Should've Known Better

Someone posted a link on the ELCA Clergy Facebook page earlier this week.  I followed the link.  Read the article.  Read the comments.  Then I posted a comment of my own.  Then this happened:

So... Um... yeah...

Been a while.  I know.

Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost - Isaiah 55

This is not an exact copy of my sermon from this morning.  I preached from a series of notes and included some improvised reflections based on conversations I'd had with people prior to the start of the service.  But as I noted on Facebook, I was mainly preaching to myself today - thankfully, the folks to whom I was preaching seemed to be in a similar state of being.  

As you know, it’s been a bit dry around here lately.  Last night I got our sprinkler out for the first time this summer and gave the backyard of our house in Ames a good thorough soaking.  If it doesn’t rain today the front yard gets one tonight.  When it’s been scarce, rain is a good, good thing.  My dad is a third-generation corn and soybean farmer in Nebraska.  I know what it means to get the rain you need, the rain that can do exactly what the prophet says it will do in our Isaiah text this morning. “…the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater…”

            I wonder how this text is being received in Minot, North Dakota this morning. 

A Gathering of Spirits, A Flashlight, And A Talk With Larry

Oh, Larry - I thought of you often tonight.  And I really wish you were here.

"Turn the Car Around and Get the Hell Out of Town"*

The U.B. ended today. Now the hard march of post-U.B. reality begins, with all the emotional and financial repercussions we knew it would entail. I'm still trying to make sense of what happened, and trying to deal with the anger, betrayal and frustration for which I still don't have a productive outlet, but at least no one's dumping more shit on top of the pile anymore.

Praise be to God, a few more boxes moved and the leaving will be done. Time to shake off the dust and mourn what has been lost: friendships, trust, the ability to forgive. This mourning will be a long, lonely road but, as I noted before, at least Beloved and I will travel together, as we've done since the U.B. first started spreading its poison.

To those who've walked this journey with us, loved on us, supported us, prayed for us: thank you. Your continued prayers will be appreciated. As soon as we get our hearts and heads straight, I'll be back to blogging a bit more regularly, but for now we need to tend to ourselves.

The peace of the Triune God be with you all.

Scott

*A line from "What Was Wrong" by Storyhill

After Five Years

Five years ago today, Pastor Larry Meyer succumbed to the cancer that had been killing him for nearly three years. How in the world has it already been five years? I can still remember getting the call from my friend Matt that morning, standing in the kitchen and bursting into tears, hugging Beloved and wishing, more than anything, I had been able to come see him one last time. There is a wound in this that just won't heal; five years later we are still missing him very, very much.

Anyone who's been following this blog knows the impact Larry had on my life. I don't mean to canonize the man: for one thing, he would have hated the idea himself, and for another, our shared Lutheran theology would have insisted that God makes saints in baptism. Larry had his flaws, but for most people those flaws were overwhelmed by his kindness, passion and zest for life.

After five years, I have yet to find a colleague whose judgment and advice I trust as deeply as Larry's. I could have really used his advice in The Unbloggableness. But we soldier on, don't we?

Today I lift prayers for C, his wife, his incredible children Rebekka, Rachel, Mariah and Mikah, and everyone who knew Larry and continues to mourn his death. Someday, Larry, we'll see you again. May the time between then and now be filled with laughter and joy.

I thought that perhaps it might be fitting to post five things I loved about Larry, in honor of the day. If you knew him, you could play along on Facebook at his memorial group or on your own blog - drop a link here if you wish.

1. The blue VW van. No, this isn't it, but it's pretty close. So much of who Larry was found its way into that van for me: quirky, fun, comfortable, utilitarian, and most of all, unique. He did most of the work on it himself, and that puppy ran like a charm while I was a student at LCM Nebraska. I remember riding to Synod Theological Conference with him the year I worked with him, how cool it was to sit right over the wheels and feel like you were riding the road instead of driving on it. Someday I will own a VW van like this, and every time I slide behind the wheel, hit the clutch and pop it into first, I'll think of Larry.

2. "WHATWHATWHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?" Larry's exclamation when something threw him for a loop. Said all at once like that, at the top of his formidable lungs. Usually when you heard it you were guaranteed at least ten minutes of his undivided attention, because he wanted to know just what the hell you were talking about.

3. Fireplace Position. One of Larry's flaws was his hatred of cold weather. He was an absolute sissy about winter, probably because even at his heaviest his body fat percentage remained somewhere in the low teens (the man had the metabolism of a hummingbird). On particularly cold winter days, he'd get the fire going in the fireplace at the Student Center, throw on his Nebraska jacket or the maroon blazer he kept in his office, and stand right next to the fireplace with a cup of coffee, shivering, until the fire got blazing.

4. The Forehand Smash Triple Bounce Return. Larry was a ping-pong ninja (HT: Matt Schur). His best move came when you hung a return to his forehand side. After the renovation of the Student Center basement, Larry could blast that hanger down for a point, bounce it off the wall, your side, his side, and catch it in his hand. And if that smash happened to be the seventh straight point to start a game, his grin was almost maniacal, because that meant he'd skunked you - it was game to Larry, and ping pong was the only thing in which the man was absolutely merciless.

5. Chicken Gizzards, Peel-and-eat Shrimp, Braunschweiger, and Canadian Bacon-Sauerkraut Pizza. The man was a fool for weird foods. I picked up lunch at HyVee once, and on a whim I bought some gizzards for him. When I gave them to him, I honestly thought he was going to kiss me. Every Board meeting started with pizza from Fat Pat's, and one rite of passage for every Board member was to eat a slice of the Canadian Bacon-Sauerkraut Pizza. My brother and sister-in-law hated the stuff. Me? I'll be ordering some for supper tonight, and eating it with relish.

Larry, we miss you so damn much. Tonight, after I wolf down that great pizza, and the girls have been tucked into bed, I'm going to sit out on the patio, smoke a pipe and drink a beer, and think of you. I can't wait to laugh with you again.

Grace & peace,

Scott

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter: "When Will We Dance Again?"

I'm not generally a fan of recycling sermons. But it seemed both necessary and proper this week, as I hope you'll see. Preaching texts are here.

It’s been a long week for us. Ainsley had her tonsils out on Monday, and complications with dehydration forced her back into the hospital on Thursday morning. The entire week has been pretty much a wash for me in terms of pastoring. But it’s Sunday, and that means a sermon is needed. So I sat down last night to write, and just to center myself in the text, I took a look at my sermon from three years ago, the last time I preached on these texts. I was astonished to see that what I had to say then remains true today, even though I’m in a new state, a new call, and dealing with a whole new batch of mourning.

Do you remember what happened three years ago this week? I didn’t, until last night. Three years ago this week, thirty-three Virginia Tech students were murdered by one of their own. An astronaut killed herself and her former lover at Kennedy Space Center in Houston. The genocide in the Sudan continued to horrify the world. Three years ago this week.

Today we mourn the death of Jon Lacina and TJ Good, two students claimed by death when they should have been claimed by the joy of springtime at Iowa State. In the midst of the big VEISHEA celebration, friends and family are weeping. And that’s not all that causes grief today – that’s only the grief we know about, the grief we can see right in front of us.

Three years ago, I found it hard to preach, hard to find within my heart a capacity to rejoice in this Easter season. So much in this week had gone tragically wrong. How could we rejoice when young people are cut down less than two weeks before finishing a college degree? How could we rejoice when a college professor who survived the Holocaust is murdered holding shut the door of his classroom, providing his students a chance to escape? How could we rejoice when thousands live in daily turmoil and danger, where a trip to the market can easily be a trip to the grave? How can we rejoice now?

Nikki Giovanni, a poet and professor at Virginia Tech, spoke to a convocation assembled to address the horror and grief brought about by the senseless killing of innocent victims. This is part of what she said:

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. ... We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.[1]

Yet tragedy comes to us all in time. We are no more guaranteed a life without tragedy than we are guaranteed a life without death. Sorrow and grief are, unfortunately, companions on the journey of this life we travel.

The psalm this morning is poetry to which Ms. Giovanni’s words bear a striking resemblance. “We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while,” says Giovanni. The psalmist says, “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to death? Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?” “We not moving on, we are embracing our morning,” says Giovanni. The psalmist says, “Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning.” When we live in the night of morning, the darkness can seem endless, but we hold on, because we know that someday there will be daybreak again; someday the light will burst into the darkness and we will feel joy again.

Peter knew tragedy. Being a man of his time, Peter probably knew tragedy better than any of us here today. Peter lived in a time when life was not guaranteed. Children could be swept away by illness in the blink of an eye. A cut that seemed insignificant could develop an infection and lead to death. Peter was a fisherman by trade; the sea could claim his life and no one would ever know where to find his body. But the greatest tragedy in Peter’s life was one Peter brought on himself through fear. On the night Jesus was betrayed, as Jesus was being questioned by the powerful Sanhedrin, the high council of the church, Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times. Hours earlier Peter had sworn that he would never abandon Jesus, that he would go to the grave with Jesus if he must, but Jesus had said, “No, Peter, I tell you, before a rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny knowing me three times.” Here is a tragedy for you. Peter was a friend and confidant, a student who lovingly and enthusiastically served his teacher for three years; but Peter was afraid, and in his fear Peter did the very thing he swore he would never do: he abandoned Jesus to save his own life.

Yes, Peter knew tragedy; but Jesus knew tragedy even better. Jesus knew the tragedy of the children of God, who chose darkness to hide their sin rather than risk living in the light of God and having that sin exposed. Jesus knew the tragedy of how we live in fear, how we live denying pain, denying sorrow. Jesus knew that if Peter was ever going to feel joy again, Peter needed to stop denying what had been done, and start living his life with his sins behind him. So Jesus called Peter to a breakfast fire, and over a feast of grilled fish and bread, Jesus confronted Peter with the tragedy of his denial. “Do you love me, Peter?” asked Jesus. Not once, and not twice: three times Peter denied Jesus, and three times Jesus asked his own question. “Do you love me, Peter?” Here Peter could not deny his tragedy. Here Peter could not pretend ignorance. Here Peter was confronted by the Messiah he denied, the Anointed One of God who should have been dead but was risen and asking him, three times, “Do you love me, Peter?”

Here is tragedy addressed by reality. Jesus didn’t spend any time looking into Peter’s soul for the cause of Peter’s denial. There is no false forgiveness here; no “don’t worry about it” offering grace that never forgets the sin it supposedly forgives. There is no refusal to address the sin itself, as if pretending Peter never denied his friend would somehow heal the wounds that denial inflicted upon Jesus and upon Peter himself. No, here there is confrontation with tragedy. Here the evil that was done is faced head on, and tragedy is exposed and embraced by Peter and Jesus both. Here Peter and Jesus are sad, and will be sad for quite a while; but here also Peter and Jesus love one another, and the love is all the more deep and true and real because the wound has been exposed, the infection of sin brought to the surface like poison from a snakebite, and now love can begin to heal what tragedy had once sought to destroy.

Here is the incredible work God does: God takes us, with all our sins and in the midst of all our tragedies, and begins to heal us. The power of God is nowhere more apparent than in the deep joy that comes to a person who has embraced tragedy, walked with God through a time of deep mourning and grief, and come out of the valley of the shadow of tragedy into the light of a new day. Such a person knows that even though tragedy and sorrow will come, and darkness will overshadow each of us in our life, they do not have the final word, and we need not feel that tragedy, sorrow and darkness will forever hold us in their grip. More than that, we learn that we can extend the light of God to those walking in darkness, providing them hope in the midst of suffering and grief. The grace of God is far more miraculous and powerful when it works through fellow sinners who follow Jesus into the darkness, tending to one another in the love with which Christ once tended to us. It is this power that makes the story of Paul’s conversion so incredible. The miracle of Acts 9 is not God’s call or Paul’s blindness and healing: the miracle of Acts 9 is the willingness of Ananias to put aside his fear and anger and heal the wounds of the man who had been hunting, persecuting and killing those who followed Jesus. Ananias was a man who had learned to dance again, and was willing to risk tragedy in order to follow God’s lead.

The psalmist says this morning, “You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my funeral outfit and clothed me with joy.” In this week of tragedy, I know that many have wondered, “When will we dance again?” For those of us on the periphery of tragedy, the healing will be swift and mostly unremarkable, but someday we will face tragedy again, and we will know the anguish felt by the communities who suffer today. Will we, like Dr. Giovanni, be given the grace and courage to face that tragedy head-on, to embrace our mourning? Will we, like Peter, be confronted with the tragedy of our sins, left with no hiding place where we can deny or pretend that our tragedies never happened? Will we, like Paul, be brought to a moment where we are blinded by God so that we must learn to rely on those around us for comfort and support? I hope so – I hope for that with all my heart and soul and mind and strength, for this is the only way we will ever be able to dance again. The power of the resurrection is weakened when we pretend that death will never touch our lives. The depth of our joy is lessened when we pretend that sorrow and grief can be ignored and rejected. The miracle of grace is cheapened when we pretend that our sin was never so serious as to cause God any kind of injury or harm. Only when we admit and embrace the honest reality of our lives of sin and death can we experience the blessed daybreak of forgiveness and repentance, the coming of the morning of joy. Tragedy cannot cripple us permanently if we admit that it exists, for God will have the last word, and when God has that last word, then tragedy will be no more, and joy and resurrection will come; then we will learn that yes, the morning has come, and it is time to dance again. Amen.

---

[1] http://www.vt.edu/tragedy/giovanni_transcript.php

Post-Op and Pensive

Good news: Ainsley came through the surgery with flying colors. She's had a pretty decent recovery thus far, all things considered. We've been able to get some fluids down since she home from the hospital, and though she's been in obvious pain, she's also been a great trooper and even close to happy at times. Last night was a bit traumatic: some vomiting and a fever that worried us, but sleep, water and finally keeping her painkillers down seems to have her on the mend a bit. We'll see how tonight goes.

Many thanks to the friends who've brought or sent balloons, gift cards to Dairy Queen, games and other thoughts and prayers our way. We appreciate it very, very much.

Monday was a pretty rough day. It is so hard to watch your child wheeled off into surgery, as some of you know only too well. Then, after they take your child away, you've got nothing but time. Lots of time to think about lots of things.

The first thing I realized is how blessed I am to not have to do this alone. Beloved and I worked really hard to support one another all day. Lots of compliments, lots of "you're doing great," lots of hugs and kisses (nothing inappropriate - we weren't at Seattle Grace, after all). I don't know how anyone could do this parenting thing by themselves. If you know a single parent, hug him/her and ask how you can help, because, damn, this stuff is hard enough when you've got a partner in the yoke with you.

And, of course, because there's not a lot to occupy the mind in the hospital, there was a lot of thinking about the Unbloggableness. Trying to understand what has happened, and how, is exhausting - there's no way around it. Factor in dealing with the emotional part of it, the anger and the grief and all the attendant internal conflict that goes with both, and the weariness can seem overwhelming. I remember a conversation with a friend when she was going through a really rough time - she compared it to trying to walk out in the ocean when the tide is coming in. We called it "riding the waves." You think you've got your head above water, and all of a sudden the sand drops out from under your feet or a wave knocks you down and drags you farther out to sea. You're treading water and you're never sure when it's going to end. I understand her better now - boy, do I ever.

I read John Matthew's Anxious Souls Will Ask...: The Christ-Centered Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer while we were in the hospital. (Yes, I'm a fast reader, but it's a short book) I'm finding more and more truth in what Bonhoeffer was contemplating and writing, even to his last days. Ten years of resisting Nazi prejudice and oppression left Bonhoeffer and all members of the Confessing Church with few friends, but those they had were bound together so strongly they literally embodied Christ for one another, even in the darkest days. I can't begin to imagine the mental and emotional exhaustion they carried for all those years.

What I'm getting at is this: it can be lonely out there. It seems obvious, I know - but for those of us who follow Jesus, it is nigh on impossible to do it by ourselves. We need each other, and we need each other 100%. Knowing that Beloved and I are 100% committed to getting through this week and helping our Ainsley get healthy again makes the load bearable. Bonhoeffer took much solace in knowing that Bethge, his fiance Maria and many co-conspirators were shouldering the load with him. We need that from one another. Bonhoeffer identified it as the communion of saints, "Christ-as-community." This is the task of the church in relation to itself: the bearer of burdens, the Christ who stands under the yoke with us.

And yet, there are times this pastor gig is unbearably lonely. You carry so many different stories in your head and heart, and all of them are important. But some of your stories have to stay your own. The pastor-congregation relationship is not a two-way street. Of course, the congregation can and should care for and about the pastor. They can and should offer some soul care. But you can't flip the roles. It just isn't healthy.

This is an extremely long way of saying I haven't done as well for myself as I should have done in the area of my personal pastoral care. I realized this last week, when thoughts of the Unbloggableness left me unable to think about much else for the better part of a couple of days. I've taken some short term steps to help, and I'm looking into long term solutions as well, because I haven't been the pastor I want to be for the past six months or so. There are so few places where I'm simply a trusted, valued member of the whole, no different than anyone else - I need to find more of those places for myself, so that where I am the pastor, I can do it with integrity and passion. As Bonhoeffer wrote in "After Ten Years,"

Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straghtforward [people]. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remoreseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?

Simplicity and straightforwardness. Yeah. Haven't had that in a while. Time to be about it again.

Grace & peace,

Scott

Turning Away

Sometime around the 1st of July 2002, I drove from Monterey, California to Wakefield, Nebraska in about 36 hours. By myself. I've been thinking about that drive quite often over the last few months.

I'd been in Monterey to make a last attempt to save my first marriage. That attempt had involved me cutting my seminary internship short, moving from Titusville, Florida to Nebraska for a few weeks, then off to California for what was supposed to be a year's break from seminary while FW completed her time at the Defense Language Institute.

It had been a hellish year. A separation in September. Anger, denial, bargaining, and depression. Lots and lots and lots of depression. So many cigarettes my fingers turned yellow. Loss of sleep. Loss of appetite. Loss of weight that came on so quickly people thought I had cancer or tapeworms or something. Rotating which friends I could call so I wasn't calling the same people night after night, trying to figure out what to do. Running the same four mile course in Titusville over and over, chanting "I'm stronger than this - I'm stronger than this - I'm stronger than this" until the sprint came at the end and I couldn't do anything but run and gasp. Then, reconciliation. Trying to figure out how to put all the pain behind and start over. Trying to convince others it was possible, that it could work. Crash courses in marriage counseling, long phone calls to California, and hope. I was living on hope and baling wire, my Grandpa would have said if he were still alive.

As I remember, it took about three weeks to utterly fall apart.

In the end, the late night talks came down to just one thing: she didn't want "us" anymore. Irresistible force, meet immovable object. I drove to L.A. to stay with my best friend from high school while FW cleaned her things out of my life for the last time. Then I came home, threw what I could carry in a UHaul trailer, grabbed the cats and took off, fast as I could. When you finally get to acceptance, you want to get that coffin in the ground as quick as lightning.

I had loaded up the cooler with soda and fig newtons. I had all my CDs in the passenger seat. Drove over to Salinas, 101 north to San Jose, then the I80 bypasses until I grabbed I80 near Sacramento. Tahoe, then into Nevada. Same damn road I'd driven from Nebraska a month before. Mile after mile of mountains and valleys. I stopped somewhere west of Reno to take out my contacts by the light of the streetlights just outside a chemical toilet in the middle of nowhere. I caught three hours of sleep at the rest stop on the Great Salt Lake, then I grabbed some fast-food breakfast and pushed on.

Somewhere in the middle of Wyoming the reality of what was happening finally touched down. It was over. No going back. No more "trying to make it work." All the anger, the promises, the reassurances, the tears, the prayers: none of it had mattered one damn bit in the end. If you need to pull off the road and sob your fucking heart out anywhere, the shitscrabble countryside of Wyoming is as good a place as you'll get, because there's nothing to distract you from your catharsis. I know it's tempting to say western Nebraska, but there's all that prairie rolling away from you, rich with moisture and life. In the part of Wyoming where I unloaded nine months of abject failure into a succession of fast-food napkins and, in the end, my shirtsleeve, there was nothing but tumbleweeds and gravel to share my sorrow. Tumbleweeds and gravel don't like to give up their moisture for anything.

You get to a point where you have to turn away from what's dead and tend to living. It appears that I hold on to what everyone else can see is dead. I don't know why, but that's who I am, I guess. I've always believed that when you make a promise, you honor it with everything you've got. If you have to flex yourself a bit to keep the promise, well, you flex. I saw it in every important relationship in my life, from the earliest moments I can remember: in my family, we keep our promises. There's just one problem: when all you've known is honored promises, how can you possibly know what to do when promises are broken? You can try to keep your promises even harder, louder, more forcefully; but the end result is the same. You're keeping promises to what is dead, binding yourself to what will soon be a corpse, reeking of death and failure and decay, and if you're not careful, that corpse will drag part of your soul down into Sheol with itself.

Beloved and I were talking about the Unbloggableness tonight. I said, "this has felt, all along, like the divorce." She said, "Yes, and you're reacting the same way. You're trying to keep fighting for something that's already dead." She's right.

At least this time, when we get to Wyoming, we'll cry together.

EDITED TO ADD: It might sound like I'm trying to hammer FW here. I'm not. Pain heals in time, and while it wasn't great when it happened, FW and I have forgiven each other for that past and wish each other joy in the present and future. This is a lament about the present, not the past.

"Walking Away From Everything" by vampire-zombie

And Some Get Wicked Funny

I'm not a subtle person by any means, especially when I'm angry, and I was angry when I wrote yesterday. Lily Coyle of Minneapolis, on the other hand, was not angry. Or, if she was, she's much more cool-headed than I. Most people can only wish they could write satire this good.

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating.

I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

Now THAT is good satire, folks. Prayers for Haiti continue to ascend.

Agnus Dei, Qui Tolis Peccata Mundi, Misere Nobis

Mr. Robertson,
For the last several years, I've made the mistake of seeing you as a doddering, senile bigot whose rambling insanity and the forum which makes it possible is explainable only by sin and human stupidity. It appears I was too kind by half.

Make no mistake: I still believe everything I once believed, but I have a new perspective on your callous, inhuman bigotry. And the fault, for once, is mine, not yours. Every time you've issued your psychotic blamestorming on a population already suffering from natural disaster, I've laughed and reminded people how stupid you are, and how most of us in the Christian church believe you're an example of everything that could go wrong with our faith. But when the earthquakes ravaged Haiti this week, you blamed it on some supposed pact with the devil. For you, this was nothing but par for the heretical, vulgar course you've charted over the past twenty years. But for those of us in the ELCA, this one hit home, and so my eyes have been opened to the damage you've done.

You see, the bearded gentleman in the picture above was an ELCA seminarian, in Haiti for a January term course with his wife, his cousin and another classmate. He was less than six months from graduating and being called to serve a congregation as its pastor. By all accounts, he was a faithful servant of God, a loving husband and would have made an excellent pastor. I heard him preach just last summer, and I can tell you that your lunatic ramblings about God and evil have got nothing on the good news this young man could preach. Yet when the earthquake struck, only his wife and cousin escaped the collapsing building in which they were staying. While his death is not confirmed, all parties now presume that he did not survive the earthquake. He was taken from us in the earthquake, leaving behind friends and family whose grief you have insulted with ignorance, incompetence and inhumanity. I didn't know him well, but those who did deserve compassion and comfort in the face of this tragedy. Instead of Christlike compassion, you've poured bile and venom into their cup of sorrow.

Pat, you're not just a doddering nutcase. I was wrong about that. You, sir, are a cancer on the church. I'm ashamed to believe that Christ gave his holy, precious life to you. My faith tells me that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, yet I cringe to think that someday God will ask me to share eternal life with you. Fortunately for you, the decision of who gets in and who remains out is not up to me.

I hope God can forgive me for my anger. I pray, also, that in spite of your toxic tongue, the church I love and the God I serve can overcome your evil with good.

In Christ, reluctantly,
Scott

Those who would like to donate to Lutheran World Relief efforts in Haiti may do so here.

For the Record...

One of the fun things they never tell you in seminary is how much it hurts when you hear of bad news from a former call. A mother of two committed suicide this week - the daughter was one of my first confirmands, the son played on my final Junior High football team.

There just aren't words for sorrow like these folks must be feeling. Please keep them in your prayers.

Finding My Spot By The Fire

One of the most endearing memories I have of Larry, my mentor and campus pastor, comes from this time of year. Larry hated winter. I mean, he despised being cold with every fiber of his not-so-well-padded being. Skinny Germans with high metabolisms do not fare well north of the Mason-Dixon line, and even in Lincoln, Nebraska, winter can get cold. So, for a few months every year, Larry would come to the Student Center and immediately throw on the burgundy sport coat he kept in his office for just such weather. Then, when one of us pyromaniacs in the Student Center community would come in and build a fire, he'd come out of his office and find his spot by the fire. He'd warm his hands in front of the grate, and have a seat at the table. If it was really cold, he'd stand just to the left of the fireplace, with his skinny butt pressed up against the stones to keep himself warm.

One of the things I first noticed about the Lutheran Center here in Ames was the fireplace - it's almost exactly like the one in Lincoln. In fact, I have my suspicions that, given the similiarities in construction and the roughly concurrent construction dates, our buildings share the same architect and/or designer. Today, in a burst of inspiration, I finally figured out where my own spot by the fire will be. I've moved two of our wingback chairs on either side of the fireplace, set up a reading lamp, and made myself cozy. With a cup of hot chocolate at my side and a fire burning merrily in the fireplace, it's a nice spot to be.

And so goes the continuing saga of campus ministry for me. Ames is beginning to feel more and more like "our town," which is very good. The campus ministry game is slowing down for me, in football terms: like a quarterback who's learning a complicated offense, I'm starting to see how things fit together and the subtle nuances that can really make or break our ministry. Today, as I sat here writing my sermon, it occurred to me that perhaps someone will remember me in this spot like I remember Larry in his, and if that were to happen, well, I'd be pretty happy to be remembered so fondly. (Except for one of our students, who can't come into the building when there's a fire in the fireplace because of soot and airborne particulate allergies. So, I guess there's only one guarantee, and that's that D will NEVER remember me like this. :-) )

So, here are warm Friday wishes to you all, from my comfy spot by the fire. Peace, friends.

Scott

ps: if you are of the praying sort, please keep my friend Ellen in your prayers - she's received a pretty scary bit of health news today. thanks.

More Holy Than Can Be Described

Gordon at Real Live Preacher has a guest blogger today. Here's a sample of the holy wisdom to be found there:

Interestingly, my bravest friends, be they Christian pastors or confirmed heathens, have tended to explain the least. Instead, they have quietly anointed us with their kindnesses. They have prepared meals for us in the presence of our bitter enemy. They are holding our hands as we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

You should go read the rest, right now.

Soul Searching

So, before anything else, I need to show you a picture of "Today's Happy Things:"


These are my girls. Aren't they precious? I'm blessed beyond words to have them both. Thanks to Hot Cup Lutheran for the reminder that "Happy Things" do exist.

It's been a rough, rough day. I've spent the better part of the last 15 hours doing a lot of soul searching about the ministry of our congregation and my leadership in that role - how have I contributed to problems, how have I tried to solve some recurring problems in the past, what can be done at this point, and most importantly, how do I speak the truth about the change and growth that needs to happen without a) losing my temper or b) hurting the members of my congregation needlessly?

Sunday will be a day for conversation about where we are as a congregation. The gospel reading for this week is Luke 12.49-56, which ends with Jesus asking those around him, "You can read the signs in the weather: why can't you read the signs of the times as well?" The call to speak the truth in love is hounding me today - it seems that, as Jeremiah 23 also reads this week, the word is "a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces." Right now, I'm the one in pieces, and I need to be honest about that. But there are other rocks that need to be broken here, and wielding the hammer will not be pleasant. Not that I see myself in the role of Jeremiah or, heaven forbid, Jesus here: it's just that the Word is after me this week and I don't see any way of breaking free other than speaking the truth.

Why? Because It's Us

What happened yesterday in Blacksburg is beyond description - a day that was beyond tragic for many, and more pain and sorrow will come. Words can't describe what has happened, and these wounds will only heal with much time, work and faith.

One comment that immediately got me furious, however, was this, from a national media source: "How could this tragedy happen in this small, peaceful community?"

Let's make one thing absolutely clear: this happened because we are human, in bondage to sin, and no community or society will ever be free from such things. Yes, the horror is great, but none of us has the right to think, "I'm so glad that could never happen here."

Why?
Because it could.
Because it will.
Because it's us.

Whoever he was, let us not fool ourselves into thinking he was a shooter who somehow became something you and I are not. This was a person. Living & breathing. Child of God gone horribly, tragically, senselessly astray into violence. But still a human being.

Just.
Like.
Us.

God, keep us ever mindful that we are not disconnected, that the sins of one are the sins of us all. Send your Holy Spirit to comfort all who have been affected by this devastating tragedy, and where we can be your hands and feet, show us the way.