A Pop Sermon

Last night, in my Women and the Preaching Life class, we had a "pop sermon"--like a pop quiz, but not a quiz.  I would much rather have a pop sermon.  We had 5 minutes to choose a Bible passage, decide on a message, and prepare a one minute sermon.  And then we stood up and gave those sermons.  We had to turn off our phones, close our laptops, and give full attention to those who were giving the sermon.

At first I thought I would write about the Psalm that tells us that weeping may spend the night but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30: 5).  But I decided that I didn't really have much to say beyond the basic meaning:  we can cry all night, but eventually joy comes again.

I thought about the verse about God's hands stretching across the sky, and when I Googled it, I got Isaiah 49:16:  "See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."  I thought about the time I went to see Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and he talked about this verse and about what it means that God has our names inscribed on God's hands.  And voila, I had my sermon.

I read the verse and talked about how I read the verse, and at first I don't think of my hands, but instead of Archbishop Desmond Tutu's hands reaching out as he read this verse to us.  I think of my own hands.  Until recently, I would have written notes of what I needed to remember to do on my hands--and these days, I'd have notes extending up my arms, since we're in that busy time of the term (several of my classmates alluded to our heavy to-do lists).  Why didn't I make notes on paper?  Because my hands traveled with me all the time; paper can be lost.  And then I finished with a few sentences with my arms outstretched, asking the listeners to take heart that God has not forgotten us; on the contrary, we are written on God's hands, we are on God's list of what needs attention.

I felt like it was a powerful 1 minute sermon, and one of my classmates told me that she found it enormously moving.  But I found many of the sermons moving, and every single one of them had something profound to say.  It continues to amaze me of how much content one can pack into a very short delivery time:  5-7 minute sermons in Foundations of Preaching (with weeks of prep time) and last night, a 1 minute sermon with very little prep time.

It also seems like an idea that could be used in a variety of settings:  finding a central idea in a text and presenting it, writing an introductory paragraph/thesis/conclusion/main point and presenting it, writing a line of a poem or a line of dialogue in response to a prompt--on and on I could go.

It seemed less punishing than a pop quiz, and for me, I felt more engaged than I would with a pop quiz.  It also showed us a different approach to developing a sermon, which is one of the main purposes of a class in the Preaching discipline (which last night's class was).  

We did it at the beginning of class, which for me was a great way to start.  I could see it working well at any point of the class.  When I've taught in person, I've always looked for ways to shake things up a bit, whether it's showing some video or doing some reading (individually or out loud).  And while it did take us over an hour, between prepping, delivering, and analyzing the process, it wouldn't have to take that long.

It was worth every minute.

Publication and Preservation

Even though I can get all the resources I need electronically, I occasionally cross the campus to the library.  I feel sorry for all those books, so neatly shelved, almost never checked out.  I do wonder how long the school (and schools across the country) will continue to dedicate themselves to the task of tending books that are never used.

I'm not talking about the censorship campaigns happening in parts of the country.  Those libraries that are being decimated have been in use.  I go to the physical library at my seminary, and I am almost always the only one in there who is not library staff.

A few weeks ago, I made this Facebook post:  "When I'm in the seminary library, I have to resist the temptation to check out the books that haven't been checked out in awhile (that is to say, most of them)--in part to make the books feel loved, in part so that they won't be culled, if the library is called upon to do such things."

I love the smell of the library, even though I know I'm smelling the slow, slow crumbling of books turning to dust.  I remember going to the library in my spare time in undergraduate school, sitting in the stacks, often on the floor, soaking in all sorts of wisdom.  I loved reading periodicals.  I thought I would do something similar in seminary, but so far, I don't.

Right now the books are protected because the space isn't needed for something else.  Teachers aren't fighting over classroom space.  We have an empty dorm that can be used for faculty offices.  There's no need to uproot the books.

I'm guessing that there are accreditation issues that also safeguard the books.  I know that it's not as simple as I'm sketching it here.

I've been sending out poetry submissions this morning, thinking about their passage in the world.  Will they find a place between covers in an old-fashioned book or periodical?  Why do I do this anyway?

In part, force of habit.  In part, because I'm still happy when a poem gets accepted.  In part because I still want to believe that poems that are published have some chance of preservation.

Interior and Exterior Castles

Yesterday was one of those days when I was in a strange mood, not necessarily bad or good, but just strange.  The day was book-ended by e-mails that I wrote, the old-fashioned kind that are more like letters, the kind that brings friends up to date with the pivots of the last month.  I had a video chat with a friend--sobering to realize that she came into my life when she took one of the best classes I've ever taught, the early Victorian Brit Lit class at Florida Atlantic University, a class of only English majors, who did all the reading and had riveting conversations about it.  It's sobering to realize because that was over 20 years ago.

In the afternoon, I had a video chat with my spouse.  In some ways, it was about the purpose of church, the purpose of preaching, social justice and charity.  We've been having this conversation for 40 years, and I'm happy to say we've finally resolved it all.  HA!  We will never resolve these issues, and there are days when I don't fully understand why we care at all.

My spouse was in one of those "the only kind of preaching that should come from the pulpit is THIS kind of preaching."  I was in a mood to remind him that the world is full of damaged souls who can't respond to that kind of preaching, that go out and transform society kind of preaching, because they need to know and hear and believe that God loves them, that they are valuable.  We weren't disagreeing, exactly, but I do feel we were exhausting each other.

Part of me felt snarly, because neither one of us is out there transforming society, doing justice, breaking the bonds of oppression.  I don't feel like I'm in a position to criticize others who are similarly sitting on the sofa, working on other projects, yet taking care in smaller ways.

And then I watched a lecture for World Religions class about Buddhism, which further scrambled my mood.  To clear my mind a bit, I went for a walk.  It was just at sunset, and I was happy to be reminded of how beautiful the light can be.  I watched the lights come on in houses that cost more than I will ever be able to afford.  I checked the moon; I know that Jupiter and Venus are about to be closer in the night sky than they will be again all year, but they weren't visible yet.  I kept walking, and as the sky got a smidge darker, I saw them, old friends of a different sort.

And just to make my mood even stranger, I came home and read this NYT Magazine piece about the COVID oral history project.  I ate some of my baguette, ate pricy cheese and olives, and thought about what a topsy-turvy time we're living in. 

Today I need to sit myself down and focus on some writing tasks.  I've done the fun ones, and now I need to get the Teresa of Avila paper done.  She's not my favorite, but we had a choice of 3 works, and I like the others even less; I am not spending one more minute of my life engaging with Jonathan Edwards, thank you very much.  It's this angry god theology that's got us in so much trouble--and I know if I write that kind of paper, my Church History professor will slam me for it.

So, onward to interior castles and beyond!

Reviving History

I stayed up later than I meant to last night.  I started watching The Chosen a week ago, and I thought I'd just watch another episode last night before turning in--yep, three episodes later, I was still up.  I'm fascinated by this show:  by its approach to the familiar story of Jesus, by its production values, by the ways it leaves the Gospels yet stays true to them, by the way it shows us the larger context of Roman Palestine in a way that seems unique, by the way we see the differences among the followers.  What I'm trying to say is that the men look dirty when they would have been dirty in real life, that their clothes are raggedy, that they come from a variety of ethnicities, that the show feels real to me.  The background music is starting to annoy me, however, that mystical keening whenever there's a long shot of people on the move or a single person musing.

It's interesting to watch this show in the context of a religious revival that may or may not stay localized to a small school in Kentucky, Asbury University.  Two weeks ago, a friend wrote to tell me that she hoped that the revival happening at Asbury would spread to my campus, and that was the first that I had heard of it.  That small undergraduate school is very different from my seminary.  I'm pretty sure we would not be met with leniency by our professors if we decided to stay in chapel for two weeks instead of going to class and turning in work.  But perhaps I am jaded.

One of my fellow students went to Asbury.  I don't know her well enough to have a deep conversation about what she experienced.  By the time she went, thousands of others were there too, which would have changed the dynamic.

In the past week, I've noticed that more people are writing about the revival.  Nadia Bolz-Weber kept tuning into the live stream from the assembly:  

"But there is something in my soul which longs for what I am seeing on these live-streams. Or what I feel I am seeing.

So rather than make big stroke proclamations about what the Asbury Revival is or is not, I’m trying to just pay attention to what longing inside of me is being drawn up in buckets each time I tune in."

In an Opinion piece in The New York Times, Ross Douthat writes about revivals throughout the history of Christianity and concludes:  "And if you’re imagining a renewal for American Christianity, all the best laid plans — the pastoral strategies, theological debates and long-term trendlines — may matter less than something happening in some obscure place or to some obscure individual, in whose visions an entirely unexpected future might be taking shape."

Much like what happened to that original band of people who followed Jesus, the experience that The Chosen captures in such a captivating way.

Ancient Texts, Dry Bones

Yesterday was a wonderful day.  I did seminary writing of all sorts:  a more formal paper finished for my Queer Theology class, responding to classmates' discussion posts for World Religions class, and a less formal response to the week's material for Church History class.  I watched videos for class and did a bit of reading.  I did some piecing together of scraps of cloth into squares for my quilt.  I made dough for homemade pizza, and then I made homemade pizza.  I took a walk.

Today will be more of the same--hurrah!  There's a chance of snow throughout the day, but right now, the skies are clear.  I should probably go for today's walk sooner, rather than later.

I've already written a poem this morning, so I feel like I've won, even before I've started.  I was feeling a bit blah before the writing, devoid of ideas and directions.  So I turned to my file of abandoned lines and chose these two that were in the file just as you see them below:

She collects silk ribbons in a sea of colors

Ancient texts, vast deserts, ash, dry bones and wombs

I used the first line as the first line.  I didn't use the second line overtly in the poem that emerged, although it did shape my ideas.  I've written three stanzas, which may mean that the poem is done, or it may mean that more will come.

Today's seminary writing is not as much writing I look forward to:  a short paper on Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle for Church History.  I want to have a rough draft done by tomorrow.  I also want to start on both exegesis assignments this week-end:  one for the Luke class and one for the Women and the Preaching Life class.

But first, let me get that walk done, before the snow comes.  You might say, "Wait and go for a walk in the snow."  I am actually anticipating rain, not snow.  So let me get some exercise while the weather is decent, cold but clear.

Queer Theology, Quilting Theology, Theology of Aging

I have a Queer Theology paper due at 5 p.m. today.  I thought I was going to write something that explored the ways we perform gender/race/class, and how aging can impact that.  But then I thought that maybe I was writing two different papers.  They could be one paper, if it was a different kind of requirement.  But the paper is only supposed to be 600-700 words, and I was at 1,160 words yesterday afternoon, and I was far from finished.

I decided to create a new draft, one that excised the aging bits.  Late yesterday, I had created a quilting metaphor that I liked.  It asked what would happen if a quilt square rearranged itself--how would the quilter Creator respond? So I started a new draft to expand the quilting metaphor.

Now I may have 3 papers wrapped up into one.  I like the quilting metaphor, but I don't think it does what is required for this part of the paper (quoting the assignment here):   "With the remaining space in your paper, make your own argument that builds on the argument of the text.  What does the text allow you newly to say, or say anew?  What does it make you curious about, and what hypothesis might you venture in relation to that curiosity?  What’s the next frontier for the line of argument in the text, in your judgment?"

I've got about 400 words in which to do that.  I don't think the quilting argument says something new or goes to the next frontier, although it is intriguing.  It is an essay that is more in line with Queer Apologetics*, which is not what this class is exploring.

Let me excise a bit again.  Perhaps I can do more with economics and aging and the ways that our system is rigged and how theology offers an escape.  Hmm.

On to draft #3--but have no fear.  I'm not going to throw away the quilt paragraphs.  I may not use them in this Queer Theology paper, but I had too much fun writing them to toss them away.  Plus, there are future blog posts to write--they may show up here!

*I am using Apologetics in its classic sense, which is a justification or defense of, not apology for existence.

Ash Wednesday 2023

Sound travels in odd ways in this seminary apartment building.  Somewhere, someone has ambient music playing, the kind you might play if you were trying to block out other noise so that you could sleep.  I hear about every third note, and I find it oddly soothing, so much so that I haven't shifted to my usual morning routine of listening to episodes of various NPR shows that I've missed or the few podcasts that I follow.  I've heard the ambient music before, usually in the middle of the night, and it has lulled me back to sleep then.

Another odd fact of life in this apartment building this term:  we have had weekly water outages.  We get announcements in advance, and it's only for a few hours.  Yesterday was one of those outages, and so I took my shower very early, so I could go to the 7 a.m.  Ash Wednesday service at nearby St. Columba's Episcopal church.

I had planned to go to the grocery store after the service, but it occurred to me that I could go before the service if I left right after I finished the morning watch session that I do every morning for my Florida church.  And so, I did.  I was on foot, and I felt perfectly safe, walking to Wegmans just before 6 a.m.  Lots of folks were walking, but almost all of them were construction workers, walking with their hard hats in hand.  As I left Wegmans and walked up the hill to St. Columba's, I stopped to take some pictures of the sunrise:

I got to St. Columba's early, about 6:43 a.m. for the 7 a.m. service, but the church was open.  I went in and took a few pictures before the service started as people were getting ready:

I was happy that a female priest presided.  As we went up for ashes, I tried to determine who filled the pews:  mostly white-skinned women like me, at the far side of midlife or the early part of their older years, most with sensible hair cuts, most in natural shades of gray.  There was one woman who presented as African-American, one younger woman with pink and green hair pulled back in a ponytail, another even younger woman in an American Ballet Theatre sweatshirt who was there with an older man (they seemed to be father-daughter, but who can be sure?).  There were a few men, but mostly females.

The website said it would be a brief service with imposition of ashes and eucharist.  I was a little surprised to see a bulletin:

The service was brief in that we didn't have music, but otherwise, we covered everything that I want in an Ash Wednesday service.  In fact, I found Isaiah 58: 1-12 so moving that I've decided to do my first sermon for Women and the Preaching Life class on the last verses of the text.

After the service, I took some pictures.  Some of the parishioners looked at me as they passed by me, and I wondered if they thought I was strange for taking pictures or if they thought they knew me but couldn't place me.

I returned to my seminary apartment full of purpose and made this Facebook post:  "As many of you know, I'm an early bird, so this morning, I headed off to Saint Columba's Episcopal Church for their first Ash Wednesday service at 7 a.m., and on my way, I stopped by Wegman's to get a few things. I did grocery shopping, got a longish walk done, and got a visceral reminder of my mortality, all before 8 in the morning!"

I had planned to spend the day doing lots of writing for seminary classes, but I did none of it.  I did some of the work that needs to be done before writing:  thinking about the assignment for my Queer Theology class, reading the books that I'll respond to in a discussion post for World Religions class.  I doublechecked my calendars to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

I got other work done.  I called my former employer, the one who severed me from my last full-time job, and asked them to provide me my W2.  It wasn't as awkward as I thought it might be, and I did get the document.  Let me remember how much time it took, the better part of an hour:  I did internet searching, made a phone call, waited on hold, got transferred, waited on hold, got transferred back, took down info about e-mail addresses, sent an e-mail, got a phone call, took down info, got re-registered for Viventium (the site that securely stores all this paperwork), and finally, I got my W2.

I got other writing done, primarily writing in my journal.  I made a casserole that has leftovers that means I won't have to cook later.  I went for a late afternoon walk.  I had a video call with my spouse who is in North Carolina.

I thought about trying to get seminary writing done in the early evening, but I decided that I would do a better job if I waited.  It was too early to go to bed, so I watched a few episodes of The Chosen, which was a much better show than I thought it would be.  I felt slightly less guilty about taking the night off because the show is about Jesus.  I did a lot of sewing on what I'm calling my small pieces collection:

These are the pieces in progress--the double bed in the guest room is covered with finished pieces.  I'm taking advantage of this time of living by myself, keeping supplies close by and every surface draped with fabric:

I won't always have this luxury:  time to write, time to study, time to sew.  I am profoundly grateful.