I am an amateur photographer. I read Outdoor Photographer. Dewitt Jones writes a column for the magazine. This month's column focuses on love or fear. The article is here.
I went to church yesterday. Everyone was wonderful, happy to see me. I had only one woman say "You will be OK. Attitude is 75% of what happens to you." I just kept smiling. I know attitude is important, but I don't believe it is as important as some people keep saying. And because it carries a bit of blame the victim when things don't go well (as with if you have enough faith, then you will be cured), it really aggravates me.
I went to the Episcopalian church last night for the first time in about five months. They alternate a Taize and Celtic Eucharist each Sunday evening. It is so wonderful to sit in the cool, slightly darkened sanctuary filled with candles. And to have communion every Sunday.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Ovarian Cancer. Seems I'm one of the lucky 26000 women who will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year. If that sounds a bit bitter, it is. I just never imagined this would happen to me. A stroke, yes. Heart attack, maybe. But ovarian cancer, that could never happen to me.
A bit hard to come to terms with, I'm afraid. Although from what the surgeon says, the future looks good, it is still difficult. I really feel as if it's happening to someone else, not me. It's a bit bizarre.
I'm planning to go to church on Sunday. I will need to steel myself for all the "everything happens for a reason" "God has [his] purpose in everything" folks. You see, I don't believe God lets/causes bad things to happen to people. The evil in this world is against God's plan for humanity and is of our own creation. The natural things that happen: tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, happen because that is the way the world is made. God suffers with us and weeps when we cause pain to ourselves, others and God's creation. There are folks in my congregation who have lost children (there are much, much worse things than having ovarian cancer) and who have managed to survive by believing somehow it was God's plan. I don't feel it is my place to impose my beliefs on them, but I can't stand hearing that this is God's plan for me. I will want to scream "No, that's not who God is." But I will try my best to smile and thank them for their concern.
A bit hard to come to terms with, I'm afraid. Although from what the surgeon says, the future looks good, it is still difficult. I really feel as if it's happening to someone else, not me. It's a bit bizarre.
I'm planning to go to church on Sunday. I will need to steel myself for all the "everything happens for a reason" "God has [his] purpose in everything" folks. You see, I don't believe God lets/causes bad things to happen to people. The evil in this world is against God's plan for humanity and is of our own creation. The natural things that happen: tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, happen because that is the way the world is made. God suffers with us and weeps when we cause pain to ourselves, others and God's creation. There are folks in my congregation who have lost children (there are much, much worse things than having ovarian cancer) and who have managed to survive by believing somehow it was God's plan. I don't feel it is my place to impose my beliefs on them, but I can't stand hearing that this is God's plan for me. I will want to scream "No, that's not who God is." But I will try my best to smile and thank them for their concern.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
I've been away for a while. Seems I have/had ovarian cancer. I had been complaining of tiredness since October (Doc: "Could it be psychological?") and then a number of other things happened to my body. I was in for a partial thyroidectomy on March 27 when I finally convinced yet another doc to take a look at my abdomen. "Hmmm, this is not right." After reporting to my surgeon (who had told me that it was a violation of Einsteins law of conservation of matter and energy that I could have gained 10 pounds in a month eating nothing but yoghurt, cottage cheese and cereal) what the "this is not right" doc had said, the surgeon ordered a CT scan. Mass in my abdomen that measured 25 cm (that's 10 inches). Went home on March 28, back in the hospital on March 31 for more surgery. The 7.5 pound tumor was malignant, but the surgeon thinks I won't need chemo.
I had none of the risk factors for ovarian cancer (except my Dad had colon cancer late in life) and I had every one of the factors that mitigate against having ovarian cancer. I did have every one of the symptoms (such that they are) of ovarian cancer, but no one seemed to pick up on it.
I think I was very lucky that it was found early. My frustration is that it took so long to get a doctor to take me seriously. I had four different doctors examine my abdomen and no one of them thought it unusual, even though it was hard and I looked seven months pregnant.
And so, now, almost two weeks after the surgery, I am beginning to come to terms with it.
I had always imagined that I would live into my 90s. I am very healthy. My great health fear is stroke and so I have been exercising (part of my symptoms was my inability to exercise) for years and trying to eat relatively well. I have no family history of cancer before the onset of old age, so this was well off my radar screen.
Now, I am old enough to know that I am finite. I preach on the finitude of humanity a lot. But, I don't believe it, not deep in my gut. I can do anything.
Life is short. I hope that I can begin to live more intentionally, savoring each moment.
I had none of the risk factors for ovarian cancer (except my Dad had colon cancer late in life) and I had every one of the factors that mitigate against having ovarian cancer. I did have every one of the symptoms (such that they are) of ovarian cancer, but no one seemed to pick up on it.
I think I was very lucky that it was found early. My frustration is that it took so long to get a doctor to take me seriously. I had four different doctors examine my abdomen and no one of them thought it unusual, even though it was hard and I looked seven months pregnant.
And so, now, almost two weeks after the surgery, I am beginning to come to terms with it.
I had always imagined that I would live into my 90s. I am very healthy. My great health fear is stroke and so I have been exercising (part of my symptoms was my inability to exercise) for years and trying to eat relatively well. I have no family history of cancer before the onset of old age, so this was well off my radar screen.
Now, I am old enough to know that I am finite. I preach on the finitude of humanity a lot. But, I don't believe it, not deep in my gut. I can do anything.
Life is short. I hope that I can begin to live more intentionally, savoring each moment.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
When to cancel church?
Yesterday and last night we had about two inches of snow. I got a call around lunch time from a member who has been taking care of our property since I got here. He wanted to make sure I wasn't thinking of canceling church. I'm sure he heard the disbelief in my voice when I said, "no, I hadn't thought of it." Most of the entries to the sanctuary are cleared and it should be above freezing by the time church begins tomorrow. I asked whether anyone around here sold salt and he said the only kind of salt you could buy is rock salt for ice cream. No halite.
I figure the little old ladies won't come anyway. They don't like to come when it's cold (anything below 45 degrees).
So, when do you southerners cancel church? I can see ice storms and if this storm had come through today rather than yesterday, then we probably would have (though I probably would still giggle).
My backyard this morning
I figure the little old ladies won't come anyway. They don't like to come when it's cold (anything below 45 degrees).
So, when do you southerners cancel church? I can see ice storms and if this storm had come through today rather than yesterday, then we probably would have (though I probably would still giggle).
My backyard this morning
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Yahweh
Text: Ephesians 5:8-14
The text this morning comes at the end of a longer passage in which the writer exhorts the readers to no longer live as unbelievers do. He asserts that unbelievers are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the hardening of their hearts. He goes on to urge these Christians “to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires . . . and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22b-24) The Greek in the verbs for “put on” and “put off” are those used in removing clothes. The writer alludes to the Christians’ baptism in which they literally put off their old clothes, entered the waters of baptism and then put on new white garments which marked their new life as Christians. The author of Ephesians continues the conversation by listing practices that Christians are to follow: speaking the truth to our neighbors, not letting the sun go down on our anger, not engaging in evil talk, only what is useful in building up others, work so that we have something to share with those in need, put away bitterness, anger, wrangling and slander, being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Then he urges his readers to be imitators of God, to live a life of love, to give up immorality, impurity and greed. Finally, he comes to this ending: to live as children of the light.
In their song Yahweh, U2 uses similar images as the writer of Ephesians, but not from the perspective of exhorting others, but as a cry to God to help them live as children of the light. The song begins by asking God to take articles of clothing: shoes, a polyester shirt, and make them fit and clean. The song reminds us of baptism: taking off our clothes and exchanging them for Christian garments. But, the song reflects the struggle of Christians to live into their baptism. It is not easy. One sermon I read in preparing for this sermon had lots of illustrations about being in dirty clothes and the sheer joy in exchanging a grimy body and grimy clothes for a clean body and clean clothes. If you’ve ever been camping you know how it feels to finally find a shower and swap those muddy, sweaty clothes for clean ones. Or if you’ve been gardening and you come in the house dirty and sweaty, it’s wonderful to step into the shower or bathtub and the put on clean, fresh clothes. On the other hand, I have a secret. I have an inner slob that comes out, particularly on Thursdays when I write my sermon. I stay in my pjs most of the day, my hair a mess, no make up. So despite the niceness of being clean and dressed in clean clothes, there is a pull to slobbery. And so it is with our lives. We know that we are better off to live the life the writer of Ephesians exhorts us to live, but we fall prey to the darkness. We’d rather seek revenge for the slights we encounter than to forgive. We’d rather gossip and tear someone down than build them up. We take delight in others’ misfortunes. We’d rather take our hard earned money and spend in on our selves or our families instead of handing it over to someone in need. And, yes, occasionally greed rears its ugly head in our lives. And so, we cry out to God to help us live as children of the light, as imitators of God. We cannot do it by ourselves:
Take these shoes
Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes
And make them fit
Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt
And make it clean, clean
Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing
Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticize
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss. . .
We cannot do it by ourselves. We cry out for God’s help.
Here in the song, U2 shifts metaphors in the same way that the writer of Ephesians shifts. The metaphor, the images, shift to ones of light. For the writer of Ephesians the fruit of the light is all that is good. Evil is in the darkness. The writer ends this section with what some commentators have thought was a baptism hymn: “Sleeper, awake, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.” U2 continues the song with the words
Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?
Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break
One preacher writing on Ephesians said: [The writer of Ephesians] urges us not only to make our own world a cheerful place, but to widen the circle of light to include others: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them." This preacher quotes John Grisham, in his novel, The Street Lawyer, describing the reaction of someone helping the helpless:
I was in no hurry to leave the [legal clinic for the homeless] at the end of my first day. Home was an empty attic, not much larger than any three of the cubbyholes at the Samaritan House. Home was a bedroom with no bed, a living room with cableless TV, a kitchen with a card table and no fridge... .
"So what do you think?" [a fellow lawyer] asked, pausing by the door on the way out.
"I think it's fascinating work. The human contact is inspiring."
"It'll break your heart at times."
"It already has."
"That's good. If you reach the point where it doesn't hurt, then it's time to quit."
This preacher continues: “Children of light don't quit. Jesus himself modeled what it means to walk in the light. He had a heart for "the least of these." He took up a cross. He resisted the powers of oppression and evil. His plan included working with a "Helper" who would partner with us forever. His goals involved nothing short of establishing the kingdom of the highest heaven on earth.”
Bono recalls once when he and his wife were visiting Ethiopia. A father came up, carrying his son in his arms. The child was emaciated. The father begged Bono and his wife to take the child with them. The father, Bono recalls, knew that his son would die in Africa. He was willing to give up the child so that his son might live. It will break your heart.
What breaks your heart? What do you see around you that cries out for light? Is it the children we tutor at Hanley? Is it Leigh’s stories of Ghana, of water shortages? Of men and women struggling to have enough to eat? Is it the sight of homeless men: drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill with no place to call home, no bed to sleep in, no place to keep their meager belongings, no treatment? Is it elderly men and women in nursing homes with few if any visitors? How is God calling you to take part in establishing the kingdom of heaven here, now? What breaks your heart?
The text this morning comes at the end of a longer passage in which the writer exhorts the readers to no longer live as unbelievers do. He asserts that unbelievers are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the hardening of their hearts. He goes on to urge these Christians “to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires . . . and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22b-24) The Greek in the verbs for “put on” and “put off” are those used in removing clothes. The writer alludes to the Christians’ baptism in which they literally put off their old clothes, entered the waters of baptism and then put on new white garments which marked their new life as Christians. The author of Ephesians continues the conversation by listing practices that Christians are to follow: speaking the truth to our neighbors, not letting the sun go down on our anger, not engaging in evil talk, only what is useful in building up others, work so that we have something to share with those in need, put away bitterness, anger, wrangling and slander, being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Then he urges his readers to be imitators of God, to live a life of love, to give up immorality, impurity and greed. Finally, he comes to this ending: to live as children of the light.
In their song Yahweh, U2 uses similar images as the writer of Ephesians, but not from the perspective of exhorting others, but as a cry to God to help them live as children of the light. The song begins by asking God to take articles of clothing: shoes, a polyester shirt, and make them fit and clean. The song reminds us of baptism: taking off our clothes and exchanging them for Christian garments. But, the song reflects the struggle of Christians to live into their baptism. It is not easy. One sermon I read in preparing for this sermon had lots of illustrations about being in dirty clothes and the sheer joy in exchanging a grimy body and grimy clothes for a clean body and clean clothes. If you’ve ever been camping you know how it feels to finally find a shower and swap those muddy, sweaty clothes for clean ones. Or if you’ve been gardening and you come in the house dirty and sweaty, it’s wonderful to step into the shower or bathtub and the put on clean, fresh clothes. On the other hand, I have a secret. I have an inner slob that comes out, particularly on Thursdays when I write my sermon. I stay in my pjs most of the day, my hair a mess, no make up. So despite the niceness of being clean and dressed in clean clothes, there is a pull to slobbery. And so it is with our lives. We know that we are better off to live the life the writer of Ephesians exhorts us to live, but we fall prey to the darkness. We’d rather seek revenge for the slights we encounter than to forgive. We’d rather gossip and tear someone down than build them up. We take delight in others’ misfortunes. We’d rather take our hard earned money and spend in on our selves or our families instead of handing it over to someone in need. And, yes, occasionally greed rears its ugly head in our lives. And so, we cry out to God to help us live as children of the light, as imitators of God. We cannot do it by ourselves:
Take these shoes
Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes
And make them fit
Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt
And make it clean, clean
Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing
Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticize
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss. . .
We cannot do it by ourselves. We cry out for God’s help.
Here in the song, U2 shifts metaphors in the same way that the writer of Ephesians shifts. The metaphor, the images, shift to ones of light. For the writer of Ephesians the fruit of the light is all that is good. Evil is in the darkness. The writer ends this section with what some commentators have thought was a baptism hymn: “Sleeper, awake, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.” U2 continues the song with the words
Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?
Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break
One preacher writing on Ephesians said: [The writer of Ephesians] urges us not only to make our own world a cheerful place, but to widen the circle of light to include others: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them." This preacher quotes John Grisham, in his novel, The Street Lawyer, describing the reaction of someone helping the helpless:
I was in no hurry to leave the [legal clinic for the homeless] at the end of my first day. Home was an empty attic, not much larger than any three of the cubbyholes at the Samaritan House. Home was a bedroom with no bed, a living room with cableless TV, a kitchen with a card table and no fridge... .
"So what do you think?" [a fellow lawyer] asked, pausing by the door on the way out.
"I think it's fascinating work. The human contact is inspiring."
"It'll break your heart at times."
"It already has."
"That's good. If you reach the point where it doesn't hurt, then it's time to quit."
This preacher continues: “Children of light don't quit. Jesus himself modeled what it means to walk in the light. He had a heart for "the least of these." He took up a cross. He resisted the powers of oppression and evil. His plan included working with a "Helper" who would partner with us forever. His goals involved nothing short of establishing the kingdom of the highest heaven on earth.”
Bono recalls once when he and his wife were visiting Ethiopia. A father came up, carrying his son in his arms. The child was emaciated. The father begged Bono and his wife to take the child with them. The father, Bono recalls, knew that his son would die in Africa. He was willing to give up the child so that his son might live. It will break your heart.
What breaks your heart? What do you see around you that cries out for light? Is it the children we tutor at Hanley? Is it Leigh’s stories of Ghana, of water shortages? Of men and women struggling to have enough to eat? Is it the sight of homeless men: drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill with no place to call home, no bed to sleep in, no place to keep their meager belongings, no treatment? Is it elderly men and women in nursing homes with few if any visitors? How is God calling you to take part in establishing the kingdom of heaven here, now? What breaks your heart?
Christian Intolerance/Anti-Semitism
The New Your Times here recounts the story of a Delaware woman who has been hounded out of her hometown because she has sued the school board for its pervasive use of "Christian" prayer in the public schools.
I am ashamed. And a bit concerned. I do not want a school board determining what is an appropriate form of prayer. I do not want a government condoning a particular brand of religion or elevating a particular from of religion. Somehow "Christians" have the idea that if they don't have the freedom to ride roughshod over persons of other religions, then they are persecuted.
I am ashamed. And a bit concerned. I do not want a school board determining what is an appropriate form of prayer. I do not want a government condoning a particular brand of religion or elevating a particular from of religion. Somehow "Christians" have the idea that if they don't have the freedom to ride roughshod over persons of other religions, then they are persecuted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
