Tuesday, December 1, 2009

as we forgive our debtors

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever.

Every once in a while, for lack of some other prayer or meditation, I recite the Lord's Prayer slowly and repetitively, contemplating each line and its implications. As I get into it, I realize it's complicated enough that I probably shouldn't be working on anything else until I've lived up to those sixty-four words.

The "debts and debtors" section has always intrigued me. As a Brethren, that's how I learned the prayer, and it's how it rolls off the tongue. But now and then I stop to wonder: why debts and debtors? Sure, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" sounds weird and archaic (though what is "who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name" supposed to be?), but "forgive us our sins" makes some sense. Why choose something that seems to imply a monetary situation, when we simple living Brethren are supposed to be more concerned with the spiritual context?

But as a conflict unfolded recently between myself and another Brethren with whom I'd entered into a contractual arrangement, the full weight of those words became clear to me. Leave it to God to reveal best at those times we'd most like to be kept in the dark.

Forgiving a trespass--or a sin--is simple. No matter how hurtful the incident, it is almost immediately in the past. And though I'm quick to anger, I'm equally quick to calm. I know there is no undoing what has been done, and to indulge in negative feelings, while darkly satisfying, is ultimately self-defeating.

A debt, however, is much more difficult to forgive. A debt is not a one-time trespass; it is a trespass that, on its own, will continue as long as the debt exists. Feeling I was owed a debt, I was torn between conflicting desires for conciliation and restitution. After all, even if could afford to let it go, wouldn't forgiving the debt mean I was allowing myself to be a doormat? How can we give up our cloaks to those who sue for our coats without inviting our neighbors to take advantage of us? (To further complicate matters, the other party believed with equal conviction that it was I who owed him a debt.)

I struggle similarly with wrongs for which I never receive an apology. I guess that's another form of debt; I usually find it easy to grant forgiveness when someone apologizes to me, but the thought of doing so when the other party has acknowledged no wrong makes me sick to my stomach. I obsess over whether they even know they've wronged me. I wonder what will keep them from repeating the same behavior.

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." The uncomfortable thing about the Message, and part of the reason we need preachers, is that it's most important when it's not easy. Jesus says, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them" (Luke 6:32). I can easily hear him saying, "If you forgive those who apologize, what credit is that to you?" The way of Jesus means looking past our pride, even when it means surrendering justice for the sake of grace. It means letting go of the need to make sure someone else "learns a lesson." It means forgiving our debtors, not just those who trespass against us once.

Ultimately, I gave up on my claim of debt. I can't really claim it was out of a conviction to forgive--it was mostly guilt and exhaustion--but maybe these thoughts played a small part. It will, at least, help me in my continuing struggle to truly forgive.

Maybe someone from Sallie Mae will read this and agree. But if not, I hope I have at least provided some food for thought.

-Nick Miller Kauffman
(My dad thought Stephen's post was written by me, so I suggest we use big obvious signatures like this.)

Monday, September 28, 2009

I SERRV-ed My Time, Now Here's My Reflection

As Fair Trade Month [October] approaches, I thought I’d take the time to reflect on my summer experience. I am a student at Manchester College and participated in a summer service project called Pathways. I was placed at SERRV in Madison, Wisconsin as a marketing intern. I was going to be living on my own in a big city where I knew no one. Little did I know how much I would actually appreciate this experience later.
Just a little history behind SERRV, for those of you who are not aware. SERRV was started in 1949 by members of the Church of the Brethren as a way to help refugees in Europe after the war. People bought products in Europe then brought them back to America and sold them in a little gift shop in New Windsor, Maryland. The store grew in popularity, and SERRV was started! SERRV remained under the church until about 10 years ago, when it split off into its own entity. Okay, so there’s more to the story, but that’s a long story cut real, real short. SERRV is a fair trade non-profit, and for those of you who are not aware of what fair trade is, it’s a way to support artisans and farmers around the world by creating a fair wage. That’s also a very short definition.
Growing up, I was aware of SERRV. My grandmother would have me look at the catalog and tell her if there was anything I would like to have from it. I always thought the products were so beautiful, even though I didn’t know the full story behind where the products were made. It wasn’t until later that I realized that SERRV was religiously founded and I fully understood the concept of fair trade. There’s just something so rewarding when buying a fair trade product; each piece of jewelry, every basket, all musical instruments are different. They are like snowflakes, none are identical and that’s something you won’t find in the mass produced crafts. Not only are the products beautiful and unique, it also helps people that you have never met. Part of the enjoyment that I find in buying SERRV products is the knowledge that I am helping someone with my need for a new wallet or craving for some chocolate. The service aspect of fair trade is important to me.
I grew up in the Church of the Brethren. I was always taught to consider others around you, including folks you didn’t know. I think that ideal has an important play in why members of the denomination decided to start the International Gift Shop back in 1949. Service has always played a part in various projects supported by members of the Church of the Brethren. Dan West founded Heifer International to help feed the poor, volunteers spend their time cleaning up and building homes through Brethren Disaster Ministries, and many service projects throughout WWII and through today’s youth and young adults at conferences.
After interning at SERRV for a summer, I find myself immensely proud in the work these people do, and I am a proud member of the denomination that founded SERRV. I like to live the line “show Christ’s love through your actions,” and that is what these people are doing and what a consumer does when they purchase a fair trade product. So the next time you buy a Divine chocolate bar, even when you don’t really need one, smile and take pride in the fact that you just helped someone attend school, buy clothes or simply, live.
As a young adult in the church today and also in the world, I try my best to get the word of fair trade out there. I’m currently studying in Northern Ireland for the semester through BCA. I see fair trade everywhere! I was told this summer by my boss that Europe has caught the fair trade bug, and I just wonder why America hasn’t. The products are so beautiful, amazing, tasty and unique. So go ahead, buy that Divine chocolate bar; the people of Ghana greatly appreciate it.
SERRV has a facebook page. Become a fan today!


Hi, my name is Julia Largent. I'm a junior at Manchester College double majoring in Peace Studies and Communication Studies. I'm a member of the Church of the Brethren. =]

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Confessions of a seminarian

You might think, being at Bethany Theological Seminary, that I would feel more inspired to think about, and then write about, things relevant to this blog. I can't say that's proven to be false; I probably have at least four ideas a day that interest me enough to write about them. The problem is my ADHD (and generally spaceyness) are so bad that I forget them within minutes. Yet tonight, though none of my past ideas have come jumping back into my head, I feel strangely motivated to write. Possibly because the alternative is actually doing an assigned reading.

In the absence of having anything leaping to the front of my mind for reflection or commentary, I will reflect on my experience as a student at Bethany.

Most of you who know about this blog probably also know about Bethany, but, just in case, it's the Church of the Brethren seminary located in Richmond, Indiana, on the campus of Earlham College (a Quaker school).

I came to seminary almost expecting to hate it. One might question the wisdom of taking a path that is expected to be unpleasant, but I really didn't feel like getting a job, and no other schools seemed to stand out. Besides, the people at Bethany put up with my waiting until July to tell them I'd be starting school here in August.

One might also wonder why someone who was interested enough in Brethrenism and spirituality to start a blog on it expected to hate seminary. I'll say firmly that I have no intention of being a pastor, and I half-expected a seminary, at which most of the students are pursuing their Master of Divinity, to be too ministerial, and frankly too Christian for me.

But I love it here. After just a month, passing judgment may seem premature, but I know when I love a place. The classes I'm in for my M.A. are taught from a sufficiently academic lens that I don't feel like a... whatever I am... in a pastor's academy, but like a student at a school. And while I am surrounded predominantly by MDiv students, I have experienced that environment as enriching rather than limiting. There is an underlying sense of spirituality and religious belonging, as evidenced by our twice-weekly worship services and opening classes with a moment of silence, but I find that to be fulfilling in a way that I can't imagine more secular graduate school would be.

Far be it from me to be a recruiter. I'm too averse to thinking I know what will be good for someone else. But I would certainly recommend young Brethren folks interested in ministry, theology, or even peace studies (like me) at least give Bethany a second glance. You could, like me, startledly find yourself an amazing home where you are supported, challenged, taught, and embraced.

Also, Elizabeth Keller just preached one of the best messages I've ever heard, and if you want to hang out with her, this is the place to be.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Feetwashing and Protest

I thought I posted this days ago, but it turns out I posted it to the wrong blog.

This past summer, while working for a nonprofit called Pace e Bene, I had the opportunity to converse with Father Louie Vitale, a Catholic priest and social activist who started the organization twenty years ago. He was talking about a vigil he'd attended at a military base in the southwest many years earlier, and the religious elements that were made elements of the action.

The protesters divided into two groups, one of which crossed onto the military base to be arrested and one which stayed behind to be a continuing witness. From just outside the line that marked the beginning of government property, a group of Episcopalians gave communion to their friends who had chosen to cross over. But what Father Louie said was the thing that most struck him was a group of Brethren, who set a bench across the line and knealt to wash the feet of those who were about to be arrested. That image has been a powerful memory to him even to this day, twenty or thirty years later.

It wasn't until after he told that story that he remembered I was Brethren. How glad I am to see our quiet witness making such lasting impressions.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Some logistical stuff

I should have thought of this a long time ago. FWFS now has a Facebook Page where you can be a fan and see updates from the site, as well as a Twitter that will (if I rigged it right) keep you up to date on new posts.

The "latest comments" widget on the right seems not to be updating; I have no idea why, but I'll smack it a couple times and see if that fixes it.

Finally, I'm begging you young people (say, 17-35ish) to join in writing this blog with me. Please contact me--nmkauffman (at) gmail (dot) com--if you want to pitch in. I'm warning you, if you don't, I'm going to build an army of seminary bloggers!

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Are we distracted?

I wasn't at Annual Conference this year, but I understand there was a lot of talk going on about human sexuality, and that many people raised concerns that we're spending too much time on the issue. After thirty years of debate on this, could it be time to just put it to rest? Shouldn't we be turning to more important things?

I've heard this argument before from many people, including some of my favorite Brethren. And while I've never made the argument myself, I do find it enticing at times. Shouldn't we be dedicating our resources to feeding the world's hungry instead of fighting incessantly over such a controversial issue?

No.

I can't help but think of the Civil Rights Movement. It was controversial, to be sure, and it stirred up a lot of stuff that people didn't particularly want to be stirred up. They told Martin Luther King, Jr., "Just be patient," and he replied, "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability." Fifty years later, with the gift of hindsight, few of us would support the idea that there were more important things for all those people to be doing--that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference should have been directing its energy to other, more widely supported issues. They were humans, being treated as less than humans, and they could not be expected to accept that and join their oppressors in other work.

When we find ourselves confronting injustice, there is nothing more important than working against it. Right now, thousands of beautiful men and women in the Church of the Brethren are being told that there is something wrong with them; that their lifestyle is sinful; even that they cannot minister to their brothers and sisters. We cannot ask them to silently bow their heads and pretend it doesn't hurt--and if we continue to ask it, we will find our numbers ever thinning as these individuals find it too painful to remain in the Church they love.

To ignore this oppression and go about our business in the world is a disservice to them, and it is damaging to our own spirits: we cannot heal the world while we ourselves are so wounded. We must remove the plank from our eye before we can see the speck of sawdust in our brother's.

It is the nature of those who are oppressed to fight the oppression, and the duty of their allies to join them. This is not a waste of time.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Learning to Fly

Preached 5/3/09 at the Wabash (Ind.) Church of the Brethren.

There is a show on TV called Smallville that tells the story of Clark Kent before he dons the cape of Superman, beginning with his life as a high-school-aged farm boy and running through the start of his career at the Daily Planet—with, of course, new villains to face off with every week. Young Clark comes loaded with super powers: faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He can melt steel with his heat vision and see through concrete with his x-ray vision. One power, however, is conspicuously absent from his repertoire: he can't fly.

We all know Superman is supposed to be able to fly. It's in all the comic books and movies. It's in the little kids' cartoon videos and the 1990's show Lois and Clark, which I used to watch with my dad. But as of Season 8 of Smallville, while he is finally working as a mild-mannered reporter and has even picked up a habit of super-speed changes in a phone booth, Clark still can't fly. He just hasn't learned how yet.

Even though he's from the planet Krypton and all of us, as far as I know, are from Earth, we can actually find ourselves understanding Clark Kent pretty well—at least on this issue. The Bible is full of stories of Jesus making people see, or walk, or even rise from the dead, but he's not the only one doing it: his disciples, in his name, can perform those same miracles. Peter says to the crippled beggar, “Well, I don't have any money, but...” and BAM. The man can walk.

Now, we know where Superman's power comes from. Well, I know. Earth's yellow sun acts as a supercharger for his Kryptonian physiology, turning the ordinary alien into the Man of Steel. But how the heck was Peter able to make a crippled man walk just by telling him to? “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth!” he proclaims to the rulers. But we're Christians, too. We're followers of that same Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I hear stories like this and I always have to ask, where's my power?

When I was little I used to pray to God to give me super powers. “I'll use them for good.... mostly!” I would plead. “Honest!” It's possible my continuing lack of magical abilities has something to do with the purity of my intentions. What I really wanted was to be able to snap my fingers and create a pet Tyrannosaur—who, yes, might eat that jerk Brandon Thomas, but only if he really refused to reform—or maybe make Lindsay Jones like me just a little bit. God probably saw right through my do-gooder charade and put a nice big DECLINED stamp on my application for omnipotence.

But it's not for lack of good intentions that we don't go around miraculously curing people. Surely we mean well. I'm over Brandon Thomas and Lindsay Jones, but I'd still like to be able to do more to help people in need, and I still can't. Now, to be fair, I've never actually tried this. I mean, I've tried to use the Force to get a disc out of the DVD player so I wouldn't have to get off the couch, and unless you count reaching your arm out with a concentrated look on your face until somebody gives in and does a task for you, it generally hasn't yielded great results. But have I ever looked at someone unable to walk and said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk?” No. But I still don't think it would work, and I've left well enough alone for fear of looking like a grandstanding moron or, worse, of discrediting Jesus.

So there's one popular explanation: a lack of faith. We can't do anything truly miraculous because we don't truly believe that we can. After all, Jesus tells us that if we do not doubt, we can tell a mountain to throw itself into the sea, and it will comply. We haven't done a whole lot of moving of mountains, either, unless you count mountaintop removal for coal mining (and that's really, really bad). So is the problem that we doubt? Do we not really believe what we profess to believe? Is our faith so small that we're crippled? Why can't we do what the Bible says we can do?? These are the kinds of questions we don't ask because afraid of the answers, because they are just too uncomfortable, but if we're going to take our faith seriously it's time to ask!

For what it's worth, I don't think it's a lack of faith that keeps us from these miracles. I think even if I really believed and really tried, I would remain unable to do it. After all, others have believed and fallen short. Last year an eleven-year-old in Wisconsin died of perfectly treatable diabetes because her parents, rather than take her to a doctor, tried to heal her with prayer. You don't risk your child's life for something you don't believe, yet for all their faith, they weren't able to unlock a miracle.

Saint Francis of Assisi offered one more suggestion for why we can no longer do what we read the early Christians did: money. Peter tells the beggar, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you.” Francis claimed that it's an either-or scenario. You can have money for the beggar, or you can have miracles for the beggar, but you cannot have both. When we—that is to say, the Church—became an established power with wealth and status those disciples couldn't have dreamed of, we lost the power of the healing word. Perhaps those powers were born out of need, and we no longer have them because we no longer need them.

I'm going to go ahead and confess that, true to my usual form, I wrote this sermon this morning. But I was thinking about it earlier, and I caught my campus pastor after chapel on Wednesday and told him (with some panic) I was going to ask this really hard question and I needed to offer some kind of answer. “Well,” he said, “you could talk about the miracle of modern medicine...” and so I tuned him out. It sounded like a cop-out, a way of dodging the question with a wholly unsatisfactory answer. But after he told me that bit about Saint Francis, I kind of changed my mind.

We do have this miraculous modern medicine. We are able to prevent or cure many ailments that, two thousand years ago, would have left a person blind, or crippled, or dead. Maybe we don't go around performing flashy miracles, but let's look at this as utilitarians for a second: modern medicine cures more people in a day, by sheer volume and pervasiveness, than Peter and John could have in their whole lifetimes, even if they did nothing else. Medically speaking, unless swine flu wipes us all out, our civilization is in great shape!

And we have the resource that, root of all evil though it may be, can do the greatest good: money. Most of the suffering in the world is not because we—that's we as in all of us together—lack power. It's not the inevitable that's killing us. The four most common childhood illnesses are diarrhea, acute respiratory illness, malaria and measles, all of which are both preventable and treatable. Poor nutrition and calorie deficiencies cause nearly one in three people to die prematurely or to have disabilities. As I talk to you now, 963 million people across the world are hungry. And today alone, that hunger will kill 16 thousand children—some from starvation, but most as opportunistic diseases move in on their weakened bodies.

Working in Indianapolis last summer, I had the opportunity to talk with a crazy ex-drug addict who lives voluntarily in poverty, speaks truth to power, and literally does whatever is in his power to provide help to the people of his inner-city neighborhood. Exactly the sort of person Jesus would have working for him. He told me one of the most profound things I have ever heard about poverty: “People—economists--go around talking about the solution to poverty like it's this insanely complicated, elusive holy grail that's very, very difficult. It's not. The solution to poverty is easy. It's money. And the only complicated thing is figuring out how to get money from the people who have it to the people who need it.”

And I'll add here that that isn't complicated because of some complex economic structure. The economy is not an actor of its own; it's merely a reflection of the priorities of the people. Getting money from the people who have it to the people who need it is complicated because the people who have money are not particularly interested in getting it to the people who need money.

And so I must now admonish myself for insisting this question of miracle cures was so important in the first place. How dare we lament our lack of power when we refuse to use what power we have? As it turns out, we have all the power we need. Poverty, hunger, and most of the diseases that are killing us are treatable, even curable, without super powers. These woes would be relegated to the history books if we weren't so interested in living lives of luxury and fighting wars. You don't even want to know all the things we could do with the trillion dollars the Iraq War has cost us, but I'll just say that paving the entire interstate system with gold is only the most wasteful option.

My mom hates it when I preach like this. She accuses me of being depressing. “Can't you find something nicer to talk about?” she asks. And she's not wrong. It's true that we cannot afford to to spend our time saying nice things that will make us like each other, ignoring the tragedy of the world and pretending that there's nothing we can do. But neither can we afford to be constantly down on ourselves, beating ourselves into despair. We have seen solutions born out of despair—suicide bombings, for example—and they're not the sorts of answers we're looking for.

So here's the good news: we have the power. The power to heal with a word we have not, but silver and gold we have plenty. We have the power to feed and clothe everyone. We have the power to send the world's children to school. We have the power to heal. We can do all this as surely as Clark Kent can fly, even if we haven't quite figured out how.

And just like Clark is already using some of his powers, we really are doing a lot. International aid organizations like Heifer International and the Global Food Crisis Fund, though often underfunded, work hard to lessen the blows of poverty. Organizations like the New Community Project focus on learning so that we may understand the nature of the problems we face and craft healthy, sustainable solutions. And if any of those sound familiar, it's because all three were started by Brethren. I'll plug one more: Kiva, k-i-v-a, allows people like you and me to be micro-lenders, lending as little as $25 so that someone in need can start a business.

So there's a start. There's plenty to celebrate, but we can't get complacent because there is a lot of work to do. It seems daunting. It might even seem impossible, but remember this: we have the power to heal. That power is within us. It's just a matter of learning to fly.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Proving God

Some of you may be familiar with philosophers' attempts to prove God's existence.  The simplest is put forth by Descartes, who in doubting reality, realized the only thing he could be sure of was that he doubted.  Here's my paraphrase:

I doubt, therefore I think.
I think, therefore I exist.
I doubt, therefore I am imperfect.
I am imperfect, therefore imperfection exists.
Imperfection exists, therefore perfection exists.
God, by definition, is perfection, therefore God exists.
God is perfect, therefore God is good.
God is good, therefore God would not deceive us.
God would not deceive us, therefore the world and my experiences in it are real.

This proof actually shares the same fatal flaw as the other God proof I've heard:

Something can exist either in thought or in reality.
I can think of God, therefore God exists in thought.
It is more powerful to exist in reality than in thought.
God is, by definition, the most powerful, therefore God exists in reality.

The flaw, of course, is that we are asked to accept that because something is conceptualized, it must exist in accordance to its intrinsic characteristics.  Yet if I believe that God is, by definition, a delicious jelly donut sitting on my desk, there is still no jelly donut on my desk.  Those of us not well schooled in metaphysics may not be able to articulate exactly why we know these proofs are bogus, but we do know it.

(Note: I am not a philosopher, so if you're outraged at how much I screwed up my summary of these ideas, I apologize.)

However, in some of my musings this year, I have come across my own conditional proof that God exists.  Conditional in that it does not prove God, but makes God a necessary derivative of another belief.  Here it is:

If we have free will, God exists.

Maybe some of you are nodding your heads and saying "good point," or shaking your heads and saying "nope."  You have probably already jumped ahead through everything else I'm about to say.  If, however, you're going "huh?" then you can benefit from reading my explanation.

It started in Mexico.  I have no real explanation for why it started in Mexico, except perhaps that I (like Descartes, it would seem) had a lot of free time on my hands.  It was then that I began doubting free will.

It seems, scientifically, that to believe in free will, you must at some point stop your understanding of physical science.  Scientifically speaking, our brains are very complex systems of electrical signals and chemical reactions that form what we experience as thought.  Like everything in nature, these systems react to stimuli in the environment, chug through some insanely complex equations, and churn out an answer.  It's conceptually no different from the reaction you get when you mix baking soda and vinegar, or when you charge a battery, or when you plant a seed.  There are variables (how much vinegar you used, how long the battery is charging, nutrients in the soil, and so forth) that, depending on the complexity and our ability to measure them, we may or may not be aware of.  But if we were to know all of these variables, we could predict the outcome.  Chaos theory says that we cannot--that the universe is far too complex for us to predict outcomes like that.  But if we were omniscient about the present, we would be able to predict the future.

Are you buying this?  Let me ask you something: if you flip a coin, what are the chances that it will land heads?  Fifty percent?  Fifty-one percent?  Say you flip a coin and it lands on heads.  Given the exact physical circumstances of that toss--air currents in the room, your pulse, everything--what were the odds that it was going to be heads?  I claim 100%.  If you built a time machine, went back in time, and observed that coin toss again without changing anything (forget Heisenberg for a second), it would land on heads.  Every time.

Apply the same concept to a choice.  What will I eat for breakfast?  Cereal or eggs?  I think I'm choosing, but I'm actually just running an equation in my brain based on my hunger, how long it's been since I last ate eggs, how much time I have before I have to be in class, and so forth.  I may choose to make eggs.  If I go back in time and watch that play out again, I will once again choose to make eggs, because that was the outcome of that equation (note: for this reason I don't believe in alternate realities--at least not according to the "we create one with every choice" theory).

The end result is predetermination.  Given the exact same circumstances, we will make the exact same choices, just like the same math equation will always yield the same result (and don't give me any plus-or-minus crap or start talking about the number i).

There's a whole concept in philosophy that assumes all this, and goes on to explain our experiences and sense of self: epiphenominalism.  "In the Philosophy of Mind, a dualist theory of mind-body interaction which maintains all mental events are causally dependent upon physical events (i.e., brain states). According to this theory brain events cause mental events, but not vice versa" (Maricopa).  Essentially, our experience of making a choice is actually a side-effect of our body making that choice.  It's an illusion, unintended by the brain--a "ghost in the machine."

You may disagree, but I think all of this makes perfect sense.

So where does free will come in to play?  Do we have free will?  I believe I make choices all the time.  I believe I have free will.  Maybe I'm just suffering from the delusion of mental existence, but maybe I'm right, and there actually is free will.  But here's the thing:

To the best of my scientific and philosophical understanding, free will is impossible.  Therefore, free will can only exist by divine miracle.

Divine miracle means God.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Listening to God

I'm preaching on the theme of listening to God next Sunday. Does anyone have any reflections or meditations on this theme?

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sensitive matters

"Nic, I have to talk to you about a sensitive matter," Natasha said, looking at me with the eyes that are most often followed with a pleading (and misguided) "you're going to hate me forever!"

The reaction to this sort of prelude is not voluntary. My heartbeat quickens, I feel lightheaded, and my stomach twists up into that anticipatory feeling that only happens when I know something horrible is about to happen or I'm about to finally overcome some previously insurmountable challenge (usually in a video game).

"It's about your blog," she said. "I told my mom about it, and she said, 'Natasha, that's not right. It's feetwashing.'"

Jeanine had then hurried to dig up an old book as proof, but I trust this step was unnecessary. She is the archivist at Manchester College. There is no doubting that she, not I, is correct.

However, I feel that I am not alone in my ignorance. Maybe I'm just mishearing things, but isn't "footwashing" a common use? Like a less horrific "nucular?" Please comment and set me straight.

On another note, a Wikipedia entry is titled "Four Square" (two words), while Google asks "Did you mean foursquare?" (one word). "Four-Square" appears to be used solely in this blog title.

Please contact me if you are interested in being a contributor to this blog. Also, given the current sparsity of posts, I advise using an RSS reader to be informed of updates.