& this came of it too

The internship was just that helpful: I'm working on a series of poems about it. I think you might like this one, if you read it aloud, but even moreso if you have ever worn or ever loved someone who has worn clerics.

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

This Cotton

I am caught on is from
A Fortress: just a phone call away.
I give the orders.
And it arrives and its small brown box, too light,
Belies the misgivings.

Oh carrier of this holy calling,
You are more than a covering;
You tighten around my neck—
A collar: like the rising at the bell
This tintinnabulation tab -
let rangle me—
I choke on each word.

And I am to become
A Friar: fire tucked
below the belt.
Sustained by alms, the scratching of the sack
Cloth, sloth, wrath, pride, lust, envy, gluttony finally wrapped in a showy snowy shroud.
And I am drunk with power
on the spirits that burned my nose and throat, and finally fell into my gut.

You knit this while I was yet in my mother’s womb, weaving past and present,
Bring me back to!
A woman will convert you and I: in an upstairs room with a machine
Darting back and forth this way and that–
my mother tightened the white, in her affinity, her cotton for my skin,
(She is using the same machine to fix it in place
That once quilted scraps of my youth)
Bolting from the bolt:
Lightening—no, not weighing any less—
Rather, striking again and again,
Leaving crass like glass (see how my skin shows through!) where once was
One tiny stone, one Word among words,
atop a million others battered
against the water and roiling in the foam of hope.
And this cotton testifies that I too started from beneath your feet
But you never would have guessed—
I rose too high too fast—it was the busiest of illusions.

And you will know me, if you see me
A Vicar: vicarious curio, proudly displayed
Lined up behind a man, among men
Who fit better into this weave.

But mostly I am still…

A Woman: of the cloth
This (clo(th)ing) that bears buttons
Like batting and battens down, hatches all around me—
The flames of Pentecost
Or Jeremiah’s fire
Burning from the inside
Burying me in the white heat
And all that remains is to speak over you
And I: ashes to ashes,
dust to dust, and cotton enough to catch them.

I will miss you so...

I don't know if you have ever thought of internship as a time to discern vocation. But I really think that a good internship reveals enough of the rigor and joy of a job. And so after a long talk with Pr. Hoffman, and an even longer (but wonderful) internship I came to the conclusion that I have been working under the mistaken belief that somehow I could be superhuman. Instead I would much rather be a regular human--its much healthier that way. So it is after three years of hard and lovely work that I, with an exhausted but hopeful heart, have composed this letter in order to bid farewell to my beloved Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church.

Dear Phinney Family,

This year I have watched you all grow in stature and grace as you allowed me to participate more fully in your lives. You have encouraged me, rejoiced with me, held me in your prayers, and we have imagined together and talked over hopes for the future. I am so grateful for your encouraging words and endless hoping. I think of your stories and rejoice. I smile as I think of running with you on the front lawn, holding you when you cried or singing along with you during the liturgy. You sang, “All Are Welcome,” and you meant it! I hear your words of encouragement echoing deep down, where they have taken root in my heart. You genuinely desire to care for every life you touch.
The evidence of your ministry to one another is in the long list of committed Sunday school teachers for which we have such sincere gratitude, and in the hearts of folks so excited to help out with Vacation Bible School that they would take vacation time from work to participate. I see the Angel Choir growing in number and ability, the Cherubs and Choristers using their gifts in new and inspiring ways. And that is only the beginning…
…Your work within the halls of Phinney is only one aspect of your gift to the larger church, there is still so much you will be and you have shown me this is true for all of us.
With your expressions of faith, hope and love as a guide, I have the courage to look realistically at my last year of Seminary. I have lots of work ahead of me but I find myself dreaming bigger than ever before about how I might prepare to serve the larger church. I have finally found the strength to wonder what God might teach me about finishing the race I began when I took up postgraduate work.
It is with great hopes for the future that I tender my resignation from my position as your Children and Family Minister. I am taking my leave from you at this time in order to spend the next year bringing closure to this chapter in my life. My family life will require more of me over the summer months, and in the fall I will be working on a master’s thesis, finishing course work at Mars Hill Graduate School and looking into the possibility of doctoral work. You will be in my heart and mind every step of the way.
I had not planned to leave you so soon; it has been a joy to watch you grow. And so our parting so soon is bittersweet but it is better for us to say goodbye before the summer disperses us. If there is one thing you have taught me, it is that there is much to be thankful for—especially in the unexpected. Though this may seem sudden, God’s timing has been perfect in the past and I have every reason to believe it will be in this situation also. We are entering Ordinary Time in our liturgical calendar; may it be, as ever, the Great Green Growing Season we have come to know, need and love. As we reflect on what my absence will mean, may we be mindful of God’s provision for our every need.

I trust God will use these warm days and a season of rest to bring peace to your home and mine,

hahahahahhahahahhhahhhha...

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.