Call me "MK" (pronounced "EmKay") please?

As my family knows, the name on my birth certificate is "Maria Karen Kettleson", which my parents chose because "Maria" was a name they liked in the musical West Side Story and also a name with familial connections in Sweden, "Karen" is my mom's first name, and "Kettleson" is my dad's surname which my mom also took when they married.  It is a pretty name that I like objectively, but it just isn't the name that fits me at 49, and I finally have the courage to ask people to please STOP CALLING ME "MARIA".  Please call me "MK"?  (And thanks SO MUCH to those of you who actually listened to me as I've explained this to you, and who have been calling me "MK" for years now!)

One of my favorite stories about C.S. Lewis is how, at the wise old age of 4 years old, he announced "I Jack!" and was from then on called "Jack" by family and friends, despite his legal name being "Clyde Staples Lewis" and his pen name being "CS Lewis".  He knew who he WAS, and I love that his family and friends didn't question it, but simply complied.

My youngest son's legal name is "Parker Brooks Anderson", but you all know him as "Brooks".  It fits, doesn't it?

My husband, Steven, was called "Steve" by his family and friends growing up, but by the time I met him he was called "Steven" by anyone who had regular contact with him.  This didn't just happen and doesn't just happen, of course . . . He had to decide both that he preferred "Steven" to "Steve" and that he preferred it enough to ask for the change and then to keep making it an issue with people who chose to keep calling him "Steve".  This is still a regular part of his life, and of mine as well, because many people think it is just nicer to call him "Steve" than "Steven", and it takes a while to have them actually hear and remember that it is nicer to call someone the name he prefers than the name that they prefer, for whatever reason.

In my case, my reason is this:  "Maria" is who I was as a child, when I believed things I no longer believe and therefore acted in ways I no longer choose to act and made choices that no longer have any logic to me.  "MK" is the person who lives in this 49-year-old body and mind and who is trying to live out the remainder of my life in a way that witnesses to the things that I hope will inform and direct my children and grandchildren and anyone else who considers my life.

None of that is a rejection of my family or of the friends I had in childhood!  And none of that is a rejection of the values or beliefs of my family or of the friends I had in childhood.  If anything, it is finally growing into the legacy I have been given, and for which I am grateful.

A name change is very Biblical, of course:  Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob became Israel, Simon became Peter, Saul became Paul, and many other biblical characters where given or took new names as an illustration of something profound.  In my case, I am not illustrating anything nearly that profound.  I think my choice is more like that of CS Lewis preferring "Jack" or like Steven preferring "Steven".

Still, the bottom line in our culture is this:  We let people choose what they want to be called.  The name on their birth certificate can be legally changed if they desire, or they can still use it as their legal name and socially use a nickname.  We should understand that when we insist on calling someone a name that is different from the name they have requested, we are being rude.  It is as if we reject their right to define themselves in even something as basic as the name they go by.

So, please, call me "MK".

Friendships

I was really surprised by all the feedback I got on my last post.  It was actually such a surprise that it took me this long to be willing to write a follow-up post.  When I was writing about lgbtq ordination, I stopped writing because I concluded that those who were open to what I was saying could find the same information elsewhere and those who were not didn't need more of an excuse to "x" me out of their lives; but in this case my writing was shut down because I was honestly surprised by the huge emotion in responses to the post from women friends and also by the many men friends who were moved to try to pick up a friendship again.

I don't have a lot to say here, I guess . . . really just one main point:  The kind of friendship I was talking about is the main kind I value, which is NOT "let's go to coffee and chat for hours" nor "let's go hiking or work out together" nor "let's go to a movie" nor "let's chat online about our lives".  The kind of friendship I was talking about is what I consider "real" friendship:  two or more people who are working toward a goal which they mutually consider worth working toward, and in which they mutually have resources and time invested.

So I was surprised by the idea that my "cross-gender friendship" post would be taken by my women friends as if I wanted to do dating activities alone with men who are not my husband, and was surprised by the idea that my "cross-gender friendship" post would be taken by male friends as an invitation to spend time talking one-on-one in FaceBook chat or on the phone or in person.  I have more people in my life to chat with than I can keep up with, honestly . . . and I'm a relatively introverted kind of person. (That doesn't mean that I don't miss lunches with Trevecca Okholm and Alix Riley and Leah Stout and Lydia Sarandan and Barb Church and Heather Best and other women friends, and wouldn't try to make time for those again if I were invited by them or by other dear friends like Elizabeth Steele and Anita Coleman . . . but it does mean that I do not have a felt need for THAT kind of intimacy.  I have a husband and two kids at home still, and am still closely connected to my mom and dad, and my sister and brother and their families, and my two adult sons and their wives . . . and have many many cousins and uncles and aunts . . . who fill me up to overflowing as far as my need for human intimacy, and for whom I never have the time that I wish I had.)

(Social media is a wonderful way to keep up with the lives and activities of all the circles of people I know from so many times of my life, and I truly DO love seeing the pictures and hearing the views of all those individuals, for whom I genuinely DO feel affection and love.  In a life where I never get everything done, it allows me to remain connected despite my limited time and attention, and I am very grateful for that!  I feel that way toward childhood friends, college friends, friends from each job I've had, friends from each church I've been at, and many current friends who I do see in person but not for long enough to really know the details of their lives these days.  It is a blessing to live today!)

But the kind of friendship that I was arguing FOR in my post about cross-gender friendship is the kind of friendship that my small group of world-christian-fellowship friends had at Wheaton as we met at lunch to pray.  It is a friendship based in DOING TOGETHER the things to which WE ARE CALLED, and it has nothing to do with gender or sexuality except to the extent it has to do with recognizing each other as the particular people God has created each person to be and to rejoice in those characteristics as we rejoice in our varied talents and perspectives.

So I want to be "one of the guys" not in that I deny anything about our differences, but in that I have no barriers to full inclusion in the roles in which I am gifted to help the group move forward toward our mutual goals.  This is something I want to see for each one of us . . . that each of us can become passionate about our individual and mutual callings and that gender roles and sexuality are not barriers or even speed bumps as we push forward steadily under the leadership of God.

If in Christ there is no Jew or gentile, no male or female, no slave or freeman . . . If in Christ we are called to "consider it all rubbish" in light of the high call of Christ . . . If in Christ we are to, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, that I might by all means save some . . .

then for God's sake let's recognize all our rules about friendship between genders as NOT in the interest of actual purity, because purity in our new lives is not about keeping safe from sin (sin is already dealt with!) but about actually LIVING the lives for which we were saved from sin. 

(I'm NOT arguing for "freedom" to live lives of sexual sin or screwed up marriages or time wasted on emotional entanglements that also do not accomplish FULL LIFE in Christ.

I am arguing for real freedom, to live passionately with that passion mutually focused on the values and priorities of the kingdom, and everything else (including our rules about cross-gender friendships) put in submission to that pursuit of all that will actually satisfy.

And all I can conclude from the many responses I got to that post is that most people never have even conceived of that kind of freedom, or of that kind of satisfaction.  All I can conclude is that most of those who reacted are hungry for intimacy and so assume that my plea was to allow me to satisfy those hungers of my own in ways that would invade the real needs of others.)

May the Church be a place where we experience actual friendship, where we value what actually satisfies, and where we pursue that together in ways that allow for the full utilization of the talents and passions of every individual regardless of gender or other defining attributes.

If that is beyond us now, may it not be beyond the church of my grandchildren's generation.

Myth and Reality: Cross-Gender Friendships

This post is part of the February Synchroblog “Cross Gender Friendships”.  The other contributions to this Synchroblog are listed at the bottom of this post, and some of them are amazing!  I invite you to read through the whole list!

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I find that my posts over time have mostly served the purpose of allowing ME to process my analysis of whatever I was working through at the time, and then find I don't have a lot to say about the subject once I have worked through my own cognitive dissonance to a place where I can live.  Then the issue is a non-issue to me, and I am content to listen and love as others do the same processing.  So I didn't plan to post in this month's Synchroblog, but here I am, because I found myself preaching in my head this morning to all those who were finishing up their own posts.

To quote from one of my favorite movies My Cousin Vinny: "It's a bullshit question!"

A few years ago I put a lot of energy into this question, because -- like most of you -- I was coming from the perspective of a deeply patriarchal culture, and from the perspective of a culture that sees sexual purity as the primary evidence of a faith that works.

Today I understand this question to reflect a culture and not the deeper realities.  So I will answer the question first, and then I will speak to the deeper realities.

Answer 1:  Are cross-gender friendships possible for adults when one or both are married and when one or both are part of the old cultural paradigms of evangelicalism?  No, not without deep problems.

Answer 2: Are cross-gender friendships possible for adults when one or both are married and when both have adopted a worldview that explicitly rejects patriarchy and explicitly accepts as its primary evidence of faith that works the commands of Jesus?  Yes, most definitely.

I guess here is the place that it will show up that I have already internalized my own resolution:  I am not going to try to walk you through this step by step.  You'll have to do that work yourself.

But I am here to testify that it does not matter if two friends are mutually attracted if they are also mutually committed to agape toward each other and toward their spouses and if they are mutually committed to living lives that are wrapped around chasing Jesus, as long as they have both truly gotten over the myth that women exist to please men and men exist to care for women, as we were taught in our patriarchal upbringing.

The spouse who clings jealously to his/her spouse is not really that different from the "homewrecker" who seeks to enter into a committed relationship with someone who already made those commitments to another.  Both have missed the point about where their security comes from, and both have believed cultural myths that don't hold the weight of real life.

So what does this mean for me?

1) I can be friends with men who treat me like their equal, and not like a potential sexual partner or like a maiden in distress who needs saving or like a "helpmeet" who will potentially be the wife who helps them or some other man achieve all he was called to achieve.

2) I cannot be friends with men who say that they believe I am their equal and not a potential sexual partner or "helpmeet" but then give out all kinds of clues that show that their true underlying belief is different than what is healthy and true.  Whether that comes across as "sexual vibes" or "sweet condescension", both are sad indicators that that man isn't friendship material for me.  (In the past I tried to "convert" some of those "friends" to friendship material, but I have since then accepted that only life can do that; I must wait until they reapproach me and share that that has happened.)

3) I cannot actively be friends with men who could otherwise be my friends but who have wives who are threatened by the friendship of their husband with me.  This is part of real friendship, by the way: We honor the ethical responsibilities and real situations of those we love.

And what does this mean for some of my female friends who are processing this question?

1) If your husband is friends with other women and you think it isn't healthy, try to discipline yourself to let it be whatever it IS and to let your own emotional energy go toward your own healthy community of many healthy friendships of your own (of all ages and genders and roles in your life) and toward your own walk with God in pursuing all God is calling YOU to be.  Your husband will bear the consequences of his own choices, and you will wean yourself from your own dependency that is unhealthy.  (You will find yourself more satisfied with life than if you were able control his actions, because what you are really after won't be found in his faithfulness to you and won't be lost in his lack thereof.)

2)  If your friend that you thought was platonic gives you vibes that you don't think are healthy, respond appropriately to the relationship and situation.  Sometimes that means anger and boundaries as you realize that you are being manipulated or used; sometimes it means an affirming reassurance that they don't need to be embarrassed or worried that they hurt your friendship because you love them as a friend and you understand that you both can just "forget he ever said that" and be fine; and sometimes it means detachment and space that is fueled by wisdom rather than anger.

3) If you find that you are "falling in love" when it isn't appropriate for you to do so, you need to do the interior and exterior work on your person and your life to know your deep desires and to know how to chase them in a way that will actually get them met.  It is a myth that any single relationship can do that for you or for anyone else, but there is much that you can learn as you examine your own emotions and conflicts.  They can be the key to the life you want, but not through getting the unhealthy relationship you crave.  They can point you toward the traits you need to develop, the lifestyle that you need to cultivate, the career that you may be satisfied in doing, and the kind of friendships you need to build into a healthy network of friends.

That's all a lot of answer to a "bullshit question", isn't it?

The deeper answer to the deeper question is this:

We do have gender identities and sexual identities, and they matter.  They are part of the fabric of the life we each must build, for ourselves and our families and our communities and our world.  The ethical questions we ask "on top" of a culture that has deeply embedded flaws in its ways of assigning identities and establishing security for individuals and groups can often only have answers that miss the point.

The bottom-line point that we need to get at is this:  If we acknowledge that security and love and righteousness come from building a culture together that works in the context of reality lived out, and not just in theory, then we can't discuss cross-gender friendships without working out a better understanding of gender and a better understanding of sexuality and a better understanding of friendships than we currently possess . . . and that all requires diving down even deeper and working out a better understanding of security and a better understanding of identity and a better understanding of health/purity/righteousness/the goal.  (For those of us that love the Bible, we actually have a lot of help in that already, if we will apply a consistent method of exegesis and hermeneutics there rather than worshipping recent early-20th-century evangelicalism.)

Who's in for that ride?!!

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Chris Jefferies – Best of both
Jeremy Myers – Are Cross-Gender Friendships Possible
Lynne Tait – Little Boxes
Dan Brennan – Cross-Gender Friendship: Jesus and the Post-Romantic Age
Glenn Hager – Sluts and Horndogs
Jennifer Ellen – A Different Kind of Valentine
Alise Wright - What I get from my cross-gender friend
Liz Dyer – Cross-Gender Friendships and the Church
Paul Sims – Navigating the murky water of cross-gender friendships
Jonalyn Fincher – Why I Don’t Give out Sex like Gold Star Stickers
Amy Martin – Friendship: The most powerful force against patriarchy, sexism, and other misunderstands about people who happen to not be us, in this case, between men & women
Bram Cools - Nothing More Natural Than Cross-Gender Friendships?
Hugo Schwyzer – Feelings Aren’t Facts: Living Out Friendship Between Men and Women
Marta Layton – True Friendship: Two Bodies, One Soul
Kathy Escobar – The Road To Equality Is Paved With Friendship
Karl Wheeler – Friends at First Sight
Doreen Mannion - Hetereosexual, Platonic Cross-Gender Friendships–Learning from Gay & Lesbian Christians
Jim Henderson – Jesus Had A Thing for Women and So Do I
Elizabeth Chapin – 50 Shades of Friendship

Journaling My Journey Once More . . .

Today marks a new stage of my journey for me . . . and it is my intention to go back to using this blog to journal my journey again.

From October 13, 2011 to December 28, 2012 big pieces of my story are not just MY story, and I cannot really tell the part that is my own without giving up pieces that truly aren't mine to make available to strangers via a weblog.  So bear with me as I jump from the summer of 2011 to now without really giving all the details.  I do think an overview of my faith journey is in order though, since it is THAT that this blog records.

As I review all I wrote from the beginning of this blog, almost every post still rings true.  I am still a follower of Jesus who believes in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus, and affirms the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and most of the tenets of a reformed evangelical Christianity, as affirmed by the churches who are leaving the PCUSA to form their new denomination.   I am also still a daily practitioner of prayer and meditation and regular practitioner of the other spiritual disciplines a la Foster and Willard (and Ignatius of Loyola), and also still surround myself with a community that affirms the same beliefs and practices the same practices as I do.  (In as much as our faith is not JUST a social construct, it is indeed a social construct which is why the Bible gives so much instruction on how we live it out together.)

I am also a Christian who is not willing to build walls around my own narrow community in order to protect its sanctity or purity.  On the contrary, I believe that REALITY trumps any map of reality, and if our map works and we follow it, our light will invade everything we touch, and the darkness has no equivalent power.  So I'm not worried about stamping out heresy or about protecting my children from ideas that won't bear the weight of real life.  I'm much more afraid of being that Christian who stands at a dry-erase board and teaches truth, and then goes away and lives like it doesn't really matter.  (As Jesus said, if our salt loses its saltiness, we're &^%$'d.)

I also still affirm that it is a lot easier to center your life around an authentic chase after the Triune God if you don't pay your bills through a job about that chase.  It is tough to worship the real "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" if you are paid to give lip service to the little icons of each printed in the corner of the official map of the group that pays you to reassure them that they can avoid the hard work of changing their map by just learning a better logical and political strategy to protect it.  And it is hard to form the community of faith that we are called to form if we don't have fully-committed followers modeling how to be a fully-committed fully-educated follower of Jesus from the position of "the normal Christian life."

(None of that is to say that all of you who are my friends and who are paid to lead congregations or denominations in a way that is faithful and true are not just as sincere and much more educated than am I!  But each of you know the reality about your own process, and it is many of those conversations with many of you that led me to choose a different path.)

We need each other, whether we think alike or whether we see things very differently.  I need you to challenge the places that I project my expectations or analysis even though I have never actually walked on that part of the landscape but have only seen maps and pictures.  And I need to do the same to you when you speak to what the land under my feet is actually like even though you are sadly mistaken and I know it.

But we need to challenge each other out of joy and peace and love, and not out of contentiousness.  You need me to tell you that you are AMAZING (and each of you IS amazing, truly!!) and that it would be a tragedy to not give all you can give to our generation and to future generations, and that you bring me JOY just in observing you and knowing you (and each of you DO!).  And I need you to keep creating me as you have been, through our friendships and through your prayers, for I am a social creature.  We are social creatures.  We were meant to be social creatures.

Most of all, I affirm that the mystery of our lives is the reality of our lives, more than is our definition or our analysis the reality of our lives.  We come together in the woods between the worlds and each of us is one of the pools that leads to a whole world of its own . . . and we were made to explore world after world after world, even as we homestead in just a single world and nurture all those given to us in that intimacy.

And it is THAT journey that I am back to journaling here.

My Political Stances

1) I will not take unemployment payments unless I truly am actively looking for a new job.

2) I will pay my taxes.

3) I will vote after considering carefully the issues and candidates.

4) I will realize my actions in how I live my life and impact others have a bigger impact than my vote, and that our shared actions have the ability to "save" us or "destroy us", and that the President and House and Senate are not a big enough rudder to change our course much in the long run.

5) I will feed and educate my own children, and will not object to contributing toward doing the same for all other children even after my own are grown, for some of them will change my diapers when I am old, and all of them will create the world we must inhabit.

6) I will care for those who cannot care for themselves properly -- through existing private, State, and Federal programs and through new efforts -- rather than expecting others to do the work & pay the bills.

6) I will provide incentive for those who can care for themselves but feel entitled not to do so to learn how wonderful it feels to live into a calling and contribute to us all, rather than being leeches. I will not do this by being nasty and hurtful, but rather by rewarding work and making laziness obviously less joyful. Personally I can do this in my own family and workplaces, and nationally I can do this in how I communicate and in how I vote.

7) I will now shut up and work. :)

Haiku

Haiku constricts words
As life constrains our options
Forcing new beauty

The Art of Passionately Lightening Up

This month's Synchroblog topic is Lighten Up: The Art of Laughter, Joy, and Letting Go, and it hits home with me! I love that the Synchroblog coordinators chose the phrase "the art of" as part of their title, because I think that is exactly what is called for here: an artistic approach!

Humor and entertainment, or alcohol, or time with friends, or any of the other ways we each choose to "lighten up" can be healthy or can be a distraction from doing the things we each need to do and from facing the things we each need to face in order to have a satisfying life. "Healthy" ways of lightening up help us to more effectively see the big picture and to make the big and little choices we each need to make to pursue what we will each wish we had pursued when we get to the end of our lives. "Unhealthy" ways of lightening up cause us to forget (or never see to begin with) the way things really are and what we really want, and cause us to passively choose to neglect the things we could do to pursue the life we each really want. I will leave the negative side of that for a post that is supposed to be serious, and focus the rest of this post on how wonderful life can be if we lighten up without ignoring the things that matter!

When we fall newly in love, life is instantly brighter. The visions we had for our future and the ways we wanted to see ourselves are clearer and we have huge hope of them being realized fully. Then, as we move deeper into intimacy and make our commitments and consummate our relationship, we learn the art of lightening up in the clearest instance of any of our lives: we learn how to be lovers that don't pursue just our own orgasm, but pursue mutual orgasm. And there is no formula for that! It is an art of intensity where the goal is most easily achieved when we are fully present and fully alive but not obsessively focused on either lover's actual climax.

Life is like THAT. We are most full of joy and most fulfilled and most useful when we are focused outside of ourselves and not quite on those goals, and when we are fully present in the moment.

So there is no formula to living well! It is indeed an ART. But as we live it out, we learn how to be passionate, and how to lighten up. We learn how to know what is true and right and to live them out fully, and we DO lighten up as we do that, because we learn that it is not all about me and it is not all about my goals, and it is not even all about my experience of life.

Real joy is not something I pursue head-on, but is something that catches me unaware when I was practicing the art of living as best as I could.

Idolatry is something that calls me to focus on an end I am determined to achieve, through the means that I inwardly believe will get me to that end.

God is the One Who calls me to RIDE.

And I cannot lighten up, because I am too intense to do that. But God teases me and cajoles me into seeing reality as God sees it and as God wants me to see it, and then God surprises me with my own being's response to that reality!

Reality is GOOD, and I was made to climax regularly!

Leaving aside the metaphor of God as the Lover (which I first saw in scripture, with a whole book of the Bible dedicated to the metaphor, by the way!) and life as love-making, our faith is meant to be experienced in the reality of the moment, and not as a cocoon to protect us from real life.  God wants to give us each the tools to enjoy fully the experience of REALITY as we walk it out in each moment, and to train us to be adults who walk it out in intimate communication with the Triune God.  God's own presence to us and for us and through us is the sweetest and deepest experience of life, and -- for many of those who practice it for years -- becomes a much richer and more ecstatic experience than anything merely sexual could ever be.  The metaphor breaks down as inadequate, not as profane nor as exaggeration!

So -- if you will relax into the passionate pursuit of the things that really matter, on the track of the real world you live in, with the Triune God as your perfect coach -- you WILL lighten up, and you will speed up, and you will slow down, and you will experience fully the life YOU were made to experience!

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Here’s the link list for this month’s synchroblog.  Have fun reading through the list!

• Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – Lighten Up!
• Maria Kettleson Anderson at My Real Journey - The Art of Passionately Lightening Up
• Melody Harrison at Logic and Imagination – {I Don’t Do Joy}
• Wendy McCaig - Lighten Up: Learning to Let Go From A Man Who Lost It All
• Carol Kuniholm at Words Half Heart – Resurrection Laughter
• R. Lee Bayes at Southern Humanist – Loving Light
• Alan Knox – Be Sarcastic With One Another
• Patrick Oden at Dueling Ravens - Truth, Beauty, and Yodeling Pickles
• Tammy Carter at Blessing the Beloved – A Tricky Little Journey
• Christine Sine at Godspace – Lighten Up: It Really is the Best Medicine
• Glenn Hager - Margaritas, Metallica, and A Serious Case of the Giggles.
• Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – A Spoonful of Sugar
• K.W. Leslie at More Christ – When Jesus Made A Funny
• Maurice Broaddus – Why So Serious?
• Ellen Haroutunian – A Laughing God

The State of the State (of the Kingdom of Me)

Those who walked with me at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church will get "the Kingdom of Me" reference without explanation, but for everyone else, I better explain: Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy talks about the Kingdom of God and the smaller kingdoms we all live within, and so we each have our own little world that is our own life and our own perception of reality, and that, for each of us, is "the Kingdom of Me". Today is a great day to reflect on that for me!

In 12-step groups like AA or Alanon or any of the many other iterations, during open share time, each person sits and listens to each who chooses to share, and "no crosstalk" means that no one is supposed to comment on another's share, but simply share their own story of the week or of life. In social media and in blogging, we have lots of "crosstalk" in our comments and in our posts responding to each other, but we also have a lot of time speaking our own piece and enjoying the love that others show as they "listen" by taking the time to read a post. I have come to realize the huge love that is given me by anyone who takes the time to read one of my posts with real attention, even if it seems that I wouldn't have any way of knowing they did so. We are all so interconnected, and the love that flows from those who give me that consideration is what creates anything good going forward. I am bound to you!

So, after those rambling disclaimers/explanations, here goes this "share":

I am now old enough to know that life is a mystery, and I can't dissect it and examine it and compile my notes and write them up and file them away and control life by knowing. I am old enough to have had a little of my innate narcissism kicked out of me, and old enough to realize that I don't have to be ashamed of my narcissism because it is human and natural. I am old enough to understand what makes life sweet is relationships, and that one of those relationships is between me and me, and that I can forgive myself and love myself and nurture myself with the same grace and kindness that I want to have toward anyone else I love. And I am old enough to have lived, and to be grateful for that life, and to be ready to die even while I am ready to live until 106. I'm also old enough to know that music and fiction and art express reality better than words do!

For the last week I have been hearing words from all of the different songs on the old U2 Album All That You Can't Leave Behind playing over and over in my head, and I realize it is because I am finally old enough to not just like that album but to live that album. It is the track to this part of this journey. I am grateful! So if you are curious, pull it out and listen to it, and you will learn more about this day in my life than I can write in a blog post!

I am grateful for my companions on my journey, and while this blog has been all about church and all about my life here and now, it is many early childhood friends and friends from young adulthood that come to mind now as having MADE me. I am so grateful for each! My family and extended family, of course, and Steve Sullivan and his family and friends, and Don . . . but the ones that jump out at me today in my memory and gratitude are:

The Sarbins (Adam, Sara, Debby)
Alan Maline
Joe Loftschulz
Chris Blake
Michell Martin
Mike Martin
Jean Watt
Stephanie Harlan
Jenny Harned
Nancy Jessen
Brian Borchers
Scott Turnbull
Dave Larson
Irma Jimenez
Wanda Dayvault
Kevin and Keith
Brett Westbrook

and the mental list goes on and on . . .

Many painful memories are just as significant as loving friendships! It's important to WANT to be friends with the people you are attracted to and rejected by, and important to learn to be friends with the people that love you in real ways, and important to learn to forgive ourselves and others for the realities in life that weren't what we wanted them to be. All these lessons have been the lessons I most needed!

So the "State of the State" (of the Kingdom of Me) today is GRATEFUL! Grateful for Omaha, and Burke High School, and Wheaton College. Grateful for my family -- expecially my nuclear family and amazing uncles and aunts and cousins who have given me a rich loving world that I took for granted until I moved so far away. Grateful for God's Grace, which I no longer need to understand to bathe in!

But most of all, the "State of the State" (of the Kingdom of Me) is amazed at what is in my cup and what is pouring out of this tiny little cup that is my own tiny little world. I am grateful that the Kingdom of God is available fully, right here and right now, and see that the Kingdom of God is coming . . .

Even when I am dead and in the ground, the Kingdom of God will be at work to bring beauty out of darkness and despair, whether my burial day is in less than a week or in 60 years from today. Life is good, and today I am alive and aware and grateful for eyes to see!

I AM just a blip on the computer screen, but while I'm here, I get to see each of YOU . . . and THAT is beauty and joy!

December Synchroblog: Following the Baby We Just Celebrated

This month's synchroblog topic is explained here:  http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/

So Jesus came . . . Did you get what you expected? How has following Jesus led you into strange places and turned your life upside down? Or has it?

I don't have anything new to say on this that I haven't shared with many groups in person, but it bears repeating the story at least once on this blog.

I was born to conservative Christian parents who grew up themselves in Christian families. My dad grew up in a United Presbyterian church in the Twin Cities (Macalester), attended Macalester College (a Presbyterian-affiliated school), and was ordained as a deacon and then an elder early in his adult life.  My mom grew up in a rural Evangelical Covenant church, attended North Park College (a Evangelical Covenant school), and joined Macalaster when she married Dad, also becoming a deacon and then elder in young adulthood.  As they moved, they attended other churches, and ended up spending most of mid-life at the church that was my home church:  Church of the Cross (PCUSA) in Omaha, Nebraska, where they were both active in lay leadership.  They were (and are) very loving and ethical people, have rich prayer lives, a very deep knowledge and understanding of Scripture, and have always had a heart for those in need as well, donating time and money generously.

I grew up believing -- like most kids do -- that my experience was normal, and that my parents' reality WAS reality.  I was very committed to following the Jesus that I'd been led to pray to nightly when I was first able to talk, and wanted to be a missionary (since full-time ministry stateside wasn't within our world-view in terms of my gender.)  I grew up conservative politically and ethically, and was definitely a "good girl' as well as a committed Christian through my teens.  I "followed Jesus" to Wheaton College, and had a rich experience there exploring community with my missions-minded friends as well as learning all I could learn.

I would bore most of you to tears if I gave you a blow-by-blow of the next 20 years, but the short story is that real life with real people led me to rework my theology and world-view in many places.  I abandoned conservative gender roles (the idea of playing the "right" role for my gender in exchange for being protected in ways that men were not) only after trying that path over and over.  I abandoned the idea that capitalism and conservative politics were synonymous with my faith only after trying very hard to reconcile them in the places I found dissonance.  I moved from conservative evangelical toward progressive contemplative with great difficulty socially, because I always assumed that the people around me could see the same holes in our theology and practice that became clear to me, and so I had to suffer a lot of very deliberate active rejection (certainly not by all conservative friends and family, though) before I could let go of the idea that others were also looking for better ways to live the way Jesus taught us to live.

The truth is that most Christians are sincere about following Jesus, but also sincere in believing that those in leadership and teaching positions know and are teaching them the things that will really result in the lives -- individually and in community -- that Jesus was and is calling us to live.  They persist in trusting that leadership and the status quo of the current church culture because they equate unquestioning submission with obedience to Jesus.  This isn't new, of course -- for we are often taught about how the religious people of Jesus day tried to follow the scribes and pharisees in the same way and for the same purpose.  Most adults -- even to death in their 90s -- never question the justice or rightness of what they have been taught since they were little by people they respected and still respect.  That is the reality of community and faith.  (Indeed, if those in leadership themselves question the status quo, they often find themselves no longer in leadership!)

I began my life thinking that following Jesus would make me like my parents, whom I still respect deeply, and would help me resist the parts of me that don't fit the ethic and culture of the conservative churches and families that surrounded me.  Following Jesus would heal me of the "sin" that made it hard to fit the status quo or fulfill my ethical obligations under it. (Following Jesus is healing me of the sin that is actually rebellion against God in my selfishness and fear, as He teaches me His law of love.)

I never stopped following Jesus, even through really brutal times of paying the consequences for not being like my parents, for not fitting the ethic and culture that I thought was based on a good interpretation of Scripture, and for not fulfilling my ethical obligations under all that (meaning the gender- and conservative-culture-specific mores, not the universal truths that most cultures have recognized).  Following Jesus led me to great grief and loss -- especially the loss of my self-image as a "true believer".

These days I know that Jesus loves me enough to want me to know what is true and to want me to live transparently with Him and my community of faith.  He's not afraid of conflict or anger or rejection, and has been teaching me that I don't need to be, either.  He has been teaching me to sort out the voices of family and friends and self, and to live with my focus on the wisdom in the community of faith that He shows me is more closely aligned with His intent and His words and the REALITY that He created and is creating.

The bottom line?:  I followed Jesus because of my deep needs for community and acceptance and affirmation, and found that obedience made me an outcast . . . but that that was the deeper fulfillment of those deep needs.  (I did find community with other followers, of course . . . but only after letting go of the narrower communities that I pursued acceptance from.)

AND there will be a new bottom line as life moves forward, of course.  Because I'm not done, and neither is He.

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Here’s the list of links for this month’s synchroblog. 
Glenn Hager – Underwear For Christmas
Jeremy Myers – The Unexpected Gift From Jesus
Tammy Carter - Unstuck
Jeff Goins - The Day After Christmas: A Lament
Wendy McCaig – Unwanted Gifts: You Can Run But You Can Not Hide
Christine Sine – The Wait Is Over – What Did I Get?
Maria Kettleson Anderson – Following The Baby We Just Celebrated
Leah – Still Waiting For Redemption
Kathy Escobar – Pain Relief Not Pain Removal

Down

This month's sychroblog topic is Down We Go, and is not a book review of Kathy Escobar's book of the same name, but is about our experience of following after Jesus into the crowd who listened to Him introduce the sermon on the mount with the beatitudes, and thus about our experience of breaking with a life of upward mobility.

I do want to recommend Kathy's book!  She does a beautiful job of articulating a wonderful view of faith, church, and ministry!  If you are a regular reader here, you are likely to love her book and her blog.

My perspective is similar to hers, and probably similar to others who will post this month, but I have been led by life to a place that has some twists in the views I held even a year ago, let alone 3 or 5 or 10 years ago. 

I still believe in community and in the bigger community of the CHURCH in the world, and still support my denomination in its polity and local congregations, but I no longer see any of that as being at the center of the action.  Nor do I see wonderful communities like Kathy's, nor our larger communities like Emergent Village, nor our conferences or unconferences or virtual communities as central to what God is doing.

I support my women friends in ministry, and I support the wonderful women theologians and authors and speakers that have finally started to approach real leadership.  I support other groups who have been marginalized as they finally start to get tiny bits of justice and real leadership roles as well.  So I need to qualify everything I write next by saying that it should be practiced first by the WHITE STRAIGHT MEN and isn't intended to be a call to those from marginalized groups to give up newly acquired leadership roles and power.  We each need to hear and follow real wisdom that applies not only to our own situation but to our impact on the larger systems!

But this is the thing:  being able to read and write publicly is a mark of power.  Having a computer and smartphone is a mark of power and privilege.  Being able to use twitter and facebook and attend evangelical and emergent and progressive and denominational conferences is a mark of power and privilege.  Being able to connect to those who organize a synchroblog and interact with other bloggers on a topic each month is a mark of extra time and energy and the ability to connect with that community . . . thus a mark of power and privilege.

Pursuing power and assuming power has its place (when it is done out of a life of prayer and submission in response to the call of God and others), but our ideas of church and ministry are more about career goals and a pursuit of the American Dream than they are about real service.  God and the church and society need most of us to go get jobs where we are not paid for the books we write or the church role we fill or the speaking opportunities we can get, or even for the community of faith we can build from scratch.  We need more people to actually live out a life of service and love in the midst of the daily reality most of America experiences . . . while holding down a job and getting the kids to school in the morning and to bed at night . . . and fewer people to start new churches or try to re energize the old ones.

There are many people looking for a savior, and they aren't going to find the REAL SAVIOR in any of our local expressions of ministry.  That isn't to say that Kathy's church isn't as amazing as she feels it to be, or that I was not ministered to by St. Andrew's in my need, or that St. Mark isn't an amazing community of faith-with-feet.  I wouldn't have just joined St. Mark again last weekend if I wasn't convinced that congregational life still has an indispensable role in discipleship and worship.  But salvation isn't centered there!  Individual, relational, and corporate healing and restoration and worship is not primarily led by those who make their living at it.  God's primary means of grace in sharing the real gospel and infusing it into the lives of real people is through the lives and words and love of those who center their life around the gospel without assuming the role of minister or leader.

I love my friends who have been educated as pastors and preachers and scholars/professors/writers/teachers of theology and ministry and biblical studies, but I have watched the "job market" for them and the church and institutional politics in which they live.  I have watched the competition and the stars and the losers in the game.  And I have watched the economics of it all.

I love my friends who are laypeople and who love our congregations and seminaries and colleges, and support them financially and by many hours of volunteer time.  Many of them have education and giftings on a par with those who earn their living through the church and the schools, but have done what they needed to do economically to be the support to a whole industry of faithful ministry to our generation.  I see their hearts, and know God's love for them!

But to both I have the same message:

Let the church fail.  Let the seminaries close.  Let the denominations die.  Let the old shell of God's power pass into antiquity.

We are called to all the old ideals.  I still love the Book of Order and Book of Confessions of my denomination, and still am passionate about that vision of the CHURCH.  But that's not my primary calling, nor is your primary calling to your ordination or to your vision of the church or of ministry.

Our calling IS down.  We are called out of a pursuit of "the kingdom of heaven" the ways we thought we saw it or knew it, and called IN to a pursuit of loving action in the reality of our lives today.  That means we get to translate a real faith to footsteps and words and hugs in our real homes and real workplaces, and on the streetcorner of the part of town that scares us, and with that guy sitting on the sidewalk by the Del Taco you go to each week.

Kathy has great points to make in her book about inclusion of those on the margins, and that has been a big theme in my life too . . . but we don't have to go to her church to experience that, and it isn't primarily in church that we MUST experience it.  We are called to be people who make friends and who SEE people . . . the invisible people. 

We should be engaging the people waiting for the bus as we jog by.  We should be people who consider the mood we perceive tonight from the checkout clerk at Stater Brothers, and be able to compare it to her mood three days ago.  We should be in prayer for the coworker that everyone hates and wishes would quit.  But none of this should flow from that word I used in each of these sentences . . . that "should" word.  All of this should flow from real transformation, real power.

Following Jesus in an incarnational demonstration of real spiritual power will usually come to us when we are filling the same kinds of roles in society that nonchristians fill.  Following Jesus in a mystical experience of the Triune God will usually come to us when we fit our time of prayer and study into the same daily routines and pressures that our non-religious neighbors live daily.  And following Jesus in fulfilling the great commission will usually be at its most powerful and effective point in our lives when we have learned to live what He taught us to do instead of writing about it, speaking about it, or marketing it effectively.

Anyone else down with me on this?

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The other posts in this month's synchroblog are here:

Alan Knox – How Low Can You Go

Jeremy Myers – Seeking The Next Demotion

Glenn Hager – Pretty People

David Derbershire – Reaching The Inner City

Tammy Carter – Flight Plan

Leah Randall – Jacked Up

Leah Randall (her other voice) – How Low Can We Go

Liz Dyer – Beautiful Mess

Maria Kettleson Anderson – Down

Christine Sine – There Is No Failure In The Kingdom of God

Leah Sophia – Down We Go

Hugh Hollowell – Downward

Kathy Escobar – We May Look Like Losers – Redux

Anthony Ehrhardt – Slumming It For Jesus

Sonja Andrews – Diversion and Distraction

Marta Layton – Down The Up Staircase

 

Fiction, movies, and TV

This month's synchroblog is at summertime-summertime-sum-sum-summertime and this is my contribution. I took time over the past month to consider what books or TV programs or new movies I wanted to spotlight, and decided that we all do that on Twitter and FaceBook regularly, and that that wasn't my best contribution to this discussion anyway.  I decided to post briefly about the importance of PLAY and ENTERTAINMENT in God's work in shaping us and using us, and to suggest that you seek out new joy in new places!

As I have watched my own boys and the children of others over the past 26 years, I have given up the old idea that the best thing I could do for my boys was to teach them to be disciplined and responsible.  I do want them (and me) to grow up to be disciplined and responsible, but I want them to be equipped to use those skills to pursue things that really matter in the long run.  The best thing I can teach  my children (and myself) is to have fresh eyes to see reality daily and fresh ears to hear God and Others and Myself each day and to know which is which!

I do not know of any medium that opens eyes and ears like STORY does, and I'm so grateful that Jesus reaffirmed that by His example in how He taught and in how He lived.  In my boys' lives I practice this regularly by reading to them almost every night (the little boys now, but the young adults too when they were this age) and by modeling a life that weaves STORY into every day.  In my life this looks like piles of books that have been read and re-read, snatches of reading time that sometimes result in burnt food (oops!), trips to see movies, weekly TV shows that I schedule time to watch (recorded TV shows, usually) and no complaints from me about those time choices from others.

Like music, STORY has the ability to go right by my analytic, unfeeling brain and lodge in my gut, and change my view of my own world and my own role in it.  As much as good analysis and good planning and good discipline are indispensable tools for dealing with reality once I've felt it and embraced it, they can't be my eyes or ears for REALITY itself, and they can take me a long way in the wrong direction if my map is wrong!  My own story is so limited and my own experience so short lived that, without STORY, I am doomed to a wasted life focused on my own perceptions and achieving my own agenda.  There is more!

Let me tell you a story:

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There once was a beautiful young woman who went to college and did everything right.  She dated in appropriate ways.  She chose a good career and got a good education and a good job.  She fell in love and got married.  She had 2 beautiful daughters that she and her husband raised to be fine young women who had lives like their mother.  She added good things to the world in her line of work, and had friends, and had all the markers of a happy and healthy life.

Then one day someone changed the rules for what "doing everything right" was. People who hadn't done what was right were suddenly turning everything upside down in her world, and were labeling her as THE PROBLEM with their lives, and she was going to lose everything.  She felt guilty and depressed, and took time to meet with some of those individuals and to form a new ministry, and to try to effect change in them and change in her own self and world to come to some sort of new stability. She was more or less successful in that effort, and once again had all the markers of a happy and healthy life.

Then the end came, and she got to find out what DOES happen when we die, first hand.  She found out that it wasn't about following all the rules and looking happy and healthy.  It was about having become someone who could authentically participate in the DANCE of LIFE, and could DANCE with the others swirling in that DANCE.  And the ONE in the center welcomed her to the dance, but said how sad it was that she had wasted all the years of dance school which that ONE had given her.  Still, she was free to participate with as much joy as she could find in the whirling dance that surrounded her, and should know that she did not need to be afraid.

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Those who know me know I am not the woman in the story above!  But it is a story from my heart for all the Good Christian Girls I know out there, and tells my version of what I wish they could see and feel and live!

We have been given movies and TV series and books and each other to be able to see outside our own selves and our own hearts and our own subcultures, and to be able to enter in to the eternal dance . . . not just later, but right now.

Right here, right now I can plan my daily doses of STORY and let my world be contiguous with all the other worlds around me.

Right here, right now I can listen to your story and then tell it again for another, and let our lives fold together in the great dance of friendship and wonder.

Right here, right now I can let my work hours and exercise and financial planning and prayer time be opened up in new ways and pointed to new places as God uses STORY (even or especially ones that push me off-balance) to teach me what really IS and what really matters.

And right here, right now YOU can set aside the sermon you were writing or the funds you were managing or the classwork you were grading just long enough to get a fresh shot of JOY and MOTIVATION and PERSPECTIVE.  Pick up a novel you like, and if it gets boring, pick up a different one.  See a movie you like.  Find a new HBO or SHOWTIME series to follow.

Then you can get back to work and prayer and relationships and "real life" . . . but it will all be different.  You will be more of what God put you here to be, and you will do more of what God put you here to do.  With purpose and joy.

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Please check out these other August posts by fellow synchrobloggers:

• K.W. Leslie at The Evening of Kent – My Summer Reading List, Thus Far
• Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – 12 Movies and a Novel
• Steve Knight at Knightopia – Down We Go
• Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes - A Book That Invades Your Dreams
• Andrea at Andrea’s Balancing Act – What Do My Favorite Books Say About Me?
• Tammy Carter at Blessing the Beloved – Loyalty and Valor
• Steve Hayes at Khanya – Summer Reading
• Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head – movies + books = summer fun

Listening to the Wild Goose

I have not had the time I'd like to put into this post, but decided to write it quickly and publish it anyway, because I do love the discussion I am seeing in this month's synchroblog. So here is my little reflection on The Wild Goose / The Holy Spirit:

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While I was driving from Yorba Linda to Crosslake, Minnesota last week I was sad that I would miss all the friends gathered at The Wild Goose Festival and at Big Tent as my sister and mother and I rushed to get ready for a party we had on July 2 for Josh and Julie, even though I knew I had made the right choice to be here instead of there.  My family has had an exciting 6 weeks, with my son Josh getting married to Julie on May 28 in rural Illinois and with my son Mike getting married to Luisa on June 18 near California's central coast; and this season of life is one that I am soaking up.   Still, I miss my friends and the opportunity to participate in all the ways they were listening together to God this week!

I read an article this week about congregations and sermons, and how the things that we are passionate about show up in our responses.  The writer was bemoaning the lack of passion for sermons among most laity, compared to their response to their favorite teams or band or hobbies.  And I realized that THAT is what I have in common with my friends:  we are passionate about the right sermon, the right book, but especially about seeing ourselves and each other live contagious lives full of grace and mercy in joyful adoration of the GOD who inspires our passion.  And as much as I love my family and enjoy time with them, I am SO grateful for all the circles of friends that shape my passion for God and for a life lived as God intended abundant life to be lived.  In so many ways, all of those friends are "home" now even more than are any of my "real" homes.

I experienced a bit of dismay this week from some of the people I love about my love of people they don't think I should love.  They don't understand how I could be passionate about people with whom they wouldn't leave their kids for an hour (because they don't know my friends, because they disapprove of how my friends look, because they disapprove of choices my friends make about career and marriage and politics, or just because - like me - my friends like to live too publicly in the eye of social media and to share too much too often) and they don't understand how I can align myself with their brand of Christianity.  I tried to explain, but it not only fell on deaf ears, but stirred conflict that is not really useful conflict. ("Useful conflict" moves one or both of us closer to God's purposes in our relationship or in our understandings and characters; this did neither as far as I can discern.)  I should have just listened!

As I listen to those outside my areas of passion and participation, I hear their values and their passions and their fears.  I see what God has been up to in their lives.  And I get a chance to be shaped by their experiences and conclusions and to be used by God in even more powerful ways that my words or actions can accomplish.  Seeing the beauty that God is weaving in the life of another human lets me WITNESS to that beauty and to God's process . . . and it is that kind of WITNESS that I am most often called to be!

I have been learning not to deny my own passion, but to have authentic respect for the fears, values and passions that drive others.  I used to think that real respect meant that I needed to adopt or affirm the fears, values, and passions of another.  I used to think that not denying my own passion meant getting others to share it, or at least justifying it with all others.  Now I know neither is true!  Embracing and protecting my own passions flows from the same respect, love, and peace that empowers genuine respect of others and their "stuff".  The Wild Goose is powerfully at work in me and in them!

A friend once told me that he was finding that getting older was bringing a greater tolerance for mystery, and as I get older I think that perhaps that is just a greater tolerance for listening and accepting the realities of life without needing to fit everything and everyone into a nice neat analytical spot.  I think it is a mystery how chasing the Wild Goose becomes being inhabited by the Wild Goose.  I think it is a mystery how learning to listen and contemplate reality becomes a life of passion and action and salt-filled words when needed.  But maybe the greatest mystery is how a burning desire for a particular vision can become an abiding joy even in the "now but not yet" of it all!

My grandmother used to sing the words "trust and obey . . . for there's no other way . . . to be happy in Jesus . . . but to trust and obey" and even as I type them I think about the way we all must go through such a process to learn what trust means and to learn how to hear the commands we obey from Jesus filtered through so many places and people and Bible-teaching and filtered out of so many places and people and Bible-teaching.  We make our choices about what rings true, and try it out, and refine or reframe our understanding, then try them out . . . and over time we learn to authentically hear the Wild Goose.  But anyone who tells you that you can do that without first struggling (and last struggling too) has never really learned to recognize the voice of that ONE who calls.

We are each different, and we are each the same.  God speaks to us each differently, yet to us all with the same vision as to the whole drama being directed from above.  I am called to play my part, and to watch with joy as each other player does the same.  I am to listen to the right director, and listen and watch my fellow actors with joy and respect.

Learning to listen to the Wild Goose (learning to trust and obey) is not a skill that can be taught and practiced and mastered.  Oh, there are techniques that you can learn, of course . . . but life-making that is focused on proper technique and practiced skill can't hold a candle to life-making that is burning with real awe at the beauty of the Beloved and the amazement at being in the presence of the Beloved.  Learning to listen to the Wild Goose comes from running away when you must and chasing when you must and being the "respectable man" when you must and being the "failure" when you must.  Learning to listen to the Wild Goose comes from paying attention to all that God uses to instruct you about God and life and your call and your day today . . . and learning and failing and learning and failing. We are not called to triumphantly bring about heaven on earth.  We are called to recognize heaven on earth in the mustard seed, and worship in amazement as it grows to a Kingdom.

I get just a few more days to live at my parent's house in the beauty of remote nature, and then I begin my trek with Noah and Brooks to our home in SoCal.  I saw a wild heron spring up from the shore near my brother's cabin on Monday as we celebrated the 4th together there, and I rejoiced in the power of those wings and the unexpected intrusion in our space.

I am learning how to recognize beauty and power in the intrusion of all those things that don't fit my view of a safe, comfortable, livable world . . . the things that stir negative emotion before my heart can settle back into a rhythm of peace and joy and purposeful action or inaction. 

I am learning how to let the Wild Goose teach me to live in the real world, even as I learn that I can't master an understanding of it all. 

I am learning how to worship the real triune God with all my life, even as I come to terms with never really understanding even a corner of that majesty or wisdom or danger. 

I am learning to listen to the Wild Goose!

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Syncroblog posts on the Wild Goose:

Anna Snoeyenbos – Wild Goose Festival – A Spirit of Life Revival

Lee Smith - Goose Bumps: Opportunities Everywhere for Offense. A Fair and Objective Review

Ryan Hines – 30 Years Later – “Controversy” at Wild Goose

Karyn Wiseman – Flying With the Goose

Kyla Cofer – I went to the Wild Goose Fest and came back in love

Brian Gerald Murphy – Born Again (Again) at Wild Goose

Chris Lenshyn – Chasing the Wild Goose

Cherie at Renaissance Garden – Wild Goose Return

Deborah Wise – Wild Goose Chasing

Custodianseed – “every day they eat boiled goose”

Will Norman – Back from the Wild Goose Fest

Martin at Exiles in NY – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose

Kerri at Practicing Contemplative – Waterfowl in My Life

Allison Leigh Lilley – Chasing the Wild Goose and Catching the Wild Goose: Thanks and First Thoughts and A Pagan Goes To The Wild Goose – Part One

Abbie Waters – Jessica: A Fable

Steve Knight – Why Wild Goose Festival Was So Magical

Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying

Michelle Thorburg Hammond – I heart Jay Bakker and Peter Rollins

Matthew Bolz-Weber – Remembering Wild Goose

Paul Fromberg – Celebrating Interdependence Day

David Zimmerman – Wild Goose Festival: A Recap

Unfinished Symphony – Wild Goose Reflections – Part 1, Wild Goose Reflections – Part 2 Making Art Collages, Wild Goose Reflections – Part 3 Photoblogging, and Wild Goose Reflections – Part 4 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Dan Brennan – U2, the Wild Goose, and Deep Freedom

Mike Croghan – The Wild Goose is Not Safe

John Martinez – The Table

Callid Keefe-Perry – Gatekeeping the Goose

Eric Elnes – The Inaugural Wild Goose Festival: Recovering Something Lost

Shay Kearns – The Power of a T-Shirt, Apologizing to Over the Rhine, and Public vs. Private (Part One)

Glen Reteif – Duck Duck Goose

Peterson Toscano – I’ve Been Goosed, What I Carried Into Wild Goose, and What I Blurted Out at Wild Goose

Seth Donovan – About More than “The Gays”

Exiles in New York – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose

Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying

TSmith – What I’ll Take From Wild Goose

Dale Lature – Wild Goose Reflection

Steve Hayes – Wild Goose Chase?

Minnow – Grace Response

Christine Sine – Encounters With A Thin Space

Jeremy Myers – Giving Up the Wild Goose Chase

Robert – Thoughts On the Inaugural Wild Goose

Anna Woofenden – Slippery Slope Reflections

Wendy McCaig – Loosing The Goose

Joey Wahoo – Into The Wild

Rachel Swan – goosed

Patricia Burlison – I Called Life

Jason Hess – While At the Goose

The Bec Cranford – Wild Goose

Anthony Ehrhardt – Chasing The Wild Goose on Independence Day

Joel DeVyldere – So Lost at Last-(In the Woods)

Maria Kettleson Anderson – Listening To The Wild Goose

Jamie Arpin-Ricci – Wild Goose Fest

Unfinished Symphony – #5 – The Last Post … for a while

The really important things

My 9-year-old son Brooks had been bugging me to give him a planner like the one I use. He was delighted yesterday to get a Franklin Planner all his own, and spent a lot of time setting it up his way. I was amused and proud at a lot of what I saw there that I won't display publicly. He wants to be organized and effective!

But the best part was his "weekly compass", which I use along with my weekly planner and a master task list on toodledo.com and my iPhone. Mine is my way of focusing on what really matters, and doing first things first. And he knows that and checks mine out regularly!

So the pictures above document his list of roles and "big rocks" as he seeks to be organized and effective this week. "HAVE FUN DURING SUMMER" "EVERY SINGLE DAY OF SUMMER"!

He lives with me in my
"big picture"/"little picture"
over-analysis/intuitive
tasks/goals
prayer/obedience
world . . . and we talk all the time about really important ideas about life and living well.

And he preached a sermon to me with his hours of delight and preparation of this little planner, and the conclusion/goal on the weekly compass card.  Everything we do is for a reason, and as much as he already knows my Christian-speak about what we are here for and what his purposes should be, he isn't confused at all.

He needs to do his daily chores (which we do from a list, and which are going very well in both how they are done and the attitude with which they are done) and he wants to plan his life. He likes knowing our travel plans and planning each day. But he isn't going to miss out on being 9 years old this summer. 

Praise God!

Brooks climbing through a tunnel he made in the VCS sandbox, with Noah greeting him as he emerges

PresbyMEME: Why I am voting yes on Amendment 10A

Update 5/19/2011 at 9 p.m.: The vote tonight was 51 votes in favor of Amendment 10A and 131 against 10A; so it lost in Los Ranchos. It was approved by the 87 presbyteries necessary just 2 days after my post; so Los Ranchos didn't affect the fact that it will be the new wording after this year. I was not surprised that it lost in Los Ranchos. I was grateful to see 15 more people vote for 10A than voted for the equivalent measure 2 years ago. God is at work among us!

Original post:

In November, a meme was started by Bruce Reyes-Chow for those of us in support of 10A to post on “Why I am voting yes on Amendment 10a”. He added that those of us with no vote in our presbyteries should feel free to post too, with an explanation of our situation. That wasn’t comfortable for me, but in a few weeks Los Ranchos will vote; so here is my post! (I do not have a vote, but I am rooted here and grateful for the ministry of Los Ranchos churches -- especially of St. Andrew's Newport Beach -- in my life these past 15 years!)

If you are not familiar with PCUSA politics, a good page on this particular issue can be found at the Layman Online's vote chart page, and a very good summary of the arguments against the common fears and objections concerning 10A can be found at the resource link shared at the start of Bruce's meme post. In addition, the posts Bruce lists in response to this meme are rich in resources, and John Shuck has a particularly good selection of informative links in his "Countdown to 87" column down the right-hand side of his blog. (87 is the number of Presbyteries that must vote "yes" on Amendment 10A for it to pass.)

So now to Bruce's meme:

1. Answer the following questions in a few sentences, keeping in mind the attention span of most blog readers.
2. Post somewhere on facebook or your blog with the title "PresbyMEME: Why I am voting yes on Amendment 10a" and be sure there is a link back to this post.
3. Post a link here or send me a reply via twitter and I'll try to keep a running list here.
4. Track other responses and pass them along!

Questions for the PresbyMEME:

1. Name, City, State
2. Twitter and Facebook profiles
3. Presbytery and 10a voting date
4. Reason ONE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...
5. Reason TWO that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...
6. Reason THREE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...
7. What are your greatest hopes for the 10a debate that will take place on the floor of your Presbytery?
8. How would you respond to those that say that if we pass 10a individuals and congregations will leave the PC(USA)?
9. What should the Presbyterian Church focus on after Amendment 10a passes?
10. How does your understanding of Scripture frame your position on 10a?

And my responses:

1. I am Maria Kettleson Anderson, Yorba Linda, California

2. Twitter and Facebook profiles:
http://twitter.com/mkettleson

http://www.facebook.com/mkettleson

3. Presbytery and 10a voting date:
Los Ranchos, Thursday May 19

4. Reason ONE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...
The story in Genesis is a beautiful picture of God's original purposes and of what the Triune God wanted us to know through Scripture about our origins. It was so important that we not only be rooted in a larger community but also be allowed to have an awe-filled committed partnership with "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" that God revealed that our desire for that pulling away from parents and uniting with a compelling partner was indeed GOOD. As much as it is a reality that passion for ministry can propel us to celibacy, it is a scriptural reality that we are created to be part of a couple created by God. A vote for 10A is an affirmation that Paul said to the Corinthians that celibacy or marriage should be judged in the light of whether they enhanced or distracted from a pursuit of obedience to God, and that marriage was not a failure when resisting passion was a bigger distraction.

5.Reason TWO that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...
Scripture is written in the language and culture of the person who wrote any particular book in the cannon. We understand that if the language says a table is female but a rock is male, that is just a feature of that language, and we do not insist upon making that a central feature of our pursuit together of the Kingdom. In the same way, patriarchal slave-owning culture was a part of the context of scripture that we have no trouble "translating" once we understand that God spoke through and in the midst of a language and culture, but did not condone every aspect of that language or culture. I believe God is in the process of restoring the Church to an understanding of persons, gender, and sexuality that is in line with God's original intent in creation, and that old cultural prejudices blind us to what Scripture as a whole really says. I believe that we fail ministry partners overseas who still live in patriarchal slave-owning cultures when we base our teaching on understandings of Scripture derived from their cultures rather than leading them in Godly understandings of Scripture.

6.Reason THREE that you are voting "yes" on 10a is...
Radical obedience to the Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to speak what we know to be true, even when it may cost us "ministry" or "family" or even "righteousness" in terms of how we are seen. In Los Ranchos, taking a public stand to actually vote yes on Amendment 10A is an act of courage that is unimaginable to those who have built a life, community and career centered on all that is good and supportive and productive in the conservative community that is the best of Los Ranchos pastors and elders. This is so overwhelming that it is hard to even allow oneself to honestly consider that perhaps the conservative community could be wrong on this one, let alone to be willing to lose all that a pastor or elder would lose by breaking faith with friends on this.

Nevertheless, this is where Jesus' words about laying one's life down for a friend ring the most true, because the "ministry suicide" of taking a stand that "isn't your fight" will not only align you on the side of what is right and true, but also prepare a path for your friends to move forward in the things you know they sincerely embrace: obedience to God, a correct interpretation of Scripture, and a community that is united in being used by God to bless and transform the surrounding culture.


7.What are your greatest hopes for the 10a debate that will take place on the floor of your Presbytery?
My greatest hopes for the 19th of May are that each voter will have had the courage to honestly consider that 10A might be "of God" rather than "of the devil", and that those who have considered the arguments in favor of 10A and understand God to be calling them to vote affirmatively will have the courage to do that, even if it costs them dearly.

8.How would you respond to those that say that if we pass 10a individuals and congregations will leave the PC(USA)?
I would point out to them that their own ministries have never been focused on including all possible members at the cost of TRUTH, but that they have been willing to preach the Gospel faithfully even when that cost them members. In the same way, their focus here must be on what is true and right, and they must trust that the cost of obedience is never enough to justify disobedience.

9.What should the Presbyterian Church focus on after Amendment 10a passes?
The PCUSA should continue to focus on actively engaging Scripture and our culture: to be able to truly hear God's voice through God's word, and in obedience live transformed lives in community and be an agent of transformation in our world.

10.How does your understanding of Scripture frame your position on 10a?
It was in preparing each week to teach Bethel at St. Andrew's that I came to the place where I could not conform any longer to old positions on this issue. The whole of scripture is so clear about God's process of redemption and about God's goals for each of us and for all of us! It is our confessional understanding of Scripture that leads me here.