Slackerdaisicality, and a book meme

Yes, I’m still alive. Still in Seattle, still happy, still healing, growing, and having a good time. I’ve taken too many long, guilty looks at my and my friends’ blogs, and it’s past time for an update.

I finished my part of the altar guild project. I resisted it; I’m not sure why—I think I just had too many distractions. I’ve been moving every week or two or three, and had trouble finding my focus. All I needed to do was write up some information on church seasons, and find prayers to go with them. I did it at last while Dorian was on vacation, because I couldn’t have looked her in the eye when she came back. They’re going to finalize both pieces (mine and the procedural stuff that someone else wrote up), and make it available in September.

I’m housesitting right now for a family from Ascension, and taking care of their plants, two cats, and one bearded dragon lizard. They’re really nice people. One’s on the vestry, and when I went over to get the house tour and key, we ended up having a meeting regarding their fall retreat day (by which time I’ll be back in CA). I think so far that I’ve done everything I was responsible for, for that.

I’m getting to help plan a Celtic worship service, that will start happening here once a month in the fall. Even though I won’t be here then, I love doing this sort of thing. I had known next to nothing about the Celtic church. The history is fascinating.

The Apostle in Exile is coming to visit this week. We haven’t figured out what all we’re doing yet; how much touristy stuff can you pack into three days? We both kind of want to go to the San Juans; we’ll see. I’m also taking suggestions for sushi…

After she leaves, I’ve got exactly one more week here. Then, I’ll pack my car (ought to clean it out right now), and head back to Oly for a couple days. I’m having breakfast with a friend on the 29th, then I’ll hit the freeway. I plan to get back to Berkeley on the 30th, buy my books and settle in. I’m lectoring at the Orientation Community Night Eucharist on the 31st.

The Apostle and I have plans to show up at St. Aidan’s Labor Day weekend, and play in the city a bit. Then, I start school. I’m not scared at all, because I know what I’m getting into this year. I feel excited and ready.

Here, snagged both from Juniper and Mimi, is a book meme:

1. One Book That Changed Your Life: I don’t know about changed my life, but in a sense helped me define who I’d be: The Sneetches and Other Stories, by Dr. Seuss. It was my favorite book when I was five. I didn’t know about the WWII parallel until early adulthood—I just loved it for telling me it was okay to be me.

2. One Book That You've Read More Than Once: I read The Dark is Rising, the best in that series by Susan Cooper, most Christmases.

3. One Book You'd Want On a Desert Island: Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. I could read this over and over. I didn’t get into Prodigal Summer at all; I’d like to try again. I love her essays, also.

4. One Book That Made You Laugh: Um… a Calvin and Hobbes anthology?

5. One Book That Made You Cry: The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. I read it in three evenings; would have finished it in one sitting if I hadn’t had to stop so often. And books never do that to me.

6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written: A book on early/medieval church history, in English. I have a difficult time with academic-ese; I can read it, and comprehend it slowly, but I start wondering why after awhile.

7. One Book That You Wish Had Never Been Written: I despised The Mists of Avalon. I endured it, in college, because I was taking a religion/mythology program and all the other women I knew raved about it. I never could keep straight who stole whose child, and who was sleeping with whom. Then, after sweating my way through 800-odd pages, I found Marion Zimmer Bradley’s conclusion: Mary is just Brigid anyway, in different clothes, so none of the previous fighting and intrigue have mattered. Ugh.

8. One Book You’re Currently Reading: Gospel Women, by Richard Bauckham. I’m preaching on Mary in the morning.

9. One Book You’ve Been Meaning To Read: Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community. I’ve had it out from the GTU library for months, and am going to buy my own copy before I go back to school.

Adding,

10. One Book You Want to Read Again: The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin (thanks Max). I’ve never gotten into fantasy/sci-fi in general, but I discovered her several summers ago and binge-read her work. I have something else in that series checked out from the Seattle library right now.

Off to write a sermon. I’ll post that tomorrow.

Homily, Feast of St. Benedict

Psalm 1 or 34:1-8
Proverbs 2:1-9
Luke 14:27-33

If you seek wisdom like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures—then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Today is the Feast of St. Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine order and generally considered the “father of Western monasticism.” Most of what we know about him comes from the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, written about sixty years after his death. This work appears to be a combination of biographical sketch and miracle stories. What we can receive as factual: Benedict was born around the year 480, in central Italy, of noble birth. He had a sister, by tradition a twin, St. Scholastica. He was educated in Rome, studying rhetoric and law, but was turned off by the excesses of Roman society. He abandoned the life he had been brought up to, taking his childhood nurse with him to a community at the foot of a mountain, maybe 40 miles away. He found a mentor named Romanus, a monk in a nearby monastery, who encouraged him to become a hermit, which he was for three years, embracing prayer, silence, and solitude. Benedict appears to have grown into his vocation during this time, and after he emerged, stories of miracles spread around him, and a community grew up around him. He eventually built twelve monasteries, each with their own abbot, and lived in a thirteenth monastery with a few select brothers, as abbot over all of them. He is noted for the Rule of St. Benedict, which is likely to have been an expansion of an earlier monastic rule, and is the only piece of Benedict’s writing we have. This rule stresses hospitality, humility, prayer, and work, in communal life.

We have, then, a picture of a man who grew up in material wealth, with a good education and all the advantages to succeed in the society of his place and time, who at some point around the age of twenty looked around at all the excesses all around him, and chose an alternative path. Benedict had a vision of what it meant to live in accordance with the Gospel. He did not set out to invent monasticism; it already existed. He added his own focus and energy to reforming what he experienced.

This brings us to the interaction of today’s readings. What are they telling us? First, the Psalm. [quote one line of whichever we use] Seek justice; praise God always. Proverbs centers our hearts in the wisdom of God. Listen, and you shall know how to live; you shall know the reverence and love of the One who created you, and loves you. God’s presence is a treasure which is not hoarded, but is poured out for all of us. If you seek God, you can't help but find God, everywhere.

Are you ready now? Do you know that you are loved? Good, because the Gospel doesn’t mince words. “Take up your cross, and follow me.” As much as we want to talk about love and peace and justice, we cannot get around this. Count the cost. Know exactly what you love, what you seek, and what you’re risking. Then, for the love of the kingdom of God, say yes. There is no other path.

For Benedict, this meant giving up the wealth and privilege that being a son of nobility provided. It meant living in a cave for three years, listening to the voice of God keep him up every night, and then putting up with the antics of twelve housefuls of sometimes harmonious, sometimes cantankerous men. It meant enforcing a rule of life on people who surely didn’t always realize what they’d signed up for, for the sake of creating places in that valley in Italy where God’s love would be the rule of life. For us, it means different things. Student debt, maybe. Perhaps biting your tongue at work; perhaps speaking out when someone is treating someone else unjustly. Perhaps moving across the country for an opportunity that you’re both excited about and frightfully unsure of. Maybe going out for coffee with someone you never thought you’d give the time of day to. All of these mean stepping into the unknown. God is in all of these places.

I can’t tell anyone what to risk or how to choose. We all come from different circumstances. Our lives give us different opportunities. I can ask us all, how do we make our choices? Where are our quiet places? Where is the voice of God, for each of us?

I'm supposed to be writing a sermon

...and I'm stuck. I'm preaching at 7 a.m. tomorrow; I was offered this day and I said, "Sure!" Really, it shouldn't be hard; it's the feast of St. Benedict, and this only needs to be about four minutes long. Telling anything at all about him could take most of that.

I think the readings are tripping me. Either of the Psalms, and the section of Proverbs, I can wrap my mind around; they're about listening to wisdom. The Gospel is from Luke 14, about giving up all your possessions to follow God.

I've been a (very) poor hippie. I'm going into more debt than I'll ever pay off, to do what I'm doing right now. I'm doing this willingly. But I don't have the right to preach poverty to 70-year-olds who worked for decades to have two homes and go golfing when they want to. I have no right to judge other people's choices. I can talk about Benedict giving up everything for God. I can't tell anyone to do that.

We are, each and all of us, called in the ways that we are called, to do the work that is ours. This Gospel reading is about counting the cost, and then calling it nothing. I don't know how to speak this, to people who have more materially than I do. I'm also catching myself, for not being as open and attentive to God as I want and need to be.

Help?

The New Zealand Lord's Prayer

I've gotten a couple of hits searching for the New Zealand Lord's Prayer. I alluded to it once, but never printed the text. As a courtesy to those who come here looking for it, here it is:

The Lord's Prayer

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth!

With the bread we need for today,
feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another,
forgive us.
In times of temptation and test,
strengthen us.
From trial too great to endure,
spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil,
free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.

From A New Zealand Prayer Book (Harper Collins, 1997), 181.

RevGal Friday Five: Ice Cream

It's summer; let's take a break from church politics and have some fun.

1. Ice cream: for warm weather only or a year-round food?

Year-round. When the weather's too hot, ice cream melts too fast anyway.

2. Favorite flavor(s):

Two that I can't get anymore. Ben & Jerry's White Russian (yum!) and Cascadian Farms' blackberry sorbet/vanilla ice cream swirl. My friends and I used to get a carton of that, each grab a spoon, and pass the carton around. (Cascadian Farms is an organic-veggie outfit in northwestern WA. They've gotten out of the ice cream racket, in favor of frozen veggies.)

Oddly enough, I don't care much for ColdStone. They're pricier than they're worth. There's a gelato place by the Berkeley BART that I love.

3. Cake cone, sugar cone, waffle cone, cup?

Waffle cone.

4. Childhood ice-cream memory

Going to Baskin-Robbins after some horrible blood tests when I was a kid.

Also, it's not really ice cream, but I remember standing in the driveway one summer when I was about 7, dripping red popsicle juice on the cat. (She never noticed; she was too busy rubbing against my legs.)

Other memories, not necessarily from childhood:

We went to B&R at night really often, and I loved that. When my friends were there, we'd look at the clown faces; we didn't really want them, but they were fun to see.

Once as a teen, walking out of B&R, I knocked my ice cream off the cone. I caught it with my off hand, before it landed anywhere.

I went to another B&R with a friend and her kids, years ago (the oldest is driving now). I think the boys were 2 and 4-ish; I'm not entirely sure that their sister was ex utero yet. There was a group of teenagers in there, sitting on the floor, hanging out. These little ones sat on the floor with their backs to the counter, copying them.

There's a neat little walk-up window on the boardwalk in Olympia. I don't know how many times I walked that, looking at the boats or just hanging out downtown, with friends or by myself, trying to race the wind so I could finish my ice cream before it got all over me.

5. Banana splits: discuss.

Yuck.

Wanna play?

A measure of redemption

Other people have responded more eloquently than I to Resolution B033. Susan Russell's blog links to the dissenting bishops' statement, the rector of All Saints, Pasadena's reflection, and Father Jake.

My classmate Debbie Graham implores us to stay.

Stay, and work, we will. Pray for the church, and for all people.

Pride and disgust

...in the same week.

Last Sunday, my church elected +Katharine Jefferts Schori as our first female Presiding Bishop. I knew nothing about her; I'd been told by a friend that she didn't have a chance, and another nominee was a friend of another friend. He's managed to make progress among both the liberals and the conservatives, and I thought it would be him. It wasn't. She got it. The more I've read and learned about her, the happier and prouder I am.

Today, Reuters carried this headline: "Episcopal Church votes to avoid gay bishops." Apparently, we're bowing to the ones who would hold unity above justice, at the expense of good, qualified, and called human beings. Bishops Iker, Schofield, and Ackerman can be happy. ++Akinola of Nigeria can dance at his influence over us. I'm not.

The election of +Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 brought me back to this church. The legislative body assembled in Minneapolis didn't do a bloody thing wrong. They consented to the choice made by the people of New Hampshire, of who would best lead them. In so doing, they made this church safe for all people on every kind of margin. This week, some of those who voted for +Jefferts Schori are friends of mine. I am part of this. This is my tribe. I'm in seminary in an Episcopal institution. I'm considering what form my ministry will take. I am committed to being here. The issues I left over, at 22, are still very much present. But these people made progress in my absence, and I will join my efforts with theirs.

We had done nothing which called for repentance. Not in 1976*, not in 2003, not in 2006. It is not for human beings to stand in the way of God. An Australian Anglican friend put it this way: "My thoughts on schism are that women are the price Anglicans have been willing to pay for unity for decades. My response to that is that unity is the price I am prepared to pay for women."

Unity is the price I am prepared to pay for the respect and inclusion of all of God's people.

*September 16, 1976, on the very day I turned six, General Convention authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate.

Newsletter piece

This is something I wrote for the Ascension monthly newsletter; I thought I'd publish it here for people who are just meeting me in blogland, and for people in the Bay Area who want to keep up with what I'm doing. It had to be short, so I've left some background out. I thought about expanding it, and may later, but here I am for now. Peace.

First, I’d like to thank everyone I’ve met, on Sundays, at the rummage sale, and at vestry meeting, for making me feel welcome. Everyone’s been open and friendly; you’ve put me right at ease here. Thank you.

To introduce myself:

I’m a second-year seminarian at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, CA. I grew up in Everett, lived in Olympia for 17 years (during and after college at Evergreen) and was looking for a different parish experience near my home for the summer. Through recommendations, I landed at Ascension. I’m very happy here, and energized about the work I’m doing.

I’ve begun with a plan for a baptism class I’ll get to lead next week. I’m also creating something for the Altar Guild about liturgical seasons, and finding or writing prayers to accompany them. I’m integrating into the community as I go. You’ll see me sitting in the pews sometimes, and serving sometimes as well. During the week, I can be found upstairs, surrounded by my laptop, books, and tea, next to the choir’s vestments.

I’ll also be housesitting for many of you. Thank you for welcoming me into your homes while you’re gone; I now have places all summer where I know I’ll be. You’ve all been a huge help.

In the meantime, I’m asking myself questions. I know that I am called into ministry. Into what, exactly? Do I need to be ordained? Do I want to sign up with Mercy Corps, and work in Africa? What feels right, what doesn’t, where are my gifts and what can I learn? What do I absolutely not want to do? I believe that people are called where they are. When I’m in the right place, it’s like being in the middle of a waterfall. I’ve begun this journey non-traditionally. I will enter the formal discernment process at some point; I’m considering how ready I am for the rigors of that. In the moment, I’m learning, working, experimenting, and growing where God has put me.

I’ll keep you posted.

Update

I'm settling in to work at Ascension, and I really like the community a lot. The people are really friendly, and they care about me and what I'm doing. I've come up with a plan for a baptism class, and am working on revising it and adding a resource handout. I'm also working on the "Mary" element in a currently "Martha"-esque altar guild rubric. I'm writing something about the church seasons, and finding or writing prayers for them.

Went to a vestry meeting last night. We went half an hour over time, but no one cared; they just kept discussing a particular issue until everyone had been heard, and they'd arrived at something they were all happy with. It actually was really fun to watch. These are good people; they care about each other and the ministries they do. There's a lot of creativity here.

Afterwards, we ate and talked in the rector's office. Three of us went downstairs to scope out the rummage sale stuff for this weekend. I'm housesitting currently at the home of Possible Water, and didn't get up there until around midnight. I didn't go to sleep until 2. I dragged myself out of bed sometime this morning, and just sort of puttered until I was ready to leave. I drove here (to work) because I need to go grocery shopping on the way home.

The nomad thing is a challenge, but it's good to have time to myself. I'm not sure how this all will work out, but I know that it will. We did a form of lectio divina last night, with a passage from Luke. I heard in it, "Be watchful (but don't be afraid). I will make you strong enough. Listen for what is your calling." And that, I know, is my work for the summer.

I'm in a good place--or places--to do it.

5 Things in Various Places

Stolen from I Will Sing...

5 Items in my Fridge:

I don't have a fridge; I only last night got to my current housesitting gig. So, 5 items in the last fridge I had a relationship with:

1. Milk
2. Blue cheese
3. Drawer full of nuts
4. Avocados in various conditions
5. Mangos

5 Items in my Closet:

Again, I don't currently have a closet. 5 items in my last one:

1. A shirt I've had for fifteen years
2. Clothes I probably haven't worn since then
3. Girl shoes
4. Bike helmet
5. Fleece jackets

5 Items in my Car:

Here goes...

1. Bag of blue-corn tortilla chips that rode up here with me
2. Blankets and pillows I should have left in California
3. CD walkman (are they still called that?)
4. Emergency kit
5. A pair of hiking boots

5 Items in my Purse:

I don't carry a purse, and I shudder to think about either of my backpacks. 5 Items in my pockets:

1. Two or three phone numbers, with and without dates for housesitting
2. Wallet
3. Metro bus tickets
4. Phone
5. Keys

5 Items on my Desk:
1. Laptop
2. Bottle of Ritalin
3. Tea
4. Pile of books
5. Palm pilot

5 Items Flowering in my Garden:

Again, I don't currently have one. 5 plants I've recently been connected with:

1. Nasturtiums at the Apostle in Exile's house; I started them at school at Eastertime, then accidentally light-starved them on her dining-room table. I transplanted them outside before I left, and I hope they lived.
2. Boysenberries in her back yard
3. The aloe-type of plant that's outside on a street corner in Berkeley, and bigger than me
4. Most of the morning-glory in Olympia, at some time or another
5. I haven't done this in a few years, but I used to start basil plants every spring and give them away.

Quick check-in

I met the community at Ascension today; they're really warm, and excited to have me. It's going to be a good summer.

Half of Seattle is playing hot-potato with me, housing-wise. I don't feel settled yet, but I'll find my rhythm.

More later. I need a nap.

RevGal Friday Five: Rain

Wanna play?

1. Favorite way to spend a rainy day
Napping with a not-terribly-gripping novel

2. Favorite song about rain
The only one I can think of: "Here Comes the Rain Again" by the Eurythmics

3. Favorite movie featuring rain
Too obvious: "Singin' in the Rain" (which I've only seen once)

4. Favorite piece of raingear, past or present
Duck shoes! They were the first online purchase I ever made (from REI, years ago) and my feet haven't been nonconsensually wet since.

5. Favorite word for rain
"Pouring buckets", "the sky's spitting," or "God's taking a shower again"

Safe in Seattle

Exhausted. Excited. Have dicey access: none at home, and not at work until they figure out how to string a DSL line upstairs. (I'll be ensconced at a card table in the choir room.) I can walk to the library, though, which is where I am now.

Will write more later.

Peace to all.

Limbic spaces

I don't do well with being in-between. I'm crashing tonight at the home of friends in Olympia, and will drive to Seattle in the morning. I'd thought of asking them if I could shower here anyway, and then my endurance ran out before I reached Portland. If I'd had any sense of time, I'd not have tried to drive through the redwoods on the way up here. That's something to do when you're not trying to make time, and you're available to appreciate and enjoy them. They were beautiful, but I was really not in the mood. Next time, I'll go there with friends, and be there when I am there.

I left Stockton yesterday way later than I meant to. The Apostle in Exile and I got talking with people at her church, then it took me longer to pack my far-flung laundry and load the car than I'd thought it would. (Meanwhile, she made us lunch, picked berries to go with ice cream, and packed me road food--leftovers, fruit, and truffles.) Her neighbor came to show us that one of the Apostle's cats had nestled on my towel, in the open back of my packed car. And we--really I--took forever saying goodbye.

Two weeks ago, she was a friend I was going to stay with between school and summer internship: a limbic space of her own. She became truly family. She taught me so much about presence, love, and absolutely intentional friendship. She accepted my joy and my fears with equal readiness. She gave me time. And she, and God, taught me how to turn that outward to the world. I needed to learn this. I'd have liked to have gotten it before now. But now, I know that I can give this kind of love to people who need it as much as, or more than, I did. Really, we all need to be loved into ourselves. I still need this. I know enough now, to see the ways I am being fed, and to help feed other people.

I'm picturing this now:
"What did you do on your summer vacation?"
"I broke my friend's dishwasher and found God."

Oddly enough, it's true: and just in time to go start my internship, start figuring out how to live this out with my head, my heart, my body, and my time.

I woke up this morning in Garberville, California. I'll wake up tomorrow in Olympia, where I'm lying on a futon on the floor right now. I'll drive to Seattle, meet the woman who's hosting me for the summer, and go to the church to get started on all of this. I'm nervous and scared. And I can't wait to be there.

"Blah," said Toad.

What I've accomplished today: Got out of bed, fed myself breakfast and lunch, and brought in four boxes from the car. I'm exhausted, sore, and don't feel like moving. I need to transplant the nasturtiums I brought here, which are dying a slow death from light starvation. I have to want to wash yesterday's dishes. And I need to edit and post World in Prayer, since it came in my in-box and we were up later than we meant to be last night. The Apostle in Exile has a day job. I don't. She slept less than I did; apparently the cats kept her overly toasty. (I sleep quite comfortably on the living room couch.) But here I am, too brain-dead to play with someone else's writing, too tired and sore to move.

What's become of me? I drove back to Berkeley yesterday, to go to an appointment that was rescheduled from last week and to finish packing my room. The drive normally takes an hour and a half; two hours in traffic. I left the Apostle's house at 9:30, and dragged into Berkeley at 2. On the way, I got a flat tire, on the freeway. BANG! I didn't panic; I was relieved to have my cell phone with me. But I couldn't un-stick my jack enough to get the spare out from under the car, and while I have had a tire-changing lesson, it was more than ten years ago. I called 911 and had a tow truck help me. I really don't like doing the incompetent-girl thing. Alas. I am now no longer a Wal-Mart virgin, either, since the tow-truck driver told me how to get to their tire shop, a few miles down the road in Tracy. I had to wait an hour there, so I found a non-enormous-chain lunch place (Filipino) while they gave me a new tire. Then I was on my way again.

Needless to say, I missed my appointment. Oh well. I went down to Brewed Awakening and got a peach smoothie to pack by. Everything takes longer than you think it will, and I was a dirty sweaty mess at 5 when some friends from St. Aidan's came to take me out for Chinese. I found a clean shirt, and went with them. We stopped at Saul's for macaroons on the way back. I'd told them after spring break that I needed new images. One is making me a quilt from her stash pile, in purples, blues, and greens, just the size to nap in. The front is finished, so she brought it to show me. It's beautiful, and I'll have it in September.

I didn't finish packing my car until 9. Dropped the keys with my friend Vik (whom the Apostle calls my "Berkeley mom," because he once wiped my face with his napkin) and went on my way. Fortunately, I had no more mishaps. Got home at 10:30, a bit sunburned but not too much the worse for wear. The Apostle and I hung out and had ice cream. A good ending to a difficult day.

Now, I have to get off the couch and get something else done. We're going to the DioCal ordinations Saturday, and will play in the city all day after that. I'm leaving Sunday, likely via the redwoods but it depends on time. I probably won't write again until I'm in Seattle, next week.

Peace to all.