Why I Tweet

I am a Twitter user. I have an application on my computer to use it more easily than on the web. It's my second--the first one bit the dust when I accidentally turned off the power strip and therefore my computer in the middle of using it. I haven't figured out how to fix it, and so I let it go, though I miss some things it could do.

But I use Twitter. Many people, when they find this out, if they even know what Twitter is, ask me about it. Why--isn't it basically the same thing as Facebook (which I also obsessively devotedly use)? Who cares what people are having for breakfast? Doesn't it take away from "real" realtionships? So here's my explanation.

First: no, it's not the same as Facebook. There are few photos (and you have to click a link to see them), no applications or quizzes, and you are limited to 140 characters. Period. Even in your private messages. It varies from person to person, but I actually have very little overlap between my "friends" on Facebook and my "followers" on Twitter. What overlap there is generally from people I know on FB opening accounts on Twitter, not the other way around. I have one exception--a lovely woman who I "met" on Twitter who I then friended on FB.

Most of the people that are my FB friends I actually know in "real life." Most of my followers/those I'm following on Twitter I do not.

Second: Very few people I know actually use their 140 characters to answer Twitter's question, "What are you doing?" and give you a play-by-play of their activities for the day. If they do, it's because that's what on their mind at the moment and they want to share it in addition to the rest of their more significant "Tweets." People use Twitter to rally to causes, engage in discussion, network, find and give support, "meet" people with similar interests, and break news. Some examples: many people on Twitter (myself included) have bathed our pictures in green in support of the people if Iran; yesterday the Today Show was asking people on Twitter for information about the pilot who died mid-flight; when the toddler of a "mommy blogger" died suddenly of an infection, the news traveled quickly and Twitter lit up with supportive messages.

Third: These are relationships. Often I don't even know the real names of the people with whom I tweet, just their usernames, but I include them in prayers, joke and cry with them, ask and give information and opinions. My face-to-face and otherwise real-world relationships come first, as they should. But there are real people behind each avatar and username, and while there are many just on there to get as many followers as possible and feel popular, or to build and market their consulting businesses, there are just as many who are there to connect and interact, and they are all so different!

In my small corner of the world, how much opportunity do I have to daily interact with sexologists, conservative and progressive Christians, Etsy sellers, atheists, celebrities (some do actually reply), politicians, stay-at-home moms, eco-gurus, savvy aunties, news groups, activists, farmers, non-profits, and family members? The people I interact with are all over the country and the world (we often say good morning/afternoon/evening to cover the many time zones) and from so many different viewpoints and places in life, and they just fascinate me!

And apparently, I must interest some of them too: this week I surpassed 1500 followers.

So, in many more than 140 characters, this is why I use Twitter.

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You know you're really "in" something when...

...you dream it. A Spanish teacher of mine used to get so excited when one of us would come in and say we'd dreamt in Spanish. That meant we were getting it, he'd tell us. Even if in class or doing homework, our conscious minds struggled to remember conjugations and vocab words, our sub-conscious was latching on to it and reproducing it while we slept.

This happened to me a few times in seminary when I was really immersed in something. I'd dream of a theologian, or of preaching.

And now, I feel like I'm really digging in to fabric art. My proof? I had a dream last night about tie-dying a whole bunch of fabric green.

Now, that may not seem like much, but it's about creating, about taking control of my art by not simply using fabric that's already been designed for me, but making my own. I also did it utilizing a skill I've had since I was a Girl Scout--perhaps my subconscious telling me that I don't need to go out and learn all these new techniques, that already I possess the ability to create these pieces.

This past week I finally opened my stole/liturgical "lovelies" shop on Etsy. It's wonderful and scary and feels just right. Recently I've been just overflowing with ideas for new stoles, so many I'm going to have to try them out over the course of months!

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Spring again...maybe?

It's amazing how weather really does affect mood. The last couple days have been overcast and/or rainy and cool--like barely passing 50F cool. And I've been feeling low-energy and blah. Part of that might be because I'm fighting a cold, but this morning, I woke up a cloud-less blue sky and bright sunshine, and while it's not exactly warm, the forecast is calling for more seasonable temperatures of low 70s. I feel full of energy and ready to take on the day!

Knowing how much the sun makes me happy, I'll have to be careful next week when I got to Hawaii, that I don't just fall in love with the place and decide to move there. They do have quite a few UCC churches... 

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What's Your Real Mantra?

I read a short article this morning in the print magazine from Lumunos that mentioned mantras, and finding some that worked for you. I have a couple of mantras that I like--one of which the author of the piece mentions, Julian of Norwich's "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." A couple weeks ago when I was lying awake with anxiety, I lulled myself to sleep by praying that with a rosary. 

I put the magazine down to get on with my day, vowing that later I'd think of/find some good mantras to keep on hand. And then it occurred to me--if mantras help guide our thoughts and actions, what happens if we're repeating mantras without even realizing it?

For instance, the worry "I'm never going to find a job," while understandable, can quickly affect us negatively if it's just repeating itself over and over in our minds. The same with: 

• "I'm not good/smart/capable/brave/[enter positive descriptive here] enough"
•  "Everybody's judging me" 
• "I'm fat/stupid/awkward/ugly/[enter negative descriptive here]" 
• "I can't do that"
  

Maybe we don't ever say them out loud, but chances are all of us have some kind of negative mantra we've been saying to ourselves, allowing to affect our lives, without even realizing it. 

My suggestion: pay close attention in the next few days to phrases you find yourself repeating. If they're negative, find something to replace it, and repeat it three times for every one negative. If you find yourself saying "nothing's going right," you might repeat Julian's mantra. If you're critical of yourself, try "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139). 

Look around to find some good replacement mantras--and please share them! I'll do the same.

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Held in Common with Creation

Well, aren't you lucky readers! Two posts in two days! And get this--both sermons! Below is the sermon that I preached this past Sunday, Earth Day/Integrity of Creation Sunday (ugh, UCC, could you have come up with a more un-poetic name?) in the church I've been attending since the fall, in my hometown. I was a little worried it was too prophetic for a debut preaching gig, but it seemed to go over well. Oh, and the lectionary text I used was Acts 4:32-35.

"Held in Common with Creation"

Three years ago, in February 2006, I was beginning the spring semester of my first year in seminary. I was in my first session of a course entitled, “Religions in the City,” where we would study Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Since it was a requirement for all first-year students, it was pretty big class, but the professor asked that we each introduce ourselves, in an unusual way. Our professor opened up a red umbrella that had ruffles on the edges. Maybe it was really more of a parasol. The professor explained that we were to each take a turn standing in front of the class, holding the umbrella, and after giving our name, describe our religious, social, and political beliefs in one sentence. I remember standing up there, and stating that I believed I was quickly becoming an eco-feminist, a new term in my vocabulary that had been growing on me as I took an increasing interest in ecology and our relationship with the environment and saw how it related to the oppression of women. I remember the professor, who uses that label to describe herself, cheering. I remember thinking how radical I was becoming by being an “environmentalist.”

What a difference three years can make. Later that spring, Paramount Pictures released the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award and helped former Vice President Al Gore win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. All of a sudden, global warming and the effect humans were having on the Earth was everywhere—and it hasn’t let up yet. It seems that every company is spending money on advertising how eco-friendly they are. Many food companies are claiming that they are using “all-natural ingredients.” Car companies are coming out with more and more hybrid models—including hybrid SUV’s. Fashion magazines have been including articles and features on ways to reduce energy consumption and promoting “green” fashion—like organic cotton t-shirts and sheets made from bamboo. Trendy fashion labels came out with designer grocery bags. There’s even a whole cable network devoted to living green. Somehow in just the past three years, being eco-conscious has gone from being radical to being chic. Green is the new black.

While I am glad to see individuals, businesses, and government embracing the green lifestyle, I’m a little worried it’s too trendy, that it’s no more than a passing fad, that such over-exposure will actually backfire and cause people to think it’s all hype. I also worry that the green movement is very image-oriented, that many people do it just for the cool-ness factor. But most importantly, I worry that despite the increased attention being paid to living green, our culture—how we relate to the earth and to each other—is really not changing all that much.

Now, for the most part this is happening in our secular culture, outside church. So why does it matter if this eco-consciousness is just a phase? What does being green have to do with being a Christian?

Well, as Freuline Maria would say, “Let’s start at the very beginning.” Let’s look at Genesis 1:26-28:

                                    Then God said, “Let us make humankind

in our image, according to our likeness; and let them

have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the

birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the

wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping

thing that creeps upon the earth.”

            So God created humankind in his image,

               in the image of God he created them;

               male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful

and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and

have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the

birds of the air and over every living thing that moves

upon the earth.

And so it began. The use of these biblical verses as validation for the notion that humans are “above” the rest of the natural world and meant to take it as their own goes back centuries. By being created in the image of God—as apparently no other part of creation was—we assume that we are therefore more God-like than anything else on earth. We have been fruitful and continue to multiply; we have, for the most part, subdued the earth.

Our newly eco-conscious society does not seem to be changing its views on this, and I think there are two reasons for it.

The first is a view of humanity going back to the philosopher Plato, and within Church tradition to St. Augustine, which exalts the spiritual aspects of humans while disparaging the physical parts. By focusing so much on our spiritual selves rather than our bodily selves, it is easy to continue seeing ourselves as separate from—and superior to—what we call “the natural world.” However, as gardener and writer Vigen Guroian says, “We humans belonged to nature right from the start. We are not interlopers…” The passage I read from Genesis a moment ago is part of the first creation story. In the second, Adam is created out of the dust of the ground, and God breathes life into him. If you attended an Ash Wednesday service at the beginning of Lent, you might’ve been reminded of that creation with the phrase, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Just last week we celebrated Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, God-made-flesh. In the elements of communion, as we partake of food from the earth, we are reminded of Jesus’ physicality, of his body and blood. And yet we often forget this, and see nature as something other, something that does not include us.

The second reason I believe we aren’t really changing is that we objectify the rest of creation. Rather than seeing it as another subject that we can relate to, it is an object, there simply for our use. The earth and its inhabitants have no purpose or value in their own rights, but rather are valued by what they can do for us.

Now, there has been some recognition among Christians, going back to earlier environmental movements, that caring for the earth should be a part of our faithful duties. This still is mostly promoted using the stewardship model. Referring to the earlier passage from Genesis, we are called to be stewards of the earth. However, I struggle with this idea because it still doesn’t deal with the two problems I just mentioned. This idea of stewardship still places us as stand-ins for God in a position of domination (through care) of creation, instead of recognizing we are part of a greater whole, which includes the Divine, animals, the atmosphere, and the earth. It also still upholds the view that creation is there for us to use. The concept of stewardship—whether of creation or in a household—is about managing resources.

One aspect of the stewardship model that I do like, however, is that it stresses the idea that the earth does not belong to us; it belongs to God. We like to think that we own our property, that within certain lines everything belongs to a nation, and we forget that we’re simply occupants, borrowing from the true landlord.

So if the stewardship model doesn’t really work, is there another way to view creation, another way to integrate our faith as Christians with the green movement? Yes, and I think part of it is found in a little nugget from one of today’s lectionary readings.

The Acts of the Apostles is the earliest book in New Testament, and one of my favorites. Maybe that’s because it was written by Luke, my favorite Gospel writer. Really, though, I just love following along as this rag-tag group of Jesus groupies tries to figure out how to continue on without his physical leadership, how to be a community following his teachings, how to live not as Jews or Gentiles but as this new thing, Christians. In today’s passage, what sticks out to me is that by sharing their resources, by holding everything in common, all their needs were met, “there was not a needy person among them.”

I think that we need to expand that a little, from people to all of creation. See, those first Christians recognized that they were a community and dependent on each other. They were in relationship with each other. If they had maintained their independence, tried to maintain they separation between “mine” and “yours,” they would’ve fallen apart. As church communities of people, we still do this pretty well. If someone in the church has a need, the community comes together to fill it. We are in relationship with each other, fulfilling one of Jesus’ two most important commandments: loving our neighbor as ourselves. I’m suggesting that we expand our concept of neighbor to include not only people but trees, animals, dirt. Now, before I’m accused of being some kind of hippy or bleeding-heart liberal, let me say that I agree with Sally McFague, one of the leading environmental theologians, when she says that in this case, equality is not sameness. We do not treat the dog the same way we treat the tick on its body or the Lyme disease the tick carries. In that case, yes, we are called to be caretakers because we can. Choices have to be made—tick or dog? Tree or caterpillars destroying tree? Rabbits that only live in meadows or trees taking over the meadow? Those choices can be made with love, though, and as products of a common Creator.

I think the key to a long-term Christian eco-consciousness is to remember that Rolling Stones song: “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.” There is enough room on this planet for all to get what they need; the problem is many of us are living to fulfill all our wants. And this, I think, is the biggest problem with the current green movement. Our lives are really not changing—we’re just making them slightly less toxic for the rest of the world. But we’re still consuming a lot, and still manufacturing and using resources to keep up with that consumption. Climate change is occurring rapidly, bringing stronger storms, and more extreme weather conditions like drought and floods. And the worst part is that the people most affected are the people contributing to it the least. The wealthy developed countries contribute the pollution, garbage, and destruction of eco-systems, while the poorer, developing nations suffer. In the United States, when the south suffers a drought or the Midwest floods, we have plenty to offer for help. No one goes hungry because the crops didn’t make it. Disease doesn’t run rampant when the rivers overflow their banks. The same is not true elsewhere in the world. We’ve heard a lot about pirates lately, with the heroic rescue of Capt. Phillips. But did you know where some of those ships being attacked are headed? To Kenya, where they are suffering through a severe drought and there is no food.

This, to put it very simply, is sinful. That is a loaded word, but there is really no other way to put it. This is not what God wants for God’s children or any of God’s creatures.

I’m not saying we should feel guilty every time we use a plastic bag or upend our whole lives once we walk out of here today, but we need to be aware how our actions—or inaction—affects the rest of creation.

It is not all darkness, though. This is Easter season, a time of hope and promise of resurrection, freedom from sin and fullness of grace. Let us heal our broken relationships with each other and God and with the rest of Creation. Let us live simply so that all may simply live. Let us remember that if we release our claim on creation, recognizing that it belongs only to God, and hold all in common, no part of creation will have need. Let us bless all the earth in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

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A Sermon on Water

I preached on World Water Day, March 22, which happened to fall on Sunday this year. Below is my sermon. 

When asked how much water we use each day, or what effect water has on our lives, most of us would probably answer that it’s a decent part. After all, we use water to clean ourselves and cook, and of we try to drink that recommended 6-8 glasses a day. But if we stop and think about it, we might realize just how much our lives depend on water.

Let’s just take my typical morning as an example. I wake up in a bed made up with cotton sheets—water’s needed to grow that cotton. I brush my teeth, shower, flush the toilet. I get dressed in clothing that I wash in my washing machine on a fairly regular basis. I make coffee—not only do I use water right then, but the coffee plantations depend on water to run. I eat breakfast, most likely a bread product, made from grain on a farm that depends on good irrigation. Maybe I have a little bacon or sausage—meat products use a LOT of water to produce.

So clearly water factors highly into our daily earthly lives. But what about our spiritual lives?

In many world religions and cultures, the elements of the natural world—wind, water, fire, and earth—are held in high regard. In astrology, each star sign has a corresponding elemental sign. So Aries is a fire sign, Pisces is a water sign, etc. Some religions worship gods of those elements, while other people simply uplift them as the four core parts of nature.

Christianity, on the other hand, is often viewed as sacramental, rather than elemental. We like to see ourselves as being more about the unseen, intangible things like grace or the Holy Spirit, about the rituals of communion and baptism.

And yet the elements do factor into our Christian tradition quite prominently, particularly water. In our particular tradition, communion and baptism are our only sacraments. Obviously water is important—it’s what we use to baptize, whether it’s a little sprinkle on the forehead or a dunk in the river.

But water is threaded throughout the Bible, and often plays a prominent, if not the dominant role in stories.

Some that quickly come to mind:

• Creation, which began with a wind from God sweeping over the face of the waters, and then God creating life out of those waters
• Moses as a baby floating in a basket of reeds in the river
• Moses parting the Red Sea
• The flood and Noah in his ark
• Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan
• The woman at the well from whom Jesus requests a drink
• The disciples and Jesus on the boat when the storm comes up
• Jesus walking on water

There are others that perhaps aren’t remembered for the presence of water quite as quickly, but that are just as important. One that I particularly like is the story of Hagar.

It’s a story that shared among all three “people of the Book”—Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The story appears in a section of Genesis that recounts the history of Abraham and his descendants as they move from Haran into the land of Canaan and then into Egypt. Wells and water figure prominently at important points as this story follows characters back and forth from their tent community to the wilderness within a broader desert landscape.

Hagar was Sarah’s Egyptian slave, given to Abraham to conceive a child because Sarah was unable to do so. Hagar leaves their home and goes out into the wilderness on two occasions.

The first time, Hagar is pregnant and has allegedly looked upon Sarah with contempt for her barrenness, so Sarah “deals with her harshly,” as the Bible puts it, and Hagar runs away. The angel of God finds her by “a spring of water in the wilderness,” and tells her that she will bear a son to be named Ishmael, which means “God hears.” And then by that spring, Hagar does something no one else in the whole Bible does: she gives God a name, El-roi, “God who sees.” And because of this, the Bible tells us, the well where this happened is named Beer-lahai-roi, or “the Well of the Living One who sees me.”

The second time Hagar goes out into the wilderness, she is sent away by Abraham at Sarah’s request, because Sarah does not want Ishmael receiving any of Isaac’s inheritance. Abraham sends Hagar out into the desert with bread and a skin of water. Let me read to you what happens from there:

(Gen. 21: 14c-19) And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voices and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God as heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

It is this scene in particular that grabs me. I can just picture Hagar heading out into the desert wilderness, no where to go, no one to turn to, and only a little bit of water and bread on which to survive. In a hot dry desert, humans can only live a couple days without water, so imagine Hagar’s distress when the little bit of water she had was gone. She knew it meant certain death for her child, and so she put him under a bush so she didn’t have to watch him die of thirst.

I wish this was something that only happened in biblical times, many thousand years ago. If only there weren’t mothers in the world right at this moment watching their children die of thirst or disease because of lack of access to clean water.

UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, estimates that 5,000 children die every day because of unsafe water, poor sanitation, and hygiene. That means that in the time it takes for us to worship together this morning, about 208 children will die as Hagar thought Ishmael would. And that’s just children. More than 1 billion people worldwide lack clean drinking water.

For Christians, water is symbolic of our relationship with God, carrying the image of renewal, promise, and hope. It is through water that we are baptized and welcomed into the Christian community. Water is essential to all life, connects us with the rest of Creation, and is a gift from God. As a gift from God, it is meant to be shared. As one resource from the National Council of Churches declares, “We recognize clean water as a priceless gift of God, but too often we don’t realize the global water crisis is ours to reconcile.”

Isaiah says that when the poor and needy are thirsty and seek water, but have none, God will not forsake them; God will provide rivers, fountains, pools, and springs. While it may not seem like it, that is still true today. God does provide. There is enough water for all—but only if we use just what we need, and make sure that all have access. And this is where we as faithful Christians come in.

“When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink,” Jesus describes himself saying in the kingdom of heaven. “Just as you did to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Hear this woman’s story from Uganda:

"At the request of the community where I grew up, a church development organization funded the construction of a water well project and trained 30 villagers how to properly use and administer water resources. The effects on the community have been like ripples in a pond. Before, when I was growing up, we did not have easy access to water. With a new water point, villagers created an irrigation system that waters crops of bananas, mushrooms and vegetables. With water, it has been possible for them to raise livestock. With livestock, they have milk that lowers malnutrition, with a surplus to sell. With water, some are beginning to farm fishponds and sell fish. There is more. As they drilled and built the well, villagers discovered clay that makes good bricks. Some villagers have become brick-makers and sell what they make. Others have built more permanent housing by using the bricks instead of grass. All of them worked together to build a permanent school for their children. Water has brought surprising new life to the village."

The water debate is often about two distinct perceptions. The first understands water as a “public good” to which all forms of life have a right. One South African activist puts it this way: “I need to have water, enough even for a stranger. The one thing that I cannot do, even to an enemy, is deny water.” The community I come from has protected water and treated it as a common good that is sacred and beyond commercial value.

In 2003 the Africa Women’s Economic Policy Network did field research in Uganda

and reviewed existing government policy concerning water pricing and public utility management. Their research, not surprisingly, revealed that water privatization has already taken a heavy toll. When the cost of water is high, people who live on less than a dollar a day have to choose water over school fees or food, or find alternative ways of getting water. People resort to unprotected springs, boreholes and long-distance wells. Health problems increase from lack of clean water, including cholera, typhoid, diarrhea, malaria, intestinal worms and skin-related diseases. Alternative water sources hold not only health hazards but also physical dangers. Stand taps installed along the Nile require a fee. Those with no daily income to pay the fee fetch water from the river. Women and children have drowned in River Nile, and several have been taken away by crocodiles. When people have no money to buy water, there is death.[i]

Another story, from Vietnam:

“People of faith can make a real difference in confronting these problems. Lack of access to clean water and sanitation is one of the leading causes of illness and death among people in poverty in Vietnam, where many in rural areas suffer from waterborne disease. This is particularly true in the mountains of Pho Yen district, where more than one out of four people suffers from a water-related disease. In Pho Yen, even the health clinics lack access to clean water, thus facing the double burden of treating patients suffering from water-related diseases without having their own clean water. In response, Church World Service (CWS) is helping to construct water supply facilities and hygienic latrines for three clinics, and lay pipelines for water distribution to 150 households. Training is being provided on the operation and management of the systems, on prevention and transmission of water-related diseases, and on good hygiene practices. This is an effort we can all be a part of, too. Members of the Church of the Brethren, taking part in a faith expedition in 2007, saw the situation in Ph Yen first hand. Upon returning, they worked through CWS and their Global Food Crisis Fund to directly fund a project at a local school. We can all be involved in making a difference.”[ii]

How can we make a difference? How can we offer a drink of fresh, clean water to our thirsty brothers and sisters?

First of all, we can educate ourselves. I didn’t give you a lot of facts and figures today, because I don’t think they really belong in a sermon, but they’re out there and fairly easy to find (and if you’d like me to come back some other time and do a workshop or presentation on this stuff, we can talk about that). We need to learn about our role in the global water crisis, and know what’s going on globally and in our own backyards. For instance, a cholera epidemic has been sweeping through Zimbabwe since December. As of the end of last month, over 80,000 people were infected, and 3,800 had died. When we face Jesus in the kingdom of heaven, and he asks us why we didn’t give him a drink (or why the water wasn’t clean), we cannot say we didn’t know he was thirsty or that the water was contaminated.

Second, we can conserve water and pay attention to our water usage. Are we watering our lawns while someone is forced to drink dirty water? I’m not saying we should feel guilty every time we take a shower, but we need to be conscious that our decisions and actions affect others.

Third, support legislation and governmental action that helps provide everyone, and particularly those living in poverty, with access to clean water. One thing that’s happening now is a push for the United Nations to add a 31^st article to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that would establish access to clean and potable water as a fundamental human right.

And finally, get involved in funding water projects. Church World Service has great projects, like the one I mentioned in Vietnam. Instead of a DVD for a gift, for $18 you can buy water jugs for three families from Oxfam in someone’s name. Want to get kids involved? Raise money to provide a community with a PlayPump—a water pump powered by children, since it doubles as a merry-go-round.

Water equals life. God called Creation out of water, we begin our lives cushioned in the water of our mothers’ wombs, our lives are sustained through water. Jesus called relationship with God “living water,” saying all who drank of it would never be thirsty again.

As I pour this water, I’ll say a short prayer, and then I invite each of you to touch the water—as reminder of your baptism, as a reminder of your creation, as a reminder of the gift of life and new life in Christ it brings. You might simply put your fingers in, you may want to trace a cross on your forehead as might have been done if/when you were baptized, maybe you want to cup some water in your hands—however you feel moved to connect with this water, and remind yourself of the life it gives.

---

[i] Kairos Water Service, http://www.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/files/wcc-main/documents/p4/ewn/resource_database/KAIROS_Water_Worship_Service.pdf

[ii] http://www.nccecojustice.org//network/downloads/WaterResouce_3P.pdf

I was pleasantly surprised that the congregation readily participated in the ritual. Sure, we did them all the time in seminary, but asking a small congregational church in New Hampshire to do it is another thing. They were game, and many said they were moved by it, so I'm glad I took what seemed like a big risk to me!

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Pick me, pick me!

Remember when we were kids, and had to choose up teams for in gym class for dodge ball or capture the flag or some other competition? No matter who was named "captain" by the teacher, there were those highly athletic kids who got picked first--they gave the team a better chance of winning. Then the popular, if unathletic kids got picked--maybe they wouldn't help skill-wise, but socially you had a better team if they were on it. And then down the skill and social ladder it would go, always with those few awkward unpopular kids left looking at the ground, toeing the dirt with their shoes as they waited for their fates to be decided. Who would be the last this time? Who was the least-wanted kid there? Through the whole process, those of us not near the top rung would be chanting in our heads, "pick me, pick me!" No one wants to feel like they are only chosen because there's no one else left.

There have been a few articles in the news sources lately about adoption. China, once the most popular foreign source of American adoptees, has created stricter rules and hence lowered the number of children adopted by American families. Other countries have done or are considering doing the same. Madonna recently attempted to adopt another child from Malawi, but was unsucessful. Though I often think about adoption, these news items have brought it to the front of my consciousness, enough to stop me in the midst of checking e-mail and Tweeting to blog about it.

Often people on the pro-life side of the abortion debate cite the fact that so many couples are just waiting for babies to adopt domestically. Those same couples often end up turning to countries like China, Russia, and Guatemala, spending tens of thousands of dollars to bring home a baby. 

A baby. A little one, usually under a year old, sometimes, if the timing and coordination are right, as young as 8 weeks. These are the top-round picks in the adoption world. White American babies go first, then healthy infants from abroad. 

The kids left looking at the ground, desperately pleading inside, "pick me, pick me?" Older kids in the American foster care system. 

These are not the kids that get the sympathy vote like those in foreign orphanages, who often tend to generate the "look I'm helping this poor child have a life s/he couldn't ever have had in her/his own country" feeling. (Note: I am not against international adoption, but feel the need to call it like it is).

The fact that these children are available for adoption through the foster care system largely means something went seriously wrong. Yes, there are some who are orphans with no other family to care for them, but the majority have been removed from their homes and their parents' rights have been terminated by the state. For that to happen, generally those kids have been through major neglect or abuse or both. 

So not only are they not cute babies, but they come with baggage. It takes special people to bring these kids home to their forever families, and it's not easy.

But those kids just want a chance, want to know they're not the least-wanted kid in the world. Some of them don't learn that, and age out of the foster care system at 18 (some states have wisely extended that deadline to 21 to continue to provide support to young adults). 

I often go to AdoptUsKids  and look around. It's a list of kids in foster care, most of whom are or will soon be available for adoption. It's not a pick-your-own catalog, but an attempt to find family matches for these, often the most difficult kids to place. According to one report, in fiscal year 2006 almost 127,000 kids were waiting to be adopted out of foster care. 

Look at their faces. Who wants to be the one to tell them, month after month, year after year, that they were not chosen?

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Ads Be Gone

If you're a regular visitor to my blog (not simply reading posts sent by e-mail), you may notice there's an element missing from my page. I removed the Google ads from below my "about me" section. A couple reasons for this:

1. I never felt right about advertising on my blog, particularly since I had no clue or control of what Google was putting up there. 

2. Since adding the tool about 16 months ago, I made a grand total of $0.96. Clearly blogging will not pay my student loan debt simply through ads.

3. They just introduced "interest-based" ads, which means that every visit to my blog would gear be a little note that would gear the visitor to some kind of category. I'm not sure how my blog would be classified, but maybe visitors would be characterized as "religious" and future ads on my site and others would be of that nature. It just seemed to invasive, so out it goes.

I hope you enjoy your advertising-free Sunlight and Shadows. Although I do know bloggers who add a PayPal button for free will offerings...what do ya'll think? Are my meandering musings worth supporting monetarily? (I won't be offended if the answer is no!)

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So This Is Love

Here's my sermon from today. I kinda got goosebumps at the end. My only regret in preaching it is that I moved away from the pulpit and preached it off cards. I think I would've put even more energy into it had I not been worried about that and just had the papers in front of me. Oh, well, live and learn. I was also a little nervous about parts of it because the church I preached in tends towards the conservative side, and well, you know what they say about the prophet in her home town. But I think it went very well! Without further ado... 

So This is Love- SoS 2:1-11, 8:6-7; Romans 13:8-10, John 13:31-35

 I’ve been thinking about love a lot in the past few weeks, and not just because yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Sure, the television has been filled with ads about buying the right piece of jewelry or even the perfect car for that special someone, and the stores have been full of pink and red since about Christmas Eve, but my real focus on love started right around January 20, Inauguration Day.

 Although I originally missed most of the reading of the inaugural poem, “Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander, I caught enough to be interested and search for the text later. One stanza, in particular, stood out:

                        Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself

                        others by first do no harm or take no more

                        than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?[1]

 That phrase has been pounding in my head for weeks: What if the mightiest word is LOVE?

I chose these three texts today because they all speak of love, although all in distinctive ways. The love in the Song of Songs in particular is of a different type than what Jesus and Paul were talking about. The ancient Greeks used three different words that we translate as “love.” First, there’s philia, which is love for family or friends, platonic love. That’s why Philadelphia is known as the “city of brotherly love.” Next is eros, romantic or erotic love, what our lover in Song of Songs is describing, and finally agape, often described as “charitable love” and sometimes translated as charity, it implies unselfish, giving love. It’s also many times described as “Christian love,” but I would argue that all of these would be forms of Christian love.

I want to talk mostly today about agape, but first I want to explain why I chose these verses from Song of Songs, since I just mentioned that the love written about there is eros. I chose them because of their portrayal of love as powerful. At the end of the first selection, the female lover warns the daughters of Jerusalem, as she does often in the book, to “not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!” Love can do powerful things, so watch out! The second selection may be familiar to some of you; it is often read or sung at weddings. These verses take it even further—“love is strong as death,” “many waters cannot quench love, nor floods drown it.” The writer of the Song of Songs, who may be Solomon, or may not be, is stating without reserve that love is mighty.

Jesus was well aware of the power of love. In the Gospels he tells the disciples and the crowds quite explicitly who and how to love. We’re back to that agape word again. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we’re told that Jesus said the two most important commandments are to love God with all our hearts, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And then here in John he gives a new commandment, very simple: love one another. Just love one another, that’s it, that’s how you follow me, he says, by loving one another.

Now, here I want to make something very clear. Jesus was not saying we should all somehow force ourselves to feel all lovey-dovey towards each other, that we should create this world utopia of happiness and rainbows and all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. See, this, I think, is where people get really hung up on one of Jesus’ other teachings on love, that we love our enemies. People get so frustrated that they cannot feel love for their enemies. Anger, a want for revenge, disappointment, fear, yes. But love? I count among my enemies anyone who hurts children, perpetrates domestic abuse, or, at the moment, takes a huge bonus out of government money when the economy is falling apart. If one such person walked into this church right now, would I be able to look them in the eye and feel my heart warm and swell with love? Uh…NO.

But that’s ok—because that’s not what Jesus intends. When Jesus says, “love one another,” love is not feeling, it’s action. That’s really important, so let me repeat it: this love is not something we feel, it’s something we do. And if we do it right, we do it without distinction, expectation, or condition, because that’s the way God loves. Paul gets it right in his letter to the Romans when he says that all the commandments in the law—the commandments given by God to Moses—can be summed up by saying “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus particularly stresses that we should love those who don’t love us, because that’s more difficult. “Even sinners,” he says in Luke, “love those who love them.” He acknowledges that loving each other, and particularly loving those with whom we disagree or have hurt us or who just seem to be following an evil path, is hard.

But by doing this, he said, “everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” As the old hymn says, “and they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

They will know we are Christians, followers of Christ, by how we love. But what does that mean? Matthew’s account of the Gospel gives us some examples: feeding the hungry, visiting the prisoners, clothing the naked, caring for the sick. And again, Jesus does not say love one another…except for this group, those people, and anyone who’s like this.

Jesus preached a love that was radical when he lived and is still radical more than 2,000 years later. “Everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And yet is this what we see around us? As a pastor-to-be, I’ve already found that when I share with people my chosen profession, it often sounds to them like an open invitation to share their thoughts, and more often their problems with Christianity. What I’ve heard over and over again, and what I see portrayed in the media are stories of exclusion where there should be inclusion, of close-mindedness in place of open hearts, of acting with fear, anger, and hate instead of with love. All by people who claim to be followers of Christ.

Now, should any of my enemies that I mentioned earlier make their hypothetical way into this church, would I feel love for them? No. Would I forget what they’d done, or not demand they receive consequences for their actions? Absolutely not. I would, however, welcome them to come and worship with us, and join us downstairs for coffee and fellowship. I would love them. Now, to be clear, love is not always welcoming—if one of those people caused harm or posed an immediate safety risk, I would love them and everyone else by asking them to leave. Jesus may have encouraged us to offer up the other cheek if we’re hit, but he was instructing his followers not to respond to violence with violence. I do not believe that following his commands to love one another and to love our enemies means allowing ourselves to be abused.

That being said, Jesus’ command to love one another is intimately connected to justice, and sometimes we do have to risk it all in the name of love. There are countless examples: Oscar Romero, the three nuns killed in El Salvador in 1980, Martin Luther King, Jr., …these are more contemporary examples, but the list is long, and stretches back millennia. People who have declared that they would not stop loving, even at the risk of their lives. They knew how powerful love is—and so did their enemies. Mahatma Ghandi knew the power of love in non-violence when he said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” He was also assassinated.

When Jesus started his ministry, he was ignored by the religious and political elite. As he continued, he was ridiculed for his willingness to eat with outcasts. Then, seeing his growing following and challenge to the status quo in both the religious and political spheres, he was killed. “Love is strong as death, and passion fierce as the grave,” our lover proclaims. It reminds me of that Easter hymn that says, “where, o death, is now thy sting?” They ignored him, ridiculed him, fought him…and then he won, because he loved all the way to the end, even asking God to forgive those who had put him on that cross. 

Now, I’m not suggesting we all go and put our lives at risk in the name of love, but this radical love is risky. We risk having to let go of notions of who belongs and who is an outsider, of loving without receiving anything in return, of loving people who by their beliefs or differences or simple unfamiliarity make us uncomfortable, of changing the whole world, and that, even if it’s for the better, can be terrifying.

“What if the mightiest word is love?” What if every action or reaction we made every day was to love? Imagine, for a moment, that each member of our government made every decision based not on what was “morally right” or best for the bottom line, but by what best followed the commandment to love one another? Imagine if people in areas of conflict came to negotiating tables not with the goal of getting everything they wanted but with the goal of loving the others there? There are much smaller things too: imagine someone cutting you off in traffic and instead of yelling and/or making an unfriendly gesture you smile and say—even if they can’t hear you—have a nice day? If you, intentionally or unintentionally cut someone off, which would you rather get? How could that change your perspective? Imagine taking a big breath and pushing aside your discomfort with the hungry and homeless to volunteer a couple hours in a shelter or food kitchen. Many, many, many of us—particularly in this economy—are only one paycheck away from being homeless ourselves. Imagine taking five minutes to send an e-mail or write a letter to our government representatives about a justice issue—child health care or torture or outsourcing jobs. Imagine if you were someone affected by one of those issues, how you’d feel knowing someone took the time to do that. Imagine you pick up the phone and call someone who’s sick or lonely or simply someone you’re thinking about. Imagine if you were the recipient of that phone call. Love one another. Love your neighbor as yourself. By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.

In my mind, it is no longer a question. Love IS the mightiest word, and when made an action and not simply a feeling, love IS a raging flame which no water can put out. When we go out from this place today, let us make sure the world knows that we are followers of Christ by the way we love one another. Amen.  

---

[1] Elizabeth Alexander, “Praise Song for the Day,” Graywolf Press, found at NY Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html?ref=books, accessed 13 February 2009.

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By request: the Gibbs sermon

Many people were intrigued by the notion of comparing Jesus to Agent Gibbs from the television show NCIS, and even more intrigued when I said I also included a tune from a Broadway show. So, by popular demand, here is my sermon, entitled "Follow Me" and is based on Mark 1:14-20. I wouldn't say it's my best, and there's  certainly room for improvement, but I think it's one of those that's better preached than read. Sorry!

You know, there’s one thing I appreciate about reading the stories of Jesus’ life from different perspectives. Jesus has a different way about him in each of the Gospels, most likely reflecting the personalities of the people telling his story. Mark’s version of the Gospel is one I struggle with, but the way he portrays Jesus is pretty interesting. Jesus is not so meek and mild in Mark. Perhaps that’s why Marks skips the birth narrative, to avoid presenting Jesus to us as small and manageable.

 In this story from Mark, Jesus reminds me of Agent Gibbs on the television show NCIS. Anybody watch that show? It’s one of the many crime dramas on these days, and admittedly probably my favorite. Gibbs is a pretty strong personality. No mincing words, just straight to the point, just like Jesus at the Sea of Galilee. He tells the four men, “Follow me” and then moves along, just expecting they would do so. Later in the Gospel, the disciples often appear confused or clueless, and at those moments I can almost see Jesus slapping a few of them upside the head, Gibbs style.

 Anyway, getting back to our text, Mark doesn’t tell us the men’s thoughts about Jesus’ bold statement—if they questioned it at all, if they wondered what they were getting into, if they were curious about what he meant when he said “fish for people.” Instead, Mark says, they “immediately left their nets and followed him.”

 Wow, now that’s faith. It doesn’t say whether Jesus had ever met Simon (who’s later named Peter), Andrew, James or John, but it’s possible they had heard of him. I mean Jesus had been traveling around Galilee proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, so I’m guessing they probably had gotten wind of what he was saying. Yet they hadn’t independently searched him out—they were still going about their daily lives when Jesus showed up and changed everything.

 Follow me. Follow me. Earlier I spoke with the children about the choices we make about leaders to follow. Certainly this is not exclusive to children. Adults—perhaps even more so than children since there is no one else to make our choices for us—have to make many choices about whom and what to follow in our lives.

 There are many examples of ways we follow. We follow trends—market trends, food trends, fashion trends. How else can we explain bell bottoms and neon spandex? We follow politics and national events—how many people watched the inauguration on Tuesday? We follow TV shows—the producers try to come up with what they call “appointment” television—shows around which we schedule our lives, and it often works. You know, like, “Ooh, dinner Tuesday? I can’t, American Idol is on.” We follow sports, which can be exhausting. I remember following the Red Sox in 2004 and all those games that ran well past midnight!

 We follow people, too. Whole websites and magazines are dedicated to what’s happening in the lives of celebrities, sports players, public figures.

 So that brings us to the question: are we following Jesus?

 Ok, here’s a follow-up: what does that even mean?  How do we get up and leave our nets to follow Jesus today?

 Let me start out by saying I think our first clue is in the word “follow.” See, follow is not really something you can do once and it’s done, like stand, for instance. If you’re sitting, you can stand, and once you’re on your feet, the action is completed. Following generally means something continuous, ongoing. Certainly, you can follow something or someone for a set period of time—a season of sports or how an event plays out or simply following someone to a destination.

 But in this passage, Jesus doesn’t give a set boundary of where or for how long to follow him. He doesn’t say, “Follow me to Capernaum,” or “follow me until I’m arrested.” No, he says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” It’s opened-ended.

 Again, though, this brings us back to the question, “How do we live this out today?”

 Well, I think in a few ways.

 Let me start with what seems like the easiest one: joy. Perhaps my favorite saying about call is from Frederick Beuchner: “The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s great need.” Isn’t that wonderful? In other words, when Jesus says, “follow me,” he’s not asking us to give up all joy and pleasure in life to do so. God wants us to be happy. The writer Barbara Brown Taylor writes of an experience she had in which she was struggling to figure out her call. She just couldn’t figure out what it was that God wanted her to do and be. In her frustration and exasperation, one midnight, she says, she fell down on her knees in prayer and said: “Okay, God. You need to level with me. What do you want me to be? What do you want me to do? What are you calling me to do?” She said she felt a very powerful response, God saying, “Do what pleases you. Belong to me, but do what pleases you.” She said it struck her as very strange that God’s call could actually touch that place of her greatest joy, that she could be called to do the thing that pleases her the most. Following Jesus is joyful (that doesn’t mean easy, but I’ll get to that later).

 Another way to look at how we follow Jesus today is as “the continual refocusing on living in the kingdom of God.” A friend of mine describes this as “hitting the wall of ‘what’s next?’” When we’re following Jesus, that might mean working on a justice issue, or fighting for what’s right. If the justice issue is resolved, if the fight is won, then what? My friend offered the example of the inauguration. So many people were so excited on Tuesday, and even Wednesday, but then what? That’s not the end of a journey, but just a step. Jesus takes his disciples different places and visits different people, and the focus changes. One day it’s about the poor, one day it’s about the children, one day it’s a parable he has to explain to the disciples. We don’t stop following, don’t stop attempting to live into the realm of God when we reach one milestone. We have to step back and take a moment to focus on what’s next—because there’s always a “what’s next!”

 A third way to live out this message is to remember that following Jesus is not a one-time thing. Remember what I said about the word “follow?” Jesus didn’t ask the disciples to follow him just on that lakeshore. They were asked to follow him when they were in a boat during a storm. They were asked to follow him when there was a large crowd and not enough food to go around. They were asked to follow him when he was arrested, and tried, and crucified. They had to make a choice not just the first time, but every time he asked. And they didn’t always make the right one—but they kept trying. Even as scary and life-altering as things got, they kept trying to follow Jesus.

 But here’s where I think that it’s right about here when we come to a screeching halt sometimes when we’re trying to follow Jesus. The disciples Jesus called in Mark’s story are offered a new way to use their skills and passion for fishing, but they had to give up the old way, leave their families, become social outcasts, and enter dangerous situations. There are costs to discipleship. I think often we are totally gung-ho about following Jesus—as long as it fits into the life with which we’re comfortable.

 Let me give you an example. A couple of years ago I watched an Oprah show called “fascinating families.” A woman named Lysa described how one evening, she took her two young daughters to a performance by a boys’ choir from an orphanage in Liberia. She explained that she thought she was just going for this cultural experience. But during the concert, she said she heard God’s voice in her heart say that two of those boys were hers. Her reaction? An internal “Lalalala! I’m not listening!” She said, “I just went to hear a concert. I didn't go that day for life interrupted.”

 “I didn’t go that day for life interrupted.” I’m not sure about you, but I know that’s how I often feel when I sense Jesus saying “follow me” towards something big, or difficult, or frightening—or simply not in the plan for the day! And unfortunately, too many times, that initial reaction makes our decision for us, and we stay in our comfort zones. But if we decide to step out in faith, let go of our nets and take the risk of following Jesus, the returns can be beyond what we’d ever imagined.

 After the concert, Lysa said she went to the car and called her husband and said something like, “Hi honey, do we need milk? And by the way, there are two teenage boys from the other side of the world now calling me Mom.”

 Now, as happens many times when we act on what we feel is a call from God, Lysa’s four best friends were skeptical. However, Lysa convinced them to attend a concert, and all four adopted boys. One couple, whose two sons were in college, even brought over the boys’ siblings from Liberia, adopting a total of six kids! And it didn’t stop there—all in all, 14 families adopted a total of 31 children from the same Liberian orphanage.

 But here’s the thing: she still has to keep following. It’s not like she was given that one choice and there, she made it, she adopted those boys, she’s done. Every day she, and we, have to make decisions about whether we follow Jesus or not. What clothes we buy, what food we eat, which people we pay attention to, what words we speak or when we choose to stay silent, all those are decisions to follow Jesus or not.

 Again, though, this is not a once-in-a-lifetime shot. We can’t just say, “Ok, yes, I’m going to follow Jesus” and expect to be finished. There are two things that help us. The first is being in community with others who are also trying to follow Jesus, which, in my opinion, should be the main purpose for attending church. A second help is an idea stressed in 12-step programs: One Day at a Time. It can be overwhelming to think of trying to follow wherever Jesus calls you for the rest of your life…but today might be manageable.

 Follow me. Today, follow me. Tomorrow, try again. Like Gibbs on NCIS, Jesus doesn’t want to hear our excuses why we can’t do it, our protests about life interrupted. He just says, “follow me.” We either do or we don’t each time, but like the disciples, even when we make mistakes or doubt or don’t understand, we keep trying. We keep following.

 I like to put some music in my sermons whenever possible, and while reflecting on this idea, a song kept popping into my head, and so I’d like to end with it as a prayer, that each day we may follow Jesus “more nearly.” You may know it, and if you do, feel free to sing along.

 Day by day, day by day. Oh, dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly, day by day…

Oh, and the congregation (small as it was) did join and and sing with me.

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Last minute preaching

I think I really should have one or two generic works-for-just-about-everyone-anytime sermons, so that I don't have to write one out of practically thin air when I'm asked to preach at the last minute.

I was asked on Wednesday night to fill pulpit supply this Sunday--so not just preaching, but prayers, call to worship, children's sermon, etc. Because of choir practice and then staying at friends' house overnight so I could take their older son to school in the morning while their infant was having surgery to put tubes in his ears (he's doing well), I didn't even get a chance to look at the lectionary texts until late yesterday afternoon. Then I had to choose what I was using quickly so that I could figure out the rest of the service and get it to the woman who prepares the bulletin.

So now I'm left to write my sermon. I'm using two lectionary texts-- Jonah 3:1-5, 10 and Mark 1:14-20. Fairly easy, I suppose, as texts go: God calls Jonah to Ninevah but then changes God's mind, and Jesus calls the fishermen to fish for people instead. Call stories, my favorite! I've been letting the texts percolate all day, and have a few questions and thoughts...but not much else. Do I focus on call? On something specific in the Mark passage? I'd love to preach on God changing God's mind--because it's so unusual and probably unfamiliar to people--but I'm not sure where to go with it.

Sigh...I really hope the Holy Spirit is hanging out in my pillow tonight, so I can get up and bang this sermon out tomorrow!

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New Year Part II: Looking Ahead to 2009

So after a lot of thought, I've finally written my list of resolutions/goals/intentions for the year. So what if we're more than two weeks into 2009? That just means I've really taken it seriously. I also found I started to get nervous about sharing them. It's a pretty personal process, and by letting others know what my goals are, I'm also letting them know if I don't reach them, which is a little scary.

So here they are, all 13 of them. It may seem like a lot, but they cover many areas in my life, and I've got 11 1/2 months to accomplish them...and hey, 13 is a significant biblical number. Without further ado...

1. Write every day for 30 minutes.
2. At least until in a parish position, write one sermon per month.
3. Once a week or more, post on my personal blog and Everyday Citizen.
4. Learn to knit.
5. Complete a 5k race.
6. Finish all my UFOs (unfinished projects) from before 2009.
7. Open a second Etsy shop for stoles, make 5 sales, and go to one conference or other event as a vendor.
8. Expand first Etsy shop: add three new products, attend two craft shows, make 30 sales, join one Etsy team, have one item featured on the front page.
9. Take the Jeopardy online test.
10. Read 40 books.
11. Do two projects in The Art Quilt Workbook.
12. Be intentional about keeping in touch with people—respond to phone calls, e-mails, etc within 48 hours, and make definite plans rather than just saying we should get together.
13. Learn to juggle.

What do you think?

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New Year Part I: Looking Back at 2008

A member of a listserv to which I belong listed 100 things she accomplished in 2008 on her blog. I hoped to do the same...but instead came up with 50 things I did or that happened in my life. There are probably more, but it's hard to remember yesterday, never mind the past 12 months. Perhaps this is a clue that I need to journal more!

Anyway, here it is, in no particular order, my life in 2008: 

1. May- I graduated from Union Theological Seminary with my Master of Divinity. 
2. May- I unexpectedly received the Karen Zeigler Feminist Preaching Prize at commencement.
3. July- My sister Katie and her husband Doug welcomed Caleb Benjamin to the world.
4. June- My best friend Bethany, her husband Jay, and their son Joey welcomed Evan David to the world.
5. May- My father was laid off from his job.
6. January- After many days of heavy wet snow, a tree fell onto the deck of my parents’ house on New Year’s Day, causing minor damage to the house and killing the gas grill.
7. April- I was accepted to In Care status by the Metropolitan-Suffolk Association of the United Church of Christ on my 29^th birthday.
8. February- I found a job as a consultant, working as project manager/copy editor of the Prayer Calendar, a project of United Methodist Women.
9. May- I moved from NYC back to NH and back into my parents’ home.
10. May- During the move, I tried to drive a U-Haul through the Bronx and knocked off the passenger side mirror on a train trestle on Jerome Ave. On the way to NH, my friend Darlene had to stick her head out the window anytime we drove to the right.
11. October- I wrote an article to be published in Response, the magazine of the United Methodist Women.
12. November- I was in Spanish Harlem when the announcement comes that Barack Obama had been elected the 44^th President of the United States.
13. January- I traveled to New Orleans on a mission trip with my church. We helped build a house, and I fell in love with the city, vowing to someday take my own church groups down to help what will surely be a long renewal process. 
14. March- I finished my thesis project, a collection of stoles, for which I received a Credit with Distinction.
15. April- I showed my stoles and received great comments and affirmation of my skills as an artist, particularly with fabric.
16. November- I preached for an unfamiliar congregation for the first time, in Francestown, NH. They loved me, despite some having thought I was a teenager at first.
17. December- I led my first Christmas Eve service, and cried in front of the whole congregation (in a good way).
18. December- A huge ice storm hit southern NH, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. We were without power for 4 days, three trees fell on my mother’s car at once (and also damage the deck but this time leave the grill untouched), a huge branch fell on the front lawn, a tree fell and blocked the road, and our basement, family room, and sewing room were flooded with 8 inches of water.
19. Summer- I had my own garden in my parents’ backyard. Unfortunately, it’s a cool, wet summer, and although we enjoy some fresh veggies, the harvest was not as great as hoped, particularly from the squash and zucchini plants, which got attacked by a nasty bug.
20. Whole Year- I wrote 35 blog entries on my personal blog.
21. Whole Year- My personal blog had 1,626 visits, up from 283 in 2007.
22. February- I was invited to join a group blog, Everyday Citizen, for which I wrote eight entries throughout the year.
23. November- I opened a store on Etsy, selling homemade baby bibs.
24. November- I sold my first two items on Etsy.
25. May- I painted my room in my parents house a buttery yellow, much better than the lavender it had been.
26. November- After much struggle and many re-writes, I finally finished my Statement of Ministry for my ministerial profile.
27. December- I completed the psychological evaluation required for my ordination process.
28. July- I joined a dating website.
29. July- I went on my first “first date” in a long time, with a guy I met online. It never went past that.
30. August- I went on a date with a second guy from the dating website, which lasted 10 hours.
31. August- I had a boyfriend…for about two weeks.
32. August- I came down with shingles, which on a positive note were pretty mild and should keep me from getting them when I’m older.
33. June- I went to Connecticut and saw cousins I hadn’t seen in 15 years, and met the two kids of one of them.
34. April- I went to my ten-year high school reunion and had a blast catching up with old friends.
35. July- My parents’ cat, Isabella, went missing after I accidentally let her outside in the evening and forgot to let her back in. She was never found.
36. July- While searching for Izzy, I made a new friend, Claire, who’s in her 80s. I started chatting with her every day during my morning walks.
37. September- After finally accepting Izzy was gone for good, my parents and I went to the Humane Society and adopted Sophie, a 5-month old black and white kitten.
38. June- I was officially asked to officiate the wedding of a friend from high school in May 2009, in Hawaii. Of course, I accepted.
39. August- I was asked by another friend from high school to officiate his wedding in July 2009, in NH. I also accepted.
40. August- I was told “I love you” by someone.
41. January- I took an intensive course on contemplative practice in Buddhist and Christian traditions at General Theological Seminary.
42. February- I connected with two distant relatives (one from each side of the family) through Ancestry.com.
43. December- I finished the 29^th book out of my goal of 50 for the year.
44. February-March- I observed Lent by not watching television, which actually allowed me some pleasure reading amidst the end of seminary.
45. March- My great-aunt Jeanette passed away.
46. November- I found my best friend from first grade, who I hadn’t spoken to in about 20 years, on Facebook.
47. May- Along with Julie, my partner-in-crime, I organized and hosted the second annual Union Prom. 
48. December- I won my fantasy football league.
49. August- I finally investigated the trail in the conservation area down the street, and began running there.
50. October- I began babysitting part-time for two little boys.

Did I forget anything? It's been quite an eventful year, in both positive and negative ways. Overall, I think in 2008 I improved many relationships, re-focused how I spent my time, and became more confident about myself, my gifts, and what I uniquely have to contribute to the world.

So what's up for 2009? I'll let you know in my next post, which will cleverly and unexpectedly be titled, "New Year Part II."

Blessings to all!

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