class.   

Yesterday I missed chapel because for some reason I didn’t set my alarm cock to eastern time when I got in on Sunday.  I was sure I did, but when I showed up at 8am for chapel and discovered it was actually 9am – clearly I didn’t.  

So last night I spent 15 mins making sure the clock was set correctly.   It went off this morning, I got up, got ready, had plenty of time when I saw my cell phone and realized – IT HAD HAPPENED AGAIN.   It was an hour later than I had thought… and AGAIN I had missed chapel. 

I know the clock was right when I went to bed last night.   I know it was.   But it wasn’t this morning as evidenced by the fact that I missed chapel, again.  

All I know to think is that my little alarm clock is supposed to be “atomic” so it’s supposed to send out a signal and keep the correct time “atomically.”    Apparently though it only wants to stay connected to central atomic time.

Helpful technology, I thought.   Ummm, not so much!

Life in a Northern Town…

Ambridge, PA.     Definitely not Pittsburgh, though actually that’s a total assumption cause I’ve never been to Pittsburgh.   Ambridge is sixteen miles from the city and I’m here without a car.   So after class finished today, I set out to walk the town (something I actually love to do).  

I walked amidst this strange mix of culture and time.    I didn’t see a McDonald’s or really any chain stores or restaurants until I’d almost come full circle and I found a CVS and a subway.    No coffee shops at all let alone starbucks.  The streets  contain instead a sporadic collection of local merchants with store fronts and signs from long ago – many of which I couldn’t tell if they were open or closed for business.  

 The houses sit side by side, row after row and look like they have weathered many a storm through their history ( my hunch is most of the storms have little to do with meteorology).    But what tells it all are the abandoned buildings and industrial yards.  Ambridge used to be a steel town.     Clearly it’s not anymore.   

 Old Economy Village was home to the Harmonists, a 19th century christian communal group, is on the national historical register but it’s closed currently for tours due to budget cuts.  

In the middle of the town is an Episcopal seminary.   and surrounding the seminary are a myriad and plethera of churches – many of an eastern variety (never seen so many in such a small radius) and ministries.   

It was grounding to walk its streets and soak in its broken and ethereal beauty.       I imagine it’s grounding for a seminary to be nestled in this.    No lofty ideals. No pie in the sky dreams.    Nope you walk out the seminary doors and straight into the real-ness of life and a town’s search for identity and industry in a changed world.   

No wonder some of the folks I admire the most in ministry have spent a good chunk of time up here.

Milling.

Been trying to find my way back into blogging.   Been trying to work out why I’m not writing.   And it seems that in part, life keeps changing and moving and pushing me along so fast that I haven’t been able to “mill.”  

Milling is a spiritual practice that is a regular part of the pilgrimages I lead each summer.   Milling can look very different:  knitting, drawing, walking, climbing, writing, praying, reading, resting, listening.   But usually a good mill even though it can be practiced corporately is a solitary deal and usually a quiet deal (little conversation with others).    So how it works is this:  we arrive at a place along our way.   we spend some time learn and then we mill.   Milling is maybe what makes a pilgrim different than a tourist – at least in part.  

So I find myself in a strange season – well at least different.   A season a little like the winter weather in nashville – it never stays the same for more than a few days (50 one day, 25 the next).  By the time I start living into one thing, it changes and something new comes around.    So I’m missing the milling.

Bugs’ new trick.

You know I think I’ve seen it all when it comes Bugs skill at acquiring food that is not his … but the other morning at church, I realize there is so much I have yet to see. 

He not only climbed onto the table to eat my bagel that I had pushed into the middle so that he wouldn’t get it.  But then proceeded to eat the bagel on top of the table.   It was so difficult to not laugh at the sight of my dog standing on top of the table.    What will he come up with next.