car – Salvaged Faith

Batteries

Posted on January 1, 20132 Comments

I hopped in my car last night to go get some chinese food for our quiet little new year’s eve. We had movies and the first season of Spartacus to keep us company until the ball dropped and it was a new year.

I turned the key in the ignition….

Nothing.

No little sputters.

No noises.

Just my car radio reading “ERR” and then flickering off.

My battery was dead. Past dead. Kaput.

Which… in all actuality… was kind of good news.

It meant that when I said I wasn’t going to work over the holiday break, that I kept my promise.

It meant that my car had not been driven for 5 days.

I wasn’t driving all across the state. I wasn’t in meetings. I wasn’t commuting to Des Moines for a day in my cubical.

Instead, that dead battery means days full of time with my husband and family, days when we were home instead of out and about in the crazy rush of the season. Nights of carpooling with my brother-in-law to dinner with the rest of the family. I was baking and playing Guild Wars 2 and singing Christmas carols very loudly.

Now, I should have probably gone and started my car a few times. We have a bit of a headache on our hands today, because it is not taking a charge and needs to be replaced. But I’m going to look at the bright side.

I was home, recharging my batteries while my car’s was draining.

confrontation and follow through

Posted on May 25, 2011Leave a comment

I am notorious for finding myself in situations where my vehicle is hit by another vehicle.

Four years ago, I was stopped at a light, and the car that came up behind me failed/forgot to stop. Bumper damage.

A month or so ago, I was parked and dropping my car off at a hotel when a car backed out of a nearby spot straight into my driver’s side door.

I have to admit, I have had my fair share of fender benders that were my fault. And I did what I had to do to resolve those issues.

So it is frustrating that in each of the above situations, the person responsible never had to take responsibility.

Or rather, I haven’t made them take responsibility.

Avoidance of confrontation is my M.O. If I can resolve the issue another way, it is much preferable. I don’t like having to call someone up, sit them down, and tell them… this is not okay and you need to fix it.

And so in the first situation, I put off the phone calls. I passively wrote a letter that never got a response. And eventually the time passed and I moved and it was never resolved.

In the second situation, I’m working up the courage to call and hold the person accountable that hit me. Which means, I haven’t done it yet.

I’m not sure where this avoidance comes from. My mom is a fairly direct person… at least it has always seemed that way to me… and when there was a problem, she took care of business and she used her “taking care of business” voice and it always seemed to me that the issue was resolved. That trait was NOT passed on to me! And maybe that is only my own perspective as a girl and young woman watching my mother and she would describe herself differently… who knows! =)

I think one of the reasons that confrontation is so difficult for me is that I leave a lot of room for grace. Perhaps too much room. I know that some things are not okay, but I don’t want to have to be the person who calls it out.

In my work as a pastor, I realize that both grace and truth are needed. Repentance involves both truth about sin AND forgiveness… they are two sides of one coin. To lean too heavily one way or the other leaves us with cheap grace or heavy handed morality.

In the Ascension Sunday text for this year in the lectionary, from the gospel of Luke, we are reminded that Christ calls us to preach repentence through the forgiveness of sin. Repentence, the turning away from the past, leads us into forgiveness of our mistakes. It leads us into a live of forgiveness for others. But it also involves speaking the truth and confessing those things that need to be forgiven. In calling others to repent, we must also name the reality of sin that needs repenting!

May God grant me the grace to speak a little bit more truth, to make accountability just as important as forgiveness, and to get my car repaired without having to pay for it myself!

Some things are more important than bulletins

Posted on July 12, 2010Leave a comment

Today a young woman walked into the church and asked to use the telephone. Not a problem, I said. And while she sat in the office dialing numbers and getting no response, I sat at my desk trying to pick out hymns for Sunday.

Are you stranded? I asked. She had just been released from the county jail, she said, was 80 miles from home, and no one was coming to get her. She finally got a hold of a friend or a neighbor… someone she thought might help and was chewed out over the phone. She hung up in frustration.

Do you need a ride? I asked. She had no other options. She was seven months pregnant and needed to get home. We got in my car and headed out. And on the way out the door, she asked if she could have one of the bibles on the shelf.

As we drove, we talked about where we grew up. We talked about semi-trucks. We stopped for food, because she hadn’t eaten all day. We talked a little bit about church – but only enough to learn that she had never found one that had felt like home. She had dreams that she wanted to fulfill… but also was raising her kids by herself and didn’t know if it would ever happen.

But she got home. And she will continue to be in my prayers. And I pray that God will open up pathways before her and that a community near her will open their arms wide and help her back on her feet. But for now… she got home. And that was way more important than the bulletin.

For a few weeks now, I have felt in a bit of a church rut. Maybe a spiritual rut is more like it. I’m doing the church thing, I’m going through the motions, but isn’t there more that God calls us to than preaching and teaching and organizing my desk? Let me take that back… the rut has been deeper and run longer than a few weeks, but only in the last few weeks have I noticed. My ordination really brought some things into perspective.

Growing up, I loved to play “office.” I liked staplers and to make documents. I’m good on the computer. I would make a fantabulous secretary. But I’m not called to be an administrative assistant. And I’m not called to be an administrator. I’m called to share God’s love with people. I’m called to be out in the world, as the hands and feet of Christ. And doing church often gets in the way of that. I sometimes let the church get in the way of my doing that.

When she walked into the church today, my heartstrings tugged a little. It was like God was saying… I hear you – I know you want to serve me – It doesn’t matter that you have been a little off course lately – Feed my sheep. Open your eyes and let go of all that stuff you think you are supposed to be doing. Go…. do… love.

This beautiful young woman had a thousand different needs, and I couldn’t begin to meet all of them. But I could get her home. I could let her know that I didn’t care if she had spent a few nights in jail or a thousand years or if she was Mother Theresa – but she was loved by God and by me and she deserved to have someone help her. I could do that. God could do that through me.

The bulletins? They can wait for another day.

Zen and the Art of Car Maintenance

Posted on April 14, 2010Leave a comment

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my friend Sean and I have been reading the same book – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (P.S.) I had started it once, and as I’m planning on purchasing a car in the near future, thought it might be good to pick up again.

First, I love this book.

Second, I really can see now how differently my husband and I think. He is very much a classical thinker, and I am very much a romantic thinker. So I don’t “get” maintenence of anything. And working my way through the book I realized that the problem was all about caring. I haven’t had a vehicle that I “cared” about for a while. They were all hand me downs, nothing that was “mine,” and I felt no ownership over them. So, to be honest, I have used and abused my cars. I have jam packed them full with things, I rarely feel the need to detail them, and I take it to a shop when work needs done. Now that Brandon and I are sharing HIS car, that same problem arises. I actually do treat his car pretty well… except for that time a few years back when I hit a parking pole, but that’s a completely different story.

But how is that going to change when I have a car that I, personally, have picked out and care about? Will I feel differently? Or are my natural impulses going to take over? I have a feeling that after having read this book and getting farther into the discussion of quality that I really do want to take the time to learn how to change the oil and figure out where the spark plugs are. I want to learn what my car sounds like so that I can tell if it sounds differently (currently a problem). I want to learn to take good care of the inside of my car. I want to maintain its quality and always learn something new about this amazing piece of machinery… not just treat it as something that gets me from point a to point b – which is how I have typically treated cars.

“this beautiful mess” part 1

Posted on February 23, 2010Leave a comment

I have been trying to read more. There are far too many books on my shelf – delicious books – just waiting to be picked up and devoured. So I decided to start with Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess.”

The writing style just draws me in… it’s conversational and pulls me in. But even more than that, he speaks to the core of my longing for the Kingdom of God. As he starts out the book, he describes it as a “permission slip… get out of religion free.” He invites us to recieve the book “not as the last theological work on anything, but as a well-intentioned, God-loving invitation to go and grow and be where you haven’t before.”

And then, McKinley takes those pithy sayings that drive me nuts and transforms them into solid truth in a way that I wish I could do. For example:

…when our lives are all about us, the appeal of that kind of bumper-sticker dumbness is irresistible. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” gets turned into a tool of the self to assure my business success instead of a promise that brings peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose.

Peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose. That’s what I’m craving. Yeah, it would be nice for the hell not to break loose at all. But it does and it will and Christ never promises that we won’t have trouble. Maybe that’s what I was getting at a few weeks ago when I blogged about my car accident. I never expected that an accident wouldn’t happen. I never expected to be so protected by the hand of God that no trouble would ever befall me. I do expect that Christ will be with me through even the darkest valleys, however.

I have now been in ministry to the congregation I serve for two full years now. Maybe it’s because I’m young, or don’t yet have the self-confidence in my own vocation, but it’s taken me this long to be able to challenge some of those simplistic and pithy characterizations of God. I find the confidence to do it in sermons – mostly because the Holy Spirit is at my back… or rather, I pray over my texts that she will be. I just don’t go into other conversations in the same way… and I should! Perhaps with more prayer and with more confidence in the God who gives me the voice to speak, I can continue to affirm the faith of my people while at the same time giving them a “get out of religion free” card. I can give them an invitation to think deeper and to go where they haven’t been before, to move beyond Jesus and me in heaven by and by to Jesus and me and the poor with my sleeves rolled up here and now.

It’s not an either/or. I’m foolish to paint it that way. It’s a both/and. Breathing IN and Breathing OUT. Letting Christ be King… but King of his own Kingdom and not the ones we create for him. Changing our allegiances. Challenging the politics of it all. And doing all of that with grace and humility.

the potential demise of “the beast” and whether or not God cares.

Posted on February 10, 2010Leave a comment

Those of you who know me on facebook or twitter will be aware by now that I was in a car accident on Monday. “The Beast,” as many affectionately call my dad’s car is in a ditch somewhere. While I’ve had my share of bumps and taps in a car while driving (I have both bumped a car in front of me at a stop sign and been bumped from behind at a light… and then there was the whole hitting of the cement pole thing that is a very long story) – and even was in another accident when we hit a deer on the interstate, this accident was very scary.

As I have had to recount the incident dozens of times – both in my own head and to insurance adjustors and to family and friends, I’m not necessarily going to do that again here. In part, because it all happened so quickly… or so slowly… I can’t tell if time was speeding by or slowed down and everything took place in half a second or half a minute. All I know is that I had changed lanes to avoid/give room to a vehicle that lost control and as that vehicle came back into my new lane, I hit the brakes and prayed that we wouldn’t collide.

We did.

As a pastor, I’ve thought about where God has been in all of this. It’s easy to both be absolutely grateful and absolutely pissed off. On the one hand, no one was really hurt in the accident and I am utterly thankful for that. It could have been worse – much worse. On the other hand, it could appear that all of those prayers for safe travel fell on deaf ears. I not only was in an accident, but I also couldn’t make it to my ordination interview. Really, God? Was that a part of your plan?

But then as a person of faith who wrestles with God quite often, I also find myself not wanting to do either of those things. I find myself not really wanting to place God in the situation at all. I chose to drive that day. The other driver also chose to drive. The wind changed directions, the road got icy, stuff happens and we collided. No where in that entire scenario does God have to intervene. There were choices made and actions taken and then there were appropriate consequences.

I guess it’s the battle between free will and determinism that is wrestling inside of me. I read the scriptures that says God knows the number of hairs on my head and that God won’t leave me or forsake me. But does that also mean that I think God will protect me from bad things happening my entire life? Not at all. Do I think that all actions have consequences – good and bad? Sure. Does that mean that God intentionally sends things into our lives to teach us lessons or to punish us? Not really.

I know that my little “adventure” on the interstate nowhere near compares to disasters and tragedies and heartache that others have felt in their lives and that we all will continue to experience in this life. At the root, however, I guess what I’m wrestling with here is a question of theodicy.

And the only answer I can come up with is that God was present in how we chose to respond to the situation. The woman who was in the other car and I sat down at a Perkins Restaurant over a pot of coffee and some pie and we talked. We got to know one another a little better and talked about our families and why we were both on the road that day. We cried together over what had happened. And we knew that despite it all, in spite of being far from home and not knowing what to do next, that we were not alone. We experienced table fellowship and allowed this yucky thing that happened to bring us closer together. We felt hope in the midst of despair.

If that’s not God… then I don’t know what is.

and a broke down car to boot.

Posted on April 13, 2009Leave a comment

Oh…

on top of the whole paying taxes thing, I also have either car repairs or a whole new car to purchase. My “grandpa car” broke down last week and I’m pretty sure the repairs are going to be more than its worth. =(

ka-clunk

Posted on January 25, 2009Leave a comment

My ghetto cruiser decided to fall apart on Saturday morning. I was stopped at an intersection about three blocks from my house (after driving to Des Moines and back on Friday and to my parents and back right before this incident) when I began to turn the corner. And heard a big clunk and felt the front right side of my car drop to the ground.

My stupid ball joint broke on the tire, which caused the suspension to fall to the ground and the tire to tilt periously within the wheel well. And then I got to sit there, in the frigid cold waiting for my husband to bring the phone book and then wait with him in his car while we waited for the tow truck and guarded my car – which was in the middle of the intersection.

I was secretly praying that it would be a major repair. if it was $1500 or more – I was going to say screw it and just get rid of the car. But alas, the ball joint costs only $50 and my dad is coming over Saturday to fix it with my little brother. I so desperately want a newer, more fuel efficient, potentially hybrid, vehicle. I’m the type of person who should be driving around in a cute little VW beetle or a Prius. Maybe that’s a bit yuppy of me, but it just suits my personality so much more than this big black Lincoln Towncar with the chrome side panels. *sigh*

In other news, church went pretty well this morning. I had a pretty long teaching sermon on the Lord’s Prayer that I think got kind of wordy and long. I would definately do it differently next time. We are doing a six week study on the Lord’s Prayer based on “Becoming Jesus’ Prayer” and this week was all about what the prayer teaches us about what it means to be faithful. Perhaps I could have broken the sermon into two sections, but then it wouldn’t fit nicely into my Epiphany Season series. Oh well.

I did find a great children’s sermon where we made a prayer sandwich – putting five themes of the prayer: praise, hope,depend, forgive, goodness – between two slices of bread. The kids really liked the silliness of it all.