I have a hard time winding down. My mind is usually juggling a number of things all at once: replaying a conversation over here, working on my sermon over there, considering this or that idea for school on this side, and thinking about what needs done at home over on that side. This is probably how it is for everyone, but I often find that the many layers of activity going on in my head become so noisy that it’s hard to actually hear and see what’s happening right in front of me. I literally have a hard time seeing things the more jammed full I get. It’s not unusual to find myself anticipating the next task, the next meeting, the next what-have-you, while I’m in the middle of something else. I really don’t like this about myself and so one of the things I’m working on is paying attention to when I start anticipating something else. Why did I just remove myself from this situation and start focusing on something else? What causes it? How do I slow down and be present with the situation at hand, etc. » Read the rest of this entry «
Six Months With a Quaker Preacher Project
January 10th, 2010 § 12
As you may have noticed it’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged with much passion, or interest. This isn’t necessarily a problem, things like this come and go, and in the grand scheme of things this blog is inconsequential. Where it becomes a concern for me is that I really enjoy writing and have always felt I process best when I write (now this is different than thinking I’m a good writer, which I do not. I just realize that I processor outwardly more than I do inwardly). This staleness isn’t surprising to me given the fullness of life right now and I don’t need anymore projects, that is unless it’s something that will actually be something I find enjoyable and restful. So I’ve decided to share my life as a minister in daily posts here for the next six months.
Since starting back into ministry this past May, I’ve wrestled with WHAT to write here. Besides not having much time, I’ve wondered what is appropriate to share and what is not. And let’s be frank, no one wants to hear some guy who has been pastoring for a few months try and give tips on ministry (But then again, I’m the kind of person who won’t read a book about parenting from a person who’s never parented). But this doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working through issues that need to be processed, because I have. Over the last year I’ve been learning how to preach (every week), how to learn and grown into a new community, a town with a history and a small church that’s trying to find its way, how to adopt visions and dreams already in place, what God is calling us to here and now and how to carve out something of a new path that always comes when you add different (and new) people into the mix. » Read the rest of this entry «
A Memorial Service
January 9th, 2010 § 3
Today I did my second memorial service as the pastor at Camas Friends. The first was just a couple months ago and was for a lady I’d never met. But this time it was different. It was for the husband of one of our long-time attenders. He himself hadn’t been a part of our meeting, but the church had been praying for his health and trying to help his wife with things as needs arose. He was 69 and died from a battle with an aggressive form of Parkinson’s. What was really tragic about it was how fast his health declined (about 4 years since he was diagnosed).
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to funerals/memorial services (it’s probably a good thing, right?). I was able put to good use a minister’s manual I’ve co-opted from the Mennonites (until I can convince some Quaker ministers to write one for us – and I have been trying). The manual itself was one a dear friend, and one of our pastors, from Pasadena Mennonite used regularly (If it’s good enough for Jennifer, it’s good enough for me). It is times like this that that I have very little interest in trying to wing something or pull really off-the-cuff prayers, etc. I think it’s really important to be grounded in something deeper, some practices, Scripture readings and prayers that people have been doing and saying for a long time. Death is serious for those of us in the church. I think there’s comfort in that and I think God is in that too, or at least can be. The part I found really powerful was the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” said during the committal. » Read the rest of this entry «
What is the Quaker Peace Testimony?
January 4th, 2010 § 1
Here are my notes from Sunday’s sermon.
This month we are discussing what is now known as the Quaker peace testimony, but was, interestingly, called the “testimony against war,” up until about the turn of the 20th century. This morning we’re going to have a small group discussion about statements on the peace testimony from various Quaker yearly meetings [you can download the handout we used here]. I wanted to do this because it helps to stress the point that “testimonies” are formed in community and so why not discuss them in community? In other words, the peace testimony is an isolated idea a few people came up with but is a conviction that is interwoven into the fabric of our tradition. We will also see there is a diversity on how to understand it. » Read the rest of this entry «
One Take On the Importance of the Quaker Practice of “Open Worship”
December 22nd, 2009 § 3
Adrian Halverstadt, a Quaker pastor, asks this question on the QuakerQuaker forum boards:
I have been thinking a lot about open worship these days. Many of the larger evangelical Friends churches no longer practice open worship in their big venues for many reasons. I guess I am searching for a contemporary definition of open worship and ideas for how other large congregations incorporate their concept of open worship into their weekly big event(s).
What canst thou saith?
Here are my initial thoughts and response that I posted there but thought I’d also put here because I deeply believe that the Quaker way of worship could be beneficial for those of you in other church traditions as well (I’ll be particularly interesting in your thoughts on this subject). » Read the rest of this entry «
Advent Message “Come Be Born in Us” (Luke 1:39-55)
December 21st, 2009 § 2
Today we are three weeks into the advent season preparing for Christ’s coming. Christmas, for Christians, is not simply a remembrance and celebration of history (though it is certainly that), it is more importantly a proclamation of reality. The father of Quakerism, George Fox, wrote in his journal of his present and personal experience of Christ when he said: “Jesus has come to teach the people himself,” meaning that for Christians there is no waiting for the return of Christ is some distance future, Christ is here with us and among us now. When we talk about the Light of Christ, who is the Inward Light, this is what we mean. Therefore, if Christ came two thousand and nine (or so) years ago, then Christ is also born every year at Christmas and he is born in us every time we make the space in our wombs for the divine gestation to take place. » Read the rest of this entry «
A Thought for Quakers on Change
December 16th, 2009 § 2
I am preparing my discussion for our Sunday morning meeting for worship and am thinking a lot about what Kester Brewin calls “wombs of the divine,” and creating the necessary space for something new to be born over time (See his book Signs of Emergence) It’s kind of a preference for evolution rather than revolution, or rather it sees evolution as the slow revolutionary process of change. Then I came across this quote (which mirrors Mark 2:27): “Our structures must serve us, not us serve them.”
This is an appropriate quote for all of us in the church, but especially, I think, for Quakers to observe. With so much discussion recently on whether or not some of our more longstanding institutions, meetings, and publishing outlets up for grabs these days because of smaller numbers, smaller budgets, and less interest or energy. With so many looking at the bottom line, I can’t help but think that we need to step back, stop, and contemplate the point above. What does this really mean for us?
Brewin writes:
“Only if I am still. Only if I have stopped what I was doing to listen and hold my breath and enter some spiritual apnea and wait. The perception of the new step will come only to those brave enough to stop dancing the old. The realization that we must descend this low peak will come only to those prepared to stop and take stock of their position. We fear that if we stopped for a week, a month, a service, a moment, we might be forgotten, or lose our momentum, weaken our profile, appear ill-thought-out and failing. So we feed the ecclesiastic furnaces our burned-out wrecks: tired leaders, disillusioned ministers, fatigued congregations – marshaling them to dance longer, march faster, pray harder, cry loud in earnest for God to come, come, COME and batter our hearts into change.”
What Brewin is essentially calling for is that we return to our own practicing of silent waiting, but with a fresh perspective as to why we are doing it, what we are waiting and hoping for. Or conversely, maybe our stopping and waiting is the opposite of silent waiting, maybe we need to stop with the quiet and really say what is on our hearts and minds. In either case, something needs to give. Who has the courage to stop dancing the old?
Favorite Music of 2009
December 15th, 2009 § 6
Here’s a list of my favorite, or at least most listened to, albums from this past year.
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s self-titled, second album arrived this year and it has been in constant rotation on the record player since it’s arrived. It is seriously one of our daughter’s favorite albums, she loves all the upbeat songs especially. I loved the first album, Ash Wednesday, and listened to it none stop while I was in England for three months. Whenever I listen to that album now I can’t help but remember that time in our lives, Emily was pregnant with our first daughter, and I was studying away at Woodbrooke making great life-long friends. Their sophomore effort is even better than the first, the songs are very diverse, deeply emotional, spiritual and psychological. Do yourself a favor and listen to them. Here’s how:
If you follow this link, you can preview a number of songs on google’s search page.
Here’s a full concert on NPR.
And here are two videos from the new album that are marvelous.
Let’s have an Amazon.com-free Christmas this year
December 13th, 2009 § 41
Recently on twitter I said something I’m sure lost me a few followers, “Let’s make it an amazon free Christmas.” (Though I don’t doubt I say plenty of things on any given day that make people wonder why they associate with me!). But in either case, it’s true, let’s boycott Amazon and every other big corporate chain store this Christmas! This is really how I feel these days. I’m tired of the big company’s crushing all these little local shops. Store after store in our little downtown of Camas is going under and I’ve already mentioned the major bone I have with what Amazon is doing to our independent bookstores. I’ve been boycotting Amazon for all my book buying at least since the time I wrote that post in favor of shopping at places like Fuller Seminary Bookstore, Powell’s books or Abebooks online. But I want to extend this challenge beyond just books to everything that can be purchased on Amazon.com.
One thing I find rather tragic is just how many people Christian bloggers are in bed with Amazon. It’s really surprising that even some of the most alternative thinking folks I know become very mainstream when it comes to getting the cheapest possible books (or other products) they can find, or making money on every book link they have in a post (most often with no disclaimers anywhere).
But I should be up front, I really don’t like any big box stores: Wal-Mart, Target, Whole Foods, you name it (though you will spot me at some of these from time to time, I honestly try and avoid them as much as possible). And I am already boycotting Amazon, so I’m not generally tempted to shop there; I guess this makes my challenge more of an open invitation than a personal one. I started turning against these, what we might call, homogeneous consumption troughs back when I was in high-school back in Alliance Ohio. We watched Wal-Mart move in, and destroy tons of the local businesses in our small town and in my estimation Alliance has never fully recovered (here’s an interesting profile of a woman who worked at that particular store). That one experience left me a little bitter and started me on another path: I start looking for different ways (and places) to spend my money to support businesses I believed in.
Let’s face it Amazon.com is the Wal-Mart of the Web. They are taking over, cutting costs, and helping to finish off whatever is left of small town America. In the film “What Would Jesus Buy?” Rev. Billy has a funeral for small town America next to the Wal-Mart headquarters; I’d be interested in having an online (blog) funeral for the same thing Amazon is doing to local bookstores, music stores, and everybody else they’ve set their sights on (I highly recommend the film).
Of course, one response to my Amazon-free Christmas twitter remark was fair enough: “The people who supply to or work for Amazon don’t need the money?” He’s right, yes, they most certainly do, or at least some of them do. But why not go directly to the company, or person selling the good and cutting the middle person out? Further, do you really need that thing you’re buying from Amazon in the first place? Surely you’re not purchasing most items to benefit the other person, so one of our first questions should always be: do I need to buy this thing in order to have what possessing it promises? I’ve found that so many of the things I really need, I can find used on craigslist, at a garage sale, or from a friend who is no longer using it (church email groups are great for this kind of thing!). And of course there’s the whole “You don’t need to buy a gift to give a gift,” line that Rev. Billy preaches that is about as Gospel as they come. Making gifts are really one of the best ways to go. Why spend a lot of money (or any!) on Christmas, is that what it’s all about?
But then I ran across this post on the lives of Amazon.com workers and things start to look even less favorable for the corporation ironically named after the very thing it is helping to decimate (paper anyone?). Here are some of the conditions reported from warehouses in the UK that the post highlights:
- Warned that the company refuses to allow sick leave, even if the worker has a legitimate doctor’s note. Taking a day off sick, even with a note, results in a penalty point. A worker with six points faces dismissal.
- Made to work a compulsory 10-hour overnight shift at the end of a five-day week. The overnight shift, which runs from Saturday evening to 5am on Sunday, means they have to work every day of the week.
- Set quotas for the number of items to be picked or packed in an hour that even a manager described as ‘ridiculous’. Those packing heavy Xbox games consoles had to pack 140 an hour to reach their target.
- Set against each other with a bonus scheme that penalises staff if any other member of their group fails to hit the quota.
- Made to walk up to 14 miles a shift to collect items for packing.
- Given only one break of 15 minutes and another of 20 minutes per eight-hour shift and told they had to notify staff when going to the toilet. Amazon said workers wanted the shorter breaks in exchange for shorter shifts.
Now certainly this is just one report and doesn’t cover every warehouse they have (though the are lawsuits in the US for some of the same issues), but let’s not lose the point: these are not statistics that should be popping up in the warehouses of such rich corporations like Amazon (the way they do with Wal-Mart, etc). I want to raise a basic question about shopping online: with an even greater amount of anonymity that the Web provides businesses, in what ways are you being careful about the impact of shopping for really cheap things from some other states and countries and how it impacts your local communities (and Does it matter to you?) But also, what about that company’s business practices and how it treats its employees, will you support (i.e. give your money to) a company that treats its employees poorly, runs them into the ground and takes advantage of them? At least with Wal-Mart you can walk in and take a look at how people are being treated, and you can ask the employees how things are going for them. Of course, if we know the answer will we respond? This is generally not the case for our online shopping and Amazon is starting to get in trouble for some of its poor working conditions. Let’s respond this year.
So I reassert my challenge, Let’s have an Amazon.com-free Christmas this year.
[Image from Huffingtonpost.com]
Dowd on (Role) Modeling
December 9th, 2009 § 1
I came across this today while I was doing some back reading from this weekend’s newspaper. It struck me as really insightful:
After the baseball steroid scandal and the disappointing news that Tiger’s a cheetah, as the New York Post headline put it, it’s time to accept that athletes are not role models. They’re just models — for everything from sports drinks to running shoes to razor blades to credit cards to peanut butter to Buicks to Wheaties.
I’ve really not followed the news/gossip about Tiger Woods because honestly I don’t really care. Not that I don’t care about the negative impact this kind of this has on his family and those connected to the scandal, I do, but another celebrity’s shocking fall from stardom is just not that shocking or interesting. I guess I am more bothered by the fact that so much of our news is based on stuff like this.
Yet, when I came across Maureen Dowd’s op-ed article in the Times this evening I was interested in what she had to say. Here she completely strips away the faux moralism we have placed on capitalism. Often “role models” in our culture are simply celebrities, people who live a glamorized life mostly hidden from the public or fabricated in a way to sell a certain kind of lifestyle and look. The only reason we know about most of these people is because they are advertising billboards for this or that brand. If bad news begins to surround them, or they become washed up, they drop completely off the radar. (I recall something like this happening to one of my favorite football players Barry Sanders.) Anyways, the discussion around role models being just models is a good one to have. Even within the church there are some many “celebrities” selling this or that brand, this or that mega-church, this or that latest and greatest book.
Hardly Normal wrote on his twitter the other day:
“unsubscribed to nearly all Christian blogs/news I used to follow bc 1) try to sell me something 2) talk about Sunday or a building more than people.” [i expanded some of his abbreviated text]
This is a sad but very true statement. Will we do anything about it? Do we even care? So I am asking, are we looking up to these consumer (role) models? Are we (The church) producing these kinds of models, or people who value the glitz and glamour and orient themselves around a moral capitalism rather than an actual morality rooted in something beyond themselves and their own brands? If our faith cannot call all of this into question, then we have a good idea what the pecking order really is. Here I am contending that the Christian narrative is powerful enough to undercut all of this, and shed light on what is true (I think Dowd has helped us here), but the Gospel has to be read a part from this kind of faux moral capitalism that we are seeped in. How we do that is certainly up for debate, but that we work together to do it should be an important part of our task.
My Other Blog- Food, Inc. at Camas Friends Church March 28th. All are invited. Wednesday, March 17, 2010
- Beyond the Bullet Wednesday, March 17, 2010
- Help, I'm Being Oppressed Wednesday, March 17, 2010
- New Jubilee Singers Music Wednesday, March 17, 2010
- L At the playground Wednesday, March 17, 2010