A woman of one book...

VLBjuliebible
Originally uploaded by scoxjohnson.

And it ain't the Book of Discipline. The conversation that sticks most in my mind and heart this week was with the layman (a wonderful layman) who was our lay reader last Sunday. I did not use the lectionary last week, but chose as a part of speaking about the mothering love of God, to use Psalm 91. On Monday, this wonderful layman told me that he had a very hard time with that psalm, and reading it aloud, because it seemed to say that if you believe in God, then you will be protected...that your enemies will fall. He then told me and listed for me some historical cases where that did not happen. Instead of just listening and nodding, which some pastors near the end of their tenure might do, I opened my big mouth and first tried to state that ULTIMATELY we ARE protected by God's love--I even dared to explain some Benedicitine reading of the psalms, and how Kathleen Norris suggests we understand the enemy spoken about in so many as an INNER enemy, us fighting ourselves, etc, etc. He didn't buy it, and I felt that very familiar resentment I have felt that there are many leaders in the church here who are dismissive of specific scripture because it doesn't fit into what they believe is an acceptable understanding of who God is. I have failed to find a way to help folks to see that just because they don't understand the meaning of a scripture doesn't necessarilly mean that it doesn't have some meaning and something to say about who God is and thier own faith. I think Brueggemann and others talk about something called a canonical reading of scripture--that you simply take the bible as is, and then deal with the fact that there is a mystery involved that may require us to accept that there is a meaning there for us--not a literal meaning, which reduces the mystery out of it, but a meaning that requires us to go deeper into the mystery of God. I simply haven't found a way to get folks to see that just because they don't understand it, then it doens't have to be rejected. It is the modern understanding of faith that is the bigger issue--I don't understand how the resurrection can be true, therefore I reduce it to butterflies and ants that move rubber tree plants. One of the really promising things I hear in the emergent conversation is the invitation to trust of the mystery of it all, which requires at some point surrender. And I don't know how to get folks to go there who are overly cerebral in their faith--I've been trying for five years, and wish I had found some way to help that happen for more of the folks.

Odd, odd times

doors
Originally uploaded by scoxjohnson.

I know I haven't written much lately, mostly because there is so much going on that its hard to isolate what to write about. Packing has started some; I only preach three more times at Bway before I fly away north to Liberty. My last Sunday is June 12. One of the big projects I've been working on lately I just finished today-- a "devotional booklet" (for lack of a better name for it) for the pastors who are moving in the annual conference this year. It is thirty pages of poems, thoughts, scriptures, etc, from old alive now! issues and then a whole bunch of original poems by Hubert Neth. He is at his existential best in these poems and am I'm feeling really good about the "booklet." I'll distribute it at the "clergy on the move" seminar in a couple of weeks.

Jacob's Well

stairs emerging
Originally uploaded by scoxjohnson.

Last night I took the three boys from church whom I had worked with a year or so ago on their God and Church award for Boy Scouts, to Jacob's Well for worship. I had not been there on Sunday evening for two or three months--hadn't seen Tim for a month of so. What a profoundly wonderful, no-words-for experience it is--what, maybe 450 folks, mostly between 17 and 27, a GREAT band, projected icons and medieval art, white, white for Eastertide, shasta mum/daisies on the altar candles, expository preaching on the beheading of John the Baptist (!!!), and holy communion...who could ask for anything more??? I wanted my Caleb next to me, and I told him today after school that we are going next Sunday night.
I sensed God's spirit leading me last night, as I have all along amidst the emergent conversation. I feel like I have come home and at the same time called to a journey of ministry within my own denomination that is in the context of all of this. I am concerned that amidst all the administrative details of the superintendency this will be lost. I am SO enlivened by this emergent thing, it feels SO right, and I am scared for my beloved United Methodist church that we may somehow be being called to come and die to become something new again. Which sounds pretty threatening, Don't tell the Bishop...but then again, maybe that's why I am called at this moment to all that God is calling me toward....Wow

Bringing out the best in one another...

older adults
Originally uploaded by scoxjohnson.

Over the past several weeks, we have had several deaths in the congregation. The last two funeral/memorial services that I have had were for women in the nineties, one who had never married, the other who had been widowed for decades--both, by the way, were Harvey Girls! For both of these women, there were not any close family members. Today's service was at the church, in the parlor. The person who had been the main care giver for Elma was Jim, a long time, very active member of our church. Jim, along with some others, had helped Elma with her house, with legal matters, with medical matters, and after my sermon today, it was he who rose to thank those present, and others who could not be present, for their support of Elma, much as a younger brother might do. The most memorable part of the service was when a step-nephew of Elma's stood and spoke. As in many families where there has been re-marriage, there had been some tension and ill feelings, as Bob, the step nephew admitted. And, he said, with tears in his eyes, that he was so glad to be present and to hear the sharing that had taken place primarilly by church members, who spoke with love and appreciation for Elma. It gave him a perspective on her life that he had never had, and he was grateful to be able to remember Elma in a more positive way.
One definition of a church community that is healthy is that the members are able to bring out the best in one another. Churches are often at their best when there is a crisis in a member's life, and the petty differences between persons are put aside. I am so glad for the many of our church who find ways each week to quietly go about the ministry of care.

Learning how ...

friendship
Originally uploaded by scoxjohnson.

Making truly good friends for me has been a "sometimes" thing...itinerancy does not always provide the fertile soil of extended time, or the sunny rays of energy that it takes to grow the deep, true friendships that I sometimes have thought would be nice to have. Over the past year and a half or so, somehow, someway, through a gift of the spirit, I have been graced with a handful of very wonderful friendships with persons whom I did not know, or at least did not call true friends, five years ago. My life at times has been a solitary thing, not a sad thing, really, but often lived alone. I probably have had two really close friends over the past twenty years, in addition to Philip, my former husband--my relationship with him defies any word or model I really have witnessed anywhere else (I'll save that for another blog!) I think most probably that at least a significant part of my personal life's work for the rest of my life, will be to learn how to allow myself to be known well by trusted freinds. I am glad God has provided me with those persons. The superintendency, I know, can be a lonely thing. The greatest concern I have, aside from how this parenting thing will work, is how to continue to foster deep friendships, showing care and being cared for, in the midst of it.

My first box run! Yippee!

cardboard
Originally uploaded by scoxjohnson.

You know you are a United Methodist minister when...you get excited when you do your first "box run" of any move!!! I figured with three months to get ready, there is no reason why this move should not be the very most organized one I have ever made. I made my first box run tonight...during my box run phase is the only time I frequent local liquor stores...honest. The first visit is usually just to endear me to the liquor store manager/workers so that they will save the good boxes for me. I visited Berbiglia and Mike's Wine and Spirits (85th and Wornall). Mike's comes in with very high marks with me. Some decent boxes and two very nice guys, Steve and Julio? who gave me tips on when to come in and on what days. I even managed to tell them I was the minister down the street. I also visited a-to-remain-nameless grocery store, and boldly walked back into the produce store room, where I was a little disconcerted to see a "rodent station" warning. No boxes. Probably just as well.

I also am teaching yet another St Paul class tomorrow morning on emergent--I'm glad Mark Calhoun will be there to help as well. I feel like I'm getting sort of redundant, but I'm fairly excited about doing this. I share a two page synopsis I have, and a bibliography. I plan to have the class do some smaller group discussion, too. There will be 27 in the class.

A District Superintendent? (choke, choke, cough, cough)

The word is "so out" that I will suppose the Bishop would even sanction my writing about it now...yes, truth be told, I am told, I am to be a district superintendent come July 1. I am still caught in all the process of how this is happening, but must say I am extremely excited and my soul has been blessed with bliss in the midst of my mind's rationality. I don't know when I have been just this plain happy. And right now, I'm not worrying too much about being rational about it. I'm just joyful. I am not positive, as of this writing, which district it will be, though I hope to stay in the Kansas City area. Just plain happy. Is that weird, or what?

And happier still today as I helped (only a tiny bit) in leading worship for the installation service of Hal Knight in the Wright Wesleyan Studies chair at St. Paul School of Theology. And joyful in having lunch with some of the faculty and others as we helped the Knights celebrate. Hal has been a very special person for me this past year, and has helped me process some of the "evangelical renewal of heart and mind" of which my emergent interest arose. He has been constantly encouraging, never bowled over by my boundless (nearly) enthusiam about the emergent conversation and his humble spirit is an example to me of how to care and support without drawing attention to yourself. Thanks Hal!