it's official: our dog is smarter than we are

for many of you, this is no surprise.

she, like many dogs, has a hankering for our food. she loves to dig through the garbage. as long as we have had her, we have been trying to outsmart her.

at first it was easy. she was not that motivated. a garbage can taller than her did the trick. helped if it was covered.

when we moved to cali, we had to get a smaller can to fit under the sink. after a couple of days of coming home to trash trailed through the living room, we started to close the door to the kitchen whenever we left.

then, she realized, there were some times that we would be home but not paying attention (i.e. only one of us was home and was taking a shower) that she could get the garbage. so basically, the kitchen door had to stay closed unless we were in the kitchen.

we moved. no door on the kitchen. immediate trip to target to buy a garbage can with a lid.

this evening, she learned how to open it.

bacon is powerful.

the battle continues. will she ultimately win?

understanding creation

is God other?

If God is other, will there always be people we relate to as other? is that bad? can there be healthy relationships between the self and the other? is the relationship to God a model for that? is dysfunction in the relationship to God the foundation for the dysfunction in the relationship with the other?

but what if God is not other? if God is us, if we are part of God, the concept of the other does not exist at all. Is that the solution ? Or does that negate the reality of God?

our model for creation, our understanding theologically of how we got here, maps out how we relate to God, and by extension each other. there are people who land on all parts of this spectrum. i find myself most concerned with the function of the relationship. No matter what else, I can buy into God's act of creation as a originally loving and gracious act. this determined the relationship, set it up, brought us into the movement of God, the movement of the trinity.

the public discussions of creation are incredibly shallow. it does not matter whether we lived with the dinosaurs or not, or if creation happened in seven days or millions of years. i think that misses the point. when we talk about creation, we talk about the very values that set up the rest of our theology, or the rest of our theology determines how we talk about creation. when we discuss it without this level of analysis, we miss the point. we miss the chance to understand our relationship to God more deeply, to be vulnerable to someone else's understanding of their relationship to God.

if indeed God made God's self vulnerable in order to create us, can't we make ourselves vulnerable to each other to better understand God?

buy art

... and support a good cause.

i am a part of a show at an oakland gallery: "kind women benefit womenkind." it is an auction that benefits care.org.

maybe i am a real artist!

theological angst

reverting back to my seventeen year old self, i was complaining the other day that i do not have my own theology.

my dear friend countered that with..."yes you do. it is in relationship."

the following morning, i was getting down with my midwestern self during bluegrass sunday at church. during the closing song, one of the four years olds--she is adorable, thoughtful and engaged--came running into my arms. we danced together, joyful in the presence of God and our community.

this is where the rubber hits the road. this is theology. how do we live in the presence of God?

i am still wrestling with this question, and will forever, but these moments in relationship, in worship, ground me in the process of wandering and questioning.

my brain hurts.

But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.
... james 1:10-11

we are studying the God of life by gustavo gutierrez in systematic theology. the class is an entry level theology class and this is really just a single encounter with one text from a liberation theology perspective. i have for years, struggled with many of the issues that liberation theology addresses. God has shown me what is good.... what do i do? in the scope of the world (after all, i live on much more than one dollar a day), i am rich. how do i not wither, blossom and beauty destroyed, but rather contribute to the beauty and the blossoming (justice... the flourishing of all people) in the world as a whole world?

there are questions i have in general about his theology present in the text.

i do not understand how he deals with the power of God. if indeed God is present in history working on the behalf of the oppressed, why does oppression still exist? why hasn't God just struck down all who participate in injustice?

i am also not comfortable with the way he presents theology in a dichotomy. rather than a typical saved/not saved way of defining people, the dichotomy presented here is oppressed and oppressor. the world is more complex than that, and he seems to acknowledge that on occasion. for me, it seems important to be upfront that oppressions interweave. the oppressed can turn around an oppress someone else. how do we live in this tension?

regardless of my theological confusion, gutierrez challenges me to wonder, from my perspective, how do i live into God's vision of justice for the world? being in the middle class in the united states at this point (all though that socio-economic position in this country is increasingly precarious) makes me rich by the standards of the world. i can buy my food. i can and do own a home. yada yada yada.

these are life long questions. gutierrez has some hard truths for me to listen to, but that i know in my heart are true. right now, the struggle makes my head and my heart hurt.

managing chaos

we have spent the last two weeks at mission bay re/creating during worship. i am "in charge" of mural painting. i have to say i am not sure how it is going.

during the first week, a nice mix of adults and children participated. many adults came and painted or drew during the music. as soon as prayer and preaching started, they sat down but the kids were as enthusiastic as ever. they had no problem filling about thirty-six sq. feet of space.

by the second week, the kids got even crazier with the paint... painting as much of themselves as the paper. the adults who participated dwindled significantly. by the time the kids were making mud out of the paint, painting their hands and printing them over the work they did early, i wondered if this was meaning anything to them at all... besides just having fun.


i am all about self-expression (and fun). i think there is something magical and spirit-filled when we can find a part of ourselves that wants to create. this is why i am in this. but, is a free for all with paint and huge pieces of paper the way to get to that kind of transformation in worship?

my middler review committee thinks i need to work on my understanding and use of pastoral and artistic authority. i do not like to take authority. i like democracy and shared power. but the reality in what i am doing is that i have authority. ignoring that is not necessarily productive. i think this is an instance where i need to take authority. perhaps, i need to provide some kind of framework or direction that gives room for anyone who wants to participate in the artwork can. perhaps, i need to provide some kind of direction so that the art time is directed toward growth in God and our understanding of creation.

i am still pondering how i might do that. i have til sunday.

bit of an existential crisis

disclaimer... this might sound like i am complaining to God. and i very well might be. so if you aren't in the mood to hear it, skip this post. i hope it sounds more like i am wrestling with the angels, but that remains to be seen...

so i received this wonderful grant for this summer. i basically get to design a ministry project and do it. there are very few guidelines. easy right?

WRONG!

this is throwing me into an existential crisis. and i have had all year to think about it. i had a plan that is not going to work out, and i am back to square one for the most part.

my seminary experience has given me a deep desire to follow Jesus and walk toward God, being who God made me to be, using the gifts God gave me, to bring some modicum of justice and love into the world that was not here before. just a little bit. not looking for much. i feel a pressing desire to commit my life to being a disciple of jesus.

there is a little irony in that.

i mean... i am in seminary. i moved across the country to come here. i am working in a church. i preach on occasion. i make little God videos. i paint for peace when i can. am i a disciple already and just can't see it?

but back to this summer thing... what to do?

"'For God's sake, do something brave' was once the call of Ulrich Zwingli (what an unfortunate name) to his contemporaries (i mean he is a famous reformation guy, but still unfortunate name). Not feel, or think, or consider or meditate! Not turn it over in your head and mind! But do something brave."... Karl Barth (with my comments too) in The Call to Discipleship (which is actually an excerpt of something else)

I feel like I have done so much of the feeling, thinking, considering and meditating, but I have no idea what to do. none. barth says it as easy as responding to what jesus proposes to us. i can't hear jesus. he is not being obvious enough for my dense self. so what to do? i want to be brave. to step out. to use this as an opportunity to change my life, but how?

i keep coming back to this scripture in my wrestling...

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
... micah 6:8

i feel like God has shown me what is good. but what does God require of me?? how do i act justly, love mercy and walk humbly?? how can i contribute to the good? i am listening... micah, jesus, God, anyone?

so this is real

yesterday i baptized my first baby... sort of.

we practiced performing the sacraments in worship class. we had to memorize parts of the baptismal service and the eucharist service.

we were a small group, three fairly nervous students and the chaplain from SFTS as our teacher. in a round chapel, we stood at the front, holding a baby doll (it was kinda creepy). each noise we made bounced around, the acoustics were horrible. every mistake we made seem to echo. after all three of us baptized this "baby," we practiced serving communion, from beginning to end. whew.

but once we started, it felt almost real (and it definitely made this whole training for ministry thing REAL). the words are powerful. the prayers are powerful. the tradition is powerful. and this was all of our first times doing any of this... and it is not easy. the sacraments are spiritual events... but also social and public events. at first, memorizing these texts on my own, they did not come alive. the words on the page were not mine. i had a relationship with them--i had heard them before. some of them i did not even like, and was not sure that i felt comfortable with.

and yet, standing up there, breaking the bread, pouring the wine, telling the story, the words were not dead, they reached through me, back two thousand years, embodying faith and tradition. enacting it.

this is a tomb experience for me. at chapel last week, professor inese radzins preached on the short ending of Mark... confronting the empty tomb with a mixture of ecstasy and terror.

i stand at the tomb, on the brink of ministry (well, i may be past the brink, but i don't get to do the sacraments, so on the brink of official ministry?) overwhelmed by the ecstasy and terror. the words connect me to the tradition, the community, the faith that enacts them. i am not alone and i will not do any of this alone--i can't.

after all, as charles marks said, "the sacraments are not ours, they are the church's." for good and bad, i weave myself into the tradition.

what is church for?

"the church is not the place for questions. it is the place for answers."... bri

"how do you get the answers without asking the questions?"... lynnette

"church is not a place for answers, it is place for questions."... the reverend

desperate housewives used to be a pithier social commentary than i have found it to be in the last couple of seasons. i thought the first season was brilliant. so i was surprised to see last week that they wanted to take on some serious theological questions last week.

as with many crazy dramatic television shows, lots has gone on this season. lynnette got cancer, almost cheated on her husband (after quitting her job to open a restaurant with him) and then the town was hit with a tornado. lynnette begins to have some serious, serious questions about how the universe works. so, she decides to go to church.

she starts with the presbyterians, and lots of drama later, she and her friend bri, the committed presbyterian, come to an understanding about faith. rather than shutting down lynnette's questions, bri comes around, and thanks lynnette for reminding her that questions strengthen faith rather than threaten it.

is church the place for questions? is it the place to bring our deepest, soul crushing concerns about the universe? i certainly think it should be, but have we created that? how do we build an atmosphere in which this kind of wrestling with reality is possible?

hot date with john calvin.

you know you are presbyterian when you spend a GORGEOUS sunday afternoon inside reading john calvin... and don't hate it.

surprise, surprise, i appreciate calvin's thoughts and theology much more than i thought i would. today's highlight:

"If to anyone the authority of the church is doubtful, he is impious and contentious, not only to the church but also to the Spirit of Christ, by whose direction the church is without doubt ruled."

no, he wasn't accusing people who questioned the church of being impious, he was describing the religious climate in which questions were considered a sign of disbelief. this is not new? i know that there are many religious communities that welcome, with open arms, minds and hearts, any and all questions. but i also know that there are just as many that don't... that judge the questions in just the way that calvin described.

what makes me sad is that the second group tends to be louder.

i will take comfort in my apparent solidarity with calvin (at least on this) and put my hope in the Spirit to overcome the loud voices that shutdown the questions and the conversation.

lady in the water

so, I am often a couple of years behind on my movie watching. this is one of the glories of HBO and showtime... they are playing movies that feel totally new to me.

this weekend we watched lady in the water, an m. night shyamalan pic. it was weird. most of his movies are weird. but good weird. it was a bedtime story come to life in a bizarre apartment building in the middle of philly. in the story, this water maiden (a narf) appears to paul giamatti, and has a message to give someone. there are people in the apartment building who need to help her fulfill her destiny and get home, but she, and we, do not know who they are. so, the journey of discernment begins. at first, paul giamatti tries to figure it out on his own, but the more people he involves in figuring it out, the closer they get tot he answers. all along paul giamatti's character is a healer, and he does not realize it until his community tells him that they see that quality in him.

so here is the corny tie-in to my life... the whole movie was a lot like the ordination process. it is community discernment, and that certainly does not make the journey easier, but there are things that i do not understand about myself that other people can help me see. when we put our heads together, we can think more effectively and move forward in a new and exciting way. at a time when the process is frustrating me, this is comforting. it may move slow, but it is moving.

who new that m. night shyamalan was going to bring me the wisdom i needed to keep moving?

"finding one's purpose is a profound thing, and sometimes it is not what it seems."
... lady in the water

my privilege

i am a worrier. in high school, my worries about the world made me write lots of letters, volunteer for this and that organization, and run myself into the ground in hopes of being able to doing something about every tragedy that i saw in the world.

after high school, and still often, the tragedy of the world overwhelms me to the point that i cannot do anything.

lately, i have discovered another option.


at PSR this year, i have been able to participate peace week, the vagina monologues, a remembrance service to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and now Commemoration to Archbishop Oscar Romero as a part of advancing racial justice month, as an artist. i have been able to give what i can, even when i have been unable to be physically present at events, towards this efforts at bringing God's kingdom to bear in the present.

"We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully." Romans 12:6-8

if it is to make art, let her make art, and do it cheerfully.

i am doing it cheerfully.

of altars and annie

last night was the first time that i hung drawings and watched strangers (and friends) look at them. the most common comment from folks i know in cali: i didn't know you could draw! (there was a common tone too) i lost count of how many times i heard that. i was pleasantly surprised when two different strangers actually wanted to have a discussion about the work. this must be what it is like to be an artist.

even more exciting (many thanks to amy, reena and interplay for this opportunity) was the chance to work with three other lovely lady artist and two sacred bodies to create art. reena beautifully described the intention of the project as re/claiming our bodies' sacred beauty by dedicating these bodies to the liturgical year. i painted my friend corey as an altar to Pentecost and my friend erin as epiphany. the paint was unlike anything i ever worked with, and that was a challenge. i have also never painted on a living canvas. but doing so was a conversational process. the sacred bodies i was painting were as important to the process as i was. to paint Pentecost i came without a plan and had corey, in his fab way, read/preach the story of Pentecost from acts as i began to paint. we had a grand time. we transformed his body, transformed our understanding of God and even reached out to the holy spirit (i think i felt the holy spirit reaching back). it was freeing for both of us. erin was exceptionally gracious. she was asked just yesterday to participate and agreed on the spot. she filled in for someone who dropped out at the last minute. she took seriously her role and helped me work it out.

looking at my drawings on the wall, and spending the evening making, living and breathing art, i felt like i was getting reacquainted with a part of myself that has been sitting on the shelf for a long time. i adore working with the figure. i absolutely loved figure drawing. i could spend hours and hours and hours on my feet, forgetting time, looking, watching, waiting, and drawing. being in front of an easel, or sitting with a sketchbook in my lap, makes me feel at home no matter where i am. it is the residence of my soul. in so many ways, it feels as if it was what i was born to do.

today, i got to experience the work of one of the masters of the figure. her love affair with artwork with the figure makes mine look like a crush. annie leibowitz can express the world in the crook of a neck, the wrinkles in a face, the evidence left behind in space that figures once occupied. her picture of bloody hand and footprints in a school where Tutsi schoolchildren were massacred in Rwanda was a portrait even though no figures were in it. the way the love for her children and partner were expressed in the way she framed them was incredible. the adoration and relationship she had with her parents was evident in the joy and sorrow she recorded on their faces. annie leibowitz has had a long and prolific career, and she has made the most of it.

last night, someone asked why i was in seminary and not making art all the time. the answer is really that as much of me wants to be a minister as wants to be an artist. the challenge i get from seeing someone like annie's work is to work at both.

just a job

when i think about joining the clergy, i get anxious. when i talk about ordination exams, and interviews and scheduling meetings with my presbytery, my palms go sweaty and my breathing gets just a little shallower and faster.

when i think about doing work i love, working in a church i love, talking to people about god and life, making art that is transformative, my heart sings.

in some ways, i need to remind myself that ministry is just a job. and it is not all about me. God is plenty big, i don't make or break anything.

that way, when i bemoan that i may be in a church wants a twenty minute lecture from the pulpit for a sermon, it will not seem so tragic.

last sunday was fun. church can be fun. preaching can be fun. (see tiffany's blog for how she thought it went... the gang had so many exciting things to say!) and i am in it for the fun.

ministry... it is not about me and it is just a job.