Life Goes On

A year ago today, Little Warrior got her face painted, and played carnival games, and wore a costume, and trick or treated.

And then we left the hospital.

One year ago, she was completely bald, with no eyelashes or eyebrows, and so very skinny.

This year:


How is it possible that it was only one year ago? Surely it was at least 5.

My dad called tonight. My godfather died today from the flu. We are sad, but truth is, mentally he died a few years ago. A brilliant book man, talented musician, brought down by Parkinson's.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Sunrises, Interviews, and

So, lotsa stuff happening, everything braided, woven together. There are some people who can live more compartmentalized lives, but for me, it's all smooshed together in some way. So, like the book of Jeremiah (absolutely no order or rhythm):

* I finally had the long-awaited ministerial interview last week. This is normally one of your first steps toward ministry, but because Saturn was in the seventh house, and my minister was leaving the church right as I was beginning seminary and then of course we had cancer, and then I made an appointment, and then there was the recurrence, and then some other complications, and well, finally, I had the interview. And my interviewing minister was just a joy to talk to, even I wanted to turn the interview around and ask her a million questions. And she was far too nice in her assessment of me, but then, she doesn't know of my unnatural fondness of the word asshat. Shh. That'll be our little secret.

* Continuing to love my seminary classes. Have been asked to preach in chapel next week. A little skeered. But preaching on Isaiah 6:8. What's not to love? Bring me a burning coal, I need some lip gloss!

* The Halloween Party returned! Great time. Good food. Good friends. We had a duty to do 2 years worth of partying, and we did so admirably.

Okay, so there's the catching up. Interwoven in all of this is last year. I can't take a step without last year walking along with me. Halloween 08 was Little Warrior's last day of treatment for the recurrence. We had a big day in the hospital, then made it home in time for trick or treating.

She pulls on her pumpkin costume, the same one she wore last year. Now, she has a full head of hair, eyebrows, eyelashes. I see both of her.

I drove to school this morning. The sun was just coming up. Last year, so many mornings I watched the sun come up from our hospital room.

Same sun. Same Little Warrior. Same me. And yet, as the saying goes, you never step into the same river twice.

And it's all woven together.

Not better, but different

I have written about this before: the proposition that having lived in the world of childhood cancer with my daughter, that I will be a better minister.

Almost as soon as she was diagnosed, some person made that point. "Gee," this person said, "I know this is absolutely awful, but ... (the significant pause of one who feels they are saying something profound) ... this will make you a better minister."

Well, piss on that, I thought at the time.

It's been a difficult thing for me to work my way through, as I had to get past my maternal emotions -- I don't want to benefit, or the world to benefit, in any way from my baby daughter getting cancer! -- and my confusion as I tried to reason it all out:

a) There was something deficient in you before that only childhood cancer could fix
b) A person who has experienced childhood cancer is inherently a better ministerial prospect than someone who hasn't

Both of which I reject.

And yet ... life gives us experiences. I don't believe they happen for a reason, but I do believe we should pay attention to all the accompanying lessons they bring.

Have I learned anything from my child having cancer twice? Um, 1097 lessons at last count.

You know how someone can say, or write, something very simple that puts it all in place? Well, of course you do. That's one of the beauties of our religion and a reason why I loved our old "Church of Myrtle" ads. (Wasn't it Myrtle? I can't remember her name.)

Anyway, the New York Times has an article today about M.D. Anderson cancer hospital. One of the patients they talk to is a doctor who had cancer. He debated this same concept, was he a better doctor for having had cancer?

“Then I realized I am not better, but I am a different doctor,”

he said.

And I thought, Yup.

Survivor

Or "Kids Understand More than You Think They Do."

Little Warrior is getting her memories back from when she was on treatment. She seemingly repressed them for about 6 months.

A week ago, she got in bed and cuddled with me. We talked about things we remembered from last Halloween, including a driveway party at our neighbor's. "And there were 2 ladies there who were cancer survivors," I reminded her. "A survivor is someone who survives cancer. Do you know what 'survive' means?" I didn't think she did, and planned on making some kind of "It's when you go through something difficult but you're okay later and ..." euphemistic statement.

No need. She looked me in the eye and said, "It means you don't die."

Four years old. And yet, a lot older.

Leaving and Returning

I went to Colorado last week, leaving behind The Husband, the munchkins, and my mother-in-love, who came up to watch all of them and do mountains of laundry, because that's just something she likes to do, and we are happy to oblige her by providing a Himalayas of laundry.

No, you can't have her.

The occasion was my father's 80th birthday. My family of origin all converged at my Successful, Elegant, Never Had Kids brother's house, with its sweeping views of Colorado Springs and distinct lack of clutter, fingerprints, or -- let's face it -- dirt.

It was a wonderful four days, filled with tall tales, family lore, and laughter. My dad's twin brothers came up for a day, adding another dimension to the experience, as the three of them told stories from their childhood.

And after childhood. They all went to the same college. Here's one from my Uncle Intellectual: "I remember going over to your Dad and Mom's apartment after school. We'd drink cognac and listen to Bolero and talk about art and literature." My Dad and his brothers were country boys from Shelby County in East Texas where such things were unheard of. How sophisticated they must have felt, just kids themselves, round about 1951, standing around a record player, sipping their cognac. Can't you just see it?

Every morning, I'd wake up to silence. No Thunder Cats with their elephantine feet pounding over the stairs. No children with their abnormally loud voices debating the merits of cereal vs. oatmeal. I'd slip out of my iron bed with the crisp sheets, tiptoe across the hand-scraped oak floor, and sit on a luxurious sofa, sipping my coffee, looking out at the quiet, peaceful morning.

Yesterday, my sister and I hopped a plane, sharing the first leg of her journey. For two hours, we barely drew a breath, as we dissected the visit, teared up at various points as we remembered certain tendernesses exchanged by my parents with us, and with each other, and caught up on each other's life.

I kissed her goodbye as I headed to baggage claim, and she to her flight home. Grabbed my bag, waited for The Husband, kissed him quickly under the watchful eye of the TSA agent directing traffic, and headed for home.

No one was in bed yet. Hugs and kisses all around. "Out of my whole trip, the best part was coming home to you," I said to each of them. And meant it.

"Mom! Mom! Mom!" a voice whispered urgently this morning at 6 am. I opened one eye. "Sookie (the cat) pooped on the couch in your office!" said the Princess. I gave her instructions for its disposal (the poop, not the cat, though that was tempting) and curled back into the Lizard Eater sized hollow in our mattress.

TAP TAP TAP. Someone is tapping on my forehead. It is Little Warrior. "I want to cuddle with you."

No, you can't have her.

She climbs next to me, wraps her arms around my neck, and falls fast asleep. Sleep is long gone for me, and I lie there, listening to her breath in my ear, and the thunder of cats without little fog feet and Bo Peep and the Boy discussing the superiority of cinnamon waffles to plain waffles and The Husband reminding The Princess to put away her violin and I know that I am home.

And I am glad.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a cook."*

And as such, it affects how I think of things. Things like diversity.

I read that at this past General Assembly, "(Rev. Mark) Morrison-Reed believes we need to recapture what we had as children, before we had been taught racism, classism, and conformity all sorts, when we had a natural attraction to what seemed different or new."

I didn't hear the talk, as it wasn't posted online, but just that idea, of our natural attraction to what seems different or new, resonated with me and has stayed with me.

Chefs get this. A chef, looking for new ideas, will travel to another country. She is excited when she gets to taste something she's never had before. An explosion of inspiration.

Today, Rev. Sean is sharing an excerpt from Audre Lorde’s essay Sister Outsider. In it, she writes about viewing differences "as forces for change."

I am attracted to differences. If you have something in your life that makes you different than me, I want to know all about it. What was it like, growing up Dutch in a Houston suburb? What did your Jamaican mommy put in your lunch? Do you ever regret being mainstreamed with non-deaf students?

(That last is a question to my husband. And his answer is no. A story for another time.)

"People of a like mind." Sigh. I understand it. I've probably used it. Especially when you live in a larger community where the majority are your opposite in politics, in tolerance, and often, in values. In an area like that, a Unitarian Universalist church is a haven, a sanctuary.

The problem is when we want "people of a like mind" to be exactly like us. When we only want people with no children -- or only married-with-children. When we only want college-educated. When we only want atheists, or only want theists. Only vegetarians. Only non-smokers. Only Democrats. Only want those who will worship quietly, hands neatly folded. Only want those comfortable with linking hands and chanting.

Different is good. Different expands the choices. Different is richer, more complex.

If we have "different" in our congregations, we get to see that different isn't really that different. We get to see it as a benefit. New flavors. New experiences. And then we get to take that into the greater world, attracted to the differences. Not just tolerant. Not just accepting. Welcoming. Radically inclusive.

Now, there will always be those who view the new, the different, with mistrust. Going back to my earlier metaphor, the French chef, looking down his nose at anyone who ventures outside of Escoffier. They do not want their cuisine watered down by outside influences, their liturgy, their culture. Are there those French chefs among us, unwilling to make room amongst the NPR bumper-stickered Priuses for a pickup with a gun rack or a lowrider?

It's okay to want to be around people of a like mind. But on Sunday morning, let's limit that to religion. Ours. People who embrace continuous revelation, personal spiritual responsibility, and individual moral authority. Be they in their gimme cap, gypsy skirt, three piece suit, Star Trek tshirt. Carrying a drum, a tambourine, a Bible, or a bag of runes. Planning on lunch afterward at the sushi bar, the taqueria, or Mama's Sunday dinner.

And hey, if you go somewhere new, invite me, 'kay?


*C.B. Stubblefield, of Stubb's BBQ, where The Husband often filled his belly. back in college.

A quick note of appreciation

I must get back to blogging, as I'm having a backup of ideas that are making my head tight and my hat small. But not this week, as in addition to school, I'm having to rush through testing and the tons and tons of autobiographical writing you must do before your ministerial candidate career assessment. (Just between you and me, I have to confess that I am just sick of myself and ready to discuss something more interesting.)

But I did get to discuss you guys! I'm writing about my spiritual and faith development, and I just couldn't let that go by without talking about being a member of the UU blog community. I know I've written before about how appreciative I am for all youse guys, but I don't know that I've written about how you have added to my development of each. Reading y'all's blogs, thinking of your ideas, arguing back and forth and over there and over here as things pinged around the UU-blogosphere ... it has had a big influence on me. There is a tremendous honesty in our blogs -- we open ourselves up, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Thank you for sharing your ideas.

Thank you for sharing your feelings.

Thank you for sharing your beliefs.

Thank you for sharing your lives, your dreams, your beliefs.

Thank you for sharing you.

Flashback to Summer, and being a Texan

My friend the Hysteric Cleric posted on Facebook an article Molly Ivins wrote about Texas. That made me remember that this summer, on the road to New Mexico, I'd scribbled some stuff. So here it is.

Saturday, June 27, 2009 3:02 pm

We are in the panhandle of Texas. We left our house at 6:15 am. Planned on stopping at an interesting café in Fort Worth, but we made such good time, we weren’t yet in the mood for lunch. Went a little further, til we go to Decatur and saw a Chicken Express. Loaded up on their marinated chicken strips and fried okra and ate it on the road.

Every person I’ve met who was a kid in south or coastal Texas has memories of road trips that always began with the first day of travel being get out of Texas. You drive and drive and drive, and you’re still in Texas.

My parents were – and are – frugal. When we took a vacation, we’d get up early in the morning and hit the road. I can see Mom, once we got out on the highway, carefully holding mugs over the floor in front of her feet, leaning over to pour hot coffee for her and Daddy. At lunch time, we’d stop at a rest area, and Mama would pull out a red and white flannel-backed vinyl tablecloth and we’d sit at a table eating pimento cheese sandwiches from the cooler and maybe some potato chips.

This morning, The Husband and I stopped at Starbucks first thing, then picked up the fried chicken. We need to take a page from my parents’ book.

It’s funny, the things that you remember as a kid. Comic books and chocolate pop-tarts. Those are two of the things I remember. Junk food for the brain and tummy, and the only time they were allowed was on vacation. They’d let me get a couple of comic books to take in the car – I usually chose Archie or Richie Rich. And we always stayed at a kitchenette, so we didn’t have to eat out. The kitchenettes would usually have a toaster (we didn’t have one at home), and Mom would let me have a box of pop-tarts.

We passed through a little town here a ways back, and in the parking lot of a used car dealership, there was a big tarp set up, with people sitting in folding chairs underneath. A big banner identified it: “Holy Ghost Revival.” I begged The Husband to turn around and go back, but he wouldn’t.

Texas Culture is written deeply in my soul. And I mean real Texas culture.

George W. Bush. Not a real Texan.

On my mother’s side, generation after generation were Texans, on back to the Texas Republic. Real Texas culture is very egalitarian because living out in the west, you didn’t have the clear cut definitions between what was women’s work and what was men’s work. Ranching and farming required the whole family. More recently, during the Depression, it took everyone’s help just to survive. My great-grandmother took in boarders, during WWII, my grandfather helped build the POW camps.

I don’t mean to romanticize. There was some ugly stuff about the early Texans, especially the Texas Rangers, and what they’d do in Mexico. Or the origin of Juneteenth.

I don’t say that I’m “proud” to be a Texan, anymore than I’m ashamed to be a Texan. It simply is a big part of who I am. It’s in the stories I heard, growing up. It’s in the food that I eat. It’s in my heroes, like Molly Ivins, Liz Carpenter, Ann Richards. It’s in the fact that for me, the plural of “you” is “y’all.” And paying for AAA, which I do, is really kind of silly, because everyone knows that if you get a flat, there’ll be a big pickup coming along in just a few minutes filled with three good ole boys who’ll get your tire changed r’at away. And with an “it was our pleasure, ma’am,” they’ll be gone.

Don’t be fooled by the Rick Perrys of my state. Sure, there’s provincial knuckle-heads in my state. I have yet to find a state that is knuckle-head free.

We are further in the panhandle now. Every here and there, you see a house out on the prairie, ringed with trees to protect it from the constant dust storms.

I haven’t seen the camels yet.

Many a traveler through here has done double and triple takes, as they’ve spotted, amongst the cattle ranches, a herd of camels grazing. They’re wild camels. No, really. Several decades ago, some one got the bright idea of bringing camels over. Similar climate and all, thought they might work better than horses or burros.

Well, it turns out that though camels are real good at carrying their own water, they just stink at herding cows. The cowboys probably found them less comfortable than their ponies, too. So they were left to fend for themselves, and did okay at it, mating and continuing on just fine. So every now and then, you’ll see them wandering around.

One of the things that’s kinda interesting about Texas is the West-East difference. See, if you’re in East Texas, you’re in the South. Accents are more akin to Mississippi – the food and attitudes, too. Nothing spicy here, but you’ll have collard greens and black-eyed peas, cornbread, and hominy grits. Boiled peanuts. Cotillions and southern belles.

West Texas, well, now, you’re in the West. Cowboys and cowgirls, honky-tonks and Mexican food. Tex-Mex.

My dad sums it up well. He said that you could always tell if someone was from East Texas or West Texas by asking what they did with the hog’s head. East Texas, they made souse, also called hog’s-head cheese. West Texas, they made tamales.

Seems to me, West Texas was always a lot more “live and let live.” In the piney woods of East Texas, you had more racism – racism against anyone not white. Black, Mexican, “other.”

West Texas, people were more spread out and there was more of a need for everyone’s help. My second-cousin, a grizzled, crusty and shy old fellow, was a cowboy, and it was from working ranches with other cowboys that he learned how to cook cabrito, mountain oysters, and sugar pickled onions. The other ranch hands were Mexican, black, white. And I am not oversimplifying when I tell you that when you see a bunch of 60 year old cowboys, who have worked out in the hot sun their whole lives, they all pretty much look to be the same race.

We’re in Amarillo now. Been seeing the billboards for the last three hours advertising the big ole tourist trap steakhouse. Literally three hours plus. The signs will tell you, “Three Hours to the Big Texan! Tour buses welcome!”

We’ll pass. We ain’t tourists.

Check In

There will be nothing poetic or even vaguely inspirational about this post. It's a simple check-in for our home viewers. (And if you haven't checked in lately, drop me a line down in comments, willya, and let me know what's going on in your life?)

* I finally rescheduled that ministerial interview. Oct. 23.
* Which is the day before the Big Mondo Halloween Party. And we've got to party like we missed a year. Because, you know, we did.
* And I have my Career Assessment set up for November. 2 days before my Big Fat Old Testament Midterm.
* Also in November: scans.

Loving my classes. Family doing great. Little Warrior doing great. A little crazy, what with preaching, school, trying to become a candidate stuff and hey, did I mention the 4 kids?

(And did I mention that I truly am married to the most amazing partner?)

But all good stuff.

Classify THESE as good times.

The Listening Bead

I have been doing a prayer bead practice, based on the one outlined by Erik Walker Wikstrom in Simply Pray. I enjoy it; it's a good way for a monkey-mind like me to keep my thoughts organized, or at least to have a way to bring me back to what I was concentrating on.

Today, I was at the third topical bead, that of "Listening." I sat in silence, relaxing, receptive, listening ...

Mahnamanah
Do-do-do-do-do!

This was not a flight of fancy from my fluttering focus. This was my four year old. Mahnamanah, she trilled, downstairs.

Focus. Relax. Listen above and below.

Thump thump thump. Little Warrior is coming up the stairs.

Can I pray with you? she asks.

Yes. I settle her on my lap. We take breaths together.

"When I breathe in, I breathe in peace ..."

Mama, I'm going to hold the beads for you, okay?

"Yes. When I breathe out, I breathe out--"

Mama, is it this bead?

"Yes. Now take a deep breath with me," I instruct her. She obeys, puffing out her cheeks.

"When I breathe in--"

Mama, is it 4 more times?

"Um, I think so. Yes."

"When I breathe in--"

Mama, can I have a sip of your coffee?

"Let's skip listening and go to who we want to pray for."


There are sages alone on a mountain top meditating in silence. There are seminarians who are full scale in divinity school, living, eating, and sleeping at their school. Sometimes I envy them, no need for balance, the opportunity to be completely immersed in this challenging, exciting world of religious philosophy.

Well, my path is a little different. It merges with the paths of others for whom I am responsible. More than a braid, this path is macrame, like that owl decoration your aunt had in her living room in the 70's.

You know. The one with the beads.

What will turning out The Light mean to Broadway?

I'll admit it. I was a soap watcher. My grandmother watched Guiding Light, my mother watched Guiding Light, and after getting hooked on it the summer I was 16 and down with mono, I watched it.

Oh, how I groaned at the absurd stories. How I would take breaks from it, vowing never to watch again, only to take a glimpse one day and be hooked anew. During college, I missed it during the year, but would catch it in the summer, watching it before going in to my restaurant job. After college, I would tape it on the VCR, watching it at night. Even The Husband got a little hooked, though he won't admit it.

But soaps are expensive to produce and it didn't have enough viewers, a refrain I predict will continue until "then there were none."

But today, as the curtain drops on Guiding Light, I wonder what this will mean for Broadway. GL was one of three New York based soaps. They drew in professional stage actors who wanted a steady paycheck, and fed them back to the stage, as the actors took leaves of absence from the soap in order to star in a play. For young actors, they were the ultimate summer stock, grooming them for the stage.

Soaps have been this quietly subversive force in our culture. Amidst all the multiple divorces, far-out story lines, people coming back from the dead, there were story lines about AIDS, abortion, homosexuality. This wasn't HBO. These were shows playing to middle-American housewives.

Goodbye Otalia, the Four Musketeers, Nick, Dolly. Goodbye to the marvelous scenery-chewing Buzz. Goodbye Cedars. And the Bauer barbecue.

Goodbye Old Friend.

Fave UU preachers (with podcasts)?

Okay, friends. I have my handful of podcasts by my favorite preachers* that I listen to religiously (yuk yuk). They go with me on my commute to and from seminary and take long walks with me at the gym.

But I need more. Feed me, Seymour!

Who are your favorites? Who should I add to my podcast subscription list?

*my favorite preachers who provide podcasts. Ahem, yes, I'm looking at YOU, you know who you are, now start putting podcasts of your sermons up, please.

Evil

Reverend Erik Walker Wikstrom addresses some of the things I am struggling with on the subject of evil. Go read it; it's good.

The topic of evil was already rumbling around in my head, but now, today, September 11th, of course it is front and center.

I don't believe in Original Sin, I do not believe we are born evil. Boy, those who compiled our high school reading list certainly did ... A Separate Peace, Lord of the Flies ... bah.

And yet.

What is this antagonism in so many of us? And I include myself in that 'us.'

Rev. Tamara Lebak, Associate Minister, All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, gave a great sermon August 30, titled Conversation That Matters. Another good one to go check out. She talks about our instincts about others, about how rarely we assume good intentions on the part of someone else.

There is a big difference between thinking and acting. Yes, I agree.

The Husband and I were talking about this last week. Do you think Pure Evil exists? he asked. In the person of another? I clarified. Yes, he said.

I don't think that I do. There always seems to be some tiny fraction of a person's soul that still houses something besides evil.

Whenever I think of evil, I think of Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Green. Ruth, the maid and mother figure to Patty, says something along the lines of yes, Hitler was evil, but would he beat his own daughter? And yes, your father (who beats you) is evil, but would he cause the extermination of millions of Jews?

There is a big difference between thinking and acting. Yes, yes, I agree.

And yet.

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions." -- author unverified

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said yeah, you know that you're not supposed to murder. But guess what? If you are angry at someone, you will also be judged.

Searching for the roots of evil.

In that context, it is difficult for me to let myself off the hook for my knee-jerk jealousies, antagonism, suspicions, and all around lack of assuming good intentions.

This eye looks with love
This eye looks with judgment
Free me take the sight out of this eye.
-- This Eye, Edie Brickell and New Bohemians

Two Old Men and a Seminarian

What do an agnostic, a conservative Jew, and a UU seminarian have in common? Well ... a class.

The first two are two old men who are attending Old Testament class with me. You can't see them, they travel along with me in spirit, and at home, they await my emailed class notes.

One is my father, who is getting both textbooks as an early 80th birthday present from The Husband and me.

He and his old college pal have made up, and his pal, of the conservative Judaism persuasion, is also along as a stowaway on my Old Testament trip.

Considering the back-and-forth exegesis my father and I did last year of the book of Job (it involved me referring to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar as "ass hats" and him arguing that they were just trying to help Job figure out things) ... this should be good.

I Want a Bigger Tent

I want a bigger tent.

I want a tent where I can point out, as Rev. Christine did, that we are all at a spot on the agnostic spectrum without a God-Person (G-P) hollering, “Don’t call me an agnostic!”

I want a tent where I can talk about the Holy Spirit without a Non-God-Person (N-G-P) hollering, “Stop talking about God!”

I want a tent where we can discuss different theories about what happened after Jesus died without a G-P complaining that I’m being intolerant to Christians.

I want a tent where I can attend a workshop on “How to Pray” without an N-G-P complaining that we’re trying to turn into a Christian church.

I want a tent where we can talk about the contributions humanism has made, and continues to make, to our religion without a G-P rolling their eyes.

I want a tent where someone can stand up and say “I love this church and I love God!” without an N-G-P rolling their eyes.

I want a tent where, when an N-G-P explains that she doesn’t believe in any sort of outside spirit, she isn’t patted condescendingly by a G-P and told, “Yet.”

I want a tent where, when a G-P talks about a moment when he felt God was sending him a message, he isn’t patronizingly told that it’s fine to anthropomorphize a God as a way to make sense out of life.

I want a tent where I can include a performance of XTC’s “Dear God” and not be told I’m insulting the G-Ps.

I want a tent where I can include “Amazing Grace” and not be accused of trying to exclude the N-G-Ps.

I want a tent where a G-P will genuinely listen to the answer after asking, “Why would an atheist go to church?"

I want a tent where an N-G-P will genuinely listen to the answer after asking, “How can you be a Christian and a UU?”

I want a bigger tent.

I think I'm gonna like it here*

Last week, I walked into the classroom for the first day of my Old Testament class. Professor wasn't there, but two older, male students were. One was complaining bitterly about one of our textbooks, by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch.

"It's written by a flaming liberal woman," he said.

No, no, that's not exactly it. Accent and vernacular are necessary elements here.

"It's writtn by uh flamin' libruhl WOEman."

I'm not making fun of his accent. I have a matching one. But there's a particular way a Texas man pronounces "woman" when he is speaking negatively. It's like it's a different word from regular "woman." WOE-man is close, but not exactly it. If she's a good little wife, you've got a good "woman." If she done run off with yore pickup and yore dog, she is a WOE-man.

In any case, WOEman or woman, his statement caused a great big smile to come to my face. And I sang out:

Get me now, holy cow
Could someone pinch me please

Okay, so that was in my head. I actually just grinned down at my shoes, sat down quietly, and set up my laptop.

But in my head, there was a full chorus line with top hats and canes.

My professor, who is also my advisor, is a self-proclaimed conservative evangelical Christian. And he LOVES Brueggemann. Thinks he's brilliant. Asked us if we'd ever read anything more brilliant than the first two chapters of A Pathway of Interpretation.

It was at this point that, holding onto the back of my chair, I carefully stepped onto my desk and began doing the can-can. Bemused, but appreciative of my enthusiasm, my professor gave me his hand to help me back down to my seat.

Okay, not really. Dang, you're really attached to this whole reality thing, aren't ya?

I have been going to this school, intermittently, for five years. This is the first time ever that I've had a professor who said, quoting Brueggemann, "Any thought that we may present 'biblical truth' without interpretation is an illusion and indicates an unfortunate deficit of self-knowledge on the part of the interpreter."

And his preferred version of the Bible? Nope, not the NIV.

The JPS Hebrew English Tanakh.


*10 points to the first person who identifies the Broadway musical that's from. No cheating.

The path of love is not easy to walk
Littered with noise, cluttered objects, peevishness, annoyances
To walk along a forest path,
hushed boughs above you
soft grass below you,
It is easy then to feel peaceful,
calm waves of agape floating away
into the universe
So much more difficult when
stepping over piles of dirty laundry
ringing phones, bickering children,
cross co-workers, honking horns

No need then, to send it out

Realize

Love is still
all around you

Breathe it in
And set your feet straight
Back on the path again.

Setting and Spiking and Evangelism

I have been both a setter and a spiker.

These are volleyball terms, but I'm talking UU evangelism here. In volleyball, a setter "preps" the ball for another player, keeping the ball in play and lightly hitting it straight up so that the spiker can drive it home on the other side.

I knew that I'd been the spiker before. The BFF-DRE and I were playgroup friends, and I told her about my church. She'd heard of Unitarian Universalism, in fact, she had several friends who were UU. She'd never gone to a UU church, because, she says now, no one ever invited her.

I invited her. She came. Spike!

I moved to where I live now about four years ago. Over those years, I've casually told my next door neighbor about Unitarian Universalism and my church. When I saw her husband at the Democratic primary in the Obama line and she mentioned that he was an atheist, I broke every rule and blurted out, "He's a Unitarian Universalist!" (Oh, don't fuss at me.)

My neighbor is friends with another UU in our neighborhood who goes to a different UU church. My neighbor's son was spending the night with the other UU, and the other UU said, "I'll just take him to church with us, if that's okay with you." My neighbor surprised her by saying, "Actually, I'll meet you there. I've been interested in going." She now goes all the time, even going for adult education evening classes. Spike!

I was the setter.

Sometimes, we feel bad, because we aren't always comfortable being the spiker, inviting others to our church. But casually putting the information out there ... it might be more important than you think. The BFF-DRE had several setters before I came along and issued an invitation. And I was the setter when another UU came along and spiked the ball.

Just keep that ball in play ...

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away ...

This morning, I was supposed to be visiting my friend Smiley. But on Sunday, she slipped into a coma and died.

She was an older lady and had been fighting cancer with an indomitable spirit for a few years. But she recently got the "nothing more we can do" and made her plans for finishing out her life with the remaining time she was given.

Like so many, I have to say with regret, "I thought there'd be more time."

And yesterday, we got the news that Little Warrior's scans were clear. We live in three month increments. Three months is a long time, man. Three months means that I can begin school tomorrow, and begin planning The Halloween party we've thrown every 14 years (except for last year, when LW was in the hospital). Three months means LW can continue Montessori and the children can go to birthday parties and The Husband can go on his fishing trip and I can continue guest preaching. Three months. It's a gift.

In all the funeral readings my friends sent me last week, there was one that I found in almost all of them:

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

Joy and woe are woven tightly together this week. Good news for my child, while a friend gracefully and gently, but too soon, leaves us. How fitting that I am scheduled to write a sermon this week about love.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

I don't believe in a God who causes people to die or survive. But when you loosen your grip on that verse, and see it more as a statement about our existence, it becomes one I can stand behind. Life works in such a way that we lose and we gain -- blessed be this gift of life.

Nutcrackers and News

About a month ago, I received a postcard in the mail. Our city ballet is pre-selling tickets for The Nutcracker.

The older two have seen it, the third has only seen a poor local version and Little Warrior hasn't seen it at all.

Shall we splurge on tickets? I asked The Husband. He thought it was a great idea. I thought about it and said, I think we should wait until after scans. He sighed and agreed.

Scans were this morning. Just got the call.

Time to order tickets.