The Mad Preacher Liberation Front

My Response to Perry's "Strong" Commercial

2011-12-09T14:21:00.001-05:00

I was trying to think of an appropriate response to Rick Perry's most recent commercial, and consequently wrote this facebook status a couple hours ago. It's getting a lot of traction over there, so I thought I might as well share it with the rest of the world on here:

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong with the body of Christ when the good news of God's overwhelming love and desire to be in relationship with us is leveraged, not to liberate and reconcile the world, but to stir up fear and resentment in pursuit of political gain.

Happy Holidays everyone! Some day when I'm not swamped with homework I will get back to blogging. :)

Because Stormtroopers Are People Too

2011-11-18T21:26:00.001-05:00

I also don't want to lose track of this awesome project. A brilliant photographer doing family style portraits of the Dark Side, one photo a day for every day of the year (click here to go to her flickr account and scroll through the others).

Breaking Open the Conversation

2011-11-18T21:18:00.001-05:00

Still behind in pretty much everything (school, life, blogging) but sticking this here for a wider audience. I posted a link to this HuffPo article about the Kardashian debacle on my facebook page, and an old high school friend of mine commented, "Why rejoice in anyone's failed marriage?"

It was a fair question, and here is what I wrote in response (his name has been changed to protect the innocent):

John, I don't rejoice in anyone's failed marriage. I do lament what I see as a grave injustice, that someone who has such obvious disrespect for marriage is nevertheless legally allowed to keep making a mockery of marriage (and to make a crapload of money ON her mockery of it), while my LGBT brothers and sisters are (in most places) legally denied the ability to marry, and so must fight and scrape and go to great personal expense to pull together a very fragile system of support and protection and acknowledgment of their relationship. At its best this is still a fraction of the kind of support and protection and acknowledgment that Ms. Kardashian is granted by default. . .sacred relationship, support, protection, and acknowledgment which she has - twice now - casually thrown away.

I do not rejoice in the failure of her marriages. But I will rejoice if her continued mockery of marriage breaks open the conversation about what is just, and what respect for marriage truly looks like, and I will rejoice if breaking open that conversation ultimately helps secure justice, support, and protection for those who DO hold marriage sacred but are categorically denied participation in that gift.

Peace to you, brother. And thanks for pushing back with your question.

Subway Star Wars

2011-11-07T23:11:00.002-05:00

I'm way behind here, I've got several posts I want to write, but this was too awesome, it had to be put up immediately.

Oh, how I love New York. And Improv troupes.

Something New Every Day

2011-10-22T01:39:00.000-04:00

Things I did not know before tonight:

1. Copland interjected "Fanfare for the Common Man"(which he had written 2-3 years prior) into the last movement of his 3rd Symphony.

2. Jorja Fleezanis left the Minnesota Orchestra. 2 years ago (guess I'm a little behind the times). For as long as I can remember going to orchestra concerts, she had been the concertmaster - I was actually sad when she didn't come out to tune the orchestra tonight. :(

Why It's Good I Have a Strong Inner Monologue

2011-10-12T20:23:00.000-04:00

Our class led chapel today. Dr. Keifert was the preacher and I was the presider.

The thing about liturgy is: it takes a lot of focus and mental energy to lead well, you are always thinking two or three steps ahead of the assembly while simultaneously being present in the moment and making it all look smooth and effortless.

The other thing about liturgy is: it is a lot easier to sustain the kind of focus required when one is in a regular rhythm of leading.

And the thing about liturgy in this particular context: leading it at Luther is a bit nerve-wracking. In theory it shouldn't be - as a place full of pastors-in-training it should be a place where people are free to flounder and fail on their way to refining these skills. But in reality it is a place full of pressure to perform at the peak of one's game.

Part of that pressure comes from my own inner perfectionist wanting to "get the A" from my peers and professors, especially since I'm no longer a pastor-in-training but have been a real live pastor for a number of years now. But part of the pressure is definitely embedded in the system - if there were 50 people in the congregation here today, I can guarantee there were probably 55 opinions on how to properly preside over communion. ;)

Anyway, I was presiding today. And though I got back into a regular rhythm of presiding this summer when I was covering for Jen, I hadn't led worship since the end of July. I was a bit rusty going in this morning, which only served to amplify the anxiety of leading in this context.

I was also tired, having spent most of yesterday traveling back from the East Coast, and had a sinus headache due to the change in weather.

And the service was running long. As I walked back up to the chancel at the end of the peace, Dr. Keifert whispered to me "We need to move it along."

So as I approached the altar to begin the communion liturgy, I was trying to pick up the pace while remaining articulate in an echoey room and also not appear to be racing through the liturgy. I was also trying to remember to say "new testament" instead of "new covenant" in the words of institution, as that would tie directly to what Dr. K said in his sermon.

I made it through all that just fine.

But at the end of it, I completely forgot to lead us into the Lord's Prayer.

The congregation knew it, they didn't sit down the first time I gestured for them to sit down.

I still hadn't realized my mistake so gestured again, that time they sat.

I realized my mistake after communion was over, when I finally flipped the page in the leader book and saw, not the post-communion blessing that I expected, but the Lord's Prayer staring back at me.

This is why it's good I have a strong inner monologue because inside my head I went "Oh SH*T!" Thankfully that didn't also come out my mouth and into the rockstar microphone wrapped around my ear.

I was completely embarrassed, I'm sure my ears flushed as red as my hair through the close of the service.

Despite the glaringly obvious flub, several friends and professors were kind enough to compliment my presence up front and gracious enough to chuckle about the mistake as a good reminder of our imperfect humanity.

I used to joke about this in the parish, but the kindness of these others affirmed it once again today: it seems a decent voice and a pretty pectoral cross will cover a plethora of liturgical sins. :)

How Many Graduate Degrees. . .

2011-09-30T17:02:00.002-04:00

does it take to print a label?

Believe me when I tell you, you do not want to know.

Religion geeks we are.

Computer geeks we are not.

So very, very not.

:)

It's Always 20/20

2011-09-30T16:55:00.002-04:00

The Best Musician You've Probably Never Heard Of

2011-09-18T00:04:00.003-04:00

is Peter Mulvey.

I discovered him by accident when I was living in Pennsylvania. I was at a Borders and trying to use one of those music preview machines - I thought it was the kind where you scanned the barcode of a CD you were interested in and it would play what was on it. Turned out to be the kind where there are 5 or 6 featured CDs loaded into the machine and you pick from those what you want to listen to.

So I scanned the CD I was holding and the computer defaulted to the first CD in its memory, Peter's The Knuckleball Suite. And I was like, "This isn't what I scanned but this is really good!" So I bought it instead of what was in my hand.

I told Peter that story tonight at the merch table after his gig at Gingko Coffeehouse, and he gave me a high five. :)

In all seriousness, though - I have yet to hear this man sing a song (original or cover) that I didn't like. His lyrics are smart and funny and profound, and he is one of the most skilled and most versatile guitar players I've ever heard or seen. And his stage banter is hilarious.

Plus, the dude's on a bicycle tour. He rode 70 miles today, then performed an amazing show tonight. Most impressive.

He's touring with Brianna Lane, another excellent musician, and she's local! If you're in the Twin Cities, you've got one day left to see them, at Calhoun Cycle tomorrow afternoon, or The Aster Cafe in Northeast tomorrow night.

Here's a couple youtube vids to demonstrate your need to go!

Shirt

Simon Stimson

10 Years Ago, Part Two

2011-09-11T22:06:00.007-04:00

. . .looking back, the me that woke up the morning of September 11 seems so charmingly naieve - I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined the horrendous crash and burn that was about to happen, not only in New York, but in my own life.

I was up early. I had an 8 am class, which I typically tried to avoid, but it couldn't be helped that semester.

Pauline Epistles with Dr. Craig Koester.

That's where I was when it happened.

Blissfully oblivious.

I don't remember which epistle Koester was lecturing on that day.

I do remember the second class was over, Dr. Diane Jacobson calmly walked in to the room and somberly told us "There has been a terrorist attack on the United States, airplanes have been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. It is not certain whether there are other planes or what their targets may be. We are gathering in the chapel."

WHAT?

I went to chapel. I don't remember exactly what we said and did. . .a lot of praying, and speaking and singing lament psalms, I think.

My memories of the day are like that - certain things are crystal clear, while others are vague and hazy.

I do remember - clearly - it felt like time slowed down and the day would never end.

I was supposed to go to God, Evil, and Suffering next.

Ha.

But my neighbor Dana was expecting her cousin Sebastian to land later that day, coming to visit from Germany. But everything had been shut down, and who's to say where he was? And Dana didn't speak German. I went and explained the situation to Drs. Sponheim and Fretheim, and they said, by all means, go help your friend find her cousin.

His plane was halfway over the Atlantic Ocean when the pilot abruptly announced the United States had closed its borders and its airspace, they were turning around for Europe immediately.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for him to hear that, sitting on that plane, halfway through a long journey he'd been planning and looking forward to for months. I would have asked myself, "What do you mean, they closed the borders? WTH is happening on the ground?"

But at least he was safe, and made it back to his family alright.

From there I must have eaten something for lunch, though I doubt I had an appetite. And I must have finished out the very full day of class, with Lutheran Confessions, and Preaching. . .but honestly those parts of the day are also fuzzy.

I was working for Pilgrim Lutheran at the time, and they pulled together a prayer vigil that evening. I do remember going to that.

And I distinctly remember yelling at God the entire drive to the church: "Where were you? Where ARE you? Do you not care that we are perishing? Do you not understand what this means. . .with THIS President in particular at the helm?. . ."

I distinctly remember praying for our enemies at the service, because I could not fathom what kind of hell a person must live in, day in and day out, that would lead them to see such a suicide mission as their best and only way forward.

I distinctly remember all the hope and joy of the summer being sucked completely out of me in a matter of moments, as if a Dementor had followed Dr. Jacobson into the room, then grabbed hold and followed me out of it.

For me, September 11 was the beginning of a year of absolute hell, and an epically dark night of the soul. That journey was long, and is a story for another day.

Today in her sermon, Jen asked us, 10 years later, where do we find hope?

Which was a hard question because over the past few months, the devolving state of various situations in the world, which we never seem to gain traction on, have left me feeling increasingly hopeless and fearing we are, collectively, hell-bent on getting to a Fahrenheit 451/Clockwork Orange kind of world as fast as we possibly can.

Perhaps my old Dementor has been lingering a little too close lately, but I really had to think about this question.

I decided - I find hope in the people who choose life, who live life abundantly, who relentlessly rebuild this world even as others actively tear it down.

And I find hope in the God who continues to create beauty and truth and goodness, even out of the chaos and the rubble.

I give thanks to God for both Jen and Jeni, two of the saints in my life who give me hope, and for the brilliant sermons they each preached this morning.

And I leave you with this prayer, which we sang in worship today (though I thank another hopeful saint, Choral Girl, for this particular link):

10 Years Ago, Part One

2011-09-10T11:17:00.005-04:00

10 years ago I spent the summer in Dresden. The Fund for Theological Education was kind enough to give me a large scholarship with very few strings attached. "Do something that will enhance your ministry and then tell us about it" they said.

So I went abroad, took classes at the Goethe Institut during the week, and bummed around Lutherland on the weekends. Though I had been abroad before, it was my first time truly living abroad for an extended period of time.

It was an awesome experience. I liked Germany before, but that summer I fell in love with it. I loved how easy it was to go pretty much anywhere on public transit; I loved how ecologically conscious they were; I loved how walking, cycling, or taking the tram was the default mode of operation; I loved broetchen for breakfast everyday; I loved the little hole-in-the-wall doner stand down the street from the school; I loved the tasty senf at the beer garden where we'd have our weekly Stammtisch; I loved the gelato cafe on the Neustadt side of the Augustbruecke; I loved the Semper Oper and the Zwinger gallery; I loved the noise car tires made as they rolled over cobblestone streets; I loved that church bells rang to announce the noon hour; and though it took a period of adjustment I came to love that you were expected to bring your own bags to the grocery store, and that most stores would be closed by 6 pm every night and always on Sundays; I loved that people would spend Sunday afternoons with friends and family, relaxing at home or out hiking or touring or something.

I loved my class at the Goethe Institut too - our teacher, Ute, was fantastic, and I loved the diversity in the room, with students from France, Romania, Libya, China, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. - I feel like there were even more countries represented (and certainly among the whole institut there were more) but these are the only ones I can remember right now. In any case, it felt like we were this mini-UN, working together to learn and understand this language and culture that was not our own, sharing things about our own cultures in the process.

When class ended I joined up with some German and Slovak friends (including Adri) to go hiking in the High Tatras mountains, an incredible way to cap an incredible summer.

It was a summer that filled me with such hope for the world - that if our little microcosms of national diversity could learn from and learn with each other, and work together so effectively to reach common goals, then certainly we as a richly diverse global body of humanity could get there too.

I had a hard time with cultural readjustment upon my return. I was cranky and frustrated with Minnesota for all the ways it failed to be Germany. I was (as I always am) sad for saying goodbye to Adri and not knowing the next time we'd get to see each other. And I was wrestling with some deep vocational issues - I had been a reluctant seminarian to begin with, and certain things about the summer had me seriously questioning whether I should really be a pastor.

I went to bed the night of September 10 thinking these were the greatest of my problems. Despite my frustrations, I was still so enthralled by the winds of that summer - the view they had allowed me, the incredible ride they had provided me - that I was completely oblivious to how close they had carried me to the sun. . .

Fruitful Prejudices

2011-09-10T00:17:00.009-04:00

Let's face it, I'm a good card-carrying progressive, when it comes to most "ists" in my life, I'm trying to actively deconstruct them. I strive to become ever more mindful of the ways that I am racist and classist and elitist, etc, etc, etc, so that I can work on NOT being those things so much as I currently am, so that we can all live in a little bit better world.

However, there are two "ists" in my life of which I am fully aware, completely unashamed, and have no intention of changing, ever.

I am unabashedly statist and unabashedly collegist.

There are a lot of lovely places, filled with a lot of lovely people, all throughout the rest of the world - I have thoroughly enjoyed both visiting and even living in these spectacular places.

But there is no state greater than Minnesota.

Similarly, there are a lot of fine institutions of higher learning in the world - I have a lot of friends who are exemplary graduates of these upstanding schools.

But there is no college greater than St. Olaf.

I mean, where else on this planet would they creatively set the academic expectations to The Sound of Music and enlist professors from multiple disciplines to sing it to you?

Fram, fram, baby.

PA Pictures and Songs

2011-09-09T23:11:00.003-04:00

Van Wagner is my favorite Central Susquehanna Valley musician. He's one of the best guitar players I've ever heard, he's a mensch who has both mined coal and logged timber and is now a public educator, and he's steeped in the folk and singer-songwriter traditions, with a beautiful way of telling a story in a song.

He's written a lot of great songs, but I think my favorite is probably "If Time Could Stand Alone" (on the album with the same title), because of the way he sings about living your whole life as a prayer (you can buy it on iTunes).

He's been awfully busy lately, sandbagging, and taking pictures, and writing and recording songs about the flood:

. . .Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

Prayers for Central PA

2011-09-08T10:15:00.003-04:00

Hurricane Agnes devastated the Central Susquehanna Valley in 1972, for the people who lived through it, "The Flood" is seared in their memory, as vivid as though it happened yesterday.

Tropical Storm Lee is currently stalled out over the Mid-Atlantic, and the comparisons to Agnes keep building.

Flood sirens have gone off in Lewisburg - in the five years I lived there I never once heard a flood siren, though we had several bouts of flooding and closed streets, especially down by the river. Bucknell, which is a residential campus, not only cancelled class but pretty much shut down and is apparently evacuating 800-some students out of the dorms. Hwy 15 was closed for a while due to flooding, I'm hoping from the creek I used to live by, because if the river has gotten that wide they are in trouble.

Be safe out there, my central Pennsylvania and western New York friends. Know that you are in a lot of thoughts and hearts and prayers!

She's Ready For Her Closeup Mr. DeMille

2011-09-07T22:26:00.004-04:00

The bambino LOVES getting her photo taken. It is virtually impossible to get a candid image of her because she hears the camera turn on or focus, and she turns her head and smiles. She's done that to me even when we were in a coffee shop and she was busy concentrating on walking up a few stairs and I was on the other side of the room, still she heard my camera and looked up and smiled.

Of course, between Grammie and Grampie, Nana and Pa, Aunties Trina and EJ, and Auntie C, she kind of has her own personal cadre of paparazzi, we may have inadvertently encouraged the development of this camera-loving behavior. :)

And ironically, the one time she really did not want her picture taken was when they took a family portrait for the church directory. Breen and Patrick look absolutely lovely but the bambino is a complete grumpy gus in that photo, nothing they tried could get her to smile for it.

In any case, Patrick did a big and epic wedding this past weekend (groom is a fire chief, the extensive wedding party rode to the reception in a caravan of firetrucks), and as it was a family their whole family knew well, Breen and bambino went to the wedding and festivities too.

Apparently, the bambino became quite upset that she was not included in the official wedding photos - after all, everybody she knows loves taking her picture, and she loves having her picture taken, so clearly she should be in all these photos, and these silly people weren't letting her be in any of them! She got so upset, Breen finally had to take her out of the church and drive her around in the car until she fell asleep!

I'm cracking up imagining her inner monologue at that point: "Must stay awake. . .must be in pictures. . .but getting so. . .sleepy. . .car. . .you are. . .evil. . . .can't. . .fight. . . .the nap. . . . .any--zzzzzz"

Not to worry, bambino. This member of your entourage will see you soon enough, and I will more than make up for the lack of picture taking this past weekend. I'm sure I'll even let you run around with my camera again, because we both know you've had me wrapped around your little pinky since the day you were born. :)

Note To Self

2011-09-05T22:32:00.003-04:00

Dear Catrina,

We know it's the end of the summer.

We know you like to delude yourself into thinking we're more used to the sun by now and don't need so much protection.

This is most erroneous logic.

We also know you're part Italian.

But we didn't get those particular genes.

So please repeat after us: SPF 50 or higher, on every part of us that's exposed, every time you're going to be outside for more than 15 minutes, especially in the middle of the day.

Capisce?

Now, go find the aloe.

Love,
Your Skin

On a Stiiick, Day Four

2011-09-05T20:12:00.005-04:00

I was 90% sure I was going to use that extra ticket today, and then last night I found out Jeni and Colin were in town and were going to the Fair today, so that sealed the deal.

We began with a malt

and the Princess Kay butter sculptures in the Dairy Building (surprisingly - something I hadn't done in my previous three trips).

From there we were all over the place, but it was fun to introduce them to parts of the Fair they had never explored, like the Wildlife Walk in the DNR building

and the newspaper museum in Heritage Square (no pics of that, sorry).

We took the Sky Ride, and Colin told us a story about when he was 7 and had gone to the Fair with his mom and his two younger brothers. They got on the Sky Ride but it got stuck and they ended up suspended in the air in this small little gondola for 3 hours!!! He was like, "I think they must have added these mesh screens later, because I distinctly remember dropping pennies and suckers and stuff out the window."

We also discovered while waiting in line for the Sky Ride that Colin grew up down the street from my great-grandma, once again proving it's a small, small Lutheran world. That kind of stuff just fascinates me - how many times might he and I have crossed paths as kids - and then as young adults we even went to the same college and seminary, but he was just enough younger than me that we had no overlap either place - so we didn't really know each other or become friends until we were somewhat older young adults. Crazy.

But I digress. . .it was an awesome last day at my happy place, made even happier by the chance to catch up with these good friends. I think we're all thinking a Ciccone-Grangaard Fair Day needs to become a tradition. :)

This closing picture is for Eileen, who - tragically - did not make it to MN for the Fair this year. She put in a request that someone eat some mini-donuts for her. We were more than happy to oblige.

So long, my happy place, and thanks for another great year! I'll see you again next August!

We Carry Each Other

2011-09-04T14:05:00.004-04:00

At 100 years young, Katherine is the oldest member of our congregation. Despite dealing with some health issues of her own the past week, she managed to knit a newborn cap for our newest and youngest member, the wee 11 day old Naomi, who is feistily hanging on in the NICU, having arrived 11 weeks early.

This morning's offering included the little knit cap, sealed in a baggie so it didn't pick up a bunch of contagion that could compromise little Naomi's still developing immune system. When it was time for the offering prayer, Jen came and stood in the midst of us and we all placed a hand on either the cap or our neighbor's shoulder, and we blessed the cap, giving thanks for both Katherine and Naomi, and praying for health and wholeness for the both of them. . .it was a powerful moment.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my church?

On a Stiiick, Day Three

2011-09-03T23:49:00.007-04:00

Today was my third day at the Happiest Place on Earth - this time again with Maminka, family friend Sharon, my Aunt Terri, my cousin Liz, her boyfriend Trav, and their little guy Jayden.

We did crepes for breakfast this morning - I opted for banana and nutella. . .hmmm, nutella.

As soon as we finished Jayden wanted to go on the Giant Slide - good man! I've been waiting all week for someone to go on that with me.

We finally got to the lower end of grounds - the DNR building (this was also a hoot with Jayden, especially seeing how many animals we could spot and identify in the wildlife wing), the Miracle of Birth center and the regular barns, and Heritage Square.

Speaking of barns, I am always way more amused by this than I should be, but why are the two options for keeping sheep's wool clean between making them members of the klan

or enrolling them in a jazzercise class?

We went back over a lot of other territory we covered on Tuesday as well, but I never catch everything in those buildings the first time through, so that was good. Indiana Jayden bought a cool lasso to go with his fedora (the hat was at home)

We tried two new (to us) Fair foods today: deep fried pickles [NOT my idea; conclusion: meh, no desire to ever eat it again], and the deep fried apple pie with cinnamon ice cream [looks and tastes better than it sounds - basically like an apple pie turnover, this one WAS my idea; conclusion: muy yum (you know it's got to be good if it's palindromically yummy!), now on the list of things that must be had at the fair every year]. Plus, their booth has awesome signage:

Alas, all too soon it was once again time to leave. I do have a spare ticket in my hot little hands, but I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to use it before it all disappears for another year.

Incidentally, this pouty face is remarkably similar to the one the bambino gives me on the very rare occasions that I don't let her play with my camera:

On a Stiiick, Day Two

2011-09-03T23:14:00.007-04:00

Second Day at the Fair was Thursday afternoon into evening with Dad. Brenda was supposed to join us but she had a sore ankle and didn't think she could handle all that walking. So it was just pop and I.

We started by taking a picture with all my boyfriends. :)

Then we did a lot of walking around outside and people watching while Dad smoked a cigar and checked out the man-toys on Machinery Hill.

We did take the Sky Ride and got the cow car!

Unbelievably, this was Dad's first ever trip on this thing. He doesn't like heights, and even though we were enclosed it was still a little too high for his comfort, so it was probably also his last trip on the sky ride. :)

We ended with the Midway, which looked especially pretty during the "magic hour."

Also, in some live Twins blogging: Twins are full of illness and injury again and playing a very thin bench, Duensing gives up a grand slam in the bottom of the first, goes out with a strained oblique in the second, despite all of this Twins miraculously manage to tie things up, 6-6, by the top of the fourth, and then Gardy puts Dumatrait in? Followed by Mijares?

Is their death wish as strong and unavoidable as a tractor beam on the Death Star? Are they writing the book for a new musical, "How to Utterly Fail at Baseball While Really Really Trying"? Will this abysmal season ever end?

Thank God for Modern Medicine

2011-09-01T23:55:00.002-04:00

Some friends from church have had quite the ride this past week, as their firstborn shocked everyone by arriving 11 weeks early.

You can follow the journey of this wee Menk and her parents here. If you are a praying type, I'm sure they'd appreciate your spiritual support.

All I can say is - thanks be to God for the miracles of modern medicine and the excellent staff at both Abbott and Children's Hospitals! And welcome to the world, little Naomi Marie - we are so glad you are here!

On a Stiiiick, Day One

2011-08-30T22:21:00.006-04:00

We walked in through the main gate this morning, I took in a deep breath, smiled, and breathed out "Hello my happy place, it's good to see you again." Maminka just laughed and shook her head.

Today was our old St. Mark group day - PL and Dave, Don and Anita, Maminka and myself.

We began with the breakfast of champions: a pronto pup. I'm actually kind of embarrassed about that, but I overslept and was running a little late, and consequently hadn't eaten anything before I left to meet up with Mom, Don, and Anita at the park and ride. So I was really really hungry by the time we got to the Fair, and Don was hungry too, and he loves pronto pups, and. . .well. . .I too ate a deep fried batter-dipped hot dog for breakfast, I admit it.

Then we walked to the other end of the fairgrounds and ate the true breakfast of champions, the grilled porkchop on a stick:

Seriously, we discovered this completely by accident a few years ago, but if you start your Fair day with all that protein, you don't hit the wall in the middle of the afternoon or suddenly sugar crash in the early evening. I highly recommend it.

Then we made our way over to the horticulture building to meet up with Linda and Dave. Of course, as long as we were there, we had to get a dish of honey sunflower ice cream.

We covered quite a bit of ground today but there is still a lot left to do and see - never made it anywhere close to the DNR building, the Midway, the barns, or Heritage Square. Good thing I'm going back a couple more times!

A couple highlights from what we did see today:

The coolest thing I saw in the Creative Arts building was this huge tinker toy display that looked like the Midway

Look at the detail, I love these Tilt-a-Whirl cars!

The best thing I saw in the Art Show was this painting

It's a still life of a bowl of potatoes on top of a newspaper opinion page, the headline of which is about Minnesota's poor, and the picture in the paper

is Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters." I believe the title of this painting in the show was "Vincent" - I found it very clever - poignant and political at the same time.

Finally, this picture is for Adri

because she is currently sitting in Dresden impaling homemade pickles so she can pretend she is eating them here with us instead. You should know we ate not merely one but TWO of these ginormous pickles in your honor today, and we missed you and Burki something fierce.

Take Me Out With the Crowd

2011-08-28T17:46:00.008-04:00

Nana and Pa went to visit the bambino a couple weeks ago. Auntie C was the designated airport shuttler and cat caretaker while they were away. As a thank you, they took me to the ballpark yesterday. My not-so-secret crush was on the bench

as was Cuddy, but Justin and Danny were both playing, so that made me happy.

We had amazing seats

not that there's a bad seat in the house, really, but these seats were particularly sweet. :)

We lost, but what else is new? It was at least an interesting game and - funnily enough - right at the top of the 5th Nana said "Ok fellas, hit a home run now, let's get something going here." And then Hughes and Repko hit back-to-back homers to start the inning!

In a pleasant surprise, my friend Erik sang the national anthem for us

(dude, I thought you were moving out of the state. . .does this mean I'm going to see you at InVocation rehearsal this week?)

And, for the second time this season my old debate coach and I were at the same game and didn't know it until we were both posting about it on facebook after the fact. One of these days, Sunne, we'll figure these things out ahead of time so we can catch up in person at the game!

The Play So Nice I Saw it Twice

2011-08-24T22:57:00.003-04:00

Kristin is about to move to Princeton to start a PhD in Old Testament, so she's making the rounds of her Twin Cities goodbyes this week. We were originally planning to just hang out today around/after lunchtime but then she heard the Guthrie was taping the H.M.S. Pinafore for public television this afternoon and was looking for for an audience to fill the house. So, we did that instead.

And I have to say, I wish to retract my previous criticism of the new orchestration - it totally didn't bother me today. But I could also clearly hear all the words to all the songs today. So either something was off with the balance in the sound system when I went to see this back in June, or I was previously sitting in a dead spot for the speakers (in June I was sitting in the center of the balcony; today we were five rows up from the bottom of the slope).

I also want to reiterate - the whole company and production is fantastic, but Robert O. Berdahl and Christina Baldwin are both especially worthy of a shout out, he for his facial gymnastics (which was a treat to see up close this time), she for her incredible vocal range, both of them for their comedic timing.

It closes on August 28, which means you've got less than a week left to see it, folks. Get thee to the Thrust Stage.

Arguments I Don't Hear Much Part 2

2011-08-22T00:36:00.007-04:00

The gospel lesson this morning reminded me that I had not yet written this post. To refresh your brains, part 1 was the political argument. This part is the biblical/religious argument.

So, one of the major critiques often launched against "liberal" positions on homosexuality within the church is that those who hold such opinions are antinomian (aka anti-law). Because Leviticus and Romans and yadda yadda yadda all clearly state this is wrong, so if you want to say it's not wrong you clearly just want to torch the Bible and dance on its grave. Or (less dramatically, and perhaps more nerve-wracking) you're setting up your own arbitrary criteria for what we follow and what we don't, and (this is the real concern) where will it stop? If you're wiling to "pitch" some parts of the Bible, whats to stop you from pitching the whole thing?

This is a very "brick wall" mentality regarding the Bible - every "brick" (verse) has equal size, weight, and value, and is rock solid, not flexible at all - and the fear is if you punch out enough bricks you compromise the integrity and stability of the whole structure.

A lot of people have this understanding of the Bible. But it's not the only way to think about it. A contrasting image is that of a trampoline, and thinking of the verses as the springs that hold it together. You can take a few springs out of a trampoline and it will still function, but more importantly, springs have give, they are flexible.

(we interrupt this post to give props to Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, because that's who I'm stealing these images from - if you haven't read this book yet, you should)

Now before anybody gets all "You're pulling springs out of the trampoline? That's antinomian!" on me, please let me clarify that I'm NOT pulling springs out of the trampoline, and I'm not advocating that anybody else should either. I AM advocating that we should all be thinking of Bible verses as more like springs and less like bricks.

And I advocate that in part because that's kind of what we'd been doing for centuries. The law has never been so black and white, so cut and dried, as some folks like to make it out to be. You'd think something like "Thou shalt not steal" would be, but there are volumes of rabbinic debates and commentary as to when this law is bound and when this law is loosed.

Let me explain: let's say you are walking along and you spot a $100 bill on the ground. If you pick it up, is that stealing? It depends, say the rabbis. If you just pick it up and put it in your pocket without making any effort to look around and seek out who may have dropped it, then the law is bound, and yes, you are stealing from your neighbor. But if you make every good faith effort to return the money to its rightful owner and cannot find them no matter how hard you try, then the law is loosed, you may keep the money and you are not breaking the commandment.

This is a broad generalization of the kinds of reflection and rabbinic debate that would happen all the time. In reality it would go much deeper and in greater detail, but hopefully with this small example you get the picture.

Jesus himself was steeped in this tradition. In fact, we see him engaging in it in Matthew 12 when the Pharisees come after him and the disciples for plucking grain (aka doing work) on the Sabbath, a clear violation of their cut and dried understanding of the third commandment, to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Jesus counters with arguments as to why the law in this case should be loosed, and like a good case lawyer, he even cites historical precedent (King David, no less).

(we interrupt this post once again to give props to Mark Allan Powell's How Lutherans Interpret the Bible, because that's who I'm stealing these examples from - if you haven't yet watched this DVD series, you should)

Ok, so what does all this have to do with arguments you don't hear much and the gospel from this morning?

Namely this: in this morning's gospel, Jesus gives the church the power to bind and to loose. My Catholic brothers and sisters interpret this passage as giving only Peter and Peter's successors (aka the Popes) this authority, but we Protestants interpret it more broadly as the body of Christ, the church, having this power.

And we've used it. Repeatedly. I love ham and pork and bacon, others love shrimp and lobster, and we all eat these things freely because collectively the body of Christ decided to loose the Levitical kosher laws. The laws (which are pretty clear cut) are still sitting there in the Bible, no one has thrown those springs out, no one is "against" them, but we have decided they've got give and they are no longer binding upon the community. Similarly, I am a woman who is ordained and regularly speaks in worship, because the part of the body of Christ that is the ELCA collectively decided to loose the "law" in the Pauline letters that forbids women from speaking in church (though I am cognizant that several other members of the body have declared this law is still bound).

To me, it makes logical sense to extend this power to bind and to loose the law to the passages forbidding homosexuality. And to me, that is essentially what certain members of the body (the ELCA among them) have done, declared collectively (if rather contentiously) that these laws are indeed loosed. They are still sitting there, right next to the kosher laws in some instances, we have not thrown them out, but we have decided they are no longer binding.

I don't think that's being antinomian. I also don't think it's such a bad argument. My question is: why do I feel like I'm the only one I ever hear making it? In all the debates I heard leading up to the Churchwide Assembly in 2009, in all the debates I heard on the floor of the 2009 CWA (I volunteered as a page), in all the continued fighting and controversy in the wake of those decisions (in which many who have been leaving have gifted us with parting jabs about abandoning the Bible), I don't recall hearing anybody make this case. And I can't help but wonder why.

Reclaiming the Title

2011-08-22T00:27:00.004-04:00

I think the Twin Cities are gunning to reclaim the title of the most bike-friendly city in the country.

Either that, or a whole new wave of tobacco-lawsuit money just came in.

But has anyone else noticed a bunch of new green Bike Share stations being installed, all over the Cities?

It's a good thing, really, considering it's becoming virtually impossible to get anywhere by car these days.

[seriously, MNDOT, whose brilliant idea was it to work on every major artery between St. Paul and Minneapolis in the same summer, hmmm?]

Then again, maybe that's part of their master plan. . .make driving such a frustrating experience that everyone readily hops on a bicycle instead.

The Danger of a Single Story

2011-08-19T17:31:00.002-04:00

This is fantastic. Hat tip to Mary for the link.

Let the Panic Resume

2011-08-19T16:02:00.005-04:00

I have been maintaining what many would call a ridiculous pace for an entire year: full-time PhD student, working 3 part time jobs, helping out with family stuff (particularly getting grandma to doctor appointments) as I'm able, providing pulpit supply here and there on occasion, helping out at church as I'm able. . .well, you're getting the picture.

This summer the stuff I was doing shifted a bit but the pace remained unrelenting: June was SPSS Hell, half of June and all of July was covering for Jen as she took a six week sabbatical at Holden, two of the four weeks of July were awesomesauce fun but still very busy hosting company from PA, all while still working for LPI and the library.

Then, finally, August. Glorious, glorious August, with very little on my calendar, only LPI and the library to worry about for work, and my Happy Place promising to appear, as it always does, at the end of the month.

I have been relishing August. Relishing the cooler, less humid weather. Relishing the much needed mental break. Relishing the difference between this August and last August, ever mindful and grateful for what I am NOT doing this month - unpacking all my crap and cramming for entrance exams.

Then today I met with Mary to plan the independent study we'll be doing together this fall. We are going to be reading and discussing some really cool stuff on narrative, communal faith formation, and religious education - I am actually quite stoked about it. But I was also a little anxious as I left her office, just remembering how frantic last fall was, and realizing it's all going to start up again in a short couple of weeks.

Then I went to grab some lunch in the cafeteria and Dr. Luedke joined me at the table. He was asking about what I'd filled my summer with once I finished crunching numbers for him, and was wondering about what courses I'm taking this coming fall, pushing me to think about how I could use them to help refine my thesis question and my field research design. I told him about the Sunday school curriculum I'm working on and how I've been thinking that might be a good beta test of a potential action research project. He agreed and suggested I throw together a baseline survey if for nothing else than the practice of writing the survey and testing whether what I think I'm doing is what I'm actually doing. Truly, it was a really good and helpful conversation, but I left lunch with my anxiety turned up just a little higher thinking about incorporating everything we talked about into the coming months.

Then I went to Babylon to visit the bookstore in its current exile. They really culled their collection to help with the move and lack of storage during the exile, so I figured they would have to order half the books Mary and I had just decided upon (my assumption was correct). And as long as I was there I asked "Hey, has Keifert given you a booklist for Theological Hermeneutics yet?" (this would be the other class I'm taking this fall) And they were all like "Yup, here it is."

I seriously almost had a panic attack right there in the middle of the bookstore. It's all really good stuff, authors I am excited to read and discuss, but holy crap is it a long list full of heady thinkers. I went and grabbed all that were in stock and the clerk checking me out was like, "Ooh, you might want to start reading some of these now." Thanks dude, I know.

I keep trying to take deep breaths and remind myself it's going to be better this fall. I won't have the busywork that I was dealing with for one of the classes last year, and I'll only be working two jobs, not three. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deeeeep breaths.

. . .I think I'm gonna go start reading now, bye.

A-Fringing We Will Go

2011-08-14T01:09:00.006-04:00

Today went to see Disney Dethroned, a most excellent one-man show (well, two-men if you count the musician on stage with him). Clever, biting, hilarious, tightly written and performed (if you click through the link and scroll down the page you can watch a small clip of it). The format reminded me of the Creative Expression category in high school speech - like if you gave somebody who was excellent at that an hour to fill, instead of 8 minutes, this would be the kind of thing they would come up with.

This was supposed to be the final performance, but it was the best-selling show at the Mixed Blood venue, so it earned the encore spot tomorrow night (Sunday 8:30 pm). Go see it while you still can!

We went out for ice cream afterwards, and not only was there a parking spot right across the street from Sebastian Joe's* (that never happens) but I pulled off a perfect parallel park (also a rarity, which is why I am always so inordinately pleased with myself when that happens, to the point of needing to brag about it).

*I love how, once you've introduced somebody to the pure deliciousness that is Sebastian Joe's, the lamest, thinnest reasoning will easily persuade them to go back. It starts with "We had a great concert - let's go to Sebastian Joe's!" Then (d)evolves to "That was an awesome play - let's go to Sebastian Joe's!" And pretty soon it's all: "The sun is shining - let's go to Sebastian Joe's!" "The Twins lost that one - let's go to Sebastian Joe's!" "It's a Tuesday - let's go to Sebastian Joe's!" You get the picture. :)

Be Still My Nerdy Heart

2011-08-09T22:58:00.009-04:00

Behold, Hamluke, a mash-up of lit major geekery and Star Wars geekery from the brilliant mind of some genius named Brad. Not only is the play hilarious, well-directed, well-acted, and creatively costumed, it is accompanied by pieces from the original Star Wars score redone with period Shakespearean orchestration. Clearly, the Force is strong in this one. See it you should. Get thee to the Fringe Festival.

Another piece of awesomeness that has come into my life this week: The Muppets. Auf Deutsch.

Of course The Muppet Show would have been dubbed over, the Germans dub everything over. And people these days put anything and everything on youtube. Why didn't I think of this sooner? Behold the treasures waiting to be viewed:

Star Wars und Schweine im Weltall

Shakespeare und Tierklinik

Und am besten: Der Schwedische Koch!

The funny thing is, I can understand the Chef in German better than I can in "English!" The Germans actually made up more dialogue and articulated it enough to make it understandable! [though not being able to understand him in English is half the fun; that, and pistol-weilding lobsters liberating their muchachos!] Here is the turtle soup sketch in English so you can compare.

Vicar of Minneapolis, I love you for making me aware this was out there on the interwebs. Thank you!

Finally to round things out with some good old-fashioned church geekery - I'm working with a group of folks from my church and our two partners in the ministry center to write our own Sunday school curriculum for the coming year. It is so. much. fun. I hope the kids have fun with it too (and, you know, learn something to boot!).

ADDENDUM FOR MORE CHURCH GEEKERY:
I just put together that the dude who played "Darthius" was Mike Rylander, aka Jonah from recent years of Augsburg Fortress VBS stuff (I did not recognize him in his costume tonight).

Cookie Monster Gets Introspective

2011-08-08T14:18:00.001-04:00

Perhaps my favorite line in this:

"They don’t call the vampire with math fetish monster, and me pretty sure he undead and drinks blood."

John Moulder Quartet

2011-08-07T00:56:00.005-04:00

So the last time ECR and I went on a cultural adventure it turned out to involve computer jazz, which was. . .um. . .interesting.

We ended up leaving after the first song, which also happened to be the first set, which was an hour long (computers don't need to take breaths or breaks the same way real live humans do). We laughed most of the way to the car and, as the adventure had been her idea, she declared she "owed me one."

I can officially say that debt has been forgiven. Last night's cultural adventure completely redeemed the computer jazz experience.

ECR was not in town for this one, but on her recommendation I went to hear the John Moulder Quartet at the Artist's Quarter. It was excellent. This "quartet" is not a standing group, both the pianist and the drummer had done gigs with John before, but this was the first time all 4 of the musicians had ever played together. I would never have known that if they hadn't said it outright - they were tight.

And theological. Moulder is a "jazz priest" (dude, why was that track never made explicit when I was going through MDivland?!) - he is an ordained Catholic priest who also happens to be a professional jazz musician. Inspired by the religious music of the likes of Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, he's written his own religious jazz setting, called "Trinity." The quartet played parts of it last night, including some delta blues, which Moulder introduced with the comment, "I'm pretty sure the Israelites got the blues."

They also played a piece he wrote called "Being and Time" - he didn't make it explicit in what he said around it, but I couldn't help feeling it was a nod to Heidegger.

So, if you like good jazz and blues, or you like artists with deep theological and philosophical grounding to their work, check John Moulder out. He's a hep cat. :)

Actually, they were all hep cats, so check out Dan Musselman, Alexander Young, and Billy Peterson too.

Also - the Artist's Quarter is a sweet venue - how have I been ignorant of its existence until this weekend?!

Self-Imposed Exile

2011-07-30T21:39:00.004-04:00

There are some stores that I should just know better than to go into - if I go into them, I'm not getting out of them without significant damage to my wallet.

The Electric Fetus is such a store.

I went in with three things on my list. Three things because if you buy at least 3 CDs there at once, you get a 10% discount on all of them. Which makes me feel not as bad about buying 3 CDs at once, because I'm saving money. . .erm. . .yeah, that's it, saving money by buying in bulk. . .

I was also hoping they could help me track down something else that I had heard and liked but am having trouble sourcing.

Turned out, they had only one of the three CDs I was looking for, and the guy I spoke with was useless in helping me track the other thing (I'm finding the upside of watching a Glee-esque German telenovela is that it's introducing me to some good new music; the downside is that the stuff I'm not familiar with is European and not so easy to get hold of here in the States).

But if you buy three CDs at Electric Fetus, you get a discount on all of them. And I had one lowly CD in hand.

So, I perused around a little, and found a lot more than 3 CDs I was interested in buying. And some of them were even on sale, at really good prices. And since they are CDs I'm ultimately going to buy anyway, I might as well get a good price on them, right?. . .

The moral of the story, kids, is that I've got a lot of great new music to listen to.

And I'm banishing myself from the Electric Fetus for at least the next six months.

Seriously - friends, public, if you see me in there before 2012 consider this your permission to drag me out of the store, by the ear if necessary.

The Changeup

2011-07-29T11:07:00.002-04:00

Alright, I've received enough feedback about the new font being too hard to read, so I'm trying this instead. I really liked the "Covered By Your Grace" font and didn't want to lose it completely so I've basically switched the post title font and the post text font.

Your feedback is once again welcome.

And as long as I'm asking for feedback - is anybody else having trouble reading the banner? It should say

"The Mad Preacher Liberation Front
. . .practicing resurrection daily."

That's what I see on my screen whether I'm in edit mode or simple reading mode (aka not logged in), but I have at least one friend who is only seeing the "The" on the first line.

Oh No He Di'int!

2011-07-28T00:55:00.007-04:00

Andy recently took our winter vs. summer debate to the blogosphere and managed to knock both winter and the Great Lakes as he did it.

As I sweat just sitting here in the 80 degrees Fahrenheit with 87% humidity that is still going on at midnight (which, sadly, does feel *slightly* better than the 84 degrees Fahrenheit with 90% humidity that was midnight around this time last week), I feel the need to defend winter's honor.

So let me tell you a bit about why winter is the far superior season:

+there are no bugs

+there are no ticks

+there is no outdoor mold or pollen

+dry cold winter air is crisp and refreshing and easy to breathe. humid hot summer air is suffocating

+water freezes over and snow covers the ground, making everything traversable with the right equipment

+you CAN still grow food in winter in these things called greenhouses, and when the things are done growing, mother nature provides you a free all-natural icebox so that the things you have grown don't spoil. In summer you've got to eat fast or do things that generate even more heat in order to preserve your food

+if you are cold you can always pile on another layer of clothes or blankets, put another log on the fire, or move around. conversely, in the summer you can be sitting absolutely still in front of a fan in your birthday suit, and still be uncomfortably hot with not much more you can do to make the situation better (outside of immersing yourself in cold water or searching out someplace with air conditioning)

+a worst-case scenario in winter is hypothermia, where you feel cold but then you feel warm and just fall asleep. a worst-case scenario in summer is heat exhaustion/dehydration, which involves a lot of headaches, cramping, and puking, among other things. I will take my chances with hypothermia over heat exhaustion any day of the week

+the sun still shines in the winter, so you can soak up plenty of vitamin D during all the good times and social events like going skiing, sledding, or ice skating with your friends

I could keep going, but I don't think that's necessary.
Clearly, I win this argument. :)

I will concede Andy three points. Summer is good for the long days, for swimming uppadalake, and (naturally) for baseball. These are the three things that make summer bearable to me. That, and knowing that the State Fair comes at the end of it. But that's really about it.

I will also concede that much of my defense of winter is particular to Upper Midwestern winter, not Mid-Atlantic winter, so he lacks the life experience to truly understand what I'm saying. Just like I'm pretty sure he doesn't understand the whole "the Great Lakes are like oceans" thing because his main experience of the Great Lakes is Lake Michigan as seen from downtown Chicago.

Having been to the oceans (Atlantic and Pacific, not to mention the Baltic Sea) and to the Great Lakes, I maintain the Great Lakes are like the ocean, only better because they are freshwater.

And having lived through several summers and winters in both the Mid-Atlantic and the Upper Midwest, I maintain that winter is the superior season, hands down, both places.

That's my side of this debate, and I'm sticking to it! :)

30 Days

2011-07-27T16:45:00.003-04:00

. . .until the happiest place on earth once again magically appears just north of the Midway.

SO. STINKIN. EXCITED.

Oh State That Will Not Let Me Go

2011-07-25T22:09:00.002-04:00

When I moved from MN to PA, the state of MN was entirely convinced that I had actually moved away. I got a PA driver's license, transferred the title to Hermes, registered to vote, got a local library card, started paying PA taxes on my PA paycheck, and I didn't have to do anything else to prove myself or reassure MN that I had, in fact, left.

The same cannot be said of my move from PA back to MN.

I did all the same things in the process of moving: got a MN driver's license, transferred the title to Hermes once again, registered to vote, got a local library card, started paying MN taxes on my MN paycheck. And in March, Union County, PA, mailed me the bill for the occupation tax (yes, this is a tax you pay just for breathing air and occupying space within the county - it costs $5 for the year, $4.90 if you pay the tax within the first month of receiving the bill). Note they didn't just forward the bill, it came back to them and they had to ADDRESS A NEW ENVELOPE TO MINNESOTA to send me a bill for occupying space in Pennsylvania (which I had not done since August). Having to mail this sucker to another state was not enough to convince them I had really moved - I had to send back a copy of my new driver's license and swear on my honor that I had really, truly moved out of the state (I am honestly surprised they didn't require a notary to verify the signature, or a blood test to certify it was me and not my evil twin who had moved).

I thought that was the end of it.

Then today in the mail I received another letter from Union County, this time from the board of elections, to the effect of "We see you have a Minnesota address. We're not sure if that's in Union County or not - can you please verify whether you still live here."

?!?!?!?!?!?!?! WTF ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Oh Pennsylvania, we had a great run, don't go making it all awkward now with these tax and voter registration shenanigans. I know it's hard, I miss you a lot too, but seriously, it's time to let me go.

Drunk on Books

2011-07-25T16:18:00.004-04:00

I've always jokingly spoken of my book collecting as an addiction - turns out such joking is not so far from the truth.

(Here I am getting a fix at one of my favorite bookstores in the entire world: The Strand in New York City. I also highly recommend Powell's in Portland, Oregon, and Loome's in Stillwater, Minnesota).

Hat tip to Josh for the link.

Tragically Unhip

2011-07-24T21:46:00.002-04:00

It's beginning to feel like everybody I know has spent the summer:

1. going to Holden Village

and/or

2. going to the U2 concert

I have done neither of these things. I'm starting to feel like I'm missing out. . .

And now for something completely different:

I was on call this past week and ended up fielding a LOT of unusual stuff. . .like, if I didn't know any better, I'd almost suspect Dan May had figured out how to get revenge for all the times he covered for me and I openly encouraged my folks to call him at midnight to request an emergency hamster baptism, ask him a deep dark meaning of life question, practice reciting the books of the Bible in order, etc.

Hmmm, I didn't think he had any power beyond Appalachia but I may have underestimated the extent of his reach. . .

Tips For Young Pastors

2011-07-17T17:02:00.004-04:00

This would fall under the category of "things they don't really teach you at seminary." Though, in fairness, I'm not sure how they would really teach this at seminary.

But just so you know, there's the gospel you preach in the worship service, which you have been carefully tending to and thinking about and crafting since the moment you read the appointed texts for that Sunday and started formulating both your sermon and the full scope of the service.

And then there's the gospel you preach to the person who walks into the building 10 minutes after the service has ended, whose life is currently pretty messy, who came to their wits end and didn't know where else to turn, so they've come to you. And as you listen to their story, you realize the sermon and the service you just finished leading could have spoken pretty powerfully into the messiness of their situation, if only they'd shown up an hour earlier. But they didn't show up an hour earlier, they showed up now, 10 minutes after it was all over, and they are looking to you, now, in this moment, for a word of life and hope and light in a world that is overwhelming them with death, despair, and darkness.

You need to be prepared to preach the gospel in both situations.

Sermon, Write Thyself

2011-07-15T14:30:00.003-04:00

Wait for it. . .

. . .waaaaaait for it. . .

Really? Nothing?

I figured it couldn't hurt to try. You miss 100% of the shots you never take, right?

If only I'd accepted that scholarship to Hogwarts instead of Luther, it just might have worked. :)

Ah well, back to my trusty legal pad, then. . .

Best 4th of July Ever

2011-07-04T23:39:00.008-04:00

Independence Day is not anywhere close to my favorite holiday, but for some reason it always proves to be one of the most memorable ones in terms of the day's events.

I've experienced a number of memorable 4ths, including but not limited to: one hosting Adri and Martina during their very first visit to America, two in the nation's capital (as a teenager marching in the National 4th of July parade with the Flaketown Marching Band, and as a young adult living in DC), one driving back to Minnesota the day after Sarah and Rob's wedding (btw, Happy Anniversary yous twos!), and two as an ex-patriot (one with friends in Ottendorf-Okrilla, the other observed with fellow ex-patriots in a French bar in the Kunsthof of Dresden's Neustadt).

But today I got to celebrate the 4th with the bambino, on her very first day in Minnesota. And what made it the best and most memorable ever was the smile on her face and the excitement in her eyes when she realized it was Auntie C who had just walked in the door.

Every time I think I couldn't possibly love this kid any more than I already do, she goes and opens the door to a chamber in my heart that I didn't even know existed.

Arguments I Don't Hear Much Part 1

2011-07-02T21:19:00.003-04:00

This came out of a conversation about marriage equality that I was involved in on facebook earlier in the week and just haven't had time to post here yet. But there are a couple arguments that I only ever seem to hear myself making, and I don't think they're bad arguments, so I'm trying to spread them around. :)

Part 1 is the political argument. Part 2 will be the religious argument, a post for another day. But here goes:

So, to my mind there are many things flawed about this marriage amendment fiasco (like, when is it ever a good idea to leave civil rights up to the whims of the majority? Seriously, somebody give me a case study from history where that turned out to be a good thing. . .). But perhaps most flawed is its method (says the girl who's been studying methodology for a month).

Because, as previously noted on this blog, gay marriage is already illegal in MN. And the vote before us is a vote to keep gay marriage illegal in MN. By analogy, it's like holding a statewide vote on keeping the common loon as the MN state bird (for those woefully ignorant of all things Minnesotan, the common loon is already the state bird).

If the vote "wins" (more people vote for it than against it) - nothing changes. Gay marriage was illegal before, gay marriage is still illegal after; similarly, the common loon is the state bird before, and the common loon is still the state bird after.

If the vote "fails" (more people vote against it than for it) - still, nothing changes. We won't wake up the next morning and suddenly gay marriage will be legal because a majority voted against keeping it illegal. Just as we wouldn't wake up the next morning and find the common loon is no longer the state bird because a majority voted against keeping it the state bird. Other legislation (or judicial ruling or executive order) would be required to make any change to the status quo.

The whole design of this vote is so flawed. . .

And yes, I have to admit, an entire month spent rejecting or failing to reject null hypotheses helped lead me to this argument. (gulp!) Statistics proved somewhat useful after all.

What a Day Costs

2011-07-02T15:20:00.003-04:00

This is fantastic and horrifying all at the same time. Sadly, I don't know how to embed vimeo, so you're just going to have to click the link to check it out.

But it reminds me of a post I intended to make a couple months ago - I had to estimate a yearly budget for a grant I was applying for and was shocked to discover that, as simple and barebones of a life as I think I lead (and I think by most American standards, I'm living pretty simply), it still takes $29,000/year just to keep myself sheltered, insured, transported, fed, and clothed.

In MN the federal poverty line for a family of 4 is $22,350.

How in the world are people supposed to make that happen?

Thanks to Nick Clark for the video and Mary Hess for pointing me to it. In her frustration with the state government shutdown, Mary is going to continue posting videos from this Minnesota Without Poverty class assignment, so keep checking her blog if you'd like to see more.

Rut-roh

2011-06-29T01:02:00.008-04:00

Suddenly this week several of my classmates are turning to me for advice with the homework.

All I can say is: if I'M the one who has the best grasp of the material at this point, then we are all up a creek without a paddle. . .

But we are keeping our sense of humor. Tonight Peter attempted a means of explaining dummy variables that set most of us up to be "dummies." And I can't speak for the others, but every time I think of the computer's Korean outburst (which happens more than it should, at really inconvenient times) I break into fits of laughter.

ADDENDUM TO PROVE MY POINT:
I got goofed up on how to read the chart that tells us if we set up the dummy variables correctly for the regression. Unfortuntaely, we set them up backwards in the test. Fortunately it didn't screw up the whole analysis but it did mess up all the numbers and interpretations of the dummy variables. Hmm. . .perhaps Peter's little analogy was not so far off base after all. . . :)

Also, Dr. Luedke is HARD CORE. He used logistical regression throughout his doctoral thesis when he'd never had a class in it - he had to figure it out on his own.

Homoscedasticity

2011-06-27T14:09:00.003-04:00

This was the million dollar word learned in statistics this morning. It is an underlying assumption of regression analysis that means there is uniformity of variance over the measures of independent variables.

Please do not ask me to explain it any further than that, I'm not entirely sure I understand all the other big words in that definition yet. :)

What I do know is, this morning began week 4 of this class and at this point even the inanimate objects in the room are getting punchy.

First the fan blew out its motor, making the place reek of burnt rubber and plastic. Then Churho's computer spontaneously began addressing us in Korean and it took a while to get it to stop.

I say when the machines are giving it up, it's time to call it a day.

Absentminded Me

2011-06-26T23:05:00.004-04:00

I wanted the previous post to stand alone, but this was how my day began: so, if I'm paying attention to what I'm doing when I'm doing it, I actually have a pretty decent visual memory, to the point that even many months later I can give a fairly accurate and detailed account of an experience, or find my way around someplace I haven't been in years.

The problem is, I am almost never paying attention to what I am doing when it comes to the minutiae of life, like where I set my glasses or my keys or my cell phone. I know this about myself and I try to compensate for it by creating a few designated places for those items to "live" and that's where I look when I need to find them.

Despite this, I'm unfortunately still not very good at placing these things in their self-appointed homes, so I spend an inordinate amount of time searching for glasses, keys, and cell phone (at least the phone answers when I call, provided I have remembered to turn the ringer back on upon leaving the library - if someone would invent a way for glasses and keys to make noise on command I would be eternally grateful to them).

I'm afraid my absentmindedness reached new levels this morning, when I could not find my slacks. I have three pair of black dress pants, and I knew one of them was in the hamper after the funeral on Wednesday. The other two were not hanging in the closet as they should have been - "oh, I must not have ironed them yet," I thought. Except they weren't on the "to iron" rack either.

Now I was really confused and wracking my brain and checking everywhere, muttering "How the #*&! did you manage to lose, not just one, but TWO pair of black dress pants?"

I finally found them, folded neatly and buried underneath something else. Thinking back, I suspect they were victims of the same term paper as this - I probably just folded them quickly and thought I would put them away properly later only to cover them up and forget they were there.

UFF. DA. Some days I honestly wonder how I've managed to get this far in life, because, well, seriously. . .

PS - Thanks to Cat's Staff and Mary for your feedback on the new template. Before I ditch this font completely I wanted to experiment with it a little more. I made it bigger and to me it looks easier to read, but what do you think?

This Little Pastor Went to Pride

2011-06-26T21:28:00.007-04:00

So we raced through second service this morning, then raced to clean up afterwards, so we could book it over to the Pride Parade and march with our fellow Reconciling in Christ Lutheran congregations. Despite our hurry, we knew we wouldn't catch them at the top of the route, so we parked in the vicinity of Loring Park (the end of the route and the main location for the festival) and worked our way up Hennepin until we spotted our contingency and joined in with them.

I purposely wore a lavender cleric and a rainbow stole to march today, because given the damage a lot of clergy have done and continue to do to LGBT people, I thought it was important to reclaim those symbols as a supportive presence rather than a condemning one.

It was interesting, though, making our way through the park and the crowd along the parade route, I definitely got a lot of looks - some smiles and "right on" kinds of nods, some double-takes, some just kind of surprised and bewildered. I was initially surprised by their surprise, but then I had to remind myself "Duh, this why you wore what you wore today, because a lot of people in this crowd are not used to seeing clergy as allies, their surprise is a natural reaction."

I also had to remind myself that 90% of my LGBT friends are practicing Christians, so my "sample" (to put it in statistical terms, natch) is not at all representative of the population as a whole. My friends have said they often feel like a double minority, because being LBGT makes them minorities among the Christian community, and being Christian makes them a minority among the LGBT community. After my experience today I have a bit fuller appreciation for what they mean.

Anyway, when we finished the parade we stayed at the end to watch the others come through, and at one point these people with bright yellow shirts that said "Free Bibles" walked by pulling a dolly with boxes on it. One of the members of our group was like "Oh, that's a good idea, but I bet that's really heavy at the start of the parade."

To be honest, it looked like it was kind of heavy at the end of the parade and something about this group just didn't feel right in my gut so I said, "I don't know - that could go one of two ways - are they handing out Bibles to show people how they're filthy sinners, or are they handing them out to show people God's not a jerk? (I used a much stronger term than "jerk" but I'm trying to keep this post PG) Even with good intentions I'm not sure how well received that would be in this crowd."

And then when the parade was all over and we walked back through the park on the way to the car, we passed this group again, outside the park, with three teenagers holding a sign that asked "Who is Jesus?" and that just kind of confirmed my suspicions - they were there to tell people they were filthy sinners.

I think of all the looks I collected today, the looks from this group were my favorite, because they showed not only surprise, but also betrayal, like, "You're supposed to be one of US, what are you doing with THEM?"

I didn't think to say this until we were long past them, but if I had been more quick-witted I'd have told them "I'm with them because of my answer to your question: 'Who is Jesus?' He's the one who always stands with those on the other side of the line."

Can't Go Back Now

2011-06-25T01:14:00.002-04:00

Well, my old template is no longer available so I hope I don't regret changing to this new one.

On the whole I Iike it - a wall full of books would be a good graphic to depict ANY point in my life, really, but is especially appropriate during this journey through PhDland.

And on the whole I like the look of this font, it feels like it fits the type of musings I most often put up here, and I LOVE that it's called "Covered By Your Grace." I do worry it might be a little difficult to read (though my actual handwriting is also kind of difficult to read, so that too is oddly appropriate), and I don't like how hard it is to tell whether I've put anything in italics. Perhaps I'll have to find a new way to emphasize particular words, like using bold or CAPITALIZING. Mal sehen. . .

Feedback is welcome.

The Arc of the Universe is Long

2011-06-24T23:30:00.007-04:00

. . .but it bends towards justice. -Martin Luther King, Jr

I'll always love you, New York, for many, many reasons - but you can add today's momentous decision to the top of the list.

I think a little celebration is in order - how 'bout some Ryan Adams?

A Rollicking Good Time

2011-06-24T00:18:00.003-04:00

I have a neighbor who works for the Guthrie who is awesome and gracious enough to offer this poor student some free tickets every once in a while. This week has been the first time I haven't had a conflicting commitment and could graciously receive their generous offer, which is how I found myself at the H.M.S. Pinafore tonight.

I was not familiar with this work before tonight, but I figured it's Gilbert and Sullivan, you can't go wrong with that. The wit, as expected, is biting and hilarious, the cast is spot on, the set is brilliant, and the choreography is outstanding.

In fact, the only thing I did not like about this production was the orchestration in the pit. For some reason they expanded it to include modern instruments like electric guitar and bass, hammond organ, and trap set, and they altered the accompaniment to some of the pieces (the full company ones in particular) to sound more like late 20th century rock opera instead of early 20th century comic opera. It just didn't sound right, and actually became kind of annoyingly overbearing at some points (when 12 men are mic'ed and singing their hearts out I should have no problem hearing their every word but sometimes the pit overpowered them). There was less of this in the second act, for which I was grateful.

On the whole, a rollicking good time and worth your attention if you're in the Twin Cities.

And, randomly - before the show started I was looking at pictures from past productions that were all along the hallway, and I have to say there were a few faces I was quite surprised to see, I had no idea they had ever done a production at the Guthrie - these included William H. Macy, David Canary, Don Cheadle, and Kristin Chenoweth. Goes to show you learn something new every day.

Hello Batsh*t, Meet Crazy

2011-06-21T21:28:00.006-04:00

So I was sorting through the mail and checking the new journals in at the library today when I noticed one of the envelopes was from the "Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

And I thought to myself, "Really? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wasn't fundamentalist enough for you, you had to make your own especially fundamentalist offshoot?"

But then it gets oh. so. much. better.

Because, contrary to my expectations, they did not send us your run-of-the-mill unsolicited magazine. No, instead they sent us your run-of-the-mill unsolicited doomsday "warnings to the nations of the earth."

Apparently Jesus (now going by the nickname "Son Ahman" - guess I missed that memo) had a very busy March, April, and May, which he spent dictating 163 pages worth of warnings to the president of this sect.

Though the Lord repeatedly warns that his day is immanently drawing nigh, the receiver of these messages did not see fit to dispatch them poste-haste, but rather took the time to get them copyrighted.

Because what - he was afraid Jesus was giving the same dictation to some other guy in Utah at the same time?

I didn't realize plagiarism was such a problem among latter-day prophets. . .

Tips for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

2011-06-20T22:17:00.002-04:00

Nothing shuts off the faucet that is my bleeding progressive heart faster than sending my bullshit meter into hyperdrive.

So if you're going to call around to different churches and try to scam them out of money, you should really keep track of who you have called and what you have asked them for. Because when you call the same church twice in the same day, and give the exact same backstory but ask for completely different things, and the second call in no way acknowledges the first, I'm pretty sure you're not going to use the money for what you claim to need it for.

And What Will We Do in the Afternoon?

2011-06-16T22:43:00.003-04:00

This is a punchline to an old East German joke. I don't remember how the joke goes, but I have a vague notion that it involved an impossibly long list of things to do that could not realistically happen all in one day, but the person on the receiving end of the list asks "And what will we do in the afternoon?"

For some reason I thought of that punchline this morning, and it has proven to be quite an appropriate theme for this day that was so oddly full. I mean, my days are normally pretty full but this one was such an eclectic mix of things, it was almost like being back in the parish. . .which I guess makes a little sense because I'm covering for someone right now. Anyway, the day looked a little something like this:

Wake up, get ready, eat breakfast, etc

Call Eileen, go over draft of letter to participants in the upcoming LPI consultation

Edit draft according to conversation (including looking up and adding participants' titles, positions, and institutions). Take care of other administrative tasks for LPI.

Depart to Grandma's

Each lunch with Grandma, then take her to a doctor appointment
(aside: I went into the test room with her today, and it was equal parts cool and weird to see this heart that has loved me so well for so long beating there right in front of me on the screen)

Bring Grandma home

Go to the church to check in with the secretary, fix the four mistakes I realized (last night) were still in the bulletin, check for messages and take care of other random administrative type stuff

Come home

Make dinner

Eat dinner while watching an episode of Hand Aufs Herz

Go to ISAIAH training for faith-based organizing

Get a call 2/3 of the way through training from a number I do not recognize. Realize it's probably a pastoral emergency and leave the room to deal with it. Find out a parishioner has died, I now have a funeral-planning meeting tomorrow and a funeral sometime early next week.

Rejoin the last part of the ISAIAH training

Come home, facebook the friend I'm supposed to meet for lunch tomorrow to warn we will probably have to reschedule

Write blog post on the oddly full day before emailing secretary so she can add prayers for the deceased's family to the bulletin before running it tomorrow morning

I will then finish the evening reading through more galley proofs of Chris' forthcoming book (hint: it's really really good), taking a final pass at editing and constructing Scripture and Topical indexes before it goes to print

. . .and then what will we do in the afternoon? :)

Dueling Hosts

2011-06-14T00:56:00.003-04:00

Because the extent of my geekiness is not limited to Lutheranism and Star Wars:

Ulterior Motives

2011-06-12T21:12:00.004-04:00

Or: Some Thoughts on the Marriage Amendment

A post on Emm-in-Sem's tumblr already had me thinking this way, but this quote from today's STrib continues the train of thought:

"While gay marriage is already banned in Minnesota, supporters say passage of the amendment would block legislative efforts to change the law."

Really? It's just a cat-and-mouse game to pre-empt any change in the law?

Because what, to make same-sex marriage doubly not legal will add that extra layer of protection against "the gay agenda"?

I don't buy it. I think this is all about flipping MN in the next presidential election.

Minnesota, with it's long strong tradition of progressivism. Minnesota, the only state in the union to vote for Walter Mondale in 1984. Minnesota, a stalwart democratic stronghold in presidential elections for longer than I've been alive.

But things have been changing, shifting evermore towards the conservative end of the spectrum. The DFL has been imploding over the last 13 years (and I personally hold our current governor responsible for a good chunk of the infighting), which hasn't helped matters. But the GOP has been slowly laying this groundwork for a while. Why else do you think they held their 2008 convention in St. Paul? Pawlenty was expected to be tapped for McCain's VP, they were hoping to flip the state back then.

Add to this the perpetual embarrassment that is Michele Bachmann, who we seem utterly unable to unseat, and who is constantly stirring and polarizing the pot. There is also the fact that Jim Oberstar (most senior member of MN's delegation, Democratic Representative from the normally staunchly pro-DFL NE corner of the state) was unseated last November. And there is a chance Pawlenty will be the front-runner on the GOP ticket in 2012.

I think certain powers-that-be were looking at these trends and possibilities and wondering to themselves: how can we capitalize on this? How can we guarantee that people who will vote for Pawlenty and Bachmann and Cravaack will come out in droves next election?

I know - let's put gay marriage up to a vote.

It's sad and sickening, really. They know they can't out-community-organize Obama, so they're not even going to try. While thousands of DFL staff and volunteers will be pounding the pavement going door to door, meeting their neighbors face-to-face and building personal connections to turn out the vote, the Republicans will merely run ad campaigns that prey on base fear and hatred.

Fellow progressives, they're kicking our hive, and though it's not a charitable thought, I'm really hoping they get stung for it. Let's show 'em what happens when compassion and civility and good citizenship wins the day.

Come Holy Spirit Come

2011-06-12T13:34:00.003-04:00

This is literally the only red shirt I own, so I wore it to church today for Pentecost:

My friend Sarah declared it "the geekiest Pentecost shirt ever."

Incidentally, your inner Lutheran Geek wants to know that this shirt came in a small pizza box that really is covered in cheesy graces.

In other news, Happy Anniversary to Kristie and BJ! That wedding feels like it was yesterday, can't believe it's already been a year since I hitched those two up.

And, even though their anniversary was back in May and I already gave them a shout out then, because it's Pfingsten I've felt all weekend like it should be Adri and Burki's wedding anniversary too - so happy happy to you two again too! :)

The Bambino Files

2011-06-11T22:16:00.004-04:00

The short version: she is totally awesome.

Very determined little kid, very intent about practicing the new skills she is learning.

So during my visit she was all about climbing stairs. She had just figured out how to go up so she wanted to keep practicing, practicing, practicing that until she perfected it. And she wanted to go down like an adult would (holding on to an adult's hands, of course). We thought, "She's probably never seen a baby go down stairs before" so we modeled for her how to do it safely, on her bum. And she looked at us like, "That's interesting, now give me your hands so I can do this properly."

She is also finding her voice. Lots of practice with babbling sounds and other sound effects. She discovered Auntie C is a fun one to practice this with because I also love making all kinds of sound effects and will either mimic what the bambino does or supply the bambino a new sound to mimic. :)

She has a great sense of rhythm. She bounces to the beat if there is music on. One night after dinner, I made up a song about all the foods she likes to eat and I put a little rhythmic clap in there. After watching and listening for a couple minutes, she started clapping with me, not indiscriminately, but exactly with me, in the right place, right number of claps, right rhythm.

And she is walking. She did it for the first time when I was there, on Sunday after church, she walked by herself a few times that day and then wouldn't do it the rest of the week, regardless of our encouragement. But then a week after I got back to MN, she started doing it on a regular basis. And is apparently undeterred by impromptu baby gates, she will climb right over them.

As I said, the bambino is totally awesome!

Welcome To My Summer

2011-06-11T00:12:00.008-04:00

This is the book that is going to teach us how to operate the statistics computer program we will be using this month for Intro to Mixed-Methods Research:

It is 1.5 inches thick and weighs in just shy of 5 pounds.

In theory we are only learning the theory behind the math, not the math itself. That's what the ginormous book and computer program are for, to do the hard math for us.

But I don't know. . .today in class Dr. Luedke was throwing around terms like "degrees of freedom," "kurtosis," and "central limit theorem" and even though he was working hard to explain them clearly, I felt like he might as well have been speaking Greek.

Strike that - I think I would actually do better with Greek. Languages I get. Math, not so much.

ADDENDUM:
Ok, I actually started to read the ginormous book, and it's totally hilarious. The author is a Brit with a Pythonish sense of humor and the introduction is basically "I hate boring textbooks so I thought I would write one that I would actually want to read." He admits SPSS is a stupid tool that relies too heavily on users already knowing what they are doing. He includes cartoon pictures alongside the text, various characters to indicate things like what is the bare bones need to know info and what is interesting to statisticians but tangential to the main point. There is also a picture of a cat who just shows up to "look cute and make bad cat-related jokes" and all the SPSS tips are disseminated by "Satan's Personal Statistics Slave."

Want a taste of what I'm talking about? Under a section titled "What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here" he writes:

You're probably wondering why you have bought this book. Maybe you liked the pictures, maybe you fancied doing some weight training (it is heavy), or perhaps you need to reach something in a high place (it is thick). The chances are, though, that given the choice of spending your hard-earned cash on a statistics book or something more entertaining (a nice novel, a trip to the cinema, etc), you'd choose the latter. So, why have you bought the book (or downloaded an illegal pdf of it from someone who has way too much time on their hands if they can scan an 800 page textbook)? It's likely that you obtained it because you're doing a course on statistics, or you're doing some research, and you need to know how to analyse data. It's possible that you didn't realize when you started your course or research that you'd have to know this much about statistics but now find yourself inexplicably wading, neck high, through the Victorian sewer that is data analysis.

Andy Field, you are my new hero.

ADDENDUM TO THE ADDENDUM (or, Notes from the Sewer):

Despite Andy Field's humor and Dr. Luedke's valiant efforts to make it all make sense, I have decided SPSS really stands for "Statistics are the Pure Spawn of Satan."

Confirming this belief: three conversations yesterday, at different times, with different friends, all of whom are in public policy/services and had to learn SPSS for school and/or work. When they heard that's what I was up to this month, each of them had the same response - first, utmost sympathy. Then, dawning puzzlement as they asked me "What's your program again? Why do you have to learn this?"

My question exactly. :)

It Really Is The Humidity

2011-06-07T23:48:00.002-04:00

Ok, even though today was literally 102 in the shade it didn't feel as bad to me as the day of the storm not quite a month ago. The temperatures were not as high that day but the humidity sure was.

Today's humidity felt relatively low, making the 102 more bearable. Still hotter than blazes, but (and I never thought I'd say this about Minnesota) a relatively dry heat (says the girl who didn't have to do any physical labor in said heat today).

Am I just making that up? Did six heavily hot and humid summers in Pennsylvania mess with my inner thermostat, so that everything feels less humid by comparison? Or was the humidity really not so bad today?

Incidentally, same rules apply when it's cold. Pennsylvania never physically got as cold as Minnesota but the humidity sticks around for the winter so it always felt colder, at least to me. Probably also why Mark Twain said the coldest winter he ever experienced was the summer he spent in San Francisco. :)

Another One Bites the Dust

2011-06-07T21:54:00.005-04:00

I am getting so sick of how often this story repeats itself. . .

I have this friend M. M is a great pastor. M is friendly and able to talk to anyone. Despite this, M's first call ended really badly, it was not a good fit at all. Very traditional conservative congregation, which should not in itself have been such a problem, because M is a fantastic pastor who is friendly and caring and able to talk to anyone (and from a traditional conservative church in a traditional conservative part of the country, so fully knows how that goes) and theologically speaking M is as orthodox as me, probably even moreso. But M does not look the part of a traditional Lutheran pastor. M has multiple piercings and tattoos. M neither hides nor apologizes for the fact that they smoke and drink. M dresses more stylishly than 95% of our colleagues. This is clearly oversimplifying, but the cribnotes version is: traditional conservative congregation wanted a millktoast pastor who looked the part and would hold their hand while they died instead of a great pastor who acted the part and challenged them to think and act beyond themselves.

So, M currently lives and awaits a call in a hip urban center, someplace the wider church claims it wants to be a witness/presence, among people the wider church claims it wants to reach. And M will go to the bar on a Saturday night because that's what M likes to do. M will talk to a lot of people at the bar on a Saturday night because M is friendly and extroverted and likes talking to people. At some point in the night, God stuff will come up in the conversation not because M is some sleazy proselytizer but because M is a theology geek who loves talking about God stuff with anyone and everyone.

Sunday morning M will provide pulpit supply at a dying pastorless traditional Lutheran church in the heart of the hip urban center in which the ELCA so desperately wants to be present. Literally half of the congregation that morning will be made up of the people the ELCA claims it so desperately wants to be reaching, and they are there because of the conversation M had with them at the bar the night before. Some cannot believe M is actually a pastor and show up just to verify the veracity of the claim. And some show up because what M had to say about God actually made some sense, or at least intrigued them enough to want to hear more of M's thoughts on the matter.

M has been going on like this, working a secular job to pay the bills, for multiple years. M has debated leaving the roster and even leaving the church.

Fellow ELCA members, please hear me, I am most serious: we are killing M's spirit and we are wasting M's gifts. This is an egregious sin and it needs to stop, NOW. Will somebody please give M the permission and the financial support to plant a missional community in the hip urban center in which they live? Please, before M leaves the pastorate and the church altogether?

And I ask this because another friend, S, has just done exactly that. S is also a great pastor, the kind of pastor I myself would want to have, the kind of pastor this church needs. I don't know the details so well, but S also had their first call go horribly wrong. S has been working odd jobs and waiting, patiently, for another call to emerge. The bishop's office has given S the runaround for over a year. S has small children to support and care for and could not keep working odd jobs while waiting indefinitely. Apparently today was the day S cut the ties completely - off the roster, left the church. Hurt, frustrated, disappointed, bewildered - as am I.

Because I hear the wider church say what it thinks it wants and the Holy Spirit lifts up these amazing pastors who we train and develop and send out, and then when they do exactly what we claim we want, I watch us eat them alive.

And I see these creative, passionate friends with a heart for God's people and what God might actually be up to in the world, I see them being crushed and driven out of the ministry at the same time that I see other colleagues who are on autopilot and are completely phoning it in week after week staying in their calls far longer than they should, to both their own and their congregation's detriment.

It makes me want to scream.

Please don't get me wrong - I love the church. In fact, my life would be easier if I didn't love the church, because then I simply wouldn't care. But I do love and I do care for the crazy, mixed-up, messed up, broken beyond frustrating body of Christ.

Still there are some days that I sure don't like it very much. . .

PS - Tim shares thoughts about why he jumped off the ordination track here, and having witnessed what happened to M and S, I can't blame him, though it's also a bloody shame because Tim is another with the kind of gifts and pastoral presence the church needs these days.

Bunte Republik Crocus Hill

2011-06-06T00:14:00.002-04:00

In a couple of weeks, Dresden's Neustadt will be home to a weekend-long street festival known as the Bunte Republik Neustadt. The Neustadt is the bohemian part of town, a lot of artists and punks and dogs live there (dogs because the punks tend to own a lot of them, and they're not so particular about picking up after them, so watch where you walk).

I went to the festival the summer I lived in Dresden (in fact, that was one of the summers that it got kind of rioty), and I remember thinking "This is kind of like Grand Old Days on steriods."

I went to Grand Old Days for the first time in seven years today, and now I'm thinking the two are even more alike than I originally thought (except Grand Old Days is, in typical American fashion, way more commercialized).

Dankeschoen Sat1!

2011-06-04T15:34:00.003-04:00

My interwebs search for irgendetwas auf Deutsch continues. Before I left for vacation, I found a site called maxdome that's like a pay-per-view thing full of content, both German TV shows and American shows dubbed over in German. You pay 1 Euro/episode to get a jump on everybody else and watch next week's shows, or to watch archival stuff more than a week old. BUT it looked like anything that aired that week in Germany was free to watch for that week. So there was a lot of free content - jackpot!

I registered for an account, loaded the particular reader needed onto my computer - but it still didn't work. Geoblocked (copyright issue that blocks users from outside of the source country). Curses!

But then I came home from vacation to discover that Sat1/ProSieben took the geoblock off one of their daily soaps, Hand Aufs Herz. It's kind of like Glee, in that it's about students and teachers at a high school in Koeln (Cologne), specifically students involved in the singing and dancing activity group (the S.T. AG). But it's also not like Glee in that they don't sing as many songs per episode and they cover darker themes (a couple non-S.T. AG students recently caused an accident in which two teachers died and one of them is having a very dark night of the soul about it).

It's a soap, but I watch American soaps, and this one puts 22 solid minutes of German in my ear every day. And it's working - I'm learning new vocab and surfacing old vocab buried in the recesses of my mind, I'm understanding more and increasingly catch myself thinking to myself in German.

But the way I can really tell that it's working? Last night I dreamt in German. Not completely, it was a mash-up going back and forth between German and English. But I haven't dreamt in German in a looonnnggg time.

So, just want to publicly thank Sat1/ProSieben for removing the geoblock and providing material to help me get my German back in shape. If anybody else is looking to brush up their Deutsch, you can watch the current weeks whole episodes for free here.

The Stone Marimba

2011-06-04T15:29:00.001-04:00

This is just cool. Many thanks to Chris and Eileen for introducing me to the music of Jonsi and Sigur Ros this year.

Happy Saturday!

My Friend Tim is a Creative Genius

2011-06-03T23:35:00.004-04:00

Just look at this beautiful video he made of the beautiful graduation blessing ritual that he also created.

He, Eileen, and I did a dry run with one of those lanterns back in January, to see how they worked and what it would look like on video. It was only after we had released the lantern into the sky that we thought to ourselves, "Uh. . .surely that fire is going to go out before it lands anywhere, right?" No reports of fire falling from the sky later that night or the next morning, so we figured they were safe. :)

Currently trying not to be too jealous that he is this very moment celebrating graduation in Kansas City listening to this:

but grateful he brought good MN mojo to KC - Pavano finally got his 100th career win down there tonight.

50 State Stereotypes in 2 Minutes

2011-06-01T00:37:00.006-04:00

1 sentence stereotype about Minnesota: "Too nice not to elect douchy governors." Ain't that the truth. . .

I have to admit, this video does make me curious to read his book now. :)

It's The End of the World As We Know It But I Feel Fine

2011-05-30T01:06:00.007-04:00

This post is a week overdue - I was having too much fun the day of the supposed rapture to comment upon it. Which is actually the first thing I'd want to say about the supposed rapture, anyway. When it comes to the end of the world, I hold with my brother and forefather in faith, Martin Luther, who once said that if he knew the world was ending tomorrow, he'd go out and plant a tree today. I spent last Saturday enjoying a full "tree-planting" kind of day with my best friends and the bambino, so had the world actually come to an end Saturday night, I would have had no regrets.

But as it was, I had neither fear, nor joy, nor thought that the world was actually going to come to an end on Saturday. Now, don't get me wrong- as a practicing Christian, I confess weekly the belief that Christ will come again. But as a practicing Christian, I also have no pretense of understanding what that's going to look like or when it's going to happen. Jesus wasn't really the Messiah anybody expected back in his own day, so I have no reason to believe he's going to return in any form or manner that I might anticipate today. Better to forgo my own expectations and just pray for the wisdom to recognize him when he comes (including but not limited to his presence in the Other right this very minute).

The one thing I have a pretty strong hunch about is that when he comes again, he'll be coming down to us, to be with us. I mean, that was his M.O. the first time, and the Bible from start to finish is pretty consistent about God's passion for the whole of creation (not just humanity). What I'm trying to say is, despite what many have turned it into, Christianity is not a religion of escapism. It's not all about me and Jesus and my personal salvation, and it's not all about Jesus whisking all the Christians away to safety before the biggest proverbial pile hits the fan. Those are corruptions of a faith that from its beginning was thoroughly incarnational and communal, a faith that is about deep abiding in and with the neighbor and the world.

Which leads me to the second thing I'd want to say about the supposed rapture: that there isn't any. It's not biblical. It's certainly not in the book of Revelation. It is at best a twisted interpretation of a verse from 1 Thessalonians.

This bears repeating, so let me say it once again: there is no rapture in the book of Revelation. You don't have to take my word for it - read the book for yourself. Revelation is a letter, to seven churches in Asia Minor. Seven churches existing in radically different circumstances - running the gamut from being persecuted for their faith to being on easy street and completely lax in their faith practices. This one letter is attempting to address seven churches in all these varying contexts at the same time. It's looking to simultaneously afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. At the very end of the letter (towards the goal of comforting the afflicted) it speaks of a new heaven and a new earth coming down. But nowhere within Revelation is there any talk of a rapture, period, let alone one that is taking people up up and away.

So where do the Millenialists (folks enraptured with the rapture - not to be confused with the generation known as the millenials!) get this idea from? 1 Thessalonians 4:17, "Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever." The wider context of this verse is:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Translation: New Revised Standard Version).

A couple things to note:

1. Paul says to encourage one another with these words, not scare the crap out of each other with these words, and not hold yourself holier than all others with these words. This is pastoral theology addressed to those who are wondering "What's going to happen to all who have died before Jesus comes again? And what's going to happen to me if I happen to be alive when Jesus comes again?" - it's meant to be a comforting and hopeful vision of what that might look like.

2. Paul is pretty clear that the dead will be raised first, and then God will deal with the living. This means that there is no rapture, no living people spontaneously getting whisked off to some heavenly safehouse to get front row seats to the immanent demise of the world. Even if you want to be incredibly generous in entertaining this as a possible interpretation of verse 17, the surrounding context makes it pretty clear that the zombie apocalypse will precede any rapturing of living people, and the verses immediately following (in the beginning chapter 5, which I did not quote above) are equally clear that no one will know, expect, or anticipate any of this ahead of time.

But, because prooftexting is one of America's favorite pastimes, Millenialists grab vs. 17 out its own context, put their own twisted spin on it (much easier to do out of context) and then tack it on to all the weird scary junk in Revelation [and only the weird scary junk, they conveniently ignore all the beautiful visions in Revelation of what it's like to be in the presence of God - I'm particularly fond of those parts because there's a lot of singing involved ;) ] To this abomination they also add some equally twisted selectively chosen verses from the book of Daniel and then huff and puff about knowing both the what and the when of the end of the world.

And because, as Mark Twain once said, "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes," way too many people are buying the selectively literalist highly proof-texted junk the Millenialists are selling.

As I've tried to point out here, just reading the Bible itself should be enough to debunk them. But if anyone would like to further equip themselves to take on the rapture, I recommend the following two books:

Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig Koester

The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation by Barbara Rossing

Now I'm off to plant more trees. . .

Airplane Etiquette

2011-05-28T14:15:00.003-04:00

This is as much a plea to the universe as it is a post, but I am recently returned from a trip to visit Breen, Patrick, and the bambino. And I have to say that once again the lack of common courtesy exhibited in air travel continues to astound me. The three that bother me the most:

1. No one is comfortable on an airplane, at least not in coach. It is a tight, cramped space. It is rendered even tighter, more cramped, and less comfortable for the people sitting behind you when you put your seat back into their laps. Please keep that in mind next time you hit "recline."

2. Some people on the flight really do have tight connections. Like, connections so tight they find themselves racing through the Detroit airport, from the far end of concourse A, through the trippy tunnel, to the far end of concourse B, in order to catch their next flight before it stops boarding. I am often one such person, and I can't tell you how annoying it is to be running by people who were seated in front of me and got off of the plane ahead of me, who are now dawdling looking for something to do because they have a couple hours to kill before their next leg. If you have a lengthy layover or are at your final destination, please let the people with tight connections get off the plane first. It's not that hard and is just the polite thing to do.

Coming home I had an atypically long connection, even as things were delayed and messed up all day due to bad weather in Detroit. So, both flights I stayed seated until others in a bigger hurry (because of delays and whatnot) had gotten off the plane. The number of shocked but genuine thank yous I received from both the flight crew and fellow passengers seated behind me was an indication to me of how uncommon such a simple common courtesy really is these days.

3. I walk fast, especially after I've been cooped up in a plane, so I am usually one of the first to arrive at the baggage claim. I always stand about three to four feet away from the carousel - this is close enough that I can see if my bag is coming and can quickly pop in closer to grab it, yet far enough away that other passengers can also see whether their bag is coming and have space to walk in and grab it. Every. single. time. I am standing there waiting and my fellow passengers walk right in front of me and stand flush to the carousel, effectively forming a human wall around it. This makes it very difficult for those not part of the wall to see whether their bag is coming, and virtually impossible to step in and grab if you do happen to catch sight of it. Plus the people that have formed the wall have a hard time grabbing their bags because they are all standing so close together there is no room to maneuver their suitcase off the line. Again, such a simple, common courtesy - stand a little bit further back, give everybody a chance to see and to move.

So, fellow travelers who may be reading this - next time you fly, please keep these things in mind. A little politeness goes a long way, and could make everybody's experience of air travel a little bit better.

Stepping down from the soapbox now,
C

Stress Comes Out Sideways

2011-05-20T23:39:00.003-04:00

Ever since internship, my stress dreams are always related to worship. Usually they are preaching nightmares, but sometimes just worship-in-general nightmares (things going horribly wrong and/or me being horrendously unprepared). Even in going back to school, my stress dreams this past year have all been preaching or worship related.

Last night I had another one. Curious thing this time, though - I wasn't the pastor in this dream. I was a member of a choir that was singing at someone's ordination. The choir was rather large and composed of members of InVocation, Schola (seminary choir), and the cast of Glee. Everybody else had a robe on, and I was scrambling around the choir room trying to find mine, to no avail. Someone suggested I just dress like a pastor instead, because - conveniently - I DID have my alb with me and I happened to be wearing a cleric (which I pretty much never do unless I'm leading worship). So I put the tab in my cleric and put on my alb but then began freaking out because I only had my white stole in the bag (because it's Easter) and I needed my red stole for an ordination. As I'm running around trying to find a red stole to borrow, the service begins, the choir processes in without me. Whoops. Now I am trying to figure out a way to sneak in without being too much of a distraction and take my place with the choir, though I won't really fit in there wearing my alb, but I also won't really fit in among the pastors because I still haven't found a red stole. I was frantically working at how to fix this situation when I woke up.

And I woke up with a tight knot in my shoulder, the same knot that's been plaguing me for the past three days. The first morning I woke up with it I told myself I must have slept on it funny. But it hasn't gotten any better, and feels terribly similar to the knot that showed up the day after dad took the first load of my stuff back to MN, the knot that stayed with me all summer, not disappearing until I myself was back in MN.

So I was pondering these curious events this morning - the spring semester just ended, and I've got a couple weeks downtime here before my June class begins. What in the world do I have to be stressed about, to the point of having an unusual stress dream and the return of the painful knot?

Then I remembered: exactly a year ago my letter of resignation went in the mail. I spent the whole day having to tell people I dearly love that I was leaving, feeling like I was going to throw up with every new conversation I had to have. My people were incredibly gracious in receiving the news but still, it was one of the most difficult days of my entire life - definitely the most difficult thing I have ever done on purpose.

So, a stress dream in which I feel caught between two worlds and unsure of my role, a painful knot in my shoulder for multiple days - the body remembers, even when the conscious part of ourselves would rather forget. Stress comes out sideways, indeed.

Notes from the Life Abundant

2011-05-16T00:37:00.003-04:00

*A wonderful warm and sunny day.

*Worship with a part of the broken yet beautiful body of Christ.

*A street festival on the way out of church.

*An excellent concert with InVocation.

*A celebratory ice cream at Sebastian Joe's.

Life is good. :)

Don't You Just Hate It When*

2011-05-14T01:38:00.004-04:00

. . .you're trying to get some laundry done while you're working on the big end-of-term paper and you don't really have time to make the bed just then so you throw the clump of newly-washed sheets on top of the mattress thinking you'll take care of that when you need a break later except then you forget all about the sheets until your brain craps out on you around 1:30 in the morning and the only thing you want or are even capable of accomplishing that point is catching a few hours of blessed rest and then suddenly you remember: #@$! I never made the bed.

Don't you just hate moments like that?

Yeah, me too.

*this post would have been made much earlier this morning but blogger has been down most of the day. One the upside, the term paper is now done and turned in. Some summary comments to write up and turn in to Chris, and I have successfully survived the first year of PhDland. Woot.

If you're looking for other amusements this evening, this story from Eileen is hilarious. It was even more hilarious over a celebratory end-of-term dinner earlier tonight, but the recounting on her blog is also quite good!

Mother Tongues and Other Tongues

2011-05-10T20:42:00.006-04:00

So Holy Week Burkhard was in Chicago for a conference, then came north to spend the Easter holiday and following week on vacation in Minnesota.

We basically spoke English with each other while he was here. He would graciously say that's because his English needs more practice than my German. I would disagree with that assessment and chalk it up instead to my perfectionist tendencies creating high anxiety about all the grammatical mistakes I know will come out of my mouth if I try to speak auf Deutsch.

Both of us have a similar issue in that we each understand 80-90% of what we hear or read, but trying to actively come up with the right vocabulary and verb conjugations and grammatical constructs as we're speaking on the fly is hard. Especially since neither of us wants to speak "See Spot Run" versions of our non-native language - we each have complex thoughts and we want to express them as fully in other languages as we can in our mother tongue.

Sprachen geht mir schon viel besser, I've noticed, when I'm immersed in the language, like 3 years ago when I was in Dresden for Adri and Burkhard's wedding (btw, Happy Anniversary yous twos!), I was surprised by how much grammer and vocab came back to me, and how quickly my speaking abilities improved, once I got into town.

With that in mind, I've decided I just need to be more intentional about keeping German in my ears on a regular basis, so I've been trolling the internet for irgendetwas auf Deutsch that I could use toward that end. And I found this:

I knew Germans translated and dubbed over American movies, I had no idea they also translated Broadway plays! Some of the wordplay of the English is lost in translation (e.g. the chorus of "For Good" roughly translates "Because we've known each other, I am who I am today," which loses the double-entendre of good in the English verse: "Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but because I knew you I have been changed for good"), but on the whole they get the same meaning across with the same meter and rhyme schemes, in a completely different language. Most impressive.

Our Theatre of Seasons

2011-05-10T20:34:00.004-04:00

Last Tuesday morning it was snowing in the Twin Cities. Not heavily, nothing that stuck around, but snowing, releasing winter's very last gasp before spring finally came out of hibernation.

Then suddenly this Tuesday we jumped right into summer, being a humid 87 above.

Spring, I'm sorry I called you late -- but I also said you were a most welcome guest. Please come back out to play!

Addendum: 9:30 pm

Ok, when I put "theatre" in the title of this post, I didn't intend the weather tonight to become such a production.

The last time I saw a sky that color green and watched the earth go eerily still and silent like that, I was in Northfield and a tornado did things like this to St. Peter:

Thankfully a tight and fast moving storm without major damage this time but. . .yeesh. . .

Gruen Is Busting Out All Over

2011-05-09T16:04:00.003-04:00

In addition to the budding trees, the lawn at the seminary has now actually grown long enough that it needs to be cut. I am almost drunk on the smell of freshly-mown grass. :)

Spring, you are a late but most welcome guest!

Of Principles and Particulars

2011-05-07T13:43:00.007-04:00

Last night I was at the Festival of Nations, which I haven't been to in years. It was a lot of fun - ate a lot of good food, did a little shopping in the international bazaar, watched plenty of wonderful dancing.

They would project a picture from the representative country on a screen behind and above each group as they danced. Many pictures were rather nondescript scenes of nature or of houses typical of that country, so that even if you'd been to the country you couldn't really say "Oh, that's __________."

Except for the German picture, which was unmistakably Dresden:

Which was cool but a little odd considering Dresden is in Saxony and the dancers were all dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes and were dancing traditional Bavarian folk dances.

It'd be like the Preservation Hall Jazz Band touring in a different country and having a picture of the Minneapolis skyline projected above them as they performed. In principle, same country. In particular, different regional customs and traditions.

Probably stood out to me more than usual because I'm wrapping up a semester in which we've done a lot of thinking about the importance of hearing the other into free speech and paying attention to their complex particularities, not painting people or congregations in overly broad strokes.

It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity

2011-05-06T13:39:00.002-04:00

Ok, at this point it would require an absolute freak move on Mother Nature's part to snow us out, so I think I'm safe announcing this (our most recent attempts at performing and recording were cancelled due to Hoth-like conditions, not merely once but twice - we were starting to develop a complex).

InVocation concerts this weekend and next. A couple madrigals, some global music, pops - a little something for everyone in this program! See you there!

Grocery Store Wars

2011-05-05T20:30:00.005-04:00

Star Wars + Food Politics = Awesome.

Would it be oversharing to admit I actually own a Darth Tater? It's a Mr. Potato Head with Darth Vader helmet, lightsaber, and other sundry parts. It was an awesome gift (thank you, Dan and Veronica)!

Hat tip to Beth Ann for the video.

Hello Gorgeous

2011-05-04T22:39:00.004-04:00

Days like today are why I love living in Minnesota.

Some people live in places where you get weather like this every day. It becomes old hat. You start to take it for granted.

But you get a day like today at the end of a long, cold, snowy winter - when you finally get a day like today when the sun is shining and the sky is blue and the trees are budding and it's not too cold but it's also not too hot and there are no bugs out yet, well, if you live in Minnesota you understand in the very marrow of your bones what a rare and precious gift such a day is and you do everything in your power to soak in as much of this beauty as possible. A day like today makes even dour and unassuming Scandihoovians visibly ecstatic to be alive.

It was just too nice not to be outside. So I went over to Dad's tonight and we played catch in the front yard.

There's this students vs. faculty softball game coming up, you see, and I haven't thrown an actual ball or swung an actual bat in close to a decade (maybe more than a decade. . .as far as this is concerned, Wii and whiffleball don't count). Not only do I not want to look like an idiot on the field, I also don't want to hurt for a week after the game. So I thought it might be good to get a little practice in, ease my muscles back into certain ball-playing uses and movements.

So we were playing catch, but the lawn was uneven, and I was scared to chase down simulated pop flies because I didn't want to turn my ankle in a divot being too busy tracking the ball to look where I was running. So Dad suggested we move into the street. Three or four throws into this change of venue, the ball drops out of his glove and rolls right into the gutter!

We ran over to the cover thinking we'll just need a stick to fish it out. But nope, as we hover over the top looking for the ball, we can hear it steadily rolling down, down, down, then SPLASH!

That was the end of the game of catch.

Somewhere out there tonight a brand new softball is floating down the Mississippi River. Finders keepers if you snag it. ;)

Thanks be to God for a beautiful day!

Lose on Bell's Love Wins

2011-05-03T16:56:00.003-04:00

As long as I'm at it, something I meant to post over a month ago: Dr. Lose's HuffPo article on Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins.

I bought the book, I've been enjoying Rob Bell's stuff for years (I think I've given away at least a dozen copies of Velvet Elvis, and am grateful to Jordan Baker for first giving a copy to me).

From the reviews I've read, I suspect in this particular instance Rob and I favor the same kind of heresy.

Someday I'll have time to read stuff beyond the class syllabus, then I can tell you for sure.

Worshipping Together vs. Worshipping at the Same Time

2011-05-03T16:52:00.005-04:00

I am a busy little blogger today, but so much good stuff I'm finding that I don't want to lose track of.

This is an excellent reflection on worship and spiritual formation, thanks to Luther's Center For Missional Leadership blog (and more specifically, Mary Hess) for leading me to it.

My Soul is a River Winding Through a Weary Land

2011-05-03T16:20:00.003-04:00

Thanks to Milton at don't eat alone for articulating so clearly the same thoughts and feelings I am having in reaction to Bin Laden's death.

Thanks to Choral Girl for drawing my attention to this particular post. And for a great dress rehearsal last night.

The Sermon I Wish I Had Heard on Easter

2011-05-03T16:02:00.002-04:00

And if I'm being completely honest, the sermon I wish I'd preached on any Easter.

Thank you, Nadia - He is Risen, Indeed.

My New Favorite Blogger

2011-05-03T01:42:00.003-04:00

This woman can write. She's a fellow alto, and even though I haven't shown up to Schola since Ash Wednesday, I can tell you, she can also sing. But for now, just check out the writing.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here

2011-04-29T00:12:00.003-04:00

I am about ready to carve this above every entrance to Target Field.

The silver lining in tonight's dark cloud of a baseball game:

-The company I was keeping while watching this disaster could not have been better. Baseball is a game to be enjoyed with good friends. :)
-It could have been worse - it wasn't a shutout.
-Joe Nathan had a really solid 9th inning. That is something to be thankful for.

But still. . .

Also, I've noticed this spring, Target Field literally weeds out the fair weather fans. It takes dedication to watch crappy baseball in 49 degrees.

Behavior That Should Get One Removed From the Roster

2011-04-17T00:46:00.003-04:00

There is a retired pastor in Central Pennsylvania who really hates gay people. I mean, REALLY. HATES. gay people.

. . .so much so, that he makes inappropriate and non-sequitor bestiality references when arguing against resolutions on the synod assembly floor.

. . .so much so, that for the past several years he has turned preaching supply gigs into a bully pulpit to rail against all things LGBT. This is why I never allowed the man into my pulpit. Technically, if we were looking for supply we were supposed to exhaust all ordained options first before moving on to synodically authorized lay worship leaders. Pretty much every time I was going to be away, this guy was the only ordained clergy on the list. I never called him. I wasn't going to do that to my people, I wasn't going to let him abuse the office of preaching like that, and I sure wasn't going to give him a platform.

. . .so much so, that a couple years ago he put out a blanket call to strategize about the upcoming churchwide assembly, scheduling this meeting for the day after Easter. As Andy said, "Man, you've really gotta hate gay people to call a meeting to talk about how much you hate gay people and plot their demise within the church the day after we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord."

His behavior is just obnoxious, all the more so because he has somehow managed to get his hands on the synod's mailing lists and continues to sporadically assault pastors and churches with undesired mailings and emails, extending "invitations" to join his cause (I just got another one today, hence the rant).

To me, his is the kind of behavior that's way more harmful and damaging to the people of God, to the Word of God, and to the institution of the church, than anything two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own room.

Some days I wonder why the church is so good at fretting over sins of a personal nature, yet so bad at calling out sins against community. . .

Brian Frons, You're an Ass

2011-04-14T20:58:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago a bunch of rumors surfaced that ABC was planning to cancel All My Children. The rumors were plausible enough that some stars of the show mobilized their fanbases into a letter-writing and phone-calling campaign to save the soap. Then word spread that the rumors were just that, rumors. An executive producer assured the cast the show was not being cancelled.

Today ABC announced they are canceling both All My Children and One Life to Live. Both shows created by Agnes Nixon. Both shows not merely silly tales of "love in the afternoon" but for many years cutting edge in addressing major social issues through their characters and stories.

Granted, the writing hasn't been very good lately - in part because there hasn't been a meaty social issue storyline for a long time. But you know how you fix crappy soap writing, ABC? You hire better writers. You don't cancel the show.

The title of this post tells you what I think of this move and the executive behind it. Frons is an ass not only for cancelling these shows but especially for misleading the cast and crew, telling them their jobs were secure and then yanking the rug out from under them just a few weeks later.

I can tell you this: I'm in the demographic they're supposedly targeting, and I've intentionally watched All My Children for the better part of 25 years. I've watched through thick and thin, I've remained loyal through good story lines and crappy story lines, because in the end it was always about the bigger story that was being told.

I have no interest in the shows lined up to replace my (and my mother's and my grandmother's) stories. ABC Daytime, you have lost this viewer for good.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack

2011-04-13T00:12:00.003-04:00

Now that was some good baseball - a beautiful night to be at the Field.

Thank you Twins!

PS to the Lutheran Zephyr: I've heard rumors you are moving this way and have asked for Twins Tweeters to follow. He tweets and blogs about more than just the Twins, but Aaron Gleeman knows this team (and generally, all of baseball) inside and out.

Subversive Transfigurative Theology

2011-04-11T01:02:00.004-04:00

I did a double-header of worship today, participated in my own congregation this morning, then over to the House of Mercy in the afternoon, where Debbie Blue preached this brilliant sermon that openly wrestled with and steadily deconstructed sacrificial notions of atonement.

The sermon powerfully transitioned right into the Supper, during which the band quietly played "The Old Rugged Cross" as everyone came forward for communion. They didn't sing the words, they just played the music, but it was obvious what they were playing and it felt very jarring to me at the time, because I usually think of "The Old Rugged Cross" as a hymn steeped in sacrificial atonement theory, so as I'm walking forward I'm thinking "What the. . .? She just picked this kind of stuff apart, why are they playing this song?"

I've been - consciously and unconsciously - stewing over it the rest of the evening. Finally, I looked up the words to the hymn, intent on analyzing them in more depth, and realized there's actually nothing directly about sacrifice in the lyrics, that was something I had been reading into them all these years (which was part of Debbie's point, that we are so steeped in notions of sacrifice that we read it into things we shouldn't and set it up as an ultimate frame, when maybe it's not the best frame to be using, and maybe it's not the direction God would have us go). It was a total creeper move, took me several hours of ongoing wrestling with the sermon and the music to get there, but the sermon has actually transfigured my hearing of the hymn. . .

Such is the House of Mercy, and welcome to it.

#wordsiamalreadysickof

2011-04-10T17:12:00.005-04:00

"Well, today certainly wasn't the outing that [insert random Twin's name here] was hoping for. . ."

Oh my beloved Twinkies, in case you haven't noticed, we are in last place in the AL Central, and almost in last place in the whole stinking MLB. Kansas City is ahead of us right now, fellas. Kansas. City.

But let's not dwell on the negative. I'm here to make you a deal: you can have this slump now, and I will even quit complaining about it, as long as it's the only slump you will have this season. Agreed?

Vindication

2011-04-08T21:59:00.002-04:00

11 years ago when I was doing environmental advocacy work for churchwide, I saw both what was going on at that time and what was coming down the pike with genetically modified food, and told the folks I knew in the Department of Studies that the ELCA really ought to start developing a social statement on genetics. They poo-pooed the idea back then, but look what the Churchwide Assembly will be voting on this coming August.

FFR: Nonprofit Funding Bias

2011-04-05T16:34:00.001-04:00

Need to keep track of this powerpoint for work, putting it here for safekeeping.

Nonprofit Funding Bias And Foundation Diversity

View more presentations from Andrew Sears

April Fools

2011-04-01T23:13:00.004-04:00

Sojourners didn't send out an April Fools email today, or if they did, I didn't get it. . .they've gotten me the last two years, I bought it hook, line, and sinker (last year's joke was that they finally got Glenn Beck to agree to a debate with Jim Wallis; I don't remember two years ago but they got me with that one too).

Which means the best April Fools joke I experienced today was the Twins opening performance tonight. Very funny losing 13-3 to Toronto, boys, such a non-auspicious beginning for the team that's going to win the 2011 World Series, you've got me rolling on the floor with that one. Tomorrow we're going to get serious, right?

Right???

Honorable mention goes to Donald Miller for this review of Love Wins.

In what is totally not a joke but complete awesomeness, Bryce and Lily's baby sister was born today. I'm not usually one to cry tears of joy, but as soon as I got the picture text of the beautiful Zaylie Faye, the tears just came and they only stopped because I had to collect myself for the AAR/SBL regional meeting. Welcome to the world, baby girl - you cannot fathom how glad we are that you are here!

Deliver Us From Click and Clack

2011-03-17T23:12:00.003-04:00

I'm thinking Congress could use a little more satire like this. . .

The Economy of God

2011-03-10T00:31:00.005-05:00

Nick preached this brilliant sermon a couple of weeks ago, in the height of the demonstrations going on in Madison. I've kept intending to post it - seems especially pertinent in light of the WI Senate's actions today.

"Humanity and death and the cross and all that is sort of messy business. . ."

2011-03-09T23:23:00.005-05:00

Well, I made it through another high holy day in which I did not have any of the usual responsibilities. Kind of weird to wake up this morning and not have to burn last year's palms to make ashes for tonight's service.

Though, not being in charge, I did find myself paying attention differently today, noticing things I have overlooked in recent years.

For one, I realized I don't like the ELW service as much as the LBW service for Ash Wednesday. Even though we had the new hymnals, which actually prints the Ash Wednesday liturgy in the hymnal, we never used the ELW service, we printed the liturgy in the bulletin and kept on with the LBW service. I don't think I even realized until today that it had changed, but it's condensed. And of all days on the church calendar, this is not the one to condense. . .

I also stumbled into a moment of profundity during chapel. I was singing with Schola this morning, we were directed to the far side of the chapel for the imposition of ashes, which happened to be the line that Mary was imposing. There was something kind of profound and soberly perspective-granting just in that, to have my doctoral advisor remind me that I am dust. But then later in the service, Schola was directed to a different side of the chapel to receive communion, and this once again happened to be the line that Mary was serving. And it occurred to me, the same hands that had marked me in ash and reminded me of my mortality also handed me the bread of life.

And that was true in PA too - I was the one marking everybody's foreheads and the one handing out the bread. Cami was usually my assisting minister for Ash Wednesday, which meant she would have both marked my forehead and served me communion over the last five years. But I was always so busy worrying about the service as a whole, I never noticed that before. And I don't know that I would have noticed it today except for some fortuitous traffic direction.

So I basically had ashes on my forehead all day, which I am not used to. I kept forgetting they were there, and inadvertently smeared them all afternoon. By the time I got to church tonight, I needed another cross, because I had essentially - though not consciously - wiped the first one away. I wrote something about how I kept smearing my ashes on facebook, and Kristin's response was "Well, humanity and death and the cross and all that is sort of messy business. . ."

And that it is. Messiness and dustiness we'd really rather not be reminded of, if truth be told. Maybe not such a big surprise, then, that as I went about my day my hand kept unconsciously grazing my forehead, slowly brushing that reminder away. Except that didn't really get rid of the cross, it just moved the mess out where I could see it, on my hands, where I could spread it around unless I dealt with it.

That's the thing about Ash Wednesday - it won't let you escape the mess.

And that is actually its gift.

Blessed Lent,
C

Greetings from the Land of Abstraction

2011-03-04T23:57:00.004-05:00

I am working at the edge of my competency here, so be warned that these thoughts are long and a little half-baked, but here is what’s stewing around my brain these days.

First, a list of ingredients:

1. I am doing a PhD level independent study with Chris Scharen in which we are exploring practical theology – what exactly that means, how the field is defined, how it’s methodically done, etc.
2. I also work with Chris and Eileen Campbell-Reed on the Learning Pastoral Imagination project, and as such, spend increasing amounts of time thinking and learning about phronesis, which is embodied wisdom, knowing how to do the right, wise, prudent thing at the right, wise, prudent time (a skill that can only be learned over time, through apprenticeship and learning from failure and success). As a result of this work I also spend increasing amounts of time thinking about how theological education could/should be different to better equip the development of pastoral imagination.
3. I am also currently taking a PhD level systematics seminar on The Congregation with Pat Keifert. This week I was the presenter on David Kelsey’s book To Understand God Truly: What’s Theological About Theological Schools, which is making a case for how theological education could/should be different that all may understand God more truly.
4. The other night I was talking to my friend Sarah, who works for an ELCA synod. In the course of conversation she shared that a colleague of hers used to be a seminary professor and now works for her synod doing basically the same stuff in terms of teaching community faith formation, but this person enjoys it so much more because they are working with actual pastors and faith communities, whereas their experience of seminarians was that ministry is still entirely an abstraction for them.
5. I am also auditing an MDiv level course on Worship and the Lutheran Confessions where all these just-mentioned streams of thought seem to be coming to a head.

I would say the composition of this MDiv class is half to two-thirds first and second year students, which means they have not been on internship yet. There are also a handful of PhD and MA students, most of whom have had multiple years of parish experience. And then the rest are seniors – they’ve had a taste of ministry on a year-long student internship and are now back for one more year of class before they receive a call, get ordained, and become real live pastors.

So anyway, the class is a mixture of lecture, small and large group discussion, a good way to mix things up in a block schedule. The large group discussion is always at the end, and is always led by a group of students (the leader group rotates from week to week). Thus far the leader groups have come up with what they obviously consider to be “edgy” questions. Like, when discussing baptism, the two big questions were “Should we be reaching out to and baptizing Jews and Muslims?” and “What do you do when a family shows up to get their baby baptized, and the last time you saw them was 4 years ago when they came to get their now-4-year-old baptized?”

At the end of that class, all of us who have actually served as parish pastors were talking to each other as we were packing up and concluded, “Yeah, these are not the questions you ask or are really even interested in once you become a pastor.”

But then last night the topic was Communion, and the questions were: “What is the relation of faith and communion?” “At what age should we begin communing children?” “Should we be practicing an open table where all, even the unbaptized, are welcome?” “How should we dispose of the elements?” “Who should be allowed to preside over communion?” etc

These questions and the discussion have been bothering me ever since, and I’ve been trying to unpack why.

Partially I’m annoyed because again many of these are not the questions you are really worried about once you actually become a pastor.

Partially I’m bothered because, while on the surface these questions were about pastoral practice, in reality they were all meant to go after the theology underlying the practice. Which is not an inherently bad thing – I mean, part of what I’m exploring with Chris is how we understand and talk about practice as embodied theology. But the way the questions were asked and discussed, the real concern and debate was over right doctrine (which everyone seemed pretty rigidly convinced they had) and making sure we had right practices to reflect that right doctrine.

Partially, I’m disturbed because the whole conversation was such on such an abstract level.

Which, ok, you could argue they don’t know any better, they haven’t had any or enough experience to have this conversation on anything more than an abstract level, and there are a number of ways in which both the candidacy and curricular processes of Lutheran seminaries make almost everyone into little Lutheran Nazis (rigidly obsessed with correct doctrine) by the second year, so perhaps this is all understandable.

But at a point in the discussion about whether the table should be open to the unbaptized, I piped up and shared a story from my experience in the parish, about a relative of the congregation who lived far away but was a fairly regular visitor, who never took communion in the five years I knew them. That whole time I just assumed it was because they were a skeptic or had some other reason for not wanting to participate, but I never actually asked them why they never came forward, because I didn’t want to be nosy or make them feel uncomfortable or pressured to take part. Around the same time that I announced I was leaving, this person and I finally had a conversation about it – turned out all this time they had wanted to come forward but didn’t because they weren’t sure if they had been baptized, and they didn’t want to offend the church or me or God by participating in something they weren’t sure they had a right to.

Long story short: my own theology (and what I would argue is good Lutheran theology) is that it’s Jesus’ party and he invites everybody to come, who am I to stand in anybody’s way? It’s an open table and this person was more than welcome to participate. I think the welcome to the table that I speak embodies that theology, but there was a contradiction in the bulletin, a little line in fine print that said this is a meal for the baptized. I hated that line and at various times pulled it out (I wasn’t the one who put it in), but it would pop back up when the secretary would use an old bulletin as a template, I wouldn’t always notice that it reappeared, and I would hope no one actually read the fine print. But this person did, and it kept them from coming forward.

I’m pretty sure now they probably do participate in communion, not only because of our conversation but because the conversation prompted some family research and they discovered they were indeed baptized. And that’s awesome and is hopefully a meaningful change and practice in this person’s life now, but we both lamented that we hadn’t had that conversation five years ago, so that they could have been participating all this time.

So I shared this whole story as a piece of wisdom from my own experience, that this stuff is not just an abstraction or word game about keeping doctrine pure, but it really matters in the messy, in-the-flesh, everyday reality of actual people’s lives. A spoken or unspoken implication of a closed table cuts hungry people off from the grace Christ offers them in his supper.

And the response I got, from a second-career student twenty years my senior (who I suspect was a little pissed that I had played their normal conversational trump card of experience, and had actually trumped their trump by discussing pastoral experience as opposed to general life experience) was, “Well, in five years of wanting to come forward for communion, why didn’t they find a church near where they lived and go talk to that pastor about it?”

In other words, when faced with a concrete, embodied, pastoral reality, when looking at the question of what the wise pastoral move is in the situation, they wanted to throw the responsibility back onto the parishioner and throw the discussion back into the abstract and hypothetical, and speculate on history that at this point can’t be undone. Instead of having the imagination to see what, pastorally and theologically, is really at stake in the sacraments – that they are a means of grace, events in which God promises to meet us, acts that create both a space and a place for the Holy Spirit to work, so why in heaven’s name would you want to box them up or rope them off? – they just wanted to be right in the safe, sterile environment of the seminary classroom.

I think that’s what’s really bothering me, is that they’re not asking the phronetic question, how then shall we live? On the surface it sounds like they are, “Should we practice open table” sounds like a “how then shall we live” kind of question. But they weren’t going after that aspect of the question, they were essentially using the question to practice articulating Lutheran doctrine, and the clear focus was on making sure we get the rules right.

And maybe that’s just where they are at, developmentally. I mean, you’ve got to learn your scales before you can do anything with them. Learning how to articulate doctrine and theology is not a bad thing, it’s rather important, actually. Maybe I just need more patience, especially when I hear them sound a “wrong” note.

At the same time, if theological education is in need of reform (and it seems almost everyone thinks it does), isn’t this a place to start? Isn’t part of the problem that seminary education just teaches the scales and expects students to figure out what to do with them, and what’s at stake in them, on their own? So how do we change that? How do we pull them out of the land of abstraction?

I’m not saying I have any good answers – I warned you at the top that these thoughts are only half-baked. I’m just feeling like the events of the past couple weeks have been clarifying the problem. . .

The Absurdity of Jesus

2011-02-24T23:58:00.003-05:00

Luther Sem's very own Matt Skinner has an article on the Huffington Post, speaking of the absurd, Jesus, and the parables.

Everybody Loves Joe Mauer

2011-02-22T22:31:00.002-05:00

even a diehard Red Sox fan who lives and works in the Big Apple:

Spring training underway, opening day is just around the corner. . . :)

The Force is Strong in This One

2011-02-08T01:47:00.004-05:00

I love this commercial. It is better than the Jetta "Synchronicity" commercial, which was pretty awesome.

This may possibly convert an avowed Honda girl into a VW owner. . .

Really, Augsburg Fortress?

2011-02-05T01:18:00.003-05:00

I'm presiding over my Great Uncle Don's funeral tomorrow. Some day I should write reflections on functioning as the family pastor, but for tonight, just venting a little frustration at AF.

In the parish we just put everything in the bulletin, so I usually led from that and used my hymnal only for hymns, if there were any. The family decided not to run a bulletin for this service, which is fine, I can just as easily lead from the service in the hymnal.

Except that Evangelical Lutheran Worship does not have the prayers of intercession printed in the funeral service.

Seriously AF? You had room in this hymnal for 8 different settings of the liturgy and 800-some hymns, but you didn't have one side of one page to give to intercessory prayers for a funeral?

Epic fail.

Consequently, I'll be leading the service out of my old Lutheran Book of Worship.

And with that, it's time for bed. G'night.