cathedral of dirt.

I've been reading the treasure that is Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church. This passage reminded me of the way ordinary things become places of sanctuary, and how God often speaks loudest in the miraculous unexpected corners of every day living. I read this and wanted just to be outside with the earth, and all the amazing things living in it. It inspired a long coffee break outside watching children play, a walk to the farmers market and a trip to the zoo.

Here are her amazing words:

"When, I think of my first cathedral, I am back in a field behind my parent's house bathed in a kind of golden light with every stalk of prairie grass lit from within. I can hear an entire community of crows, grasshoppers, and tree frogs who belong in this field with me. The smell of grass is so sweet that it perfumes me from within... There is more in this field than I will ever be able to discover...

Lying there is very good. My skin is happy on the black dirt, which speaks a language my bones understand. If I roll over and think only about places on my back that are touching the ground, then pretty soon I cannot tell whether I am pressing down on the earth or the earth is pressing up on me. The feeling is the same as when my father holds me up in the swimming pool... I am floating in this field, held up toward the sun by the black dirt under under my back. I am this earth's child, and I know it."

These words were an important reminder to me of how overly serious and intellectual we can make the business of spirituality. I hope I never forget how to be a child like this. I hope I never forget to see divinity in the dirt.

this is not okay.

A friend of mine found this website and pointed me to it as "fuel for the feminist fire." The content is disturbing for many reasons to me, not only as a woman called to ordained ministry, but just as a Christian who believes in God's love and grace.

The website not only suggests that the depth of female spirituality is child-rearing and husband-obeying, but portrays the Divine in ways that I feel suggest that God is both abusive and domineering.

Here is a quick excerpt to give you an idea about the general tone of this blog. It comes from an entry about women's concern for their physical appearance: "what we all deserve is not to feel beautiful but rather to be condemned to hell for sinfully seeking to attract the worship of our fellow creatures... God did not send Jesus to this earth to die so that women could get over their self-esteem problem and feel better about themselves. No, He sent his Son to die to rescue us from our sinful, futile quest for physical beauty and to reveal to us the satisfaction that comes from knowing God."

I find this particularly horrifying when I consider the young girls in my youth group that I work with every day. They struggle with the images of beauty that are constantly upheld by popular culture. What this blog fleetingly calls "their self-esteem problem," is a problem that is perpetuated in magazines, pop-culture and even Christian resources like this blog that tell women that their primary role is to obey and please men. In my opinion, the amazing young women I know DO deserve to feel beautiful. They also deserve to know that their beauty is within them (in their soul, their mind, their passions) as well as in their bodies (whatever shape and size those bodies may be). To simply say, God thinks your insecurities are sinful is damaging to their image of themselves (the created) and their image of God (the Creator).

In short, THIS IS NOT OKAY!

I would love to hear your reactions to this blog.... I could literally rant about it for hours.

we used to wait.

If you haven't yet seen "The Wilderness Downtown" interactive music/film experience, go to this link: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

I think this is a really amazing project, and I hope you enjoyed experiencing it as much as I did... For me it was a beautiful way of experiencing the sense of anticipation that comes with youth. It reminded me so vividly of all the things I was waiting for, running toward and running away from as a teenager --as so many dreams were just coming into view.

Here are the lyrics, from the amazing and innovative Arcade Fire:

I used to write

I used to write letters, I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing light settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met, by the time we met
The times had already changed
So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart, I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was lost standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that sonething pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

It may seem strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
But what's stranger still
Is how something so small can keep you alive

We used to wait
We used to waste hours just walking around
We used to wait
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown

We used to wait

Sometimes it never came
Sometimes it never came
Still moving through the pain

I'm gonna write a letter to my true love
I'm gonna sign my name
Like a patient on a table
I wanna walk again, gonna move through the pain

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

We used to wait

Wait for it

rest in peace albus dumbledore.

I just finished the 6th book in the Harry Potter series and am about to start the 7th and final book. I know I jumped on the bandwagon much later than I should have, but since starting the first book back in July, I (like so many others) have been swept away in the magic of this great story. I feel like I know these characters, and I am both sad and excited to join them in the last part of their journey.

And unsurprisingly, I cried as I finished the sixth book. Albus Dumbledore, you will live on in our hearts :)

"There is nothing to be feared from a dead body, any more than there is anything to be feared from the darkness... It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more."-Albus Dumbledore, in memoriam

heat wave.

So, today in Berkeley there was a high of 97, and in Pleasanton where I work the high was 104. I know to many mid-westerners and southerners this does not seem so bad compared to humid, hot weather you've been suffering for weeks. And I have to admit that I have been quite a whiner all summer about how its been in the 50s and 60s and I wanted real summer weather worthy of a trip to the pool or beach.

But this week the heat finally hit and I realized two important things: I do not have time to go to the beach or pool when I work all day. And two: we do not have air conditioning.

I know I am being a baby, but I must confess I actually used the phrase, "It's hotter than the devil's balls." I don't even know what that means, I just know its true.

I need an icy margarita. Or at least a diet coke.

borrowed eyes.

Christian theologian Dorothee Soelle writes, "What really happens in mystical union is not a new vision of God but a different relationship with the world-- one that has borrowed the eyes of God... God calls upon the soul to give away its own ears and eyes and to let itself be given those of God. Only they who hear with other ears can speak the mouth of God. God sees what elsewhere is rendered invisible and is of no relevance. Who other than God sees the poor and hears their cry? To use God's senses does not mean simply turning inward but becoming free for a different way of living life: See what God sees! Hear what God hears! Laugh where God laughs! Cry where God cries!"

So, often we think of spiritual experience, especially those we name as mystical, as deeply inward and personal. A moment where we are one with God. I love how Soelle turns this on it's head. For her, to be one with God, means turning outward toward the world. It means to see others, not just yourself, with new eyes. The heart of Christian spirituality is not merely a personal interaction between ourselves and God, but a transformation of our interaction with everyone and everything. It is literally a new way of seeing and being in the world.

For this week, I am making a goal of praying this simple prayer each day: "God, help me to see what you see. Help me to borrow your eyes. Amen."

one sermon.

Over on her blog, the Painted Prayer Book, Jan Richardson writes about the idea that every preacher really has only one sermon, and she writes about what she imagines her "one sermon" to be. She suggests that most of us have one real message that we see in the gospel, and we simply find new ways of saying that same old message over and over.

Which of course, got me thinking about what my one sermon would be. I think, boiled down it probably goes something like this: Notice the Miracle, and become new. In other words, look at the incredible beauty of every moment, look at what God is doing right now in your life and in the lives of those around you. Look how the Divine is breathing in the painting, coming to life in that poem, shining with dewy green in the grass. Look, look! How could we be missing this?! And think how that God is creating still, even now, even in you. The God who breathed life in the dust, who became incarnate in Christ, who rose from the dead-- is creating and recreating. Right now. In us. We get to be a part of it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how this is really the sermon I most need to hear. It is the message I most often forget, and need to be reminded of. I fill my mind and my life with things and forget that God is in all of it. I forget to take time to see God in the poem, the painting, the day. And more than anything, I so often doubt that change and transformation is possible, especially in myself. So, the sermon I try to give over and over, is really the one I am giving myself.

I wonder, if it is the same with most of us. Is the message we preach, really the one we need to hear? I was also thinking of how most people I know, whether or not they are in professional ministry, seem to have a sermon they are living as well. The message that they hope to share with their words, and their choices. Whether it is as simple as, "Love others," or "Dance whenever you can," each person I know has an amazing sermon they are telling me with their lives. What do you think yours is? If you had to boil down all your sermons (or all your days of living) into one overall message, what would it be?

virginia woolf in the afternoon.

Whenever I feel a little lost and have had a day of wondering about my calling, my future, my ministry and questions abound, but answers are few, I find it hard to pray. I can't seem to get to that quiet place of rest where I can just swim in the presence of God. I also cannot sort my thoughts enough to put my restless mind into into words.

The way I sometimes pray is to open familiar books. I run my fingers across the soft worn pages and I look to find some place of comfort in the space of words. Words that have spoken to me before, I know may speak some new thing to me now.

This afternoon, I opened an old favorite, To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf-- and here is what I found. For some reason, this makes sense to me, and bring me a peace I rest in. I feel the sense that all the little moments of love are mounting into the wave that is my life -- my own particular life, which is exactly the one I was meant to have.

"They became part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting universe which is the world seen through the eyes of love. The sky stuck to them; the birds sang through them. And what was even more exciting, she felt how life, from being made up of separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach."

Though life sometimes feels like a confused series of unconnected moments, and random choices, I rest in the sense that in the end it does build to this whole thing. And even though, it happens so quickly, a mere blink of an eye, the crash of a wave. Still, there it is: our life lived, our calling unfurled, our moment of becoming what God created us to be.

this guy will melt your heart.

My nephew Ashton recently started smiling, and every time I see a picture he completely melts my heart. I mean, I really don't think I've ever seen anything quite so cute. I didn't think it was fair to keep him all to myself. So here he is.

Blogging world, meet Ashton Reid Parker, Professional Heart Breaker.

imperfect paradise.

I'm taking a poetry class this semester, which has been wonderful. I don't love every poem we cover, but having poetry as part of my weekly school reading has been like medicine for my soul. It expands my mind and my faith in a way I can't explain in words. It helps me find beauty not just on the page, but in my life as it unfolds daily.

My favorite thing about this class is that we get to write our final paper/project about any theme, subject or poet we want. I had trouble trying to pick just one poet, so I've settled on a theme. The subject I am diving into is finding the beauty in what is imperfect. The poems I want to study are those that find meaning and even divinity in what is broken. I am excited to see how poets draw on theology and expand it. I'm looking forward to sharing the poems on this blog as I work on this project over the coming weeks. Here are a few lines from some of the poems I've already decided to include.

"To say it once held daisies and bluebells

Ignores, if nothing else,

Its diehard brilliance where, crashed on the floor,

The wide bowl lies that seemed to cup the sun,

Its green leaves curled, its constant blaze undone,

Spilled all its glass integrity everywhere;

Spectrums, released, will speak

of colder flowerings where cold crystal broke...

The splendid curvings of glass artifice

Informed its flawlessness

With lucid unities. Freed from these now,

Like love it triumphs through inconsequence

And builds its harmony from dissonance

And lies somehow somehow within us, broken, as though

Time were a broken bowl

And our last joy knowing it shall not heal." -James Merrill, "The Broken Bowl"

"Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.

There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds." -Wallace Stevens, "Poems of Our Climate"

"But every/ morning on the wide shore / I pass what is perfect and shining/ to look for/ the whelks, whose edges/ have rubbed so long against the world/ they have/ snapped and crumbled---/ they have almost vanished,/ with the last/ relinquishing/ of their unrepeatable energy,/ back into everything else. / When I find one/ I hold it in my hand,/ I look out over that shrinking fire,/ I shut my eyes. Not often,/ but now and again there's a moment/ when the heart cries aloud:/ yes, I am willing to/ be/ that wild/ darkness,/ that long, blue body of light." -Mary Oliver, "Whelks"

My hope is that all of us might have the eyes of poets: to find inspiration, brilliance and love in the most cracked and imperfect corners of our lives.

banana-awesome-grams

Thanks to one of my youth introducing me to this during our trip to Tahoe, I am now obsessed with this game. I love word games in general (taboo? scategories? boggle? yes please!), and this is my new favorite. It's basically speed scrabble, minus the board and point system. Trust me you will love it.

I just ordered my own from amazon. I'm thinking about making banana bread and having a banana themed party upon its arrival. Who's in?

Lenten prayer.

"Artist of souls,

you sculpted a people for yourself

of the rocks of wilderness and fasting.
Help us as we take up your invitation to prayer and simplicity,
that the discipline of these forty days
may sharpen our hunger for the feast of your holy friendship,
and whet our thirst for the living water you offer
through Jesus Christ. Amen." (from the Vanderbilt Divinity Library)

last stand.

So, this year it seemed to many of us, the super bowl's adds were particularly sexist. These commercials portrayed men as macho, truck driving, violent, stupid neanderthals and women as bitchy, uptight, nagging shrews. Neither image is particularly flattering, and I find these stereotypes to be neither useful or funny.

Two assumptions I think advertisers ought to rethink are these 1) only men watch the superbowl. 2) men secretly hate their wives and girlfriends. The first, is obviously not true. This year's superbowl was the most watched television program in history, and included an audience made up of both women and men across the country and various age brackets. So, by attempting to advertise to just men, they missed out on more than half of their potential market. The second assumption, I have to hope and pray is not true. I just can't believe that most men hate women. I think they actually like women, and want to be with their wives or girlfriends, which is why they date and/or marry them. So, I am left not simply offended, but perplexed. Who do these adds appeal to and why?

For me, the winner of most offensive/sexist add goes to this gem from Dodge:

However, I am very pleased with this women's response to the orginal add, which is delightful. Now, hear me out: I do not hate men. But I do think it is a witty and well-thought out response. And if nothing else, it shows me I am not alone in hating the machoism of superbowl advertising. Enjoy!