Pentecost!

[This article was originally written for Windows Into Zion, the newsletter for Zion Mennonite Church in Broadway, VA.]

It’s Pentecost today.  I woke up earlier than normal with a mission to start off the day.  A few friends and I have collaborated now twice to pull together squares of knitted and crocheted yarn to affix to random places in our neighborhood.  We installed our first “yarn bomb” on Easter, so it seemed only appropriate that our second be on Pentecost.

The sky was ablaze with oranges and pinks as I walked outside of our home where Justin and I live with six other people.  A London sunrise is always welcome – we’re never sure if we will see the sun on a given day.  At 5 a.m. there are a few people out.  Some are just getting home from being out all night, and some are leaving to go to work.  A city like London doesn’t sleep, and the moments are few when there’s stillness.

A sign of things to come...

 My friend and I reached our destination:  a bus bench outside of a notoriously smelly fish store.  Within five minutes, we had stretched the panel of misshapen and multi-colored pieces around the long bench, securing it together with cable ties.  We attached our signature “You Are Beautiful” sign, snapped a few pictures and headed away.

The challenge in a city that is constantly “on” is to sneak moments into people’s lives, causing them to smile in surprise.  Yarn bombing, for some, has that affect.  (For others, it’s likely seen as a bit of an eyesore.)  Especially on Pentecost, we are reminded that the Spirit moves – sometimes in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.  Our call is to respond to the inspiration that arises, and to seek out where we might be motivated to perform these random acts of kindness/art/prophetic witness.

Like Music to My Ears

Over the past year, Justin and I have cracked open our piggy banks several times to invest in some soul-nourishing music.  The first event, for our 3^rd anniversary, we hung out with a bunch of Baby Boomers and listened to Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers.*  While I was greatly impressed and moved by the lyrics and tunes the band played, I was probably more impressed by how evident it was that all the women present were madly in love with Steve Martin and giggled profusely whenever he opened his mouth to speak.

The second event was spent with my old bakery compatriots, guffawing through our own love/lust relationship with one Elizabeth Cook, our favourite Sirius radio DJ (M-F, 10-2 on Outlaw Country.)  Not sure how you can pack such musical ferocity and salty, Southern wit into a body that small.

The third evening was truly one for my history books – an Australian artist, long a favourite of mine, finally came to tour in the U.S.  I specially purchased a cowgirl hat for the night spent in the shadow of Kasey Chambers, grinning like the Mad Hatter when her country legend father Bill Chambers complimented the hat.

Last evening, perhaps as part of our 4^th anniversary celebration, we set off to hear none other than Emmylou Harris sing for two and a half hours in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where we were taking a quick holiday.  After bemoaning earlier last week that one thing I missed from home was country music, finding out that she was going to be playing at the very place we were going to be was a gem of a find.

Taking pictures was not actually allowed, but I did what I could sans flash.

These nights for me are transformative.  Last night, listening to the music, I remembered the first time I really started to listen to Emmylou.  My mom and I were driving out to Albuquerque after I had graduated from university, and I had gone to the library before leaving to get some new music to play along the way.  That move marked a real transition into “adulthood” (whatever that is…), and the joy and pain of that time flooded back last night when she sang Red Dirt Girl.

Not only has music often marked major events in my life, I find it also inspires me to think more critically about where I draw energy from, and about what thoughts or ideas have been ruminating in my soul, but need to get out.  Particular songs have often helped me put words to my emotions, much like a fine artist might find in looking at another’s artwork, or a reader might find in another’s memoirs.  (Chocolate is also helpful for inspiration.)

Sometimes the monetary expense of such luxurious evenings seems unjustifiable…but, then I remember that Mary Magdalene also poured a year’s worth of wages onto Jesus’ feet.  Moments of true peace and joy and worship can have no price attached, though they are also not for us to hoard. 

We share our music, our art, our food, our words because they are too much for us to contain.

*And so, if you feel so led, links offered as windows into where I find joy...

Too busy to read this?

[In case you’ve been disappointed at the lack of posts in the last week and a half, rest assured that I wrote several that were deemed too ranty and non-publishable by my in-house editor.]

One of the marks of “modern society” is the idea of busyness.  Within our work at church, we hear so many people remark how busy they are, too busy to do things at times.  I struggle against that mentality, being a lover of work myself.  But what happens when the things we “work” on in an attempt to gain meaning in our lives, ends up taking over our lives, demeaning us as human beings? 

In a resource published by the United Reformed Church, I read an article by Christopher Jamison, a Benedictine monk, in which he states, “Life is busy but many of us speak as though ‘being busy’ is a force beyond our control.”

I’m surprised how often we feel like we can justify our absences, our apathy, our superficial relationships with our self-important busyness that is “out of our hands.”  This then, I think, relates to our inability to be mentally, spiritually, emotionally present wherever we find ourselves physically.

I struggle with these issues myself – of wanting to find meaning in our work as “Community Hosts,” but to avoid the urge to fill all my time so there is no Sabbath.  During one somewhat trying time in my life, a wise person once told me, “This is your life.”  These moments musn’t be taken for granted.  Annie Dillard says something to the effect of, “The way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives.”

As this is the human struggle, we must find balance in finding meaning in the way we spend our days so we live the one life we have with a sense of pride that we chose relationships over money, environment over exploitation, peace over a fragile sense of self-worth.

Mini-sermon over for the day. :)