Mini Homily #2: Confession

It may be new for us to think about how our eating implicates us in patterns of injustice. We must eat to live—how can it be wrong?

Eating is never wrong. Food is a grand, delicious gift to be celebrated. The trouble is, we fail to celebrate it. We have forgotten where our food comes from. We have abstracted our bacon from pigs. We have abstracted our corn from fields. We have abstracted our strawberries from the Chilean workers who picked the plump, red fruit with their fingers. We care not about the Chilean worker or his fingers but rather we care about whether or not we’ll have strawberries all year long.

When we become disconnected from our food, we become disconnected from the lives that make our eating possible. We want cheap chicken. We want cheap tomatoes. We get upset when tasting is costly. We come to confess today because tasting is costly, and we have squandered the earth’s resources with our reckless tasting.

In our tasting, we must learn to ask: “whose blood is in this food?” How were the animals treated? How were the workers treated? What is the yearly income of the lady who raises chickens? How is the land being treated? Are we leaving gashes in the earth? Can they be sewn together or are we sowing permanent destruction?

Our insatiable desire for food that is cheap and convenient is tearing holes in God’s Creation. English poet, John Drinkwater, wrote that “when you defile the pleasant streams and the wild bird’s abiding place, you massacre a million dreams and cast your spittle in God’s face.”

Do we stand before God and spit in his face?

We do. For this reason, we must confess.

Mini Homily

Think of the last time you read the Creation story in Genesis. Did it blow your mind and leave you panting for a glimpse of this world? Did you yearn to put your hands in the dirt and feel what God put there? Did you find yourself wanting to lie down in a garden so you could smell God?

The last time I read the Creation story, I found myself unimpressed. It’s all that redundancy, really, that causes my eyes to glaze over: “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.” It all seems so effortless, like God is pointing at products in a Pier 1 catalogue to furnish his living room.

God, we find ourselves unimpressed with the way you describe the furnishings of your world: vegetation, birds, wild animals—God show us the platypus! Show us the redwoods and the panther and the Pacific Ocean. Show us the gladiolus; lift it to our noses. The hawk, God, show us the hawk; we will study it and praise you. The colors must have been vibrant, and the textures! How did the world feel leaving your fingertips? What tasks did you delegate to Jesus? Did the Spirit scatter seeds and feed the animals? Tell us, God, impress us! Show us the hawk.

But there is nothing wrong with God’s imagination.

There is something wrong with our imagination.

Have we lost our ability to wonder? Can our eyes see that the world is soaked with God? Loss of astonishment is not a new phenomenon—St. Basil the Great wrote in the 4^th century: “I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that wherever you go, the least plant may bring you the clear remembrance of the Creator…One blade of grass or one speck of dust is enough to occupy your entire mind in beholding the art with which it has been made.”

There is something wrong with our imagination. God is not picking out the world from a catalogue—trees are not products; chickens are not products; nitrogen is not a product. Rather, God imagined the earth, and it was so, and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, every day.

God says: “Go outside, and within you I will cultivate astonishment. I only ask that you learn to see.”

Seminary Fail

Seminary student #1: “hey! what is a good bible verse about grace that i can memorize like a mantra? (not john 3:16)”

Seminary student #2: mmmm, that's a question for [seminarian who likes grace a lot]

Seminary student #1: haha. duly noted.

Seminary student #2: or pick up your copy of Brennan Manning

Seminary student #1: good point.

Seminary student #2: I'm making such good suggestions.

Seminary student #1: you are.

Seminary student #2: but yet can't think of a verse...

Seminary student #1: well, i mean other than the one about you are saved by grace, not by works, that is somehow the only one i can think of

Seminary student #2: yeah, other than that one, I don't think the Bible says much about it.

Seminary student #1: interesting. i should have noticed this before now. hahaha.

Seminary student #2: wait, is that true? I was being an ass

Seminary student #1: hahahaha.

man, i am just in an accept-everything-state-of-mind.

how can i not think of any verses with grace!

ok, i'm doing a computer search

ok, there are like a million hits

you are never to speak of this conversation with anyone

OH NO, DISASTER

hahaha

my grace is sufficient for you!

how could i have forgotten that one?

Thank God for our vulnerability.

There is a crack in everything, and that's how the light gets through.

"Time for Bed"

How many pints of Ben & Jerry's will it take to become a good pastor?

Is empathy really a good thing?

Who will be our pastor when we need one?

When will everyone live into their vulnerability?

When will God make it all right?

Maranatha.

"Shitty First Drafts"

(Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it."

Thanks for your contribution, Anne. I appreciate it. I agree heartily, and I felt moved enough to write these words into my fake-moleskine notebook (which, since I got it at Target, is probably made out of beavers); http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/02/24/122-moleskine-notebooks/

However, although your words are nice, I don't quite know how to stop looking at my feet. Have you seen the stepping stones at Duke Divinity School? They are not stones. They are jutting, jagged rocks, like the ones on Tom Hanks's Castaway island. They would kill me if I fell.

But alas, I know you are right, Anne. I know that writing a paragraph should not take me 4 hours. I know that I should not write one sentence and then yell at the dog, "This is too impossible. I am the worst sentence writer in the world!" The dog doesn't understand why I'm yelling anyway, and the people that I'm dog-sitting for probably have one of those teddy-bear-nanny-cams that is filming me as I sit at the kitchen table and yell neurotically at their canine therapist. I know that writing one sentence and then leaving the house to go buy chocolate is ultimately impeding me from creativity and insight and joy. The idea of stepping carefully on all of those stones is just too incredibly hard, and so instead I find a canoe and paddle erratically in no fruitful direction. All I want to do is walk leisurely on the stones, but I cannot. It is too hard.

Writing is too hard for me. I am writing a spiritual memoir for one of my classes, and I cannot do it. It is personally taxing, and besides that fact, the words that I try to put on the page are vapid. I try to cure my writing affliction with chocolate and with warm soup, but the words still will not come. I have been in an informal, non-graded writing class this semester. The others write so easily. In the time it takes them to write 200 beautiful sentences, I have written 10 sentences that contain no good in them at all. They read their writing, and I feel as though we're on Writing Survivor: Outwit, Outcharm, Outlast. I persistently lose the competition and have to go back to the island, cold and unfed.

However, it has actually never even been a competition. It's a spiritual formation class, for goodness' sake. I am there to grow in and by the presence of others. I am there to relish the presence of these women of God. I am not there to walk the stones carefully and to outperform. It is wrong for me to be a competitive monster. It is wrong for me to want to Gladiator-fight the other girls off the stones and to run triumphantly and alone to the other side.

I know that you must struggle in the same way sometimes, Anne. Has it become easy for you to write shitty first drafts? I can't seem to do it without the aid of gin. And so I languish, yelling my feelings at dogs and eating too many chocolates, and then after many, many wasted hours of self-pity, I finally produce a shitty first draft that happens to be my only and final draft.

Perfectionism is leaving me cramped and insane, but I frankly don't how to get off the train. I think that my professor, for whom I'm writing this paper, sensed that we might struggle with the pressure to write well for him. As such, he sent us an email with this quote from Flannery O'Connor: "You do not write the best you can for the sake of art but for the sake of returning your talent increased to the invisible God to use or not use as he sees fit."

In writing, my telos ought not be personal success. My telos ought not to be to Outwit, Outcharm, and Outlast. Frankly, my telos in life ought never be any of these things. I do not exist in God's world to outperform. As a friend of mine wisely says: "That's not the Gospel."

It's not the Gospel.
I still don't know how to stop looking at my feet.
I still don't know how to rejoice in my walking.
I still don't know how to run freely across the stepping stones.
But I know that it's not the Gospel.

Dear (Extroverted) Ministers and Future Ministers: (Or Why I Struggle with Going to Church)

Dear (extroverted) ministers and future ministers of the Word of our God and Savior Jesus Christ,

I have something that I need to tell you.

I need to tell you what going to church is like for an introvert.

Going to church is terrible.

I need to tell you this, (extroverted) ministers and future ministers, because of this state of affairs, I find you disastrously unaware.

I will now demonstrate this truth with an anecdote:

Last year, one of "your kind," with what I found to be utmost insensitivity, said to me: "Sara, it's not that hard to go to church."

I was appalled. APPALLED. "Has he ever been in a church parking lot?" I thought, indignantly. "Has he ever passed the peace?"

"Clearly this man (and of course he is a man) knows nothing of the extreme anguish that church attendance produces inside of me. And if he knows nothing of my acute distress, then he clearly knows nothing of the acute distress of the entire world. And if he knows not of the acute distress of the entire world, then he ought not be a minister of the Word of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. It is settled," I thought. "This man is not equipped for ministry."

Allow me to clarify for you, ministers and future ministers, what this extreme anguish is like. For ease of imagery, I will play the role of the distressed parishioner in the following scenarios:

Scenario #1: "The parking lot"

Perhaps unbeknownst to you, ministers and future ministers, navigating the church parking lot is one of the most harrowing experiences an introverted church visitor can have.

"What if I turn wrongly into the church parking lot, indicating to everyone that I am a visitor who knows nothing of the story of redemption?"

"How am I to greet the nice-looking couples I walk by in the parking lot? Am I to greet them with a holy kiss, as Paul instructed? Must I say something trite and bouncy, like: "Grace and peace, brothers and sisters!"? Do I shake hands? Hug? Elbow-bump? For the love of everything that is good and holy, can't I just pretend to text?!?"

"What door do I go in? Oh dear God, what door do I go in? God, show me the damn door that I'm supposed to go in!"

To be sure, a visiting introvert's experience in the church parking lot before the service has begun is 100x less distressing than her experience after the service.

After the service, otherwise reserved churchgoers spill into the parking lot, all jacked up on grace and Eucharistic elements, eager to pounce on any newcomer they see and force them to feel welcome.

"I'M SO GLAD THAT YOU CAME. WE WELCOME YOU. I HOPE THAT YOU FEEL SUFFICIENTLY WELCOMED. PLEASE COME BACK TO OUR WELCOMING CHURCH."

Ministers and future ministers, I want you to know that introverts leave encounters such as these, panting and groaning anxiously, for a full 3-5 minutes. The experience alone is enough to prompt someone to order one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Bible-4-oz-Flask/dp/B001T3YC2E

Suffice it to say, the church parking lot is an introvert's hell. It is one of the foremost obstacles that introverts face in trying to get themselves to church. This is something that I want you to be aware of, ministers and future ministers, for your present or future ministry.

Scenario #2: "Pew selection"

Once the visiting introvert has braved the horrors of the parking lot, she then faces the equally horrifying horrors of the "greeters' spirit tunnel" and then, the horror of all horrors, the moment of pew selection.

Ministers and future ministers, I will have you know that walking through the tunnel of forced Christian hospitality upon entering the church doors is, emphatically, not a good time. This is especially true for young-looking female introverts who attend church without male companions. Truly, for the single introvert, church is inordinately harrowing because churchgoers, suffice it to say, have absolutely no idea how to talk to young, single females who are joining them for worship. Typically, their response it to think silently, "Hmmm, I wonder how this nice, 15-year old lesbian found our church?" The introvert finds this to be stressful. Ministers and future ministers, perhaps you could train your parishioners to accept and embrace singlehood in the church and to not assume that all single females are lesbians.

Having received her bulletin, the introvert is once more overcome with extreme anguish, because she now faces the horror of all horrors: pew selection.

I will demonstrate this extreme anguish with another anecdote:

Earlier this year, when attending a new church, I decided to make my pew selection choice with confidence. This, as it turned out, was a terrible decision. I had just sat down, confidently, and had just confidently given a faint-smiling-head-bob to the young, blonde woman next to me when she turned to her spouse and began frantically whispering. They deliberated--I could feel them deliberating--and then they pew-shuffled 6 feet away from me. "Oh God," I thought frantically, "am I supposed to pew-shuffle with them? Maybe they could tell that I couldn't really see over the head of that tall man ahead of me." It was the worst 5 seconds of my life. Upon confidently giving the woman the faint-smiling-head-bob, I had envisioned myself, 4 weeks later, sitting jubilantly on this beautiful couple's sofa, nursing a hot toddy and playing a rousing game of Cranium. Now, however, it couldn't be more clear that I was being rejected. Another adorable couple appeared at the side of the pew. They wanted to sit by the first adorable couple. I was in their spot. I had broken the rules of church visitor pew selection.

Ministers and future ministers, pew selection is right up there with the parking lot in terms of fostering anguish. The introvert must decide not only where she is allowed to sit, but she must also apply great strategy to her decision so that she will have easy access to the sanctuary doors, come the moment of the benediction (more on this next week). The anguish of pew selection is one more obstacle introverts face in trying to get themselves to church. I think it necessary for you to know this for your ministry, ministers and future ministers.

Going to church is ridiculously hard for introverts, and I haven't even begun to describe what happens when the service actually begins and when it ends. Next week, ministers and future ministers, I will take up Scenario #3: Passing the Peace and Scenario #4: The Fellowship Hall. Sweet Jesus, the horrors of the fellowship hall...

I am glad we have begun to communicate about this, extroverted ministers and future ministers, and I hope to find you next week to be more sensitive to this state of affairs.

Best,

An Introverted Churchgoer