making moves

joel e. o. has lodged some complaints with the editing department and so the font is larger now... I hope you won't think I'm operating under some kind of enlarged, cartoonish, egoism, or anything like that. And I'm away for the weekend, so don't check back until Monday-ish because its officially a vacation and then after that I'm sure I'll have plenty to say, so save up your eyeball, readerly energy for that.

some last things

Today I preached my last sermon as Vicar. It went well I think... so there you have it.:

I’m just going to tell you right now: they didn’t ask me to preach because I know God better than you do. Or at least, I hope they didn’t

because I don’t. I only know of God what I have seen.

I am not a Biblical Scholar, I am not a Systematic Theologian. And I don’t intend to be. My work here is to answer your questions with a kind look rather than a solid answer.

My job is to come close enough to whisper to you that I don’t know why bad things happen to God’s children, but I do want to be near you when (not IF) they do, in case I can somehow offer comfort that distance or diplomas would not permit.

Sometimes it is nearness that matters most.

It seems that is what mattered most to Thomas.

We call him Doubting Thomas because he is having a little trouble believing that Jesus has risen, and even more trouble believing that Jesus has come back and come close.

He tells his friends that he wants to see Christ for himself that he wants to get up close enough to examine the wounds of his dear friend, perhaps like a father checking a bicycle crash scrape for tiny pebbles, maybe Thomas wanted to verify Jesus’ identity, or maybe he knew it would be so nice just to be that close and personal again.

It doesn’t sound like a shocking request to me. I don’t fault Thomas for asking. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told God,

“All right, You. Its time to show up because I’m feeling so alone out here and I’ve made such a mess of things. And don’t just send a representative—You’re God with us, so get with it.”

We all have moments of mind-numbing doubt but we also, all of us, bear witness—our beliefs tend to show in our behaviors, no matter what.

It is quite possible that they gave me this job because I am willing, if not able, to articulate the things I believe, and to tell you about the things I have seen.

So I’ll just be like a good disciple I’m going to tell you outright what I saw.

I can’t tell you what God looks like because I can count on one hand the number of times I know God showed up and

every time

God showed up looking a lot less like I thought God ought to
and a lot more like something else entirely.

And by the time the smoke of my disbelief cleared it was all I could do to turn to an innocent bystander and double check,

“Did you see that? Did that look like GOD to you?! Well, did you get a good look at his face, his hands?”

And I end up sounding a lot more like a doubting Thomas than I would like to.

Looking for God can be a little like aiming binoculars at a moving target sometimes. It’s more like bird watching than going to the zoo. So instead of studying up on systematic theology, which I haven’t found to be very satisfying, I gave up on trying to get the facts and figures all right.

I’ve been busy watching over your kids.

It’s another kind of bird watching altogether.

One of them showed up in a newspaper/masking tape crown complete with poker chips for jewels with a paper/scotchtape robe and scepter to match. And I knew, without a shadow of doubt, I knew that if this garb had been offered to God, God would totally wear a paper crown and cape like that—God would appreciate the know-how required to turn ordinary paper into something regal. God would see the hard work required to craft such adornments and call it worship and God would wear them proudly.

Another of these birds broke out in song, as clear as a church bell, as he colored madly away on a picture of a robot. And I knew, there was no doubt, that God would definitely sing like that, with abandon, adding a little color to the sunset, or drawing in a few more clouds around the edges. I knew God could sing just like that…

Then, just last week,

it was Easter morning and so I may have been a bit bleary eyed, perhaps a little overwhelmed by the lily smells and Alleluia bells. But I looked up and saw one running toward her daddy to pass the peace  and I was never so sure as I was then that God runs, God runs like a girl let loose toward what she most wants. God is at once all pumping knees and breeze and abandon on God’s way and who can stop God from coming close and passing peace when the time is right? I know, walking feet are a must for people like me prone to tripping and crashing but God doesn’t seem to worry about that sort of thing. Only God can teach us how to really pass the peace with such gusto.

St. John corroborates my testimony: he writes that Jesus did come close enough, did offer himself, bodily, to even the most vocal of doubters.

And then to the rest of us, who have to go lifetimes without seeing, he offered us

a blessing.

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe

Because we are the bird watchers, waiting for a glimpse, holding onto hope, adjusting our bifocals and hearing aids because

These little birds, over whom we have been told to watch so closely, are not put here as a noisy distraction.

These little ones bear the image of God as they don paper vestments or sing aloud the praises gushing forth from deep within their hearts, as they rush forward and somehow, in a tiny song or embrace bring with them the peace that passes all understanding,

Lest we forget that the least of these are the littlest Christs in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

a la twitter

yes. tweet tweet.

ridiculess

So there is one of you especially (especial
special, to me)
who has been trying for years ( many of you have been working toward this goal) to remember
that
I am ridiculous, don't take it personally.
and I heard you might tie a string around your finger so you will always remember... maybe I should just get you a promise ring: I promise I have always been and will always be at least a little ridiculous.
Ironically when I received the call about this your most recent disappointment (i.e.:that I am not on facebook anymore, that I didn't let you know personally [which I meant to do] and that you have lost the new and good way to stay connected with me) the caller proclaimed that I have to change the outgoing message on my voicemail, which sounds quite professional and serious, and when she hears it she is a little afraid to leave a ridiculous message... at which I began to giggle uproariously.

So even though I have often been insulted by the application of the descriptor, and though it has been used as an insult before, it has not hurt as badly lately because I know I can be ridiculous
and every day I am a little less afraid to be, and hope you will be less and less angry with me for being so.

So I'll leave you with this, a very ridiculous thing that is happening to me lately:
Leeann Womack (isn't that an amazing last name?!) and Taylor Swift (again, the last name slays me every time!?) have been naming things I wish they weren't so apt to name.

I accidentally quoted Ms. Womack in class the other day and we all laughed our asses off:
one of the pastors said he wanted me to embrace my freedoms and I told him it was hard and that whenever I hear the little bit of that song that says, "never settle for the path of least resistance..." I worry a little bit. So I thought you might like this little reminder that there is a lot of ridiculous in me...

I'm not so embarrassed, especially since we have recently been into corny poetry because it is a little like us: prone to overdramatize and underexplain; tempted to settle for generalization and common images that can be boring, if you try to take them too seriously.

And as for Ms. Swift, I received a voicemail recently about a song with my name in it and though the caller and I were a little sheepish about having heard the song, we have in fact heard it. So here is the part that is important and not so ridiculous that we are afraid to admit it: "Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind and we both cried."
Its part of the story, and I suppose I like how silly it all sounds when she sings it because the alternative is to give it way more weight than it ought to have, which is to say, let it scare me more than it ought to.
and I love the way it doesn't lay direct blame on either party. It sort of lets the birds out of their cages. And that is always good--even if it is sad and funny and ridiculous--you just have to try not to be annoyed initially, that is all.
I know you aren't ridiculous enough to look for the song without a little prompting, and that you may not at all ever want to hear it, much less see it but I think its um, well, really trueish. So I found this little video which may help


I just thought it might help.

Lastly: I'm off the facebook for a while because it just got to be too much exposure. I serve a large congregation in a small town posing as a big city and I am not able to make sense of the way facebook holds together all the disparate pieces of my life. So I'll be back on facebook just as soon as I can. Until then I'll be here, dear.

If you made it to this last bit of the post, your eyes haven't rolled right out of your head, and you are in dire need of some quality poetics to cleanse your palette (phew!) here is a piece from the book my abuelitos gave to me for my 30th. It is a series of shorts about a man and his little friend, who is more a friend than donkey, but you will only see this if you get to know him.

The book is named for the two characters Platero y Yo by Juan Ramon Jimenez and because it was written in Spanish a good English translation will retain all the charming quirkiness of the original poetry behind the prose.
XLIII: Friendship
We get along well. I let him go wherever he likes, and he always carries me wherever I want.
Platero knows that, when we arrive at the pine of La Corona, I like to go up to its trunk and caress it, and to look at the sky through its enormous, bright top; he knows I'm delighted by the little path that leads past bushes to the Old Fountain; that I enjoy watching the river from the hill of pines, whose high-perched little forest is reminiscent of classical sites. When I doze off, securely seated on him, my awakening always opens out onto some such charming view.
I treat Platero as if he were a child. If the road becomes rocky and is a little hard on him, I dismount to relieve him. I kiss him, I play tricks on him, I get him furious... He understands perfectly that I love him, and he doesn't hold a grudge. He's so much like me, and so different from everyone else, that I've come to believe he dreams my own dreams.
Platero has submitted to me like a passionate adolescent girl. He protests at nothing. I know that I spell happiness for him. He even shuns donkeys and men...

If I stop worrying that these two friends are doomed to enmeshment, or that there is some kind of unhealthy anthropomorphic tendency on the human's part, I can see that there is a great beauty in remembering the great difference in the way we treat a friend when we come to respect him.

It is difficult, always difficult, to remember that some friends are really human and that to be human is to be ridiculous, but deserving of respect nonetheless. Which is why some of us prefer to befriend a beast, or a tree, a simpler time or a simpler poem. I do hope you will remember to be what you are, human, and that you will remember I am human
but I also hope you won't give up on me, and that my humanness won't enrage you, and that if I am at times the adolescent girl, you will know that in that moment you spell my happiness, and that I would gladly shun men and donkeys, and facebook, if there was a hope it would make me into be a better friend.

making a few changes

The skinnytree is undergoing a few changes. I hope you like these changes and I'm sorry if you don't, because, well, even though I generally hate change, sometimes it gets to be time to be brave.

I am not the puzzle, I am the masterpiece;
not the riddle but a kind of answer to the riddles that have caused you such trouble.
And sometimes, when you look at me that way and tell me
We don't have to fall apart
I think I am the lightening bolt to the tree in your heart that arrives along with a new kind of understanding.
And I am learning to trust that we are these things for each other because I am learning to trust you when
You tell me,
every day,
you tell me,
in your own way
you tell me.

Dear Ms. Shoffstall

We (yes, the royal we: Jackson and I, if you want to be included, just let me know) have begun to appreciate the prayers and poetry of the 60's and 70's especially that which was published by women or for women who were single mothers or young daughters with too much college ahead and too much love lost behind. Generally these are published in books with covers looking a bit like popular kitsch looks these days--some steamy looking roses or a teapot and spilled milk, maybe a drawing of a sleeping cat or tired bird midflight. And the pictures of the poets in the back look a little like Farrah Fawcett might look after a long morning with a twin two-year-olds and a longer afternoon with a makeup and lighting crew.

A woman who knows (what has been going on around here), She handed me an old rectangle of paper when she was here to visit a few months ago. I was told that a good friend clipped it out of a newspaper when she was going through divorce, then, when the smoke cleared she passed it along. So I'm third to carry this little poem with me, and I do so proudly. Neither of them knew who had written it because the editor was not kind enough to include your name (for shame!). My version has some funny line breaks and lots of capitol letters, which I am not sure about--maybe they are the workings of the 19 year old poet mind, or maybe just an editor's foibles. Either way, I get a really helpful (if not too voilently bastardized) version the point you might have been trying to make--I think, especially when this particular copy has the history it has...

I get the feeling carrying this little piece of yellowed typing paper in my wallet is like lifting some kind of emotional barbell. Maybe one day, as dear Jackson promises: it is possible that even the tiniest artists (we?!) might win a power-lifting competition. If not in a Portland-area highschool gymnasium then at least in the middle of the night: for having the strength of will to pick ourselves up off the floor again; or in the messy bedroom: for lifting our heavy heads off the pillow and greeting one more gray day; or in the MDiv practicum, surrounded by (eek!) pastors: for being brave enough to raise an eyebrow when someone punishes us for pushing back. If the poem on the page isn't the weight we lift, then it is a spotter for whatever is weighing me down... every day.

I looked for an image of you, just in case you fit the bill we so admire these days, or in case you used to, but I think you must be so beautiful it would hurt to look at you, because my attention span wasn't long enough for all the searching that seemed to require. You work for the Baha'i Faith, so there is that--its probably good for the complexion to do good work.
I did a little research (really, very little) and found this version of the poem and the author's note which belies just how wise you are even now. I would have written you, to thank you and tell you that I'm just passing it on, because it was so helpful to me and to ask permission or something like it and tell you that this poet has found your poem to be just fine, doing good work--and plenty of folks agree with me. But I would have had to join Linkedin to do that and I'm not really feeling it.

So, Ms. Shoffstall, if you find this and wish I'd take it down, just leave a comment to that effect and I will surely take it down, if not then, thanks for that too. Either way, perhaps you'll forgive me if I couldn't find a version that duly compliments your inner 19 year old.

So without further delay:

Veronica Shoffstall, 1971

AFTER A WHILE

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul and

you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and

company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises and

you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and

your eyes ahead with the grace of woman,

not the grief of a child and

you learn to build all your roads on today because

tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans and

futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns

if you get too much so

you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead

of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth and

you learn and

you learn

with every goodbye, you learn.

(Author's note: This poem has been plagiarized, bastardized, renamed, reworded, redesigned, expanded and reduced. But it is my work, which I wrote at the age of 19 and had published in my college yearbook. Why anyone would want to claim it is beyond me, but for what it's worth, I wrote it, and if I'd known it was going to be this popular, I'd have done a better job of it. - V.S. )