Where's the Good News?

I've given up watching local news and I'm about ready to give up on reading local news online. It doesn't take more than a perusal of a paragraph or two of a news story or sometimes just a headline or two to turn me off. Ok, call me an isolationist but I just can't handle what I hear and read. It frightens me -- and makes me worry about not just myself but others.

I live in Arizona. 'nuff said. Cut education but not law enforcement. Cut Medicaid and the medical safety net for the poor but not raise taxes for the rich and big business. Cut support for Planned Parenthood but don't support things that benefit the already-born (like education, health care, food subsidies for poor families, etc). Support carrying concealed guns (in bars, on the street, and now even talk of allowing them on campus) even though that got 6 people killed and 13, including a member of the legislture, injured. Have I given you a picture of how I see our legislature? It's no different nationally. I hear about lots of cuts to programs I might need or use and certainly many of my neighbors could as well, but I don't hear a d***** thing about legislators cutting their own salaries or benefits. I'm betting they'll find a way to increase them, if given half a chance. It'll just be buried so deep it will take dynamite to dig it out of the verbiage of the multitudinous bills passing through the various houses. Oh, and I can bet certain pet projects that will benefit the rich and the powerful will never be touched. Talk about sacred cows....

This morning I consider Jesus's words, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. " (Luke 12:22b-23) Dang. He sure doesn't make things easy, does he?

There are so many in-your-face problems these days to worry about: foreclosures, cuts in programs I and others depend on, rising prices for necessities with more and more chance of cutbacks or layoffs in the work environment, more and more fear that something's going to go catastrophically wrong (which, as I age, is becoming more and more probable) and there will be no safety net to catch me or even break the fall. Then I read where Jesus tells me not to worry about things. Oy vey.

Sr. Joan Chittister remarked, "It's not the grappling with a thing that defeats us; it is the unknown answers to the hidden questions that wear us down."* I know what it feels like to be paralyzed by fear, unable to think even past the next breath. I've learned the hard way to concentrate on the next thing, not ten things down the road. In short, don't worry about more than the immediate until I am able to breathe freely and focus on the bigger picture. But when I can focus, I need to look beyond the just me and how stuff like the shennanigans in the legislature affect me to how they will affect people around me, people who don't have the resources I do or even the experiences I do. I need to be their advocate instead of just sitting like a lump and trying to keep myself out of trouble.

____
* Chittister, Joan D., Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope. (paperback ed. 2005) Grand Rapids MI: William B Eeerdmans Publishing Co. (46).

Incongruities (the Samaritan woman at the well)

I was reading Ann Fontaine's Lent 3 sermon notes and got to thinking about the Samaritan woman at the well in the gospel lesson for tomorrow (John 4:5-42). It's one of those stories where a woman appears, a nameless woman, but upon whom the whole story turns as much for her words and actions as much as Jesus' own. It is just full of incongruities which makes it an interesting story in itself.

She meets Jesus at a well in or just outside a city called Sychar. It was high noon, an odd time for a lone woman to be going to the well; most went first thing in the morning when it was cooler and when they could gather together to hear and pass on news, gossip, troubles or thanksgivings with each other. Gathering water was womens' work, but being women, they could turn a chore into a pleasurable activity of visiting with the neighbors without being accused of slacking or wasting time that they should be using to cook, clean, sew, watch the children, or tend to their part of the family business. This woman, though, came at noon, a time when nobody would be there, perhaps just so that she would not meet any of the other women and not have to hear the whispers and slurs and have to ignore the back-turning and giggling behind hers. She came at an unusual time so she could avoid other people -- except this time there was a man sitting there.

Jesus the Jew was sitting by the well when she got there. He even spoke to her, asking for water since he had nothing from which to drink it. Incongruity number 2 in this story. First the hour and now a Jewish man speaking to a Samaritan woman. Jews avoided Samaritans like they would have done with pork chops; Samaritans and pork chops were on about par in their eyes. Samaritans worshipped God in a different place, on Mount Gerazim, rather than Jerusalem, and their worship was supposedly a dilution of Judaism with pagan practices.

The third incongruity was that Jesus the male was speaking to a woman, not only a "foreign" woman but one to whom he was not related and with whom he was not acquainted. "Good" women did not permit themselves to be put in this situation and "good" men didn't approach such a woman unless she were a prostitute and they were looking for action. So did Jesus consider this Samaritan woman a prostitute? It's possible, given the statement he made to her regarding the number of her husbands.

So a lone woman goes to the well at an odd time and meets a man who normally would have stayed a country mile away from her, much less ask her for a drink of water. He gives her a shock when he details for her the shameful situation that kept her isolated and scorned. Evidently this man was a powerful prophet to have seen and understood such a thing without her having had to explain it. This was something the rest of the city needed to hear, so taking her tattered pride and fear in hand, she rushes off to tell anyone who would listen to her that someone special, someone prophetic, had come to their well and they needed to come quickly to hear what he had to say.

Jesus's disciples finally amble in with the food they'd gone off to buy and were surprised to find him in conversation with a woman who quickly ran off, leaving her water jar behind. They encourage him to eat, but he turns down the food and instead tells the disciples that what he feeds on is doing God's work that was given to him to do, even among outcast people. As the Sycharian townsfolk arrived, he teaches and preaches, staying there for two days. We are told that many came to believe in him and his message despite the differences in their religious upbringing and practice.

Two things come to mind in considering this story. One is the outcome for the Samaritan woman. She appears to have regained some credibility with the townspeople by her identification of and invitation to go and hear this wonderful prophet who told her about herself without any input from her other than "Sir, I have no husband." The argument could be made that she was the first evangelist outside of the disciples, the first to bring the good news to people who turned out to be receptive to that good news.

The second thing that I think about as I read and ponder this story is that I wonder if Jesus remembered this encounter when he had his debate with the Syrophoenician woman about healing her daughter? He had already brought his message to people "not of this fold" of Judaism and who had brought healing to a foreign woman although she did not really ask for any such healing. Did Jesus change his mind about the Syrophoenician woman because of the encounter he had with the Samaritan one? Who knows?

A "bad" woman turned evangelist, a foreign woman of probably very loose morals who was one of the first to pass on the good news that Jesus was there and preaching marvelous things. Now there's a story that I can sit and contemplate -- and find good news for myself as well.

On Translation and Reality

The news lately has been of one disaster after another. It seems Mother Nature isn't letting Lent get in the way of boogyin' down and havin' a whole lotta shakin' goin' on. Lying in my nice warm bed at night after a nice hot supper and a bit of TV and computer stuff to keep me occupied, it's very easy to feel relief that the disasters haven't hit us here. It's also very easy to say a prayer or two that those who have been hurt, harmed and made homeless, jobless, power-less and hungry may soon find rest, respite and reconstruction. It makes it easier to put things in a bit more of a perspective, realizing that no matter what my struggles are (and even though they are the worst in the world becuase they're all mine) there are probably a billion or two who are immensely worse off than I am.


Sandwiched in with the disasters was a news piece on the reaction of some Christians to the new 2011 version of the New International Version of the Bible. In the course of retranslation it seems to have gone too far in the direction of inclusive language for some, not far enough for others. One point of argument is that it goes too far theologically simply by changing "brothers" to "brothers and sisters" if the word in the original language is one that indicates an inclusive reading. Compared to the death, destruction and dis-ease around the world right now, for me it isn't really a blip on the radar, but it seems to be for some.


The book I've been reading this week made the article about the squabble over "brothers" vs. "brothers and sisters" particularly irritating. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunty for Women Worldwide by Kristof and Wudunn is about women -- women who face real discrimination and often death from those to whom the words "brothers and sisters" simply don't apply; only "brothers" count. These women live in worlds where their beatings are common, rapes a fact of life, sexual slaveries rampant and deaths from preventative causes almost normal . It is normal -- for them; they have almost no way to escape and no place to go if they did. Men rule and women are only pawns to be used, abused and tossed aside on a whim. It was a tough book to read, even if I had heard some of these stories before. It battered me with its presentation of lives of women and sometimes mere girls who face what to me is almost unimaginable.

Now I grant you that I read the Bible in translation; I'm not nearly clever enough to learn to read Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. The translation I use is probably flawed in some ways, 100% faithful in others. I don't think there's one out there that isn't. I notice Jesus healed women, though, and I don't think that is something that could be changed to make it more PC (pardon the term). I don't remember Jesus saying anything about "I can't do anything for you because you're a woman or even a member of the right club or tribe." I don't remember him saying he came for the men of Israel, not women of Israel, even though he did tell one woman he came for Israel only. She put up a persuasive argument and, like God the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus changed his mind and did something he hadn't really planned to do.

Some of the problems of the Majority World (the world outside the West) are the same as some women face here today. Some men will take most or all of the paycheck the family depends on for food and shelter and head for the nearest bar, casino, drug dealer or prostitute. Some women are beaten almost daily and almost to death. Some women can't afford prenatal care and so have complications that could easily have been dealt with with earlier intervention or have babies that are smaller, sicker and with problems that could cripple them for life. Some women here work menial jobs (or several of them) to try to feed and house their children, and for whom dreams just aren't on the program. There are women who yearn for educations that could mean better lives for them and their families but there's no money, no one to help with the children and they know of no network to help them achieve it.

For most of the world, education of women is a major contributor to the problems they face. Imagine not having $7 - 21 A YEAR to send a child to school with proper clothes much less money for books, slates, paper, pencils and the basics. Imagine being a woman who burns to learn but who cannot attend school because (a) she's a woman and (b) brothers are more valuable and so are sent to school, whether or not they want to go. Imagine being a girl in her very early teens, married to a much older man, made pregnant and then left alone in a dirt-floored shack to deliver a baby from a body not mature enough to handle the delivery and with no doctor, no nurse, not even an older woman to help her. The damage is often a fistula which leaks urine and feces constantly and the girl, maimed for life and often with a dead baby, is sentenced to living alone in a shack far from the main house where her stench can't reach or upset anyone. These are women, women who are children of God regardless of where they live, their ages or what (if any) faith they practice.

For too long, reading "brothers" instead of "brothers and sisters" has been a way of tossing a small bone to a hungry dog, intimating that yes, the dog matters but not very much. It's being given a bone to sop the conscience of the one who eats the whole meal.

I think if God had wanted a one-gender world, he'd have fixed it so that reproduction would rely on beings that were capable of self-fertilization. If God wrote the Bible (or did a divine dictation to scribes) in and for a brothers-only world, tales like that of Sarah, Hannah, Miriam, Tamar (both of them), Rahab (think there were two of them too), Mary (lots of them), Martha, the woman with the hemorrhage, the Syrophonecian woman, etc., would be unnecessary. There would be no need for images of God as hen with chicks or any of a dozen feminine-related word pictures.

This Lent I must think more of my sisters around the world who face unimaginable hardship every single day. I must do more than just pray for them and their release from the situations that imprison them, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I must do more than just intend to do something constructive to help. I must, for they are my sisters and, inclusive translation of "brothers and sisters" or not.

I keep getting stuff in my email or reading it in various places, "Join us on Facebook and...." I'll get anything from an unlock code for a game I don't play to a coupon for something I don't buy to inclusion in a group I believe in but not to the point of wanting to rejoin Facebook.

I was "on" Facebook for over a year. I had a number of friends who really were friends but a lot who were "game" friends -- folks I'd never heard of but who needed another body to increase their game power just as I did. It was fun for a while but then it just got realy old really fast. I wasn't really enjoying the social network all that much either. Yes, I was able to keep up with some people I really wanted to hear from but I heard a lot more from folks who populated my wall with their daily "I went to the store and got...", the daily weather report where they were, the latest cute cat (or kid) trick, or superficial stuff that really didn't matter all that much to me. Granted, I posted some very superficial stuff too, and it received about the same amount of commentary that I provided to other people.

I did learn some things from Facebook, though, some of them pretty important lessons.

1. I learned that most people really don't care as much as Facebook (and they) would like a person to think.
2. There can be real support given by people from far away when there's an illness, death or tragedy, but it's no substitute for a real person who can hug, listen or just sit in silence.
3. A social network can be a very isolating place to be.
4. How important is it for me to notify the world that (a) I have a bad cold, (b) my boyfriend cheated on me and what do I do (No, I don't have a boyfriend but this is an example), my job sucks rocks and boulders and I should look for something else (Not something I'd like my employer to read, and again, for example only).
5. How much feedback should I expect on whatever I put on my wall? Does anybody really read this stuff or do they push "like" or "dislike" by whim?
6. Why should I put personal information at the fingertips of people who don't know me and who are up to no good with that information? Why should I do it even if there is a group I'd like to be part of but can't because I'm not on Facebook?
7. It wastes a lot of time every day just reading all the notes and comments. I'm amazed how much more time I have to read these days, now that I don't have to check my Facebook page to see who's doing what, to whom or with whom, and why or why not.
8. It can be a great thing for people to keep in touch either visually or verbally, especially people who are family or old friends from back in the 'hood where I grew up, etc.
9. If I ask someone I know to friend me and then I wait and wait and wait for a response and never get it, I wonder what I did wrong, why no answer, do they even remember me or whatever. It can be hard on the ego and tends to become more important than the positive response from another friend request can be.
10. I don't need to do it simply because more and more people are and I should be part of it. Church groups, educational groups, political groups, game groups, neighborhood, relational or affinity groups -- some can provide interesting conversations and valuable networking contacts, but on the whole, the risk for me is greater than the payoff.

I'm not opposed to Facebook (or any other social networking). It serves a purpose and if someone finds value in it, great. I'm really glad for them. Me, I'll curl up with a good book, go out and be aruond people, or simply shut the computer down and take a nice nap. If you want to get in touch with me, leave a comment, send me an email or give me a call (if I trust you enough to give you my phone number). Otherwise, you can say what you like about this or anything else on your Facebook page. I won't see it and won't care. Nothing personal, you understand, just personal preference.

There. I feel better now.

Bent Tracks

What is wrong with this picture? Train tracks are supposed to be flat and straight with an occasional wide curve or reasonable grade but not bent in such a way as this. What is wrong with the world of this picture? Something has happened that has sent the normal away and substituted something that shouldn't happen – yet it did; the picture is proof. The normal laws of physics and railroad construction have seemingly been abrogated by something we can't or didn't see but which left very telltale marks behind.

What has caused this stress in the world? Mother Nature stirred and stretched, causing the earth to move in ways that can be understood (sort of) but not controlled. Tectonic plates rubbed along, building up stresses and strains until, like a rubber band stretched to its maximum, it broke loose and things moved around. That was un-normal enough to disrupt life for miles around and sent complacence flying out the window, so to speak.

What would set this world right? For those in the area of these tracks (near Christchurch, New Zealand), probably some reassurance that the earth isn't going to move any more, won't shake down any more buildings or kill, maim or render homeless and jobless any more people. A small victory would be to replace the warped tracks with more smooth, straight ones and the tracks once more put into useful service carrying people and goods from place to place as was intended.

Looking at the picture, I think about what tradition says about sudden changes in the normal routine and the sidetracking of the expected. Jesus certainly was a disruption in the normal life and teachings of his world. His parables certainly had an unexpected kink in them that pointed to a different conclusion than would normally be expected. His healings and teachings spanned the normal range of people he might have been expected to reach, women, lepers, people crippled in various ways, social and cultural outcasts, non-Jews and even the dead. His death on the cross was certainly a kink in the tracks to his disciple just as surely as Rome and the Sanhedrin thought they were straightening out some tracks bent in ways which they could not and did not approve. His resurrection certainly put an unexpected jolt in the community of followers and just as surely creates those same waves today.

Where this impacts my life is that even if things are going along quite nicely and normally, something will happen sooner or later to shift the tracks and cause a major slowdown or even a dead stop if not a derailment that will have to be cleared before I can proceed. There are times something seemingly as small as a grain of sand will do it while other times a mammoth earthquake feels like it has disrupted the whole of my life. Like the people of New Zealand and any place that has had a major shakeup, I have to rebuild and hopefully modify and strengthen what I rebuild so I can continue on with my journey. Sitting on a dungheap and covering myself with ashes won't work; I have to get up and do something about the situation, even if I am not precisely sure how to proceed. Still, one small step can begin the rebuilding and every step makes me stronger when I face the next stressor. I can then pass the lessons I've learned along to someone else who may have hit a bump in the roadbed that they weren't expecting.

The bent tracks for me are a metaphor for both life and faith; they represent things that can and do need to be repaired, replaced or even just have attention paid to it for whatever reason. I can't stop the earth from moving but I can re-lay new track to replace the displaced ones. Now if I just have the courage and strength to do it – and let God the surveyor set the line and the grade for the construction.

--
Picture from Sean OShea at http://www.alexbealer.org/page.php?id=105, accessed 3/7/11

A Moment of Clarity

The current economic and political climate these days is worrying, to say the least. Yes, budget cuts are necessary but at what cost?

I was thinking about that this morning. I admit, I'm concerned about the financial backlash of a Washington shutdown and disgusted at the cuts Arizona legislators are proposing. I'm worried about the children, the elderly, the poor, the sick and especially anybody who depends on what are called "entitlements" for basic survival and to give them access to health care and education. In short, I am concerned that in the name of "budget cuts" some of the poorest, most disadvantaged and most helpless will get thrown under the bus -- all so politicos can swagger and brag about saving Americans money. But at what cost? Do they even think about the human face of budget cuts?

I found myself praying for those same legislators and bureaucrats who are making these decisions that will negatively impact so many lives. I prayed that they might stop and look at the people they were so blithely cutting off at the knees, the helpless ones that would be collateral damage while the legislators gleefully look at the bottom line without considering the human cost. I prayed they would remember those who paid the taxes that supported their schools and the opportunities they were given and what legislators now want to deny to the next generation. I prayed too that they would look at the children, the disabled, the immigrants, the invalids.....

And then I froze. In a flash of clarity I considered the word I had just used, "invalids". My heart almost stopped with the implication of what I was saying.

In medical terms an invalid is considered someone who is incapacitated by chronic illness or disability or injury. It's long been used as a term for someone who is bed-ridden or house-bound, someone who needs considerable help in order just to do the basic things of life like eating, bathing, getting to doctor's appointments and treatments, someone who needs almost constant tending. The British used the term "invalided out" to military personnel required to leave or retire from active service due to wounds or illness.

A more commonly used definition for "invalid" these days is to be faulty, based in falsehood, logically inconsequent, unfounded, or just plain no good. People working with computers frequently encounter "invalid" and the result is usually at least the utterance of a four-letter expletive.

But it occurred to me that using the term "invalid" to mean someone who is chronically ill, disabled or requiring a lot of assistance is to label them as in-valid. Not normal. Not functional. Not mobile. Not good. Not valued or valuable. Not worth an entitlement or assistance. It's this word we've been politely using and not thinking at all about the meaning of what we're saying.

But who is really in-valid? Who really has no worth at all? I could point to someone like Stephen Hawking, certainly trapped in a body that without great assistance would have crumbled to dust long ago but whose mind travels to the edges of the galaxy and beyond, taking us with him. If he lived in the US, he could be a candidate for cuts in his care that could lead to his death. What about the elderly veteran in a VA hospital, scarred mentally and physically from wounds incurred in the struggle to keep this country both great and free? Has he no value, no worth, no validity? What of the little six-year-old who didn't have much of a breakfast at home and who now must hear that the lunch at school s/he counted on to keep focused on schoolwork and not a growling, empty stomach has been done away with and that s/he is just out of luck because the free lunch program that has been cut. Those are only a few examples. Think of immigrants who must fear being turned in to the INS if they seek medical care for a preventable or easily-cured disease that must either become life-threatening or cause death before they dare seek help. Does their being in this country under less than legal conditions mean they are "in-valid," without worth or possibility of contributing positively?

That prayer this morning stopped abruptly. I think now that if I framed it I would be more careful of how I phrase things. No, not to be "politically correct," which, IMVHO, is a totally bogus and invalid charge often leveled against someone who says something somebody else doesn't like. I would still pray for the legislators who seemingly judge the value of others using a yardstick of their own fabrication and comprehension. I would pray that their hearts would be open, and their eyes as well, to the proven worth of the past as shown by our elderly who raised this generation of legislators, and the promise of the future as exemplified by our children who are the leaders of tomorrow. I would pray that their ears would be hearing the cries of the hungry and hurting, hearing the result of budget cuts that invalidates the poorest and not just the honeyed words of the lobbyists, the million- and billionaires and the special interests that want to keep increasing their own bottom line at the expense of others.

And I would pray for all of us, that we might also never be so complacent that we ignore the value of and the Christ-presence in every person, every human being, whether or not appearances might be to our liking, our understanding or even our comfort level.

Either that or we need to take that bronze plaque from off the base of the Statue of Liberty because it may have represented what we once were but no longer are.

Selective Perception

I found a book the other day by a couple of social scientists noted in the field of Biblical anthropology, Bruce J. Malina and John J. Pilch, that reminded me again how much I love that subject. The book is a social science commentary on the authentic letters of Paul. Like most books these days, it begins with a sort of lowest common denominator, defining terms and context for what is to follow. It points out that what modern readers understand when they read Paul's letters (or indeed, most other things, scriptural or not) isn't necessarily what those who read or heard them when the ink was barely dry would read and understand. They had a context that we don't: they had a common language and customs, understanding of how their world worked, familiarity with roles of individuals, interpretation of words, phrases and the like.

We, looking back two thousand years or so, bring our modern preconceptions along, seeing things that aren't there and missing things that are in what social scientists call "selective perception". Once we are aware of this, we can begin to learn about their world, learn to see what they saw, hear what they heard, and maybe understand some of the sayings, references and background that now eludes us and makes us question, "What the heck was he talking about? Why couldn't he just spell it out?" In his time, Paul didn't need to spell it out; it would have already been understood from the context of the letter and the community to which it was written by someone they knew and trusted.

I thought about this last night when a friend and I were talking about a social occasion she recently attended, a small group of couples and singles, mostly middle-aged and older, a mixture of new members of the parish and folks who had been there for years. Conversation ranged over a number of topics but eventually got to the common thread running through the whole group, their parish church and its family. Like any community that has existed for an extended period of time, the parish has had its characters and memorable moments. While the stories about them are funny, sad or instructive to people who hadn't been there as long, they had to apply a selective perception that the older members who had actually known the characters and often witnessed the events didn't need. In a way, it was like an inside joke – it may be funny, but it's a lot funnier if you know the back story, the actual character or witnessed the event.

When I first found out about social science and Biblical anthropology it was almost like opening a door to a light, bright garden that I hadn't known was there. It was a new way of looking at things I thought I understood. Turns out I didn't understand them nearly as well as I thought I did. I was a victim of an unknown and undiagnosed case of selective perception. Through reading and study I've learned a lot but I know there's still a lot of iceberg under the surface that I haven't plumbed yet. I do know that I have to consciously try to leave my perceptions aside and be open to the nuances and back stories, insofar as I am able to do so.

In a way, one of the greatest "AHA!"moments learning to put aside a selective perception came from our then-curate who had been an accountant (she called it being a "bean counter," a slang phrase that we would understand but Paul would have really wondered about) and who gave a stunning analysis of Jesus' first miracle. She laid out her steps, figures, and processes, calculating the size of the vessels, amount of liquid they held, and came to the conclusion that Jesus was an overachiever; he had changed enough water into wine to keep a normal-sized (for that time) village of 250 souls (men, women AND children) happily buzzed for a solid year or more! And the wedding party was only for a week! First-century Christians might have had a chuckle when they heard of that miracle but here in my lifetime it was simply a display of Jesus' divinity (and his doing what his mother asked him to do).

Something I'm learning from reading this book is that I need to listen with less selective perception and more just plain listening. I need to know how to ask questions instead of focusing on making statements. I need to remember that there's always stuff that I won't pick up on or expect, even if someone speaks of a scenario that I have experience with myself. Each of us is an individual with our own set of experiences, understandings, knowledge and context. I need to be open-minded enough to listen for the back story, the flash of connection, and the engagement of the heart and less busy preparing a quick riposte or often well-meant but perhaps seemingly insincere (and sometimes perceived as totally false), "I know exactly how you feel."

I need to learn to read Paul through lenses that are both more and less sophisticated. I have to learn as much as I can about not just the similarities with the Romans and Corinthians and Thessalonians but the vast differences as well. Not only do I need to apply this to Paul but to everything I hear, read, see or experience.

Sometimes it isn't enough just to accept what seems real and plausible. Sometimes I have to look for what I didn't expect or even know about in order to really understand.

And now on to chapter 2! I have a feeling this book is going to be intriguing.

Abba Mias and the Torn Cloak

A soldier asked Abba Mias if God accepted repentance. After the old man
taught him many things, he said, "Tell me, my dear, if your cloak is torn, do
you throw it away?"

He replied, "No, I mend it and use it again."

The old man said to him, "If you are so careful about your cloak, will
not God be equally careful with his creature?"

---- From the stories of the Desert Fathers

There's one thing about the stories from the Desert Fathers (Desert Mothers too, to be honest) and that is that they are pithy and carry a big punch line. No, not a funny one, like in ba-da-BOOM, but a punch that gets you somewhere around the solar plexus and makes you gasp for breath. So much wisdom carried in so few words -- it is mind blowing.

The first thing I thought about with the story was, of course, the reassurance that God takes care of his creatures, no matter how worn and torn they are. There are some who would say that one must repent long and heartily in order to be made clean in God's sight but I don't always think that it is God who requires that; more often I find I need it for myself.

Then I thought about the world in which Abba Mias and the soldier lived. It wasn't a world that just perceived limited quantities where if someone got a bit too much someone else didn't get the full measure. It was a true case of "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without," a saying featured on posters during World War II but which people of Abba Mias's time didn't need to see posted on walls as reminders. It was a world where there were people who had a lot but most people didn't have very much. Two cloaks would have been a richness, a whole and undamaged one would have been wonderful but a torn one would still have provided warmth and comfort even if it weren't perfect. It was a tough world and probably there were a lot of cloaks that were almost more patch than original material. That's just how it was. Jewish law stated that if someone pawned their cloak for cash, it had to be given back to them at night so they did not suffer. It was a humane law that I bet we wouldn't see put into place today. But then, we aren't the community they were either.

I thought about the rents in the cloak that needed to be patched. I remember my Aunt Edie's farm house. Not a lot of luxuries but it was clean, neat and welcoming. There were scratchy-good wool blankets that had patches sewn on to cover the moth holes but that kept me warm and had a scent all their own that I just loved. The patches didn't matter; quite often they were the same material that bound the edges. It was the function that was important.

I was reminded of patchwork quilts last night in our theological reflection where we used Abba Mias's story. My aunts, including Edie, had those too, usually crazy quilts made of bits of fabric from the dresses they made for themselves and their children, old shirts that were too worn to patch but had material in them still too good to use as rags or throw away, even old patched blankets to use as filling. It was so much fun to point to a patch that I particularly liked and have the aunt tell me where it came from. Something that started as something damaged and useless became something beautiful, a series of family stories done in cloth and thread, worn and torn things given a second chance.

The story of Abba Mias, the torn cloak and God's grace is the kind of story that wraps itself around my heart like my aunts' quilts and patched blankets wrapped around my childhood self, maybe a little scratchy but warm and comforting. The scratchy part is a reminder that I mess things up and needing to repent, kind of like the nag of my conscience when I know I've done something wrong and need to fix it. The patch is the repentance I slap on and tack down, hoping it will hold and cover the flaw. The color and pattern come from God's feather-stitching around the patch, mending it with love and care and making it whole and serviceable again. Eventually my soul becomes a patchwork of mended places, all repaired by God in a way that doesn't let me forget that there's a tear under there but doesn't necessarily call it out for the world to notice. What they see is the pattern, the color, the arrangement of the patches, little knowing the story of each, stories that become part of the fabric.

I have a lot of things that need mending, both internally and externally. Abba Mias's gentle answer to the questioning and undoubtedly hurting soldier gives me a lot of comfort as I know it gave the soldier. God can take the uglinesses and nastinesses and make something useful -- and beautiful -- from it. I just have to get out of God's way and let God go to it. Oh, and remember to say "thank you".

Hummingbird Theology

It's just past 7 am and the weather gizmo on my computer declares that the outside temperature is 31.8 degrees but feels like 32. The sun isn't up yet although the sky has red streaks in the clouds so the sun is progressing toward disclosure of itself in another sunny, or mostly sunny, day. The dew point is, thankfully, about 22 degrees. There were several times these past few days when it registered at -10 or so. I didn't know a dew point could go that low. Just goes to show you can learn something new every day.

It's been a frigid past few days -- lows from 24° to 29° or so, highs from 43°-55°. I hope I will remember these days when it turns to 110°-115°. We usually have at least two nights during the winter where it gets too or just passes the freezing point and people usually rush out to cover tender plants so they would not be damaged. Some have done that, these past three or so days, and admittedly I have covered the hanging baskets on the patio to protect the spider plants I've been cultivating for years. The rest of the plants are/have been on their own and it appears they have survived quite nicely, thanks be. When it warms up a bit outside (supposed to go up to 61° today) I'll go out and give them a good watering that they haven't gotten for a bit. That will give them time to soak up the water before nightfall.

One thing that started this whole train of thought was that I looked out the front door to see if my pet outside cat were around. I've worried a lot about him in the cold but so far he seems to be doing okay. Cats know where to go when things get tough. As I was looking out the door, though, I noticed a blur of motion that stopped and hovered next to the feeder. A hummingbird, out before dawn and looking for nectar (or sugar-water) to provide the energy for it to continue to survive. I'm always amazed at the resiliency of these little guys; it's so cold out and they are so tiny, but yet they are still around, still zooming around, still protecting "their" feeder from usurpers.

Ok, I know. They say we aren't supposed to feed hummers in winter to encourage them to migrate to warmer climates. I don't think anybody has told that to these little ones. Every winter there are hummers about, even if I don't put juice in the feeders for them. On a good day in the warmer months I can have as many as 6 dipping and zooming and climbing and diving through the air like well-trained dancers or skillful fighter pilots engaging in dog fights through the air. Even a couple of days ago I was outside talking to a neighbor and we got buzzed by a pair, one chasing another away from his/her feeder. The heck with those big lumps of whatever standing there mouths agape. Chase that (chitter chitter chitter) bird away from that feeder! I guess it was chitter, not being at all fluent in hummingbird language.

Somehow it's easier to believe that, in Dame Julian's words, "all shall be well, and all shall be well and in all thing all shall be well," when watching a hummingbird zooming through the air in temperatures that send me scurrying for sweatshirts and heavy socks. This tiny bird has somehow survived outside with no additional covering than its own feathers and what it can find in the leaves of the orange trees across the road, yet was able to emerge in the cold pre-dawn to visit the feeder Had hopefully be able to suck up a bit of energy to keep it going. Ok, so it's following a pattern set down for hummingbirds since Day One but that doesn't decrease the absolutely awe-inspiring fact that the tiny creature has survived great adversity to bring some brightness (and occasional amusement) into a world that so often seems cold, dark, unfriendly and even frightening.

The hummer doesn't have to deal with taxes, legal matters, a depressed economy, rising prices, decreased options and even occasional crises of faith that is pretty common in the world of the big lumps of whatever that hummers can zoom around with impunity. Of course, I don't have to survive outdoors with only what the Good Lord gave me for a covering in sub-freezing temps. I don't have to wait for either flowers to bloom (oh, the orange blossoms are nice but red flowers taste best!) or someone to fill a glass feeder with sugar water; I can open a can, go to the market or even occasionally pick something off a tree when I get hungry. Hummers have limited choices, but I have far more.

The songs of hummers are kind of like people who try to carry a tune but seem to have left it in a bucket somewhere. They make sounds, clicks and chitters it sounds like, but they certainly don't make the kind of music songbirds do. They can't even make the laughing sound of some gulls that so intrigues me when near the water or the honk of Canada geese flying in formation overhead. No doubt any and all those sounds are pure musical perfection to God, just like a Bach chorale or Taizé chant.

I don't know if they believe in a God, even a hummingbird-sized or -shaped one, or whether the bright colors (and the duller ones of the females) they flash while dashing through the air are a sort of visual prayer as they go about their daily lives. Perhaps their primary duty (besides survival, that is) is to remind people like me that the God who made the hummingbird with its beauty, speed and resiliency, also made us and cares for us.

I just went to the door and was only there a second or two when a ruby-throated male flew to the feeder, got three quick gulps and then flew off, perhaps to impress the ladies, perhaps to find shelter, who knows? What I do know is that the hummers live, look to me right now for sustaining food and, in the course of just being him/herself, remind me that there is not just survival but rather hope and even joy even in cold, gray dawns. They'll be around in summer, too, despite heat that wilts me. They'll still be buzzing about, chittering to other hummers, whirring of wings and zooming of flight, when I'm panting in the heat and sweating as I move albeit so slowly.

Hummingbird theology --- God creates, God watches over, God loves, and in turn, God accepts the kind of thanks and praise we can give, even if just clicks and flashes. Beyond that, all else is just sugar water.

The Confession of Martha

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.  When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”    (John 11:17-27, NIV)

Martha was in a bad place.  Her brother was dead and the man who she felt could have saved his life didn't come quickly enough.  Hearing that he was finally almost there, she ran out to meet him with chastisement on her lips.  Undoubtedly grief would have driven her to words and deeds that were not really characteristic of her. Martha had a good heart but also liked things properly done. She had sent word to Jesus that her brother was dying, knowing Jesus loved Lazarus as she did, and praying that Jesus would come quickly to save him. It didn't happen and Martha couldn't understand why Jesus would have dawdled in Jerusalem when only a couple of miles' walk could have brought him to Bethany in very short order. 

Martha had faith, you have to give her credit for that. Jesus didn't come in time but Martha believed that if Jesus asked, God would do a miracle. Of course, Lazarus had been dead for a while, begining to decay and seemingly beyond resuscitation.  Still, Martha had faith that she wouldn't have to wait until the resurrection day to come for Jesus to bring her brother back to her.

The latter part of this passage could be considered the "Confession of St. Martha," so similar to that which Simon Peter gave to Jesus' question "Who do you say that I am?"  The answer was an acknowledgement that Jesus wasn't just another prophet, teacher, family friend or even good buddy.  In so confessing her belief, Martha, like Peter, pointed the way for others to see Jesus. Martha's confession doesn't have a special feast day like Peter's, but it still happened and it still encourages us to make the same statement.

But I wonder --- what if the question were reversed?  What if I asked Jesus who he said that I was?  I wonder if I would have the courage to hear the answer; I do know that one day I will have to. Will he say I'm a rotten sinner?  An unrepentant heretic?  A sheep of his own flock?  A beloved child of God? I can hope, but I don't want to stake my life on that hope.

The story of the raising of Lazarus becomes the story of someone brought back from the dead by Jesus. Martha becomes a bit-player in the drama as did her sister Mary.  Yet Martha speaks to me of what it means to be a confessor, one who proclaims.  It's a test of faith. Martha passed.