Wednesday, November 30, 2016

The Peaceable Kingdom

 The Peaceable Kingdom aka Isaiah  Isaiah 11:1-9. Even if you're not religious, you've probably heard some of these verses.

The wolf shall live with the lamb.

The leopard shall lie down with the kid.

The lion shall eat straw like the ox.

Your basic predators and prey chilling together.

For fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the line "and a little child shall lead them" should some familiar. Except in that one it was a child-turned-vampire who was called the Chosen One. He looked all sweet and lovable, but he was a bringer of destruction. Which was a great crescendo as part of the end of that first season, but theologically pretty much the opposite of Isaiah's vision.

The popular culture thing that best fits Isaiah's vision is the movie, Zootopia. In the beginning the children act out a history play of how it was and how it now is.



Like the best of children's movies, it's enjoyable for little ones while providing adults with a story that works on multiple levels. The animals claim that they all live in harmony, but under the surface (and not very far under), there's prejudice about what skills predators have (and don't have) and what skills prey have (and don't have). Questions about who is safe and who is unsafe. Making sweeping statements like, "All predators are untrustworthy," realize you're talking to a predator and follow it up with, "But you're not like other predators." Maybe things aren't the utopia they appear to be. Maybe the idea that "anyone can be anything' is said to placate but isn't really meant.

But Judy Hops won't give up on either her big picture ideal of justice for all or the specific idea that she as a rabbit and Nick as a fox can be true friends without caveats. When she realizes she's been wrong, she apologizes.

The Isaiah of chapter 11 was prophesying at a time when Israel had split into Israel and Judah. When there was constant conflict. Battles to reunite, battles to stay separate. Isaiah imagined a time of unity, not through force and conquest, but through righteousness and faithfulness. Not a peace reached by papering over problems but by seeking and working for a peace as deep and wide as God's seas.

The visions of Isaiah and of Zootopia remind us where we are and where we want to be. As for me, I'm going to channel my inner Judy Hops this Advent.

Monday, November 21, 2016

Christ the King - Safety Pins and the Cross



May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit who dwells among us. 

Over the past couple of weeks a bit of a movement started. It’s one in which people pin a safety pin to their shirt the way they might pin a broach or a tie tack. The idea is that in wearing a pin you are announcing that you are a safe person to those who feel unsafe. People who feel unsafe because they’ve been bullied. Maybe because of their sexual orientation, or their race, or their country of origin - or what other perceive to be their country of origin, of for other reasons people feel unsafe. 

So from a place of good will, people having taken to wear or to having as their online icon a safety pin.  

And then, understandably, it was pointed out that while it’s a lovely idea, for those who are frequently facing bullying and discrimination, a pin on its own will not assure a vulnerable person that you are safe. What will assure a person that you are safe is because you act safe. That you act with kindness, that when you see someone being harassed, you step in and stand up, saying the behavior is not acceptable. 

Which is a super good point. It’s a shift from understanding the safety pin as something you wear that others have to respond or you wear it as a reminder of how you choose to be that day – a challenge to yourself to BE the safe person you want the world to have. 

Pretty quickly I began to see parallels in my mind between wearing a safety pin and wearing a cross. 

It got me asking myself, “Why do we as Christians wear a cross?” 

Traditionally I’d say we wear a cross to as a way of identifying ourselves as Christians – to each other and to the world. The cross you wear announces “This is a follower of Christ.” 

Perhaps in the very earliest years of the Christian church it was discreet way of recognizing one of your own when out in public, when being a Christian wasn’t considered acceptable. 

Perhaps in those early years it was an act of bravery. Before Constantine made Christianity the religion of the land, to wear a cross was to risk being outed as someone who didn’t kneel to the Emperor – and might be jailed for it. 

But as time has done on, wearing a cross, at least in our country, has lost any element of danger. For a while in the 90s I remember when wearing a cross, particularly really oversized crosses, was a fashion statement, completely separate from being a faith statement. 

If you chose, you can wear a cross as a necklace or a pin. You can openly identify as a Christian and you know what that means for you.


“So what does it mean to wear a cross in the light of Christ the King Sunday?” 

On a Sunday like today we are reminded that our Christ is one who forgives – even forgiving those who are literally killing him. 

We are reminded that our Christ is one who is willing to die for our sins so that we may have life. 

We are reminded that our Christ is one who includes even criminals in his kingdom.

Our Christ, whose death and resurrection we remember by the empty cross we wear.

But what do others experience when they see the cross we wear? 

For some, it is reassuring. It represents people who build hospitals and provide care to all who enter. It represents schools were all are educated. It represents food, water, shelter, and emotional care in the wake of natural disasters.

But for others, seeing a cross is less than reassuring. It is a sign of violence. Crosses have been burned in the yards of people of color as a threat that they will be burned next if they stay and continue to expect to be treated as equal human beings. People wearing crosses are the ones who picket funerals, blaming everything from natural disasters to wars. If they thought they could get traction, they’d blame speed limits and gas prices on gay, lesbian, and transgender people. People wearing crosses are vocal about limiting rights of those who are not Christians in the way they are. 

For many, the Christian cross creates anxiety. 

We live in a time where we can’t simply wear a cross and assume that those who see it will see us as safe people, as forgiving people, as grace filled people, as inclusive people. To people who have been harmed by other Christians, we can’t say, “We’re different, trust us!”

What we can do is to see that cross we wear as more than an announcement of our faith, a claim of our bona fides. 

Like with the safety pins, wearing it is not enough, we are called to live into it. What if when you wear a cross you do so with a remembrance of your baptism promise – to work for peace and justice in all the world – every day. To be kind to all, remembering that there’s likely struggles in their lives that you know nothing about. To step in and step up when you see others being hurt and harassed. 

Last but not least, when you see the cross, when you wear a cross, be reminded that YOU are claimed by Christ. In an uncertain world, this cross is a reminder of your king – a king who loves every last person in his kingdom, including and most especially you. May that cross be your constant reminder that YOU are madly and thoroughly loved by your God.    

Amen, amen. Thanks be to God.

Monday, March 7, 2016

33 in 33, part 2

And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.   Matthew 6:28-29

I had no idea the tights matched!
These are the pants I hemmed.
It's been a couple weeks since I started the 33 in 33 challenge - and I know folks having been dying to hear how it's been going. Remarkably well. Weirdly I've found myself putting more thought into a combination, but not in a stressful way. More like a fun puzzle. 
Butterfly jacket I mended.
Good call with the jeans, Kel.
However there has been one downside. Taking selfies. I've never really been one for them. And I now have a new admiration for those who are so good at taking a good selfie in a mirror. We won't talk about the number of deleted pics in the mix.

This leads to my semi-embarrassing confession. I bought a selfie stick. Not exactly the side effect of this project that I was expecting.  (And this is the most pictures of me and only me in one place since my high school graduation party!)

Two items in the mix are ones that I hadn't worn in over a year because they needed mending. What a different a half hour of mending makes for usefulness!

Honest, it looked better in RL.
Fav skirt from In the Moment Boutique.
When I was originally picking my 33 items, the paring down took thought. I wasn't terribly worried that I wouldn't have enough to wear, but it was still hard. The originator of this idea had one thing right - people generally don't pay attention to what one wears.
 
I've actually been more put together than I normally am, and no one I work with has said a thing. Already I'm forgetting what combinations I'd put together already and which ones I hadn't.


Black on black for Lenten Wed.
Best sweater ever.
And after the difficulty of getting to my version of 33, which had pretty generous rules, perhaps it's not surprising that I find I still have two shirts, a sweater, and a couple scarves I haven't yet used.

Those five yet unworn items have me thinking. What are all the things I think I can't live without? Are the things I worry about really worth worrying about? Can I trust there is enough? Can I trust that in God I am enough, regardless of the things I gather (or don't gather) around me?

Here's a combo with the collar.
Scarf redux.


The blue & brown collection.


Tuesday, February 16, 2016

33 in 33, the Lent Edition



A friend pointed me to this blog Be More with Less. The most recent point was about creating a Wardrobe Capsule. The idea is to cull down to 33 items for 3 months (the rest go into storage while giving this a go). Courtney Carver’s rules for herself is that the 33 involved “clothing, shoes, outerwear, jewelry and accessories. [She doesn’t] count underwear, sleepwear, or workout/sports clothes.”

I was intrigued. Specifically what Carver learned and shared from previous 3 month stints. I nodded in agreement with how that “one more thing” isn’t going to make everything perfect. How, for her, fewer items to choose from actually translates to less stress and anxiety.

Particularly during Lent (which it is right now), I like to mull over and act on the idea that often the things we gather around us often create distance between ourselves and God. That the more stuff we have, the more we are convinced that just a bit more will make us happy. But it doesn’t. It makes me wonder if perhaps in having less, I can free myself for deeper thoughts, a deeper prayer life, and deeper relationships. 

So I decided to do a variation in this, as there are about 33 non-Sunday days in Lent. So it’s a 33 for 33 thing. I liked her general rules for what doesn’t count. Although given my particular situation as a pastor, I didn’t include in the count any clothing that is designed to hold a clergy collar, as it’s really not practical outside of worship. I also decided to be generous with myself and not worry about including footwear, earrings, or belts (though it’s super rare I ever wear a belt anyway).

I followed the like to her help-get-started posts with making piles. My container piles consisted of:
1) It fits and I like/love it, 
2) It doesn’t quite fit or I like-it-but-not-sure-I-still-should (which is a little different from her 2nd category), 
3) Doesn’t fit at all and/or isn’t my style so donate, 
4) Beyond repair so toss/turn into rags, etc.

I then added two other categories of my own: 
5) Wrong season (which I suppose is implied with the every-3-month change over, and 
6) Needs mending/hemming. My Rubbermaid multi-gallon totes worked great for this. 

One of the tough parts was trying clothes on and acknowledging how many things didn’t really fit and how many other items really, really didn’t fit. Sidenote: changes in medication are rarely kind when it comes to weight (at least in my experience). So there were things that I set aside for now, as I think it’s reasonable to think that some not-quite-fits may fit again as certain things in my world get balanced out. 

But there were other things – nearly a whole tote’s worth - where I decided they were just too small. Might they fit in the future? There’s a possibility. But I decided it mattered to me to be present now and not clutching at an “ideal” that really isn’t what an ideal is all about. If others would benefit from the clothes, all the better.

It was probably for the best that this happened over the course of two days – a couple hours on Saturday and a couple hours on Sunday. Then the final decisions, mending, and refilling of my closest happened on my day off, Monday.

The good news was that my mend pile didn’t have that many things, but at least a couple of them were things I’d been meaning to do something about for probably a year plus. So I did. We’ll see how well my use of been-in-sewing-kit-forever stitch witchery holds! It felt good to stop saying, “I gotta do something with that… someday” and instead just do it. That was even true of a zipper where the fabric had frayed, I tried to fix it, didn't work, and I had to put them in category 4. It was good to stop dithering and decide.

My initial box of 1s was well over 50 items. As I moved them to the bed, there were a few non-winter season clothes that I moved to container 5. What got to the bed was 49 items:
2 dresses
2 skirts
6 pants/jeans
16 shirts
2 vests
10 sweater jackets
11 scarves





After a few rounds of culling and considering what went with what, I made it down to 33:
1 dress
2 skirts
6 pants/jeans
11 shirts
2 vests
6 sweater jackets
5 scarves
It’s really too many pairs of jeans, but when a pair inevitably ends up in the laundry, I need a spare pair (or two…) I’ll admit, they are comfort clothing in they way coffee is my go-to comfort beverage. It might be an imperfect collection, but it's a start. 

Also, I would not say my closet had been crazy packed, but I am amazed how different my closet now looks How much easier it is to see what I’m working with, particularly accessorizing with. It’s a great feeling.

So though I’m not really started, I do feel a great sense of accomplishment in getting to this point. It’s a feeling that was worth the discomfort of the middle part with the culling of what didn’t fit and how that felt, as well as accepting the reality of the occasion purchase that fits but never quite felt right when worn. And now that those previously ignored truths have been faced, I feel lighter and ready to move forward.