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one of those days

4

The day started off as if it were going to be one of those days.

I walked into the kitchen to find the receptionist at the inn looking frantically for rags because someone (I never did find out who) had split a can of stain on the stairs. Luckily, it was the same color as the stairs, but it still had to be cleaned up. Then the bartender, who is the only one working in the pub at lunch, didn’t show up until five minutes after the pub was supposed to open. We were all in a bit of a panic by that time. It was about then I actually said, “This feels like it’s going to be one of those days.”

Several years ago, when the Red Sox were in the midst of an even more disappointing season than the one we just lived through, Ginger and I were at Fenway Park. Not only were we getting beaten, but the game was also boring. It was also a Saturday afternoon and the Fenway Faithful were a bit restless. Somewhere around the fifth inning, I think, a woman jumped over the wall and ran on to the field to hug one of the players. A few minutes later, someone else – a man, if I remember – also made a run across the diamond. Within the next couple of innings, the fans had more base runners than the Sox. After about the fifth or sixth interloper, there was a palpable moment when you could feel almost everyone thinking, “If we all went, they couldn’t stop us.”

We flinched, the moment passed, and we all went home talking about how we almost stormed the field.

Somewhere around noon today, it felt as though we could have jumped the fence and ridden the day down into some sort of absurd catastrophe, but we didn’t do it and the moment passed. What began with a hint of a small apocalypse shifted and stayed in the ordinary. Today was a good day partially, at least, because we chose not to believe otherwise.

There’s a level of crisis in our daily lives that gets way too much attention. We can get worked up about it, or we can figure out how to keep going. Our receptionist, to her credit, was frantically looking for rags so she could clean up the mess. The stain was water based. It took some time, but nothing was irrevocably damaged. The bartender’s tardiness was annoying, but we didn’t have any customers for the first forty-five minutes we were open, so his error was harmless, though I want him to be on time next week.

Anyone who has spent anytime in church, whether member or minister, understands the kind of holy hysteria that can take hold when a little thing is allowed to become a big thing for no apparent reason other than we can’t (won’t?) stop ourselves. Churches often spend more time haranguing about what color to paint the walls in the Parish Hall than they do talking about mission. When I was in seminary, I remember a seasoned minister saying, “When it comes to budgets, make your requests big. You’ll get a unanimous vote if you ask for $10,000; you’ll end up in an all night discussion if you ask for $100.” The small decisions and responses in life are important and they’re still small. Sometimes we need help finding a sense of context. Before I started writing tonight, I punched around on the news links I have here. The BBC had an article about how people in India and Pakistan were getting on one year after the deadly earthquake that hit their region of the world. Seventy five thousand people died. A year later, four hundred thousand people are still without permanent shelter as they head into their second winter.

We spilt stain on the stairs and the bartender was five minutes late. See what I mean?

When I got home tonight, I told Ginger I had a good day, and I did. The first hour was not much of a harbinger of things to come. I didn’t even tell the folks who came to work in the afternoon what had happened. I just cooked and swapped lines from Stripes with Robert in the kitchen.

It wasn’t one of those days after all.

Peace,
Milton

missing the point

8

I suppose I’m only one of any number of bloggers writing about the three school shootings this past week. Watching the scenes from the Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania was heartbreaking. I felt for the families whose daughters were killed and for the community who was invaded by the international media in search of a story. For all the hundreds of cameras and reporters, I think they missed the mark.

As the morning news shows scrambled to answer the question that burned in their minds – are our kids safe at school? – they quickly drew comparisons to what happened at Columbine High School several years back. (The more cynical side of me thinks part of the reason was that was the most compelling video they could get their hands on; the Amish folks standing around and refusing to be recorded weren’t that interesting.) I’m cynical because I think our media are lazy. They go for the money shot and the easy analysis because they know we will swallow it and we have a short attention span. They can feed us tragedy, break for commercial, and then come back to fall fashions for our pets.

In two of the three shootings this week, adult males went into schools and shot young girls. They let the boys go and then shot the girls. I do have to give props to The Christian Sciencer Monitor. It had an article on its web site pointing out this trend goes back for years:

“The predominant pattern in school shootings of the past three decades is that girls are the victims,” says Katherine Newman, a Princeton University sociologist whose recent book examines the roots of “rampage” shootings in rural schools.

Dr. Newman has researched 21 school shootings since the 1970s. Though it’s impossible to know whether girls were randomly victimized in those cases, she says, “in every case in the US since the early 1970s we do note this pattern” of girls being the majority of victims.

In the other shooting, a student shot his principal. None of the three mirrored what happened at Columbine, where two very troubled and alienated boys randomly massacred their fellow students. We move too quickly to label and categorize things so we can feel as if we understand what is incomprehensible and we miss the point. The shooters were no more of one profile than those we call insurgents in Iraq are wreaking havoc for the same reasons. We talk about “terrorists” around the world as if they are all members of a cookie cutter fraternity when they are as diverse as the world’s population.

In the summer of 2002 I worked as a security guard at the South Shore Music Circus, a wonderful summertime concert venue in our area. Because of “the war on terror” the manager required we search everyone’s bag and jacket as they came in. The exercise was ludicrous. I finally said to my supervisor one day, “What are we doing? Do you really think Osama is sitting somewhere in Afghanistan thinking, ‘If we can just take down that little venue in Cohasset we can rule the world!’?”

Our fear has destroyed our capacity for nuance and, therefore, keeps us from reasonable and meaningful discussions on who we are as a society and how we should respond.

I’m deeply troubled that the two men went into schools to specifically kill girls. I know the men were different in both their situations and their motives, and I think their actions are emblematic of our culture at large. The situation calls us to do more than put up metal detectors. Why are we, as a society, taking out our rage, our fear, or whatever the feeling is, on our daughters?

There’s an ad campaign for something called Tag cologne that makes it seem as though any teenage girl who smells it on a boy will immediately disrobe. There’s something in the attitude towards the girls in those commercials that is kin to the shootings. Everything from Hooters to hip hop is telling our girls they are expendable. They are the targets caught in our cultural crosshairs.

I grew up in a denomination that tried to teach me women were not allowed by God to be in leadership positions because they were somehow inferior. I didn’t buy it. I’m a part of a denomination now that ordained a woman to the ministry eighty years before women could vote in America. A significant percentage of our clergy are women. That matters to me tonight because I know I’m a part of a group telling our girls they matter and they are loved. I know we are not the only ones. All of us need to shout it from the rooftops and make sure we are loud enough to be heard over the vapid sound bites and video clips that pass for news and strong enough to stand down the violence against them just as Jesus knelt next to the adulterous woman and wrote in the sand until her would be killers dropped their stones and walked away.

If we don’t, who will?

Peace,
Milton

first reflections

7

Sunday was an amazing day, an overwhelming day, and an exhausting day. I had every intention of writing last night, but fell asleep before the Housewives had time to get desperate. I came home with an armload of gifts and notes that will take me a week or two to read. Since I was at the restaurant today for twelve hours, I’m at the end of another day without much time or energy to write, but I’m trying to keep my promises to myself.

I’m not capable of unpacking all of my thoughts and emotions from yesterday just yet. There’s too much there. What I can talk about is how grateful I am to have been a part of the church in Hanover, to have come to know so many wonderful people, to have had a chance to be with a great group of young people, and to been sent on my way with such love and intentionality. Growing up in Baptist life, I saw pastors leave quickly. He (most always he) announced his resignation one Sunday and was gone in two weeks, leaving the church to muddle through the grief on its own. The UCC has a much more intentional process, which requires both pastor and congregation to say goodbye well. I resigned in July; I left yesterday. There’s even a liturgy of release and Godspeed in which we forgave each other, thanked each other, and released each other from the bonds of calling. We did good and important work yesterday.

I have “left the ministry” twice in my life. I stepped out of vocational ministry when I began teaching full time and I did so again yesterday. As I drove to work this morning, I decided maybe the best way to describe the move I have made is to say I’ve retired from vocational ministry to be a chef and a pastor’s spouse. I love the church, struggles and all, and I feel called to be a member, not a pastor, in the same way I love being around young people and don’t feel called to be a parent.

So here, two months from my fiftieth birthday, I’ve retired from my second career. I retired from teaching when we moved to Marshfield; now I’ve retired from ministry. (Neither offers much of a pension. My retirement plan is to drive into the desert when the money runs out.) I regret neither career. Both have been deeply significant, rewarding, and important. For the days I did them, I was doing what I was meant to do and learning about who God was calling me to be. As I head into my second fifty years, I get to chase my two passions: being with Ginger and cooking for others. All of the journey was worth it.

My friend Caroline was kind enough to send me the e.e. cummings poem I (mis)quoted the other day when I said “love is stronger than forget.” His words fit well here.

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail


it is most mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea


love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive


it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

My friend Betsey took pictures yesterday. The one below is of me holding the chalice the church gave me as a symbol of our time together – on World Communion Sunday, no less. What an amazing gift. I got to drink from it as we celebrated the supper together. I will be drinking from the memory of my days in Hanover for a long, long time.


Peace,
Milton

not the same

6

This morning after Ginger left for work, I loaded up the Cherokee Sport with two old grills, a broken hand push lawnmower that would have made Bagger Vance proud, and some other junk — all of which has been sitting on the non-driveway side of our house for at least a couple of years. – and took it to the town dump, I mean Transfer Station. Every time I go there, the same woman is in the little booth at the entrance. First she opens the sliding window and asks what I’ve brought to drop off. Then she asks to see my window sticker, punches the card the town issued me if I have any household trash, and instructs me as to where to dispose of the different kinds of rubbish I’m hauling because there are very specific places for different kinds of refuse. We have the same conversation most every time I go there, the only differences having to do with the different kinds of trash I’m carrying. I’ve never seen her leave the booth or walk around; I’ve never heard her ask different questions. Everyday from eight to four, she sits in her tiny little booth, punches cards, and tells people what to do with their trash.

My day had a different contour.

After my dump run, I came home to prepare food for the New Clergy Group that Ginger facilitates once a month. They are a wonderful collection of folks; my contribution to their gathering is to keep them fed as they talk. Each month I try to vary the menu, but I always have to make little bites of Brie and caramelized pears wrapped in puff pastry. The group meets for three hours, during which time I usually get out of the house. It’s probably three and a half hours before I come back and they are always still there. The meeting has officially ended and the conversation may have lightened a bit, but they stay as the tone of the gathering moves from one of colleagues to friends.

Then I headed for the Fall Planning Meeting of the Clergy Spousal Support Group, which meets as often as we can at Namaste, our favorite Indian restaurant in Plymouth. The group is composed of my friend Doug and me, since we are both husbands of ministers. Our planning meeting went well: we decided to keep meeting for Indian Food. I also anticipate the continued meetings of our subcommittees on Good Music, Barbeque, and Fine Ales. If our wives were not in ministry, we would still meet for lunch; that’s what friends do.

By the time we had finished eating and talking, the better part of the afternoon had passed. I went on to Kiskadee, since I was in Plymouth, and had a good cup of coffee while I tried to get a handle on my parting words for Sunday.

After an hour or so, I came home to fix dinner, since Thursday is one of the few nights during the week that I get to cook for Ginger and we get to eat together. There’s no better meal for me than one shared with her. We caught up on our days and enjoyed being with each other. I don’t know anything better.

The other night, while I was watching TV as I walked on the treadmill, a local television station had a story on Parker Brothers, who makes Monopoly and Life (and are now owned by Hasbro). They were founded in Massachusetts and still have a factory here. The visual in the story showed women in the factory putting the pieces in the game boxes, each person putting the same piece in the box over and over again. There was no way to do it creatively, no way to spend the afternoon eating Indian food with a friend.

Patty Griffin sings a song about a person who works at the Table Talk Pie Company in Worcester, Massachusetts, called “Making Pies.” The song begins:

It’s not far
I can walk
Down the block
To Table Talk
Close my eyes
Make the pies all day

Plastic cap
On my hair
I used to mind
Now I don’t care
I used to mind
Now I don’t care
Cause I’m gray

Did I show you this picture of my nephew
Taken at his big birthday surprise
At my sister’s house last Sunday
This is Monday and I’m making pies
I’m making pies
Making pies
Pies

My work week is four ten-hour days and I do my share of cooking, though I’m not making pies. And I’m not on an assembly line. I can end up making a whole bunch of burgers or Caesar salads in the course of a day, but it’s never the same thing over and over. Whatever my life is, it’s not the same ole same ole. I often take for granted that my life is normal. Driving away from the woman in the box today, I was reminded it’s not. Griffin’s song concludes:

5am
Here I am
Walking the block
To Table Talk
You could cry or die
Or just make pies all day
I’m making pies

Variety is a gift, not a given. I’m grateful for my choices.

Peace,
Milton

here’s to the day

5

This time of night the minutes pass faster than the words can move from my brain and through my fingers on to the page. As I look towards Sunday and bringing my time at the Hanover church to a close, I’m struck that serendipitously my farewell falls on World Communion Sunday. (I learned from Jan that it is also the fifth anniversary of the beginning of our bombing of Afghanistan.) Of all the aspects of Christian worship, Communion is my favorite. I even wrote about it in an earlier post. One of the reasons I love the Meal is its unending layers of meaning. Like any good meal, there’s more going on that just eating; like any good worship experience, God finds ways to surprise.

At a youth camp one summer many summers ago, we were closing the week by sharing Communion together. That night, we set up the elements in the middle of the room and let people come in various groupings to the Table to serve one another. I went to the table with my friend Reed. Before we served each other he said, “You know what blows my mind? We’re doing something every Christian before us has done and every Christian after us will do.” A few years later, I was with my friend Ken (who pastors here) and he was talking about being moved by Jesus’ words, “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” (Matt. 26:29) My friend Billy and I took his words and wrote a song, which I’m going to sing at Hanover on Sunday.

here’s to the day

pieces of life laid on the table
here is the blood poured out in love
fill this cup raise it up

here’s to the day, my friend

time draws a line down innocent faces
years mark the dreams that failed to come home
so you’ll say goodbye say goodnight
and here’s to the day remember

can you say it for the ones whose voices are silenced
can you say it for the ones who’ve never been free
can you pray for peace ache for peace
here’s to the day that’s coming
god speed the day

gather in close now cling to each other
sing to the night you don’t sing alone
fill this cup raise it up
here’s to the day remember

Jesus served his disciples the bread and the cup in the context of goodbye. Part of the deep meaning in the meal is love is stronger than forget (I know I’m borrowing that from someone; I just can’t figure out who). Part of the meaning is no one is around forever. We are all essential to God, but, in these days we call life, none of us is indispensable. When I was youth minister in Fort Worth, I tried to communicate my point by sticking my hand in a glass vase full of water.

“While my hand is in the water, you can see its place,” I said. Then I pulled my hand out of the vase; the water didn’t leave a hole where my hand had been. “The only evidence I have that my hand was there is that it’s wet.” The church in Hanover has gathered for around three hundred years and generation after generation, person after person, has left fingerprints all over the place and, one by one, they have been both remembered and forgotten. The point of standing in the Unbroken Line that brings us all to the Table is not to be remembered as much as to be in line. I’m proud of the fingerprints I’ve left at Hanover and the water will fill in behind me (I think that’s mixing metaphors) and the church, both in Hanover and around the world, will keep going. When November comes (we share Communion once a month), I will be in a different church, but still in the same unbroken line, leaving my fingerprints there.

Don’t let my theologizing fool you: I’m sad to leave. I’m leaving people I have grown to love. I’m leaving people I’ve grown accustomed to being with. I’m leaving things unfinished. I’ve spent my life saying goodbye and have yet to experience a time when it doesn’t suck to have to do it. I’m grateful we will get to say goodbye gathered at the Communion Table, where we can lean into the love that reminds us goodbye is not an ultimate word. One day, we will say hello.

Here’s to the day.

Peace,
Milton

borrowed words

4

Tonight was my last deacons meeting, preceded by my last staff meeting. For many months Don, Chad (our choir director and organist extraordinaire), and I have met at the local Panera each Tuesday evening at six to eat and discuss whatever we feel like talking about – and some church stuff as well. Our time together has a been an amazing idea factory. I will miss being with them each week.

As I left deacons’ meeting and walked across the parking lot to my car, the reality of this goodbye came to rest on my heart in a way it has not done before. I’m making the move I feel called to make and I’m going to miss these people terribly.

Since I came up to write tonight, I haven’t been able to get past the parking lot. So, I turned to The Writer’s Almanac hoping to find some words that might speak for me. I even read ahead through the poems yet to be broadcast this week. Thursday’s poem is one by Mary Oliver with which I find deep resonance, and so I share it with you. If you are a regular listener to Garrison Keillor’s daily dose of verse, act surprised when he reads it on Thursday.

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

What she said.

Peace,
Milton

what i like about you

1

Tonight marked the beginning of my final week at the church in Hanover, which means the first in a series of last things. The Monday Night Bible Study group had a special gathering tonight for me (it doesn’t usually start up until after Columbus Day). The group has met on Monday nights for twenty five or thirty years. I started going because I figured the folks who were committed to the group would be leaders in the church whether they held any church office or not. Over three years of Mondays we studied and laughed and cried and prayed together. That group is one of my favorite things about the church.

One of the things Don did tonight was to ask people to tell me what they appreciated about my ministry. Their affirmation was overwhelming, deeply affirming, and incredibly humbling. The people who were speaking have great stories to tell in their own lives and were taking time to encourage and compliment me. As I drove home, I thought about how few jobs ever offer the kind of moment I got to have. I’m a fortunate person to have been able to sit in that room tonight, breathing in the love that filled it, and being offered words of healing and hope.

I worked lunch today at the restaurant, which means I got there about ten and left around six. I arrived to find Robert in the kitchen and all burners blazing; there was a brunch that no one had told him about until Sunday evening. He was on his own trying to feed about twenty five people everything from Eggs Benedict to pancakes to raspberry danishes — and all at a time of day he does not usually see. When breakfast was over, he and the servers who helped stacked all their dishes and pans in the dishroom and left. Usually on a Monday, Joe (the other cook) and I fill up the dishroom on our own because Monday is a prep day: everything was used up over the weekend and we have to restock. Today we made clam chowder, lentil vegetable soup, crab cakes, lobster salad, cole slaw, along with all the dressings and other little things that have to be done.

Pedro, the dishwasher, usually comes in around five or five-thirty, after working all day on a construction site. We have a running joke. He comes in and looks at everything we have piled up and says, “Why you no like me?” Then he smiles. Around two o’clock, Joe and I took some time to try and make some order of all the dirty dishes that were strewn around the dishroom. We stacked plates, put the silverware in the soaking tray, and tried to collect the pots and pans in a way that would at least make the huge collection of stuff to be washed a little more manageable. Pedro came in, looked at the stuff stacked up and dropped the Portugese equivalent of an F Bomb.

“Why nobody call for two dishwashers?” he asked. I didn’t have an answer. He felt disregarded and taken for granted. No one ever gets the staff together in a circle around Pedro in the dishroom and tells him how he has helped. They don’t do it at his construction job either, I’m sure. A couple of our servers say “Thank you, Milton” everytime they pick up an order to take to the table. I also hear them say thanks to Pedro when they take their dirty dishes to him. In a lot of circles, that’s as good as it gets.

None of us can ever get too much of some saying, “Here’s what I like about you.” Go ahead — sing along.

Peace,
Milton

the sound of solidarity

6

I heard two things today at church I want to pass along.

After our ten o’clock service, Bob, who is a fellow NPR listener, asked me if I had heard this week’s SoundClips: Audio Experiences on All Things Considered. They have asked people to send in audio clips of meaningful or unusual sounds and then they do a short piece on what the sound is and what it means. This week’s feature was the sound of glass Communion cups being put in the cup holders after Communion at the Mayflower Congregational Church UCC in Oklahoma City. Vicky Werneke, who sent in the sound clip, said her pastor likes to refer to the sound as “the clicking sound of solidarity.”

Tonight at Senior High Fellowship, Tom, who is a fellow lover of odd movies, brought The Brave Little Toaster for us to watch together. Last week I mentioned we would do a movie night and Tom jumped at the chance to bring his favorite movie. I had never heard of it before I heard him talk about it. I don’t know why that’s the case because it is a wonderful piece of work. The story follows five appliances – a desk lamp called, Lampy, a small electric blanket called Blanky, a vacuum cleaner called Kirby, an old-fashioned radio who is nameless, and the Toaster (who is affectionately known as “Slot Head”). They live in a cabin that was the summer home for a child whom they love and think of as master. He hasn’t been back in a long time, so they decide to go to the city and find him. At some point in the story, each of the group has to do something sacrificial to help the others and to keep them going on their journey. Though the toaster’s bravery gets him the marquis billing, everyone in the group made an essential contribution in one way or another. They, too, understood the sound of solidarity.

I heard it in the way Bob and Tom brought something to me they knew would help us connect. What wonderful news it is when someone says, “I heard something the other day and it made me think of you.” Sometimes solidarity clicks as the cup hits the holder. Sometimes it sings in a song that carries a memory in its melody. Sometimes it whispers in a word of encouragement or connection. Sometimes it travels silently in a touch or an act of hopeful sacrifice. However it comes, it’s a great word.

I don’t hear the word without thinking of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity Worker’s Union in Poland, whose uprising in the summer of 1980 led to the overthrow of the Communist government there and contributed to the dissolution of Soviet control in Eastern Europe. They stood together and changed the world. I thought of them this week as crowds have begun to gather in Hungary to demand a more honest government. Walesa said, “The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.” He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.

Most of the noise in our world these days is divisive: we are labeled Red or Blue, black or white, right or left, right or wrong, us or them. War has become our primary metaphor for living. But listen – listen to the strain of hope underneath the cacophony of chaos. You can hear it in the clink of a cup or the word of a friend, in the bold marching of an earnest throng and the small gathering of people coming together to create a memory. It infuses life in everything from Communion cups to small appliances, youth groups to labor movements.

The sound of solidarity keeps on clicking.

Peace,
Milton

intelligent design

4

I was listening to Weekend Edition on NPR as I drove to work onSaturday and was fortunate enough to hear a wonderful interview with Chris Smither, a folk/blues singer from this neck of the woods. He has a new album out and he sang a couple of songs. My favorite was “Origin of Species,” which begins:

well eve told adam, “snakes – I’ve had ‘em”
let’s get out of here
go raise this family somewhere out of town
they left the garden just in time
with the landlord cussing right behind
and they headed east and they finally settled down
one thing led to another
one son killed his brother
and they kicked him out with nothing but his clothes
but the human race survived
because those brothers they found wives
though where they found them ain’t nobody knows

The song was still floating around in my head when I read the news about the Dikika baby, a 3.3 million-year-old infant skeleton discovered in Africa by an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist called Zeresenay Alemseged (that’s almost as much fun to say as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). He said the skeleton was a key piece in the human “biography,” pointing to a time of transition in our development as a species when our childhood became longer so our brains could grow larger and we could develop further. The article closes with this paragraph:

The Dikika baby’s biography is short, but the evolutionary steps she embodied have had profound and enduring effects. Although bipedalism and big brains carried a high cost, particularly for the mothers of our lineage, these traits ultimately combined to produce smarter babies who would eventually be able to master technologies, build civilizations, and, yes, explore their own origins.

I wonder if I ought to send Zeresenay Alemseged a copy of Smither’s record. Here’s his closing verse:

well charlie darwin looked so far into the way things are
he caught a glimpse of God’s unfolding plan
God said, “I’ll make some DNA and they’ll use it any way
they want from paramecium right up to man
they’ll have sex and mix up sections of their code
they’ll have mutations

the whole thing works like clockwork over time
I’ll just sit back in the shade while everyone gets laid
that’s what I call intelligent design

yeah, you and your cat named felix
are both wrapped up in that double helix
that’s what we call intelligent design

Of course, I’m sure the hardcore Creationists – er, Intelligent Design guys will weigh in soon. I wish I understood why they feel these kinds of discoveries threaten the wonderful story that begins the book of Genesis. True, many of the scientists who study the development of the human race are not Christians, but that doesn’t mean they are out to disprove or threaten the Bible because they are trying to make sense of what they’ve found in the dirt of the very planet God spoke into existence. Why do some Christians get defensive so easily when we can’t explain something with a Bible verse?

I have always been somewhat amused that we call the part of Christian theology that has to do with defending or proving Christianity “apologetics,” as if we are somehow saying we are sorry for our arguments. When I was in seminary, Josh McDowell was doing big business with his Evidence That Demands a Verdict. (When I “googled” him tonight I found out he’s still going strong.) I struggled with his approach because I never felt like God was on trial. Yes, I know many Christians around the world are persecuted for their faith, but that’s not what I’m talking about and that wasn’t his point back then, either. The courtroom metaphor quickly tires me because I don’t think we’re going to debate anyone into faith.

In my bookmarks I have a link to the UDF Skywalker, which shows pictures taken by the Hubble telescope. The picture on there now shows ten thousand galaxies and captures light we are just now seeing that goes back to when the universe was 800 million years old, which is, according to the site, one seventeenth of its current age. 17 x 800,000,000 = 13,600,000,000 years. And we’re trying to come to terms with a three million year old skeleton.

Our brains need to keep growing.

The Psalmist said to God, “When I gaze into the night sky and see what kind of imagination you have, I wonder why we ever cross your mind” (my translation). His intent was not scientific observation or theological explanation. It was a statement of faith by one who was “lost in wonder, love, and praise.” To make this a battle between science and faith is to create unnecessary adversaries. Read the Psalmist again and then take in this quote from Stephen Crane (sorry, I can’t find the context):

A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”

In some ways, the conversations don’t appear to be so different, but the Psalmist’s question begs for a response and carries hope of relationship: the Creator of the Stars does notice him standing in the dark. Crane’s character cries for affirmation only to be humbled without much hope.

Let’s speak up about that. Let’s quit fighting straw Neanderthals and debating in Theological Moot Court and speak, to borrow Paul Simon’s words, “of things that matter and words that must be said.” We were dreamed up and breathed into existence by a God who made us to do something more creative than argue about bones and biology when we live in a world crying out for hope.

Peace,
Milton

church as family

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As the day fades, the thoughts in my head swirl like water going down a drain. I’m not sure I can make much sense of them before they disappear. Since Sunday is getting closer by the minute, I’ve been turning the idea of family as metaphor for church over and over in my mind. Here are a few random, yet tangentially connected thoughts that I will remember better if I write them down.

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I was late getting to my adolescent rebellion, so my twenties were hard on me and my parents. One of my seminary colleagues called me one day and said, “I heard your dad preach today and he talked about you.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said, ‘We face two kinds of difficulties in life: problems and predicaments. A problem is something you can do something about; a predicament is something you have to learn to live with. I used to think of my eldest son as a problem; now I understand he is a predicament.’”

Since I was carrying a chip on my shoulder the size of Cleveland at the time, I failed to see the humor and the grace in his words. Since then, we’ve both learned to live with each other rather than trying to solve or fix one another. I’m glad.

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Here’s a great quote from Erma Bombeck: “The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”

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In my search for quotes, one of the things I noticed was a majority of them focused on children. Neither Ginger nor I have ever felt called to have children of our own. We have amazing godchildren and have been foster parents, and we have spent a great deal of our lives helping raise other people’s children in one way or another. Family begs for a wider definition that we often give it.

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I learned a new name tonight in my search for quotes: Mignon McLaughlin. Here were her thoughts on family: “Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back” (The Neurotic’s Notebook). Both her words and the book title make me want to know more about her.

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After my folks and I worked through The Hard Years, we had a conversation about how we had experienced those days. My mother said, “There were times we thought when we hung up the phone that we would never hear from you again.”

I can remember feeling surprised by her words. The thought that I could just walk away had never crossed my mind. I figured family stayed family whether I walked away or stayed. The challenge was not to find a way to escape, but a way to live with it. Dad was right: it was a predicament.

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The church is a family. What then shall we say?

Peace,
Milton