Monthly Archives: March 2012

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Friday Link Love

If you haven’t already, check out my previous posts from this week (spiritual genius and mentoring) for additional links.

Onward…

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My friend Susan shared this on Facebook yesterday:

Excellent reminder.

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Showing Death with Humanity and Dignity — New York Times

A photographer in Mexico City documents the effects of Mexican and North American policies on the border region where he was raised. I appreciated this interview about one of his heartbreaking images:

I shot the scene a bunch of different ways, but the way that worked best was just showing it from the front. These people were killed by one single bullet. The woman is far into her pregnancy. The hit man came in from the left-hand side of the car and fired a bullet into the man’s head when they were embracing and killed both of them.

I don’t know. It seemed appropriate as we move into Holy Week.

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Religion for Atheists — Alain de Botton

I know I’ve linked to his work before, but I find it fascinating as an agnostic theist (I don’t know but I believe):

The French atheist and proto-fascist Charles Maurras, an admirer of both Comte and Nietzsche, was an impassioned defender of the Catholic Church. John Stuart Mill - not exactly an atheist but not far off - tried to fuse Comte’s new religion with liberalism. In marrying atheism with very different ethical and political positions, none of these thinkers was confused or inconsistent. Atheism can go with practically anything, since in itself it amounts to very little.

Most people think that atheists are bound to reject religion because religion and atheism consist of incompatible beliefs. De Botton accepts this assumption throughout his argument, which amounts to the claim that religion is humanly valuable even if religious beliefs are untrue. He shows how much in our way of life comes from and still depends on religion - communities, education, art and architecture and certain kinds of kindness, among other things. I would add the practice of toleration, the origins of which lie in dissenting religion, and sceptical doubt, which very often coexists with faith.

Today’s atheists will insist that these goods can be achieved without religion. In many instances this may be so but it is a question that cannot be answered by fulminating about religion as if it were intrinsically evil. Religion has caused a lot of harm but so has science. Practically everything of value in human life can be harmful. To insist that religion is peculiarly malignant is fanaticism, or mere stupidity.

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Language Cop: Christian — The New Republic

In November I introduced a periodic blog feature called “Language Cop” to “keep track of unacceptable words and catchphrases that enter the political dialogue.” In that column I exiled the terms “optics” and “inflection point.” Earlier this month I inveighed against “pivot,” and last week I suggested this euphemism be replaced with a new term, “shake,” in deference to America’s first multiplatform gaffe. Today I banish “Christian ”—not the word itself, but a specific, erroneous usage.

In other words, a usage that implies that Christians are all conservative/fundamentalist. A- to the -men.

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And on a whimsical note:

Frame of Mind - Vimeo

Incredible:

Frame of Mind from Steven Alan on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend. I’ve got a session retreat on tap as well as a visit with my cousin B.

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Needing a Mentor, Being a Mentor

Ah, Generic Stock Photos. Where would blogs be without them.

I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about mentors lately. I thought this article was awesome: Get Ahead with a Mentor Who Scares You:

“You’re the best!” the four American Idol contestants cried to their voice coach Patty after narrowly escaping elimination, “We couldn’t have done it without you!” As they celebrated, I couldn’t help but notice that their hero was the same irascible, no-holds-barred woman who had been shown yelling and screaming at the same contestants just minutes earlier, leaving her devastated charges in tears.

With the group’s success, Patty’s tough-love approach was validated (much more clearly, perhaps, than that of the show’s previous tough-love artist Simon Cowell). Though her tactics were questionable, they certainly brought out the best in her team; she truly helped them to become better singers and performers. I’m not saying that you should go out and be like Patty, but if you’re young, ambitious and motivated, you should take a page from that foursome.

Go out and find the most qualified or talented mentor, coach, or manager you can, and subject yourself to everything they can throw at you.

The comments rightly caution against a mentor who is abusive. I’m not interested in being yelled at. After all, my kids will be teens before I know it…

But I love the basic idea. Over my 12+ years in ministry, lay and ordained, I’ve had a number of nurturing and supportive mentors and guides—spiritual directors, coaches and professors.

Now I’m ready for someone to scare the bejesus out of me. Or scare the Jesus into me.

I’d like a mentor who assigns me challenging work to do. Who is constantly reinventing herself in ministry. Who understands that good pastoral leaders are as much futurists as they are caregivers and consensus-builders. Who is where I’d like to be on this writing/pastoring journey.

‘Trouble is… I’m not sure I know anyone who fits that bill. Or who would be open to that kind of relationship. Do you? If not, I wonder what it says about the church that that’s the case.

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On the other side of the equation, I will be mentoring a woman who is newly graduated from seminary. I’m not interested in scaring her. She’s looking for someone to guide and hold her accountable to her own goals and process. I’m excited, because she’s an awesome person and is going to be an incredible minister, and to the extent that I can help her along her way, it’s a great honor.

As I begin this process, though, I have a couple of questions for you, Gentle Readers of all persuasions:

Have you had a mentoring relationship that was helpful? Would you be willing to talk to me about that?

Have you ever wanted a mentor and not been able to find one? What stood in the way?

Have you ever been a mentor? If not, what has stood in your way?

If you’d like to talk off-blog, e-mail me at maryannmcdana (at) gmail (dot) com.

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A Pastor’s Kind of Creativity

The tagline for the Blue Room is “a space for beauty, ideas, creativity, and the life of the Spirit.” I tagged it thusly because that’s the purpose of the Blue Room in our house. It’s my home study, the homework place, the kid arts and crafts room. But it feels high-falutin’ to have that tagline. I don’t feel worthy of it.

Then yesterday I listened to Creativity and the Everyday Brain, an interview with neuroscientist Rex Jung on Being. And it encouraged me.

You can read the whole transcript, but here’s the pertinent bit for me, and I suspect, for many of you who plan worship, education and mission in the church. Prior to this, Krista Tippett and Rex Jung had been talking about Einstein’s term, “spiritual genius,” and what it meant:

Ms. Tippett: One of the people I’ve interviewed is Jean Vanier. Are you familiar with him? He started the L’Arche Movement, which is a global movement of communities centered around people with mental disabilities, especially Down syndrome. I think, if Einstein had known him, he might have said ‘there’s a spiritual genius.’ But even if you put that language to one side, I think that’s a form of creativity — there’s socially useful, novel and useful, creativity.

Dr. Jung: Yes.

Ms. Tippett: Right, that — that fits your definition, but it’s not immediately what comes to mind. We think of artists, we think of scientists.

Dr. Jung: It’s not, but I totally agree that that is a form of creativity and a very valuable form of creativity and perhaps something that we’re moving towards in our increasingly complex society. It’s not just going to be a product. It’s not just going to be an artifact like a painting or a dance number. It’s going to be moving groups of people together and motivating groups of people in certain ways, and that’s a creative endeavor in this L’Arche Movement that you’re talking about. This is a kind of — sounds like a new creative endeavor that we should start to recognize.

Ms. Tippett: Yeah. I mean, people think differently and live differently as a result of this.

That’s the goal, isn’t it, of that kind of creative endeavor? That people think and live differently. That’s why we worship leaders pore over books to find just the right prayer of confession. Or comb our archives looking for a quote for the bulletin cover that will set the right tone. That’s why groups of pastors fly off for a week of lectionary study with other trusted colleagues every year. (OK, one of the reasons.)

The transformed life is the artifact we’re looking for.

But works of spiritual genius also happen on a level that’s beyond us and our efforts. During Sunday’s service I saw at least three people with tears in their eyes. That’s not all that unusual, in my experience. Church is a place where people can tap deep wells of emotion. You don’t force it or manipulate it. You just create a space where it can happen.

What was a bit unusual is that all three of these people were big strong men. It was holy ground.

In my work with NEXT Church, I’ve sometimes felt an insecurity among pastors of mainline churches. Are we dinosaurs because we offer a more traditional worship experience? Sometimes, yes, if it’s not indigenous to the people we serve. But it’s like we equate spiritual genius with tattoos and funky glasses. I feel this sometimes myself. I am in awe of the way some people think. I am creative, but within a form. I’m not nuking the Presbyterian order of worship, as many have (faithfully). It’s the sandbox I’m playing in.

For others, there is no box.

But artistry comes in many shapes and sizes. During the NEXT conference, we sang a setting of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” that was utterly fresh and new, with guitar and percussion. And the music we made was like a wall of sound—I’ve never heard a congregated people sing that song like that. And at the end of the conference, the organist played the Widor Toccata, and dozens of people stood and soaked it in… even came up into the chancel to behold an artist at work.

Both experiences were traditional. And both were of the moment. Both were moments of spiritual genius.

Be of good cheer, friends who work in the church. There is an artistry to what you do.

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Image: from the New Yorker article referenced in the On Being program, about how brainstorming doesn’t work. Off topic for this post but worth a read.

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Ten on Tuesday: Updates, Tips and Miscellany

It’s all a rich lather of lateral thought here at the Blue Room today. I’m actually not sure there are 10 items here, but I like the alliteration… plus it’s a shoutout to my friend Katherine, whose book comes out soon. Have you pre-ordered?

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I’m over at Fidelia’s Sisters today, which has a spiffy new look. Check it out.

I also had a good initial conversation last week with a member of the planning team for the Young Clergy Women’s conference, Sabbath in the City. If you’re a YCW or know someone who is, mark your calendars — we’re going to have a great time in Chicago, July 30 - August 2.

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Let me be an encouragement to anyone facing a weight-loss plateau. You can get through it. After losing the same pound three times, I finally broke through. I’ve got less than five pounds until I reach my goal of 40 pounds, normal BMI. Then it’s M&M’s from here on out.

Maintenance and Muscle. Wait, what did YOU think I meant?

Here’s a little something I whipped up the other day. We had some leftover spaghetti I’d made with a little olive oil and garlic. I put a serving in a microwavable bowl. Then I added a dollop of Boursin cheese. Nuke and stir and presto! A reasonable facsimile of fettucine alfredo.

Oh, and Carb Police? Just keep on walking. Disperse. There is nothing to see here.

OK OK, as penance for that glycemic abomination, here are eight foods you should eat every day.

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Something very strange is happening at Tiny Church. These random people we don’t know keep showing up. On Sunday we had 6 visitors, which in a worshiping community of 50 is disruptively delightful. Three of them have been very regular for several weeks; three were brand new.

I can’t account for the sudden influx. We don’t advertise. These visitors are not friends of church members who invited them. We’re not the kind of bells-and-whistles church that most people are looking for. Our banner stand out front has been empty the last several weeks.

But it’s a great time for people to be visiting. After 2 1/2 years as pastor of Tiny, things are clicking, you know? It’s just that all the clicking has been internal and under the radar. They would have no way of knowing from the outside what’s going on inside.

Whatever is happening, it’s a holy mystery that makes the people of Tiny Church very, very excited. And their pastor too.

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My love for Evernote is deep and abiding. Hey, they almost made it into the acknowledgements of my book. But have I mentioned the beauty that is Evernote Clearly? Clearly isolates articles on webpages and filters out all the clutter, ads, and sidebar junk, so you can read the article on a nice clean page. (This is great for those of you who are easily distrac- SQUIRREL!)

So instead of reading this tiny cramped mess:

You can read this:

I also found a new use for Evernote. You know those Entertainment books that kids are always peddling for school fundraisers? We bought one from our girls, but there are very few coupons in there for stuff we use. Consequently, I forget about it and end up not using any of them. Instead, I tore out the coupons we are likely to use and created an note in Evernote that lists these coupons. So if we’re on our way to a restaurant or a water park, I can just check the list to see what we have.

And while we’re doing product endorsements: Clinique Black Honey Almost Lipstick. Where have you been all my life?

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I’ve gotten a lot of questions from friends and family, asking me what my next book will be. My first reaction is to be touched by their kindness to suggest that after Sabbath in the Suburbs comes out, that people will actually want to read more from me. But the answer is no, I have no idea what I will write about next. Any suggestions?

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A New Heart: A Sermon

A heart of stone... the cover of our bulletin on Sunday.

Here’s what I preached on Sunday. It is inadequate for the occasion, but it is something.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Idylwood Presbyterian Church
March 25, 2025
Fifth Sunday of Lent

Jeremiah 31:31-34: The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

My girls came bounding off the bus Tuesday afternoon, full of news. A sixth grade boy had been walking to school and had been stopped by a man driving a white van. The man had tried to get the boy to get into the van. The boy had refused, and run all the way to school. Police were called; procedures put into motion. “We’re going to have a lockdown drill on Thursday!” the girls clapped. They were concerned for the boy and a little wary, but mainly they were excited about a break in the monotony of the school day.

I was so grateful for their innocence — that they say something so potentially serious as a festive occasion and not one for fear.

But the other side of me, the side of me who’s seen too much, who had that innocence taken away long ago simply by living in the world for four decades, sucked in her breath.

My oh my, we live in a fallen creation.

We live in what our Presbyterian Statement of Faith calls a “broken and fearful world.”

One of my disciplines this Lent—in addition to fasting from dessert, fourteen more days but who’s counting—is to look around me to try to find just one scene of beauty: each day, to find one thing that takes my breath away that I might have missed if I hadn’t been looking, really looking for it.

I need that discipline right now. I need to look at the world in that way. I need to be a detective for beauty, a sleuth for grace. Because right now the world is a dead black boy in Florida and mean Internet comments and a law student from Georgetown who was called a prostitute for having an opinion. The world is protesters slaughtered in Syria and dead Jewish children in Paris and a soldier gone mad in Afghanistan.

I think Jeremiah would understand the need for some beauty. Jeremiah’s prophetic words were uttered in a time of crisis: Jerusalem has been destroyed by a foreign power; the people of Israel have been deported. Most of the book contains a harsh judgment on the leadership, who have not been faithful to God by maintaining justice and obedience. Exile is seen as a punishment for this failure.

The world is a mess, says Jeremiah.
But let me be more specific: we have made it so.

And then comes chapters 30 and 31, right in the middle of the book, two luminous chapters called the Book of Comfort. That’s where we are today, nestled in that comfort, and it comes just in the nick of time.

The days are surely coming… I will make a new covenant.
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Just one chapter later, we are told that Jeremiah responds to these words, personally and powerfully, by buying a field at Anathoth. This field, it should be said, was occupied by a foreign power; it had fallen to the Babylonians. And yet Jeremiah stakes his claim on that land. The time will come when this land will be God’s again, and I will plant and build here, he says, and in so doing, he claims that covenant hope that God expresses in today’s passage. Jeremiah’s purchase of the land is more than a prophetic move; it is an act of daring, reckless hope.

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Friday I took a trip downtown to see the cherry blossoms at their peak. As I walked around the Tidal Basin, I happened upon the Martin Luther King memorial. Amid the beauty of cherry blossoms floating down from the trees like pink snowflakes, and branches dipping into the water, the King memorial offered a different kind of beauty, a stark, stony beauty.

King of course was a prophet, as surely as Jeremiah was a prophet. He described the world that is not yet ours, but could be. Should be. Will be. And as I read the various quotes etched in stone on the inscription wall, I couldn’t help but see the sweet face of Trayvon Martin.

“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class…”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

The fate of Trayvon Martin affects us. Whatever investigation takes place—and an investigation is sorely needed—whatever truth comes out, whatever happens next—his death diminishes us.

We will never know what a grown-up Trayvon Martin might have contributed to his family and his community and the world. He was an A and B student who according to his teachers “majored in cheerfulness,” who had no criminal record and was studying to be an aviation engineer. He wanted to fly.

He is gone. And it falls to us then, the living, to say a reckless YES to the covenant God describes and promises, here in the Book of Comfort. Even if the world God describes seems so far from our own, we are called to step out in faith. The new covenant God promises Jeremiah hasn’t happened yet. The restoration has yet to occur, and God is speaking in the future tense. Here is what I will do, God says.

The when is not clear. But God’s intention certainly is.

There have been many versions of the covenant before this in scripture: covenants to Noah and Abraham, and covenants handed down to Moses in the Ten Commandments. But here there is a shift. The covenant will not be spoken to patriarchs, nor will it etched on stone tablets. It will be written on human hearts. Our hearts. Hearts that don’t just weep at the death of an unarmed black boy, but who work for a world where such a tragedy is a thing of the past.

In a moment, we will hear from John Dearie, a board member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.

That sounds impossible. End homelessness? It seems laughable in its audacity. Surely the problem is too big, the problem is too complicated, the problem is too expensive. If there were a way to end homelessness, we’d have done it by now.

But I invite you to listen with the ear of Jeremiah:

Jeremiah, who in the midst of the exile of his people said, “God is not finished with us yet.”

Jeremiah who saw the despair and the destruction all around him and dared to announce that there is still hope.

Jeremiah, who wrote 50 chapters of prophetic judgment but had the good sense to include 2 chapters of comfort. But the comfort doesn’t say everything’s going to be OK, that God’s going to swoop in and fix everything. The comfort comes in the form of a new heart beating in our chests, a heart that beats for justice and hope and abundant life for everyone. Everyone.

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

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Friday Link Love

Good morning!

…And away we go.

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A Glorious Sight — Andrew Sullivan

There’s an article up at Scientific American about “glories,” a quantum mechanical effect called wave tunneling:

The article is beautifully written, tracing the historical significance of glories (they can only be seen against one’s shadow and thus may be one reason that holy individuals are seen with halos)…

Sadly, the article is behind a paywall, but what a lovely concept.

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Move On - Bernadette Peters, Stephen Sondheim

Yesterday was the King’s birthday and many of us were gushing about him on Facebook. I remarked that this song is one of the best manifestos for art and life that I’ve found. Give it a listen.

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The Scale of the Universe (Flash)

I’m certain I’ve posted this before, but it came my way again, and boy howdy. Spend some time with this.

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Instructions — Sheri Hostetler

Beautiful poem:

Give up the world; give up self; finally, give up God.
Find god in rhododendrons and rocks,
passers-by, your cat.
Pare your beliefs, your absolutes.
Make it simple; make it clean.
No carry-on luggage allowed.
Examine all you have
with a loving and critical eye, then
throw away some more.
Repeat. Repeat.
Keep this and only this:
what your heart beats loudly for
what feels heavy and full in your gut.
There will only be one or two
things you will keep,
and they will fit lightly
in your pocket.

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Rachel Maddow and My Lesson in Civility — Cal Thomas

A man apologizes, sincerely and humbly, for the red meat he threw at CPAC regarding Rachel Maddow:

The next morning I felt bad about it, so I called Maddow to apologize. It wasn’t one of those meaningless “if I’ve offended anyone …” apologies; it was heartfelt. I had embarrassed myself and was a bad example to those who read my column and expect better from me.

Maddow could not have been more gracious. She immediately accepted my apology. On her show, she said publicly, “I completely believe his apology. I completely accept his apology.” To be forgiven by one you have wronged is a blessing, it’s even cleansing.

More of this, please. From everyone.

And on the flip side of that…

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The Internet Has Failed — Bioethics Bulletin

Specifically internet comments:

Time was when ‘disabling comments’ on a blogpost was at best an indication of arrogance and at worst an indication that the author was an anti-democratic elitist who did not value the opinions of his or her readers. It is time, I think, for us to accept that disabling or deleting idiot comments is no more anti-democratic or elitist than refusing to engage with a person harrassing you on the street. Just because everyone is allowed to have their say, it does not follow that the bilge they say is worth listening to.

As I’ve said many times, anyone who rejects Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity has obviously never spent time reading Internet comments.

What do you think? Is it time to disable comments at the “big” sites? (I am blessed with smart and civil commenters here at the Blue Room. Huzzah.)

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Peace be with you.

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A Thing of Beauty

Follow up from this post.

I enjoyed hearing about your things of beauty via Twitter and other means.

And mine? Turns out I got to see cherry blossoms after all, during my run this afternoon. There are several mature trees in my neighborhood. Those are beautiful in their own way; I like the darkness of the bark against the brilliant white petals. But today I was drawn to the brand new trees I saw in several yards. They were staked in the ground, with a trunk the size of my arm, with tiny twig branches sticking out the top. In fact, the branches were so puny that the weight of those pink and white petals bent them towards the ground. So the tree looked like a mushroom, or maybe a fountain of blossoms.

And I thought about people I know who are going through really tough stuff these days, especially two families I know with children suffering life-threatening illness. Both of them have shared stories just recently of the extravagant kindness of people around them. And I know what that’s like. I felt that when my father died while I was great with child. People arrived with food and cards and oil to rub my swollen pregnant feet.

That kindness can feel overwhelming, like you can’t even carry it all. It’s a kindness born of grace, a grace that’s so powerful you feel like you might break from the holy heft of it because, well, look at you, you’re thin and pale and staked to the ground for gosh sakes, because you can’t even stand on your own, let alone reciprocate or say thank you or do all those things competent people do. Yet somehow, by some miracle, you have enough strength to bear the weight of all that love that blazes with a white light.

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Your Mission Today

cherry blossom

I have a mission for you, if you choose to accept it.

I blogged a few weeks ago about John Donohue, a Celtic philosopher and poet who inspired me to find the beauty around me, right where I am. That afternoon I picked up the girls at the bus stop and whispered to them, “I have a job for you right now. You are a detective, and you are supposed to find one beautiful thing between here and home. Don’t tell me what it is until we get home.” Caroline picked the deep red berries on the holly bush on the corner.

That’s going to be my practice again for today — to find something beautiful that I wasn’t expecting, something I might have missed if I hadn’t had my eyes wide. I was going to make a quick dash downtown to see the cherry blossoms, which are at peak right now. But it’s a yucky day so I think I’ll go Friday. That makes today’s practice a little more challenging. I’ll be working on the computer for much of the day, in my blue room, then running a quick errand before picking up the girls.

Then again, maybe it’s not so challenging after all. Just this second a friend sent me an e-mail containing a screen shot of something that she called a “miracle.” It’s her story and her miracle so I won’t say what it is, but I agree, it is miraculous. And a thing of beauty.

Sometimes it comes to you.

That was a freebie, though. I’m still going to look around for something beautiful today and I invite you to do the same. I need to look at the world that way, because right now the world is a dead black boy in Florida and mean Internet comments and a law student who was called a slut for having an opinion. The world is protesters slaughtered in Syria and dead Jewish children in Toulouse and a soldier gone mad in Afghanistan. Surely there’s more to the world than that.

Later today I’ll come back and post the beautiful thing I found. And I want to hear about your beautiful thing too.

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Ten on Tuesday

1. Watch this if you haven’t—it’s making the rounds and is SO wonderful.

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2. A Neighborhood Watch person should not be carrying a gun. I’m just saying.

The discussion about this incident is bizarre, too. Like, if they can just prove the shooter wasn’t a racist, or guilty of profiling, then the incident would somehow cease being completely horrific. News flash: they could both have chartreuse skin and it would still be horrific.

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3. I do writery things now. Like look at proposed book covers, and receive permissions in the mail for quotes I’m using in the book. It’s weird. I feel like I’m playing dress up.

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4. I’m also attending the Festival of Faith and Writing for the first time next month. Can’t wait. Been hearing about this shindig for years.

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Mason Neck State Park. I didn't take this but it looked liked this when we went.

5. Saturday I took the kids to Mason Neck State Park (20 minutes from our house) for some bike riding. The kids went five miles, even Jamesy! Afterward we walked the trail to the beach. I had James by the hand and the girls were walking up ahead, arm and arm in the slanting sun. So lovely. We’re happy spring has arrived.

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6. I finished the Hunger Games trilogy. I really enjoyed the series, and thought the writing was just fine. (A few of my friends panned it.) It’s hard to read them as a mother though. You want to protect all of the children from such heinous violence and exploitation. I also found myself wondering how Katniss’s story was impacting her mother. But there was none of that in the books… which, considering they are young adult novels, is entirely appropriate.

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7. It’s not Friday, but here’s a little link love: Why We Have to Go Back to the Forty-Hour Week to Save Our Sanity:

It’s a heresy now (good luck convincing your boss of what I’m about to say), but every hour you work over 40 hours a week is making you less effective and productive over both the short and the long haul. And it may sound weird, but it’s true: the single easiest, fastest thing your company can do to boost its output and profits — starting right now, today — is to get everybody off the 55-hour-a-week treadmill, and back onto a 40-hour footing.

Yes, this flies in the face of everything modern management thinks it knows about work. So we need to understand more. How did we get to the 40-hour week in the first place? How did we lose it? And are there compelling bottom-line business reasons that we should bring it back?

Our church treasurer tells me that according to our presbytery, full-time is 50 hours. When did this happen and why? I know many people in our congregations work way beyond that. But aren’t we called to model a different way?

When I first started in ministry I read a book by Roy Oswald in which he said that pastors cannot work more than 50 hours a week on a consistent basis without suffering physically, mentally and spiritually. I’ve taken that to heart as much as possible. Note that he wasn’t lifting up 50 as the ideal, but as the upper limit, beyond which you can suffer harm.

I recently asked a head of staff how many hours he works and he said, “You don’t want to ask that.” Actually, I do. We need to be asking that of each other and ourselves.

I know the economy is still not great for a lot of folks. People are afraid to complain because at least they have a job.

But we’re kinda messed up when it comes to time.

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8. I’ve hit a big plateau with the weight loss. Good news is that I am in “normal” range according to the BMI. But I’ve lost the same pound about three times in the last few weeks. I’ve been less strict on the weekends and that has hurt me. I’m trying various suggestions and we’ll hopefully push through.

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9. By the way, I don’t want to say weight loss is easy, but I’m kind of amazed any of us lost weight effectively before smartphone apps like MyFitnessPal. It’s really a quantum leap in terms of surpassing everything that came before. I’ve done a variety of things over the years, including Weight Watchers, and there really is no comparison in terms of ease and usefulness.

Maintaining will be the challenge for me. I am such a goal-oriented person that once I’ve reached mine (eight pounds to go) I am wondering whether I will slack off. Thankfully the tools and approaches to maintaining are much the same as losing.

~

10. Speaking of goals, I’m looking for a good 10K. Anyone know one?

Would love to hear what’s knocking around your brain this Tuesday.

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Holy Week Helps: Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday

From the forthcoming book White Flour by David LaMotte. Illustration by Jenn Hales.

First, do you know about Liturgy Link? It’s a place for open-source liturgy creation. The folks there recently asked about Palm Sunday and my answer was longer than a comment, so I’m sharing my plans here. Feel free to borrow or use anything I post. I don’t need attribution. Although, if someone leaves worship and tells you, “That was awesome,” I’d love for you to tell them about The Blue Room and my work.

If they hated it, blame it on some random person on the Internet.

So… Palm Sunday is also April Fool’s Day, which is an amazing opportunity to work with some of that Pauline stuff about God choosing the foolishness of the world to bring down the wise. Also the deep paradoxes that are present in Jesus’ teachings: to save your life you must lose it, and so forth. Reign of God as a series of topsy-turvy reversals. That sort of thing.

I am thinking about doing the service in reverse. I will start with the benediction—a blessing to the community. It’s communion Sunday, and since we usually have that near the end, we will move it towards the beginning. At its best, when communion is at the end, it’s the climax of the service (rather than the afterthought). But if it’s near the beginning we can hit themes of the grace of God that is a free gift for the asking, without even having to sit through the sermon as payment first. Heh.

For the message, I will read the poem “White Flour” by David Lamotte. Read the poem here, or hear more on Kickstarter about David’s plans to publish a children’s book—it’s due out in May. The poem is a true story about a Klan parade in Knoxville five years ago. A troupe of clowns called the Coup Clutz Clowns mounted a counter-protest that exposed the ugliness of the Klansmen. From the Kickstarter page:

Rather than shouting down the shouters, meeting rage with rage, they simply refused to take such foolishness seriously. Fight and flight are not our only two options, and humor, it turns out, beats hatred. At least it did on that day.

I find this a powerful story to connect to the Palm Sunday narrative. Jesus, too participates in a parade, and while he doesn’t don a clown nose, he rides in on a donkey. He confronts power with humility.

We will move the confession to the latter part of the service, as we start to shift from Palm to Passion… and then we will close with the call to worship—the idea being that as we move into Holy Week, our lives are an act of worship.

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For Maundy Thursday, the message will borrow from a story I heard on The Moth podcast a few years back. You can read about it here and listen to it here. In this story, writer Andrew Solomon talks about researching his book on depression, which took him to Cambodia to see the impact of the Khmer Rouge on the people there. He met a woman who works with other women to help them recover, and the recovery involved three basic components.

First, she teaches the women to forget—to have something in their mind besides the trauma. This will be an interesting twist as we have communion that night—because communion is all about memory. But what kind of memory we cling to is important. Jesus says, “do this in remembrance of me.” In communion we are called to remember not just the trauma of the cross, but the totality of Jesus’ life and ministry, and of course, the story of his resurrection.

Second, this Cambodian woman gave the other women meaningful work. Here I will talk about the life we are called to lead as followers of Jesus.

Third and most surprising—and specific—she taught the women to do manicures and pedicures. Wait, what? But listen to what she says:

You know, the worst atrocity of all that was brought by the Khmer Rouge was that half the country turned against the other half of the country. And people who lived through that period knew that they couldn’t put anything in anyone else, and they completely lost the habit of looking anyone else in half in the eye.

All of these women had been deprived for a long time of any occasion to indulge in the least bit of personal vanity. I brought them to my hut, and I built a special room that I would fill with steam. And it was a pleasure for them to feel beautiful. But what was really amazing for them was that, in this context, it was something that was at once very intimate and very impersonal. And they would start, because I was telling them how to do it and giving them some instruction, to handle each others’ fingers and each others’ toes. And it meant they were touching each other. And if I had told them to begin to hold each others’ hands or to have some kind of physical contact with other people, they would’ve shied away and they would have pulled back. They weren’t ready to do anything with anyone. But, in this context, they would touch each others’ fingers, touch each others’ toes, and then, because it was such a funny context, and because they felt so happy about the fact that they were, for a moment, feeling a little bit beautiful again, they would begin to laugh together. And they would begin to tell each other little bits of stories and things and that was the way that I taught them to trust again.

This, of course, leads right into the washing of feet. We will actually wash hands, because feet are a barrier for folks. Hands are vulnerable enough; in fact more vulnerable, in a way, because you can look someone in the eye. I will probably not shy away from the beauty aspects of this story, because I think that’s important. Not in a vain way, but in the sense that our physical selves are more than just a utilitarian container for our brains. Our bodies are precious to God.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that we are going to close Maundy with a pivot to Good Friday, since we alternate MT and GF each year. I’m going to borrow an idea from my friend Jan, who used to have people bring thirty “pieces of silver” (i.e. coins) as an offering. People dropped the coins into the empty (?) baptismal font. Since the thirty pieces of silver are symbolic of Judas’s betrayal, the money collected goes to an organization that works with individuals who have been betrayed in some way (e.g. domestic violence, child abuse).

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So, them’s the plans. I am excited about all of this… my only anxiety is that for Easter, I got nothin’.

What are you doing Holy Week?