Driving six teenagers home from a youth group retreat, I was having a wonderful discussion with a tenth grader about Communion and God's love and wham! out of nowhere a beautiful huge buck bounded across the road. I managed to brake but could not avoid him.

The kids are all right.

The car is not so all right, but it's just a car.

The deer? He did a somersault and then dashed across the field, as graceful as he had been before. I hope he too is all right. He was one beautiful buck.

Thanks, God, for protecting us all this morning.

Because of travel, I missed church yesterday. I was really disappointed.

In the past, whenever I've contemplated missing or actually missed church, I've always said I often have regretted missing church, but I have never regretted going. I'd use that truth to force myself to go on days when I just couldn't muster the strength to go otherwise.

Yesterday, I was just plain disappointed. It went deeper than regret. It was DANGITALL--I will not get to go to church for another week. I missed everything that was said. Something that was said might have changed my life. DANGITALL.

I'm disappointed about yesterday, but I'm thrilled to realize once more how much it means to me.

I have no idea . . .

Some people say God takes an active part in our lives, even in the minutiae.

Some people say God is capable of doing so, but generally doesn't.

Some people say God only looks at the big picture.

Some people say God created us and now just sort of watches.

I don't know. I only know that this week some really crappy stuff happened and some amazing stuff happened, too; and I thank Him for getting me through the crap and thank Him for whatever role He played in providing the good stuff. I am not taking it for granted, Big Guy.

Has it been 9 days?

It has been nine days since I blogged, though it hasn't been 9 days since I thought about God! I have to admit, however, that for some reason in the last week or so I haven't had Him foremost in my mind as I might. My prayer life tends to be more of an ongoing conversation than anything else and I think I've been too busy for conversations.

This is not me:

"Oh Lord, I lift up my [important person] to you. I ask that You bless him/her in his/her struggles and allow me the wisdom to know how to help him/her. I ask this in the name of Jesus, Your Son. Amen."

This is me:

"Okay, God, what am I supposed to do about this one?"

Church this Sunday was uplifting, as usual. The gospel was the healing of the ten lepers; the Samaritan was the only one who said "thanks." Rude, huh? But not surprising. I bet only 10% of people write thank-you notes.

Adult forum was on the Sabbath. It's going to be a three-part thing: 1) Introduction 2) Jewish teaching 3) Christian interpretation. What I took from it was that Rest = Good; so I read Harry Potter 7 for a while and then slept the rest of the afternoon, thus ignoring the three-day pile of dirty pots and pans in the kitchen.

Phone call with Mom

Mom is not happy about my family attending the Episcopal church, but to her credit, she's trying to understand and hope that the move brings us closer to God, even though she really doesn't think it's a good move. In her mind, I should just disregard anything in the RC church that I am troubled by, accept the theology (not realizing that there are points of theology I am troubled by), and stay.

She is trying. She has just asked two things: that I not talk to my dad, because he will use it as an excuse to tell her "I told you so" (he's not a church-goer any more); and that I not talk to my sister, because she is afraid I will try to convert her.

I'm not anywhere near trying to convert anyone. I'm not even going to convert myself. I am still RC, just an RC attending an Episcopal church. I'm quite sure becoming Episcopalian is not going to fix anything, anymore than staying RC is going to.

Current reading:

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH (David Holmes): Very interesting stuff on Henry VIII and the liturgial reforms of the 19th century, which I did not know about.

OUR FATHERS: THE SECRET LIFE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AN AGE OF SCANDAL (David France): Journalistic retelling of the sex scandals of the late 20th and early 21st century RC church. The facts are things I mostly knew: many kids were abused by priests who were shuffled from parish to parish so that they could abuse more kids. The depiction of New England/Boston Catholic culture and the discussion of sexuality is fascinating.

GRACEFUL EXITS (Debra Campbell): Terribly disappointing. Very academic. I had hoped for something more along the lines of SOUL SURVIVOR, but this simply wasn't it. Ah well.

Six for Sunday

On my other blog, my friends/readers and I do Five for Friday. But since this is a faith blog, I think Six for Sunday sounds like a good thing to try.

1. We asked the pastor of the church we've been attending how we become members. He said there are two levels--one is just to belong to this parish family at this particular church and the other is to actually join the Episcopal church and become Episcopalian. I am sure I want to be part of this parish family. I am not yet sure I want to commit to becoming Episcopalian. I think that discernment will take much longer. I am not foolish enough to believe that there are no politics or disagreement in this parish--I just don't know people well enough to see it. And I know there are politics and disagreement in TEC and in the Anglican Communion; right now, I am choosing to ignore it. It's as much a human institution as the RC Church and therefore is just as broken. I don't know when/if I will be ready to recommit to another denomination. My commitment is to God. But I definitely want to become a member at this awesome parish.

2. The New Testament reading today was 1 Timothy 6:6-19. "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." This was really appropriate for me today as I was frantic last night trying to move money around our bank accounts trying to figure out how we are going to pay off our Mastercard bill as soon as possible so money was really on my mind. Our pastor pointed out to us that by the standards of this world, everyone sitting in the pews today is rich.

3. Obviously the gospel reading--the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar--goes along with that reading from Timothy. Last night, as well as worrying about the Mastercard bill, I was thinking about our grocery bill. That's really the best place to cut costs in our budget right now. How abundant is the food in my pantry! The food I throw away because it *might* be too old, that a modern-day Lazarus would welcome! How sinful is that! I MUST do better and trust God to show me how to do that.

4. I think I have diabetes. That sucks. But I am going to count on God to help me find the courage to lose the weight and exercise so that I can keep it in check. Eating excessive amounts of food when food is causing me illness is EXTRA sinful. I'm not properly tending the body God gave me.

5. It is of great and tremendous joy to me to have my husband willing to sit in the pews with me, willing to attend extra adult formation (never would have happened at our old church), thinking and talking with me about what we've heard.

6. The youth group is a tremendous blessing. The youth program is slowly growing on three of my four children--that's in contrast to the program at the old church, which was turning them away from God. I saw God's hand clearly at work today in one of the four and for that I am super-grateful.

I don't usually talk this way: all blessings this and grateful that. I hate sounding so, you know, Christian, with all the baggage that word carries. But I'm feeling it so I'm saying it.

Barely coherent

This morning I took a few moments to read through some blog entries from people who obviously spend a great deal more time on their blog entries than I do. They were coherent and persuasive and well-informed.

My entries, on the other hand, are off-the-cuff, possibly flaky, and rather shallow. Part of me wants to apologize for that, but part of me knows that's not necessary. First, it's my blog and I can write it however I choose to. Second, these two last years--these broken, painful years--I kept thinking of this verse:

And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

I am sure there are scholarly ways to interpret this verse, but for me, it meant this: Start over. Start again. Forget the politics and the corruption of your church's hierarchy; forget the philosophical debates within and among denominations; forget the fact that some self-avowed Christians are the most hateful people on earth; forget your agony over the fact that you will never know the whole story until I show you, which will not be until heaven. Be a little child. Be my child, in my arms. Rest there, like a baby on her father's chest, for I'm your father. Start again, my little one. It's okay to rest.

So I have started again. I'm resting. Dear Lord, I have needed to rest.

And if being a little child means my blog entries seem shallow, or halting, or confusing, or barely coherent, that's okay. I'll get there.

Linky-link

I'm just putting this here so I won't forget to go back to it when I have time:

http://sarazarr.livejournal.com/266961.html

I love this "athiest"

In an online discussion about whether or not the book SPEAK should be banned from schools (it should not), one of the comments read in part:

"I'm an athiest; does this mean I want all Bibles, Torahs and Korans burned? No. It means I think people who take comfort in them should have the right to read them."

How refreshing!

Our new church

We had a lovely Sunday morning today at our new church. We've been attending here since July--at least I have. I wanted to go for a few weeks alone to see what it was like in order to help the kids with transitional things, like what words would be different, when and where to stand, how to take Communion, and so forth. They all started coming with me in August.

We knew from the beginning that this church would be very welcoming. On top of the fact that I'd met with the rector and knew him to be a good and thoughtful man of Christ, we also have many neighbors and friends who go there. But it has been even more welcoming than I imagined. Our old church was larger, and I think that added some to the impersonal feelings there--you could find a niche, but aside from a monthly welcoming tea, you really had to make your own way. Here, people recognize my unfamiliar face and introduce themselves. At one point a woman overheard me instructing the kids on how to kneel at the Communion rail, realized we were new, saw the ages of my kids, and went to find the Youth Minister to meet us after the service.

However, that's not the reason we changed--only a nice benefit. I had many friends at the old church--we'd been there for ten years--so I don't want to imply that I don't miss those familiar faces every Sunday morning. I do. But I'd miss them more if they'd been there during my family's crises over the past year.

Anyway, that is an aside. I wanted to talk more about this Sunday. We attend the 9:00 service, which is for families. I love the way it's organized. It's the regular Episcopal Eucharist service/Mass/whatever it's called (I'm not sure yet) but there's a children's homily during the time for the homily. Then after Eucharist, the children are dismissed to Church School. My elementary daughter goes to Church School and the older three go to Youth Group. Then with the children gone, there's an adult homily. The assistant priest (I'm sure he has a different title) who gave the homily this morning started by teasing the rector about giving him all the hard texts when the rector made their schedule of who was presiding at what service. :) It was a hard text: Luke 16:1-13. I've never understood the parable before, though I'm supposedly not stupid; and I don't understand it any better today. But the message of having to do the right thing in the small moments as well as in the larger ones, I do understand.

After the service, we had Adult Sunday School. They do have Adult Formation in the Roman Catholic Church, but while I wouldn't say no one ever went, it wasn't like this, where everybody just sort of filed out of the church and into the fellowship hall. I'm sure people slipped out, but an awful lot of people went, and my understanding was that there's an entirely different group that meets downstairs during the same time, for parents of young children. It was the complete opposite of our old parish, where half the people left, a quarter of the people stayed for doughnuts, and the other quarter went on to teach Sunday School or attend an adult formation class.

The big thing was--my husband didn't complain. I don't think I could have gotten him to attend an adult formation class for anything at our old church, and here he just went along. The rector spoke about the Old Testament. I'd taught Old Testament in 6th grade Sunday School, but this was a great refresher, and folks asked great questions.

This isn't a particularly meaty entry, I suppose. I just wanted to record it because the morning made me happy.

More from Facebook

“I haven’t always been a Christian. I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” CS Lewis

Well, I have two immediate thoughts, neither particularly deep nor well-thought-out.

1) A bottle of port would not make me happy.

2) It is hard to be Christian, if you are talking about being prepared to be Jesus's hands and feet on earth, serving others; being prepared to be scorned or mocked; being prepared to have to take things on faith that don't always seems to make sense. But it's also okay to know that sometimes you have to rest in God's loving embrace and it's all right to take time to do that.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.

On jinxing

I am always afraid that by talking about things, I will ruin them. Like if I have a book going to acquisitions, I worry that if I mention it to anyone, or too many people, or the wrong people, God will change the minds of the acquisitions committee and it will not go through. And since I can never keep my mouth shut, I always wonder if maybe I should just shut up.

One friend told me I need to imagine myself being successful and the good vibes I send into the universe will bounce back on me and shower me with success.

Another friend, a Hindu, told me that by putting my shopping cart back at the grocery store instead of leaving it in the parking lot, I was actually earning bad karma for myself, so the reason I hadn't sold a book yet was that I was being nice in the wrong ways. She has sold a ton of books, so who knows?

The Really Good Christians, the ones I fear I'm supposed to emulate, say stuff like "all in God's time," "God's time, not my time," and so forth. They accept things so passively. Whatever is God's will is my will, too.

I guess that's a good goal? It would certainly bring peace of mind in some ways. But then when bad stuff happens, you can only blame God, and that's not so good either. So the RGCs get around it by blaming it on the Fall. Or on sin. Or on man's brokenness. (Aren't all of those kind of the same thing?)

Someone told me God doesn't give you anything you can't handle. Someone else told me God will give me whatever gifts I need to handle whatever I wouldn't have otherwise been able to handle. Someone else told me God consistently gives us more than we can handle so that we come to depend on him wholly, humbly, and obediently.

All of this is really about the fact that I might get good writing news in October--or I might not--and if I don't, I might have to blame it on the fact that I told a few people about the possibility. But even though I try to believe in God, I still can't seem to escape the idea of jinxes.

Books I've Recently Read

PATIENCE WITH GOD: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion {Or Atheism} (Frank Schaeffer). This title really appealed to me, even though I actually do like religion. It is just really hard to call yourself Christian when in the minds of a lot of people, that automatically associates you with the crazies who want to burn the Qu'ran. I've been lucky that the two friends I have who self-identify as atheists are pretty understanding and generous people who don't mock people of faith; and the friends I have who are super-evangelical are not super-crazy, even though some of them do believe that God placed dinosaur fossils in the earth just as they are today during his six 24-hour days of creation. I need to take notes as I read books--use post-its or something--so that I can comment more fully on them. For now, just reading this was a breath of fresh air (sorry for the cliché--they will happen) because it made me feel understood.

SOUL SURVIVOR: How my faith survived the Church (Philip Yancey). This book isn't what I expected. It doesn't really describe the church of the author's upbringing except in the vaguest of terms. I think he must go into more detail about that in some of his other books, which I haven't read. Each chapter of this book is a meditation on how a particular person, whether Yancey met the person for real or through the person's writings, affected his growth as a person of faith. It took me a few weeks to read through this, bit by bit, and it was strange how as I read each section, it shed light on different parts of my life. The morning after I finished the chapter on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, my dear friend sent me a Dostoevsky quote. I love those bits of life-sparkle. Sometimes I call them God-breezes.

In the last year I have had a lot of God-breezes. Maybe I'll do another post on those sometime.

I hate that this post has so little substance. I will do better with other books I've read.

In the meantime, it has been Luke 15:11-32 which has sustained me this week: the prodigal son.

Facebook

On my News Feed right now, there are a whole bunch of things like this:

1) God understands our prayers even when we can't find the words to say them. Press Like if you agree! =)

2) GOD NEVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY...HE JUST PROMISED IT WOULD BE WORTH IT.

3) Keeping Christ in CHRISTmas! ..... Who's With Me?!

I'm supposed to click on them or like them or something. The thing is, I don't want to click on and like every little platitude, even when I agree with them--even if they're about God, even if I feel like Peter denying Christ three times when I don't click or like.

But I'm tired of being a sheep. The only way I want to be a sheep is knowing that God is my shepherd and that He will search for me if I get lost.

Getting started . . . again

I never thought I'd be where I am now. It honestly never occurred to me, in 44 1/2 years of living, that I'd ever attend a church of a denomination other than the church of my birth. To do so was to guarantee damnation, wasn't it? Or at least it was going to be much, much harder. To be born into and practice another denomination didn't exclude salvation. I believed that. But to be in the "right" place and then choose another--that was another story. That was apostasy.

But as I begin my 46th year, I find myself in a new place--emotionally, spiritually, and now physically, worshipping in a new church. In some ways, it looks the same. The liturgy is similar. The beliefs are similar. But to someone raised in the church of my birth, it is a huge scary step.

I don't know how often I'll update this blog. I doubt I will allow comments. I'm not ready to argue--I'm too broken for that--and one thing I know is that religion makes people argue. This is just a place for me to record what I'm thinking, reading, praying, and wondering. It's for me and God.