According to Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist and staff writer for the New Yorker, “We’ve lost the ability to have political conversations.” She was being interviewed on the New Yorker radio hour, and when she said, “We’ve lost the ability to have political conversations,” the host stopped her and responded almost breathlessly, “Seems like all we have are political conversations.” Gessen explained: “No, we have conversations about politics. A political conversation is a conversation in which people with different views come to agreements about how they’re going to inhabit society together. We don’t see that happening in Congress. We don’t see that happening in the streets. We don’t see that happening at kitchen tables.” We have conversations about politics, not political conversations. Gessen’s insight stuck to me like a burr to my pant leg after a hike in the woods. It even hurt a little as I went about my day-to-day work, sticking me at unexpected moments. Why had this … [Read more...]
Lord, make me useless
Lately my prayer has been to be useful: Make me useful, God. Where this plea originates during days overflowing with unending tasks and responsibilities, I do not know. Or maybe I do. I took a pastoral call for a friend recently. The phone rang: “Are you the pastor on call?” “Yes,” I said. “Then I guess you are it,” the voice on the other end replied. I felt this wave of gratitude, so glad to be “it.” Praying at the hospital bedside or presiding at a funeral come imbued with a sense of being needed, useful. I suspect physicians suturing a wound or teachers helping children learn to read or mechanics fixing an engine understand the satisfaction of unequivocal usefulness, a feeling elusive to those of us who trade in ideas and deep thoughts. But “make me useful” morphs quickly into “make me valuable, admired, affirmed.” Make me useful has “me” at the center. My silent prayers of confession become less an exhibition of a contrite heart and more a display of my need for … [Read more...]
In Jesus’ name
I attended Catholic school for the first three years of elementary school. I appreciated Mass, even though the wafer and the cup were denied to me. I knew that I was not Catholic. The church I attended worshipped Jesus, too, but there the cross was empty and pictures of a him bloody and crucified were jettisoned for the long-haired, Fabio-like, very-much-alive versions of the Savior. Religious diversity for me consisted of Catholic and Protestant. Then, after moving to the Southern United States, diversity was Presbyterian and Baptist with a few Methodists thrown in for good measure. Interfaith encounters remained remote until (I am a bit embarrassed to admit) graduate school in Philadelphia. There in the religious studies department I met female rabbis, practicing Muslims, a brilliant member of the Latter Day Saints and a Buddhist undergraduate who told me that believing in God complicated matters greatly. Discussions around the lunch table and in the classroom proved rich — and … [Read more...]
Hubs on the community wheels
Every church, every neighborhood, every committee, every organization of which I have ever participated has had unheralded, unofficial leaders. I can picture them, name them, recount the ways they gathered, cared, expedited, advocated. Sometimes they used official channels and existing processes; other times they created a brand new means to get done whatever needed gotten done. Somehow the unofficial leaders knew things that those of us in official capacities did not. The family under financial stress. The conflict brewing over an issue or between neighbors. The impact of a far-off policy on a nearby community. They also knew who to call, who could talk to whom, when to speak and when to keep quiet, how to discern a tempest in a teapot from a gathering tsunami. How, I often wondered, do they know how to navigate waters I don’t even see until the currents are so strong they threaten to carry me away? In pondering that question, I have concluded that such leaders possess several … [Read more...]
Prayer
I remember my first fervent, desperate, I-will-do-anything-if-you-answer-this-prayer-God prayer. When I was 8 years old, my little brother’s life seemed to hang in the balance. I don’t know now if the situation truly matched my fear of it at the time. My brother, six years my junior, looked pale, limp and my medical-profession parents looked panicked. Nothing frightens a child like seeing their parents frightened and I had never before seen them so alarmed. My brother has a permanent tracheotomy and that night something went wrong. I remember the darkness. Frantic adult voices, a scramble to the car, a ride from our rural home to the rural hospital where my dad was normally on the inside of the doors through which patients were brought by family members looking for help. All the while I kept praying: Please God, oh, please God, make him be all right. Memory fades over time and details elude me about the sequence of events. The story ended happily with my brother back to his annoying … [Read more...]
#realfamilychristmas
Sappy sentiments about “home” pervade this season no less than cheesy Christmas music and relentless advertisements telling us to buy things. The classic “Home for Christmas” competes for airtime with Justin Bieber’s “Home This Christmas.” Don’t forget the movies from “Home Alone” to the “Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” where being embraced by family and friends, chestnuts roasting on the open fire, trees laden with gifts, everyone reunited, happy and, well, home, marks the Norman Rockwell image of Christmas. But I ask you, is this what your home is like? Moments of such greeting card bliss and annual holiday letter verbiage exist, but only in fleeting glimpses. That selfie is taken just before the smoke alarm goes off and the turkey gets hurriedly pulled from the flames. The social media post crops out the loved one who’s had too much punch and subsequently not enough filter. Rarely do we hear about the strained dinner conversation about politics, or the new girlfriend no one likes, … [Read more...]
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