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!