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. :)

Eating Sausage with Gentiles

I never knew this, but apparently some of the early Anabaptists were universalists.  Though this might shock the pants off of some modern-day Mennonites, I honestly feel a little relieved.

I'm in the middle of writing the meditation for this week's church service, and after a very intense conference this past weekend on interfaith dialogue, I have really struggled to piece together what I believe and how I sense the Spirit, with what my perceptions (rightly or wrongly) the congregation here is willing to hear.  I don't want to offend, but I also don't want to lie... So there is and was a tension of wondering if what I believe to be "true" is acceptable within the Church.

Back at the conference, I certainly felt supported in my universalist thoughts, because it is hard to, after hearing someone's faith journey (when they are not Christians), think that shalom is not extended to all people.  But then, I started reading the lectionary passages for the week, and could sense the conflict building within me...if Jesus is significant in comparison to other faiths, shouldn't belief in him trump all?  Or, can we believe that Jesus, yes, is quite significant, offers a distinct message...but that others who do not follow his path can also fall within Grace?  I tend to think the latter, but I would guess that the better part of the Christian church would disagree (because thinking of someone you dislike of having to deal with "fire and brimstone" can be soothing....)

One of the passages this week is the story of Peter in Acts, where he has a vision in which a blanket is lowered with all the non-kosher animals on it, and after The Voice tells him to kill and eat them, Peter's response is something like, "Dude, you know I don't touch that stuff.  I am a law-abiding citizen."  But The Voice tells him to do it a second time.  Then a third.  Once the light has come on for Peter, he then gets to explain to his Jew friends why he then ended up eating sausages with Cornelius, a Gentile (gasp!).  "God loves us all the same, y'all," Peter says.  Word.

And, so my meditation centers back on Shalom, which is for all people.  I've read that every preacher (or teacher or rabbi or person or whatever...) has one message and that they end up preaching the same sermon (though, hopefully from the audience's perspective, with different examples.)  I think I'm ending up with Shalom Is For All Who Desire It...which I kinda like, though may be quite controversial for others (which boggles my mind.)

Hans Denck, one of those crazy hippie early Anabaptists, wrote that God "speaks clearly in everyone, in the deaf, dumb, and blind, even in unreasoning beasts, even in leaves and grass, stone and wood, heaven and earth, and all that is in them, that they may hear and do His will."  Change "His" to "the Divine's" and you might be surprised how many faiths would resonate with it...Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Paganism, etc.  Something to think about.

Can you name them?

Mindfulness in the City

It's been one of those weeks.  Started out with a stomach virus that left me weak and bedridden for days (mostly better now) on top of the busyness that comes with hosting a visitor (though highly enjoyed it was!)  We were talking with our visitor, Julian, about mega-rich people at some point, and he brought up someone who, long-story-short, he came into contact with (because of their mega-richness) at (one of) their home(s) which was called something to the tune of Mindfulness Institute.  Julian talked about one of the exercises he was meant to do as a part of a course at this place.  Sent out across the estate to "explore," the participants were instructed to be mindful of the grass they walked on, to deliberate on the sounds and smells, etc.

These sorts of exercises are great, and I do appreciate them.  I was left pondering, though, how mindfulness works for me in this city setting, where mindlessness seems rampant.  It helped, then, that I promptly became sick and spent hours on the futon, too sick to do much more than think.

1.  Mindfulness is knowing which blocks in the sidewalk are loose, and either anticipating the uneven footstep or stepping around the block.

2.  Mindfulness is taking a second to be still in prayer/thought when hearing an ambulance siren as it speeds down your street to the hospital, knowing that that sound means someone's life is in the midst of being profoundly changed.  Even in a city where those sirens seem constant...

3.  Mindfulness is hearing an adolescent girl pass by on the sidewalk outside the house, thinking at first she is whining to her parent(s), but then waiting to hear that she is actually saying, "Pleeease, sunlight, pleeease!"  Amen, sister.

4.  Mindfulness is knowing when to start holding your breath as you pass the fish store to avoid gagging as you walk by. 

I believe we must attempt to be mindful regardless of where we are -- in the middle of a sprawling, pristine estate or in the heart of a bustling neighborhood, rife with injustice.  It brings us closer to knowing who we are, and why we are, as individuals and as a people.

Day trip to Brighton...wind-whipped and misty.

Technology

We are preparing for our first visitor to arrive today!  What a treat!

I'm continually amazed at how life at this point in time is so different than even 20 years ago, in terms of technology and ability to travel.  No more do "missionaries" (which we do not call ourselves) expect to have to say final goodbyes when moving abroad.  No more do (most) letters take a month to cross an ocean and arrive at someone's door.  No more do families hunker around the kitchen phone for the once-a-month/year phone call where the delay in conversation, as the sound travels between one country to the other, means you end up spending more money on silence than you did on talk.  Communication has become cheap with Skype/Gchat and cell phone plans with international options.  A visit like the one we're about to have was scheduled a couple weeks ago (granted, he is single so he can up and leave), not months or even years ago as yesteryear might have experienced.

I'm sure I'm dramatizing this much more than what 20 years ago actually looked like...but, truly, this instant worldwide communication is dramatic.  It sometimes seems unnatural or uncanny. 

Part of that discomfort is why I don't widely use Facebook.  The idea that I have to pretend to be "friends" with someone I haven't seen in years or talked to in years just seems preposterous.  I think of it more as Gossipbook and I'msoawesomebook and Lookatwhatmykiddrew/said/whateverbook.

Do I sound mean?  It's because I am.

Anyway, yeah, technology.  Perhaps my religious heritage is causing me to harken to the ways that these changes in communication are not necessarily for the betterment of society...not to say that I don't enjoy keeping in close touch with family and friends who are far away, but rather understanding how significant it is, in fact, to keeping a firm grasp on being present here and now.  We are keeping up with technology, perhaps, but I don't believe that we, as human beings, are keeping up with our basic needs for tangible community, discerning thought (who needs to think about what to say when you can post it instantly on twitter?), and meaningful engagement with nature.

With that, I have a few emails to catch up on...(i.e. I am not perfect.)

Random.

I've been pondering all week what to write about.  Not sure if it was a result of the grey weather we had for most of the week, but my thinking also felt cloudy and sluggish.  I don't feel like I've had any profound thoughts or probing issues I've been mulling over.  Or, maybe, after the excitement of Holy Week, with multiple church services and the installation of a yarn bomb, this week felt both like a let-down and a sigh of relief.  A "boring" week, but a week of recovery no less.

Lots of Plane trees in the park.

This morning, I walked down to Victoria Park.  It was my first time there, and I really just skirted along the outside, as it was not my final destination (gasp! sacrilege!)  The green space coupled with the walk got me to thinking about how, very early in the process of us considering service in London, I was watching (somewhat vigorously) the old show, All Creatures Great and Small.  (I grew up reading all the James Herriot books, so knew the quaint "charm" I was getting into by investing significant amounts of time in the show.)  I really have no idea where I'm going with this...except, it's a great show and you should watch it in the winter.  It will also help prepare you for life in rural England.

After Victoria Park, I got severely lost and walked a couple miles out of the way.  I had a map (yes, one made out of paper, not a screen!), but unfortunately, I was not on the map.  At least, I don't think I was -- there were several times I didn't see street signs, so I really have no idea where I was.  But, sometimes taking the long way round means you see some new things.

I was trying to make it to Broadway Market, where I learned that whoopie pies sell (apparently) for £3/$4.50 each.  (I say apparently because there were a lot there, and I didn't see anyone buy any.)

I also didn't buy one, mainly because according to the Great British Class Calculator, I can't afford them.  I rank 6th lowest out of 7, in the sector known as "Emergent Service Worker."  Sounds about right.  I expect to continue to emerge.  For a long time.

Do you see what I mean when I say my thinking is cloudy?  You're welcome.