trying too hard

wYesterday, I shot my best two rounds of disc golf ever. On both courses, I had back nines of 6 and my combined scores for the two courses was only 29!

Now, those aren't great scores. But for me, they are fantastic scores. I did twice as good as I normally do. And do you want to know why? I stopped trying so hard.

The same thing happened last week with my sermon. I have been a manuscript preacher - although, if I'm honest with myself, my manuscript isn't the polished manuscript of some, but I write it exactly how I would say it, stream of consciousness style. Only without the stress of a congregation in front of me when I do it. It's a style that has helped my preaching be a bit more authentic and yet it also gives me the security blanket of those pieces of paper in the pulpit.

In two of my last three sermons however, I haven't really used a manuscript that I prepared before hand. And you know what - they were pretty good!

I think that I have always been raised to believe that we have to put 110% into everything that we do. And while that is a good philosophy, it's not sustainable in the long term. Because giving 110% means that you are giving more of yourself than you have. In otherwords, it's terrible for self-care. If you are always giving and not taking the time to fill yourself back up 110% then you will burn out.

The other problem with that way of thinking is that it makes it all about you. It becomes about what you have put into it, rather than thinking about all of the other factors that come into play.

For example, in disc golf, if you throw the disc at 110%, your arms will tire out quite quickly, but you also are not using the discs properly. You aren't factoring in for the wind, or the nature of the particular disc that you are throwing. In my case, backing off from the throwing power also has helped me to work on my form and I have far more accurate drives and putts than I did before.

In the case of my preaching, when I get out of the way a little bit, and leave just a little bit more up to God in the moment, I am ALWAYS amazed at how God takes what I have already done and makes it amazing. If it's all about me and the way that I wrote it, then there is very little room for God in the moment - even though God was a part of the process.

I have always been a hard worker... and I firmly believe that we need ot love God with our whole selves - heart, mind, soul, strength. But sometimes that also means we need to understand that God is God and we are not and empty ourselves so that God can work through us, like empty vessels ready for the wine.

Last Fridays FF: Friends

Ever since I found out I could be the hostess for the third Friday Five of each month, I have not been able to get the thought of friends out of my mind. Being an only child (all growed up) who moved around a lot in my lifetime,
friends have always been very important to me. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once
wrote: "The way to have a friend is to be a friend."

So today let's write about the different kinds of friends we have, like childhood friends, lost friends, tennis friends, work friends, and the list goes on. List 5 different types of friends you have had in your life and what they were/are like.

1) JSTACK - there is no other way to describe this group of friends than to simply call us who we are (JSTACK is based on the first letters of our names). We are six women (well, girls at the time) who fell in together somewhere in 7th grade and haven't fallen apart since! Think "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" meets "Now and Then" and "Stand by Me" only there are six of us and we get together regularly. We have built some amazing rituals around watching each other get married and I can't wait until some of us start having little ones! Our kids will have five aunts to love them!!!

2) My college "activist" friends - these are my friends who would drag me to protests and who I lived with in a community house with a focus on social justice and peace and the environment. We had a blast together and I did all sorts of things that I never would have had the courage to do on my own.

3) My college "religious" friends - these are terrible distinctions to make between people, and I had quite a few friends who fit both categories, but for the most part, I had my friends in the "progressive action coalition" house and then my friends in "religious life council." These are the friends that I talked theology with, and discerned my call with. These are the friends that held me accountable through covenant discipleship groups and I worshipped with. These are the friends who worked through parts of the ministry process with me. Five of us went to seminary out of my graduating class.

4) My seminary friends. In many ways - seminary was the opportunity to meld together the "activist" and "religious" sides of my life. My seminary was also known as the "school of the prophets" so it was no surprise that my colleagues would protest injustices and would stand up for the rights of others AND that we had deep theological discussions about why we would do so. My one regret is that I wasn't more involved in some of the direct action things that happened while I was in Nashville. Some of my closest women friends and I also had a regular tuesday night out during this time that WAS the deepest form of self-care that I'm still trying to find here in my ministry setting.

5) My husband's friends. Well, they are my friends too =) Since moving back to Iowa, we started hanging out with my husband's brother and friends - mostly playing video games and watching movies and playing disc golf. And now they are the guys (and I do mean GUYS) that I see most often. In some ways I miss having really good girlfriends around, but at the same time, it's nice to just be able to hang out with the guys and not have any of the pressure of church around.

An Interview with RevGals

These questions were posted this week as a part of the Monday Meet-N-Greet. I know - I'm late. Oh well!

1. Where do you blog? Here! and at http://www.kenoticwords.blogspot.com/

2. What are your favorite non-revgal blog pal blogs? United Methodeviations, Bread & Honey

3. What gives you joy? Being on a porch with good friends and family talking about life. Baptizing a child. Singing a favorite hymn. Sleeping next to my husband.

4. What is your favorite sound? My cats purring.

5. What do you hope to hear once you enter the pearly gates? This is a really hard question. In part because I don't know that the pearly gates is that great of a metaphor for what awaits us. For me, this question is about what would I want to be able to hear that I can't already hear/know here on earth... I can already hear God saying that I am loved... so I guess I would want to be able to hear all of the intangible things that we can't understand about one another. I would like to be able to hear a smile.

6. You have up to 15 words, what would you put on your tombstone? She lived her whole life with her whole self and loved everyone she met.

7. Write the first sentence of your own great American novel. Today I planted the very first seed...

8. What color do you prefer your pen? Black

9. What magazines do you subscribe too? None at the moment. But I sometimes buy "Everday Food" and used to get "Utne Reader"

10. What is something you want to achieve in this decade? I want to have a child in this decade (if we are thinking 2000-2010)... and the time is quickly slipping away.

11. Why are you cool? Because I like to wear heels with my jeans, I listen to space rock (Incubus), watch the Daily Show, study the perichoretic nature of God, and because I'm probably the youngest pastor in a 50 mile radius (if not wider) of where I live.

12. What is one of your favorite memories? having my husband wipe away the tears of joy from my eyes with my grandma's handkerchief during our wedding ceremony.

13. Anything else you've always wanted to be asked? What is a metaphor/image for your ministry? Despite being an itinerant United Methodist pastor... my deepest metaphor for ministry is that of a gardener or farmer - putting deep roots into the ground and tending the spot that you are given - taking care of the land and the soil and freely giving the fruits of the labor away to those who need them the most.

ancestors and language

Part of the reason I have been conspicuously absent lately is that I was getting ready for and now being invigorated by the Miss Czech-Slovak Iowa pageant and Houby Days.

I was invited to be a judge at this year's competition and I was honored to do so. For those of you who aren't aware - I was Iowa's first ever (official) Miss Czech-Slovak Iowa and was sandwiched between two amazing women who not only represented Iowa, but were also national queens. So, this was a great chance to reconnect with something I have been away from for oh, about 7 years, but it also was a good opportunity to get back in Czech Village after all of the flooding last spring that devasted the Avenue.

Can I just say first of all how much I love kolaches?! I had 3 by the time it was 10am. Seriously - they are good... go get yourself one!

The only disappointment for me that day was that I did not have a kroj to wear. Kroje are the traditional costumes worn for festivals and special occasions and I have one that I wore as the Czech Princess in high school and then another I wore as Miss Czech-Slovak Iowa. (you can't see it in this picture - but I'm third from the left... pictured with the other contestants in Wilbur, NE at Nationals and our "little sisters").

Unfortunately, neither of them fit. And I haven't had enough time to do the proper alterations. And I need to find the time to get it done - it just wasn't going to be in this last month. So, I was kroj-less.

BUT - with all that went on, with all the beautiful kroje worn by men and women all day long, I really wanted to think about making another one. One that more accurately represents where I am now, as a married woman, and as someone who also wants to learn more about her history.

I was so inspired in fact by this weekend that I'm looking into taking a Czech language class this summer (although right now, it appears the class is full) AND I immediately hopped online to do research about my ancestors. I have discovered that unlike what I previously thought, my ancestors on both sides (at least the ones I have found information for) are from Bohemia, not Bohemia and Moravia (although there is a Moravia connection there also). I have even discovered a few little villages where some of family is from!!! From another woman's family tree (if we are indeed connected like it appears) the Benes family that I am descended from has roots in Krasolesi, Bohemia - a village kind of half-way between Prague and Brno. On the Ziskovsky side, Cathrina Toman was born in Litomysl, Bohemia - with her father being from Jevisovice in current South Moravia.

I am sooooooo interested in finding more about these people and where they lived and what the local kroj are like. I would love to design one that represents a married woman's kroj for that area.

absent

I've been away... yes, I realize this.

life has been far too busy to blog. But tonight I cleaned my desk off in my home office and I might actually have a place to blog in comfort again =)

GBCS Action Alert on Torture

GBCS Action Alert on Torture

Our commitment to human rights is grounded in the conviction that each and every human life is sacred. Therefore the United Methodist Church endorses legislative and judicial remedies for the use of torture and illegal detention ...such as the appointment of special counsels [and] appropriate investigations.

#6120 "Opposition to Torture" Book of Resolutions (2008)

Nuff said.

The Very First Dawson Garden

My first vegetable garden has officially been planted!!!

I'm following some square foot gardening principles, although I didn't build a box or put 6 inches of dirt on top of the dirt that is already there. And my squares are 2x2...

Farthest back on the left is carrots. Then in the next square is lettuce and some banana pepper plants. More banana peppers in the third square, then tomatoes in the final 1 1/2.

On the right side, the first half square is empty and the other half is turnips. Then I've got a full square of cucumbers. Next is 1/2 square yellow squash, 1/2 square zucchini. And finally the last square and a half are green peppers.

It's not a huge assortment, but it's a start. I might pick up some seeds for the other 1/2 square later.

Composting

I'm a little scared of composting. I have heard from countless places that it doesn't take that much work, that it doesn't really smell, but I'm still a little hesitant to get started. Well, that and I'm lazy.

I found this article today though on composting and it seems simple enough that even I might be able to try it!

(from journeytoforever.org)

Think small
Composters (including us) advise gardeners to use bins or boxes with a capacity of at least 10 cubic feet: that's equivalent to a 24x24-inch box 30" high, or a 24"-diameter tub 36" high.

These are too big for a household with no garden, and therefore no supply of garden wastes. So what is the minimum bulk?

We've made hot compost in a 10-gallon box rather than 10 cubic feet -- only one-sixth as much. Filled all at once, it got very hot, and was ready in two weeks. It's a bit different when the ingredients come in dribs and drabs instead of all at once, as they do from a kitchen, but you can make successful compost in a small container.

Actually you'll need two containers -- when the first one's full and processing, you start filling the second one, and by the time that's full, the compost in the first one's ready for use and can be emptied out.

A smallish (10-20 gallons) plastic or galvanized iron garbage can with a lid will do. Drill 10 or 12 holes in the bottom with a 3/8-inch bit, find a tray to stand it in, and put a couple of 1/2-inch slats under it for aeration.

A 15x15x15-inch wooden box made of 1/2-inch ply (untreated) will also do well. So will a 20x20x20-inch box. Again, drill holes in the bottom and stand it in a tray with slats under it to allow an air supply, and put a hinged lid on it. Treat it inside and out with vegetable oil.

Filling the bin
Use uncooked fruit and vegetables, no meat, fish, dairy, or oils -- at least at first. Once you're more experienced you can decide this for yourself.

By themselves, kitchen scraps are too wet to compost -- the moisture content averages 85%, and compost should be not more than 65%. So you need dry bedding to mix it with. This can be straw, dead leaves, strips of newspaper (avoid colored inks and glossy paper), cardboard or cartons, sphagnum peat moss, coconut coir, or a mixture. You can also use some sawdust (from non-treated wood) -- mix it with other bedding materials. Keep a bucket of bedding handy by your bin. Also keep a coffee-tin full of ordinary soil next to the bucket, and some wood ash is useful.

First, put a few inches of dry bedding in the bottom of the container. Scatter the daily supply of kitchen scraps on top, and cover the scraps with about the same amount of bedding, or a little more. Scatter some soil on top, and a little lime or wood ash. Keep going until it's full.

Mix the contents up every couple of weeks with a compost poker or compost aerator: buy one, or improvise.

If I did this, I would probably buy two garbage pails with lids about 10gal each. I'd shred my newspapers for help with the dry bedding and use leaves. Coffee-tin full of soil is no big deal. Then, I can take whatever scraps I have from cooking out to the bin, drop in some bedding, put the scraps in, add more bedding, top with soil. I probably won't be doing this inside, but I definately could do it on our back porch. It sounds easy enough!!!

beginning again

Spring is here in full force and that makes me want to be outside... but it also reminds me that winter has been a time of sloth.

I got up this morning and worked out with wii fit. I did yoga and strength exercises and then finished with a little bit of cardio. I know it's not much - but if I do a little everyday, that will add up to a whole lot more than I'm currently doing.

I'm also trying to get up at 7:30 every morning. I'm going to use my mornings off to garden, spend time reading on the porch, and getting chores around the house done. I've just realized that when I get home from church I don't want to do ANY of those things and so they just don't get done. If I stick with that schedule, I'll have three mornings a week to myself.

torture, ethics, and the state

I commented at the end of my last post about a survey which shows Christians are more likely to support torture than non-church goers. Here is what my friend Matt has to say:

The Truth As Best I Know It: The Danger of Supporting Torture: "We can give all the lip-service we want to the name of Jesus, but when we sanction the cruel treatment of God's children in the defense of the security of the nation-state, we are giving our first loyalty to something that is much less than God. The Bible has a word for that: idolatry. And the two major complaints of the Hebrew prophets were idolatry and injustice. We're clearly guilty on both counts."

Usually when I hear people around me who are Christian wanting to support the idea that these tactics were acceptable in the instance of these three people, they are arguing not at all out of their Christian perspective, but rather flip into a consequentialist ethic in which the good which comes out of any particular action is determined not by the individual being harmed, but by how great the good is that can occur. The ends are justified by the means. Sure, torture one person if thousands of lives are saved. In my mind - that is the same ethic that led the Jewish leadership to hand over Jesus to Pilate.

I would be willing to hear of them and would love to find out who they might be, but I am not familiar with hardly any Christian consequentialist thinkers. As I was searching via google, the closest I cam was Neibuhr's pragmatism - but in articles I explored, even in his pragmatism, the options are arrived at deontologically (or based on our duties and responsibilities - or in the Christian tradition, based upon God's commands).

Besides the duty based ethics - in which we act ethically and morally when we follow God's will (as in love your neighbor as yourself, pray for those who persecute you, do not murder), there are virtue ethics. In this ethical strain, it is the character of who we are that determines the ethical action, not the consequences of said action. We ask ourselves, what kind of person do I become if I commit such actions? What kind of nation do we become if we permit such actions? Are we more loving? More just? More faithful? I'm not sure that "safe" is a virtue - but most of the arguments I am hearing is that we are more "safe" because of what we have done. I would argue, we are probably less safe. Yes, particular terrorist actions may have been prevented - but have we bred hatred abroad that will only be fuel for cell recruitment? What was our response when we learned that our own were being tortured? Anger, hatred, resentment.

The last kind of argument I have been hearing is probably more of a deontological ethics than anything else. It claims that the state is given to us by God for a reason and that it is the state's duty to protect its citizenry. Because that was the state's duty - it performed these acts of tortuous interrogation in order to protect the people. The Christian response to this is that since the state is there by God, and it is simply performing its duty, we need to support it.

This is where we have to do some careful weighing of our ethical priorities. Because I believe here is where we have ethical principles that conflict. Yes, perhaps in some cases we would want to support the state as it makes its decisions. The bible gives us room to do so. BUT - when what the state is doing conflicts with other ethical principles, like love and justice, then it is our duty AS CHRISTIANS to stand up and speak out against such ethical violations.

Now, I'm not sure at all about prosecution and guilt in this matter. That in many ways is a state issue. But we have to clearly and inequivocally say that what happened was wrong and that it will not happen again. Period. End of story. And as Christians, we need to hold the state fast to those promises.

thinking ecumenically and maybe a little politically

Lately, I have been having quite a few conversations, theologically and politically with fellow pastors.

It would be fair to say that my current colleagues are more conservative than my colleagues in seminary or college. And what amazed me was the fear that "liberal" colleagues expressed 8 years ago over the Bush administration are the same fears being expressed now, under a new administration by my "conservative" friends. In both places, I heard words like "facism" and "homeland security" being thrown around with fears that their rights to the things they hold most dear would be stripped away. Each is afraid that their most important values will be tossed to the side.

In that same conversation, we also talked about the differences in how we recieve God's grace in each tradition. In United Methodism it's through the means of grace - which include works of piety and works of mercy. In the Lutheran tradition, it's through the word - in preaching, study, baptism, etc. In the Reformed tradition God's grace isn't limited and yet there was a strong hesitation to say that grace comes through works.

All of these things together - both the political and theological conversation - have me feeling like we aren't even talking the same language with one another. We are looking at the exact same thing: political decisions on one hand and God's grace on the other, and we interpret each in completely different ways. After our conversation we got to a place where we could agree to disagree theologically - but we didn't really even touch the political difference (well, we did debate torture for a bit).

I don't know that I have ever wished for full unity within the Christian tradition. I understand that there are important theological differences in what we claim to believe. We can agree on the fundamentals, but how those fundamentals are played out - woah. VAST differences. Same with the political landscape. The idea of a one party system would be a terrible plan... in fact, I would be in favor of lots of political parties, each articulating clearly their perspectives.

Debate and conversation are important (in United Methodism, we call it conferencing). They help us to form and reflect upon our beliefs. They call us to know our own positions well enough to speak for them. But they also call us to listen and to be aware of when our positions are in need of reformation. That's where the Holy Spirit comes in... to help us reach a consensus... to help us reach God's will... in the midst of our vast differences.

That last piece of the puzzle isn't happening. In politics and in the church, we hear what we fear from the other side. We interpret the actions of the "opposition" as being tactical moves to wipe us out. And especially when we throw around labels like facism, we are invoking the idea that we need to stand up and fight back - not have a conversation, but stage a full out rebellion. I was there and listening to those points of view in 2001, I am there and listening to those points of view now in 2009. I'm hearing those same arguments in the church around our constitutional amendments right now. And it doesn't work. It creates dissension instead of making room for the Holy Spirit to move and perhaps change all of us. Fear and unwillingness to listen only makes us more rigid in our points of view and more ready to see subtle differences as vast gulfs.

Jon Stewart had a guest on earlier this week, Cliff May, and they discussed torture. And I mean discussed it. They both spoke clearly about what they believed in an informed and articulate manner. And they respected each other. That doesn't mean that neither made mistakes. But at the end of it, they both understood one another better.

I pray that we might all do this. We might all listen more and fear less. That we might ask questions instead of making assumptions. That we would be willing to look at our own positions through the eyes of another. And then, if after we have done all of that, we still have fears - if we still believe that the foundations of our beliefs and values are crumbling around us - YES! stand up and speak loudly and be the prophet you are called to be. But listen first.

And... fyi - I'm extremely disheartened by the Pew Research Center poll (altho it was a small sample) that going to church - especially a mainline church - makes you more willing to support torture.

FF: Ritual

From Rev Gals: I believe that we live in a ritually impoverished culture, where
we have few reasons for real celebration, and marking the passages of life.
So...

1. Are ritual markings of birth marriage and death important to you?

Absolutely! They are how we make meaning out of these very difficult and beautiful transitions in our lifes. Even when we think that we are bypassing rituals, we are usually creating our own practices for coping and celebrating what has happened. Even something as simple as placing your baby into the crib for the first time is filled with significance and meaning and how you do it that first time will shape how you do it from then on. As a pastor, I see my role as to speak to where and how God is present in the rituals that I help a family perform.

2. Share a favourite liturgy/ practice.

In my wedding ceremony, we wanted to acknowledge that we had already been on a long journey together. We got married on our seven and a half year anniversary. So this was one more step in a relationship that we committed to long ago. I found this piece of liturgy and we used it at the beginning of the service:

President: We have come together in the presence of God to witness the marriage of Brandon and Katie, to celebrate their love for each other, and to ask God’s blessing upon them.

2nd Voice: Through the ages, people on great journeys have stopped at important places, and at decisive moments, to build cairns at the roadside – to make the spot, to measure progress, and to leave reminders of their arrivals and leavings to which they and others can always return.

3rd Voice: Katie and Brandon’s relationship is a great journey that, in different ways, we have traveled and will continue to travel with them. Nothing will ever be the same: for Brandon and Katie; for us who know them; or for the community in which they will live and move. They are to be married.

President: God’s Word reveals to us that the very nature of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, along with all human experience, for we are made in the image of God, is to be understood as relationship. In the great stories of God’s people and in the coming of Jesus we are shown how God binds himself to us, in a relationship that we can only call love. Jesus himself gave us a new commandment, “that you love one another as I have loved you.”

2nd Voice: We grow through relationships, for they give human life its purpose and direction. This is why we reach out to others. Our live consists not only in being but in becoming. Loving relationships are always on the move. They cannot stand still. They are a journey.

3rd Voice: Let us mark this decisive moment in Katie and Brandon’s journey now, adding to the cairn the stones of our love, our support and our prayers for them as they make their promises.

President: Creating and Redeeming God,
It is your love which draws us together.
Through the love which we have for one another,
May we also grow in love for you.
Walking with Christ as our companion on the way,
May we come to share the joy
Which you have prepared for all who love you;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[New Zealand, p. 802, adapted]

The two other voices besides our pastor were members of each of our families. The only thing that I wish we had done that we didn't have the foresight to think about was to actually have family members bring a stone and to build a cairn... then we could have taken those stones with us to our new home.

3. If you could invent ( or have invented) a ritual what is it for?

wow, I guess see above! Something else that we kind of invented was at my grandpa's funeral. He was a farmer and was always outside in the fields or in his gardens. He died in October and we couldn't not make the fall harvest part of his funeral. We brought it tall stalks of corn from the field and placed it around the casket. And each of the grandchildren picked a pumpkin and we placed them at the base of the casket - one for each of us. We also had a number of significant others among us grandchildren - three of us were engaged... and the "SO's" picked out squashes to represent themselves. We created meaning and remembrance out of that moment... we still call our "so's" squashes. And everytime we do so, we remember Deda's funeral.

4. What do you think of making connections with neo-pagan / ancient festivals? Have you done this and how?

I haven't really thought to do it explicitly, but I'm also very aware that Easter and Christmas fall when they do, in large part because of pagan/ancient festivals.

I think that there is a very fine line to balance when incorporating those traditions and rituals into your life. You don't want to impose your own values on beliefs on something you don't completely understand and in doing so possibly undo the meaning of the original ritual. There was an awful lot of imperialism and conquest involved in our original appropriation of some rituals.

But at the same time, we always bring to any rituals we encounter our own meaning. We adapt the rituals we encounter to fit our lives and our circumstances. And so if we encounter a new ritual, I think the best thing is to learn as much as you can about it and practice it with (if you feel that is appropriate and not denying the God you follow) others who know it well, and then make it your own.

5. Celebrating is important, what and where would your ideal celebration be?

In my back yard with good friends and family... with a roaring fire =) Conversation, laughter, music, some wine and some good food off of the grill.