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West Wing

I'm watching the West Wing as I wait for laundry to finish so that I can go to work (yes, I know that I should think ahead more). And I'm thinking about how they work and why they work and what it all means...and then about how I work and where I work and what it all means. I realize that this is simply a TV show and not reality. I realize that, no matter where one is, there are great triumphs and disasters. But I can't help thinking about how this White House team operates.

In the show, the senior staff have plenty of arguments; they fight over nearly everything and people don't always get their way. But, they all have a basic understanding that they are working for the same purpose and vision. They might have different ways of getting there, and they might have differing areas of passion within this, but they all share the same vision. So, they duke it out and work towards it as best they can.

Can I say that about my work? Yes and no. I believe that the people I work with are faithful people who truly desire for the church to be honest and faithful servants in the world. I enjoy the people I work with and often find myself having to work outside the building in order to curb the amount of conversations I end up having. But I have yet to find what the common vision is. I have yet to understand what it is that we are working towards and why. I know what I, personally, want to see and work towards, but I have no idea what the church is aiming for. And unfortunately, my suspicions as to what it could be, are less than what I had hoped. And with no clear vision as to what we're working for, it sometimes makes it difficult to enter into conversations with people because you don't know what the common ground is and then someone ends up losing out completely.

Fascinating how teams work.

Love the Lord your God

So the first part of the scripture reading for this Sunday starts out: "Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he said, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, 'What is written in the law? What do you read there?' He answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.'"

I've been thinking about this passage for a long time now - primarily because I have to preach on it tomorrow. This goes immediately into the story of the Good Samaritan, by the way, as the lawyer asks who his neighbor is. But I want to focus on the first part, and it's caused some problems for me. Interestingly, it's one of my favorite verses/concepts, and it's found in several places in the Bible. I love it, because it encompasses all of who we are - heart, soul, mind, strength - the possibilities of what it means to "love God" with those aspects of us are endless, and I'm completely fascinated. And the fact that "doing this" will give life? I think that's great. Because I interpret that not only as life after death, but life in the here and now. It's a great flip on our traditional 10 Commandments.

But this week, this text just exhausted me. I knew that I was being compelled to preach on it, but I couldn't figure out why, because it's just stressful to me right now. So I started complaining to God about how, with all of the other leaders and teachers and preachers and prophets of the faith, he had given words to speak and I had none and, well, I have to preach this thing in 16 hours. But I think I've figured it out. It's that I don't know how to love God when I don't understand how and if I've received love myself.

Obviously, I have received love in life. Family, friends, co-workers, supervisors, students - all have shown me love. But as a dense human being, the reality of that is easily forgotten. And I think that my congregation is in the same place. So the question now becomes: how do I preach about loving God while at the same time speaking tangible love to them?

Murky Dismal and Rainbow Brite

So my friend and I watched the first part of an episode of Rainbow Brite the other night. It was fantastic. A total flashback to the wonders of an 80’s childhood. It made me think about how I was Rainbow Brite for Halloween when I was four – my mom made me this incredible costume, complete with the boots and the belt. Now I didn’t have the hair that she did, and I wasn’t able to create rainbows or ride the “most magnificent horse in the universe”, but that didn’t matter, because for a day I was able to bring color to a darkened world and I had the outfit to prove it.

Twenty-three years later, I often find myself still believing that I’m Rainbow Brite. I like to think of myself as a realist, but really, I just like to imagine. I like to create solutions and solve riddles and believe in the impossible. I like to maintain that the world contains more possibilities than we can see and, most of all, I like to believe that I am capable of bringing new life and color to it, with or without that spectacular color belt.

But here’s the problem: Rainbow Brite knows what the cause of the darkness and dreariness is. She knows what problem she has to solve, and it’s in the form of Murky Dismal and his sidekick Lurky, and they can often be found driving around in their Grunge Buggy with some sort of “gloom” potion. What’s required of her is to bring color into the world despite these villains’ best efforts. But in the real world, the challenges aren’t so well-defined.

And so sometimes I find Murky’s cloud of gloom to be a bit disorienting. Because it’s not about fighting off an enemy or two. And it’s not about finding all of the different color sprinkles and all of a sudden color is reintroduced to the world. There aren’t clear lines between what’s good and bad, and there’s no final “goal” to aim for. So then the question is: how does someone who still believes in the ability of dreams use that imagination to actually dissipate the murkiness this world sustains?

Scratchpad

For anyone who happens to stumble upon this blog in the near future, welcome to my scratchpad. I have come to realize that I will probably never be a true “blogger” – at least not in the near future. And, even though one would think that this realization came by way of simply looking at the sparse entries made to this “blog”, that is, in fact, not true.

Moving to a new city and starting a new job has its perks: there are lots of new places to explore, people to meet, and customs to be amused by. But it also means that, unless you move to a place where you happen to have friends from your previous life, you won’t know anyone. And such is the case with me. It makes for some long, boring nights at home with nothing to do. In the wake of this reality, I thought that I would surely spend more time with my hobbies and interests – piano, art, writing…And two months after moving here, I have yet to spend any time doing any of those things. This frustrates me, as I really do truly enjoy each of those pursuits.

My frustration, of course, led to theory, and theory, well, leads me to this post.

I think I have to have a reason to do something in order to do it. I am now convinced that the only reason I play piano at all now was because of the 14 years of lessons that I subjected myself to. If it hadn’t been for that weekly need to avoid the shame and scorn of my teacher, I would never have practiced and would never have been able to play as I do. Five years after my last lesson, I play maybe ten times a year. I think it’s the same with blogging. I gave it a good effort, I did it for a little bit, and once in a while I would feel inspired, such as today. But really, there’s no reason for me to be doing it, so it doesn’t happen.

I don’t know why I operate this way; one would think that you would do what you enjoy doing, without prompting. But somehow, I don’t.

Which means that this will never be a cohesive blog. However, I can use it as a scratchpad once in a while for when the mood strikes me. I can also experiment with it to find a blogging style that I like, should I ever find a reason to keep one. So, welcome to the experiment. We’ll see what happens. :)

The Hardest Part of Life

How does one get past their pride and their fear?

Theory of Everything

I find that I have a lot that I want to talk about. On the list today are: organ transplants, “graceful” interruptions, friendship, imagination, chaos theory, Europe, neuroscience, and the patience of fighting. They have come from the seminary pastor, an article (page 9), a friend, pictures on the wall, the odd fellow sitting across from me, and even a Harry Potter movie. Ordinarily, one would not think that organ transplants had anything to do with finding a call at a church. And ordinarily one would not think that neuroscience had anything to do with coffee shops. But they do. They really do. At least in my mind they do, which brings us to perhaps the one logical connection here: that chaos theory has everything to do with the state of my mind.

So I wanted to write posts today about all of these things, giving myself the opportunity to form into words all of the wisdom that has been given to me today. But as they accumulated, perhaps a “greater” wisdom was found: that there is a great deal of sustenance to be found in the everyday workings of life. Or that my mind works on overload to analyze the small things – I haven’t quite decided which of those two things it is yet. But for now, I’ll assume that at least the former is true and assert that the things that bring life and faith and imagination are the very ordinary things of each day. It’s not so much that I “learned” something today, although I could certainly say that as well. But it wasn’t learning in the sense of acquired knowledge – it was more that I was reminded of things I already knew, but had temporarily forgotten. And I heard thoughts that helped me rearrange how I viewed certain parts of my life. And I have found these reminders and “vision adjusters” to be the catalysts of my continued hope, motivation, imagination, and peace. Or, in other words, the catalysts of my sustenance.

So praise God for the man in white tube socks, untied black shoes, blue shorts, and fleece jacket who sits in the coffee shop trying finger-meditation-exercises while reading How God Changes Your Brain. Because it is this man - or really the presence and observance of this type of man - that prompts these musings and makes life interesting.

An Encounter with Moldova

Every once in a while – ok, a lot more than that – but every once in a while I’m reminded about how I wish I were better at languages than I am. Or rather that I were more dedicated in learning them. There was a man who came into the campus center today trying to find some papers that had been recycled that shouldn’t have been. He couldn’t have been more than sixty, but had gray and greasy hair –that he was definitely losing, he hadn’t bothered to take the size sticker off of his pants, his glasses only had one ear piece, and I saw only two teeth – one of which, was silver. He was from Moldova, but came to the U.S. ten years ago when he married his wife, who had been a missionary there. His English was good, but he obviously had to think about it.

Now, it can be tricky to try and speak Russian with anyone from a former territory, based purely on the generally unhappy memories that it triggers, but it’s also sometimes nice to be able to speak with someone in a language that they’re likely more comfortable with. And while Moldovans don’t technically speak Russian, they were under Russian and Soviet rule for much of their history. Plus, some of the words that came out as he was thinking were Russian, so it would have been nice to at least see how it would have worked to try to speak to him. But, I haven’t spoken any substantial Russian for five years, so that wasn’t really an option.

Unaware of my inner dialogue, the man talked with me as he was searching through paper about what prayer does, about how culture and society and psychology affect our theology, about Serbia and Slovenia, and about how one should email themselves with information they want instead of writing it on paper that can get lost. And then as he was leaving I was finally able to get out “good day” in Russian to him. He walked out the door, then came back and started asking me – in Russian – if I spoke the language. I answered in English, but he continued to ask me simple questions in Russian, apparently delighted that I knew anything. And he then went on to talk some more about Eastern European history and how there were different websites where I could practice Russian. And somewhere in there he managed to flip into German…prompting a whole other discussion.

I enjoy these earth-wandering types. And I tend to run into them a lot. My Russian helped in talking to my next-door neighbor several years ago who spoke no English, and also with local customers who came into my Starbucks . My German not only ended up getting me out of stranded and frustrating situations in Turkey, Italy, and Denmark, but it helps in conversation with the guy who manages the convenience store on the corner here. And I have close friends who are fluent in both. It’s not just in far-off lands that these languages show up – they’ve been in the middle of the communities I live in here in the States. So one would think that, by this point in my life, it would have sunk in that it would be helpful to actually learn these languages that I’ve started. But it hasn’t. Not really, anyway. I’ll go home, look at the textbooks, find the words and grammar charts slightly amusing and tempting… and then decide that watching movies is more fun.

Green as Carrots

So my question was: “going green…is it trendy or will it stick around?”. And so I will tell you about my neighbor’s friend. Now I should know the name of said neighbor, but I don’t. And I don’t think I’d ever met her friend outside of this one encounter. But apparently this neighbor’s friend was familiar with my trash.

In Germany, “green” isn’t really a popular trend…it’s more of a…commandment. If I remember correctly, there were seven different bins at our apartment – only one was for actual trash. Our office building was powered entirely by solar panels (and enough power was left over to sell and make a profit on). And while many people own cars, most rely on public transportation (at least in Berlin). Which is why, when the operators of these lovely modes of transportation go on strike, no one can get anywhere, because those of us on foot have to walk or bike across the city of 3.5 million to get to our destination, and those with cars suddenly brought them all out at once and created total gridlock.

Anyway, it took me awhile to really live into this “green commandment” while I was over there. One doesn’t really think a whole lot about these things while living in the middle-of-nowhere Nebraska (and really, it would be a lot of effort on the part of the rural person who wanted to be environmentally conscious), and neither college nor seminary really taught me the importance of it. So a few months into my stay there, I came out of my apartment and was greeted by this very small, very animated, and somewhat elderly, woman. She wasn’t really yelling at me, but was very firm and direct in telling me that I wasn’t separating my trash correctly and I needed to start doing that. I got a lecture, in German, about how important it was to make sure that I was doing my part for the environment. That meant, in this case, that it wasn’t enough to separate out pop bottles and paper from trash. There’s also compost, metal, other plastics, and…well, a few others that I can’t remember right now. And many, many more for the truly dedicated. Now, I have no idea how they knew that I wasn’t separating out compost and metals (tin foil and staples and such). And I was not the most gracious of recipients to this particular woman’s lecture. But it did make me more careful and more “accurate” with my trash.

So then I came back to the States, and found that no one really even recycles paper. Public transportation is horrendous, and I don’t know of a single building in my area that uses solar panels. So it’s a “trend” that’s still in severe need of some love and attention.

Therefore, in an effort to encourage one small thing people can do here, I’m going to direct you to the website of an absolutely FABULOUS organization called Carrotmob. Here, businesses compete with one another about how much “good” they will do environmentally if their business “wins”. Carrotmob picks the best store each time, sends out email notifications to you, the consumer, and then you commit to buying (what you would already normally buy) at that particular store. The store gets publicity, profit, and they help the environment. It came about as an alternative to protests, rallies, and boycotts. There’s a fun, animated video at this site and there are tabs at the top for FAQs, “about” it, organizing, etc. Check it out! http://carrotmob.org

Hmmmmmm

So apparently I haven't posted in about 4 months. Fascinating. So therefore, the first person who remembers this blog exists, is bored enough to check it, and gives me a topic to post on...that I will do. Hope your year is going well!