Friday Five

1. When was your last, or will be your next, out of town travel? Monday, Monday, I can't wait. Austin for the College of Pastoral Leaders at the seminary, Yosemite, Carmel for a meeting with seminary friends, Monterey, then home.

2. Long car trips: love or loathe? Loateh

3. Do you prefer to be driver or passenger? Driver

4. If passenger, would you rather pass the time with handwork, conversing, reading, listening to music, or ??? Sleep. I tend to fall asleep the minute I get in the passenger seat.

5. Are you going, or have you ever gone, on a RevGals BE? Happiest memories of the former, and/or most anticipated pleasures of the latter? One day, I'd love to go. It has tended to conflict with other plans. Maybe next year.

6. Bonus: a favorite piece of road trip music. right now: Graceland. Not road trip music, but here and now music.

Am now trying to figure out how to get two more weeks of vacation. I found a wonderful trip I want to take, but I'm already scheduled for vacation (and paid for airfare etc.)

Should church be comfortable

A church in Texas thinks so.

A 10 year old was asked to exhibit a photo in an art exhibit depicting stations of the cross. The child staged a picture of his 7 year old brother being beaten by a policeman. The photo was excluded from the exhibit. The curator of the exhibit said church should be a place where people feel safe.

Well, yes and no. We should feel safe: safe to be ourselves, our sinful selves. Unsafe in our tunnel vision, our self-centeredness, our sin. Safe in God's love; unsafe in God's love.

New countries

In the 80s I began to visit Central America and Nicaragua in particular. I went out to the Atlantic Region where the indigeneous people favored the contras for lots of good reasons. I visited people who had nothing, who were oppressed by the Spanish-speakers of the west and swindled by the Europeans and Americans who took the resources and left the land stripped and barren. We talked about culture shock. The culture shock was never that of experiencing Nicaragua, but of returning to our world and finding a culture immersed in materialism and friends and family who had no way of understanding the changes that had happened to us.

Cancer is another world. Like visiting Nicaragua, it causes changes to who you are, who you understand yourself to be. Friends and family have little ability to understand the changes.

I am learning that there are lots of other worlds out there. Loss of a child. The accidental killing of another. Loss of abilities. Old age. A child with horrific problems.

As I was sitting in the fellowship hall where we are having worship in Lent, listening to a member who is a first year student at Vandy Divinity School preach, it occurred to me (having left the screen down from movie night) that I might be able to use the projector next Sunday. I'll have to check the light one morning. It may just be too light. I'm thinking of projecting the PCUSA symbol during the service. Part of my sermon will be a movie clip. I've always wanted to try this. I know exactly the clip I want to use. And I discovered that we can get wireless downstairs, so I can get the wifi remote iPhone app (its an app that uses wifi on the mac to control powerpoint). I'm hoping this will work.

It is amazing. The congregation looks huge in the fellowship hall. I counted 45 this morning. 45 in the sanctuary looks lost, but downstairs, where there are 44 chairs set up, it's wonderful.

A friend in another city was just diagnosed with breast cancer. On March 31, it will have been two years since my surgery. I keep hoping for the wonderful changes cancer will bring to my life. So far, the best I can say is that I'm meaner. I don't understand this disease. There is no rhyme or reason for it. Despite all I read about "life style" choices, there is really nothing one can do to protect one's self.

One change: two years ago, if I had heard a friend had cancer, I would say, "oh, that's awful" and go on with my life. Today, I think of surgery, of chemo, of fear, of death. I think of unfairness. I think of all the stupid things people say. I think of denial. I think I'm a broken record. One day, I may go back to being "normal."

I love church members!

We have been discussing the sermon and just stuff after worship each Sunday in Lent. Last Sunday, people went on about how important the other people in the congregation are, how much we love and care for each other. I asked whether the building mattered and the response was not at all. So, this Sunday, a couple of people talked about how important the sanctuary is for them. We've been worshipping in the fellowship hall because I couldn't figure out how to have discussions in a sanctuary with pews.

Now to be honest, it was a somewhat different group of people.

It was wonderful, we had to add more chairs for the service. I said how great it was to see every seat filled and the response was that we had put out just enough chairs.

I have a really different set of needs and expectations for worship from the congregation.

A distaste for professionals

Along with the other stuff going on in our country, our historic distrust for people with training continues. The NYTimes has a piece on well-meaning (?) but untrained Christians in Haiti
The piece goes on to excoriate missionaries in general, but begins with the Idaho woman who went to "save" Haitian orphans.

What is it in our psyche that makes us distrust those with education? Scientists can't be trusted, doctors can't be trusted, mainline, educated pastors can't be trusted. Yes, I research my illnesses on line, but I also find doctors I can trust. I'm skeptical of everything. But, the folks who seem not to trust professionals trust nonprofessionals who post wild ideas on the web and write strange books.

There is an anti-intellectual bias in our country. I would love to know where it comes from. Our founders revered education. Colleges and universities were founded early in our history. Now, we don't even want to educate children.

Well, off to work on my sermon.