stumbling toward divinity

a study in contrasts

I know that not all of you might be the Lutheran church nerd that I am.  So, for the sake of this blog post, allow me to explain a little bit to you about Lutheranism.

Like most church denominations, when you say Lutheran, it's a pretty big umbrella and it covers a lot of people.  There are a lot of flavors and variations of Lutheranism out there.  When immigrants came over to the United States, they brought with them their own brand of Lutheran.  So there were German Lutherans and Norwegian Lutherans and Finnish Lutherans and more.  Over time, though, they have merged (and split.  Lather, rinse, repeat) and so today we have several different branches of Lutheranism with the largest (and, I'd say most well known) three being the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.  Don't be deceived.  The Missouri and Wisconsin Synod churches are just named after states in which the meetings about their formation have taken place (I think) but those particular Synods are not confined to those particular states.  They rest on a continuum, with the ELCA at the end with a more liberal view of Scripture and the WELS on the other end with a more literal view of Scripture.   LCMS is somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, we have two Lutheran churches here in town.  One is the one I serve at, which is ELCA, and the other is of the Northern State persuasion.  Both churches have two pastors and, coincidentally, the two pastors of this other church share a first name, much like El Capitan and I do.

So, after lunch I walked down to the local grocery store to grab a Mountain Dew, for an extra boost of energy in the afternoon, and as I was on my way out, my counterpart from the other Lutheran church came in.  And I found it kind of funny to compare the two of us.

He was wearing a navy blazer with a dress shirt and tie.  He had on khaki pants with brown leather shoes. 

I, on the other hand, was wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and a polo shirt, with a blue zip up hoodie (it's a little cool outside) and a pair of blue low top Converse shoes.

I'm not saying one is better than the other.  I'm sure we have each dressed as the other one was.  At least I know that I (on a couple of occasions) have worn a coat and tie.  But I thought it was kind of fitting how, at that moment, our outfits may have compared to our theologies.

help a brother out

Calling all pastors, youth directors, and other assorted fun people who have their own offices:

After almost two years of having a fairly BLAH office that, I don't think, does an adequate job of reflecting my personality, I have decided it is time to do a bit of spicing things up.  I want to make my office a fun, inviting and comfortable space.  It's good sized, but not huge, so I think things like adding a couch or a big, comfy chair are sort of out of the question.  I had a sofa in my office on internship.  It was lovely and the kids would come and lounge on it all the time... I miss it...

But, my questions for all y'all are these:  What are some things that you have in your office that you don't think you could now live without?  What are some of the fun things that you have in your office?  What do you think I need in my office?  Any other advice?

Help me out!!!!

dream church

So, I wrote this post and then I went to assign it to a category, and wanted to assign it to multiple categories, but to do so it needed a pop up window.  But pop up windows were blocked, so this little thing said to temporarily allow pop up windows I needed to "click here." So I did.  Which refreshed the page.  And completely erased my post.  So I'm going to write it again.  Bleh.

I had a dream last night that I took a new call at a different church.  It was a smaller church in a smaller town, but for some reason I was still the associate pastor.  I don't remember many details about the church building itself, but I do remember that it was similar to the first church I remember attending as a child which was a smaller church in a town of 300 people where my dad was the pastor.

I remember there being a big celebration surrounding my installation, people seemed really, really excited to have me there.  After the service, I was taking some friends and family to see my office.  It was in the basement of the church, in a small room with exposed pipes and old, fake wood panelling on the sides.  I remember explaining that it was much smaller than the office I had at my last church, and it wasn't as nice as that office had been, but the thing I really liked about this office was the bookshelves!  There were TWO WHOLE WALLS of bookshelves!  I remember pointing this out several different times.

At some point the senior pastor came in to the office to say hello.  He was a distinguished looking older man, with glasses and salt-and-pepper hair.  He was friendly and outgoing, with a loud and gregarious laugh.  He shared with my friends and family that the church was extremely glad to have me and he was excited at the opportunity to be my colleague.  I remember liking him.  A lot.

Throughout the whole dream, I remember having this warm, happy feeling.  I remember being excited to be at this church, excited to work with that senior pastor, and really excited about having bookshelves in my office.  When I woke up, and realized that I wasn't at that church, I remember feeling disappointed.  Not because I don't want to be where I am now, but just because that had been such a good dream and left me feeling so good, that I wished I could have stayed there.

So that was my dream that I had last night.  I'm not entirely sure what it means.  If anything.

Shirley, He bore our iniquities

Today was an interesting day. 

In a conversation with a friend, I was commenting on how I was a big fan of this Lenten season.  I don't have to worry about planning Confirmation during Lent, and I had already planned all of the midweek services and asked different congregation members to be the speakers, and so all I had to do was show up and help lead the services.

Well, this morning I was at my desk when El Capitan came in and said, "So, "Paula" is up to speak tonight, eh?"  This startled me a bit because, according to my information, it was "Donna" who was up and not Paula.  I told El Capitan that, and we checked the bulletin for this evening and, sure enough, I was correct.  But then it got me wondering if maybe other people were confused about the schedule.  So I decided I needed to call Donna at work at make sure that she was ready to speak tonight.

So I called her at work.  Only she wasn't in today.  So I called her at home.  But she wasn't there, either.  I left a message, just letting her know what had happened and why it made me wonder if she was ready to speak tonight.  Then I made a joke about how if she wasn't ready to speak then I could do a little tapdance or something.

About five minutes later she called me back and said that she was sick, but she was planning on being there.  She thought it was just a cough and so she should be able to make it.  So I was relieved that I was right and that everyone was ready.  So I went back about my day, sent some e-mails, did some other assorted office tasks and then decided to go home a bit early to make up for the extra hours I'd be spending at church tonight.

I went home, got a big glass of ice water, sat in my chair and turned on the TV.  I channel surfed for a bit, trying to find some mindless reality television to watch, and tried to relax.  About fifteen minutes later the phone rang.  It was Donna, and she was puking.  Well, she wasn't puking at exactly that moment, but she had puked and the chance of it reoccuring was great.  So she thought she'd better not come to church.  I affirmed her decision, and let her know it would be ok, and then hung up the phone.

And then I wet my pants.

Ok, not really.  But body function humor is always funny.

So I knew what I had to do.  I pulled out my laptop, sat down in my chair and got to work.  I was going to come up with a message in the hour and a half before the first service was to start. 

Our theme for this Lent, and what we're asking our speakers to focus on, is having faith in times of trial.  As soon as I had thought of this theme, my dad popped into my head.  Some of you might know, and if you read my blog when it was on blogspot then you might have read, that my dad has had some health concerns.  And so I shared the story of my dad, and how he has dealt with the hard times and struggles that have come his way. 

It must have been divinely inspired because I came up with a good enough message in the short amount of time that I had.  I rushed over to church shortly before the service was to start, and talked with El Capitan about who would be taking what part of the service. 

And then the service started and I got up and shared the story of my dad with the people there.  I wasn't very far in when my voice caught and the tears started to well up.  But I stuck it out, making it over a couple more rough patches, and finished out the message. 

I think I was supposed to share that message.  I had so many people come up to me and thank me for sharing, there were tears, people told me that they had experienced similar things.  By sharing my experience with my dad, I was able to connect with other people's stories, and maybe speak to them about the Gospel in a way that maybe they haven't experienced before.

So, although I don't think I'd want a scenario like this to unfold again, I would have to say that I am glad that this particular scenario did.

Oh, and the title of this post is a bit of a play on one of the choir pieces we're singing during Holy Week.  It makes me laugh to think of it that way rather than the way it is written.

interesting things at worship

First, we had a fund raising event last night, for our mission trip group, that involved baby sitting close to thirty kids in the basement of the church.  My role involved being chased, climbed on, dogpiled, and enduring all sorts of other forms of brutality for 5 hours.

And then I had to get up for church.  Where I was preaching.  I was tired and a bit sore, and worried that this would translate into a subpar sermon, at least in delivery.  But I managed to pull through, and then at the end of our first service the Sunday School kids got up to sing.  A few weeks ago, when they had come into the sanctuary to practice singing this song, I had jokingly gone up with them and knelt in between a couple of the kids, and sang along.  Our Sunday School music leader then told me that I was expected to do that on the Sunday when they sang the song in church.  So I did, which got quite a few laughs.  Afterwards, I was told that this was my best sermon thus far by one parishioner, and our organist came up and told me that the only thing better than me singing with the Sunday School kids was my sermon.  During the Sunday School hour, I was on my way downstairs to see what was going on in the classes, and I was stopped by a gentleman who told me that he doesn't often do the church thing, and he doesn't really like to sit through church services, but that, because of my presence and delivery, he didn't have a problem sitting through a service with me.  I felt extremely honored (and humbled) to hear him say that.

At our second service we had a baptism, for which I was the presiding minister.  The baby being baptized was a 10 month old, and a very active one at that.  When it came time for the actual baptism, she wasn't very interested in being held over the font.  She wanted to turn around and play in the water.  And in her moving around she bumped into my hymnal which I was holding open, which made it shut.  So I had lost my place, and had to take a second to reopen the hymnal.  Luckily, we print the baptismal service on a bulletin insert, so I didn't need to flip through the pages to find the service.  So we finally worked it out, and then it came to the time where we were to light the little baptismal candle off of the big Christ candle, and I was explaining how we light the big candle to symbolize the light of Christ, and how he said he was the light of the world.  And then, when a baby is baptized we light the smaller candle off of the larger candle to symbolize the light of Christ coming to dwell in the newly baptized child.  So I lit the little candle off of the bigger one, and was explaining why, and I was holding the baptismal candle up for everyone to see, and I glanced at it and it had gone out.  And the congregation chuckled.  So I lit the candle again.  Then, as it got closer to the time when I was going to take the baby and walk her up and down the aisle, presenting her to the congregation, she started to get fussy.  But she kept it together and enjoyed the walk up and down the aisle, and also the applause that she received.

In between services, when he had complimented my sermon, our organist told me that the hymn number for our final hymn was incorrect (it wasn't a big deal at our first service, because the Sunday School singers had replaced the closing hymn).  So, after the benediction, when it came time to announce the final hymn, I said it was going to be a contest because I had given our secretary the wrong hymn number but the correct title of the hymn was listed, and so we needed to see who could be the first person to find the correct number.  Several people called it out, and we sang our closing hymn.

After the service, I got to stand there and listen to the mom of the newly baptized baby talk with the mother of another baby, about the same age, who I had baptized several months ago.  They talked about how the girls lived down the street from one another, how they'd probably be in the same grade, and how it would be cool if they were friends.  As I stood there watching them talk I wondered if (and maybe even hoped, a little)  I would be there to see all of that happen.

But right now I'm sore, and a little bit tired, and I need to go pick up Pogo from "camp," since I dropped him off on Friday so that I could go and see my Spiritual Director and then pick up my friend Weepy who was at the monastery where my Spiritual Director is for a conference, and then drive to see Carrie Newcomer in concert, and then back up to a city close to where my Spiritual Director is and spend the night in a hotel.  I would have picked Pogo up yesterday afternoon, but the "camp" I send him to doesn't have any Saturday afternoon hours where they are open for drop-off or pick-up.  So I might take a nap before I go and get him, and then come home and maybe take another nap.

Lenten discipline

The other day while I was driving up to the city, I got to thinking about Lent.  When it gets to be this time of year, people are always talking about what they're going to give up for Lent.  It's the idea of making a sacrifice, even something as small as giving up chocolate for Lent, to remind us of the sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us.  At least I think that's the reasoning behind it.  I could be wrong.  It's been known to happen.

I don't often give things up for Lent.  It's just not a tradition that I grew up with, and so I'm not used to it or familiar with it.  But I decided that I would give it a try.  And, as I was driving, I had the perfect idea of what I could give up this Lenten season:  speeding.  I thought it would be good, I could slow down and take it easy on the road, maybe it might even cut down on some of that impatience I've been known to experience with other drivers.  It seemed like such a good idea.

Yeah.  So, today, on the second day of Lent, I already failed.  I went to a meeting up in the city and was on my way back, and I had such a hard time keeping at the posted speed when other people were passing me.  So I sped up.

Not even a full 24 hours has passed since I had the ashes smudged on my forehead on Ash Wednesday and already I've failed at my discipline.

This Lent is off to a stellar start.

the first return

In a little more than two days I will be headed back to the Mothership...  They are hosting a conference that I am participating in partially because it's in an area of ministry that I enjoy, feel called to, and am in charge of in my current setting.  The biggest reason is because it was a good excuse to go back to the Mothership and not have it count as vacation...  even though I'm taking some extra days of vacation after the conference to spend time with my friends, as well as potentially drive over to the internship congregation for Sunday worship. 

This will be my first time back at the Mothership since I've graduated.  I'm sure it will be the same in many ways:  faculty and staff will be the same, the building and grounds will look pretty much the same, there will even be many familiar faces among the students who are there.  But it will be very different, too.  Because it will be the first time I've been there, since I started seminary in 2001, where it won't be my home.  Even when I was on internship, and living off campus for a year, I still had a feeling that the Mothership was home, and that I was just living away from it for a short time.  But now I've been gone for 15 months.  I've set up a home somewhere else.  The dorm room at the end of the hallway on the first floor of the residence hall is no longer mine.  I'm no longer involved in student government or the youth ministry on campus.  These things have transitioned over to others.  There will be a large group of people who won't know who I am.  Even though I might belong, it won't be home.  And I'm sure that it will be weird.

But I'm still excited and anxious and counting down the days until I get to come back.  I will even get the opportunity to spend time with a friend/classmate/student government colleague while I am there.  Which will be fun.  I might force her to go down to the married student housing and set up shop on one of the yards with me, even though it won't belong to either of us.  But being at the Mothership with her will pretty much necessitate it.  It's a way we spent a large chunk of our time on campus together.

I'm also excited about the opportunity to visit my internship congregation.  It's been three years since I was there as their Pastor Intern.  Many things have changed.  Kids have moved away, they've hired a new youth coordinator, my supervisor retired and moved away and they're currently with an interim.  But it will be great to see familiar faces of people I grew to love during my time there.  It will be good to reconnect, exchange new information, and rekindle these relationships that I let drift apart because of all the boundary issues revolving around internship congregations and relationships with former parishioners, especially while another intern is currently there.  But it's been long enough.  And there's no current intern.  And I miss some of these people.  So it will be good.

But now I have  to run, I've volunteered to be involved in the local community theater production and we have practice tonight.  Gotta run!!

the Gospel according to Harry Potter?

So, anyone who pays attention to anything has probably heard the news by now that JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, announced that Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts the school of witchcraft and wizardry, is/was gay.  I would link to a website or online article where it talks about that, but really all you have to do is do an internet search with the words "Dumbledore" and "gay" and you'll get about a million from which to choose.  It seems everyone has something to say about this announcement.

I haven't read much of what is out there.  And, up until this point, really haven't felt the need to comment on it.  I guess I just didn't see the big deal about it.  So what if he's gay?  It doesn't affect the story at all.  Sure, now that the news is out there, it causes one to read or consider parts of the story a bit differently, but it isn't necessary to the storyline at all.  Which is good, I think.  The person and character of Dumbledore is more important than his sexuality.

Which then begs the question of whether we needed to know this information at all.  What's the point of telling us this bit of news about Dumbledore?  If it's not necessary to the story, and the story has already been told, then why even bother dropping this little tidbit?

My decision?  It might not be necessary, but it's important.

Consider this:  In the Harry Potter stories, what the world holds to be important - the rich, the well-connected, the powerful, the pure-bloods, and those who desire to be like them - these are the ones who turn out to be evil or corrupt.  The Malfoys and the Blacks (minus Sirius, of course), with their wealth and their powerful, well connected pure-blood families.  Lord Voldemort who, while not a pure blood, changes his name to rid himself of his muggle heritage and becomes the biggest advocate of pure-blood primacy.  These are the bad guys, the villains, the corrupt.

Now, take a look at the heroes:  There's Harry, the orphan.  Hermione, the "mud blood," who comes from a Muggle family, Ron Weasley and his monetarily-poor family, Hagrid the half-giant, Remus Lupin the werewolf, Neville Longbottom the awkward, uncertain screw-up...  It's these people who have the strength and the determination to stand up against the great evil.  Not the wealthy pure-bloods who easily cave-in or are corrupted, not the families who seem to be so powerful.  It's the nothings, those who don't seem to matter, that in the end are the ones who really do. 

And now, we get to add to their number, the wise, kind, compassionate, gay Dumbledore.  In a society where the value of our gay brothers and sisters is constantly called into question, it might not be necessary to know that this hero is gay...  but I think it's important.  It's one more reason why one of the heroes of this story shouldn't have been a hero.

As I sit here and write this, I can't help but think of the Gospel lesson for this past Sunday.  The Beatitudes in Luke, where Jesus turns everything on its head.  All of the things and the people that we make out to be important in our world - the rich, the powerful, the persuasive - these are not the ones who are blessed.  It's the poor, the weak, the meek... THESE are the ones who are important in the Kingdom of God, THESE are the ones who will inherit the earth, THESE are the ones who receive blessings.

And this is the message we receive from a set of stories about a young wizard and his misfit friends... the Gospel in an unlikely place.

a weekend that was busy, but fun

Well, my blogging has been kind of scarce, to say the least.  There has been a lot going on at work that has been keeping me busy, and I guess I've just been feeling unmotivated to blog.  But things have been going well.  They have been busy, but good. 

This past weekend I was able to take a break from all things work related, which was nice.  My friend Weepy came up for a visit and this past Friday we made a "pilgrimage" to a restaurant that has some connections to Holden Village, which is a place very near and dear to both of our hearts.  I had these amazing stuffed mushrooms over pasta.  And then I bought two hand-thrown pottery mugs from the restaurant.

Afterwards, we went to the movie "Into The Wild."  I read the book written by Jon Krakauer a while ago, after I read "Into Thin Air" his book about Mount Everest.  Both are good books which I whole-heartedly recommend.  The movie was good, too.

Saturday I officiated at my second wedding.  This one was by far the most stressful of the two I've done.  The groom was nervous during the rehearsal, and it was looking like it would be worse the day of the wedding.  The groomsmen were actually placing bets on whether he would pass out, or not.  I was talking to his grandma, and she said that his dad had passed out at his wedding, so I guess it runs in the family.  I heard the bride talking about how her dress was a bit tight, and was constricting her breathing.  She said she felt like she could drop, too.  I told her that was unallowed.  This was also the biggest of the two weddings, by far.  There were six guys on the groom's side and seven girls on the bride's.  There should have been one more guy, but he was out of town because of a death in the family.  The bride had a daughter from a previous relationship, and the two had a daughter together, and so they wanted to do some vows for their kids, too. 
But they were a fun couple, we laughed a lot together, and during the wedding itself we had some laughs.  I told them during the rehearsal that when I introduced them to the congregation that they could then kiss and walk down the aisle.  I wouldn't actually say, "You may now kiss the bride,"  or anything like that.  So, when I introduced them, they smiled and started walking and I whispered (more of a stage whisper, I guess) "Hey!  You might want to kiss!"  So the photographer, I guess, was completely unprepared for the kiss and didn't get any pictures of it.  He tried to blame me for that, but I just wondered why he wasn't prepared to take pictures of them as they were walking down the aisle, anyway, since he delayed the whole processional by a couple of minutes because he was snapping pictures of the first couple and wouldn't let them start walking down the aisle until he got a picture he liked, I guess.

But, overall, it was a fun weekend.  Even though it was action packed and I didn't get much "just sit on your butt" time.  I wonder how El Capitan would feel if I decided to take every day this week as a day off.... Hmmm.....

i'm alive!

Well, in case you were worried... I'm still alive. This past week has just been really, really busy.  There was a lot going on.  Sunday school and Confirmation started.  Several planning and committee meetings, to get stuff going as fall starts.  This was my first year being the "top dog" for Confirmation.  I'm in charge of it, and I just wasn't aware how much work that was.  At my local youth ministry meeting, we agreed that regardless of the size of your congregation and how many kids are in your class, that Confirmation is just A Beast. 

And also, I had my first wedding this weekend.  And, if you know anything about me, that means there was a lot of nervousness, and some freaking out.  But it went well, I got some compliments on my sermon, the wedding was relaxed and casual and outdoors... Thank goodness the weather was nice.  So, I have another first in my first call out of the way.  Now, I think I've done just about everything that people expect a pastor to do...   Well, at least what's in a "basic job description" for a pastor...

With that, I'm going to go and maybe take a nap.