Nashville - Part Three

Where I worked for outpatient psychiatry at Vanderbilt

The route has been a bit circuitous, but Nashville played a part in bringing me back to Alabama, maybe a bigger part than I have realized.

Nashville Part Three 

I sat on the balcony/breezeway of my hotel at a small café table set for two. The traffic pulsing through the veins and arteries of downtown Nashville on a Friday night hummed and screamed to my right. I sent Jeno a short video of the scene. He in turn sent me the views from our home on R3, bird song mixed with the occasional sound of engines traveling down R3. I have enjoyed learning the past two days, and tomorrow morning will be good as well, but I have reached the point where my anticipation faces homeward. I miss home. 

 

This short trip reminds me of the panacean quality of travel for me, ever since I spent the summer in Alaska and possibly as early as my middle school trip to Colorado with Natasha. Through travel, I found new ways of connecting with the world and with myself. I recognize those years as the path leading to the outer edges of the labyrinth – moving in an erratically concentric path away from the center, eventually and methodically returning me to the heart of it. 

 

After the debacle of Lex Brodie, my next temp job in Nashville landed me in the outpatient psychiatry clinic at Vanderbilt University. I served as secretary to a geriatric psychiatrist, and later, worked in the office of an OCD researcher. I loved my work with these physicians and the nurses, social workers, nurse practitioners and support staff in the clinics. I thought, even then, that IF I decided to go into medicine at some point, I could see myself enjoying psychiatry. Funny how random assignments from a temp agency influence the trajectory of a life – something too coincidental to be coincidence as I might say (like in a sermon posted earlier this week). 

 

And my work with IVCF convinced me that I wanted to be in ministry full time which spurred me forward in my ordination process. The ordination process took me to New Jersey for another Master’s degree which in turn connected me to my boss in California where I worked with graduate students again (with an IVCF connection there as well). Then the hoops of ordination led to the Memphis move for a chaplaincy program, which brought me to Jeno and eventually hospice. Then hospice shaped the processing of my if-this-is-breast-cancer period which ended with me beginning the prerequisites for medical school. . .and I think many of you know the rest.

 

With each move, I returned slowly, though not deliberately, back home – back to the center where I began. Nothing I might have imagined, but exceedingly, abundantly more than I could have imagined. Grace, grace, everything truly is grace.

photo accessed from https://www.mapquest.com/us/tennessee/vanderbilt-child-and-adolescent-psychiatry-369582289

 

Nashville - Part Two

House of David, Music Row

A trip into a "familiar" part of Nashville, now not so familiar, spurred me to consider what makes space valuable, what creates the connection between a space and memory and what happens when that space changes? I'm not sure I answered all those questions, but it's a start.

Nashville Part Two

I met my former supervisor from IVCF at Sitar off of West End Avenue tonight. I drove the 1.7 miles as I did not have time to walk it. 

 

My 14 months in Nashville happened 21 years ago. I dated someone who lived off of West End Avenue and my job with Lex Brodie was off of West End, so travelled it fairly often. Tonight, nothing triggered a memory. I liken it to a dementia: The name of the street sounds familiar, but I recognize zero landmarks. Disoriented, I follow the voice of Siri, guiding me around the crosshatches demarcating blocks until I find the now diminutive building that holds Sitar.

 

“Siri, are you sure this is West End Avenue?”

 

“Yes, Kara, don’t you remember?”

 

No, Siri, I don’t.

 

On the 1.7 miles back, I made a wrong turn and ended up on Music Row. For about a block, the Nashville of my memory flooded my eyes. The early to mid-19^th century homes, neatly lined side-by-side with their muted colors trimmed in white. Across from these homes, the perpetually-empty, chain-linked-fenced lot dances in the corners of my memory, but is now replaced with something more commercial, something to feed the stomach or eyes or empty places within us all.

 

Even Siri missed that Chet Atkins Way no longer goes straight through to 18^th Avenue South as construction on a new several-stories-high condo/loft/apartment building blocks its path. Maybe Siri is having her own dementia issues. Maybe ChatGPT will be her guide as she slowly fades away.

 

The Nashville of 20 years ago wasn’t inherently better or worse than the Nashville of today. Just as the Nashville of the mid-19^th century Music Row wasn’t inherently better or worse compared to 20 years ago. I simply miss the familiarity and how certain places in their particular situation (the buildings, the streets, the green spaces, etc.) hold the familiarity and return it to me in an embrace. I see the place, and the place sees me, and we tell each other the secrets we share. 

 

When the space changes as drastically as West End Avenue has and is changing (and can anything that has taken 20 + years to change be called drastic? But work with me.), it turns cold: an old lover whose reinvention resembles nothing I found attractive in the first place.

 

And so, Nashville will be easier to leave, easier to release in my heart, easier to forget in my mind. . . maybe. I still hold the secrets after all, and somewhere the city holds them, too.

Photo credits:Andrew Nelles/File/The Tennessean

 

Nashville - Part One

The view from my hotel. Downtown Nashville

Since I am in Nashville for a conference, I thought I would write about my life in Nashville and see what happened. This first installment recounts my first job that included a free 2-week trip to Hawaii - but it wasn't so free after all. 

Nashville

 

My first job after divinity school involved a move to Nashville. I was 28 years old.

 

I relocated from Birmingham to work with IVCF in their Graduate and Faculty Ministry at Vanderbilt. To have the job, I began to fundraise my salary. When only 50% had been pledged by my move date, I decided to be parttime with IVCF and support myself with another job to pay my bills. 

 

My first few days of adulting in Nashville resulted in tears as I realized I could not get a lease without a job, but any employer wanted my current Nashville address. My IVCF supervisor eventually found a home for me in Green Hills – an MDiv student at Vandy needed a roommate to help split the cost of a parsonage at an extremely reasonable rate for Green Hills and Nashville generally. 

 

Then the temporary agency had the address they needed to slot me into positions that needed secretarial help. 

 

Lex Brodie’s Fast Gas became my first employer in Nashville. Lex Brodie grew up on the islands and started a surf shop catering the rich and famous of the 1930’s, moving to gas and tires in the 1950’s. He eventually retired in 1991, and a tire shop owner from Nashville met Lex and bought him out of his business. When I worked with this owner, he had returned to Nashville to raise funds for an ambitious new project in Hawaii. 

 

Jay (not his real name) loved wheeling and dealing. He enjoyed the shock of extravagance and no task seemed too large. He provided a sizeable income to his wife each month (who had remained in Nashville), and he let anyone who listened know about it. 

 

I say this because he eventually took me and two other employees for a 2-week business trip to Hawaii – I think in part because he wanted to brag about it later. Mind you, I was an employee of the temporary agency during all of this. I remember Tony (not his real name), my “recruiter” telling me about this position with an air of disbelief. He had never heard of the business and looked it up on the S&P 500 to verify its legitimacy. When he was told Lex Brodie’s Fast Gas wanted to pay for a trip to Hawaii while also paying my salary, he verified the details again, making sure that I did not have reservations about taking the trip. Maybe I should have.

 

Arriving in Honolulu, my suite at the Princess Kaiulani on Waikiki Beach had a balcony overlooking the heart of Waikiki. The next day, going to office, included a ride in Jay’s McLaren Spider (or some other sports car) and meeting the office manager on-site. Sue (not her real name) reminded me of a gas and tire version of Flo from the TV series “Alice.” Cigarette hanging from her lip, returning shmack as easily as the guys gave it, she wore fitted clothes and make-up amongst petroleum products and grease stains. She kept Jay in line, too, a testament to her cleverness.

 

I only remember bits and pieces of those 2 weeks – while not every temp gets a free trip to Hawaii, I longed to be there with people I loved and who loved me. Jay, while affording me the same respect as Sue, enjoyed attracting the attention of women with the cars and the money he spent. One evening early in the trip, I realized why I got the suite at the Princess Kaiulani when 2 young 20-somethings were escorted into the room to admire the view and, I’m assuming, be reassured that some of the stories Jay told were true. 

 

In order to see the islands or have the promised paid for meals, I had to go wherever Jay and his business associates wanted to go. One night that landed me in Hooter’s with one of these associates telling me that if the waitresses rubbed on him enough, he would give them a larger tip. I was insulted then by the objectification of the women, but recounting this, I am appalled. 

 

In my memory, I attempt to buffer these experiences with some of the items I enjoyed seeing or in which I participated: a luau; a flight to the Big Island and viewing the volcanoes; watching the Honolulu Marathon from my balcony and exploring the finisher’s area on foot (A favorite shirt came from that race.); walking along Waikiki beach.

 

Yet, as I write this, the emotional response to that experience is anger, sadness, disgust. Anger because of a culture that sanctions the objectification of women. Anger that no one taught me that kind of behavior was wrong or disrespectful or unjust as I grew up – or supported my feminist views (read – women-need-to-be-treated-as-equal-humans view). I am sad that so little has changed even with the exposures of the Harry Weinsteins or Matthew Lauers. I am sad to have not done more to fight against what I saw in Hawaii and disgusted to have been a part of the cycle – to have been a pawn to make someone else look less predatorial – to have been scared to say something because of the ramifications to my job.

 

So this is a confession after all – and a request for forgiveness. May I not be silent. 

(Nashville, 3/29/23)

 

What's Love Got to Do With It?

A Love Onion in my coffee from the Frothy Monkey

A sermon on I Corinthians 13. I preached this years ago (and sang a bit during the sermon as well - thus the italics and stage direction. lol.). I also rewrote the passage in a new "version" toward the end. 

What's Love Got to Do With It?

 The last time I stood here, I felt it only right to recap Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers before discussing some of the salient points about the Shema from Deuteronomy. We are in the Narrative Lectionary after all. So when Paul asked me to preach for him today, he told me that “the Scripture reading wouldn’t be anything odd,” which came as some relief, until I saw two things 1) our reading in Mark is Jesus reminding us of the Shema “‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹ …[and], ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” and 2) the main reading is I Corinthians 13.

What is the other moniker for I Corinthians 13?

The Love Chapter.

Or as one commentator said it, “Awwww, the Love Chapter.” 

There is a bucolic musical rendition of this chapter which we will be singing right after I finish preaching. It’s to the tune of “The Water is Wide,” and it sort of fits our idea of “Awww, the Love Chapter.” Sing a little bit of it here.

Though I may speak with bravest fire and have the gift to all inspire. . .

We think of weddings, the joy of new love, and the – hopefully - warm and fuzzy feelings that accompany a new future with bright possibility.

Awww, the Love Chapter – 

Thanks, Paul – I know you listening.

All joking aside, this passage is probably the one passage from the Bible most people have heard in some way and in some form, usually at a wedding. If we only think of the passage in this way, it could be associated with other cultural touchstones – like the Beatles and “All you need is love.” 

The problem is that this is not the soundtrack best suited to the tenor of the passage. I propose that instead we hear Tina Turner singing, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” possibly Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield.”

While we can only construct the scenario at Corinth from Apostle Paul’s exhortations to the Corinthians - it seems, “What’s love got to do with it?” might be their theme song. Paul mentions a number of things throughout the letter – a son is sleeping with his father’s wife, members of the church are cheating and doing wrong to people in the church, they are exercising their freedoms to the detriment of those around them, they are seeking their own good over the good of others,  - scandalous - and Paul tells them, “When you sin against your brother or sister in this way, you sin against Christ.” He also has a classic line in 4:21 where he says, “Shall I come to you with a whip?”

So as we approach an understanding of I Corinthians 13, it is a passage spoken into a church situation that is divided and divisive.  There are no warm and fuzzy feelings – the members were arguing over which group followed the correct teachers – did they get their information from NPR or Fox News? Did they think the Pope was okay or did they tune their TVs to the Trinity Broadcasting Network? When they brought a potluck, which at the time concluded with the Lord’s Supper, the wealthy would gobble down their food before the poorer of the church could partake. They wanted to keep the social divisions intact. Then, there were the spiritual gifts. 

From what Paul writes, it seems speaking in tongues was all the rage. If you could speak in tongues, then you had the gift of all gifts. It didn’t matter that no one could understand you; it did matter that you were spiritual enough to have a prayer language. Sure, there were other gifts, but the prized gift was speaking in tongues. Paul’s reply – and you can hear the frustration beginning to build? “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as God wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be?. . .The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ and the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’. . .If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now y’all are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. Eagerly desire the greater gifts.”

In 2 Corinthians, Paul comments on 1 Corinthians. He says, “ I wrote [the first letter] to you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears.”

As we come to our reading for today, then, we have to hear it with this emotional backdrop – distress, anguish, tears, not the sunshine and roses emotion of “awww, the Love Chapter.”

The question, then, is why was Paul distressed and anguished as he wrote this letter?

When Paul was struck blind by the glory of Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, his focus became knowing Christ, preaching Jesus’ death and resurrection, and proclaiming the new life we receive through Christ Jesus. His main concern for the churches was that they had the same understanding and mission at their core as well. 

As one commentator said, for Paul, the event of Jesus Christ is summated by Love, not grace, not forgiveness, but first and foremost as an expression of God’s love, which must be embodied in community. So as Paul heard about all the division at Corinth – between wealthy and poor, between educated and non-educated, his heart was broken. Did they know the love of Christ? Did they get it – did they get that Christ died because he loved them and wanted to bring the Kingdom of God into this world through them? 

And so, he says in 12:31b, “And now, I will show you, I will teach you, the way that is beyond measuring – It’s a way that isn’t about who has more or who’s in and who’s out – it is a more excellent way.”

Now we come to the reading of today’s passage, but it is a rendition of Paul’s words, but it is still meant to be in Paul’s voice.

And with distress, anguish, and tears, he begins: 

"I can speak in tongues – those of the nations and those of the angels, but without love – I’m your two year old banging on pots in the cupboard. I have been caught up into heaven; I’ve seen mysteries of which you can only dream; I can discern the truth and tell you what it is . I have faith that has brought a man back from the dead – but who cares?  If I don’t have love, all my experience and all my abilities are worthless. I make myself poor giving money to others. I offer myself for beatings and burnings, but what do I gain from it if I don’t have love? Nothing.

Love shows patience. 

Love acts with kindness.

Love doesn’t want what others have.

Love doesn’t brag on itself.

Love isn’t proud – it will accept help.

Love isn’t rude.

Love doesn’t say, “Me first!”

Nor is Love easily angered

Love doesn’t keep score for future reckonings

Love doesn’t want any part of evil

Instead, love pursues truth and delights in it

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never falls down on the job.

But be certain, the prophecies will cease; the tongues will be stilled; the knowledge will pass away.

You’ve got to understand: all that we know, all that we prophesy – they are whispers, hints of something much more real. When the real appears, all this make-believe with disappear.

It’s like when I was a child – I would pretend to be like my Dad, go through the motions of doing adult things. Yet when I became a man, the pretend of my childhood was put away. I didn’t need to pretend anymore.

In a similar way, we see only a dim reflection in a foggy mirror – we don’t see God completely, we don’t know ourselves completely; we do the best we can with what we have to work with, but there will be a day that the reflection is clear and the fog is lifted. I will see God face-to-face and I will know God and I will know myself fully, even as I am fully known. I hope you can say the same.

In these days, three aspects of the church remain foundational – faith, hope, and love. But the one that will remain - when our faith is made sight and our hope is fulfilled - is love.

Follow, then, in the way of love, and eagerly desire spiritual gifts.”

Brennan Manning was an author and speaker whom I mainly came to know through the Christian singer and songwriter Rich Mullins. He has a quote that gets at the heart of I Corinthians 13. He says:

“I am now utterly convinced that on Judgment Day the Lord Jesus will ask one question and only one question, “Did you believe that I loved you?”

The call of Paul to this “up at dawn, feet on the ground, tools in hand, working kind of love” is not meant to be pull yourself up by your boot straps and just do it kind of love. Its very essence is in believing to your bones that Jesus loves you and loves the person next to you, the person that drives you bananas, the person/persons that live in your home.

And this is what is at the heart of our ability to keep the Shema, the greatest commandments, that Jon read for us in Mark today. It is at the core of our belief system, particularly in the Reformed tradition, that we love because we were first loved by God. It was not our action first, but God’s action, that then enabled us to move toward God and to move toward one another, in love.

We are not called to this kind of love out of our own resources. This is a gift that God has given us and desires to give us every single day. This is not to say, however, that it will feel like “All you need is love,” many times it will feel like “What’s love got to do with it?” and in those moments, we ask God to give us the umph to show the love we have been shown to the person/persons with whom we have a division. Because, if we take Paul at his word, this is our mission, it is our goal, to be conduits of the love of Christ first to those in the pews around us and then to the world.

What’s love got to do with it? Everything. If you aint got love, you ain’t got nothin’.

(May 2016)

In the Valley of Dry Bones

I worked on taxes today, so the title aptly portrays my feeling. I thought it might be nice to take the images presented in the passage from the lectionary texts (Ezekiel 37:1-14) and work with them a bit in a of-my-own-making poetic format.

In the Valley of Dry Bones

 

Turkey vultures - 

serrated wings spread long

as a human body.

 

Draft circling: 

Desert heat

expanding the air

 

drawn from the lungs of the fallen.

 

Hundreds? Thousands?

Millions?

Expanse as wide as time

 

Bones whitened by

blazing sun above –

Scattered callously as

 

An open grave, mouth wide in exhale.

 

Mine a slit,

“Live bones. . .

Knit together, be enfleshed . . .

 

The Sovereign says,”

By human words

and Holy Breath

 

Mine held within, resisting the pull of draft and desert heat - 

 

Awaiting the rattle.

Awaiting the ruach.

Awaiting the Rising.

 

Source: pastorjesusfigueroa.wordpress.com

Scottish Tunes

In Banff, the public gardens 2022

The Glory to God hymnal added the tune "Wild Mountain Thyme" via the hymn entitled "Spirit, Open My Heart." The words, written by Ruth Duck of PTS, are lovely, and I thought of the tune during church today. Having not heard it in a while, I thought I would play it. Then I thought of "Ye Banks and Braes O'Bonnie Dune" which fits nicely with "Wild Mountain Thyme."

I really tried to make one video with all of it recorded, but I kept flubbing it, so I made two videos and added them together. I'm not a video editor in the least, so the transition stinks, but the two are in one video at least. :) 

Maybe one day I'll have the technical skill to look and sound as if I don't mess up, but until then. . .

Enjoy!

 

Everything is Grace

Granny, me and Mom, Gatlinburg 1981

A remembrance about an encounter with my Grandmother after her death.  

Everything is Grace

My grandmother died on a December night as I drove from New Jersey to Alabama. I left a snowy New Jersey as soon as mom called to tell me Granny (as we called her) would likely die – it was already dark. I stopped overnight in Virginia and awoke to another call from my mother saying Granny had died. My heart broke. 

 

Granny and Granny’s home structured my childhood and provided safe haven when my world went sideways. I watched our home burn from her dining room windows at 5 years old. I sat on her kitchen counter and talked about life during my chicken pox infection and recovery. I pulled every baby tooth I had in the first bathroom they added to their house during my mother’s childhood. I spent summers in the “new addition,” built by my aunt and uncle, which she moved to after my grandfather’s death. In the den, she rocked in her chair while my sister and I helped her shell peas and snap green beans – all while watching “stories,” my favorite being “As the World Turns.” 

My mom outside my Granny's home as an 8 month old.

Not seeing her, not holding her hand, not telling her I loved her haunted me. I begged God for some nighttime visitation – to awaken and find her half ghost/half spirit at the end of the bed. I needed to have some closure, to talk with her one more time, to be in her presence again. 

 

Months passed. I finished my Master’s thesis, graduated with my ThM and traveled to California where I began a yearlong college ministry internship at a church in Berkeley. My home for the year consisted of a one room studio-type outbuilding behind a church member’s house. My parents drove with me to California to help me, and the considerable amount of stuff I brought with me, move into my home-for-the-year on Prince Street.

Celebrating Granny's birthday, October 9, 1981

The first night in this new place, Granny appeared to me. Suddenly, her living room den materialized: the cream carpet, the large lamp to the right of her rocking chair spotlighting her, then Granny, elbows resting on the rocking chair’s armrests, the lap blanket draped at the headrest, and I sitting on my knees before her.

 

The darkness surrounding us, just beyond the lamp’s light, felt full of eyes and bodies (?) huddled over us and around us. I cannot quite say what inhabited that space, but my sense told me people – maybe beings describe them more accurately – but the space was expectant.

 

Granny and I did not talk long. She asked me again, as she had the last time we saw each other in person, why did I keep leaving home. Though feeling shame, I explained what brought me to California, the church work in which I came to participate. Then she told me she wanted to pray for me, and so I held her hands and she prayed.

 

The only part of that prayer that I remember her saying is, “Grace, grace – everything is grace.” She finished the prayer, and I realized that she was dead; that this was not Birmingham; this was not her home, but a representation of it; and I immediately threw my arms around her neck and squeezed her tightly and told her I loved her – tears streaming down my face. 

Then I awoke in tears – a new day dawning.  

(3/25/23)

Is It Time?

I am part of a writing group out of Kentucky and we often have prompts, both visual and written and, you guessed it, this was the visual prompt and the writing prompt was "Is It Time?" This is a version of what I wrote. :) 

Is It Time?

 

The yellow door yelling its color in utter silence

closed and cautioning against 

columns and awning in anticipatory disrepair. 

 

Is it time to let it go – 

to let the structure around it crumble - 

fade into stucco dust while the door still stands – 

 

framed in concrete and wood – 

testifying to forces which destroy 

despite being unwelcomed.

 

Or is it time for the door to open – 

exposing whatever lies on the other side – 

then taking the dive into windowless space – 

 

Save the one just above the door, 

which likely gives enough light 

to taunt the darkness, but not dispel it.

 

Is the time for desire gone – 

Once a hub, amenities close and valuable

Now molded, blaringly bright, additions ill-fitting the whole

 

Trying to keep the past

Current with the present

To hold what has been while grasping for what is.

 

The scene ambivalent,

in the dawning of yet

another new day - 

 

another chance for change.

Yet - is it time?

The door is closed, not open 

 

and it isn’t time

if change is not wanted -

the process a death

 

Even if the point is

To let light in –

To let life in.

 

(6.22.21/3.24.23)

photo credits: Andrea de Santis

 

The Last Three Weeks

 An attempt to describe my state in the evenings of the last 3 weeks-ish.

The Last Three Weeks

On the overstuffed faux-suede couch I sit,

feet propped on a TJ Maxx ottoman

Bangles slowly rubbed off by a Doog-dog with an itchy face.

 

A testament to the wearing of time:

Baubles broken and missing, padding dimpled and thinning,

Stains that appear from a long forgotten. . .something.

 

I scratch my eye, 

pollen smoldering on the air,

lids heavy with another long day.

 

And here, trying to make sense

of all life requires

for business, for government, for fun

 

Muscles ache for trying - 

neuronal transmissions slowing to alpha,

begging my waking brain

 

for theta slumber

to go dark and unconscious

and then wake to do it all again.

Strangers Among Us

The hot springs que at Miette in Jasper.

Another sermon from the book of John (20:1-19). This was the reading for the 3rd Sunday in Easter a few years ago. It's more a retelling of the story from the disciple's point of view and then possible "lessons" gleaned. Likely the longest post yet (be warned!). 

Strangers Among Us (John 20:1-19)

No one knows exactly how much time had lapsed between the previous two resurrection stories of John and this possible addendum to his gospel, but the story may have gone something like this:

It was the bravest thing they could do – to go out after being in hiding – even out in the Sea, totally exposed. Yes, it was night, when murky vision could mingle with shadows and dusk – when the gathering darkness of the sky above was mirrored in the sea below, but still they had ventured out into the world that had been brutal and destructive just days before. In the days when they wondered if crucifixion by association was possible or if another traitor lurked among them, waiting to turn them over to the Teachers of the Law who would banish them from any community they had ever known.

So as the dusk gathered, they went out to the Sea as all their other options for gaining the bare necessities were drying up. If so, maybe they weren’t brave at all, just hungry, needing enough fish to salt and dry to get them past this period of unwanted notoriety, and then they could decide what to do next. 

Whatever their motives, they were on the sea overnight and hadn’t caught anything. Then a voice – of some stranger they did not know – stating the obvious, “Children, you have no fish, have you?”

As they had not wanted to be noticed, they answered tersely, “No.” But the stranger continued, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” They looked at each other – they HAD been fishing on both sides of the boat, right? Why would it make a difference now, but again, they didn’t want to cause a stir, so they did as the stranger encouraged.

No sooner had the net had time to sink, than 153 large fish jumped right in, as if ordered to do so. While the rest of the men tried to figure out how in the world to gather the net back in with all those fish, the perceptive one of the group – the disciple who Jesus loved – John – told Peter, “It is the Lord!” Now John, being one of the Sons of Thunder, was always trying to pull one over on Peter, but Peter could tell by John’s pure enthusiasm that he wasn’t joking. 

So Peter put on his clothes – he had gotten too sweaty casting out and hauling in the net all night – and he jumped in the water – maybe he was expecting to walk on it again, but instead he sank right in and began paddling toward the shore. 

The other disciples watched Peter’s commotion, while dealing as best they could with the fish, and they shook their heads, laughing, and began following him ashore, though with some difficulty. They really had an abundance of fish, and they were trying to gently bring them in, so their net wouldn’t break. Really, they were surprised that it hadn’t broken already.

Once on shore, they came round the fire and saw fish and bread grilling. With their energy spent and their stomachs suddenly growling, they wanted so badly to grab what fish and bread were there. Yet this man . . . they kept looking at this man whom they thought to be Jesus. Though he felt right, he looked so different , and this raised in them some doubt and consternation. 

Jesus, attempting to break the anxiety of the group, said, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught,” and Peter, always needing to move and be active, went to their boat and hauled the net ashore. 

As Peter busied himself with the fish, the other disciples talked amongst themselves, recalling how Jesus first came to them, asking to use their boats to get some distance from the crowds in order to teach the crowds more easily. In that first meeting, they were in a similar circumstance, they had not caught anything all night, but when Jesus told them to cast their nets again, they had an abundance of fish. And then when they had been with him, far away from town, with a multitude of hungry mouths, and only two fish and 5 loaves  - well, the whole crowd – 5000 + - was fed from that, with 12 baskets of fragments left. Abundance from scarcity- it was too coincidental to be coincidence. This had to be Jesus.

When Peter returned with as many fish as he could carry, Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Then Jesus walked over to the fire and took the bread, and like a servant, He brought it to them, one-by-one, being sure that each was served. Then he did the same with the fish. They remembered Jesus washing their feet, the night he was betrayed. They remembered his words, “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

With food and time, the conversation grew easier. Jesus asked them how they were, assured them that he was indeed himself, reminded them of the Scriptures, and all the many promises of God. He reminded them that he was with them, always, that he was the Way, the Truth, the Life – that he came so that they could have life abundantly, but also so that those around them could have life abundantly – even those they felt were enemies, maybe even especially those they felt were enemies.

Peter sat quietly throughout the entire meal. He stared into the fire, remembering the fire where he sat when he denied he was a disciple of Jesus. How could he talk to anyone about abundant life? How could he encourage others to be good disciples when panic and pressure had caused him to cave and to deny his discipleship?

He got up after breakfast, walking away from the fire and into the morning sun. Jesus followed him.  “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

Simon, a bit perplexed by the question, turned and looked at the sea and said, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” 

“Feed my lambs, “ was Jesus’ reply.

“Whatever,” Simon thought and continued to walk away, caught up in his thoughts of failure.

He heard Jesus again, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” 

He turned and looked at Jesus and said, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”

“Tend my sheep,” Jesus said.

Peter stared into this man’s eyes – this was Jesus, right? He knew what a coward he had been, right? What could love do at this point? Yes, he loved this man so much, yet even love had not kept him from doubt and fear, from stumbling and hiding, from denying any relationship with or to Jesus. He turned and looked back at the sea, wading in his thoughts.

Jesus said a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

An ache shot through Simon’s heart, for as the question was asked again, it sunk in and he remembered what he had said those months before, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” This was his confession, his binding promise to go with Jesus wherever it would take him. 

Simon answered, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” 

Jesus replied, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”

Years later, Simon Peter would remember this day, the sun rising over the hills, the cool breeze on his face. He remembered the words feeling weighty, but not burdensome. As Jesus said to him, “Follow me,” he knew that Jesus was asking him to be more than just Simon Peter. Jesus was asking him to be Jesus to the world around him – to participate in the “greater works” that Jesus had said his disciples would perform.  He knew that Jesus was calling him to carry forward the great love of God that had sent Jesus to die on a cross, and he knew that he was being called to even lay his own life down for the lives of others. This was discipleship, this was ultimately following Jesus.

Two thousand years later, on this third Sunday after Easter, what does this story say to us? 

Pay attention: The hazy recognition of Jesus is an important element of the story. The text tells us that the disciples were afraid to ask him “Who are you?” because they knew it was Jesus, but because the story even mentions this, it hints that Jesus did not look like the Jesus they saw twice in the last chapter. It’s as if his appearance shifted ever so slightly each time they saw him. 

If this chapter is a late addition to the gospel, it may have been added to speak to a community of Christians that were no longer having the intimate, detailed conversations with Jesus that the disciples had. This story was a lesson to the disciples of the disciples – or in other words , us - on training our attention and our instincts as well as our trust. Yes, the disciples went back to their livelihood, but Jesus brings a new dimension to the day-to-day. The original disciples, the disciples to whom John wrote, and we are to listen for Jesus, to look for him in a stranger on the beach or on the road as we travel. It is a story beckoning us to trust that Jesus is still at work in the world and inviting us to welcome the strangers among us as Christ himself.

Trust in God’s Abundance: John is a gospel that begins with the basic tenet that where Jesus is, there is abundance. We see it with the fish in this story, but John also tells of the feeding of the 5,000 and the wedding at Cana. John’s Jesus says there will be a river of life flowing through us and he came so that we might have life abundantly. Again, in this story, the disciples seemed to recognize Jesus only because of the way circumstances fell into place when he was around – and they fell into place in an abundant way.

This isn’t to say there isn’t loss, suffering, pain – Jesus doesn’t say he is removing those, but he does say, in John, that he has not left us orphans and he has not left us comfortless. He has given us his Spirit and he has given us each other. We are agents of God’s abundance to each other both within the church and to those outside of the church. 

Finally, Jesus doesn’t give up on you or anyone else: Peter had messed up, he knew this, and Jesus knew this, but Jesus doggedly pursues him in this passage and ultimately places on him Jesus’ mantle of being the Shepherd of God’s people. Jesus was defining Peter’s worth and identity. Jesus was bringing him back into the fold. 

One of my favorite parts of the Presbyterian liturgy is the Call to Confession and Assurance of Pardon – every week, we have the opportunity to come before God and each other, confessing our sins and then hearing those blessed words that In Christ Jesus we are forgiven and are being made whole. God sees us as we are, but because of God’s love and Christ’s love, which is so high and wide and long and deep – God will not give up on us – on any of us. 

 

Exposure

On our way back to LA from Catalina Island 2021

The hospital where I work allowed us, starting yesterday, to be completely mask-free with exceptions for when we have an upper respiratory illness. The amount of people still wearing masks on Monday surprised me somewhat (a subject for a later post), but for my part, I looked and smiled at as many people as possible. The following is what I wrote in response to some of the first months of the COVID pandemic and what COVID could teach us about our interconnectedness. The writing could definitely be cleaned up, but the goal is to post daily for Lent. ;) 

EXPOSURE

 

It’s what causes a virus to leave you and enter me. It’s what brings me closer to you as I show you the tender places of my heart, my body – the revelation of scars and hurts that then call to those same places in you. It’s what leads to sunburn, frostbite – or what can lead to justice and the righting of wrongs.

 

The exposure of COVID has done all of this and more. It has entered us all from ground zero – traveling the world in some interconnected web that maybe we had all forgotten. It has exposed us to our vulnerabilities, our weakness, our prejudices, our systemic injustices, and it has brought us together even as it has isolated and separated us.

 

We have found that we need more connection than what we’ve admitted to ourselves and that we MUST indeed HAVE to be for more than just ourselves or those closest to us. We MUST be for everyone and HAVE to consider our actions in light of everyone if we are to survive.

 

Yes, the ground has been ripped away – the masks of our own independence - and exposed are all the ways we are interdependent on one another. The way our very breath can change the functioning of the entire globe. How one invisible force can wreak havoc on all things visible. . .

 

And if that nanometer of invisibility can change the world – you can change the world, I can change the world. We can take this connection and face down what stands to destroy one of us or all of us – because now we know – now we have been exposed – 

 

My connection, your connection is to everyone.

 

To See or Not To See

John 9:1-41 (Liturgical Reading for the Fourth Sunday in Lent)

 

John’s gospel is my favorite one – not to throw shade on the others – but as I reflect on the gravitational pulls of the gospels in my life, John’s is the strongest. I think John reminds me of a college professor who takes a system of thinking and implodes it based on the very principals the system claims to uphold OR he takes the wide-angle view, while subtly (and not so subtly) making the arguments which expand the reader’s understanding of Jesus and of God. 

 

On the surface, the passage tells of a man born blind who regains his sight through the miraculous work of God via Jesus. The sub-text explores pervasive religious and cultural blindness and the stubborn dogmatism perpetuating it. 

 

According to the passage, for these people in this place the world contained sinners and not sinners: a dichotomy safely placing people into “us” and “them.” Sinners were outcasts, abandoned by God and better left alone. The not sinners were disciples of Moses’ and the Law Moses received from God. The not sinners observed that Law to the letter and God blessed them. 

 

The disciples, the Pharisees, the neighbors and the parents lived in the world of the synagogue and the rules and biases thereof. Throughout the passage, each set of people get caught up on “sin” and “sinners” – who is one, who isn’t one, how one becomes a “sinner,” what a “sinner” can do, what a “sinner” can’t do, how a “sinner” is punished, how a “sinner” is separated from God or the synagogue, etc. Even the blind man uses this paradigm to frame the character of Jesus, but the Pharisees parlay the logic and drive him out of the synagogue.

 

Now separated from the only world he’s ever known, even though he existed on the outskirts of that world, Jesus finds the now sight-filled man and – as a theme of John repeats – asks if the man believes in him, the Son of Man, Jesus. 

 

In somewhat cryptic language, Jesus then speaks of seeing and not seeing and his mission in the world: The ones who feel around in the dark for something they can recognize, who stand in the street begging for their daily bread, who feel their need and want as vividly as they experience their blindness – these will see. The ones gloating in well-defined colors and shapes, who step around the potholes, who can see what they want and take it, who live by only what they see – these will be blind.

 

Finally, Jesus ends by speaking again in the Pharisee’s religious language, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” Their certainty IS their blindness – their pride, their sin.

 

We begin and we end, but we have a promise of eternal life. We are hungry, we are thirsty, we are blind. Who recognizes all of this about us? Jesus – the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the One who gives sight.

 

May the practice of blindness – of not having the answers – of not living in polarities, bring you to the One who gives us eyes to see.

 

Photo credits: Julien Harneis/flickr found on https://www.networx.com/article/5-marvelous-uses-for-mud

 

O Sacred Head Now Wounded (HD music)

No video for this piece, but it is my HD rendition of the hymn from several years ago. It isn't *quite* the day for this hymn, but I was on call all this weekend and this is "blog ready." ;) 

Photo credits: https://www.plantssparkjoy.com/locust-tree-thorns/

 

Lemon Ginger Scones

Lemon ginger scone love on the back porch

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I definitely enjoy all the bread options in the morning: waffles (Belgian, liege), French toast, scones, biscuits, croissants, danish, etc. Not that I don't like bacon, eggs, grits and the variations thereof, but by the weekend, I normal want something bread-like on my breakfast plate. 

The recipe below is a concoction of at least 3 different recipes taken from the internet, Epicurious and America's Test Kitchen. The gluten-free and sugar-free options have come from months - maybe even years - of trying different combinations until I have finally found the combination we like the best.

I have always loved lemon, and ginger has been a later-in-life food romance. The two together bring summer to our kitchen each time we make them. 

Thanks goes to Donnie for reminding me that recipe writing and sharing is one of the oldest (and most cherished) forms of communication in existence.

Enjoy!!!

Ingredients

Makes 8 

1) 3 cups all purpose flour - if you want to at whole wheat, use 1 c WW and 2 c AP (For GF: 2 cups Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour and 1 cup Almond flour)

2) scant 1/4 cup sugar (For sugar-free: scant ¼ c Monk fruit with xylitol or to taste)

3) 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

4) 1 teaspoon salt

5) 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

6) 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel (1 small to medium lemon)

7) 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) frozen unsalted butter, grated into flour mixture

8) 6 – 6.5 oz Candied Ginger pieces (or whole, cut into pieces)

9) 1 cup chilled buttermilk

 

Preheat oven to 425°F. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda into large bowl. Grate in butter. Mix in lemon peel. Mix in candied ginger pieces. Gradually add buttermilk, tossing with fork until moist clumps form. Then taking hands, mix the dough until dough just comes together. Form dough into 1/2 to 1-inch-thick round. Cut into 8 wedges or further divide the 8 wedges to make mini-scones. Transfer wedges to baking sheet. A small silpat can usually fit all of them. Decrease the oven temperature to 425°F. Bake until tops of scones are golden brown, about 17- 25 minutes depending on the oven. Let stand on baking sheet 10 minutes. Serve scones warm or at room temperature.