where did that new wineskin go?

so much of my day to day is still determined by what boxes have been unpacked.  it was a revelation when we found the iron, and i could choose work clothes beyond those that came out of the dryer without wrinkles. and then the bigger questions, like, do we require the kid to eat breakfast at the dining room table, even though it seems ridiculously far from the kitchen, or do we try to set food boundaries around appropriate ways to eat in the living room? we are still working out where things go, how we organize chores, where we put dirty clothes.  our domestic lives seemed mired in a thousand little adjustments, as we create a new structure and place for three people to make the basics work together.

when you move into a new house, putting new wine into new wineskins seems like an obvious process for the practical things.  clearly, the kitchen cabinets cannot be organized the way they were in the last kitchen.  clearly, we are going to have to decide how to organize our closet differently.  and yet, on the bigger questions of how we live well–how do we arrange our rountines, how do we make sure our social needs are fulfilled, how do we connect to a larger community–my first instinct is to pour the new wine into the old skins.  we have physically moved so many times in the last few years, and all those moves were within a small radius, that we rarely had to change much about how we lived well. we could shop at the same grocery and get the same good produce.  we had the same farmer’s market available and the same good take out (even closer now!).  our friends were the same distance away, and look we moved even closer to that bar where i like to grab a pint with my bestie. none of those moves required new ways of relating to our families–they were still thousands of miles away–nor new jobs, new churches, new communities.

and now, here we are, thousands of miles away from where we learned how to live well.  thousands of miles from the communities that sustained us, the friends that took care of us.  thousands of miles closer to aunts and unlces and cousins.  in a house with space at a price that allows us some more financial freedom and lifestyle creativity.  thousands of miles closer to old friends, and in the same office as new friends.  a new job with a new working structure and different demands on my schedule.  new roles in our family as we change our work patterns.  the old wineskins are clearly inadequate. 

to cope with the other changes in my life, that happened so often (like new apartments, constant shifts at work) i had to particular ways i had honed over the first three years of my first call.  i got a beer every week with a good friend who shared my quirky vocation, as well as being only a couple weeks younger than me.  i carefully structured my day off during the week to include a nap, a walk, really good coffee, and time outside. i structured my work week to avoid working too much and to ensure quality time with my daughter. we lived somewhere where it was easy to share one car.  our circle supported us, loved us and grew us. 

this week’s reading in mark 2 is challenging me to remember that the old ways aren’t going to work this time around.  yes, change is hard, but it is also fruitful, exciting and good. there is much to be discovered if i can be brave enough to welcome the new that God is continuing to offer. 

jumping in

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Cold is the water

It freezes your already cold mind

Already cold, cold mind

Feet first, every nerve in my body seizes.  As I plunge deeper, as the torrent washes over my head and through my hair, the cold, the chill, both shakes me to the core, and excites me all at once. Coming up for air, gasping, bobbing, afraid and sure at the same time.

My grief over the loss of my church feels like jumping in Lake George.  Even in June, the water was shockingly cold.  I would run off the edge of the dock, knowing full well what I was headed for, welcoming it, loving it and hating it all at the same time. 

The shock came the first Sunday after we closed, when I unexpectedly found myself still in the Bay Area but could not see myself worshiping in the presbytery that had been my family.  I thought I would avoid that reality by hightailing it out of town, and instead the depth of my grief surprised me as I chose brunch and the farmer’s marrket over worship.

The second wave, the depths of the cold, came in the first worship after the closure that I attended, Spirit Celebration, a mass on Xavier’s campus.  I was unable to anticipate the depths I faced as I sat in the chairs for the first time in a long time, as I was unable to take communion, as I felt on the fringes of the body of Christ.

And death is at your doorstep

And it will steal your innocence

But it will not steal your substance

This week, I have walked with the Jesus who drives out demons, with the God who casts out that which causes deep harm, with the Spirit that challenges us to do the same.  The first temptation I worked to avoid was wanting to sort through my life, judging myself and finding my own demons the drive out.  There is not grace in that.  But, the second temptation I am struggling harder against–that makes me feel like I am still at the bottom, reaching for the surface and desperate for air–is the temptation to make my grief a demon.  It would be easy to drive my grief out.  To exorcise it, to refuse to allow it to change me and shape me.  To avoid confronting my experience of church and the way it is changing my experience of God.  To avoid telling my story so that I better understand my story.  It would be easy to treat my grief like a demon rather than seeking healing from God.  

Perhaps it is the same thing, but the way I would drive our my grief would be to avoid it, rather than to move through it, with divine accompaniment, toward healing.

The challenge is to keep the loss from stealing my substance, to continue to go deep through it, coming up for air, cold, anxious, but also energized, full of the experience of the depths.

But you are not alone in this

And you are not alone in this

As brothers we will stand and we’ll hold your hand

Hold your hand

I worshipped with a Presbyterian congregation on Sunday, for the first time since the closure. All I could manange was slipping in after the prelude and slipping out before the last hymn.  I cuddled my wiggling two year old as much as she would let me and I tried to let the warmth of the community wash over me in the back pew. I kept my story to myself, avoiding coffee hour to avoid saying where I came from.  It might take me awhile to move on from that.

In the meantime, I have found the welcome of the Xavier community to continue to ground me, the presence of my family, friends old and new to keep me moving toward the future. The challenge is to remember to reach out. 

*in italics are lyrics from “timshel” by mumford & sons

driving out demons

i have to admit the the gospels almost always lose me when i get to reading something about driving out demons.  amongst the most fantastical of the gospel accounts, i am sure there are plenty of folks, around, right now, who feel that Jesus has driven out their personal demons. it is not a concept or a story that has moved me pesonally.

so, when i got to this passage in mark, i inwardly groaned (so that my office mate wouldn’t think i was nuts.  now that i have co-workers, i must be careful about these things).

but, i had just read this about Mona Eltahawy spray painting an racist ad in a NYC subway station.  the same campaign had previously run in the bay area.  amidst the tension and racial/religious prejudice of the last few months (in addition to my new multi-faith role) this has been on my heart.  how do we create a society and a world where free speech is allowed but love and justice are the norm to the extent that hate speech is simply not tolerated, acceptable, paid for, or even wanted?  i think it is possible to both cultivate free expression and to live in a just and loving world.  but anyway…

perhaps pink spray paint drives out the demon racism?

i would go so far as to say, jesus is helping me drive out my own demon racism, but it is long hard work.  if only it was as expedient as the story in mark.

the video is here on youtube, beware the scary nature of youtube commenting though.

shifting notions of productivity

in mark 1:14-20, the first disciples drop their nets when jesus says, “come and follow me and i will send you out to fish for people.”

now perhaps i am a little but of a cynic these days, but i have a feeling we are not getting the whole story here.  if that was all it took for the simon and andrew to completely re-orient their lives, how committed were they in the first place?  were they looking for an excuse to leave the business?  were they already in need of something different to do?  had they met jesus before, had the been aware of what he was doing and saying?  the words of jesus sound more than a little wacky, and so it is just next to impossible for me to believe that was all it took for those men to set aside their way of life for a unproven, untraveled, untested road.

this i say, i think, because i am aware, especially lately, of how hard it is to change our way of doing things, much less our way of thinking about what we do.  if these are the magic words that will do all the hard work for me, can jesus just walk by gallagher, across xavier yard, and ask me to drop what i am doing to fish for people?

uh-oh, maybe he already did.  problem is, there were no magic words that are going to do the hard work of change for me. 

for me, this passage is about productivity in many ways.  jesus asks us to re-orient what we find of value, what work we find meaningful, how we spend our time and energy.  in a culture obsessed with achievement, that blindly thinks the meritocracy is a real, true and good thing, that measures our worth by our work, these words should shake us to the core.  well, these words shake me to the core.

you might think, that since my chosen “industry” is the church and/or minsitry, that the cultural norms around work, value and production don’t apply.  perhaps they shouldn’t.  but they do. in ministry, we are constantly comparing ourselves to one another, constantly competing to be the most radical, the most creative, the biggest church, the biggest growing ministry, the most relevant.  we measure the worth of our work in many ways besides the love it produces or the justice it brings. and even when we think in terms that reflect God’s presence in our work, it is easy for us to fall back into the cultural patterns of which program had more people, which process did more good, which program changed more lives.

i am not saying that we shouldn’t be reflective about our work.  i think when jesus asks us to drop the nets and follow, he is asking us to do reflect differently, to work differently.  he is asking that we become more aware of how we think about our work, and what we consider productive. he is asking us to change both the means and the end.

this feels like a powerful word for me right now as i settled back into being on a campus.  in school, i could be quite the work horse, sometimes working harder than i had to for the right grade, often times being more competitive than i ought as i compare my work to others.  this is a setting that can bring those demons back for me, a setting where i am prone to base my worth on the cultural value of my work, on the demonstrable numbers and growth and maybe even how cool the students think i am.  i am finding that day by day, sometimes moment by moment, i am having to here jesus say, all over again, the kingdom is near, drop it and follow me to fish for people.

if i am to fish for people, than building pastoral relationships is quite possibly more important than building shiny programs.  if i am to fish for people, being a visible presence to students who feel marginalized is quite possibly more important than being on the right university committee.  if i am to fish for people, the love i share is definitely more important than the way my presbytery understands my work.  as i spend my time, as i prioritize and discern what exactly i am called to do on this campus, this call, these words, the hard work of changing the way i think about my own productivity and worth, all of that will need to remain on my heart.

reflections from the road on sunday

“He was with the wild animals and angels attended him”  Mark 1:13b

Three weeks ago, I was fixing my church hair, running out the door, grabbing Blue Bottle with my dearest friend (have you ever had a saffron snickerdoodle?) and lugging piles of things into the church for our last service.

Right now, I am rolling down interstate 74, about a hundred miles from the end of a 2500 mile move back into a house that we lived in six years ago–rolling towards a city I love but no longer know, rolling towards a new job where I feel a little in over my head, rolling towards a dream of a life yet to be realized.  Behind me, but still with me, is one church that showed me my pastoral call and grew me into a leader and another that formed me into a pastor I never knew I could be.

Through our transition, we have had beautiful moments that both acknowledged the life we built in California and allowed us to dream about the life we will build in Ohio.  We have also had sad moments of separation from our child, terrifying moments of powerlessness in the face of unfortunate circumstance, loving moments of being picked and cared for by the people we love.  Being this close to our new home is almost surreal and, many times in the last week, felt like a moment that would never come. 

The nearness of home, the timing of this shift, brings into focus something I had not noticed before.  For the last five years, I have been deeply involved in the life of a congregation (two congregations in that time). For the first time in half a decade, I am without a church. For many, that doesn’t seem like a long time, but for me, it seems like most of my adulthood.  As I roll down the road toward a new address and a new family home, I am becoming deeply aware of the way that the church has played a significant roll in my being at home in myself and in my community. 

I carry in my heart the story of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.  As we spent night after night on a good friends couch, unsure each day we awoke if it would be our last day in California, as we hemmed and hawed over what car was right for us and relied on the wisdom and kindness of strangers in making the decision, as we talked to person after person in Ohio who was working in some way to make out transition possible, I kept coming back to John the Baptist. Even Jesus the Christ needed someone to prepare the way; even the Son of God could not embark on his ministry alone.  If this is true, who I am to think that we could magically move across the country without the help of dozens of hands along the way? Living with this allowed me to more graciously accept the help we needed, and to see more clearly the beauty of the souls that have supported us in this time.

After being baptized by John, after the Spirit descends and declares divine love for Jesus, he spends time in the wilderness.  The last line of the passage describes who was with Jesus in that time.  He was not alone.  He was loved, and he was not alone.  Enough said.

But the Gospel is not hear to just comfort us in our confusion or to make us feel better when we can’t get our of bed, the Gospel enables us to see the world in a way that empowers us to work at making the kingdom of God real, here and now.

So I am taking this as a challenge as I look at my new role at Xavier.  Yes, I need to find a church home. Yes, I need to seek ways to be rooted in spiritual community that feeds me in my new home.  But, as I have been formed and nurtured, as dozens have prepared the way for me, as I have found moments of divine love in community at the least stable times of my life, I can offer that to our students.  I can see myself as one who prepares the way for the amazing things they will do in service to God, while at Xavier, and as they move on.  Many of them I am not worthy to tie their shoes, but I can make a humble offering as someone dedicated to their growth in God.

And, even as I continue to mourn the loss of my last spiritual community, as I putter about on Sunday morning with at a loss for who to be if I am not preaching, as I wander my way in and out of pews with a dark sense of humor and anything but naïve optimism (yet significant hope), I will carry with me all those angels who have see and will continue to see me through the wilderness this year.