A Church for Starving Artists

My Dad was in no way a lasciviously grabby man.  He was warm and quick to warm my cold hands or offer a hug.  He was particularly respectful of Women of a Certain Age, especially after his own mother died.  He would hug some of the older widows in church telling me later, “It’s probably the only time they will receive a human touch” this week.  By no means did he stand in line and hug everybody.  His affections were limited to people he knew well.  But he knew the value of wholesome human touch.

Things are different now.  Al Franken self-identifies as a warm person too.

I can imagine having a conversation with my Dad – if he were still alive –  informing him that not everybody likes/wants to be hugged.  Even if he asked first, I can imagine him asking “Can I give you a hug?” while moving in for the hug before someone can respond.

Remembering Dad and the importance of human touch, I became a hugging pastor.   I would often hug people as they left the sanctuary on Sunday mornings, especially cognizant of those who might need comfort.  I was their pastor and I often knew when they were going through difficult times.

To be honest, there was at least one person who asked for hugs and it felt icky.  A basic sideways-ish hug is not about sexual power.  It’s about restorative human connection.  But it can be abused.

Have we reached a point when we need to stop hugging each other unless we know for sure that someone wants to be hugged?  “May I hug you?” can feel like a cursory question (asking while zeroing in on that hug.)  We might assume that “everybody likes to be touched warmly.”  (Not true.)

My Dad also talked with strangers in the grocery store and made comments to random children in public places.  He would have needed some coaching on navigating 21st Century conventions.

It goes without saying that we do not pinch people’s rear ends.  Really.  This is not okay in any circumstance unless you and your beloved have some kind of arrangement and you both think it’s funny/affectionate.

Especially while taking photographs (remember this?) it’s not okay.  Women are taught not to make a scene, especially when a camera lens is pointing our way.

But human touch – an elbow, a shoulder – still seems necessary.  HH’s church ends each worship gathering with facing the center aisle and touching the shoulder of the person beside or behind you during the benediction.  I love this.  As my Dad might say, “This could be the only time people experience human touch that week.”

Image of “safe hand to shoulder zone” from here.

My friend M was hit by a car in 2015 as she was running on a rural road.  It was horrible.  Apparently the driver fell asleep at the wheel.

M is not only alive, but she is running again and and she is wiser than ever. But don’t call her a miracle. She doesn’t like that.

What you don’t see are the invisible scars and other issues that continue to cause trouble.  But she is grateful to be alive and she is – as I mentioned – more thoughtful than ever.  She said the other day that everyone gets hit by a car sometime in life – usually figuratively.  Sometimes the car is going 10 miles an hour and sometimes it’s going 75.  But everybody experiences a real or metaphorical crash at least once.  We are lucky if there’s only one.

If you were hit by a car in 2017, please know you were not the only one.  Although it might take a while, you will learn from your crash.  Although it feels hard to believe, there will be spiritual and emotional gains.  Although people might have passed you on the road to let you languish on your own, there are others who will show up in other places.  Angels abound.

This is a good time to thank those angels.  They are the ones who kept us alive.  They are the ones who share good food and drink with us.  They are the ones who make us get out of bed and step outside.  They make Thanksgiving season last for a long time.

Have a thankful weekend everybody.

Dedicated to one of my angels –  MDCM.

This is a good week to say nice things to each other.  

The nicest thing anyone ever said to me was uttered by Sam Schwartz the year he was playwright laureate in Washington, DC,  two years before he died.  As I was leaving a party, I said, “See you in church” which was our little joke because he was Jewish and his church attendance was more of an obligation to please someone else.  But we met occasionally to talk about faith and life and pain.  He was wonderful.

After saying, “See you in church” I overheard another guy say, “Who is that?  Your mother?”  And then I heard Sam reply, “If that woman had been my mother, I would have saved $10,000 on therapy.”

Wow. That felt amazing.

This is an excellent week to appreciate each other’s quirkiness and queerness.  It’s a perfect week to remember that all of us fall short of the glory of God.  It’s a wonderful week to thank God for our differences.

It’s a good week to say nice things to each other.

Image source.

Fifty years from now, what will we consider objectionable that is considered okay in 2017?

It used to be acceptable to hit your children.  It was okay for men to pinch random women’s fannies.  It was tolerable to do more than pinch in some circles.  And clearly many still believe this is okay.  Nevertheless, it seems that in many ways we are becoming more humane and more human.

Personal assault has always been frowned upon and – thankfully – is newly deemed unacceptable. That’s a good thing for everyone both theologically and sociologically.  But – fifty years from now, what will we consider unacceptable which is now considered okay?

Some friends and I were discussing this recently and we came up with two things: sugar and football.  Thanksgivings in the future may never be the same.

As I take a break from pie-baking to write this, it occurs to me that I’ve used several pounds of sugar and a bottle of Karo Syrup before most people are awake this morning.  I’ve also used over a pound of butter, for what it’s worth.

One of my grandmothers purportedly filled her children with sugary baked goods in hopes that they would choose the sugar in cake to the sugar in alcohol.  This was a real thing:  it was once (and maybe is now) believed that if we satisfy our sugar cravings with cookies we will not reach for the bourbon.  It’s hard to imagine “being as American as roasted beets” rather than “being as American as Apple Pie” but maybe that’s our future.

And as a person who’s lost at least one friend to a football-related brain injury, I wonder when we will stop loving a sport that involves crashing heads into each other.  Someone told me that professional players experience what amounts to multiple head-on car crashes with each game.

Maybe we’ll find a healthier option to sugar.  Maybe someone will create an even safer helmet.  But mostly, I’m thankful this week that we continue to learn new ways to be better/healthier/more faithful human beings.

What do you think we will have given up in fifty years after realizing it isn’t good for our bodies or our souls?

The pie baking has begun.  I have a system that makes it possible to bake five different pies and get them safely over the river and through the woods in time for Thanksgiving.  This year, I’ve added two kinds of muffins.  I feel like a Baking Machine – in a good way.

It isn’t always like this in our home.  We still have boxes to open after moving here almost seven years ago.  And my closets could use some help.

A few weeks ago, a colleague told me that her church was almost like a machine – but not necessarily in a good way.  Every Tuesday this happens.  Every Sunday morning that happens.  Nothing much changes but nothing is setting souls on fire either.

The whole manager/visionary juggle is real.  Yes, we need the proverbial trains to run on time.  But we also need – even more – for someone to ask the What If? questions. We need creativity and authenticity and humor and wonder. We need both relational leadership and managerial leadership actually – working in tandem rather than in opposition.

My pie-baking chops could be flawless. But if I don’t love the people who gather to eat them, if I don’t remember that the point is not perfect pie – we are all missing out.

What is running like a fine tuned machine in our lives and could that machine use a tweak?  Or an overhaul?  Are our souls on fire to be who we were created to be?  (It’s a good time of year to ponder this.)

Image source.

She goes and she goes and she goes.  And then she stops.  HCE

A church leader once told me that serving in a particular position in the denomination had probably shortened his life by three years.   I’ve never forgotten that.

Sometimes I sleep for 12 hours straight for the sake of recovery.  Like last night.

Our natural lives can be shortened by so many things – mostly stress-related. Family conflicts, job anxieties, health stresses, trauma.  The irony is that even serving One who said “I come to bring abundant life,” can drain us.

So who/what is the thief in your life shortening your lifespan instead of energizing you these days?  May you find a comfy bed with a chunk of time or even a hard bench in a beautiful place for a long sit very soon.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Actually the problem was one boot.  

It was midnight last Saturday after a great day celebrating a colleague’s installation.  I’d flown from CT to WI and looked forward to hitting the pillow when I realized that the zipper was broken on my right boot.

The zipper would not budge. It. Would. Not. Budge.

A comedic workout ensued. (Feel free to imagine me attempting ridiculous gymnastic exercises in hopes of removing the boot from my foot.)

Nothing worked. I was going to die wearing that right boot.

I phoned the front desk to ask for help (making the night shift concierge’s day) and he arrived with scissors and a serrated knife. Clearly, the only way out was to cut the boot off my foot.  Cut boot = ruined boot.

But I was free. It’s amazing how okay you feel giving something up if it was keeping you from moving or resting or feeling free. And yesterday I replaced the boots with a pair with no zipper and a better fit. Happy ending.

We can replace the word “boot” with all kinds of things that need to be replaced in our lives. It’s really hard to toss things we love but sometimes we have to do it.  I’d hoped to keep those boots forever but – to be perfectly honest – they looked better than they felt.  Sometimes they even hurt my feet.

What does the church need to replace even though we really don’t want to do it?  What have we hoped to keep forever even though it’s causing a little pain – if we are perfectly honest?  What would it take to give it up?

Ever since “locker room talk” became part of our national conversation and accusations of assault became daily events, I’ve been asking men I know and trust about such things.  I’m the mother of two men, the wife of one, the daughter of another, the sister of two others. I honestly do not believe they have participated in “locker room talk” as defined by our President.

But this article makes me sad.

“harassment was not something he had thought much about before” 

I’m not sure most men have thought it about it much because they don’t have to think about it.  Yes, men can be victims of harassment (hello Kevin Spacey) but women have been harassed and worse since the beginning of time.  Susan Brownmiller wrote about this in 1975.  Even since men realized they could physically overpower women, there has been harassment and worse.

I do not believe that all men cognitively participate in objectifying women.  But there are many who know exactly what they are doing and it’s about power.  All women are subjected to power plays – some very ugly power plays – and it’s become so normalized, we shove those experiences aside and move on.  They run the spectrum from unwitting to intentional.

Years ago, I was officiating at a graveside ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, burying a beloved parishioner.  It’s an enormous privilege to officiate at a burial in Arlington.  You are surrounded by  history and precision and reverence.

I was standing beside the widow who had just been presented with a neatly folded flag by the honor guard when the funeral director leaned over and whispered into my ear what he would like to do to me after the service.  The operative words here were “do to me.”

Creepy men count on women not to make a scene.  What was I going to do?  Slap the funeral director at the graveside at Arlington National Cemetery?  My only response was to find another ride home after the service.  I was not about to get in the hearse with that guy and I never got in a car with him again.  But I didn’t report this to anyone.  The only people I told were other clergywomen who might work with him and my words were a warning, not a sexual misconduct report.

In my late 20s I attended a Volunteer Fire Department banquet which honored several men in my congregation who were volunteers.  The keynote speaker from a State Fire Fighters organization sat beside me on the dais and identified himself to me as a Christian who didn’t believe in the ordination of women.  He even had a Bible with him and he pointed out a couple verses to make his point.  And then he stood up and began his address with  a rape joke.  I can’t make this stuff up.

Ours is a rape culture.  I hate to say that.  I hate to write such a negative thing on a beautiful Monday morning, but it’s true.  And what we can do about it is to call everyday violence against women – along with the obvious criminal activity – what it is:  dehumanizing.  If we believe that women are created in the Image of God, if we believe that women are holy and treasured then all of us will work to shift this culture.

Abusers are counting on the fact that their victims will be too afraid to speak up. They count on the fact that ladies have been taught not to make a scene in public when someone pinches them or grabs them or whispers vile comments into their ears.

We not only need to teach men about consent.  We need to make it safe for women to make a scene.

Image from the Twitter account @Son_of_JorEl22 .  When I see this kind of thing in the future, I hope I’ll have the guts to start a conversation.

Once upon a time there were church people who volunteered a little or a lot or not at all in their congregations.  But they would all gather in pews on Sunday mornings after Sunday School, and the pastor would lead worship and then everybody would go home or head out to brunch.

Those congregations are dying today mostly because their church culture hasn’t kept up with the cultural shifts in our world.  21st Century Pastors are called to be culture shifters in hopes that our communities look more like the Biblical Church.  Almost every day, I hear colleagues tell me what they would love to do with their congregations:

• Expand a ministry to include disabled neighbors.
• Offer classes in radical hospitality.
• Re-work the Christian Education schedule to make it easier for new members to participate.
• Partner with other local congregations for community mission.
• Open an unused space for daily use by homeless neighbors.
• Invite unchurched teenagers to use their church gym after school.

Their churches have the capacity to do all these things to expand their ministry and their impact.  But they don’t want to.

I’ve heard church boards hear about needs in their congregations and beyond, only to sit there with no response.  There’s simply no energy to do more than what they’ve always done even if “what they’ve always done” isn’t working any more.

This kind of stuck-ness will be the death of the church – or at least the death of some churches.  We have enormous power and opportunity to transform the world for good in the name of Jesus Christ.  But many of our people won’t even try to be the Church we could be.

Jesus suggests that leaders shake the dust off our feet and move on but that seems unnecessarily dramatic if all the pastor wants is for the congregation to try something new.

• Is the issue trust?  (They don’t trust the pastor?)
• Is the issue fear? (They fear they can’t afford it/someone will get angry?)
• Is the issue a failure of vision?  (This is the worst.)

Where is your congregation in terms of vision?  Do we really want to be the people God has called us to be or not?

Speaking for myself, as I seek a new call, I am excited to find people who are energized by being the 21st Century Church.  God is doing a new thing!  I hope you feel it too.

Systems are very difficult to change:  systemic racism, systemic poverty, systemic political corruption come to mind.  Social workers, community activists, teachers in poor schools, and random idealists work hard not to succumb to despair.

This time last year, profound hopelessness overcame many American voters who – whether they voted for the Democratic candidate or not – found it impossible to believe that a person like now-President Trump could be elected.  Some churches even held prayer vigils.  Some churches celebrated.  Many were silent.

A year later, many who felt hopeless after the 2016 elections feel buoyant today.  The state delegate who wanted to restrict public bathroom use for transgender people was defeated by a transgender woman.  Another delegate who had been endorsed by the NRA was defeated by a candidate who ran on a gun control platform after his girlfriend was shot on live television by a troubled gunman.

These are dramatic examples of what some would call Hopeful Moments.  But we need hopeful moments every day.

We can’t dismantle unjust systems on our own.  When I talk with idealistic young teachers whose students are enduring multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences or social workers with overwhelming case loads, it’s clear that they entered their fields with the greatest optimism.  But fighting unfair systems wears us down.

We have got to work together, and I’m talking specifically about the Church here.  I’m not just talking about whole congregations working together; I’m talking about congregations partnering with other congregations and other faiths.  Organizing for justice together is one of the marks of a successful 21st Century ministry.  Organizing together makes those hopeful moments more prevalent.  And more light in a dark world is always good.

A good question for us in the Church to ask every day:  What did I do to bring hope today?  What did my community do to bring hope?

If we are only about getting the church bulletin done and finding a coffee hour volunteer on a given work day, we’ve missed Jesus’ point.