Bread Thoughts

Today marked the beginning of a series of readings from the Gospel According to John about Jesus and bread. "I am the bread of life."

For those who do not know, nearly 3 years ago, I spent 6 nights in the hospital, due to a clogged artery. Long story short, no surgery was required, but I have a stint in a vessel on my heart. And my GP has me on a diet to help keep my body from producing cholesterol. In short, low-carb. In his words, "You need to treat bread as toxic."

It was the first thing I thought of today as we're hearing the story of the multiplication of the bread loaves (and fishes---good for the heart, so maybe it balances out).

I wish I had something deep and meaningful to say about that. Seems like there's some theological comment to be made, some way to say, "Yes, but Jesus is the Bread of Life. Not toxic like your dinner roll." Sort of how people insist that God is absolutely Father, even if people had terrible abusive fathers. "But God is the Good Father."

I guess mostly, it's a reminder that not all analogies work for everyone. And I've never been a huge fan of bread anyway.

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Alarmingly, at least to me, it's not all about me.

My pastor had a good sermon on the text, pointing out that the multiplication of loaves is the only story in each of the 4 canonical gospels (makes you think this story really caught the first century imagination) and that explanations for the miracle (such as people started sharing what they had and revealed that among them, they had more than enough even though it first looked like they had nothing) are irrelevent because in the end, there were still plenty of leftovers.

Abundance is there. A small gift is multiplied and abundance, to paraphrase a common phrase, happens.

It was a good reminder for me today. Ever since my trip to Durham, I've been in a funk, feeling rather discouraged. I heard stories from people at the top of their field eking out an existence and people who have given their lives to art looking at their twilight years with less security than most people who lost millions on Wall Street last year. Even though all of these people spoke of not trading their lives for anything, I've been angry and depressed (seldom at the same time because it's a little difficult to pull off) that this is how our culture treats people who sacrifice their lives to create beauty and/or mirrors to the world though their art.

More to the point (because even though it's not all about me, I'm shockingly gifted at making it all about me), I felt like there was little point to the effort. I've been writing for years, doing some performing, and (outside a few people who seem to have been truly affected by a couple of things I've done) it all seems like useless energy. Millions of dollars are going to be spent on making another explosion movie and millions of dollars are going to be spent going to see it, and people with deeper, more subtle messages are going to be ignored.

Why bother with my meager gifts? Why pretend all the energy expended is worth it?

Because, I'm reminded today, God takes the outrageous scarcity of our lives and multiplies. In the illogical arithmetic of grace, the scarcity, the poverty of our lives becomes abundant life.

I've experienced it over and over. So why do I let these things get me down? Call it my personal sin. My sin of discouragement. Which in turn becomes a sin of stinginess. My loaf of bread isn't appreciated anyway, so why give it? What I have to give isn't appreciated anyway, why offer it?

I'm reminded that however poorly my loaf is received, I still need to present it, put it out there, let it go. God does the multiplication. God holds the calculator here, and I don't know how the miracle happens, but the knowing how is irrelevent. To mix metaphors (and parables), I can only sow the seed I have, however poor. I won't know or maybe even see who gets to reap the harvest.

Sisters and brothers, let us re-dedicate ourselves to putting in our loaves. Let us re-dedicate ourselves to planting.

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Silliness: Sometime ago, and I believe this was a true story although I can't footnote it, I read a story about a group of Bible translators working with some culture that didn't have a grain-based diet and hence, no bread. Without bread a staple, phrases like "I am the bread of life" make little sense. Turns out that this culture did have a starchy staple, however: the sweet potato. So the translators translated Jesus' words into: "I am the sweet potato of life."

It kind of sheds new light (here comes the silliness) on all of the "I Yam" sayings . . .

Network and Community

Still in Durham and pondering a question. Maybe someone here has some ideas. Ponder with me, if you will.

I've been here two weeks and meeting wonderful people, people I hope will remain in my circle for years to come. They're from all across the U.S. and all have really interesting lives.

I'm also meeting people who travel so much for their work that they are only home for maybe 3 months of the year. One even spoke of having a home in one city, but his life wasn't really there anymore. He made it sound exciting and enviable.

It hit upon something I've been wondering about myself lately. Now, I'm an introvert and I can be content to sit in my apartment alone for a fairly extended amount of time. No one has ever used the word "gregarious" to describe me (so far as I know). So maybe this is idiosyncratic to me and my personality and more extroverted people feel differently.

But I wonder . . . sometimes, as little as I travel, I have still felt like I have more of a network than a community. I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that, at least insofar as I don't know that how I'd define the two words with great precision. I simply throw it out there, wondering if anyone else feels that way, especially in this world where we have a million ways to be connected but are so seldom present to one another.

Anyone else feel this way? What are you doing about it---that is, if you feel like there's something to be done.

Just thinking at the keyboard tonight . . .

Theology and the Body

I'm writing this from the campus of Duke University, where I am participating in the Institute for Dance Criticism as an NEA fellow at the American Dance Festival.

Watching all these moving bodies (I've so far seen 4 different dance companies and will see 2 more before I leave) leads me to some contemplation on Christian language. Jesus is the incarnation of God. We believe in the resurrection of the body. Collectively, we are the Body of Christ. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And at the risk of taking some literal liberties, we also speak of being made in the image of God. This might mean many things to many people, but is often illustrated with human faces (not, I'm quick to point out, human feet or hands or torsos---and I wonder if only our eyes are made in the image of God or could possibly our knees tell us something of God's image, or, for that matter our large intestines as well as our hearts).

In the room full of dance critics, there was a brief discussion of the dominant western performance dance form---ballet---and how it reflected the rigid and restrictive philosophy of the west, i.e. Christian theology. There was some contrasting discussion about, say, African dance forms, which are considered more "earthy," perhaps in part because there is a belief that the gods are in the earth, not up in heaven. Ballet is all about lifting the body upward in space, the torso rigid and all expression taking place in perfectly placed arms and legs. Beautiful, perhaps, but hardly earthy.

I listened carefully to the conversation, not really knowing what to say. I could theologically counter most of the assertions about Christianity, but I also couldn't deny the history of ballet. I simply said that this was, in part, why I preferred the 20th Century invention of Modern Dance. I love the weight of the body. I love how gravity can be played with in physical expression. Any further discussion would have led to a discussion about theology in particular and I recognized this as a slight diversion from our more focused discussion on dance, so I left it at that.

Talking about dance leads to talking about bodies. One woman reveals she wanted to be a ballerina, but was too tall. Someone mentions how beautiful another woman looked on stage, but appeared frighteningly thin close up. I don't need to detail the discussions of men in tights. None of these things have anything to do with the art of dancing and yet it is all inescapable. These are the bodies that incarnate the ideas of choreographers. These ideas, however abstract or literal, are expressed with these masses of muscle, blood, bone, and nerve. These are the bodies that entertain, challenge, entice, and repulse us.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, dancers remind us of the beauty we embody. At other times, we are reminded that our beautiful bodies expectorate, defecate, copulate, ejaculate . . . stop me before I rhyme again, but you get the idea. Some of the work I've seen here in Durham has reminded me of the beauty and the disgust of the body, nearly all at once. What a mixed up piece of work we are! And yet, we hold the image of God. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Maybe this says something more about God than we usually like to think about.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (I amused myself by scribbling on my notebook the other day: "The dance critics motto: And the flesh became word.") I think a lot about dance in relation to incarnation. More and more, I think this has less to do with extreme flexibility and highly developed virtuosity (I appreciate both), and more to do with the deep expression of the spirit moving the muscle, blood, bone, and nerve. Spirit moves a body, taking pleasure in the moving---moving itself and moving others, in all the ways we can be moved. We find physical ways to express the inexpressible, from exuberant alleluias to groans too deep for understanding and every shade of life in between.

And that's as close to a conclusion as I can come to tonight. More fervently than usual, I invite ruminations on this topic.

Why I Go to Worship

Last week, my church's worship and music committee discussed worship attendance. If talk from the recent Gulf Coast Synod Assembly was any indication, it's a synod-wide problem. Church members are skipping out on church services.

After some discussion, through which I sat silently, I asked the other committee members, "Why do you go to church?" The chair asked if that was a rhetorical question and I said, "No, I really want to know, because I'm not sure I can articulate why I go to church. I've tried to stop a couple of times but I keep coming back, but I'm not sure why."

There was some discussion after that, but none of it really helped my inarticulateness. Being a writer, inarticulate moments frustrate me, so I've been pondering this ever since.

Here's what I have so far.

It's largely a relationship thing. What do I mean by that? Are my best friends at church? Not necessarily, although I am quite fond of many people there and would name them among my friends. Some of my closest friends don't even go to church, aren't even Christian, so it's not as if church is the sole or even primary source of my friendships.

I often think, however, where else will I sing with other people? Having grown up in the church, I have a list of hymns that hold a number of associations for me. "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" is one that I really enjoy singing, and I wouldn't care to do it as a solo. Where else will I sing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" with a group of people? I think there is a nearly religious dimension to singing anything together. I've heard people who have come back from the Kerrville Folk Festival and talk about singing songs around a campfire long after all the performances have ended. They speak of it in quasi-religious terms. So it's not as if I couldn't find groups of people with whom to sing. I'm not hugely fond of "Just As I Am," a hymn with to much emphasis on the first person singular for my theological tastes, but when I'm singing it with a congregation, well, it's okay. And where else will I do that?

There are people at church I wouldn't know any other way than because we go to the same church. Engineers, lawyers, school teachers . . . I might run into these categories of people in my job as a retail bookseller, but where else will I have breakfast with them? Left to my own devices, all I'd know would be artists, performers, and writers. Going to worships exposes me to people from walks of life I wouldn't normally hang out with. And my life is made richer.

But it's not only a relationship with people thing, although that's an inescapable dimension of it. We gather as people of God, as followers of Jesus. And one thing that is true, even when I've tried to avoid the church, is that I'm a little in love with Jesus. There I said it. Sounds sentimental and mooshy, doesn't it? Well, it's not some box of candies, flower arrangement kind of love. Jesus doesn't really work all that hard at being consistently loveable. But I find Jesus compelling. I'll allow that it may be because I grew up in a Christian family and in church, but even though there are Buddhist or Taoist teachings that I find very interesting, even edifying, it's Jesus that I want to follow. It's the God that Jesus pointed to that interests me. That I love.

And seeing as how the church is the body of Christ, I suppose that means I'm a little in love with the people with whom I sing and pray on a Sunday morning. Sometimes we sing to God, but it seems we more often sing to each other. "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" isn't addressed to God or Jesus. The liturgical hymn of praise "This is the Feast" is not addressed to God. "Lift High the Cross," a hymn with strong memories attached, is not addressed to God. So we must be singing to each other. And there's where something remarkable, even mystical happens. Singing together, we may be praising God, but we may also be singing to one another, as the body of Christ. It is as if Christ is singing to each of us. Exhortation, comfort, encouragement---where else will I hear dozens of people singing these words to me as from Christ? Where else can I, with dozens of people, sing these words to someone among us, someone who is needing that hymn sung to them by the body of Christ?

So this relationship thing, this love thing . . . I don't always feel it, not every Sunday. I do trust it's there, regardless. I do trust that there is something bigger than my feelings happening among us. I live in hope that because we gathered together, someone is leaving edified, renewed, hopeful, loved, even if that someone isn't me.

I'm not sure this explains it all, at least not to my complete satisfaction. I don't know that it's comprehensive enough. The sacraments are very much a part of my need for church, and I haven't even mentioned them here. Maybe another post. I'll have to see if I can find the words to talk about the sacraments in ways that express why I need them. This inarticulateness is frustrating. I hope my muddling through these thoughts might stimulate some thoughts of your own. I welcome responses.

A Thought on Worship

A book that I'm likely to reference frequently here is Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda. It is by a Ugandan Roman Catholic priest and scholar, Emmanuel Katongole, who teaches at the Duke Divinity School. It is a book that fell into my hands somewhat accidentally, not something I would have normally sought out, but seems to have animated my imagination in ways that few books on religion have. His main hypothesis is that what happened in Rwanda in 1994 is reflective of how the church in many societies, in the West as well as in Africa, operates. That is, the church as it currently exists simply doesn't matter. It didn't matter that Rwanda has been considered one of the most successfully evangelized African nations. Christians killed Christians and often in direct, hand-to-hand combat (which, for some reason, strikes me as even more atrocious than if the genocide had been accomplished by long-range missiles or even simply pulling a trigger on a gun---hacking people to death with a machete is much more . . . personal).

Katongole asks, what difference does being a Christian make? If we call ourselves Christian but then can kill our fellow church members simply because the government says they're the enemy, what good is saying we follow Christ?

As I say, there is much in this relatively short book (it's under 200 pages) that I will likely bring up in weeks and maybe months to come, but I want to put out there one short quote from him (in part because I was at a worship and music committee meeting today):

"I do not think it is any accident that the civil rights movement in the United States grew out of black churches where people were used to worshiping Jesus for two, three, even four hours at a time. Christians who cannot imagine worshiping God that long may want to reconsider their cost/benefit analysis of discipleship."

This strikes me as terribly indicting of the church when I hear complaints that a worship service goes more than 10 minutes over an hour or that a hymn was too long or there simply were too many hymns.

I'm not sure I'm advocating 3 hour worship services, but I am pondering the cost of being a church member. That is, I'm wondering if we even think there is a cost to being a church member. What are we willing to "pay" for the right to call ourselves disciples?

(Obviously, this is a question applicable to countless other areas of a Christian life, not just worship. Spin it where the Spirit leads.)

Come Holy Spirit

I had intended to start this blog with some musing on the traditional prayer of Pentecost. "Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the earth."

Maybe another time.

Tonight I'm a bit heartsick at the news of a shooting in Wichita, Kansas, at Reformation Lutheran Church, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the church body to which I belong. Somehow, when these sorts of things happen in an ELCA congregation, I take it to heart more than if it happens in another denomination. This betrays my sin of tribalism---something I think I'll be blogging about in the coming weeks.

This sort of violence is also something that I'll be blogging about in the weeks to come. It's something that has been on my mind for some time, increasingly so in the last three or four months. I'll blog about it because I don't know what to do about my feeling of helplessness in the face of violence. Writing about it feels like doing something, small though it may be.

Of course, what happened in Wichita is muddied by the victim's profession. He was a doctor who performed abortions. Most of the news stories I've read have been quick to point out he performed "late-term abortions." I'm not sure what that means, exactly. I have a friend who used to live in Wichita who told me he performed late term abortions on extensively deformed fetuses. I don't know what that means, either.

And how I feel about all that is difficult to sort through just now, too. Maybe someday, I'll write about my feelings around abortion. Not tonight.

I'm increasingly disturbed by these attempts to take the law into one's own hand, and a very "frontier-style" of law at that. I'm disturbed that this took place in a church building. I'm unsettled that an usher at a church was gunned down while his wife was in the choir. I grieve that there are children in that congregation who will know that a church building is not a guarantee of safety.

What I do know is that the God I worship is not the same God that encourages people to make comments on news stories that revel in the violent death of this man.

Just last night, I put wrote the introductory note on the side of this blog, and I ended it with a paraphrase of Tertullian. "Let us show the world how we love one another."

Today, I feel we only show the world how we judge on another, how we condemn one another, how we hate one another.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Lord, have mercy.