Waves

Whenever I go to the ocean and spend a few hours diving in the waves, as I did last week, I am reminded of how much they have taught me.   Occasionally you see somebody out in the surf who is clearly a newcomer to waves.   Again and again they stand in the way of them and get smacked down.  Now, if getting hit in the chest and head and back by powerful walls of frothy salt water is your thing, then go right on standing there and getting smacked.  There are certainly worse ways to spend a day.  

Personally, I prefer to face waves in a few other ways:  diving over, diving under, moving out beyond them or riding them in.  Of course, each way holds its own life lessons.  

Diving over is tricky and only works if you catch it just before the big break.  You have to know your wave and decide whether you have the traction on the sand shifting beneath you to make the leap.    This way involves risk and quick judgement and the willingness to get a huge faceful of froth.  But done right, it can result in a very pleasant floating, flopping ride to the other side.

Diving under is the easiest thing.  Just put your arms over your head and face the wave and plunge straight in the the heart of it.   But if you've never done it before, it looks scary.  It's only once you've tried it that you understand that the quietest place in the surf is directly underneath the biggest waves.  Ah yes, the old "there's no way out but through" philosophy. 

Getting out beyond the waves usually means putting yourself rather far out into the ocean, which only works if you like being in the ocean over your head and trust that you have the strength to swim back in, even if a rip tide is pulling you farther out.  To get beyond the waves you have to take a few in the face first, or try the diving under and over techniques often enough to get good at both.  Beyond the waves can be choppy or peaceful and you are never guaranteed a wave-free existence, but what a place to hang out and enjoy the vastness of the universe. The risk is in straying too far from shore, but the pay-off is excellent.   

Riding them in is the most fun of all but requires a willingness to eat some sand, scrape your knees on shells and occasionally feel as if you may be ripped apart.   It also requires great patience in finding just the right wave to ride and catching it at just the right moment as the wall of water tips forward, but before the actual crest.   But when you catch a great body surfing rise -- ah!   What a rush!   

Independence Week

In addition to celebrating the independence of our nation this week, two other events occurred in my life with liberating effect.

Monday, June 30 was the last day that the former director of the center where I am now the current director was officially on the payroll.   Of course, she is still calling to tell me what to do, but it really has very little impact on me these days.   (Really, she called this week to suggest several things I ought to be doing during my vacation.   No kidding.)

Wednesday, July 2, my ex and I went to court and are now officially divorced.   There was a brief moment of breathless sadness and then ... relief.    I am proud of how well the two of us handled this ending, sans lawyers or mediators or anyone else.   We went through the whole process together, from separation agreement to final stamp of legal approval, and now it is finished and we are still friends.   Thanks be to God!   

And now, I am off on a vacation with my young one.   See you when I get back.   

I dedicate this to my Lord and Savior, Jesus

The darling and irascible PJ has given me an award I clearly have not earned, but tearfully accept.  

Here are the rules:

1) Pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself. 

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award which is here:  Arte Y Pico.  

And because I never really follow all the rules, I pick these three: 

Diane, for her theological depth and Midwestern good sense. 

Doxy, for her pulls-no-punches writing on topics others don't want to touch. 

and

Laura, because I ran into her yesterday and anyone who is a full-time pastor and mother of two charming young children, and can find time to blog and still look fabulous on a hot, sticky day at a parade deserves many awards. 

Jesus is my Guru

As a newly divorced woman in her mid-forties, I have entered a strange new world of dating. And I am doing it in the strange world that is Asheville.  Being who I am, I tend to be attracted to men who are spiritual.   This translates into my last three dates being with a guy who has been a devoted practitioner of a particular form of meditation based on some kind of yoga out of Hindu/Indian traditions.   So, it has a guru.  And he (date guy) does.   I'm not a guru type of gal.  My protestant gut is suspicious of any human being who claims too much spiritual power. Power corrupts and corrupted spiritual power may be the worst kind.  

(Think inquisitions.  Or Osama bin Laden, for that matter.  Although I don't really think of either of those as spiritual, but political power which cynically used the spiritual weaknesses of people to rile them up.  But that's another post.)

Anyway, I'm discussing my general distrust of gurus with this guy, who is trying not to become defensive about his love of his guru (he's gone to India 3 times to see him) and trying to share with me that it's really all about love -- increasing our love through meditation, blah, blah, blah.  

So I say, "Well, Jesus is my guru.  I don't need any other ones."  And I realize it is true.  That I do think of Jesus much in the same way he thinks of his guru -- as a human being who became so imbued with God-love that he was capable of extending it through not only his words and touch, but even through time and past death.  While I'm fairly ambivalent about church these days, I am still crazy about Jesus.   Though it defies intellectual understanding, I have experienced Jesus in encounters I will call mystical because I'm not sure what else to call them. I have been healed by these encounters -- spiritually, emotionally and physically healed.   Not always in the ways I hoped to be healed, but in ways that powerfully changed me or the direction of my life. 

I experience Jesus as a guy -- a real Middle Eastern Jewish guy -- who fully and completely got it.   Got God.  Got the point of life.   And was transformed -- transfigured -- by it.   And then became a conduit for transforming others.    I don't know what happens to most of us when we die -- worm food?  reincarnation?  straight to heaven, do not pass go, do not collect $200?  -- but I believe that Jesus, in some real sense, did not die.   His body is dead and gone, but his spirit is alive and well.   And not in some vague "everything is divine" sense, but in the sense of that Jewish guy who lived 2000 years ago and taught and walked and healed and was crucified. That his particular life experience -- incarnate, real, fully human experience -- was critical to his ability to continue through cultures and time to speak to us as fully human ones.  

Perhaps there have been other human beings in history who share this category -- Buddha comes to mind -- but I can't attest to that.   I can attest to Jesus.  And because I experience him as still present, still available, still healing, I don't see the need for some other human to come along and claim some spiritual power into which I need to tap.   I can go straight to the source -- the Big God -- or I can go to Jesus.   And Jesus, having been human, is easier for me to get most days than the BG.   

What about you? 

Go, Hillary!

Well, I'm inspired to break my two-month fast from blogging today because of Hillary Rodham Clinton and her powerful and gracious concession speech.  I watched it start to finish and was moved to tears throughout.  Unlike many people who got more angry the longer she stayed in the race, I found myself growing in admiration for her spunk.  Those of you who have read my blog in the past know that Hillary was never one of my top choices for Democratic nominee.   The war in Iraq was high on my list of reasons.  Along with that were my concern that she is too much of a Washington insider to think in new ways about our country and its needs and that she is too much of a savvy politician to stick to strong progressive stances in spite of opposition. 

Nonetheless, as a woman, a mother and a feminist, I am delighted that she did as well as she did.  By staying in the race she did, as she said today, put 18 million cracks in that glass ceiling leading to the White House.   She accomplished, as she said, the remarkable task of making it unremarkable that future women will be considered true contenders in such a race.   Hillary Clinton is a brilliant woman, an inspired politician, and a great leader for our country.  I believe that she will continue to be so in whatever the next role for her turns out to be.  And I sincerely hope it is a significant one.  

I am grateful that she came out so strongly and clearly for Obama and for the Democratic party. Good for her.  In the coming months, may her followers be as clear and gracious as she was today.

Opening to Grace -- an ad

I don't think I've ever used this space for an ad before, but I'm going to make an exception.  There is an amazing woman by the name of Tilda Norberg who lives on Staten Island, where she practices and teaches Gestalt Pastoral Care.   Throughout the year she does weekend retreats called "Opening to Grace" near Dingman's Ferry, PA, at her funky little retreat space.   This fall the dates for her weekends are:  Sept. 25-27, Oct. 16-18, and Dec. 4-6.  Each retreat is limited to 6 participants, plus some helpers, and costs $300, which includes room and board.  Gestalt pastoral care is a combination of Gestalt growth work, healing prayer and spiritual companioning.  It's hard to describe.  You kind of have to experience it.  

I studied with Tilda for two years at her home/school on Staten Island.  It was one of the most important experiences of my life.  Given that my life has been a bit of a mess ever since, I realize I'm not the best walking advertisement.   (But then again, I'm not sure this mess isn't partly a result of shaking up my comfortable little world.   Sometimes healing isn't pretty.)

If this sounds even vaguely interesting to you, go to the website and read up on it.  Or give Tilda a call and have a chat.  I highly recommend her and this work.   But maybe you shouldn't go if you like your life exactly the way it is.   I'm just saying ...  

In Defense of Church-Shopping

I recently read an article by a former colleague of mine in which she bemoaned the American habit of church-shopping.  I completely understand how she feels.   I used to preach that same sermon.   She criticized the concept that churches are "spiritual service providers."  Yup, I've made that argument, too, back in my preaching days.   

But let's consider the other side of the story.   Let's say I'm a mom of a young child and worship on Sunday morning is the one hour a week I can hope to get some spiritual nourishment in community.  I may sneak in my own prayer and devotion time through the week -- but not with other people.  This is my only chance and I know I can get more out of it if my beautiful, squirmy, noisy, curious child is safely taken care of somewhere else.  In a nursery.  And the church I attend doesn't have one.   Will I stay?   Probably not.  Could I be accused of only thinking of my own spiritual needs?   I could.  But what would be the point?  That I shouldn't be taking care of my own spiritual needs?   Don't women -- and mothers in particular -- get that message often enough?   Take care of everybody else's needs first!   Yours can wait.   

Or take the accusation that one shouldn't leave because you disagree with the pastor.   The truth is, anybody making this statement is probably a pastor.  What is the point of worshipping week after week, listening to a person who preaches the Word and shapes the liturgy, if you have some fundamental disagreements with that person about that same Word and liturgy?   Is this a tolerance test?   Of course I'll disagree with any other human being from time to time -- we're human, after all -- but to state that agreement with the pastor should not be a criteria for whether one stays active in a church is an unrealistic and, frankly, disingenuous statement.  You can bet the person making it, on his/her Sunday off, seeks out a worship service with a pastor they enjoy.  (If they go to church at all).   

Neither of the above are my current situation.  But here is my reality:   I'm a single mom working full-time as director of an agency, with two precious animals in my care, a home, yard and car that are my responsibility, and aging parents for whom I uprooted my adult life so that I could live near them.   I am not complaining about these things.  I love these realities.  They are, in fact, my calling in life at this stage.   Each one of them has a particular pull on my soul and energy and I do my best to honor all of those pulls.   They are where my time, energy and love go, day after day.   Taking care of a church community is not one of my callings right now. It has been for most of my life, but it isn't now.  And that's true of many people sitting in our pews.  They aren't called to take care of your congregation, preacher, so give them a break.   

I love God.  I love worshipping God in community.   I need that community.   And I am church-shopping to find it.    Shopping has this negative, materialistic, self-centered image in the church and for good reason.   I think a better metaphor is dating.   I'm dating several churches (and other spiritual communities) this year.   I thought I needed to hop from my last church-marriage into a new one and the trouble with that model is you don't give yourself time to learn and grow and figure out how you changed since the last time you made a commitment. So I hopped quickly into what I believed to be a long-term relationship with a congregation.  I didn't sign on the membership line, but I did get very involved.   Then, when I began sensing that the relationship wasn't really working, I felt guilty and confused about how to extricate myself.   

Also, like my real-life dating these days, there is a child involved.  And that makes a tremendous difference.  (Unlike real-life dating, the child goes on most of my church-dates).   It is not just my needs, but his that I consider.   Is he surrounded by other adults in this congregation who demonstrate to him, implicitly and explicitly, the kind of Christian values I hope to help him develop?    If that isn't happening in the congregation, I'm not staying.   Just as in dating, I don't care how much I like the guy, if he's not somebody I feel good about my kid being around, it ain't happening.    

And, as is true in my dating life (or my desire to have one, is more like it), I'm not really out for a long-term commitment just yet.   I need a break from the hard work of that kind of commitment.   I do want to just be able to enjoy the date without thinking too much about the future.  Which means, next Sunday I may or may not want to spend time with you.   I may want to go out with another church next week.   Or I may be serially monogomous for a while -- a few months in this church, a few in that.    

The bottom line is, church-shopping -- or church-dating, as I prefer to call it-- is going to happen.   Churches and pastors need to deal with this reality without judgement.  Just as not every date is going to lead to marriage, not every church-date is going to lead to a long-term commitment.   Nor should it.    And there's nothing wrong with that.