Hey all!
Below, I've included the first sermon I'll be giving for my preaching class. I'll be giving it twice, once for class on Nov 7 and once at church on Nov 19. Let me know what you think, and if there's anything you feel needs significant work or improvement.
Amy







"I am a daughter of Hagar, outside of the covenant."

Spoken by a black woman borrowing the Biblical story to express her own sense of deserted-ness as she expressed the desolation of those shackled by our social systems of sexism, classism, and racism; remembered and recorded by Phyllis Trible; these words ring with the sense of isolation that comes when our expectations are deflated and our hopes are dashed. They voice the hollowed-out existence of those who have dared to trust, and seen that trust broken. Hagar, like many of her daughters and sons, nurses a body bruised and a spirit broken by the abandonment of those who surrounded her.

Yet Hagar has also been adopted as a sign of hope and persistence by people such as the Women in Black, who stand vigil in Hagar Square of Jerusalem each day, waiting for an end to the Palestinian Occupation. They see her as a symbol of God’s promised refreshment in the face of violence and death. Who is this Hagar, that she is read as a symbol of both victimization and liberation? What is the source of this grief and inspiration? How do two such disparate visions find a basis in the same narrative?

Our story begins approximately 14 years before the commencement of the passage this morning. Last week, we learned of Sarah’s rolling laughter at the notice that she would carry and bear a child. Yet, this was not the first time that a child had been predicted to their family; her conception was not the first in their household, nor was Isaac the first child to call Abraham by the tender name of "Daddy."

Fourteen years and five chapters before Sarah and Hagar’s conflict reaches the breaking point, when Abraham and Sarah were still Abram and Sarai, Abram is promised as many descendants as there are stars. And, yet, a problem remains. Sarai, Abram’s wife, appears to be infertile. After many decades of marriage, they are still childless. There is no one to support them in their increasingly old age. They have produced no heirs to fill the vision of multitudes that God has laid out for them.

But Sarai; cunning, wizened Sarai; Sarai who HERSELF had been given to Pharaoh in order to protect her husband; Sarai has an idea. She pulls Abram aside one night to discuss their little problem. Sarai arranges for Abram to take Hagar, her slave, in order that Hagar will give him a child and provide the progeny that he and Sarai had been denied. Hagar is brought in without her consent as a remedy for Sarai’s infertility.

There, in that short exchange between a husband and wife, Hagar was sold into a forced marriage by a woman who had been sold into a similar situation just a few chapters earlier. Hagar, who was given neither voice nor choice in this little family business arrangement would lose the last bit of freedom offered to her as a slave. The covenant of marriage had been replaced by a contract of convenience.

Soon, it says, Hagar became pregnant, and her opinion of Sarai began to lessen. Quite understandable, as Sarai was the broker of the deal that robbed Hagar of her dignity. As her belly swelled, did Hagar’s throat swell up from cries of remembrance? Did she confuse the nausea of morning sickness with the symptoms of emotional distress? Did each kick from the child growing in her belly remind her of a motherhood that was thrust upon her?
Whatever her situation, we know it wasn’t one of contentment, excitement, and anticipation. We are told that as the pregnancy wore on, Sarai began to complain to Abram about her. When Abram shrugged off her complaints, saying "Hagar is your slave; You decide what to do," Sarai even became abusive.

We are not given details of this abuse; It may be better that way. As the founding parents of the Hebrew people, we are supposed to respect and love Abram and Sarai. Sometimes, just as living with those we love means embracing and supporting while recognizing and challenging their destructive tendencies, so too we need to learn and embrace our faith stories like those in Genesis, while recognizing and challenging the faults in the characters we lift up as heroes. Documenting the details of Sarai’s abuse of Hagar could only make our job of learning to love and challenge the characters in our sacred text more difficult than it already is.

What we do know is that this mistreatment so affected Hagar that she chose to run off into the desert while still expecting rather than remain with Abram and Sarai. I can see her, stumbling through the sands while still learning to navigate her ever-changing center of balance, struggling for a resting place not too easily spotted lest Abram and Sarai had set out looking for her. It is now, in her first lonely venture into the wilderness, that Hagar encounters God. She is told to return to Abram and Sarai; to raise her son with them; that he will grow strong and proud; and that she is to name him "Ishmael," which means "God hears." She responds to this charge by naming God as "The God who Sees Me." At this moment, Hagar herself creates a covenant with the Holy One. Hagar is claiming God as a witness to the slavery and the oppression to which she is returning. She, in essence, says that she can and will return only because she knows that God will bear witness to her suffering. She is returning, as she has been mandated, in order that her pain may be exposed before God.

Hagar returned to the home of Abram and Sarai. She had her baby. They named him Ishmael. We are given no more details about the lives of Hagar and Ishmael until 13 years later, where our scripture selection picks up.

At this point, Abram and Sarai have changed their names to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah has finally conceived in her old age, and bore a child named after the same raucous laughter than accompanied hearing the prediction of her son. At first, Sarah is content in motherhood. After the first few years, though, Sarah’s bitterness and anger sets in again. She sees Ishmael, at his brothers weaning celebration, laughing with the same mirth she herself has shown in earlier passages. Once again, she cries out to her husband Abraham, complaining that the son of "THAT SLAVE WOMAN" would inherit alongside her own beloved Isaac. Sarah demands the immediate expulsion of both Ishmael and Hagar.

Abraham, who in earlier stories had so easily acquiesced to Sarah’s often unreasonable demands, is understandably hesitant. Sarah has demanded that Abraham cut off all ties with his own son; she has commanded Ishmael’s ex-communication and disinheritance. Abraham becomes disheartened and dismayed at this domestic conflict that is tearing apart those he loves. In all respects, Ishmael had become the promised son; Ishmael, too, was understood as the fruit of God’s covenant with Abraham. To cast him off, with his mother, would be to abandon the first produce of God’s faithfulness.

And yet, as Abraham is grieving over the choice he is being forced to make between his beloved and beautiful wife of many decades, and his oldest son and potential heir, the God - Who - Hears comforts Abraham, telling him not to worry. Abraham is instructed to follow Sarah’s wishes, and send his son off into the desert with only his mother to accompany him. Both Isaac and Ishmael will be named the founders and nations; both will become the means of God’s promised multitude. Remembering and trusting this conversation, Abraham wakes Hagar and Ishmael in the wee hours of the morning, and sends them away from camp with only a small canteen and a sack of food, and casts them off to whatever unknown experiences may await them.
Soon, the canteen had been emptied and with it had dried up Hagar and Ishmael’s hope of survival in the harsh desert environment. Without a source of food or water in sight, without any sign of sustenance, Hagar lays her young son down under a shrub, and sits a ways off so that she will not have to watch him die. Her parched throat produced the raspy, weary sobs of the deserted.

Hagar, bewildered and bedraggled, must have felt like she had been excluded from that same covenant which had hovered around her campsite since she had left her home in Egypt. Hagar had been used by her owners, in order to take advantage of her fertility. She had attempted to leave while still on her own, but been sent back to a life of slavery. Now, she knew with the intuitive knowledge of a burden-laden mother that the same son God had promised would grow and thrive was about to die of dehydration; a death that was the direct result of banishment by his own father. God’s witness to their suffering appeared to have evaporated in the heat. It would seem that all of the promise and hope that filled the potential life of Hagar and her son had been drained away with this final act of abandonment. In fact, "Beersheba," the name of the land in which Hagar and Ishmael wandered, can be translated as the "Well of Oaths." There, once again surrounded by isolation and the desert sands, Hagar is drowning in a lifetime of empty promises and broken relationships. Even the vow of God seemed hollow and worthless.

It is at that point that the name "Ishmael," "God hears," begins to take on a prophetic nature. A messenger descends, and taps Hagar on the shoulder. The messenger tell Hagar that God has indeed heard the cries of her son and has responded with the nourishment and sustenance she had been promised since her first weary trip into the desert. She is pointed to a spring, a well of water that will quench their thirst and replenish their spirits.

Hagar fills her canteen, and with the loving care of a once-grieving mother, she holds it to the lips of the son she has raised up these thirteen years. Like the infant she carried in her arms more than a decade early, Ishmael suckles at the canteen as the water strengthens, renews, and refreshes his parched throat.

In fact, this forbidding land filled with reminders of empty promises was to become their home, and would itself bear witness to a burgeoning and a thriving of the life of Hagar, Ishmael, and their future descendants that could not have been foreseen on that hot and dusty afternoon. It is written that Ishmael grew strong, and made a home in that desert, re-named the "Wilderness of Abundant Foliage." He married a woman that Hagar brought from her home for him, and their settlement grew and multiplied. In deed, tradition states that Ishmael became the father of the Arab peoples, and the religion of Islam traces their roots back to Ishmael, Hagar, and the home they made for themselves in that same land they thought would take their lives.

Was Hagar ever truly outside of the covenant? On that blinding bright afternoon when the blazing sun was causing their last hope of survival to evaporate, she certainly appeared that way. Hagar, like the woman who calls on her name, felt abandoned by those who had pledged to support her, victimized by systems that restricted her from deciding her own destiny, drowning in the well of empty and illusory promises. And yet, we know from that miraculous provision of water, and the generations that call her their foremother, that the covenant never truly left Hagar. Rather, it stayed with her and came to fruition even when death seemed certain. It is that covenantal relationship which we celebrate tomorrow at the "Children of Abraham" dinner. We know that Sarah and Hagar are equally foremothers of the multitudes that name and follow the God who witnessed their desert pilgrimage.

How often do we feel that same sense of powerlessness? How commonly do we see that which we depend on leave us stranded in the desert? How frequently do we feel parched for that life-giving nourishment which will promise us another day?

I, like Phyllis Trible, am haunted by the memory of the woman whose quote we heard earlier. She knew the story of Hagar because she lived the story of Hagar, but her individual version is not provided. She, too had seen her hope evaporate in the midst of desolation. Is this sister of ours one of the thousands of women lured to the United States by a promise of marriage or money, only to become a nameless victim of human sex trafficking? Is she one of our neighbors in Appalachia who have seen their homelands devoured by the appetite of the coal mining companies? Is she my grocery clerk, with bags under her eyes from the heavy burden of life in low-wage America?

Additionally, I long to know how and where her well appeared.

Not all of our experiences of the "Well of Empty Promises" are as grandiose as Hagar’s abandonment. Some are as quiet and indiscernible as a household where rollicking laughter has been replaced by silence. Some sow disappointment in our sense of service to God, like those who follow God's calling only to find their ministry pulled out from underneath. Still others tear the fabric of family life, like the shadows of abuse and addiction that shade over generations. Each of these, and all of the varied and individual situations that tear away at what is left of our hope, are desert experiences in the lives of God’s covenant people. They are not to be taken lightly, brushed off like dust that has alighted on our shoulders. Yet, we also must remember to listen and wait as we are directed towards nourishment and refreshment even as our parched throats are crying out to God as witness.

As we search for that hidden well, we also must keep vigilant, and struggle with our own role as Abraham and Sarah as this same story is played out within our society. I cannot condemn their role in Hagar’s marginalization without taking action and reforming my own role in our systemic and personal cycles of exploitation. I must offer myself the same challenge I offer to the Biblical narrative.

*I am a daughter of Hagar, waiting and watching for my spring to appear.*

I am a daughter of both Sarah and Hagar, waiting and watching for the spring.



* I did end up making a few changes. Everything I added is in bold with italics. Those lines I changed are listed first in the original version, surrounded by asterisks, and then afterwards in the final version.

These Things Give Me Hope

It was less than two years ago that I wrote plaintively from this same website, mourning the lack of prophetic leadership from the religious left. Since that time, the Sojourners movement has produced a best-selling book; the Christian Science Monitor has published an in depth series on ethical investing; and my own denomination has made headlines for our commitment to inclusive language, socially responsible fiscal policies, and even supporting medical marijuana. It seems that my anguish was paralleled in my brothers and sisters throughout the country, who are speaking up and out. Or, maybe, I simply became more aware of what was already going on.

Now, our immediate past moderator and my hero, Rick Ufford-Chase, was arrested for protesting against the Iraq war, along with 4 Presbyterian ministers and 70 others, on Tuesday Sept 27 in the Senate Building in DC. To those who know of him, this comes as no surprise. Since June, when his term as moderator expired, Ufford-Chase has been serving as the Executive Director of Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (who co-sponsors the Colombia Accompaniment Project which sent me to Barranquilla.) However, as my dear friend Kelsey noted last night, the act of a former moderator carries weight. It demands respect. It gives this act of communal civil disobedience a validity that keeps the common congregant from writing this action off as simply the act of wide-eyed idealism and ex-hippies.

That same day, before the press releases had arrived in our mailboxes about the protest, nearly concurrent with Declaration for Peace's spontaneous die-in there in the Senate office building, as their strains were being lifted for peace, I discovered a previously unknown bard of the faith-based anti-war movement.

A few years ago, as I was starting to leave behind the Contemporary Christian subculture I adopted in my teens, one of the musicians whose work stayed with me in my consciousness, and that I continued to admire, was Caedmon's Call, a highly literary Christian folk pop band. Most of all, I listened to them for the lyrics of Derek Webb, one of the few songwriters on Christian radio whose work respected and delved into a faith more intricate and deep than most modern praise choruses would suggest.

Concurrent with my final year and graduation from Whitworth College, and with it my increasing awareness about the interrelationship of faith and social action, Derek Webb was also undergoing a career change. He left Caedmon's Call, in order to pursue a solo career. His first album put him in a testy relationship with his previous audiences, as he drew parallels to the situation in Hosea and compared the modern church to a whore. A conflict over the appropriate use of the word "damned" in a Christian context (in a song where it took on it's literal, original menaing) led to the expulsion of his work from many Christian bookstores. Since then, Webb has continued writing and publishing as an independent artist, creating music that continues to challenge Christian preconceptions.

In December, Webb released an album called "Mockingbird," a collection of what could be referred to as "faith-based protest music." It's titles include lines like "Love is Not Against the Law," "My Enemies are Men Like Me," and lines such as "There are two great lies I've heard; The day you eat of the tree you'll not surely die, and Jesus Christ was a white, middle class, Republican, and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him." (From A King and a Kingdom). In an effort to reach a greater public, get his music heard, and make known that there are Christian songwriters providing an alternative to the monolithich conservatism of Dobson's favorite radio stations, Derek Webb is now offering his entire album (intentionally, I might add ;) ) as a free download. At this point, one month into the campaign, 40,000 people have downloaded it.

These are both signs of resistance. Ufford-Chase offers the standard vision of social change; He is the non-violent revolutionary like Amos or Martin Luther King Jr, standing in the city square and preaching repentance to the public officials. Webb demonstrates a different approach; in a church context where we learn our theology through hymns like "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," Webb provides alternative language and music for a faith that values peace and justice. These are the keys to education and mobilization; the understanding that there are others out there expressing the same truth, and that voice is slowly but surely reaching the public.

May their work continue.

"Shock and Awe" Takes on a Spiritual Context

This afternoon, I read the Gospel of Mark in one sitting. I wasn’t in devotional overdrive like you may think; rather, I’m one week into classes and I’m already behind in my reading. This Saturday has been dedicated to the perpetual game of catch-up that characterizes grad school.

I was struck by choppy nature of the narrative. Mark lacks the flowery prose and rich descriptions that I’ve come to expect from my readings. It feels segmented and awkward at times; confounding at incidents the cursing of the fig tree, and filled with seeming non sequiturs as teachings are chained to one another through relations that seem strained.

And, last of all, there was the original ending. Instead of the call to baptize and disciple that we find in Matthew; Christ’s ascension in Luke; or the affirmation of the "beloved disciple" to continue the work in John; Mark ends with the three women who come to tend to Jesus fleeing from the tomb in fear because they’ve seen a stranger decked in white. Christ himself has not appeared. It finishes with a shock and a jolt, and in doing so, continues that stylistic pattern.

In a way, the choppy nature of Mark reminds us that Christ’s ministry was thoroughly unpredictable. Just as we are jolted back and forth through changes in focus and style, so are we continually shocked into attention by the surprising work of redemption in ourselves and our neighbors. It is easy for us to fall asleep, like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, with the expectation that what awaits us is something as familiar as waking each morning. And yet, it was as those disciples were shaking the sleep from their eyes that they saw their leader arrested. They had lost their comfort and false sense of understanding. In the same way, as the women went about their traditional methods of caring for the dead, they were suddenly jolted out of what they expected to occur. They were shocked into seeing the truth, and reacted as we all do, running away in fear, to share the story later.

Tonight, Mark reminds me to embrace those sudden jolts as part of the journey of faith, as those events that awaken us to spiritual truth.

Del Cristo Desplazado

As many of you know, I will be leaving August 6 to spend a month in Barranquilla, Colombia as an accompanier with Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Colombian Presbyterian Church. I have begun a second blog, Del Cristo Desplazado, as a means of recording and sharing my reflections and experiences. I hope you will join me there. Thank you, my few and faithful readers!

Uncomfortable Heat in a Momentary Spotlight

Monday night, I was installed into a position I have now held for two and one half years before an audience of 3000 women gathered from all corners of the nation. I was commissioned before this sea of faces to live out the PW purpose, as well as guide and govern my sisters of all ages as they do the same. Yet, throughout my time on that stage, I felt a nagging desire to abandon that platform, to hide myself in the back of the audience, to fade into the cloud of witnesses that had accumulated in the Kentucky International Convention Center. It felt showy, as if I were on parade as a mini-celebrity to wave at the masses, and give them a bow before going off to make staggeringly important decision about the FUTURE of the INSTITUTION.

My call experience for the Churchwide Coordinating Team was much more intimate, and felt much more genuine. I had returned to my hometown of Olympia for Christmas, trembling with excitement and intimidation because I knew that the next afternoon held my first meeting with the committee that would guide me through the ordination process; it was their role to either accept me or reject me; affirm me or dissuade me in my call; this was to be my first official step toward ordained ministry. On the eve of this momentous afternoon, I was returning home to a broken family situation, in the midst of a year of mission that would end up wracking my soul and devastating my spirit.

When I arrived at the guest room of a family friend, a close comrade and nurturing soul who welcomed me as the crux of my conflict with my parents descended along with the plane that took me home, I discovered with that small joy of recognition that I had a voicemail. That voicemail was from Kelsey (with whom my few readers are already familiar). She was at that time, and still is, one of my closest and dearest friends. Hearing her voice, and knowing that she thought of me enough to call that cold December afternoon was a bit of glorious encouragement. And yet, there was a professional tone to her voice that did not lend itself to the chatting of old roommates.

Kelsey also happened to be serving as the national intern for an organization I had belonged to all of my four years as an undergraduate, and to which I had introduced (and started to indoctrinate) her. That afternoon, she was calling with an institutional affirmation that would sustain me throughout my experience in Cincinnati. One of the representatives from the National Network of Presbyterian College Women to the Churchwide Coordinating Team of Presbyterian Women (their national governing body) had resigned because of academic commitments, and the Coordinating Committee of the NNPCW was asking me to fill out her term, six months after it had started. My first meeting was to come in two months, in Puerto Rico, where I would take an active role in the governance of the single largest entity to support the Presbyterian Church (USA). My life, and the life of PW, became intertwined. There, in that guest bedroom as I struggled with both my vocation and my sense of home and family, I received the blessing of true calling, all the stronger and more affirming because of its timing and the voice that delivered it.

Throughout the remaining eight months that I lived in Cincinnati, as I spoke up about the structural problems that were plaguing my Young Adult Volunteer site, as I was belittled and betrayed by my co-workers, as I wrestled with the isolation and loneliness that came with living 3000 miles from those to whom I wanted to cling in my pain, the CCT provided an avenue where I could serve and feel affirmed through it. When I felt like those I worked with and for simply wanted me to disappear, Presbyterian Women took and celebrated what I had to offer. They were a validation during a year of seeming futility. They provided me with a different mission to support and enjoy, when mission itself had left me dry as Ezekiel’s desert of bones.

I wrestle with the idea of my installation, in part because the position I am bringing to a close throughout the next year has already brought tangible joy and hope to my ministry. The two and one half years I have spent working with the last Churchwide Coordinating Team have helped define me and support me. An installation is intended to be a new beginning, yet for me it was an overstated demonstration of work that I was already doing. My term truly began that evening in Washington. In addition, I remember that I was, indeed, the second choice, the younger daughter, the substitute. In fact, I think I prefer it that way. The evening before the installation, as I was enjoying a drink with acquaintances new and old who share that vision of women’s empowerment and service to the church, one of the new members of the national PW search committee referred to my co-representative and I as the "bigwigs." I was rather shocked. I am not, nor will ever be, able to identify myself with that term. Rather, I am the support staff, the back up, the interim, who steps in when others falter and allows all of us to simply carry on. I am the catalyst for what is already happening.

And, so, on Monday night, I longed to sit and enter back into that crowd, to watch as my sisters entered into their own new vocations as the CCT, to pledge to support them in their efforts and pray for their wisdom. I did not feel as if I belonged alongside the new officers, even though we work together as sisters. They will govern PW for the next three years; I will simply accompany them for the first third of their time. My term extension is simply to allow the staggering of rotation between our two co-representatives; it is an effort of practicality. I am, once again, the substitute, filling the gap between the beginning of this Triennium and the time that my co-representative will be able to welcome and assist my own successor. I am, still, the interim member. When my time is over, I will enter back into the crowd and take the place where I feel most comfortable

Birmingham Bound, or Ga-GA

What happens when you combine a family reunion, the exhibit hall at the county fair, a multitude of multicultural worship services, and one very long committee meeting? Why, you have the (now bi-annual) national convention for my personal brand of the frozen chosen. Church geeks, get out your laptops and follow the bouncing ball through the legislation process as we bring you to General Assembly!

I’ll say I was "predestined" to be a nerd for church government. When I was in eighth grade, we had to fill out those goal sheets with our life dreams. At that point, I planned to get a job in journalism after graduating from college, write a sequel to Watership Down, and, at some point attend the national governing body of the PC (USA). 11 years later, I have no desire to write professionally, but I am about to attend my third General Assembly. That dream has been realized, and my love for the church has been strengthened. The first time I attended, I was the youth delegate from my Presbytery, in 1999. My second time, I was being commissioned as a representative of the Young Adult Volunteers, the mission program that brought me to Cincinnati. This year, I have joined the ranks of the gad-flys and onlookers as I prepare specifically to work in the exhibit booth, watch the committee meeting to which I’m assigned for anything that affects Presbyterian Women, and in general serve as a voice to lift up women’s concerns to the General Assembly through whatever means are at my disposal.

At my first GA, in Fort Worth, Texas, I remember standing in awe as the delegations from the various presbyteries entered, and sensing for the first time the connectivity of Presbyterians from coast to coast. At my second GA, in Richmond, Virginia, I remember my exhilaration as the outgoing moderator chose the congregation I had dedicated myself to the previous summer as an example of churches living in fulfillment. Now, at my third GA in Birmingham, Alabama, I’m a little less starry-eyed, a little more cynical, and yet still hopeful for what may come. We have the opportunity to make a landmark decision this year that may maker our churches the inclusive community of which many of us dream. We will be examining our communal doctrine of the Trinity and re-affirming what we believe and expressing it better. We will continue the social witness of the church through overtures involving immigration issues and other pressing concerns. We enter into this exciting time, not knowing what our church will support in two weeks time.

The Spirit is moving in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Our staid little selves are coming together, to listen to the prophets in our midst, and discern what the will of God is for our little section of Christianity. Come what may, in two weeks time there will be a new vision and a new birth in our denomination, as there is with each General Assembly. That is what draws my comrades and myself; that knowledge that God’s work is prevailing in ways that may surprise and shock us. The Presbyterian Church is far from predictable. Will we have the courage to follow where this call leads us?

Voices from Our History

Thanks to I-Am-Bored.com, I was directed to the website linked below (Someone as to teach me how to do the link on a word thingy!) It's an amazing site; It's compiled sound clips through American history. Where else can you hear the voices of PT Barnum, William Jennings Bryan, Stokely Carmichael, and Richard Nixon all from the same page. Absolutely thrilling.

http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=460

Guest posts

Hey all,
I wrote two more guest posts for Network Notes, for Monday May 28 and Tuesday May 29. Check them out, leaving a comment. With school over for the summer(turned my last paper in at 9:30 on Friday YIPPEE!), and much too much spare time on my hands, it's looking like I'll be writing more in the coming months. I can't wait!
Amy

The Theology of Detergent

Today served as a reminder that you cannot predict the ways that the Holy Spirit will use you or your words....

For my class covering practical issues of parish ministry (web authoring, budget making, research techniques, etc) we’ve been writing once a week short entries inspired by lectio divina. Though we are supposed to read each day, most weeks I simply read once and write once to fulfill the requirement. Daily discipline has always been one of my weakest points; that’s why I failed at praying the rosary nightly for Lent, why my homework is very often late, and why nothing in my life that is routine stays that way for long. I know this isn’t a good practice for me; however, I lack the will to allow myself to broken of this lack-a-daisicalness.
In October, as I was rushing to complete my weekly lectio passage before flying out of town for training, I spit out a hurried reflection on something new, and almost silly, I had seen in the Message translation of Psalm 51. I was puzzled by the imagery it used, and wrote in that off-kiltered state. I didn’t think much of it...

However, this afternoon I arrived to spend my lunch with the Presbyterian Church’s "Committee on Theological Education," which visits one seminary campus each year. As I sat down, my professor rushed over to me. She had presented to the Committee about the use of technology in education, and had used our discussion board as an example. One of the lectio responses she pulled out to show her audience was my reflection on Psalm 51. After hearing it, she said, there were those among the committee who had asked specifically for copies of the text to take home with them. I was rather shocked; I had composed it almost haphazardly and was surprised to here of other’s reactions to it.

Now, I’ll admit, I still don’t consider it anything particularly special. To me, my own writing smacks of the smarmy saccharine spirituality you find in the feel-good publication they give you at the drug store when you purchase $10 worth of adult diapers. Yet others have seen something in my words that I do not see myself; and that I can only attribute to the work of the Holy Spirit. Praise be for working in ways we do not expect.

Here is my entry, for your bemusement....

"Scrub away my guilt, Soak out my sins in your laundry.. Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life."
I spent the summer after my freshman year of college working in a laundromat. One of my primary duties was to take in clothes of some of our clients and wash and dry them for them. That's how I learned how nasty dirty clothes can be. I saw the remnants of all sorts of nastiness. I was also glad that I didn't get the stories behind it most of the time!I think there's a reason we call the secrets and hidden things in our lives our "dirty laundry" - they are the reminders of the things we are most ashamed of, the behaviors we know are unacceptable and so choose to hide from our neighbors. To God, we can very often be dirty laundry - we are not the best and brightest, that which should be shown off, because we fail daily at the mission God gives us. And yet, instead of throwing us to the rag heap, we are cleaned and bleached through repentance and forgiveness and put on again, only to be stained again by our own weaknesses.Laundering is an intimidating process; you're submitted to all sorts of chemicals, drowned in the water that will cleanse you, and then tumbled around at hot temperatures. Then your new found "cleanliness" only lasts for a day, and you're put through the entire cycle again. How much patience God has to do so much laundry every day! How strongly ought we to strive to stay clean!

Free at Last

This news arrived today, via SojoMail, a publication of Sojourners. I have written of the CPT situation before; I was delighted to recieve this news. I praise God for the safety of Norman, Harmeet, and Jim. I thank God for the ministry that Tom provided, and only wish that he had been able to return home as well. May they give us courage to continue to seek the reign of God throughout our society.

CPT rejoices in the release of our peacemakersby Doug Pritchard and Carol Rose

Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been safely released in Baghdad. Christian Peacemaker Teams rejoices with their families and friends at the expectation of their return to their loved ones and community. Together we have endured uncertainty, hope, fear, grief and now joy during the four months since they were abducted in Baghdad.
We rejoice in the return of Harmeet Sooden. He has been willing to put his life on the line to promote justice in Iraq and Palestine as a young man newly committed to active peacemaking.
We rejoice in the return of Jim Loney. He has cared for the marginalized and oppressed since childhood, and his gentle, passionate spirit has been an inspiration to people near and far.
We rejoice in the return of Norman Kember. He is a faithful man, an elder and mentor to many in his 50 years of peacemaking, a man prepared to pay the cost.
We remember with tears Tom Fox, whose body was found in Baghdad on March 9, 2006, after three months of captivity with his fellow peacemakers. We had longed for the day when all four men would be released together. Our gladness today is made bittersweet by the fact that Tom is not alive to join in the celebration. However, we are confident that his spirit is very much present in each reunion.
Harmeet, Jim and Norman and Tom were in Iraq to learn of the struggles facing the people in that country. They went, motivated by a passion for justice and peace to live out a nonviolent alternative in a nation wracked by armed conflict. They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.
Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to their families. In the spirit of the prophetic nonviolence that motivated Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom to go to Iraq, we refuse to yield to a spirit of vengeance. We give thanks for the compassionate God who granted our friends courage and who sustained their spirits over the past months. We pray for strength and courage for ourselves so that, together, we can continue the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace.
Throughout these difficult months, we have been heartened by messages of concern for our four colleagues from all over the world. We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. That support continues to come to us day after day. We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.
During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?
With Tom's death, we felt the grief of losing a beloved friend. Today, we rejoice in the release of our friends Harmeet, Jim and Norman. We continue to pray for a swift and joyful homecoming for the many Iraqis and internationals who long to be reunited with their families. We renew our commitment to work for an end to the war and the occupation of Iraq as a way to continue the witness of Tom Fox. We trust in God's compassionate love to show us the way.
Living through the many emotions of this day, we remain committed to the words of Jim Loney, who wrote:
"With God's abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.
With the love of Christ, we will resist all evil.
With God's unending faithfulness, we will work to build the beloved community."
Doug Pritchard and Carol Rose are co-directors of Christian Peacemaker Teams

In memory...

The news was broadcast today that Tom Fox, member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, was found dead at an Iraqi railroad station. He had been killed by those who took him captive at the beginning of Advent. A video was released on Tuesday with his three other co-captives featured. Presumably, they are still alive... May we lift up his family, his co-workers, and Christian Peacemaker Teams as a whole as the repercussions of this tragedy play out... You can find his writings at http://waitinginthelight.blogspot.com Oh, that we could all live out the gospel as he did.... Tonight, I mourn for Tom Fox.

Maybe I'm a Mennonite...

"True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant. It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all men." Menno Simons
This evening, a Missionary Baptist co-worker and I tussled around a pool table and wrestled with issues like scriptural authority and interpretation. I was reminded throughout our conversation that I am, truly and fully, an evangelical. That may surprise my cohorts; in some circles, "evangelical" has become a curse word that we fling against hate-mongering, book-burning image of the Christian Right. We claim that we are spreading the abundant love of God in contrast to a faith that is based in fear, when in reality we are making an idol of our own understanding of God by shutting out the voices with which we disagree. I DO serve the same Christ as Pat Robertson, and though our interpretations of what Christ mandates are different, it is the same Christ. We forget that we share the same language, imagery, and faith. When we tear each other apart, it is ourselves that we are blinding for we are all one body.
The social justice I preach, the simplicity I practice, the work I take on to overturn oppression are all the work of evangelism. They are the embodiment of the wild, radical, and beautiful teachings of Christ. They are the enactment of the Sermon on the Mount. They are realization that true evangelism is not contained in the winning of hearts and souls, but also encompasses the participation in the establishment of the Kingdom of God, which is indeed mandated as our primary motivation. Our conversion is not complete until it is made manifest in all aspects of our lives, including the belief and behavior that my friend emphasizes as well as the political and economic ramifications to which I have devoted myself. Menno Simmons understood that, and from the tradition he inspired have come some of the bravest and truest saints I have encountered. Oh, how I desire to have that same courage.
And so, I will continue to preach Christ crucified and risen, and declare the liberative power of the resurrection to overcome the violence and darkness that has been shown through our destructive lives and social cycles.