the kitchen smells WONDERFUL!!!

My husband and I are making our first turkey EVER this week! We have always done the circuit of parent’s and grandparent’s houses, and while we are still doing most of those, his mom’s side is coming over to our place.

And I am WAY excited. I started making a few things already… well, for other purposes as well. I baked two loaves of banana bread (from the bread and honey blog!) and the cranberries are on the stove as we speak. I also made some of Rachel Ray’s stuffin’ muffins for our church potluck tomorrow… my hubby isn’t so keen on all of my crazy recipes for the big T-day.

He’s excited as well… I think. At the very least, he keeps taking dishes away from me =) lol… So far, he is in charge of the turkey and the sweet potatoes and the glazed carrots. I’m doing the rolls and corn and mashed potatoes and cranberries. And then of course, there are others who are each bringing a dish. It is going to be so entirely yummy, that I simply cannot wait.

I think that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year, but my favorite chuch season is definately Advent, and in my mind it is no coincidence that they are right next to one another =) This morning I planned our worship services for the season and I am really excited about our wreath litany (from the UCC) and the song that is leading us through the season – “I want to walk as a Child of the Light.”

What I have discovered so far in my life as a minister is that it is really hard to plan far enough in advance to truly accomplish all of the things that you want to in a church season. I found that for Lent, I simply did not have enough time from the day I started at the church to get ready properly. And Advent has come up just as fast and I feel just as inadequately prepared – at least to really add all of the smells and bells in that I want to. Not smells and bells per se, but I really did want to work on making worship more multi-sensory and participatory. It’s not quite there yet. But then again, if I tried to do everything I’m dreaming about all at once, then I would’t have anything new to do next year!

consumption, part 2

I found this article in my NYTimes email this morning…

Op-Ed Contributor
Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee
By MICHAEL KINSLEY
Published: November 14, 2008
American consumers, who have been steadily losing interest in buying things, would ideally now go on one last spending spree — and then start saving like mad.

As I’m thinking about Christmas, I too have been having this dilemma. Do I go ahead and buy the wonderful gifts I have been thinking about for everyone all year long (yeah, it would have been easier if I had just bought them as I thought of them), or do we all just simplify this Christmas and spend some quality time with one another with an “everyone bring one gift” exchange.

It’s strange to finally have a real paying job and to sort of have money (but not really, because there are still student loans to pay off) and yet not want to spend any of it.

Friday Five @ RevGalsBlogPals


Remembrance

1. Did your church have any special celebrations for All Saints/All Soul’s Day?

We remembered the names of those had passed with a moment of silence for each and the lighting of candles. Our whole worship service however was geared towards a remembrance of the saints and talking about what it takes to become a saint of God… which in the Methodist tradition is simply opening yourself up and letting God work through you with sanctifying grace.

2. How about Veterans’ Day?

We didn’t do anything specifically at the church, but had the day off from normal bible studies and fellowship groups so that our people could attend the local Veteran’s Day ceremonies at the school.

3. Did you and your family have a holiday for Veterans’ Day/Remembrance Day? If so, how did you take advantage of the break?

I don’t really remember having the day off growing up. Perhaps we did, but since it is a Tuesday, there is no three day, or four day weekend to really take advantage of. If we had the day off, we probably spent it with my grandparents, who lived nearby and who took care of us while our parents worked.

4. Is there a veteran in your life, living or dead, whose dedication you remember and celebrate? Or perhaps a loved one presently serving in the armed forces?

My grandpa is now deceased, but he served in the Korean War. I also have connections through a cousin, Jenna, who has served in Iraq. And there are countless people I know through my church family who have served or are currently serving.

5. Do you have any personal rituals which help you remember and connect with loved ones who have passed on?

I’ve never been big on visiting the graves of loved ones. I’m not quite sure why, either. I remember growing up that my mom and her family would often visit the grave of their sister, but the kids always stayed home. And now that I am grown, I haven’t taken my own personal time to visit the graves of my grandparents. But I do remember them. I remember my grandpa whenever I peel potatoes – because I remember stories that he would tell about KP duty in the army. I remember my grandma whenever I see a turtle – she had a fantastic collection of figurines. I remember my great-grandma whenever I see a kolache – she made the best kolaches I have ever had.

I know… it’s been a while

I’ve been fantastically sick the last week or so. Wildly raging sore throat, a head about to explode with sinus pressure, and now, added to it all, i have lost my ability to talk for the last two and a half days. So I’ve been feeling kind of crummy and just left the computer alone for the most part (which should be an indicator that I’m under the weather!)

Anywho. I had yet another one of those email exchanges with my mom in which she tries to convince me to switch my vote and I try to defend to her my own choices and I got to thinking in the midst of it, how can we live in the same world and yet think that two different things are going to be better for us? How can we be faced with the same reality and yet make such radically different choices?

Today I ran across this article by David Brooks: The Behavioral Revolution It is his thoughts on the financial situation and the four tasks of decision making:
1) perception
2) brainstorm possiblities
3) figure out which is in your best interest
4) act

Now, he talks about how we have focused on number 3 – figuring out what is in our best interest, and while I think in general that is what is in the best interest of the individual, I think that it could also be, what is in the best interest of the business, of the state, of the nation.

Because of Alan Greenspan’s deduction that #3 is what failed, (see article for more about financial world), Brooks thinks we need to go all the way back to #1. Perception.

Here is where I finally figured out why my mom and I are having such a hard time right now. She can’t believe the choices I would make because she fundamentally believes that they are in the worst interest of our country. And I on the other hand think that her choice is in the worst interest of our country. And so we are arguing about #3 – the best possible course, when we need to go back and look at perception.

I realized this finally, although I had glimpses that something was off skew, reading Brooks’ column. But what first tipped me off was listening to the video that she sent me and then looking at the one that I sent her. She sent me: this video by Fred Thompson and I sent back the Colin Powell endorsement

We have such fundamentally different pictures, or perceptions, of the world right now, as it is, different perceptions of reality, that of couse we are making different choices. My question is – 1) can we ever reconcile or come to understand one another’s different realities? 2) do we want to? 3) if we live in different worlds, how are we ever going to understand one another?

I guess that is the postmodern dilemma. And ironically, being self-aware about postmodernism helps me to understand that my reality is only a piece of the whole, that everything I percieve is shaped and colored by what I have been able to experience.

This seems very strange, but I was out yesterday getting a prescription filled at Target. And I realized I hadn’t eaten lunch yet and also wanted something to sip on. So I stopped at the Target deli and picked up some sushi and a soy chai latte while I was waiting for my perscrption to be filled. It struck me: my parents would never make that choice. My brothers would never make that choice. But I have had experiences in the world that have led me to see sushi as comfort food.

To them, I may just be a latte sipping, tree hugging, sushi-eating liberal. But you know what. That is who I am. That is what my experiences have led me to become. And my experiences aren’t better than theirs, they are simply different.

How do we explain ourselves though? How do we explain differences in experience without sounding elitist? How do we share our lives without being offensive? I guess fundamentally, you have to start with sharing – and not in the heat of a political season, but after the waters have cooled, I need to take my mom out for sushi and tell her about my friends in Nashville.

glued to the tv

so, for the last two weeks I’ve spent time watching the olympics and now I’m glued to the television watching the democratic national convention. This isn’t a pulpit, so i’m going to take the liberty to share some of my political views =)

i was amazed tonight to see Senator Harkin and former Representative Leech from Iowa standing up there together. I grew up in a family that was full of Republicans, it was all I really knew. And they always talked about Leech – how he was the good guy and Harkin was the bad guy (that’s oversimplifying, but when your 12 that’s how you understand it).

Since then, I changed my own views as I grew up and started to think for myself. I came home and didn’t feel like I could really express myself, at least around my family. I’ve been a big fan of Obama since I first began to hear him speak years ago. And I was very excited by his decision to run for president, mostly because of the values that he is talking about as he talks about change: hope – the belief that dreams can come true, that change can really happen; unity – that we have to work together and listen to one another in order to make things happen; and a grassroots sensibility – that it takes all of us, each and every single one of us to be the kind of country that we dream of.

I was so excited to see those two congressmen stand up there and say that this is not a red or blue issue, but a red, white and blue issue – what is best for our country. It has been great to hear all sorts of ordinary people speaking tonight about how they found the ability to dream again, they found hope again, and as a Christian, I don’t believe that hope is a trite thing.

btw… Michelle Obama’s speech was amazing.

gone

h

I found out yesterday that the house I grew up in burned to the ground.

It was a beautifully constructed old farmhouse. The woodwork was beautiful throughout the entire house, with built-in cabinetry throughout the house – stuff that you just don’t see made any more. Some of the walls had been painted years and years ago and were practically frescos. When I was born, there still wasn’t running water in the house (according to my baby book) and the entire time we lived there, there was no electricity in the upstairs bathroom. It had a beautiful cast iron clawfoot tub and I grew up taking baths in candlelight. We had a woodburning furnace in the house and as kids we would help dad chop wood and toss it into the basement through one of the windows.

My family still owns the property, although no one has lived in the house for eight years. We decided to build a new house and as we moved on with our lives, that house remained as a part of our past. There were no plans to sell the house and so we gradually moved out stuff into our new house – and what we didn’t move, was just left.

We moved right after my senior year of high school, and the new house didn’t quite feel like home yet, so as I prepared to go to college, many of the things that I just didn’t have room to take with me, things from my childhood remained. Books that I had read as a child and then a teenager, scraps of memorobelia, clothes that I had grown out of, but didn’t take the time to sort through and donate.

A few years ago, as I moved into my first apartment in divinity school I went back and got a table and chairs and an old writing desk to take with me. I keep trying to remember if there were other things in the house that were left behind and are now gone.

I always have had so many dreams for that house. While it was beautiful and had so much history, it was a sort of embarassment to me growing up… it always was in the need of repair and more love than we had the time or energy to give it… but I had dreams of someday restoring that house to its original beauty and either living there or turning it into a bed and breakfast or something. It would probably cost a half a million dollars to do so… but still, it was a dream.

I had so many plans this summer, now that we are back in the state, to head over there and sort through things. Throw out what we never intended to keep, find those treasures all over again and give things away. I even had a dream right after we had the tornados north of us that this same house had been completely wiped out by a tornado – and I woke up with the same regret and emptiness that I have today. I think I might have done something about that feeling, but with all of the flooding that hit a week later, there just wasn’t time. I needed to be in other places, with other people.

All of that is now gone. My husband and I stopped by to see what remains. The charred ruins smouldered still. All that was recognizeable was the stone foundation and the porch that was right below my window. I sometimes used to sit on the roof of the porch – careful to avoid the weak spots. But not anymore.

Who is Missing

Last week while on vacation,  I got to spend a lot of time with my neice and nephew.  My neice is three and my nephew is almost seven years old.  And whenever you spend so much time around little ones, you are guaranteed to hear the cutests and darndest things.

As we began to make our long journey back home, our car pulled out onto the highway right behind a logging truck with eight foot, freshly cut logs piled high in the back. 

We pointed out the logs to my neice, who immediately wanted to know why the trees broke.  We tried to explain that they had been cut down, but her only response was, “tell me the truth, guys!”

We went on to share how those tress would be made into things like toothpicks and tables and paper, but after every explanation, every description that seemed completely logical to our adult minds, she looked at us, with a face of pure unbelieve and shouted back, “That’s not true!  Tell me the truth, guys!”

Her little mind hasn’t yet formed the connections between a tree growing in the forest and the paper she colors on every day.  The ability for one thing to become another isn’t a concept she can comprehend yet. And so she thought we were all lying to her.  Me, her huncle, her father, all of us.  And it only got worse the more we laughed and smiled – not because we were fibbing, but because of how adorable she was.

My neice didn’t believe us because she couldn’t yet, but there are times in our lives when we have something deeply true and important to share and when no one believes us it can be very painful and frustrating.  As we explore both of our scritpures this morning, we fill find both those who don’t believe and also the longing to include them on this journey of faith.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans this is more obvious.  He writes to his fellow Israelites – those who have grown up reading the same scriptures – who understand the same prophecies – to those whom God has chosen – and Paul is in anguish over the fact that his brothers and sisters of Israel don’t believe him. No matter how many times he shares his store, they don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah they have been waiting for.  But still, Paul never gives up and keeps writing to them, trying to share what he has found.  And he keeps praying and rusting in God’s promises to Israel, to us all.

In our gospel lesson this morning, the unbelieving ones anre a bit harder to find.  When Jesus needs some time away – som rest and a space to grieve the death of his friend, John the Baptist, he tries to leave quietly in the morning.  But the crowds of followers watch his every move and they all gather together at his destination before he even arrives.

Now – having just been on vacation, I can assure you – as much as I love all of you – if you had journeyed up to Northern Wisconsin and were waiting beside my cabin when I pulled up last week – I might have been pretty upset.  I probably would have ordered you all back hom, or I might have hopped back in the car and tried to find a better hiding place.

In any case – I don’t know that I could have mustered up the compassion that Jesus had for all of those men, women and children who had journeyed out to that deserted place to be with him.

So moved was Jesus that he spent all day moving among the crowds and healing those who were sick.  He set aside his own plans for the day, his own need to grieve, and he ministered to their needs.

After hours upon hours of these acts of sacrifice, mercy, and compassion, his tired disciples come up to Jesus and begged him to send everybody home.

“There is no food here,” they cried.

“It’s hours past supper time”

“My blood sugar is running low,” they chimed in.

“My tummy is rumbling.” 

“Send everyone back to the towns so that they – and we – can get some food!”

I can just picture the mischevious, knowing smile that comes across Jesus’ face as he responds, “No need to send them away – you give them something to eat!”

Because, you see, Jesus already knows the disciples are thinking about scaricty – about how little they have -the few loaves of bread and fishes they brought with them that morning for a meager lunch they didn’t have time to eat.  And Jesus knew that what sometimes looks tiny and insignificant can be full of life and life abundant.

So in front of all of those people, all of those faithful crowds who followed Christ into the wilderness, he took the bread of his disciples, blessed the bread and broke it, then gave it to his closest followers so that they could serve the many.

All of those who gathered to see Jesus – to hear him speak and maybe ever tho be healed – got so much more than they were bargaining for that day.  They didn’t just catch a glimpse of Christ and spend some time at his feet… they caught a glimpse of the last supper.  They got a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.  They witnessed a radical outpouring of life and generosity and abundance like hadn’t been seen since the days of the prophets or since Israel journeyed in the wilderness and the people were fed by manna from heaven. 

All who were gathered there ate and were filled.  Filled with life, filled with hope, filled with the love of Christ, who shared himself with them in the breaking of the bread.

Now all of that is well and good, but like Paul Harvey – I want to know “the rest of the story.”  You see, in the “rest of the story” my mind sees unbelieers.  In the rest of the story, I feel my heart breaking like Paul’s because I think about all of those people who didn’t show up, who stayed home to mow the lawn, who didn’t think they were worthy or welcome, who were too sick to come. 

I think about all of those people today who don’t believe God is real, who can’t understand that God loves them and who live their lives empty of that reality.  I think about them and I understand Paul’s frustration.

And you know what, I re-live that feeling each month when we gather around this communion table.  I re-live that pain and longing because I know that there is enough here:

enough bread and enough juice
enough love and enough grace
for all to come and be filled.

There is more than enough here, and yet there are many who won’t taste this meal today.

Maybe they are family members who are too busy for church.  Maybe they are co-workers that you have never thought to invite.  Maybe it’s the person down the street who lives along and longs for a place to belong… but who doesn’t know we exist.

Each time we gather around the communion table, I have asked you to look around and notice who is not with us. It is not a typical part of the litany – but something that one of my pastor’s shared with me that really rocked my world.

Before that, the communion table was about my own personal relationship with God – it was a private act done in a public place.  But then, I realiced that this is a table set not just for me, or even just for those in this room, but this is a table set for all.  Everyone is welcome here.  Everyone will be fed here – if only they are able to gather around the table.

I want us to take a few minutes this morning to think about “who is missing” more seriously.  Who in your life, who in this community, is NOT gathered with us or other people of faith around the table?

Here are some slips of paper and I want to invite you to prayerfully write down the name of someone you know, someone you want to invite to join us on this journey.  I also ask you to include your name, so that together you and I can reach out to that person or family.  When we take the offering after the message, place those names in the offering plate.

My prayer is that when we gather agian around this table next month, that some of those people for whom our hearts break might be able to share in this amazing feast with us.

Over the next few weks we will explore ways to share the love we have experienced with each of these people.  Some may simply come and are eager for the invitation.  But we might find that there are others to which we have to go – to take the church to them – to gather around other tables in other places.  But let us remember that Paul never gave up on his message – and while people may not believe us or won’t come at first, God does and through his power others will too.