Haunting

My mother is haunting me.

I say this with my tongue somewhere around the vicinity of the inside of my cheek, recognizing that what is happening to me would hardly be developed into something to go into wide-release on Halloween.

Nevertheless.

After three and a half years of occasional pleasant dreams about my mother... dreams characterized by their ordinariness and their beauty, the quintessentially encouraging dreams one would hope to have about a deceased loved one... I am having hard dreams about her. Really hard.

In the previous post I spoke of a dream of my mother in which I was crying uncontrollably. It was, as I said, the first time I'd had such a dream about her-- one characterized by sadness and not peace. This week I awakened from the following dream.

I was at a theme park-- probably Disney World or Land-- with my ex and my children and my parents, something that never happened in real life (though the ex and I took the kids several times). The ages of the children was indeterminate... at times they seemed quite young, but at one point Petra was in the back of a car playing guitar next to her boyfriend, something that indicated her age was closer to what it is now.

There were vague visits to rides and attractions, a scene at a tennis court, and finally a scene in a hotel room. The first thing that happened is that I took two Xanax, something I've never done, again, in real life, though I obtained a prescription I ended up tossing. (This was very shortly after my mom died, when it appeared my dad would be going to trial when the children of a former business partner was suing him.) They looked like horse pills, enormous. I lay down in a bed. Then my mother took a pill (don't know what kind) and started choking.

I jumped up and began to perform the Heimlich maneuver on her. I have a powerful sense memory of my arms around her middle, my right hand clasped over my left wrist, pumping and pumping, trying to dislodge the pill. I couldn't do it, so I tried sweeping her mouth with my pinky. Again, couldn't get to the pill. So I continued the Heimlich until, at last, my mom slumped over in my arms, limp, dead. I had a sense I'd stopped too soon, but I knew she was gone.

I wasn't there when my mother died, in real life. It was February of 2006, and my brother and I were taking turns spending time with her and my dad those last 6 weeks or so. My brother had actually gone to have a drink at a friend's house when my mom began to choke. She was in bed, with only days or a week left, according to what the medical people had told us, and the cancer was everywhere. She was too weak to clear her throat. My dad didn't know what to do. Later the hospice nurse took him to task for not calling. He could have turned her, she said. So the family was left indicted, for letting my mom choke to death.

I have just returned home from a day with my dad-- fewer than 24 hours, but he had a doctor's appointment and I needed to take him. All is well with him. If 88, barely walking, spells of dizziness and vertigo of uncertain origin, very poor hearing can be defined as "well." He won't come to my home for a visit. He won't go to my brother's. He still drives, just around the neighborhood (he's promised to sell one of the two cars, as if that will cut down on his driving).

I don't know if my mom is haunting me or if my dad is haunting me. Or if it's just the powerlessness of it all.

"I don't have much longer," my dad said. I'm not sure I believe him. In any case, I feel no more ability to help him than I felt to save my mother.

Mark... Our Time is Running Out

I will be preaching on the gospel lesson this coming Sunday, one of only a few Markan texts left to us in in Revised Common Lectionary Year B.

I am in premature mourning.

I love Mark's gospel. I love its leanness, I love its political edge. I love its lack of a resurrection scene, only the strange instruction that Jesus is already in Galilee, so we had better get ourselves there. I love the fragments of Aramaic. Talitha cum. Eloi, eloi, lema sabachtani. The gospel feels so close to the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth, it's almost like being on the trail before it's gone cold, as if the vague scent of nard is still in the room.

I love the so-called messianic secret. There is a Leonardo da Vinci painting of John the Baptist, an unusual one, in that he is neither portrayed already decapitated, nor looking like a wild man in animal skins. In this portrait he looks well, robust, and-- really odd for John-- cheerful. He is shown pointing his right finger over his left shoulder as if to say, Not me, him. And that's Jesus in the gospel of Mark. People keep wanting to pin him down, box him up, label him, and he keeps pointing his finger over his shoulder at God, and insisting, Not me, Him.

But we didn't believe him. We have made it All About Jesus. And... I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I think we needed a convincingly anthropomorphized God. And believe me, for me, Jesus is it. I believe that the divine rests fully in him, mysteriously. I can stand on Sunday and proclaim the Apostle's creed without reservation. But I think the Jesus of the Apostle's creed would make the Jesus of Mark shake his head, and point once more over his shoulder, and say, Not me. Not me.

Mark, I'm going to miss you.

We Really, Really Love Her

The Question Has Been Asked....

... has blogging died? Or, at least, gone into a coma? One of my favorites attempts to answer here.

I know that I have little energy for blogging these days, and I don't exactly know why. At the moment I am immersing myself in certain ways of thinking about life in church, as a part of my regularly scheduled study leave. It is something that excites me, especially this foundational principle: nothing will work unless members of the congregation are, individually and collectively gripped by a new sense of devotion to Jesus.

Just typing those words makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I am not interested in being Pastor CEO, or being Pastor Spiritual Guru. But I am VERY interested in being Pastor Let's Go Follow Jesus! That interests me very much indeed.

Here's what I think is going on with Blogging and Me-- only my experience, not generalizable to any other bloggers who might find themselves, at present, in the doldrums. I think at the time of this blog's inception I was in a sort of spiritual crisis about whether I was going to be able to find a ministry, and then I found a ministry. Then I was in a spiritual crisis about being a closeted pastor in ministry, and then I came out of that closet. Then I was in a spiritual crisis about keeping my job, and as it turned out, I was able to keep my job. And now I'm about the work of the church. I am not saying I wasn't about the work of the church during all of the above, but I was very much about how it was affecting me, and blogging being an enterprise which can have its narcissistic side, that worked for my blogging. Now... I'm onto something else, something not so easily bloggable, something perhaps hindered by the constant looking in the mirror blogging entails.

I don't know. I love this online community, I am grateful for your presence and your prayers and your comments. But I don't know if I have enough to say just now, or if this blog will have to go dormant for a while until something else grows.

This week I have been driving around listening to Kathleen Edwards. She is a singer Petra and Beloved and I discovered last October when she opened for the Girls who are Indigo. Oh my goodness, did we fall in love with her! Petra and I occasionally come across singer/ songwriters who make us want to write songs, because they are so extraordinary at the same time they are telling real, recognizably true stories. As the weather is crisping up and I am watching the leaves turn, I am taken back to the first few weeks after having heard her for the first time, when I drove around playing her cd in my car, over and over again. Then, one night, I had a medical event which required surgery. As I've been driving around in this beautiful, somewhat stirring weather, as I've been listening to this singer I love, I've been remembering the days and weeks after my surgery, when it felt sexy just to be alive. Know what I mean?

Truthiness

Sermon's up over at the MagBlog.

Lots of weeks I look at the lectionary texts and think, well, I could preach on that, or that, or that aspect of that. Often the "problem" (if you can call it that) is narrowing it down, focusing in on the best option. This week was quite different. Very quickly I recognized that there was one, and only one, sermon I could write for this week.

This is it.

My Life is Average

Lately at breakfast Petra likes to read to me from this website. Here's a sample of what I heard this morning.

Today, I told my teacher I had a question. She said back "I have an answer" to which I replied "You go first". She told me it was the cleverest thing she's heard a student say. My life is average.

Today, I saw a sign at a picture framing store that said, "shoot the family, hang the kids, frame the wife." Photo framers have a dark sense of humor. My life is average.

Today, my child went on this baby website about Disney and I found that her password was 'MickeyGoofyPlutoMinnie' I asked her why it was so long, she replied 'They said it had to be at least 4 characters.' My life is average.

We love this website. Its contributors are mostly students, but not all. It testifies to a level of daily appreciation for the ironies, the foibles, even the unexpected nerdy beauty all around us, as in this one:

Today, I ran into a detour while driving home from school. This made me angry, until I saw the middle-aged construction worker directing traffic. He was doing the moonwalk while pointing where to go with his thumbs over his shoulders. I hope the detour is still there tomorrow. My life is average.

I posted this status somewhere recently: "Cecilia made yummy stuffed peppers with veggies from her sexton's garden." That single average moment (actually, hour and a half) of my life engendered more comments than nearly everything else I've posted recently. It appears we are all interested in the average, more than I had previously realized.

This is a relief. The blog thing feels, at times, like a tremendous pressure to be anything but average. I mean, I originally chose the sexy name "Closeted Pastor" precisely to break out of that average mold, to let people know, hey, this is no "average" online journal.

But you know, as I have testified in the past, I am pretty boring, perhaps more than ever, now that I'm out of the closet. Oh, true, I have the 90 day statute of limitations ticking slowly by, during which a lawsuit could be filed over my ministry. But... really, my days are more about things like reports to the congregation over whether we have bought the new hymnals yet, and choosing hymns for Sunday's worship service, and meeting with couples who like our sanctuary for their wedding, but who aren't so sure about the church thing.

So here's a rundown of my average day. Yesterday when I arrived at the office there were two gorgeous red bell peppers on my desk, placed there by my sexton, who's had a middling year with his garden. (No one's tomatoes did well this year. Too much rain.) I had a conference call with some of the leadership of our local denominational body, and then I had a brief meeting with our treasurer to sign some papers, and then I had a lunch with a woman whose child is ill, and then I started to write a sermon on Esther. (Fun fact: some believe Esther's name is related to Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess. Since it's an exilic story, that makes total sense.) Then I felt sleepy so I went across the street to get a soda at my locally convenient store. When I got back to the office I sent Beloved an email asking whether she might like stuffed peppers for dinner. She replied in the enthusiastic affirmative, which set off a recipe-googling contest during which we both tried to find just the right recipe. Since I was the cook, I chose the one I liked. I wrote until the wedding couple arrived, then I scared them with my plans for pre-marital counseling. After they left, I wrote until a member arrived with some stuff she needed to get off her chest. I packed up my gear, headed to the grocery store for the stuffings for the peppers, got home and cooked. Petra read some more to me from the website.

Today, I was flipping through my brother's math text book. The kid before him wrote: Condition Issued - Sexy, Condition Returned - Sexier. My brother is in second grade. My life is average.

Beloved arrived. She loves it when I cook. Really, really loves it. She sits on the steps in the kitchen and sips a glass of wine and grins contentedly while I work up a slight sweat rushing around. While waiting for the peppers to bake we watched the original "The Postman Always Rings Twice," complete with snarky commentary (from us). But gosh, is Lana Turner beautiful. We ate the peppers. Verdict: Delicious! Verdict for Lana Turner and John Carfield: Guilty! Verdict for acting in that film: Hume Cronyn pwned them all! Beloved went home, Petra went to bed, I surfed the net, I went to bed.

My life is average.

Calvin Was Right

... on, at the very least, this point: The Book of Psalms is indeed an "anatomy of all the parts of the human soul."

For not in my own bow do I trust,
nor can my sword save me. ~ Psalm 44:6

In re "getting my house in order": I continue to be amazed and humbled by the wisdom of the 12-steps. Now, I don't want this blog to get all 12-steppy. I personally find people who spout catchphrases constantly the HEIGHT of annoying. True, those catchphrases frequently contain a dose of real wisdom, but I start to suspect I'm in the presence of a brainwashed automaton if not a paragraph can go by without one of them as its focus statement.

To summarize: I am amazed at the truth/ helpfulness of what I have been taught through this program, at the heart of which is: I am not, on my own, able to conquer this problem. This problem, which is an addiction. I am not. I really, really must rely on the grace of God to help me. And I frequently find this piece of wisdom popping up in scripture, particularly the psalms.

And the answer is often so simple. I said "simple," not "easy." It is not easy to forego foods I want. It is not easy to chop a gazillion vegetables into salad each week. It is not easy to make times for meetings, or to make a phone call rather than take an unwise/unplanned bite. None of that is easy. But it is all simple. I have a program. If I don't want to be entirely off the rails around food, I have to put that program first. I have to do a bunch of simple things every day to help to support me in that program. All of that is simple.

The first thing I have to do is put my money where my mouth is regarding God. Do I believe in God, or not? Do I believe God can help me, or not? And if I don't believe that God can help me, can I at least believe that someone else believes, and put my faith in that person?

Not in my own bow do I trust. At least, not to solve this particular conundrum. My bow works pretty well on all manner of things, but where food is concerned it has only brought me to sorrow. So, not in my own bow do I trust. I trust in God. Today. Right this minute. Today, that's about all I can do.

Here ends the sermon.