Lift With Care

My wife, Andrea, and I are both in grad school. We both picked schools in Chicago and started our new educational careers at the same time. So, while I've spent the last two and a half years in seminary, she's had her nose in case books and legal documents as she studies to be a lawyer. Every now and then, when I share my classroom and field experiences with her, she'll say something like, "Man, I'm glad I'm not in seminary." And when she shares her experiences in law school with me, I have the same reaction to the idea of going to law school. It's a great exercise in self-differentiation, for sure.

Through these conversations, I now have many reasons compiled for why law school is definitely not for me. Tonight, I got one more reason for my list.



This box, which contains exactly two textbooks came in the mail for Andrea yesterday. Two books, and it needs a heavy-lifting warning! I know that when I return to classes in the fall, all my books will be regulation-sized - not so large as to make the Anchor Bible Dictionary look like an informational pamphlet. Yet another reason why I'm glad I'm in seminary and not law school!

To be fair, though, I'm not sure why this sticker was on the box. It really isn't that heavy. And, I do feel bad that Andrea and law students everywhere have to lug these tomes around. Nevertheless, this warning sticker, however silly, has been another simple reminder that my seminary experience so far has been profoundly wonderful, and it's exactly where I need to be.

A Seattle Tradition

Tonight for my J-term class on Preparing Adults for Baptism, we visited St. Mark’s Cathedral for the Sunday night Compline service, an event we were informed was “a Seattle tradition.” The service began at 9:30 pm, we arrived at 9 pm to give us time to settle in and watch people gather. When we arrived there were already a couple of people scattered throughout the sanctuary, all in silence. St. Mark’s Cathedral is a huge beautiful building, it is very modern, but with an ancient feel, hard to describe.

As 9:30 drew closer, more and more people came in, all in silence. Some sat in the pews. Others sat along the walls, in the aisles, or even laying around and in the chancel. Some had blankets. They came in groups or alone. Most were young, 20s and 30s, though definitely not all. At 9:30, the Compline Choir, a dozen or so young men, all in cassocks and surpluses, gathered around the back of the sanctuary. They sung the Compline, while the assembly sat in silence. At one point, the choir recited the Apostles Creed, and without a word the entire assembly stood. As soon as they finished, just as silently, the entire assembly sat again. And at 10 pm, the choir sang the Benediction, and as they finished we all stood up and filed out into the cold Seattle night.

At first it was a strange feeling. Being used to participating in worship, it felt odd to just sit and listen to someone else do worship. It felt like a concert almost. But slowly the sacredness of the place and the beauty of the music sunk into me and I began to realize the incredible gift of this service. Here was a place and time set aside for the express purpose of prayer. Without a book to juggle or a place to keep or a role to hold, I was free to just sit and reflect and pray. I love traditional worship, don’t get me wrong. And I think it is absolutely important for the assembly to have a role in a worshipping community. But this was not a Eucharist service. This was Compline. And it was nice to just have time for me and God, with beautiful choral music and a breathtaking setting to help focus that time. In a world of so much hustle and bustle, what a gift this Cathedral offers to the community, a space to come and be, with no pretense or explanation.

Building the Self and the Church

Something that I have particularly enjoyed about my J-term class, Building and Inclusive Church, is the exercise in storytelling. Throughout the week we have had to create three different and short stories about our call, an achievement by a group of people that we are a member of such as but not limited to our home congregations, and how to present the challenge of inclusion and full participation of all people to this group of people. I could probably describe it better, but this was my very basic understanding of it.

I really appreciated this element of the course because it has forced me to a defining moment for my call, which I have never really explored before. I have negative occurrences in my life that have pushed me to become a pastor so that I might work against those forces and I have had many reaffirming experiences of my call, but I had a hard time identifying where my call really came from. I had to examine myself.

I also discovered that I have an overwhelming amount of negative feelings towards a particular group of people who demand more positive feelings in my life. It is now my turn to express positive feelings and to work on making positive future memories with this group of people.

I have had to question who I am as a person called by God and others as well as why I feel the way I do about certain groups or decisions that have affected me in my journey to seminary. I can’t believe how this course had made me think of these things in the span of a week and has begun a transformative process of recognizing that I do have a story to tell, but what are the elements of that story and why are they there. For this challenge and opportunity to define these things, I am truly grateful.

My Neighbor, the President

I love living in Chicago in general, but perhaps one of the coolest things about going to LSTC and living in the Hyde Park neighborhood is that I literally live four blocks away from President Obama's house. Normally this doesn't affect me too much since he's usually kickin' it in the White House, but this week the President is in his home-sweet-home.

I really had no idea how much this would impact me. I went to the grocery store last night and on the way home tried to drive my usual route, which leads me a block away from the Obama's house. In the span of four miles my friend and I counted 42 marked police cars, and we can only speculate how many unmarked vehicles were in the area. I couldn't even turn down a street to go home my usual way because I was re-routed several blocks by law officials. I have never seen such a security detail in my life. In the midst of it being pretty cool, it is really frustrating when you are trying to make it home before your Ben & Jerry's melts and every street is blocked off.

This afternoon I was doing some reading for a JTerm course (JTerms are accelerated courses in the month of January) where I will be traveling to El Salvador to study for two weeks. I was reading how I will have to pay a fee to get back into the US, how those of us with wedding bands should think about leaving them at home, and that for my overall safety I should tell people I'm vacationing, not studying, while I'm in Latin America because it will put me at a lesser risk of being attacked.

Sometimes I think we take for granted how lucky we are to live in a country where safety is a priority. This week, with the President sleeping four blocks from my home, I am probably the safest I will ever be. There is security everywhere. I know this is not the reality of most Americans, but even in the worst of neighborhoods we have freedom in the United States that always exist in other places. No matter where my home is, I can go there without paying a fee. No matter how underfunded a school district can be, I don't have to worry about being attacked because I claim I admit that I am their student.

I am furthermore blessed that I live in a nation where it is not only a civil right to be able to express my thoughts, feelings, and religious beliefs through media like blogs and newspapers, but I can choose to attend a seminary who will ask me to do such things.

While I may be frustrated that going to the bank or the pharmacy may be more challenging this week because of a security detail, I am going to celebrate the fact that it is a societal expectation to protect our president. Not all places in the world share this conviction or can afford its cost, and I give thanks that I can see it and write about it, too.

It's been far too long since my last post! That, in a way, should be a good indication of how busy church-work can be around Christmas. It was a whirlwind of a season, with a lavish Christmas concert, a Sunday-School pageant, 3 Christmas Eve services, and one Christmas Day service. Of course, we also had all of the preparations and clean-ups in between the services as well. In all, it was a very busy end to 2011, but it was definitely a blast.

The season was so chaotic, that this picture - a tree with no decorations - was the only one I took!

Since I last posted, I've preached twice, both times outside of the pulpit. My congregation is used to the pastor preaching outside of the pulpit, and since I obviously don't know what the congregation of my first call will one day expect of me, I'm trying to use this as an opportunity to expand my skill-bank for preaching. This isn't something I'd done until now, and it's not something I was too familiar with, since it's a style that few congregations encounter . Because if all this, preaching outside of the pulpit, without a manuscript, was a bit nerve-wracking. I'm glad I've done it, though, because now I know I can do it! I'm looking forward to practicing this style of preaching more as the year continues.

The Guitar Gift-Part 2

Walking out of the church after seeing the future life of my guitar made me pensive. I had let go of a record book of musical memories and I wondered how many kids would even get anything this season. It began to bother me that some children in even my family would get Ipads the next day while some kids would get the first decent meal that they may have had for a while. I have heard parents complain that they can only spend $1000 on each child that year because of their tight budgeting. I wonder how many other parents would complain about that “tight budget”.

My disappointment grew when I heard on the radio a couple of days after Christmas that there were thousands of “tweets” from people who didn’t receive the color of an Ipad that they wanted, or that they received an earlier model instead of the latest Ipad 2. There was dismay about a lack of Iphones, Tablets, Kindle Fires, and even a lack of Macbook Pros saturating the world of twitter. It about made me sick in the car to hear these things. I wanted to reach onto the other end of the radio and scream and shout and say “Don’t you get anything?!?!?” but even if I could, I bet many of those people still wouldn’t get it and move on, which makes me even sadder.

The commercial Christmastime that we experience in America has tainted and blinded many from the true realities of the season. The most genius part is these blinders are on all year long, obscuring our view from those in need and directing us to the things we want! Myself included!

I have this picture from the previous post close by for me to see. I will remember every day how I felt this Christmastime so that I may not forget that grave sense of injustice plaguing the season. It looks like my first guitar helped to teach me one last lesson: the wholesome experience of giving in the face of commercialism. Not just a Band-Aid experience, not as a feel good, but as a necessary and wholesome act for developing healthy relationships as an Earth community.

Until Next Friday!

Water Water Everywhere

If you've ever traveled to another country, especially one where water is scare or may cause you to become ill, you know the preciousness of clean water from the tap (and yes, I even count Chicago water which I always filter before drinking).

I was reading this article over at the Mayo-Clinic website about how much water we should drink daily. It sounds like most of us miss the mark. We mistake thirst for hunger and eat more, only barely satisfying the true bodily craving.

As Christians, we focus so much on the importance of water, the symbol of our own baptisms. We splash our hands in baptismal fonts and make the sign of the cross on our foreheads, another bodily reminder of God's great love for us.

How about we spend some of this New Year's Resolution gusto on finding another way to remember our baptisms: drink some of that delicious tap water. Take a sip. Make the sign of the cross. Take a gulp. Smile.