Work.

Last Saturday the Formed group had its monthly gathering to discuss the month's topic. (Follow this link if you're asking any of these questions at this point: "What is Formed?" Why do they gather monthly? Where can I find out more?") This month's topic was "work." Happily, one of the members of Formed is the man to whom I've referred in this blog as Our Glorious Leader, Kevin Rains, who owns a body shop, Center City Collision. Where better to discuss the concept of "work" than a place set aside for the fixing of cars, yes?
Kevin started us out with a short but meaty reflection on the place of work in Scripture. He pointed out that in the beginning God worked--the first passages of Scripture record God's six days of Creation. Because we believe in three Persons in one God, and that wherever one member of the Trinity is, the others are as well, we know Creation was the work of a community of artists.
Kevin also talked about order and chaos. He mentioned that in the Message, Peterson calls chaos "a soup of nothingness." The Spirit of God broods like a bird over this abyss--note this, Kevin said; God is not mired in the muck. He asked (he meant to ask rhetorically, but most of us raised our hands!), "How many of you sometimes feel mired in chaos when you work?"
The God who spoke light into existence can and will strengthen us if we ask. We should not forget work is hard, though. Our task as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, Kevin said, is to help bring order out of chaos. And good golly there's a lot of chaos out there. But discouragement and despair won't help. Kevin said he tried to frame work in this way, and it sounded to me like a useful prod to keep on keepin' on: "If you didn't do the work you do--if no one did the work you do--what would happen?"
The actual talk on Saturday was a discussion with Chuck Proudfit, Greg York and Robert Lockridge, who each first spoke on their own and then did a roundtable with questions. But if I do all the talking here, I wouldn't be engaged in creative work with a community of artists, so if someone else who was there wants to chime in about the rest of the day, this would be welcomed.

On Prayer, with Mary Laymon

Just got back (literally, like seconds ago) from a gathering downstairs at the Speckled Bird. It was a Formed gathering. (By the way, I love living in a hyperlinked world. Cuts down on the amount of space I take up explaining things. Go find out what Formed is and then come back.)
Mary Laymon spoke on the month's focus, prayer. She loves talking about prayer, and I love listening to people talking about what they love. Some thoughts, random but may give a taste of the experience of being there:
--Prayer can, and has, saved lives. "Save"--we talked about how "save" can mean "To heal and make whole."
--The voice of God is within all of us.
--It takes time and practice to learn to hear God's voice. He's quiet. But He is also willing to wait until you are willing to listen.
--If you're an extrovert, and you have a chatty sort of personality, God may chat with you right back, but there are other "languages" in which God may speak to you--it may not just be the classic sort of Inner Voice model. God can speak through songs, through images, through relationships, through dreams, through nature.
--How do we distinguish God's voice from our own voice, or the voices of darkness and destruction? a) God's voice will be congruent with Scripture, so it will direct us toward love of neighbor, love of the poor; following it will also produce the fruits of the Spirit: kindness, gentleness, peace. b) There will be an "echo"--God will be persistent, so we may hear the same message, see the same image, experience the same circumstances, over and over again until we stop and pay attention. c) A key way to check--ALWAYS take what you think you're hearing from God and check it out with a trusted "soul friend" who has some practice discerning God's voice. d) Sometimes you'll only know it's God's voice through hindsight--"oh! That's what God was saying! I should have listened!" or "Gosh, I'm glad I listened!"
--We practiced different prayer methods. We prayed using a picture, asking God to use the image to reveal something to us. Then we had a choice of activities: praying by molding clay without having a preconceived notion of what the clay should look like, praying while walking, praying while studying nature, lectio divina (praying using Scripture), etc. etc.
--To pray, you have to be brave. It's scary to be intimate with God--He wants to transform us. We'll see things in ourselves that aren't so lovely.
--God wants to heal us not just for our own sake but so that we can be a blessing to others.
--If you go are willing to trust God enough to go into a scary place, God can take you back out of it.

Free Veggies

M. parked the box truck on the sidewalk next to St. E's at one o'clock in the afternoon. S. drove up in her car moments later. I could see it all from my window--the produce boxes stacked five high or more in the back of the truck, S. chatting with curious local folk.
S. works for an outreach at a church in the Cincinnati suburbs. They'd gotten a huge donation of veggies, way more than they could distribute, so she'd offered to take it here to Norwood where she knew the need was also great. Plus, she knew she could recruit people to do drive-by veggie drop-offs to friends and strangers.
All told, she'd brought half a pallet of potatoes, cucumbers and yellow squash--enough to justify the use of a moving van.
I came down from my apartment in time to see most of the potatoes go. There had only been a few sacks of those--nothing like the boxes upon boxes of squash and cucumbers. Local Vineyard folk showed up on bike, in cars, on foot, to take what they could carry and share it round. S. called or texted others she knew who hadn't shown up just so they wouldn't miss out.
When cars would pass, she'd shout like a carnival barker: "FREE SQUASH AND CUCUMBERS!" Many cars slowed and parked in response, and many a box disappeared from the truck via this method. Other cars' windows were rolled up, the drivers protected by a/c from the scorcher of a Saturday. I amused myself wondering what they made of the scene--a woman yelling something unheard, surrounded on all sides by produce. S. got me to put a notice on the chalkboard outside of church: "FREE VEGGIES." That ought to have cleared up some confusion.
I brought out some grocery bags I had stockpiled so people wouldn't have to take a whole box if they couldn't use veggies in bulk. After a few folk had made use of this option, S. said to me, "We're running out of bags." I played Elijah and assured her, "The bags aren't going to run out." Sure enough, M., another Vineyard bud from down the street, soon offered to bring bags from her house's stockpile.
S. works with a Hispanic ministry; she was occasionally switching off yelling "FREE SQUASH AND CUCUMBERS!" to its Spanish equivalent. Doing this caught the attention of a fella who was headed to a church in Northern Kentucky, a Hispanic outreach one hundred members strong. We sent him on his way with eight boxes or so. "God provides!" S. told him cheerfully in Spanish.
We were never overwhelmed with a horde of people all at once, but folks came in a steady stream. We heard the word was spreading through the neighborhood--squash-and-cucumber recipients passing the news on to people on their front stoops. My friend D. and I went knocking on doors to see if a delivery might be welcome.
By three o'clock the box truck was empty, and S. was beaming.
At Mass the next day, when the priest came to Jesus' words, "Take this, all of you, and eat it," I heard S.'s voice ringing loud and clear, "FREE...!"

Jesus Christ Superstar, Version originale Française

Today I can follow my Lenten observance and practice my French; such a deal! Greg sent the first French production--from 1972. Can't help but wonder how JCS sounded to citizens of a country notoriously conflicted about its Christian past. What part of the story resonated most? It's bringing to mind stories my friend Anca told about growing up in Romania at the height of its Communist culture. We've been chatting about the books that could come in to the country in those days, like Polish author Zenon Kosidowski's Povestiri biblice (Biblical Stories), where anything supernatural is taken out of the accounts. How is one's view of Jesus affected if you only hear about the human side of his personality?
My understanding is that the Jesus of Jesus Christ Superstar was intended to be fully human, not at all divine. I don't know if the writers succeeded in portraying Him this way, because I listen to these songs coming from a different place theologically. I know some folks found JCS sacrilegious when it came out, and some still do. I don't share this viewpoint (or I wouldn't be spending my Lent listening to it). Preachers preached against Handel's Messiah when it came out, so, you know, "sacrilegious" is in the eye of the beholder.
Besides. If the very name of Jesus has power, as is claimed in the songs I sing most Sundays, couldn't other intentions get subverted once that name is invoked? Was it a smart move on the part of the Romanians to let in Biblical stories, de-miracled or no?

Advent, Active Waiting, Love of God and Love of Neighbor

At some point I read a story which illustrated the concept of "active waiting." It seems there was a woman who desperately wanted to have a baby. She decided that there were some things she could do to become a better mother, if and when the time came, and she didn't have to wait until she was pregnant to get started on them. So she quit smoking, she got more exercise, she read parenting books, she sought to improve her relationship with her husband. By the time she did have a baby, the baby was incorporated into a well-integrated life--it was not the be-all and end-all of her life; it wasn't an idol, as it might have been had she not done all that preparation.
I like the idea of "active waiting," particularly in Advent. One of the practices I have taken from the idea is the practice of asking more advice, soliciting more opinions, about whatever it is I am actively waiting for.
This Advent I have decided to actively wait for wholeness. From what I understand of Christian teaching, the two commands we are to follow are to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Wholeness would spring from these. So because I like to solicit opinions as I actively wait, I've been asking around: "What does 'love God/love neighbor' look like to you?"
Some of the responses I've gotten so far:
--One person remembered how it used to be common for people to bow their heads or tip their hats when they'd pass a church. Now this person bows--just a quick li'l head bob, nothing fancy, but it's always packed with personal meaning--upon meeting anyone for the first time.
--One person said "love your neighbor" meant something quite concrete: "love the people living right by your house."
--Still another said that the "love God" part of the command could be fulfilled by doing the "love your neighbor" part. And that the secret to the latter command was in actions like cooperation, apologizing when wrong, matching talents to needs.
So I'm throwing the question out there. What does "love God/love your neighbor" look like in your own life? Do you have any specific practices that flow from these commands that you can recommend to someone who wants to get better at them?

The Joshua Tree

The Joshua Tree album just turned 20 this past week. I've been celebrating by playing my tape of it (actually my brother's tape--I stole it from him back in '91) in my car. I've been listening the way I used to listen to albums--over and over and over, letting the auto-flip take me from Side A to Side B to Side A.
I never noticed before how Lenten this album is, and wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't found out it was released this time of year (as Pop was (ten years later, less one week).
I mean, sure, it's got lots of desert imagery, but it's got a lot of wind and rain too. But that's what my Lenten experience is usually like--these forty days are storm season. "In the howling wind/Comes a stinging rain," indeed. And geez, try to count how many references to crosses there are in these songs! I wonder how they'll sound during Holy Week? (Especially "With Or Without You." Imagine that as one of the Seven Words from the Cross.)
I'd forgotten how much I love "Red Hill Mining Town." It's such a pure listening experience--there's no overlaying of memories of hearing it in concert or on the radio; I have no personal connection to the lyrics; I know nothing about the miners' strike that inspired it. But of course I also love listening to the songs that have layers and layers of meaning added to them, like "Where the Streets Have No Name." I can hear something different in that one every time. In Lent, I hear more longing in it than fulfillment. "The city's a flood"--a forty-day flood, by any chance?
Things have been busy at the 'Bread--grant season. Sent out a request for bananas today. We're having an ice cream social in early May; thought banana splits might be nice.