Adventurous

What a day.

I rode my bike to church today. And took the long route, so I could do one of my favorite things in the whole world: ride a bike at the beach. Riding a bike isn't even close to being in my top ten or even top twenty favorite activities, but riding a bike at the beach shoots up to the top five. The way there was pretty smooth. Riding on busy streets terrifies me, but thankfully I figured out a way that only involved a little patch of Sepulveda Blvd. Once I got to the beachside bike path it was just glorious. (I took a few pictures, but my camera cord has gone missing. Hmm.) The ride home was much more strenuous, what with more heat and the fact that I was driving away from sea level. I had to walk up part of Knob Hill, and at one point was pretty sure I was going to have to call for a pick-up or lie down in the gutter and take a nap. But I made it. I am hurting, and will surely be more sore tomorrow. I'm still betting it was worth it.

In between the ride there and the ride back, I did the usual church office stuff: returned calls... planned worship services... wrote notes... participated in the great de-lizarding of SBCC. If you count screaming and giggling and screaming some more while Charise did all the work "participating." I had picked up a bunch of Starbucks rolls to be dropped off at the soup kitchen, and discovered an ugly, tail-less, skinny, slithery lizard hiding beneath the bags full of scones. At first I thought it was a snake, and was relieved to find out it was a lizard. (I can only imagine how hysterical I would have been if it hadn't possessed legs). Even though my shrieking got Charise shrieking, she boxed up and removed that lizard like nobody's business. The only two hiccups in the process were when the lizard appeared to hex her and when I was shaking so much I couldn't properly unlock the door. I can handle such critters in the wild, but not when they are in an office full of nooks and crannies inviting them to go into hiding. If we hadn't managed to capture and free the lizard in the church garden, I would never be able to sit still again. I do not even want to think about what else might have made it into hiding.

My sisters and I have a sound we make when we are creeped out. No one has figured out quite how to spell it, but it goes something like this: bluawhawhawha.

More Camera Fun

Y'all are going to start thinking this blog is all about photo effects. I have to admit, ever since I scanned my face into photoshop a few years ago, I've been powerless to the siren call of computer-generated makeovers. Ben joined in the fun today.

test, test

Back in the day, my family had two computers- a PC for my dad, and an Apple for the Willis girls. The first computer I ever used was an Apple, and I wrote nearly every paper and poem in college on an iMac. After using a once-great Gateway PC for the last four years (two of which the laptop couldn't be closed or the screen would go black for hours, a trait that turned our fabulously road-ready laptop into a desktop), Ben and I made the jump to a nice new MacBook, thanks to a little help from a benefactor. It's fancier than I know what to do with. I'm still getting the hang of it, but I did figure out how to use the nifty built-in camera. Who needs to tele-conference when you can apply cartoon effects to your face?

The Happy Family

Credits: Photographed by Lisa, funktified by Katherine

Ascension Sunday Sermon

Yeah, I'm a day late. The liturgically appropriate day to celebrate Ascension is the fortieth day after Easter, traditional a Thursday. But I loved the Ascension texts and made an executive decision to celebrate the Ascension this Sunday. Here's the sermon, with thanks to Nathan Mattox for doing the research on the Shekinah and providing other details I'd normally miss.

The weeks after Easter always seem a little anti-climactic. How do you follow something as transformative and redemptive as the Resurrection? Up from the grave he arose!… and then… he ate… some fish. The lectionary leads us back to some of the most treasured of Jesus’ teachings as a reminder of our relationship with the Risen Lord—he is the vine, and we are the branches. He is the shepherd, and we are the sheep. He is our Savior, but he is also our friend. The weeks pass along, and suddenly we are in danger of treating Easter less like a way of life and more like a holiday to remember. Just when the church is in danger of becoming placid again, just when we are about to get used to the idea that God is so good he breathed life and Spirit into our Crucified Lord, we are faced with the wild and wonderful tale of the Ascension.

I love this story. I love the image it paints, like the one on our bulletins today, of Jesus floating away on a cloud. I love that it cannot, will not be tamed into a version that fits our skeptical modern minds. Through the ages there have been many well-meaning biblical interpreters who go out of their way to read the bible in a rational, reasonable manner. But the story of how Christ ascended to Heaven dangles like a pearl at the end of the Gospel of Luke, settling once and for all that the story of our faith doesn’t play by the rules of physics. And thank God for that. Here we have a story full of power and wisdom, promise and glory. Here we have the only story strong enough to be a bridge between the brilliance of Easter and the energy of Pentecost. For here, in the epilogue to Luke and the introduction to Acts, we encounter our Risen Lord rising even higher yet, to be in the realm of his Heavenly Father.

In the story of the Ascension, the hazy fog of misunderstanding burns away to reveal one solitary cloud of God’s presence, the same divine cloud that appeared when Moses received the law, the same billowing presence that hovered nearby as Jesus was transfigured on the mountain. And in this drama, the fullness of Christ’s identity is finally uncovered. God did not raise his son from the tomb only to allow him to die again; the new life he breathed into him would be eternal. He had been lifted to the cross, lifted from the grave, and now, after 40 days of final words to his Disciples, he is lifted up to Heaven. God raised him to reign forever over the Kingdom at the center of his divine agenda. The humble, confounding prophet of parables and miracles is crowned King. To say that Christ is Lord is to proclaim that the final authority of our lives is Christ. Not ourselves, not our fears, not even our earthly leaders. Christ’s ascension to the throne of God’s Kingdom calls into question any other allegiance, for as witnesses to the gospel our allegiance is owed to God.

If God embraced Christ as King of his heavenly realm, that makes the disciples, that makes us, citizens of that peaceable Kingdom. And in both the gospel and the book of Acts, Luke recalls that Jesus’ last words have everything to do with commissioning the early Church on how to be Kingdom people, to bear witness to what their Lord has done for them.

“Thus it is written,” Jesus says, “that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

In the book of Acts, the Disciples still don’t quite get it. They want to know when and how their Lord will restore the Israelite Kingdom. After all, that had been the focus of Jewish hope for centuries—for God to send a Messiah to drive out the foreign occupiers and reestablish Jerusalem as the Holy City of God’s chosen people. But it turns out that God’s plan was different. It turns out that the Messiah wouldn’t assume the throne of Jerusalem, but would die and assume the throne of all Creation. It turns out that God wouldn’t just redeem Israel, but that Jerusalem would be only the beginning, the well from which a spiritual movement of global proportions would spring. It turns out that the redemption of God’s beloved world would not take place within a generation, but over two millennia and counting. And perhaps most surprisingly of all, it turns out that Jesus wasn’t going to build the Kingdom all by himself, but that the disciples he gathered around him had been conscripted into the holy work of proclaiming the story of Jesus.

What happens in the moments before the ascension is this: the disciples find out that they will have a new identity, and though the word is not used, the disciples discover that they will be the church. With Christ at their head and Peter as their rock, the men and women gathered at the foot of Christ’s ascension learned that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit for the purpose of continuing the redemptive work started by their Lord and Savior. Despite their blundering, despite their misunderstanding, their moments of utter faithlessness, the little circle of believers gathered that day were give the big news that God was doing a new thing through them. They were being raised up as ministers of the gospel, entrusted with a congregation much larger than they had realized, a congregation that included all the corners of the earth, peoples in lands they didn’t even know existed. Those men and women who would become the early church were Christ’s only mouthpiece, God’s chosen way for the good news of his redeeming love to reach the nations.

Their friend and shepherd, Jesus, would not be physically present. They could no longer embrace him anymore than they could hitchhike to heaven by grasping the hem of his robes. The cloud would change everything, spiriting their Risen Savior off to a realm beyond human perception. But God does not leave his children alone. On Ascension day, the word is out that a Holy Spirit is on its way, a Spirit so mysterious and real that it can only be described in paradox— a Spirit like water, like fire, like wind. Jesus promises that the disciples, the church, will receive power in the form of that most Holy Spirit.

They will be clothed with power from on High. That is such a turn of phrase. Nothing expresses the nature of the Holy Spirit better than that lovely metaphor Jesus proclaims before he blesses the disciples and catches his taxi-cloud to Heaven. “You will be clothed with Power from on High.” Power like a cardigan sweater, power like a winter jacket. Jesus speaks of a Power that tangibly embraces us, warms us, reassures us that we belong to God.

Suddenly the disciples were alone again, their savior having disappeared once more. But it was not like the eve of the crucifixion. Mourning and lamentation were not in order. In the book of Acts, they stand there, staring at the empty spot in the sky where Jesus had been. Are they bewildered? Overwhelmed? Confused? Dismayed? It takes a pair of angels to snap them out of their heavenward gaze. They reassure the Disciples that Jesus is going to return, but imply that the appropriate thing to do is not simply stand around looking for clues of his advent. Don’t focus your heart on the Kingdom in Heaven, roll up your sleeves and get busy participating in the foundation of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Those disciples had a choice. They could run away in fear the way they had done the last time their Savior eclipsed their sight, or they could trust. They could give up on Jesus and his refusal to establish the new Jerusalem according to their limited human agenda, or they could pour their hopes into the promise of a Holy Spirit to guide and empower them to become the Body of Christ on Earth. They chose the later. They chose to worship, to return to the place God had called them with great joy, to continually bless God in the temple.

Despite their brokenness and infidelity, their unbelief and anxiety, Christ’s promises found a home in his circle of disciples. I have often marveled that the fact that we got from Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s rejection, and Thomas’s disbelief to the church seems the most unlikely of all the miracles of the New Testament. It is a testament to the power of the Holy Spirit and a testament to the power of the gospel story. Never once has the church been a perfect, sinless institution. But never once has the church allowed the flame of the Kingdom of God to be extinguished completely. That flame still flickers and burns, an ember of hope and promise for all of Creation.

We are heirs to that power, successors of that promise. We have the same choice as the Disciples. Do we let our worries and agendas damage our trust – or do we move forward with joyful anticipation for the powerful cloak of the Holy Spirit? Do we stare at the sky and long for a tangible savior—or do we lift our voices in jubilant praise for the Christ who reins over the heavens and the earth? Do we drown the Body of Christ in fear, or do we celebrate his ascension in love?

May we choose well, for God has already chosen us.

RevGalBlogPal Friday Five: Credo

I haven't written much lately about faith/God/ministry etcetera. I haven't had much to say, as I've been in a bit of a holding pattern - sensing I'm about to take off one way or another, but unsure of where or when. Anyway, the RevGalBlogPals Friday Five meme is in regard to belief. I realize that through the years, I've depended on the mostly-helpful notion that Christianity isn't about belief as confidently assenting to the truth of a set of doctrines, but cultivating faith in God as a way of life. The difference between faith and belief (when it is articulated with more clarity than I'm managing here) has been of vital importance to me. When I was about nineteen, I decided that whether or not I believed in the five things I thought I was supposed to make myself believe in to be a bonified Christian, I would try to trust God and participate in communities of faith anyway. For the most part, this has worked out for me, though sometimes the utter ambiguity of my faith exhausts me. The notion of orthopraxis - right practice - as opposed to orthodoxy - right belief - deeply appeals to me. Give me communion over catechesis any day. Which is not to say that I don't love theology; I simply see it more of a practice of imagining the God in whom we have faith rather than laying down a set of orthodox doctrines.

Have you ever suffered through such a verbose introduction to a meme?

Here are five things in which I believe.

1. I believe that my family and friends love me (and I love them).
2. Nick Cave sings, "People just ain't no good." Except when they are. Despite the human tendency toward selfishness and fear, I believe that all people are capable of love and kindness.
3. Violence is wrong, and cannot ever be justified, even if waging war appears to be the lesser of evils. I could go on. Yes, I believe atrocities need to be stopped. I believe there are other ways to stop them than further atrocities, that there is such a thing as making peace. That said, while I believe situations in which violence is used to abort violence (self-defense, WWII) are not morally justifiable, they should be interpreted with compassion in light of context. Which is to say that if a person murders someone out of self-defense, it is still wrong to kill, but we will have compassion for the person given the circumstances. Dietrich Bonhoeffer participated in the plot to assassinate Hitler, yet he never once pretended that it was acceptable in God's sight to kill another person. In his eyes, the failed assassination was not heroic, but a sinful action he was willing to undertake out of concern for the victims of the Holocaust.
4. I believe in music.
5. I believe in (the Triune) God. I believe that God is the source of all goodness and love. I believe that God will save us, whatever that means.

Meme Time

My friend Nathan tagged me for an original meme: five reasons I think I'm cool. I guess one has to believe in one's coolness to participate... is it ever cool to self-identify as cool? Oh well, here goes.

1. I have the faint remainder of a stamp (that says "FOLD") on my inner right forearm. This is because last night I was out with Ben & his dad at a legendary club called the Derby in Los Feliz (near Hollywood). We'd recently discovered a funky band called the Ditty Bops and decided to check out their CD release show. Great music and all sorts of kitschy stuff reappropriated in an appropriately hip fashion: accordions, percussion via washboard, a wobbly wah-wah saw, back up dancers made up of one of the singer's grandmother's Jazzercize classes. Fun, fun fun! Compared to the hipsters in attendence, I felt very uncool, but in retrospect perhaps I am cool by association.

2. I named a fish Penelope when I was very young. Later, I named another fish Bartholomew Ingrid (covering all the gender bases), and was scandalized when my parents insisted on calling him/her Fishburger.

3. My wedding dress was pink. And from dELiA*s.

4. I took so many gym classes in college that I couldn't get credit for all of them.

5. I was the first of my family members and the majority of my close friends to start blogging. Given that this has become a fun way to keep in touch with one another, I'm glad I jumped on this particular bandwagon and dragged a whole lot of people on for the party.

There you have it. I'm cool.

I tag the following cool kids: Charise, Ben, Purechristianithink, Mama, and Daddy. Oh, no? Where will Daddy post his answers? Will he guest-blog on Library Bookie, or will he start his own?

Books, books, and more books

Oh my gosh, this is a good website. Not only can you catalog your book collection online through a very simple process, you can get book recommendations and find out who else is reading the most obscure volumes on your shelves. From now on, a random selection of my books will show up along the footer of my blog. The librarian in me is doing sommersaults!

Um... welcome?

I'd love to roll out the welcome mat for the local bloke who arrived at my humble blog after searching "Torrance California boobs" on Yahoo, but I'm unconvinced he'll be happy here. He did stay a whole twenty seconds, whereas the fella who was looking for "vacuum cleaning babes" only hung around for one second.

If you're wondering how I got to be #14 on the search results for "Torrance California boobs," the spicy word came up during a discussion about female pastors wearing clerical shirts. Hot stuff, y'know?

Thanks, Sitemeter. You're always good for a laugh when I'm in the throes of writers' block.

"."

I can handle all the misinformation that litters Wikipedia. I cannot, however, abide by the overabundance of poor grammar and punctuation. If the People can't keep the punctuation inside the quotes in their utopian encyclopedia, the power must be returned to Brittanica.

It's enough to make a geek weep.

more fan-antics

Dear Karin & Linford,

I wanted to thank you for doing another West Coast tour this year. I miss the days when I lived in Ohio and was able to catch five shows in one year! I only discovered the band in 2000, with the rerelease of GDBD. I was killing time between class at Kent State, exploring the new listening stations at the book store. I heard the first ten bars of Latter Days, and had the clearest thought: "I have discovered my favorite band. This will be my favorite band for the rest of my life." Seven shows, every album, a goofy picture of me with Linford after the San Diego show last year, and an Orchard membership later, that love-at-first-listen is truer than ever. Your music carried me through courtship with my husband, three years of seminary, and my first months as a solo pastor of a little church in Redondo Beach. The Knitting Factory show will actually be the one-year anniverary of my ordination in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I can't think of a better way to celebrate than in the presence of the music that consistently breaks me open to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you.

Traveling Mercies and Deep Peace,
Katherine

Of course I got a response. A really kind one. Four minutes later. I love this band. But you already knew that.


p.s. There are eight OtR allusions in this poster. I didn't pick up on too many, but definitely the bottle labeled "Sure Defeat."

To-Do

I adore to-do lists. Right now, my list is pretty short: write sermon, preferably before night gives way to the morning of my so-called "day off." I really like Sasha Cagen, the to-do list maven behind a blog and a magazine dedicated to the ordinary art of "keeping track of our common compulsions." Now, Ms. Cagen has a book deal, to which you may contribute here. Just put it on your to-do list.

Ordinary Time

Last fall, the RevGalBlogPals released our first collection of lectionary-themed devotionals, A Light Blazes in the Dark. Over the weekend, our second collection hit the market. It's pricier than the first, but that's just because there are so many more Ordinary days than Advent days. You'll have months and months worth of RevGalBlogPal wisdom delivered directly from our hearts to your nightstands.

Ordinary Time: Year B Devotions for June to November

On Sale now for $18.99

Happy Belated Administrative Professionals Day, Charise

Earlier this week, I gasped. I realized that Administrative Professionals Day had already passed, and I had not offered Charise, my new Office Assistant/ Secretary/ Friend, so much as a post-it note of gratitude. I hollered an apology from my office to hers, and she scoffed at my alarm and told me to blog about it. So I am.
I have a great church secretary. I am still loathe to be the boss-woman, but Charise helps me work through my inability to ask her to staple some sermon commentaries without apologizing profusely. She says things like, "That's why I'm here," and cheerfully reminds me to purchase the office supplies I said I'd pick up, oh, three months ago. She's also willing to take work home, like the time I asked her to scan in the odd yet impressive pro-life Jesus postcard we received at the office.















Charise is also funny and brilliant, as you will note if you read her blog. She writes gracefully about parenthood and "pooh" (we have a difference of opinion regarding the spelling of this word, but since it likely won't come up in the church newsletter, I'm not concerned).

I could go on. She's great with church members. She helped me design our new church website. She regularly claims victory over our uncooperative copy machine. But in this Belated Administrative Professionals missive, I want to publicly thank Charise for making me feel a lot less crazy. Even though the world tells me I'm an impostor, that a 25-year-old girl with a nose ring could not possibily be the solo pastor of a congregation, Charise tells me otherwise. Long after Charise has moved on to her next career as a paralegal (and the one after that as a lawyer), I hope that we still meet regularly at Catalina Coffeehouse to talk about life, faith, and the antics of her twin boys.

For those of you who just eat Paste up...

Ever since I picked up my first copy of Paste, I was convinced that someone on board had to be a Christian. My suspicion thickened when they published an absurdly insightful piece exploring the theological ramifications of lyrics by The Innocence Mission. Today, friends, I'm proven right. This is a great interview with Josh Jackson, the editor, in which he explains that he quit his position with a medical missions organization to co-found Paste. I knew it!