Walter Brueggemann hit me over the head with Lent, and various other thoughts that don't quite fit together yet

This morning I went to a lecture given by Walter Brueggemann on the prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible.  Now, if you don't know who that is it sounds like a total snooze.  I'm with you.  A crusty, old, white guy talking about ancient texts.  Yawn.  But Walter Brueggemann is sort of a big deal, and the lecture was sort of life altering.

His lecture focused on the role of the prophet and the function of the imagery of the temple destruction (in 587 BCE) in the prophetic literature.  Key to understanding the prophets is understanding their historical situation and tradition.  The story of Israel prior to the destruction of the temple was that they were a chosen people who God would never abandon.  A read through of Kings will show you pretty quickly that the kings of Judah and Israel weren't always nice guys.  Even Solomon, who built the temple, wasn't perfect and was, in Brueggemann's words, the "Great Accumulator"--power, control, commodity, wisdom, wealth, and wives.  This is Israel's "dominant narrative"--the story of who they were, the identity outside of which they could not imagine existence.  Then in 587 the Babylonians sack Jerusalem and destroy the temple, the dwelling place of God on earth, and cart the people off into captivity.  And the prophets don't say "I told you so" because their mothers taught them manners.

So who are these prophets anyway?  They are those speaking from elsewhere into the dominant narrative.  They are the voice of the outsider who can see something is terribly wrong.  They are uncredentialed poets who speak of God's intended economy of holiness and neighborliness.  Their role is to walk us into our failures and out into hope.  Jeremiah 1:10 says the prophet is to pluck up, pull down, destroy, and overthrow the dominant narrative and instead build and plant something else.  Later (9:23-4) Jeremiah is to overthrow the wisdom, wealth, and might of the dominant narrative in favor of the love, justice, and righteousness of relation and neighborliness.

The prophets are often viewed as angry, but woe is a sad word, not an angry word.  It is the deep sadness of seeing that what is is unsustainable and destined for failure.  Woe to you who are so anesthetized by your stuff that you don't see what's going on (Amos 6:4-7).  Woe to you who steal from your neighbors, are self-indulgent, and call things by their wrongful names to hide their true nature (Isaiah 5:8-23, Habakkuk 2:6-19).  Woe to you who exploit those who cannot stop you (Luke 6:24-26).  Woe to you hypocrites (Matthew 23:13-29).  Woe to you who think there are no consequences for your actions (Hosea 4:1-3, Jeremiah 5:26-29).  You are headed to a place you don't want to go.  The prophets MUST make us face these things that lead to destruction, otherwise there can be no repentance and restoration.  The prophets must plunge us into despair (didn't they do a good job) before they can lead us back toward hope.

So what are these things for us now?  Brueggemann argues that our 587 BCE is 9/11.  This is the point at which the US's narrative of self-importance and infallibility, our "chosen-ness", came into question for us.  We could not imagine a narrative in which we were not chosen and "God blessed", where we were not the good guys.  We could not imagine why anyone would wish us harm.  Never mind all the horrific things we had done in the name of national and economic security.  I'm not really sure where the line for national security is (Can we and should we have security outside of Christ?), or if there even is any such thing, but his argument is compelling.  We are currently living in a world where the dominant narrative, built on the backs of exploited peoples, is one of consumerism and greed.  It's built at the expense of our planet.  It's sustained at the expense of our families and our health.  Brueggemann believes that we can't walk out of our 587 until we face our failure.  From my own experience I know this to be true.  Putting your head in the sand doesn't make the problem go away.  The problem just grows while you smile and pretend things are okay.

This is the point of Lent, to walk us into our 587.  Lent culminates in crucifixion, a descent into hell, and resurrection.  We examine where we've turned away, where we've been led into captivity, and we return to God for healing and hope.  We allow God to move us beyond restoration and into transformation.  I don't simply want to be restored to what I was--I want to become something purer and holier.  And I want you to come with me.  This is the essence of our Christian lives, moving onward toward perfection in love of God and others.  This is the kingdom.  This is heaven.  And God aches to give it to us.


But often we are no good at being the kingdom.  In large things and in small we daily we reject the offer of heaven.
When we hide from our hurts.  We reject heaven.
When we deny healing.  We reject heaven.
When we hold on to anger.  We reject heaven.
When we don't stop and listen.  We reject heaven.
When we refuse accept love.  We reject heaven.
When we ignore those who are "other".  We reject heaven.
When we perpetuate injustice.  We reject heaven.
When we hate mercy.  We reject heaven.
When we refuse to walk humbly with God.  We reject heaven.

Accepting heaven is hard because it is among us now and yet just out of reach.  It is ephemeral and paradoxical and concrete and so very real.  We know all of this because we've experienced it--healing, joy, answered prayer, fellowship, grace, peace, and unfathomable, unprecedented, unmerited love.  And we also know heaven exists because we've seen the hell of war, hunger, poverty, genocide, rape, depression, substance abuse, and domestic violence.  These are not spiritual imaginings.  These are the active forces of heaven and hell among us.

As someone who feels all the feelings all the time I know it is hard to live life openly before God, because living for God means living for and in but not of the world.  In the words of Jason Gray, "To bring my heart to every day--to run the risk of fearlessly loving without running away."  It hurts and it's messy, just ask Jesus.  It can feel like a no-win situation.  We wonder if things will change.  How will we ever make a difference?

The good news is that we are not the ones who have to make a difference.  The difference has already been made.  We know how the story ends.  God leaps up to save us from ourselves.  To save me from me and you from me.  To hand us heaven trusting that we will, to the best of our God-given ability, walk humbly.  And this gift, though freely given, requires work on our part.  It's not a stroll through the tulips.  It's a good and worthwhile fight against the dominant narrative that wants to shush the good news of Christ.

So the end of what I'm thinking about--what I want you all to think about--is what do we need to be led through and to?  What do we need to lament?  Where are we denying God's offer of heaven?  You do it.  I do it too.  We can choose to stop.  Let's stop.  Let us open our eyes and choose instead to participate in God's good work already going on around us.  Let us not keep silent when we see injustice.  Let us offer mercy and charity first, and in such abundance that offering anything else becomes unnecessary.  Let us not simply walk, but run humbly to God.  Let us be the kingdom.  Dear God!  Let us be your kingdom!

Turkey -- Day 1

It is finally sinking in that I'm actually in Turkey.  So, the first full day in Turkey...

Well, let's start with yesterday (or Thursday night into Friday).  Thursday night we went to the airport and boarded a plane.  12 hours of flying and 7 time zones later we arrived in Turkey.  We got our visas at the airport (a highly sketchy process in which we handed a guy our passports and a "crisp, new $20 bill' (those were the exact instructions we were given) and in exchange they ignored us and put a sticker in our books.  No questions, no discussion.) and boarded a minibus for the 45 minute ride from Izmir to Selcuk.  Surprisingly Turkey looks a lot like upper southern California.  Think like a combination of Topanga Canyon and the area around San Louis Obispo.  Then we checked into the hotel.  Most of our group is staying in the main building.  Four of us (Haley, Ginny, Calissa, and me) are staying in a separate building that must have been finished minutes before we arrived because it still smells like oil-based paint.  The hotel was built/rebuilt this year and so it's very nice. 

Sidebar: everybody keeps complaining about how nice the hotel isn't.  No, it's not a five star resort.  It's not a Holiday Inn.  It's Mediterranean/European.  Everything is new and, sure, it's arranged differently from how things are arranged in the states, but it's clean, and well-kept and the owners are super friendly.  We have a weird roof-top porch right outside our door and they brought us furniture for it.  They didn't have to do that.  Maybe things are damp, but it's a rainy, humid place and stuff gets damp.  It gets cold at night.  Put on a sweatshirt. They feed us a really nice traditional Turkish breakfast every morning (tomatoes, cucumbers, breads, jams, cheese, coffee, fresh-squeezed orange and pomegranate juice, cereal).  Suck it up.  We're in Turkey.  If you wanted familiar things you should have stayed at home.  End rant.

After we checked in we went to see the library we're using for resources, got cash from the ATM, and then we went to dinner.  The food is really good.  Lots of fresh veggies and dip/sauce.  Lots of different kinds of cooked meats (sardines, chicken, lamb, beef).  Lots of treatments of eggplant.  Deep fried goat cheese.  Then we went home and I passed out.

One of my favorite parts of traveling is seeing all the different, pretty money, especially coins.  The dollar is really strong right now, so the exchange rate is roughly 2:1.  I got a 1.5L bottle of water for 50 cents.  This is additionally good because today we started out the day by going to the Saturday market.  I got some really pretty textiles that include beads to warn off the Evil Eye.  The Evil Eye warding symbol is everywhere here.  Hung up on buildings, embedded into the cement on sidewalks and into the plaster ceilings of stores.  The market was full of spices, nuts, dried meats, baked goods (baklava!), candies, vegetables, fruits (so many oranges...they grow as decorative plants in highway medians) -- pretty much all the foods that you could possibly want.  It was also full of knock off purses, shoes, weird socks, Jack Daniels tshirts, and a whole lot of other crap I wouldn't buy at home, let alone travel halfway across the world for (side question: why would you bother traveling all the way around the world -- you'd just end up back where you started).  One vendor was selling fresh squeezed pomegranate juice.  For 5 lira you could get 2 glasses of it.  So good!  Then we had lunch (rice and beans in a thin tomato sauce) and went to Ephesus.

Ephesus is a hard thing to describe.  It is only 15% excavated (the Austrians/Germans have been working on it for 100 years...) and a lot of it is on the ground in chunks.  But once you started to really look at stuff you could begin to see what it might have looked like at one time.  It's situated between two mountains (really big hills) and goes down to the harbor where the Aegean Sea used to be.  I did all the readings for the class, but I still didn't feel prepared.  During today's lecture I found out I'm more prepared than I thought I was.  I remembered what the professor was talking about from the readings!  One of the things we talked about today was why there were different foundations for columns than there was for flooring at one of the temples.  Um, you can't set stone columns (on which the stone roof sits) securely on rubble foundations...duh.  If that doesn't make sense to you I'm pretty sure there's a kids' song about the wise and foolish builder...and I have some ocean front property for sale in Arizona that you might be interested in.

It's really interesting to think about the other religions that were happening in Ephesus alongside Christianity.  The temple we focused on today was (probably...as best as archaeologists can tell) dedicated to Egyptian gods/goddesses.  To look at the ways that these temples would have operated and then compare them to early Christian practice (especially initiation rights, since I'm also taking a sacraments class and we've been talking about early Christian baptism and the intentionally mysterious rites that surrounded it) was really strange and neat. 

After we got done at Ephesus we came back to the hotel for a bit and then went out to dinner.  We just wandered until we found something that looked good.  It was this tiny, tiny place -- all 6 of us barely fit in it.  The food was soooooo good!  Turkish appetizers are called "mata".  I'm not sure on the spelling, but if you ask for it they just bring you plates of delicious mystery.  Apparently the place we picked is our professors' favorite, "well-kept" secret because they looked really sad when they showed up and we were already there.  "How did you find this place?"  "We walked.  It's on the main street."  It was weird.

Tomorrow we're going to three places that aren't Ephesus to look at other religious sites.  It is also another day that begins at 7:15, so I need to go to bed.

Communion of Saints

So I've been thinking for a while about the Communion of Saints.  At a very basic level, it's the idea that there are spiritual foremothers and forefathers that have played a part in the creation of our community and our person -- that the people who came before us, by living their faithful example, directly shaped who and what we are.  And they remain with us still, in our shape and in our actions.

But even longer than I've been thinking about the Communion of Saints I've been thinking about the women in my life who have been spiritual examples.  So here's a short, by no means complete, list:

My grandma Glo, someone who you didn't have to know very long to know she was special.  I remember that when we'd stay the night with her and she'd tuck us in and pray out loud for us.  In the mornings, she'd get up early and sit by the big windows at the back of the house and read her Bible.  And on days when she could convince us to get up early enough (which got harder as we reached teenage years) we'd sit with her and she'd read aloud to us.  When we were there on Sundays we'd have to go to church with her and Grandpa.  I hated it because the minister was always crying and screaming about something, but I got to sit next to Grandma and we'd sing harmony out of the shaped note hymnal.  Grandma was never afraid to do what seemed right to her.  I remember that once she said something like 'if women were supposed to be quiet in church that men had better be doing what they were supposed to, and if they didn't then it was up to the women to do it right and the men would just have to accept it'.  Coming from a time and place where the literal interpretation of the Bible was strong and motivational, this seemed so shocking to me.  But she was right.

My grandma Huckelberry, a woman I didn't get to know very well.  I remember sitting at her kitchen table with her, and sticking my head under her skirt at the grocery store, and being in the house with her during her time in hospice care, and that's about it.  But I know her through my mother and aunts.  I know she was precise and giving.  I know she was creative and good with words.  I know she loved music.  Most importantly I know she taught my mother about Jesus and I'm so grateful for that.

My aunt Becky, my doppelganger.  Aunt Becky manages to be strong and analytical while being totally tenderhearted and in love with God.  She and God talk like they're friends.  She is wise and smart and thoroughly goofy.  She gives her talents to God, playing and singing and encouraging.  Getting to sing with her during Grandpa's memorial is something that will always be sweet to me.  I've felt God's presence many times singing with her.  She gives of herself even when it isn't easy, and her generosity astounds me. 

My aunt Nancy, my mother hen, always providing a place to nap and escape the world/school.  Aunt Nancy probably doesn't know how influential she has been to me, but she and her Bible study/devotional bag have been.  When I was starting to think about seminary I remember driving with her across town and talking with her about what I thought God was telling me.  I remember she said to me, "It sounds like God's telling you to do something and you'd better do it."

My sister, the only one who understand why and how I'm so weird and why I have trouble knowing whether or not a knife is dirty.  Emily is patient and serene and logical (especially with difficult people) when I want to kick and scream at something(/someone).  She is strong and funny, and a good mother and wife.  She doesn't talk negatively about her husband, and I know that isn't because he's perfect but rather because she's chosen to present a united front to the world.  She's concerned about raising their son to know God.  She's concerned about her wider family's well-being.  When we talk about God I always learn something and am always surprised (in a good way) by the way she looks at things.

And lastly, but in no way leastly, my mother.  She has done, and continues to do, a lot of great things for me.  However, one of the best things was dragging us to church, even when we didn't want to go.  Even when she didn't want to go.  Starting and making us be in the youth choir.  Making us go to youth group.  Making us go to VBS.  Making us know God.  She continually prayed with me when I didn't understand how God could love me.  So many times.  She bravely handled my teenage existential/spiritual crises and never once did she make me feel as though it was unimportant (because though it seems silly now it was so important then).  She is strong, stronger than she knows I think.  She has big girl panties and knows how to put them on.  She is fiercely protective.  She wrestles with God, but never lets go.  And I know its hard sometimes.  She is resilient.  She is determined when she has to be and a zany perfectionist the rest of the time.  She's loving and caring and steadfast.  And she's the main reason I know Jesus.

These are members of my Communion of Saints, my lineage, and quite frankly I find it hard to measure up.  And the thing is I meet new members all the time.  I am totally in awe of some of the friends I've made here at BUSTH.  Their depth and wisdom and courage are so inspiring and intimidating to me.  Through my interactions with them I can say without question that God is real, alive, and good.  And I suppose that's what the communion is for--to draw us all closer to the One who wants every bit of us, the inspiring, uninspiring, and the ordinary.  The One who wants to transform us into saints ourselves.

Brain overload.

One of the things I'm learning about me throughout the process of grad school is that I need order in my life.  I don't need every minute planned, but I like to have a general idea of what the day (or activity) will bring.  I can fly by the seat of my pants, but too much of that makes me nuts pretty quickly.  I don't even particularly care if I/we deviate from the plan, as long as there was once a plan to deviate from.  I think this is where my procrastinating gets me into trouble.  "I'm supposed to be doing this right now...oh look...a shiny puppy..."  But this semester has been a particularly rough start.  With the weather and holidays classes are slow to start and I'm slow to get organized.  I'm already behind, and I have a book that's absolutely kicking my butt.

So from that book is this thought.  Mom and I were talking about the Communion of Saints (looking to the lives of those Christians who've gone before us, or "saints", for wisdom/guidance) over break.  Then this morning we had a conversation about our lived lives (both individually and communally) as evangelism.  This is two paragraphs from the book that's kicking my butt.

"Like the poor and the stranger, the dead have little place in modern societies because they have no “utility.” Only that which bears an exchange value is allowed to make a claim on us, and so the dead, who can do nothing for us, are either forgotten or fetishized (and thereby turned into a commodity). Our medical, bereavement, and funerary practices keep the bodies of the dead at a distance and diminish any contact with them that is not entirely antiseptic and pumped full of formaldehyde. In the Christian household, however, both the living and the dead belong.  The dead in Christ commune with and make a claim on the living. This “communication” with the dead is not morbid, and though it is unsupported in modern cultures, it is quite common in cultures around the globe that have not yet been given over wholly to an instrumental rationality in which value is defined by usefulness (indeed, these cultures frequently include the dead in a ritual meal). For Christians, death does not have the last word, and the table of the Lord, in its reconstitution of time and in its remembering of the body of Christ, is literally a gathering of saints from across the ages within a local assembly. To evangelize the world, therefore, is to invite persons into a concrete local fellowship that is at the same time made truly catholic (“ according to the whole”) around that table.

Memory, according to J. B. Metz, is a form of solidarity with the dead, the suffering, and the conquered that is “dangerous” because it “breaks the grip of history as a history of triumph and conquest interpreted dialectically or as evolution”. The dead are part of our story, and through a eucharistic solidarity with the dead, we are saved both from resignation and from narcissism and thus freed to be life for the world. The “great cloud of witnesses” (for they are, indeed, evangelists) will not let us forget; and neither will they let us reduce hope to that which our own rationalities and technologies might produce in the world. Evangelism carried out eucharistically is both faithful and hopeful, because it is a telling and a sharing that is essentially a “remembering forward.”"

Stone, Bryan P. (2007-03-01). Evangelism after Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness

SO MUCH crammed into two paragraphs.  When we "do this in remembrance" what are we remembering?  Are we remembering Jesus the political instigator or are we remembering Christ the bringer of new life?  Or are we remembering both?  Are we remembering the suffering, trials, lives, and ultimate victory of those who have gone before us?  Are we participating in the story of Christianity?  Are we a living memory of the Good News?

But I think I'm going to focus on eucharistic food practices for my paper in my sacraments class, so look forward to that...

Gotta run...I'm late...again...

Updates and Hyperbole

So brief update before I call it a night.


We had another art night on Friday night.  We were supposed to create as a community something that represented brokenness and/or healing (themes for Lent).  This is what my group created.

This is supposed to be the stormy seas of life with the light of the sun, moon, and stars breaking through.  I think it came out really well, and if they want to be done with it after Lent I'd like to take it.

This is another group's project.  They went celestial too.  These are going to hang where the other paintings are currently hanging on the exposed brick.  Those other paintings are what we did at the last art night (for Advent).  The ceilings are high -- the existing paintings are hanging in the middle of the wall.

It was a really fun night.  We had people from a church that meets in an art studio in Haverhill (pronounced 'hav-er-ill'...New England, come on!) come and participate and learn about what/why we were doing what we are, and it was nice to talk shop with them.

So other than that...I've been dragged into a lot of music stuff recently.  Which is great and also kind of weird since in many respects music feels like a different life to me.  But I'm excited for the most part.

And I may as well glue a book to my hand I have so much reading to do!  I'm hoping in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to figure out which reading is necessary and which is 'when I get to it' reading, or even better 'if I get to it' reading.  I have a feeling that most of it is necessary.  My life in higher education (as an educated, straight, white, middle class woman) is so tough!  I have absolutely no reason to whine, I just am feeling a little overwhelmed.

Time to make a to-do list.  At the top: making a to-do list.  So I can check it off.