Out of the past but still present!

In 1947 a film came out called Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer.  It was a classic film but who knew that!  I went to the McCutchen Theatre to watch Robert Mitchum snarl his lip and to see how beautiful Jane Greer was.   But I remember how the film kept focusing on how we can't escape our past.   I knew that!   My mother reminded us all the time that "you can't escape your raising."

This week has been a heck of a challenge.  Like everyone else, there are parts of my life that I have pigeon-holed and forgotten to the best of my ability.   That mainly concerns two people who have hurt me badly to the point that I have written them off and have done it successfully for years.   They have no interaction, mentally or conversationally, with me and the world in which I currently live.  And that is the way I want it.   But, this week, out of the blue, each one of them called me.  I was too stunned or conditioned or calm to slam the phone down on them.   I talked to both of them--not really talked, just listened to see why they had called and why they thought that they could dial my number without facing a withering response.  To tell you the truth, I didn't care enough to wither.

When I put the phone down, both times, I questioned what I could remember of the conversations.  Why did I listen to one word from either of these people I had long since put in the "Pondscum" category?   I don't know the answers.  I can't even remember half of the conversation.   All I really know is that what Mama said is true --you can't escape your raising!   You can run but you can't hide!

Your past remains a part of your present!  For me, for sure!

The Presence of Women

Bruce Gentry, head of BSC on campus, sent me a clipping of an article written by Dr. Molly Marshall recently.   I have followed her in her career and find her to be someone worth reading about--whether she is doing the writing or making the news.  I like her in both roles.   I used to talk with my fellow seminarian, Billie Fair, about her.  Billie wanted to get her degree and get a job in ministry.  On the other hand, I had a job at the University and I was interested in getting a degree but not working directly in the field.

This subject is the core of Dr. Marshall's article.  So many women are working in a field that they consider out of the "mainstream" of ministry.   Her comment was:  "I think it is time to demystify our language about what it means to be 'called' and how we exercise our giftedness.  This will grow increasingly important as we realize that guaranteed lifetime employment in a congregational setting will most likely become less of an option for seminary graduates.  Rather than relegating persons who serve in other contexts to a differing status, it is important that we rethink our theology of vocation."  She adds, "I believe that some of the most important ministry will occur beyond the walls of the church.  Those not considered religious 'professionals' will offer much of it."

I thought back through my thirty years at the University with alumni/development and all of the contacts that I made in both fields.   I was "Presence" to my donors and many alums and was there for their birthdays, their illnesses, their joys and their death.   I could not count the funerals at which I officiated or the families who called when these arrangements were being made.  Did I feel like a presence?  No.  I had been there too long and too steady to feel anything but a true friend who cared!

Dr. Marshall summed up my feelings:  "They said that they sensed a new dignity in their professions and that they had not 'left ministry'.  I commended them for their remarkable work.  They have opportunity to be the hands and feet, indeed the very presence of Christ, with those lives they intersect."

Presence means person to person!

I come from a political family and we know that we are nothing if we are not out there "asking for someone's vote"!   The candidate needs to ask and the voter needs to be asked.  No one in politics would ever discount the personal touch of campaigning.   At least, none of the winners would knock how important that personal touch is.

There is a story in today's newspaper about 125 Catholics in St. Louis being trained in the techniques of personal touch and then going out on a crusade door-to-door.  I enjoyed reading the story of why they were doing this and how important it was to the group to get out among the people.  Kenneth Livengood, a parishioner at Holy Trinity Parish in St. Ann, said:  "We've been tricked into thinking faith is a private matter.  That's a lie. Faith is meant to be public; and there are many ways to share it."  Many in the church reflect the attitude of the Rev. Stephen Bevans, professor of mission and culture at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, when he says that they have not done this much in the past because "There have been so many of us we haven't had to do it." 

Presence was instituted by the resurrected Christ in Matthew when Christ gives them what has become known as the "Great Commission"  --Go ye...and make new disciples, proclaiming to each of them the "Good News."  He didn't intend for his followers to hide their light under a bushel or keep it in the confines of one church address.   Presence means finding our particular way to meet each person where they are!

A Presence Seeking Relevance

As I started my study on this Monday morning, I read an email from two of my Baptist "Seminarian" friends (both of whom are unnamed by me for obvious reasons).   Their opinions are important to me because they are smart, they are Baptist and they are just as concerned about the way the church is going and has gone as I have been. 

One of them wrote this email to me:  "You are correct when you say that the church must find its relevancy.  I would even say EARN its relevancy.  For too long the church has assumed its relevancy, unaware that it lost it about 50 years ago.  The church has to make its case, both internally and externally."   I kept thinking about his statement.   Do I agree?   Obviously there will be lots of disagreement with pastors and ministers wanting to keep a guaranteed salary and with seminaries who want to continue turning out students and with convention personnel and denominational personnel who have very few career paths awaiting them.  Most external people are too worried about their own financial situation to think much about the relevancy of the church.   It's always been there; it will need to be there to marry and bury down the road.

But this picture kept hitting me in the face.    

  What would my dad want me to do and believe?   He was a preacher for years, then the Postmaster of Charleston and he served the people!  This he did whatever his position because it was in his blood!   Where one serves does not define the kingdom!   The kingdom is defined by what we do in this world!    Does the church make a difference in today's world?   Can churches be used to make people aware that they are God's presence in the world and that is their supreme purpose? 

 

So many questions!   So many answers!  Can we dare to rest on our laurels and our past?  The one thing I know is that people are wrestling with the role of presence and speaking of their quest openly.  To me, that is progress!   I think Daddy would agree and I think that heaven and its minions would applaud!

Simple acts of presence

I love the picture of the angels ministering to Christ.   I think if I could preach one last sermon, it would be that each of us needs to be the hands of Christ each day in this world.   Christ said that in his words, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."   That would be my text for my sermon.   It is called simply, kindness.

In this world that I have chosen to live in, these days, I am beseiged by people being unkind to each other and bragging about it with other people.  I need a new focus, a new brain diversion which takes me out of that hostility talk and moves me into a world of new meaning.  Am I opting to not deal with problems at hand -- you bet!  I  am a pronounced failure at reconciliation on some points but I don't have to let it invade my spirit.   I am finally choosing not to live there.  I may move back but I have a choice to move forward.  And I'm taking it!

So I will assume the responsibility of taking on the mantle of kindness--on a individual basis.  I am not out to change THE world;  I am out to try to change someone's world in small ways.   I am not the first to think this role is important.   Great leaders have pronounced it:  Margaret Mead wrote:  "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed it is the only thing that ever has!"   Winston Churchill wrote:  "We make a living by what we get.  We make a life by what we give."   Amelia Earhart observed:  "A simple act of kindness throws out roots in all directions and the roots spring up and make new trees."

So I shall press on in my task.  And I will read the blog of a Chicago man 366randomacts.org who helps someone everyday, blogs it as an example to his children of simple kindnesses.

A Simple Prescription of Presence

Last night I watched the story on CBS News about an 8th grade teacher, Dan Stroup, who started writing birthday cards to his students and has continued writing them cards each year! This simple act of presence earned him a spot on national news as well as plaudits from the rest of us who hardly remember our friends of years past!

What a great story and example! It takes him three hours a night to keep up with all this! My first question is how he finds the time ! But the second is not a question. It is WHY he finds the time! Listen, we all find the time to do what we want to do !

Thanks Mr. Stroup for being a constant presence in the lives of your students! It has a value that has no price or cost attached!

By the way, he is from Indianapolis and teaches at a Christian Academy there.  And he handwrites the letters.  This is hard to believe --no wonder he is on the national news--for no other reason except for this thoughtfulness and kindness and putting his pen to the paper! 

A Constant Presence

This is one of those days when I am surrounded by people who have come to work for me.   That means that I have to get up at the crack of dawn to organize and prioritize their work and then supervise it.  I'm not knocking it;  I'm just saying it!    I laughed to myself when I applied this same kind of organizational chart to Christ.   He showed us how to set up an organizational chart with the disciples and he sent them out "two by two's".   He asked for reports of their visits and he listened to their problems and gave direction.   After the crucifixion, he was a constant presence and has been down through the ages.  He put "feet" to their prayers as he equipped them for service.  They became his "Boots on the ground."  They became his presence on earth.

And it still is supposed to work that way.   Churches are trying to find their way and some are doing so.   Some are failing to meet the needs of adaptation.  I'm not trying to say that adaptation is easy;  we like what we used to know and accept!   Theologians have struggled with finding relevancy.  Henri J. M. Nouwen wrote IN THE NAME OF JESUS:  "How can people truly care for their shepherds and keep them faithful to their sacred task when they do not know them and so cannot deeply love them."    Boots on the Ground demand service from the shepherds and the sheep and those who are way outside the flock.   No one escapes being a presence for Good , Bad or Indifferent during their earthly pilgrimage!  

Lord, I am just one of the sheep.  Speak to me and make me hear what you would ask of me!  Help me be a real presence in the field of one of your flock!

In the Presence of my enemies

When I was a kid growing up in Charleston, we had a slogan, "I don't know why he hates me; I have never done anything FOR him!"  Everyone laughed because it is a preposterous statement and the preposition "For" should seem to read "TO" to make better sense.   But the statement, as it is written, has some deep-seated meaning and truths.  I have seen it time and time again during my 74 years of living.

And I am seeing it again.   I have just gone way, way out of my way to help some people and have continued to do so until I have decided that I have stood as an hindrance, instead of a help, to the point that they no longer try to find their own help.   So I am in the process of closing the door to the help and they have reacted with no trace of thanks;  just acrimony that I am not continuing to fund their way of life.   It is just one more example of the old slogan!  I just never learn the lesson and avoid the outcome because it is not who I am or want to be!

David wrote in Psalm 23:5:  "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies."  King David knew that God would take care of him in spite of those people out there who were new enemies or old enemies.  Yes, Lord, my cup, indeed "runneth over".   Let me separate from those who need to find their own way.  Perhaps, it is way past time for me to move on and reach out to  others who need my help and encouragement.

Confronted by Presence from the Past

Sometimes a phone call from way out of the past will challenge you to glance momentarily back to another world, far removed from the present.  The challenge is to remember that moment of past presence but move quickly back into the world in which you currently reside.  And to do this without anger or even questioning!  Let the past remain the past! 

I pulled up some quotes I liked:   "What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment.  And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new.  Right now!"   Okay.   Then I read another, "It is one thing putting away the past, and quite another to tape its mouth shut!"

I am not removing the tape.  It's been there too long!  

An Online Presence

Will wonders ever cease?   This week in the light of the Boston bombings and investigations, the television is beseiged with the term, "Digital footprints!"  It describes traces that people leave of themselves on their cell phones or their computers.  It is amazing what federal authorities can learn about people and their interests, conflicts, and personalities by reading the digital footprints of someone who has not meant to leave electronic hints.

It talks about the "online presence" one leaves behind.  It shows how many people one interacts with, what the person cares about, what turns him on and what turns him off and what gets his blood boiling.   Actually, after I read this, I went back to my own site and did a little snooping on what an investigator might find out about me in a single reading.  Scary--intrusive--gossip fodder, at times.

And what would it find out about my "presence" as a human being---am I there for someone, anyone!
Some people think so.  Hallelujah that they crossed my path digitally for the good!   There were no castigations coming through but I don't want my life to be measured by this set of "Footprints".  I need to take stock of my daily life and I probably need to remember how easily life can be traced by sources at hand.  Maybe I should be more careful ---especially of the anger fits I have on e-mail!  Those temper notes might be the only footprint of mine some people ever see!

Mulching and presence!

Today they are mulching my front yard and I love it! I got this lecture on how mulching improves the fertility and health of the soil and reduces weed growth . I just think it makes my yard look better!

I wish I could mulch my spirituality! I wish I could get rid of the underbrush of deadness of spirit which I allow to fester and I wish I could improve
R my spiritual health with one huge load of mulch!

It does wonders with my yard; wonder if it will work on my soul !

Beware of the False Presence among you!

 

I watched two programs last night on television --documentaries--people who are tied together by fate and choice--stories which are imbedded in my mind since I lived through their happening.  Their stories have similarities to each other:  David Koresh, who thought he was the Messiah and formed a group in Waco, Texas where he and his group were eventually burned to death as the FBI was ordering them to come out and face charges;  and Timothy McVeigh, a loner who was out to get the Army and the government over this treatment of Koresh and his own treatment.  McVeigh was put to death for blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and killing 160 innocent people.

 

Koresh drew people to him and then he mentally and physically abused them, according to most reports, in the name of his being the new Messiah.   And there are always those out there who make such claims.   And there always will be.   The Bible tells us to beware of false prophets!

 

I watched both stories.   The David Koresh attraction was something I had trouble buying into.  I could not believe that people in the compound would not have had some major clues along the way but, whatever!  McVeigh, to me, had no excuses for his action.  Nothing that had happened bad in his life justified what he did.

 

But false presences remain among us, making promises, preying upon our weaknesses, our ignorance and our wounded.   Some of them call themselves Christians!

Presence Involves a Choice

This afternoon I went to a Democratic rally for Steve Hodges for Congress! I went with Evelyn Boardman, Terry Long and Lois Boston! I must say I felt strangely out of place! I had not participated in any partisan rally in years!

Like every voter and non-voter I get a choice! The same thing happens in the church! Churches give members a vote on issues if you choose to do so!

The Christian who opts out of all his choices ignores the inner tugs of presence within his soul !

I know! I am guilty of tug-ignoring!

Building a Mosaic of Presence

Many of us, I am sure, were mesmirized by the television this weekend as authorities figured out who did the Boston Marathon bombings.  Mr. Kaufman who used to work in criminal work said that they were building a mosaic of their presence.   And they found out enough to figure out who they were and how to capture them.  One Tsarnaev son is dead and one, Dzhokar, is captured.  But why they did it is still being "mosaiced".

It caused me to wonder.  I believe in eternal life.  When my time comes, do the Lord's helpers build a mosaic of my life --good and bad, and ordinary!  Are the angels called in to bring reports?   If mortals can do an excellent job on reporting, just think what non-mortals would know about me?  Yikes!   Am I doomed at this point!   And then, I remember one tiny word that makes all the difference in this world and the next -- GRACE......Hallelujah, include that in any report on me in a big way!

The justice system here has a measure of Grace included.  We try people in courts and Mirandize them to protect their rights.  Lynching is something way in our past!   It's called Justice and we do it out of our human grace to the individuals.   But as I face my real maker, I don't seek justice.   Please God, give me mercy!

And God have mercy on one Dzhokar Tsarnaev, age 19!

 How did his mosaic end up in such a hideous act?

Surrounded and Drowned by the Presence

Sometimes the news stations, even cable, have way more news to cover than time to get it in.  These last two days have been that time:   The explosion and fire at the Waco fertilizer plant, the identification and capture of the bombers of Boston Marathon, the sending of poisoned letters to the President, the awful Gun control vote in the Senate.  Way too much news for any of us to comprehend.

I heard an interview from Texas where there were many deaths and injuries.  A volunteer fireman said that 72 % of all firemen in this country were volunteer and that they knew what it meant when the leader yelled out "Surround and drown".  I wish we as volunteer Christians could man our positions and yell out the slogan, "Surround and crown"! when someone we love was facing despair, hopelessness and/or death!   When bad times I have happened to me, I have felt an overpowering presence  --sometimes elusive and sometimes in the form of my mother or my child or a sibling or a friend.   They knew what to say and how to say it that made me grasp something that was different, even something holy that they would not have said on their own.   Not my Mom--she WAS holy!

So my prayer today, in spite of all the bad stuff and all of the pain, I hope that the grieving and the hurting are surrounded and drowned by the presence of someone who feels compelled to be there and say something.  God give them the words to be seen and heard!

The Presence of Hope

One of my friends sent me a quote from Anne Lamott yesterday.  I don't remember ever reading anything from her before but I liked what I read from this writer and I want to share it:

 

Frederick Buechner wrote:  "Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don't be afraid."

But it is hard not to be afraid, isn't it?  Some wisdom traditions say that you can't have love and fear at the same time, but I beg to differ.  You can be a passionate believer in God, in Goodness, in Divine Mind, and the immortality of the soul, and still be afraid.  I'm Exhibit A.

The temptation is to say as cute little Christians sometimes do, Oh, it will all make sense someday. Great blessings will arise from the tragedy, seeds of new life sown.  And I absolutely believe those things, but if it minimizes the terror, it's bullshit.

...

There is amazing love and grace in people's response to the killings.  It's like white blood cells pouring in to surround and heal the infection.  It just breaks your heart every time, in the good way, where Hope tiptoes in to peer around.

 

Thanks, my friend, for introducing me to Anne Lamott.   I will read more of her thoughts on hope and faith.   These families who have suffered loss in the bombings of Boston and in all the killings by maniacs with guns need to sense the presence of hope in a big way, today and all the tomorrows.  But for all the rest of us, the fear of living in the hate of today makes us pull back in retreat.

 

The only way we can make it is to sense the presence of hope which can help us overcome and walk on.  Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

 

 

A Host of Presence

This week the world focused on the bombings of the Boston Marathon and its impact on everyone it touched! No one has been charged and speculation is rampant! It has been labeled "the pressure cooker devastation" since the remnants of a bomb has produced evidence that a pressure cooker was involved!

Most of us live pressure cooker lives but we know how to let off steam and we know how to adjust the temperature when it goes on overload! Some one did not! Whatever their pressures were, or their misguided anger, they need to face their fate!

We need to be reminded of the hosts of people whose presence was felt by all the injured and grieving that day! God equipped many comforters in this massacre so that his presence abounded.

    And a piece of pressure cooker was left behind as a clue!

The Many Doors Opened and Closed to the Presence

Antonio Porchia, the Argentinian poet,  writes:  "A door opens to me.  I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors".  The truth of that statement hits most of us in the face.  It is so true.   There is not one door awaiting and only one.  Learning more about a situation leads one to many other choices, possibilities and closed doors.  It usually also produces more questions than answers.  But, in the end, would it have been easier not to walk through the first door!  You bet!  If easier is what one is seeking!

The beautiful words of Henri J. M. Nouwen come back to challenge and haunt us:   "Whether we try to enter into a dislocated world, relate to a convulsive generation, or speak to a dying person, our service will not be perceived as authentic unless it comes from a heart wounded from the suffering about which we speak."

When I have gone through the pits of darkness I have faced in my life, I always immediately recognized the Presence who had been through his/her own hell and understood my pain.  It was something undeniable that I recognized;   I could not identify the points or the pilgrimage.  I just knew instantaneously that the person was Presence and was there for me in my moment of need. 

It was not what the person said!  It was what the person did not have to say!

Bringing the Presence into the Present

I read an article this morning called "Where new media and religion meet" by Emi Kolawole.  It shows the former Pope sending his first Tweet, under The Table Project.  I was astounded and kept pulling other articles up such as "Twitter reaches out to Christian Leaders at Catalyst's 'Be Present' Conference."  C'mon,  now I've read everything! 

One thing I know for sure.  Social media companies are not going where the money is not!   They are not out there to serve humanity in any non-profit experience.   Check out the television times and programs.   Most of those people do not express my views in any way and, to me, they are first money-grubbers and secondly, interested in spreading their particular version of the gospel.

So, when could the present technology be used to bring in the presence!  First, to me, it would have to be when it was not used to make a buck for someone.  Second, it would have to be a valid presence and bring the encouragement of good news.   Third, it would have to be genuinely sent and genuinely received.    That eliminates a lot of possibilities but what kind of possibilities and opportunities does it leave to be debated!  Tell the good news, we are commissioned!   Is this technology an attraction or distraction!   Pope Benedict saw the good in the technology and envisioned it as a communication tool to his Catholic community!    Help us to do the same and tell our good news to a waiting world!

What if we don't recognize the Presence?

 

It was a terrible time for the disciples.  Christ had been killed and they didn't know whether to flee or face their accusers. (Luke 24:13-35)  Returning home on that Sunday afternoon, the two disciples from Emmaus trudged with the heavy steps of those who know that all hope is gone!  They had to be second-guessing each other and Christ all at the same time!  All of a sudden another person came up and started questioning their questions and they kept their faces away from this intruder.  But the man kept talking--explaining and

"They were kept from recognizing him",--prophesying--giving reasons.  Some of their reservations began to melt away and they invited the intruder to their home upon their arrival there. 

 

As they sat down to break bread, the intruder became the host and they recognized him and his role.  And  then he vanished before their eyes.  The disciples, no longer weary, rushed the seven miles to Jerusalem where they could share the wonderful news.  Fear and trembling had given way to taking up their cross again and carrying it!

 

What if we fail to recognize the Presence or acknowledge him?

The Weariness of Waiting for a Presence

The people have long waited on a Presence who would come that they "might have life and might have it more abundantly."  Preachers and priests have promised that from pulpits all over the country and we have waited.  Joan Chittister alludes to this waiting in her article in the National Catholic Reporter about the new Pope and talks about people who are disillusioned with the church/denomination/faith!  She refers to the writing of Pat Howard who summed up the disillusionment in two sentences, "I still believe the church will change in due course...What I underestimated was the weariness that comes with the waiting."

People are weary in waiting --whether it is in religion or politics or life in general.  They think that nothing really matters, in the end --it will still be business as usual.  Chittister goes on:  "The problem with weariness is far worse than anger.  Far more stultifying than mere indifference.  Weariness comes from a soul whose hope has been disappointed one time too many.  To be weary is not a condition of the body--that's tiredness.  No, weariness is a condition of the heart that has lost the energy to care anymore."

I have this gut feeling that most people, facing the struggle of prolonged weariness, would jump at any opportunity to grasp the presence of someone, anyone, who could offer a solution or an exit strategy for them.  Or even a kind word or a smile.

An Appropriate Presence

In the "preacher's vernacular" there are "funeral preachers" and there are preachers who preach funerals.   In other words, there are preachers who know appropriately what to say, when to speak and when to shut their face and mouth.   They are the ones who can make a family feel a whisper of joy even in the midst of their pain.   Not long ago, people in a surrounding community all learned this first-hand by example.  The minister, not used to such a large audience, perhaps, used the time to tell his own life story and deal with his own pain.   Those who happened to be in the audience felt a wide range of emotion and it all seemed to border on negative response.  Some were repelled by his encroachment upon this time which should have been focused on the deceased.

I have spent a good part of the last years visiting family members and friends in hospitals and nursing homes and I can almost instantly sense, in the same kind of way, "an appropriate presence" in the staff which surrounds the patients.  It runs from the aide who always takes the time to "show mercy"  to the nurse who does more than dispense the meds;  she/he dispenses a sense of caring and concern at the same time.

All of us are entrusted with the task of being present.  No set of circumstances is always perfectly ideal.   It is how we deal with our attitude that moment, that day and with that patient or friend.   God grant us the serenity to cope with ourselves and above all, help us to remember that the audience did not come to hear us expound about our own problems.   Let my words and presence for today be appropriate!

The Pervasive Presence of Prejudice

I have been watching the talk shows about the new "42" biography of Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play major league baseball.   This was a decade before Rosa Parks and two decades before the speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.   Yes, good and bad, we build upon the work of others.  Jackie Robinson made his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.   He did it by going out every game, taking his licks of career and prejudice, and taking a stand on the mound.

I want to see the film.   It has been seen in the White House and viewed by Mrs. Robinson with the President and First Lady and the Robinson children. Someone said in an interview, "Good men win games; great men change games".   I would add:  "Great men also stand a good chance of losing the whole ballgame along the way."

Prejudice is so ingrained in our society that it is now being defined on the Hill in Washington in the issues of gun control and immigration.  We have a constant pervasive presence of prejudice that has infected the masses who say, in so many ways, "If you don't look like us and you don't talk like us, and if you don't believe like us, then you need to find another space.  This belongs to 'us'".   Jackie Robinson stood up and took the heat so that the next player could step out on the field without being booed or tripped as he was running the bases.    Did he expect to run a permanent home run?  Heck no, go see the movie.  It is one play and one player at a time!

But it is our time now.   It is the only time we are in the game!

The Presence of Kim Mothershead

I posted a pic and note on FB today showing the wild cherry tree in my front yard that Kim Mothershead planted in my front yard when I got my Seminary degree! Kim was in my Sunday school class then!

Now she is gone but I have her presence and memory every Spring when Kim's cherry tree blooms! What a daily blessing to me!

 

   Kim, you are missed by so many!  Me, among them but you left me this beautiful tree to remind me that you continue to live in a living presence!

 

Presence and Voice-Overs

I went to the KRCU Breakfast at the River Campus this morning and was surprised to see a good crowd who came out to see an NPR Science Person named Joe Palca.  They had, apparently, heard him often and wanted to see what he was really like.  I never listen to the radio so he could have been anyone to me.

  With Amanda Lincoln

But people were waiting to hear him speak and receptive.   They even were taken back about his science probings on air and could not wait to ask more questions.   The questioning had to be cut off and I was happy it was because I had some things I wanted to do with the rest of the morning.   As I walked to my car, I kept reviewing his presence here and listening to the mental voice-overs in my head from his questions.   He was a real presence in the room and he played his role well.  Even I sensed that he was a man who was comfortable in his own skin and thought that he was doing a service to the would-be scientist who wanted to be informed about carbon and weather-traipsing and the like.

I wondered if I had to make new definitions of the "Ministry of Presence" to include people who have nothing to do with death and dying and  include those who minister to the realm of living and learning.   If so, that includes a wide scientific body!  Christ said, "I am come that you may have life and life more abundantly!"  Isn't that what all of us are supposed to do in this business of living!

Presence at Major Times

Debbie Bickings, my hairdresser and friend, and I talked on Monday as she was cutting my hair.  She said that she had spent the weekend visiting her friend, Jennifer, who was dying, and she went to the house several times and sat by her bedside talking.   She added that she had no idea if Jennifer knew Debbie was there because she was way past the stage of allowing anyone to "know" such things.  But, Debbie said,  "I kept talking to her and telling her that the Lord was waiting for her and would hold out his arms in welcome."

I was proud of Debbie.   It's not an easy presence at those times.  Most people run like a hurricane to avoid those times.  But she went and went back and went back.   It wasn't "presence" she was seeking to give;  it was being drawn to do something that would ease Jennifer's final days!  I applaud Debbie in the doing!

Information systems abide everywhere.   Why can't there be  systems that would allow us to encourage the Debbies of this world, as well as the Jennifers?   And the children and family of the Jennifers who are trying to grasp what is happening in their own home and a diagnosis which has come out of the blue!   Christians and church-goers like me have spent hours in endless business meetings over where or if to move the organ and very little time preparing those same people to be a Presence in this world that is meaningful!   No wonder, churches are dying at the seams and appearing less and less relevant to the non-pew sitter!

Come alive, information systems!   If we really have Good News, let us use it to spread the word without asking for money or fame!  

  And thanks, Debbie!

Presence in simple things

The more I think about The ministry of presence, the more I think of how simple it is. I went to a birthday party last night for my friend, Joan Gohn! Judy brown fixed the meal and we broke bread together..10 of us! Outré!

I even gave Joan a gift card from McDonalds as a chintzy gift! She liked it!
So we ate and visited and talked. Was that all there is or was? Depends on me or what I learned in conversation! Presence requires my being there! Really being there!!!!!

The Ministry of Presence

All the news channels carried the story of the suicide of Matthew Warren yesterday.  He was the son of Rick Warren, pastor of the famed Saddleback Church, and the son had faced, what was reported, years of depression.  All of these stories seemed to focus on the effects of depression and the effects on the people who tried to intervene and help.   I finally switched the channels to Golden Girls where I would have something light-hearted to distract my thoughts.  After all, I told myself, I could do nothing but whisper a prayer for this family and the church family! 

But one of the commentators had talked about the "Ministry of Presence" and it stuck in my mind.  I switched off Rose and Blanche and Dorothy and her mother and switched on my computer.  What is the "Ministry of Presence" and how many miles does it cover?   What is my responsibility and what is my alibied and valid excuse for not being a presence?   I don't live in California and I don't attend that mega-church!  Does that let me off the hook in this situation or in any situation?

I remembered a verse I learned in Vacation Bible School years ago from Galatians 6:2:  "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."  I have tried to do that when opportunities arose--I wasn't one to "butt in" where I was not asked;  I did not ask about situations when the person did not bring it up;  I visited with the person but wanted to appear as friendly as I could without assuming additional burdens to add to my over-burdened load.   I was physically present without being nosy and I hoped that that counted for something!

But this "Ministry of Presence"!  Hey, this seems to be way more than I have made it out to be!  Bishop Joe Pennel is a retired bishop of United Methodist Church and is a professor of pastoral leadership at Vanderbilt Divinity School.   He writes on this subject:  "One of the ways that we respond to a giving God is to give ourselves to others with intentional acts of embodied love."

I think that that statement probably means that we will reach out to others even when it makes us hugely uncomfortable and "butting in"!

Green Shoots

I listened to Rachel Maddow television show (and watched) last night and she was talking about veterans coming home and waiting so long for their pay checks to come home and waiting and waiting until the disillusionments set in.   And she mentioned that this was a practice that they now were calling  "green shoots" and required

 watching and waiting.

I actually looked it up and it has a definition associated with economy and economic hard times which affect Veterans as well as other groups that are not so well defined.   I remember going out to our garden and checking out the "green shoots".   It meant that spring was in the air with new life coming and that there would be food to can down the road for the winter.  We had chickens, a cow, and a roast every Sunday at noon with home-made vegetable beef soup that night out of the leftovers, no matter how scarce they might be.  People planned ahead for their next meals.   I learned that at home and it has carried over with me all of these years.  

There are lessons to be learned in the art of green-shooting.  Not everything comes when you want it to or when it is fair.    I applaud Rachel for staying after the system and bringing the plight of the Veterans to the forefront.   They have a vehicle for getting their story told.   But for the person, standing alone, out there, embittered, desolate, feeling the world has passed them by, there is hope.  It's called God, or god, or green shooting.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin lives on

I love a beautiful yard....but I love for someone else to do it.   I called for my gardener to come put mulch on;  in the meantime, I hired someone to clean up the front yard.  It already makes a difference.   I can remember my mother, when we lived in the old house, dragging that hose out to the three flower beds we had in the side yard.  That was meditation for her, I liked to think.

Cleaning out the rubbish of our lives is important.   Now that I am in my 70s, I know that for a fact.  Forgetting what lies behind, and pressing on--the Bible says it.   Remembering all of it but not allowing it to weigh you down mentally or spiritually is a real part of living and continuing to grow.  This came back to hit me yesterday as the newsmen were talking about Hilary Clinton, who is 69, and Joe Biden, who is 74.  Both of them will be older than  I am now after they have won and served a term.   But age is not counting them out;  why should I allow it to count me out!

Teilhard de Chardin was a brilliant man --in many fields and he left many quotes about the pilgrimage we face:  "You are not on a spiritual journey;  you are a spirit on a human journey."  Those words are telling!

What is the Presence I seek?

I used to live in a world I sometimes understood --now it is Katie Bar the Door!   I can't understand

North Koreans,  Rand Paul and the Tea Party, the hostility of Congress and the issues of the day.  In fact, there is so much fighting on every moral and theological issue, that we no longer expect to find answers.   We are only seeking outlets for our points of view.  At least I understand the Rutgers Coach being fired!   Wonder if they would have fired him had no video existed!   I think not!  He was outed!

I don't want to throw cold water on society and societal choices.   I'm just saying, I don't understand it.  But I want to live in it and I want it to make sense to me.   So Mike Rice, I'm starting with you.  So you threw a ball at your players and called them expletives.   So you got fired and now they might fire the AD or the Prez.   I can even understand that whole scene.  (Looks like the Prez will survive!)

The whole thing was summed up by Martin Bashir Show.   A commentator said, "There would be fewer out of control coaches if the players could carry guns."   I hope that he was kidding about this and I think he was.     Like I said, I can't understand how anyone would intellectually put these two points together!

What have I got to gripe about today!  It's Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday!  And what hostility he faced in his day!   Assassinated when he was 39 years old,  King taught us how to turn the other cheek and face the danger every day!    Who am I kidding ---I did not understand his world back then....but I sometimes tried.

Frederick Buechner and Wishful Thinking

If I had a favorite theologian, Frederick Buechner would be right up there.   I have most of his books and they are in threads.   I love "Wishful Thinking" if, for no other reason that it has one line in it!
"All theology, like all fiction, is, at its heart, autobiography!"   Later, in The Sacred Journey, he added, " The place God takes you to is where your deep gladness and world's deep hunger, meet!"

I love both of those lines.  I  believe them both.   I believe that Paul was changed by watching the stoning of Stephen followed by a verification  of  the experience on the Damascus Road.  We are molded and formed theologically by the sum of knock-down, drag out experiences we have had, good and bad.   My theology was formed in Charleston, daughter of a preacher, who watched our bigoted society deal with integration.  I was taught by example that all people are created equal and I cling to that theology and can do nothing else.   I married, had children and worked in a public university for over 30 years.   I was exposed to greed, selfishnesness, kindness, betrayal and all the rest of human emotions and, when I was good, I opted for holding out for the good.   I believe the first verse I ever learned,  "God is good!"   I have found nothing to supplant that theology even though I have changed the way I live out my theology.  

I want to continue to find meaning in my theological positions.   I want to fight the injustices I run across in my business of living.  I do not want to lay down and play dead for the rest of the time I am on earth.  I want to be there for somebody every day more than I want them to be there for me.  I want to write my thoughts, and think, so that someday, someone will understand what I felt when my hunger and gladness met!

Back in bed on antibiotics

...and the sinus infection is back.   Came home from dentist appointment (good report) and got into bed, took medicine that Dr. Williams sent two weeks ago and I did not finish and I am staying in bed for a couple of days.   Gloria is here today and Meleia is here tomorrow.   It's television, bed rest, and chicken noodle soup for me!

Easter Monday coming down

Not the best weekend in the world.  What could go right --even today!  First, I have had a sinus infection which made me want to do nothing but pull the blankets over my head and shut the world out;  then I felt a huge pity party about everything;  then Meleia couldn't come to work this morning; then my tax man called and said I had a big tax bill to pay even though I have already paid my usual taxes and to come by and write the check; and then I have to go to the dentist which I hate and it always involves pain and more dental work....and what else!   That is bad enough on any Monday ---dentist and more taxes, but nailed on to a horrible weekend.  Yuk.

I am spending no time thinking about this blog today.   Let the chips fall where they may!   They will anyway!