On Earth as It Is in Heaven

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From Luke 11:1-13

*****

In today’s translation of the Lord’s Prayer, we read it simply:

God:

Reveal who you are.

Set the world right.

Keep us alive with three square meals.

Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

Keep us save from ourselves and the Devil.

If this prayer isn’t clear enough, Jesus tells a parable.  You’ve finally gotten your kids to bed and they’ve stopped with the “one more story,” “a last sip of water,” “a final hug,” “I need to pee,” “but I love you so much” routine and they’re asleep.  You’ve shut off the lights, brushed your teeth, collapsed into bed.  Exhausted from the day’s routine of work and family life – there’s never enough time for it all – you’ve fallen into a deep and sound sleep.

The doorbell rings.  Blearily, you open your eyes.  You glance at your clock.  It’s 2:00am.  With every fiber of your being, you despise, utterly hate the person ringing your doorbell.  And you ignore it.  If they don’t know they’ve woken you, perhaps they’ll go away.

Listen – I get it.  I don’t have kids and I love my job, but let me tell you a story.  For those of you who don’t know, our house is a small and lovely little Cape Cod in a charming neighborhood just a couple of block from the college.  It has a delightful three season porch on the front with side-by-side windows on all three sides.  Even better, the porch not only has a door with glass panels that opens into the living room, but that same wall has three massive windows that open between the living room and porch as well.

I like my quiet life and I’ll freely admit that I know exactly none of my neighbors by name and fewer than three of them by sight.  There may or may not be children living on my street, but I can say with high confidence that there are children in – or who visit – the larger neighborhood.

Not long after we’d moved here (probably in the 14-16 month time frame – maybe 20 months), the Boy Scouts were once again selling popcorn.  The boys (who looked at most to be in 3^rd or 4^th grade) were wandering through the neighborhood in pairs, carrying their brochures and order slips, and pulling a red wagon of available product behind them.  I swear to you, Normal Rockwell once painted this scene.

I have just finished a walk around the closest college campus – and I had a lovely time.  Husband has wandered off to his campus office at the University.  The house will be empty except for the cats.  And because those charming little creatures like to see more of the outside world, Husband has left the door between the three season porch and the living room open.  The shades have been pulled up.  The windows are open.  Light is streaming into the house as I walk up the street and I’m looking forward to getting home and resting in the peace and quiet.

And then, I see them.  The Boy Scouts.  Five houses down and headed in the wrong direction.  I know that if I enter the front door, they’ll see him.  I begin to panic.  This wasn’t part of the plan.  This isn’t how I wanted to spend my afternoon.  So, I keep walking.  To the end of the block.  And around.  To the alley.  And I walk carefully through the backyard.  And I slowly, and as quietly as possible, slip my key in to the back door.  I unlock it.  I turn the knob.  I slide the door open just enough to enter.

And then I hit the floor on all fours as the doorbell begins to ring.  I slide the back door closed.  I army crawl into the kitchen – being careful to remain behind the dining room table and the living room couch.  Once in the kitchen, I roll to a sitting position with my back resting against a cupboard.  “How long, oh Lord!?” I silently plead, as the doorbell rings and rings.  A mystical windchime that serves as the harbinger of death.

The cats have disappeared entirely.  I swear the Boy Scouts stand there ringing the bell for 45 minutes.  (It’s probably more like 45 seconds).  “Deliver me from evil, Lord!” I pray.

Eventually the Boy Scouts left and I spent my afternoon doing what I had hoped to do all along – avoid all contact with human kind.

So, back to our story – it’s not 2:00pm, it’s 2:00am.  It’s not the faceless, nameless Boy Scouts who might living nearby; it’s your next-door neighbor and good friend Bob.  He isn’t there selling the devil’s snack that will inevitably got stuck in your gums and requires industrial dental floss and minor surgical instruments to remove; he’s in desperate need of a loaf (or three) of bread.  An old friend from his neighborhood has shown up – in dire straights – and Bob is delighted by the opportunity to lend a hand, but he doesn’t have enough on hand.  Can you please just help a guy out?

And because he’s now been ringing the doorbell and calling out loudly for 45 minutes, you know he isn’t going away.  The rest of the neighborhood is beginning to rouse.  And everyone knows that you are the generous, reliable, helpful, good Christian in the neighborhood – the person everyone counts on.  You’ve built your entire life on this reputation.  So, you get up; you welcome Bob in; you invite him to your kitchen; and together you pick out a couple of loaves of bread, a quart of milk, a half a dozen eggs, and a slice or two of ham.  You wish Bob well and after shutting the door, locking the deadbolt, cutting the electricity to the doorbell, and collapsing back into bed.

Here’s the thing – Jesus isn’t telling us, “God is just like you in this story!  If you keep knocking and asking and seeking, God will get up and give you bread to save God’s reputation!”  No!  Jesus is telling us, “God is the one who is knocking and this is what it means for God to reveal Godself – on earth as it is in heaven:

“Open your door!”

“This is what it means for God to set the world straight:

“Show hospitality to your neighbor and the stranger!”

“This is how God meets our daily needs:

“You feed the hungry among you!”

“This is how we know and understand God’s limitless forgiveness of our sins:

“Only in the measure by which we show forgiveness to others will be experience the forgiveness of God.”

“This is how God makes the world a safer place:

“Our choosing to live in community keeps us all safer together.”

God’s love is never conditional – so why is ours?  Why do we ask for full forgiveness from God, yet dole out piecemeal forgiveness to others?  Why are we surprised when we experience God’s forgiveness only in the same measure by which we extend forgiveness to others?  Why do we ask God to meet all of our needs, yet we only meet the needs of those we’ve deemed “worthy,” or “good,” or “legal”?

The whole world is watching us as God knocks at our doors, pleading with us to care for the stranger.  Will we continue to hunker down in imagined safety, pleading with God to keep the rest of the world’s needs at bay?  Will we continue to claim that we simply do not have the resources to do what is right?  Will we continue to close our doors to the Kingdom of God, refusing to let it into our lives today – just as it is in heaven?

Sometimes, when I think back that fine, late summer day when the Boy Scouts came knocking on our door, I wonder if I made the wrong choice.  Honestly, I know I did.

I trust that if Jesus actually lived in my house (or in my heart) all the time (instead of only the times when it’s most convenient and expedient for me), he would have answered the door.  And if he’d had the cash or a checkbook available, he’d have bought a bit of popcorn, to boot.  But even if he hadn’t, he’d have welcomed the people at the door and treated them like they were part of his community – because they are, whether they live in the neighborhood or not.

I think that if I fully realized who Jesus is, I would have known that in answering the door, I was welcoming him.

And I guess that’s the lesson in the Lord’s Prayer for me – I need to stop hiding behind the counter, thinking about what it means to follow Jesus, and debating with others who is truly deserving of the love of God.  I need to stop hiding and start living.  And frankly, that takes work.  The work of loving the world, of living the kingdom of God on earth, of providing for the needs of the whole human family – regardless of whether or not we deem them worthy – is work worth doing – and I hope you’ll join me in doing it.

Amen.

Following Jesus

Preached from the Lectionary texts, The Message translation:

Galatians 5:1, 13-25 

Luke 9:51-62

*****

It’s an unfortunate reality that we don’t always get what we want.  This is often, especially, the case when it comes to how other people treat us.  I generally meander through life desiring that others treat me with the most basic degree of respect.  It’s certainly not unwelcome if they also happen to recognize my natural and radiant brilliance and defer to me in all matters in which I have both knowledge and experience – but while these latter two are desirable, I don’t actually expect them.  I have to tell you, I am rather often disappointed on all three fronts – particularly when engaging in everyone’s favorite pastime – social media. It seems the rules and norms around social engagement simply are not respected anymore.

Which, it appears from our gospel lesson today, isn’t all that new a phenomenon.  Let me give you a little context from Luke’s Gospel:

·     A couple of chapters back, Peter declared that Jesus is the Messiah

·     Jesus immediately predicts his own death

·     8 days after this dire prediction, Jesus is transfigured

·     Following this, in last week’s Gospel, Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy, killing a herd of swine in the process, and the locals chase him out of town

·     At which point, Jesus predicts (again) that he is going to die

It’s not terribly surprising, in context, that Jesus is headed for death.  He’s breaking a lot of rules – eating with sinners; hanging out with unclean folk; being declared the Messiah – who is believed to the one who will overthrow Roman oppression and free the Jews from an unjust, violent, oppressive, and dehumanizing government; causing trouble and threatening the livelihood of those he meets out in the countryside.

So, having been chased off by the locals, who want nothing to do with this swine-killing, demon-exorcising, itinerant healer and his band of unemployed fishermen, Jesus begins his journey south.  He leaves Capernaum, at the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee and likely walks along the Jordan River until reaches the southern border where it empties into the Dead Sea, before veering right and heading to Jerusalem.

Now this is approximately an 85 mile journey, done on foot, with a whole caravan of people with him.  And unlike ultra-marathon runners today who pack 100 mile journeys in 27 hours, Jesus didn’t have 2 liters of Coca-Cola and a backpack full of energy bars readily available to him.  However, like the 100 milers of today, there was an expectation of the spirit of community – the socio-cultural rules and norms of Jesus’s time included giving food, shelter, and care to strangers in their midst, regardless of where or not you agree with their reasons for being there.

It’s not just a cultural expectation – it’s biblical Law.  And Samaritans held to the same scriptures as the Jews.  The people of God are required to give food to the hungry, shelter the poor, welcome the stranger, protect the travelers in our midst.  It was customary in the first century to provide water for washing – a symbol of acceptance and an indication that the host bears no ill intentions.  So, it is quite the act not just of inhospitableness but also of hostility that the Samaritans, learning that Jesus is headed to Jerusalem, refuse him hospitality.

And it is perhaps this line, more than any other in the entire bible, that speaks to my heart of heart and tells me that I am at home within the Christian tradition:  “When the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, ‘Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them!?’”  Seriously, these are my people!  If only removing my opponents from the field of battle were so easy.  *sigh*

Jesus’s disciples want justice.  They want retribution.  They want to right the wrong done to them when they were rejected because of their destination.  “These Samaritans aren’t going to follow the Law?  Well, we’ll show them what happens to people who don’t do things the right way!” And perhaps, having been refused hospitality, they saw hostility instead.  “Let us protect ourselves from these enemies!  Strike first!  Jesus just told us that he is going to be delivered into the hands of men, that he must suffer, and that he will be killed.  This impending crisis is all theirfault!”

But Jesus rebukes them.  “That’s not how we treat people!” he declares.  Jesus wants a different kind of justice.  And he leads them to the next village.  Things only get better from here.

Continuing their journey, Jesus unveiling the kingdom of God everywhere he goes, and along the way, more people want to be his disciples, to join his movement, to follow him wherever he’s going to go.  And Jesus gets super real with them – you’re going to have to give up all your comforts if you want to follow me.  We’re roughing it and result of hanging out with me is that people are going to reject you and deny you aid when you need it.”  

And yet, Jesus is open to more people joining his mission.  “Follow me!” he cries.  But those invited have a few loose ends to tie up – one has a father to bury, another has a family to sort out.  Jesus calls the bluff of the man who needs a few days to arrange his father’s funeral – it was expected that burial would take place within a day of death – “Leave it all behind,” Jesus tells them.  “This is too important, and too urgent, to wait while you procrastinate and waver.  Now or never!”

Sounds like, fun, right?  A different kind of justice - give up all of your worldly possessions, leave your family behind, travel miles and miles and miles without food, water, shelter, or care, all the while knowing that if you make it to your destination, you’ll probably be rejected there as well – and if what Jesus has said is true, you’re also going to witness the death of the person to whom you’ve devoted your life.  Who’s with me!?

Listen, I just have to say, I’m kind of confused as to how this marketing campaign managed the kind of success it’s seen. This company has survived for 2,000 years and currently has two billion loyalists, including more than 70% of Americans.

Or does it?

When Adolf Hitler ascended to power in post-WWI Germany, he united the local and regional churches under a new national church.  In marrying the church and state, propaganda was used to install Nazi sympathizers at the highest levels of church governance – who in turn make systematic and systemic changes to disenfranchise particular groups of people – beginning with those of Jewish descent.  This was enacted through passing the “Aryan Paragraph” which reserved right of residency and participation in organizations, federations, parties, and public life exclusively for those of Aryan descent.

In response to this, several German clergypersons formed the “Confessing Church” which stood in opposition to the Nazi regime on moral and theological principals – the state could not have total and unchecked control over persons as ultimate sovereignty, according to Christian orthodoxy, belongs to God.  People are not slaves to the state – they are made free by God’s Spirit, through Christ’s sacrifice.  A different kind of justice.  This opposition included Dietrich Bonhoeffer, widely known for his modern classic The Cost of Discipleship, who declared that the church must not simply “bandage the victims under the wheel, but jam the spoke in the wheel itself.”  

Bonhoeffer’s opposition to injustice and his commitment to living out the Gospel resulted in his imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp and eventual execution.

Two thousand years later, Jesus’s dire warnings about the cost of following him continue to ring true.  We are at a crossroads in our own time and in this place – where one arm of the church has married itself to political power, leading credibility to claims that the government has the right to determine to what individuals can do to their own bodies, who qualifies for due process, which borders can be crossed by whom, who is at fault for allthat troubles our communities today, and just how high the body count has to grow before declare that profits are less important than people.

This doesn’t sound that far off from Paul’s charge that the root of sinful self-interest leads to “a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; the inability to love or be loved; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; ugly parodies of community.”

There is another option.  There is a different kind of justice – one based on the fair distribution of God’s resources.  There is the possibility of living within the kingdom of God today.  When we live into the free life given to us by God and motivated by God’s Spirit, we will demonstrate affection for the “other” in our midst; we’ll have an exuberance for life; serenity in our hearts; we will hold to the convictions of our faith – that everyone and everything is permeated by the divine; we’ll hold a sense of compassion deep within our hearts.  And these won’t be merely intellectual exercises that tease or torment us when faced with annoying coworkers and frustrating family members.  We will work out the implications of this freedom in every single detail of our lives!

The kingdom of God will be within us and all around us.  And it will bring us unwanted attention and make us unpopular and make us the targets of the vitriol and hatred of our contemporary culture.  And it is the only way to follow Jesus.  Only you can decide which church aligns with your own values. But know this:  the Kingdom of God cannot be put off until tomorrow.  If following Jesus is what you want to do, seize the day!

Napoléon Complex

Recently, historians determined that Bonaparte was the average height for a man of his time.  You have seven inches on the average man today, so what’s your excuse?

What is your excuse?

You tried to stand on the shoulders of giants, but finding your vision still clouded by the crowns of their heads, you made a mad scramble for your axe and cut them down, using their slain bodies as timber for your house.

It is not indestructible and the next giant will grind your bones to make their recompense.

The Container

The Container

The work, as yet undone, feels mountainous.

“But I’ve already done so much,” my protest.

There is still more to be done.

My marriage is a container 

In which old things foment,

In which new things grow.

Dark soil — I once thought hid broken

And unlovely things — becomes a garden, 

Rich and fertile, germinating life.

A mirror, reflecting back to me

All that is holy, and inviting transformation 

Of all that is still wounded.

What blessed ground, what sacred space is this,

Where I meet God in the other;

Where I meet God within?

What If You're Not Perfect?

"Husband!" I yelled, as I flew from the kitchen, through our dining room, and came careening to a halt before him in the living room.

He looked up at me placidly.  "Yes?"

"What if you're not perfect?" I asked, my voice full of the wonder and joy that comes with a new found revelation.

Husband looks at me, waiting patiently for me to finish my thought, and I choose to interpret the expression on his face in a fashion that amuses me most.  'I've been telling you this for four years,' his expression reads.  'How is it this is the first time you're considering the possibility?'

"What if this is all about me!?  What if I have an innate orientation toward, an internal framework for recognizing that, those areas which might be considered deficits or areas of suboptimal functioning are simply the trade-off for super optimal functioning in other areas?  And what if, because of my internal values, I am inclined to emphasize those areas because they're more important to me?  What if I only think you're perfect, but the reason I think you're perfect is because I more highly value your willingness to pursue your dreams and goals and the career you love than I do your being immediately available to engage in my mere whims whose sole purpose is self-entertainment?  What if I only think you're perfect because I value the things you invest in more than I value the things you don't?"

Husband smiled at me.  "I'm glad you like me," he said.

"So much," I tell him.  "So much!"

Foster Care

I was asked several months ago if I would speak at an event about my experiences in foster care.  I reluctantly agreed.  I agreed because I know that the person who recruited me cares deeply about the foster care system and social justice and I wanted to give back to my community - this seemed like a way to do it.  I was reluctant because I had no idea what I would say and because I knew, in the back of my mind, that I carry a lot of unresolved trauma around my time in foster care.  I also carry a bit of survivor's guilt, knowing that my experiences in foster care pale in comparison to what others have been subjected to in many cases.  I was deeply relieved when one conflict or another led to a cancelation of my participation.

I actually breathed a sigh of relief.  Bullet dodged!  I don't have to face that!  I don't have to tell anyone about this thing that still hurts.  I don't have to be vulnerable in front of other around the source of my rage.

And then I met a new group of people and all the usual questions were asked and people were surprised - they are always surprised - by the degree of absolute hatred I have for the state in which I grew up.  And I never really talk about why I hate that place so much.  I never really tell the stories that leave me shaking with furious energy when I think of that state.

But, I had this art show opening at my church a little over a week ago.  Husband attended church with me and looked at the art show after - simply because I asked him to.  I asked him to go and support me in this endeavor and he did!  And even though I knew he had a lot of really important pressing things to take care of, he chose to give care to me and to our relationship.  (He really is the best person in the whole wide world).

And then, it started snowing.  I was getting ready for church and I looked out the window and I saw flakes falling.  And we went to church and it was beautiful and lovely and the pastor preached a great sermon and I sat there working hard to pay attention, but I just keep thinking about the snow.  And I felt small and scared and powerless and ten years old again.  And the art show opening was amazing and I set aside all of the smallness, all of the scaredness, all of the powerlessness, all of the ten-years-old-ness, and I shared this thing of which I am most proud in my life with my community.

And afterwards, Husband and I headed home and I told him how proud I was, how incredible the art show had turned out, how it had communicated exactly the things I had wanted and hoped.

But there was snow on the ground and on the crimson maples leaves in our front yard and I kept remembering the crimson snow when I was ten.

*****

I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to explaining the reasons for my experiences in foster care, I'm not the most reliable narrator.  A lot of that has to do with the fact that I was ten years old when the events occurred, and while I am very reliable in my recounting the specific details, the meaning and reasoning for these specific events in this narrative were created by a ten year old kid.  Which means that the reasons and meaning of these specific events are perceived as the fault of that ten year old kid - because when kids aren't given a different narrative, they will create their own in which they are the cause of all of the effects because that's the only way children can make sense of their experiences.

So, of course, my ten year old self is convinced that we ended up in foster care because for the first (and last) time in my life, my father ever saw me, just a little over two months before.  And having seen me, of course he was determined to say or do whatever was necessary to get rid of me.

So, there we were, fourteen, eleven, ten, and eight years old, the youngest three of us having played a game of "ding, dong, ditch" and my father's response to the neighbor's complaint was to call the police and demand that they show up and "teach [us] a lesson."  And when the police showed up and tried to reason with my father about resource allocation and utilizing appropriate parenting skills in a case like this, my father threatened to strangle my sister to death.

Which is how we ended up in foster care.

It seems ridiculous to me that this threat was what actually led the authorities to remove us from our father's care.  I don't write that so as to minimize what my father said.  It's just that in the context of my family of origin, in the context of other moments of gross abuse, in the context of severe neglect, this one threat was the thing?  Like, seriously!?

So, let me back up.  When I was five, my father spent a night in jail for drunk driving.  He was belligerent with the police and disrespectful.  He was a frequent offender and we were frequently in the car with him - though not this time.  But endangering the lives of his children by driving under the influence of alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, crack....  None of those was sufficient.

There was the time that my brother had gotten into a closet storage and was playing with mothballs.  Asthma attack or some other reaction and my parents were on the phone with poison control.  I remember my sister jumping on the bed making a boatload of noise.  My father beat her with a shoe and left such severe bruises that when she reported it to the school nurse the next day, social services were called in.  That wasn't sufficient.

When I was seven my father attempted to kill my mother (I still remember the fingerprint bruises on her throat) and ripped the phone from the wall when my brother attempted to call the police, the wires and jack hanging limply from the plaster.  He took off after destroying the phone.  Around that same time, my brothers found my father's stash of beer and took it and dumped it out.  My father found them and kicked them until they were bloody and scarcely able to breathe, leaving them in the beer soaked dirt, bruised throughout their torso.  "Promise us you won't tell mom," they said.  "We'll tell her we fell off our bikes."  And I promised, but I broke that promise and when I told my mom, she believed my brothers.  None of that sufficient.

And then there was the time my father took his rifle to town and stood in the street, ranting and raving, and threatening passersby and the police.  After de-escalating the situation, the police learned his gun was unloaded.  An attempt at suicide by cop.  And that was not sufficient.

Or that time when I was seven and my parents forgot to pick me up from brownies after school.  And no one could reach my parents because, you know, the phone had been ripped off of the wall and destroyed.  And so I spent the evening at the local sheriff's house, doubled over, holding my stomach, afraid I was going to throw up because apparently I really was so invisible in my parents' house that I didn't actually exist to any of them.  And when the sheriff asked if someone had hurt me that I kept holding my stomach and crying, how could I, as an seven year old, explain to him all of the pain balled up in the horror of not existing?  Would he even be able to hear me?  That was not sufficient.

So, when my father threatened to strangle my sister in front of a police officer - magic bullet!  Golden ticket!  Ding, ding, ding!  A one-way trip to foster care!

Thirty minutes later, we met the family that we stayed with those first nights, who did emergency placement only, who were wonderful.  I would have stayed with them forever.  For the first time in my life I knew what safety felt like.  Three days later, the state had found a family that was willing to take all four of us.  And so, another half hour south we went.

And my siblings started school the next Monday.  And because of my different social support needs, it took them longer to get me started.  But that first day, talking to the guidance counselor, I asked about a talented and gifted program.  My foster mother was quick to assure me that her own biological sons were supremely gifted and the program was incredibly selective - so selective that her kids didn't qualify so there was no way there would be room for me in the program.

Two weeks later, the resources were in place and I was able to start school.  That Monday I was told that they did have room for me in the talented and gifted class.  I could join them immediately.  And I was being placed in advanced math and reading classes.  It was looking like, in spite of this awful family that we were living with, that school might still be pretty okay.  It might actually be the place of salvation that school had always been for me.

The next day was my brother's birthday.  It was a Tuesday.  He was turning nine.  And our foster mother brought home a chocolate cake to surprise him and celebrate his birthday.  And he disappointed because he doesn't like chocolate cake.  Which, you know, seems like a pretty reasonable response from a nine year old kid who's been raised in an abusive home and never mirrored or attended to or cared for properly or had appropriate behavior modeled for him.  And so our foster mother told him that he should be grateful she'd done anything at all and what an ungrateful and horrible child he was not to consider the sacrifices that she and her family were making so that we could have a safe place to stay.

The next day, Wednesday, the social worker showed up and removed my younger brother and me from the care of this foster family.  We were just too much for them to handle.  They couldn't possibly manage the four of us for even one more second.

So, we were taken an hour north, closer to our mother, to another foster family.  I was back in my previous school.  And it seemed like maybe things would be okay.  But this foster mother drank like my father did and made promises and broke them like my father did.  And she would ask what I wanted for a treat and then buy it and then keep it for herself and then mock, ridicule, and laugh at me when I cried.  And I was ten and scared and feeling hopeless, but I was closer to my mother, so maybe the trade-offs would be worth it.

One Sunday we were at church.  And this church was directly across the street from the church my mother attended.  And after church, I saw her.  And I crossed the street without any traffic after looking both ways and proceeding with caution and I hugged my mother and told her I loved her and I missed her and I wanted to come home to her.  And my foster father called me back and yelled at me for walking across the street and hugging my mother without permission.  And I told him it was "bullshit" before I was ushered into the minivan for the ride back to our foster home.

And on the ride back to our foster home, I warbled quietly to myself in the back seat, trying to hold back tears at being ripped away from my mother again.

When we got back to the farm, I was sent to my bedroom until lunch.  Punishment for using profanity.

And because my younger brother was a younger brother, he did what all younger brothers do.  He devised any means to annoy and harass me that he possibly could.  In our specific context this was a lot of time spent drawing pictures of slaughtered pigs because pigs are my favorite animal.  And of course, our foster mother couldn't possibly understand the violent tendencies of this boy who was absolutely terrorizing their farmstead with his threats of stabbing hogs to death.

After lunch, my foster father took me out back behind the house, wearing just my shoes, blue jeans, and a sweatshirt.  There was snow on the ground, that cold Sunday afternoon.  And my foster father handed me a coffee mug full of scalding hot vinegar.  "Drink it," he said.  "This is your punishment for swearing at church."  I knew not to argue with him; I though being sent to my room had been my punishment.  It turns out such isolation was used to keep this punishment a total surprise.

I choked and coughed, my eyes watering, as I sucked down the hot vinegar.  It burned with both heat and acid.  Halfway through the first cup I began vomiting.  My foster father held the cup until I was finished throwing up the whole of my lunch.  Then, he handed it back to me and forced me to finish it.  When the first cup was done, I threw up all of the vinegar, too.  And he left me standing in the snow as he went back into the house to refill the coffee cup.

Another cup of scalding hot vinegar.  "This one," he told me, "is for that noise you were making in the van on the way home from church.  What was that?  Why were making any noise?  Were you looking for attention?  Well, you're getting attention now.  Do you like it?" he asked, handing me the steaming cup of vinegar.  "Drink it!" he commanded.  And I was about halfway through that cup of scalding hot vinegar when I began throwing up again.  This time, the white snow in front of my first pile of vomit was stained crimson with my blood.

He didn't make me finish the second cup of vinegar.  Mercy?

I lay in bed that night listening to my foster mother ask her teenage son where he had learned the hot vinegar trick.  "In science class at school," he told her.  "We were studying physiology and the teacher told us that the human body interprets hot vinegar as a poison and will force a person to vomit as a protective response."  "Well, it sure worked," my foster mother replied.

The next day at school, I told my school counselor what had happened.  She reported it to the social worker handling our case.  The social worker spoke to our foster mother who insisted that she had learned this technique in a parenting class.  The social worker didn't appear to believe me when I told her my foster mother was lying.  But, since the social worker was there, of course my foster mother took the time to share with her just how hard it was to have these terrifyingly dangerous kids in her house; the arrangement simply wasn't working out anymore.  We both had to go.

At the end of that week, my younger brother and I were reunified with our mother.  She had since forced my father to move out.  Divorce paperwork had been filed (another story that never really ended; for another time).  We were just lucky, our mother told us when we finally got home, that the state school for juvenile delinquents had been full, because no one else wanted us and that was the next stop after two foster families.  She had just barely been able to convince the state to let her parent us again - since there was no place left for us to go.

With that, our time in foster care was over.

*****

Driving home from church last Sunday, I chattered my dear husband's ear off about how incredible the art show was and how proud I was of myself and how amazing it had been to do this thing.  I bubbled over with joy and excitement and the high of accomplishment and pride.  And Husband affirmed the rightness of all of my feelings.

And then we went to lunch at the local greasy spoon for juicy lucys and fries and he had a beer and I had a cider.  And then we drove home.

Our back porch was covered in two inches of light fluffy snow.  The crimson maple leaves in our front yard were heavy with the weight of the diamond white powder.

And I was astounded and grateful that my husband didn't force-feed me scalding hot vinegar until the snow on the ground was stained with my vomit and blood.

Spirit Face; Rocket Pants

One of things I struggle with most in life is the time I spent trying to live as an Evangelical.  I'm still working to integrate that part of my life into the larger whole of my personal history.  Even worse than discomfort I feel about this history, however, is the discomfort I feel when remembering how unkind I was toward the Evangelical church when I was working to extricate myself it.

I remember very clearly one Sunday morning, sitting in worship, and the preacher that morning was telling a story about his five year old daughter.  They had been out for a drive, she was strapped into her car seat in the back seat of the car.  It was early spring and as this little girl looked from the bright blue sky to the melting snow in the ditch she exclaimed, "The sun has power!"

After telling this story to the congregation, the pastor asked with passion, "Do you know this means!?"  From my seat four rows from the stage I shouted out, "That your daughter is developmentally normal for a five year old!?"

Whether he didn't hear me or chose to ignore my remark, I'll never know.  Instead, he went on to share about his daughter had spoken this deep, theological truth, that the "Son" has power, referring to Jesus.  While it's true that the person doing theology in the recalled exchange was this man, not his five year old daughter, it is equally true that my pointing this out mid-sermon was unkind and rude.

I was really angry with the Evangelical church at that time.  This does not excuse or justify my behavior in anyway.  I behaved awfully.  A lot.  For a really long time.  There was a lot of fringe in the Evangelical context in which I tried to make myself fit - and the fringe just didn't work for me.

I finished my last post by stating that all the fringe doesn't matter.

This still holds true for me, but it warrants a bit more exploration.  The material nature of the fringe doesn't matter so much, but the fringe itself serves a very important purpose.

One of my friends is a motorcycle rider, which provides me an entertaining mental image as I know this man pretty exclusively in a professional context - dress pants, button down shirt, sports jacket more often than not.  Really shiny leather shoes.  A 6'4" dutchman with a shock of white hair and blue eyes.  The idea of him riding a motorcycle just isn't something I would have imagined when I first met him.

One day, he came into the office talking about getting decked out in biking leather from head to toe and mentioned the fringe on his bike gear.  I honestly cannot imagine this man wearing that much leather, let alone fringed leather.  Until he explained the value of fringe - with much more significant than hailing the glories of terrible '80s fashion trends.

"It makes the rider more visible to other motorists," he said.  The fringe draws the eye and the attention of what are otherwise too many distracted-by-boredom-on-the-highway drivers.

This got me thinking about all the fringe we attach to our faith traditions and experiences.  The fringe is profoundly unimportant in its form.  The material nature of the fringe does not matter.  What the fringe does - catch the attention of those of distracted-by-boredom-on-the-highway-of-life as we go about our daily routines on auto-pilot - is pretty spectacular.  It catches our attention, sometimes only for a moment, and directs our attention to something more.

When my friend the philosopher died several weeks ago, I was visited by a deep and profound sadness.  I miss him and I miss our conversations.  I miss the moments of clarity that pointed me to something more in our dialogue.  I remember the last time I saw him, this philosopher friend of mine.  I said my good-bye, gave him a hug, a kiss on the temple, and then I stepped back and looked at him. He looked at me.  I wanted him to know that I saw him, that I saw him, and that I love and value who he is and everything our friendship is.  After several moments, he gave me a wink - he knew.  Nothing more was said.  I left and he died 9 days later.

A memorial service was held for my philosopher friend three weeks after he died.  There was a strange confluence of events in the course of the service; rather a lot of fringe, if you will.

The pastor of our church was asked to lead the service.  I was asked to offer the pastoral prayer and lead the Lord's Prayer.  There was no discussion of themes or topics, though in preparing the pastoral prayer, I did read the reflections that would be shared by family and friends.  The pastor opened the service with a eulogy, weaving Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day" through a review of the philosopher's life.  And then beautiful scriptures were read and stories were told.  We came to the end of the service, the pastoral prayer and Lord's prayer before the benediction and postlude.  I read Mary Oliver's "Messenger" as the prayer.  An interesting confluence.  Some fringe.

On the inside cover of the service bulletin, the philosopher's family had included a prayer offered by his three year old granddaughter and a picture of the philosopher created by his four year old grandson.  The picture included the grandson's description of the philosopher - "His face is blue like the sky because he has a Spirit Face now; and his pants are orange like a rocket to help him get to heaven."

Spirit Face; Rocket Pants.

Fringe.

It caught my attention.  It directed my attention to the Truth of things beyond, something more.

I still struggle at times with immediate discomfort in the context of Evangelicalism.  The form of their fringe is discomfiting.

And....  Their fringe does not point to something more, for me.  And it does for others.  What the fringe does is so much more important than what it looks like.  Because sometimes it looks like the drawing by a four year old who describes Spirit Face and Rocket Pants - a deeper Truth.