Category Archives: Lent

Lent Day 28 & 29: All My Stuff, Imago Dei, and the American Dream

Posted on 21 March 2012 | 1 comment

I have a lot of stuff. As I write this, I am sitting in a not-so-comfortable chair, suffering God knows what kind of allergies, thinking about how blessed I am. Within my reach, without even moving from this chair, I have books about lots of topics (John Wesley’s Sermons; Living Buddha, Living Christ; Reluctant Pilgrim; The Death and Life of the Great American School System; Revelations; Paradise; The Ask and the Answer; Mockingjay; the Bible), magazines as varied (Runner’s World; Sojourner’s Magazine; The Writer’s Chronicle), and a graphic novel (Billy Fog and the Gift of Trouble Sight). I have an empty (previously full) glass of clean water and a belly full of delicious food. I have clean clothes, electricity, and too many gadgets. I have every tangible thing I could ever want (except for a brand new Nissan Z). I am blessed.

A line near the end of Billy Fog and the Gift of Trouble Sight says, “Don’t waste your time being mean. Just watch—the years go by in the blink of an eye… Be good to your parents, and work hard at school.” For as blessed as I am, and likely you are, I spend an awful lot of time dwelling on those things I don’t have. I could list a handful of things I’d like to go buy if I had the money to. Are any of those, things I need? Not likely. I have a coat for the winter. I have shoes. Lots of shoes. I have so many clothes I can’t wear them all in a week (or probably a month), and I have access to a a washer and dryer in my house, so there’s really no need for it. But I compare myself to the people around me and come up short every time. There is always something I could do better, purchase bigger, be rewarded for more lavishly. Isn’t this, after all, the American Dream? To get ahead?

Sometimes, because they want to get ahead, people are mean. They’ll stop at nothing to get ahead, and before they know it, their lives have passed them by and they’re left with a closet full of clothes, shelves full of books, and enough shoes to outfit the Harlem Globetrotters. I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to live my life with meaning, because it seems fairly simple to “be good to your parents, and work hard at school.” Being good seems fairly simple, but it’s not for me. Being a competitive jerk is much easier, getting caught up the capitalist snare of trying to do better than those people around me until I no longer recognize myself or the imago dei inside of me. I lose sight of God in me. I can’t recognize the divine in myself, but I can see that my friends’ shoes are cooler than mine, that I don’t have the latest fashions, or that I need one more book. That’s the big one for me: books.

“Don’t waste your time being mean.” Instead, use your time to rediscover the image of God inside you, hiding there beneath all the layers of excess that have built up around you. Shed the American dream for the imago dei.

*

On a personal note, I’ve been in an athletic slump for about three weeks. I haven’t run in at least as long, and I have a 9 mile race in two weeks. I doubt that’s going to happen, and I seriously doubt the 13.1 miles that are supposed to happen in May are going to happen. Some prayers would be appreciated on the exercise front. In order to help hold myself accountable, I signed up for this College Swim Trip from March 26 to April 27. During that month, I am supposed to swim a total of 57 miles, the distance from Ball State to Butler. My goal is to run 2 miles and swim 2 miles each morning. That’s an hour of swimming and a half hour of running, which isn’t really too much to ask, right? I’m really not sure why I’ve been in such a funk. Here’s to healthy eating, healthy exercise, and to mental and spiritual health.

Peace.

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Posted in Capitalism, Christianity, Ethics, Goals, Grace, Lent, Mental Health, Relationships, Religion, Social Justice, Spirituality

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Lent Day 25, 26 & 27: Lost a Few Days in There

Posted on 19 March 2012 | Leave a comment

I think I must have been being too joyful over the weekend, because I lost a few days in there somewhere.

For today’s meditation I want to focus on the present, and not in the cheesy way that an email I received encouraged me to: they call today the present, because it’s a gift. Um, yeah. Pema Chodron writes: “One can appreciate and celebrate each moment—there’s nothing more sacred.There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more!” I spend too much time, in fact, most of my time, focusing on what comes before each moment and on what comes after each moment. I don’t regularly savor each moment as it happens. Too frequently, I waste the moment by thinking about what I could have changed about the past or about how that present moment will impact my future. In general, I don’t just stop and think about how truly beautiful, or how truly sacred, each moment can be or is. I find myself trapped in the past, looking toward the future, and forgetting about the present, the right now, the “moment” of which “there’s nothing more vast or absolute.” I just squander the sacred beauty of what is.

On Saturday night, I had the privilege of attending Mass at St. John’s in the big HC, my home town. I find myself wondering, in a good way, how people can be Catholic or Orthodox. How can they be in the very real presence of Christ every Sunday and be able to stand it? Whenever I think about the fact that Jesus body and blood are literally ingested into the bodies of the followers of those two denominations, I always wonder if they recognize the beauty, the sacredness, the absolute wonder and majesty of that idea. Jesus is real, he is present, and he is giving, yet again, his body and blood for our consumption. I, for one, can only be in that very real presence of God every so often, because I feel so small in comparison, so unworthy, so ignorant.

Communion

On Saturday, I wondered how this glorious and holy mystery impacted those people who shared in the Eucharist. I, of course, did not because I am not Catholic. I do believe in transubstantiation, but I haven’t been baptized in the Catholic church, so I always abstain out of respect for their rules, expectations, or whatever. It’s probably for the best, because I am not sure I could stand it. When the Fr. Dave was emptying the bowl that the body had been resting in, and combining all of the blood into one chalice, I began to think of the sacrifice. It’s Lent, who wouldn’t think of the sacrifice? But when he lifted the chalice to his lips and swallowed down the rest of the body and blood, I lost it. I always tear up in the face of great reverence. How purely beautiful to not want any bit of your Lord to be wasted, to take in all of that pain and suffering and redemption!

On Sunday, I had another great moment with God in nature. I know, I know, a good protestant (forgive me I think I was a nun once in a former life) experiencing Jesus in the Catholic Church and then again in Nature?!? Ack. Maybe I’m not such a good Protestant after all, but how can you not experience God in this:

Beauty at the Mounds

Especially with the flowers and the grass poking through the dead leaves and winter decay, how can a person not experience God?

So then tell me how is it with all of these bits of heaven presenting themselves to me, how is it that I can still get side tracked by thoughts such as these from Psalm 73?

For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.
They are free from common human burdens;
they are not plagued by human ills.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.
From their callous hearts comes iniquity;
the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.
They scoff, and speak with malice;
with arrogance they threaten oppression.
Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.
Therefore their people turn to them
and drink up waters in abundance.
They say, “How would God know?
Does the Most High know anything?”
This is what the wicked are like—
always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

How can I be persuaded to compare myself to others? How can I let what other humans do bother me? I think it’s because

I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

And that’s not likely to change any time soon. But, by focusing on the present, not the past and not the future, maybe I can become less and less of a brute beast (see that future focus?). And maybe I can escape the past of dwelling on what seems unfair or irrational. I’m trying. Let’s hope it works.

Peace.

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Posted in Baptism, Buddhism, Christianity, Goals, Grace, Lent, Mental Health, Photos, Relationships, Spirituality

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Lent Day 24: Nights Out and Silly Joy

Posted on 17 March 2012 | 1 comment

This weekend is ripe with friend connections. Last night I went out with work friends, the colleagues who make teaching bearable. I love my students, so having some colleagues who aren’t dicks is just a bonus.

Getting Ready to Go Out

We did a pre-St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl in good old Muncie, Indiana. We started at the ever trendy, hipster Savage’s Ale House, which is one of my favorite bars, because they have $1 PBRs, of which I had two. I also had the Epic Muncie Burger. Amazing.

$1 Pabst Blue Ribbon

Celebrating the Graduate

From Savage’s we headed to Doc’s Music Hall for all the mixed-drink drinkers. We sat outside at a really long table. There were a whole slew of us! Here’s where I mixed my metaphors and went from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Loretto, Kentucky and stopped south of the border for a few sips of my friend’s, the birthday girl, Muncie-rita, that’s served complete with an upside down bottle of Corona in it. All the traveling must be why I have such a headache this morning!

Maker's with a Splash of Coke

From Doc’s we dropped in next door at the Heorot. I kept on traveling: I had a Strongbow from Ireland and a New Albanian Porter from New Albany, Indiana.

Half-Lit Chandelier at Silo

Then we headed to the Silo (Maker’s and a Fat Tire (Fort Collins, Colorado)), and then to the very haunted Fickle Peach (Bell’s Porter from Kalamazoo, Michigan) where I spilled my beer so hard the marble bar broke the glass. No worries, a friend split her beer with me and then somehow I ended up with another Bell’s Porter. I also played pool for the first time in several years and didn’t do too shabbily, but I didn’t do really well either.

Bell's Porter, not the one I spilled

Outside the Peach: Are those orbs I see?

We ended the night back in Milwaukee with a Miller Lite at the Mark III Tap Room, “the longest gay bar in the world,” but by that time I didn’t trust myself to take my phone out of my pocket for fear that it would go the way of the beer at the Peach and shatter all over the dance floor.

My point in writing about this is that I am a serious person most of the time, but my goal this year was to get my joy back by doing those things I hadn’t been doing, which bring me joy. Surrounding myself with friends brings me joy. Drinking excellent beer and bourbon brings me joy. Walking around town and acting silly and dancing poorly all bring me joy: great joy and a great headache the next morning. I think Jesus wants us to experience joy (maybe not so much the headaches, though he did like his wine); in fact, I think we were designed to be filled with joy. Look at Adam and Eve, they were perfectly content before they ate that dastardly fruit. How could they not have been joyful living in the most perfect place ever? David was so joyful he danced with no clothes. John the Baptist was so joyful in utero that he “leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” Peter was so joyful he couldn’t resist calling Jesus out for who he is, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” In the end, we’ll all be so filled with joy, we won’t be able to stop singing.

I just want a little bit of that joy here on earth, and one way for me to experience it is by giving myself over to those silly sides of myself that don’t always show, but which always hide there, just beneath the surface aching to get out. And, yeah, in many ways, I am equating fleshly drunkenness with spiritual drunkenness. The spirit and the flesh, they feel really similar to me, which I suppose is because I don’t really buy that mind, spirit, body split nonsense, chalking it up as a patriarchal paradigm foisted upon us by the Enlightenment. So tonight I plan to do it all over again with different friends, in a different place, but with the same goal in mind: gathering the joy that’s swirling around out there waiting for us to take it!

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Posted in Beer, Christianity, Cider, Food, GLBT, Goals, Grace, Hair, Lent, Mental Health, Photos, Play, Queer, Relationships, Religion, Spirituality

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Lent Day 23: Half Way Through and I Still Have So Far to Go

Posted on 16 March 2012 | 2 comments

Last night proved to me once again that I still have so far to go in this “live like Jesus thing.” I want so badly to be Christlike, but yet I fall so far from that each day. And, just like I learned in a children’s sermon, once I squeeze out that toothpaste, it’s a bitch to get it back in the tube. In fact, it’s impossible.

I did have a funny thing happen at school today. One of my boys asked me to read his sermon that he will deliver at his youth group, and as I was giving it back to him with comments, he asked if I was going to go hear a Christian comedian speak at one of our local high schools. I told him I didn’t know about it. He replied that there was a post on someone’s Facebook page. “I’m not friends with very many FCA people on Facebook. I say the f*bomb a lot, and most Christians don’t tend to like that very well,” I said. He started laughing so hard, he had to regroup before we could continue talking about his sermon. Hilarious.

In the spirit of Family Guy, do you want to know something that really grinds my gears? When people leave their cars running while sitting in them or running into Starbucks to get a drink, I get all wound-up. It’s almost 60 degrees; there is absolutely no reason to leave your car running. It isn’t warm enough to “need” air conditioning and it isn’t cold enough to “need” a warm car. Wow.

My goal today is to make a conscious effort to meditate and pattern my steps after Jesus. I’m not off to a great start. Regroup.

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Posted in Christianity, Lent, Teaching

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Lent Day 20: School’s Back in Session

Posted on 12 March 2012 | 2 comments

I know what it feels like to be a balloon and to have the helium sucked out of you, because that’s what going back to work did to me today, only with joy instead of helium. As of Sunday, I felt nearly completely joyful. I felt as if I could conquer the world. I could literally feel myself beginning to be positive about many things. And then I went back to school today, and everything was the same as it always is, and there was too much to bear.

My day began with the computer cart I had reserved not being plugged in for break, so all the computers were dead. I resorted to my backup plan, because I always have one of those when I am supposed to use technology in a lesson. Everything turned out fine, but I was, for some reason, still annoyed.

My day continued with one of my students pretty much straight-up lying to another teacher about whether or not I make them do citations for my class. Luckily it was my lunch, so she had me come over to her room to put the citation information up on the board for the students. He tried to weasel his way out of it by playing it off in his clowning sort of way. It didn’t work.

My day continued to continue with one of the counselors telling me that some of the students think I am mean this year, not at all how I was last year. My response was to ask her if the students realized that their behavior was part of the reason their teachers can be grumpy. Basically, I played it off on them, like a jack ass.

Finally, I finished my day on a positive note playing racquetball with Celeste, which is always a great time. When we play, it doesn’t matter so much who wins or loses, but we talk, we do the dozens, and we let our frustration. And somehow, though she likely doesn’t know it, I always learn from Celeste. I always leave a little more calm, with a bit better perspective.

While I was making fish stir fry for dinner, I stopped…

and thought about how I have been with my students this year, and how I have let my anger creep into everything I do.I have been shorter with them, and I could make excuses, but there really is no excuse. I thought about how I have short-changed not only my students, but also my friends, my colleagues, and my family because of my bitterness with God, and my general anger, though I still cannot pinpoint the source of the anger that overtook me.

I thought about how my first response was to blame my students, my 12 to 16 year old (well, a couple of repeat offenders who are 17) students for my shitty behavior. They are children, young adults, and my behavior, as a grown woman, should not be dictated by their level of participation, their willingness to think that English is the best subject ever. (It is, though.) My behavior should come out of, or, to use a really bad creative writing phrase, it should flow from my own moral and ethical belief system, which is not to take my anger out on those around me.

I’m not above being all “Hallelujah, Jesus Freakish” when I say that since I’ve reevaluated my Christianity (and added in some Buddhist thought, too) I am ashamed of some of the ways I’ve behaved while I was out there in the wilderness (yet again, damn I wish I’d learn one time). The biggest shame I face is the fact that I have treated people in a way that nowhere near resembles Christ’s love, but it, instead, resembles the “GOTCHA” mentality that is so prevalent in our culture, where people just sit in wait for others to screw something up, so they can call each other out on it. There has been no cheek turning for me, unless it has been me turning my cheek and hiding my mouth behind my hand, so people can’t hear what I am saying about them. Seriously, it’s been bad. I needed that reality check today.

So, today, I am asking you all for a little bit of accountability. I want to be filled with God’s grace, sharing it with all those around me, especially my students. And I want to follow that old saying from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” I want the words of my mouth, and the actions of my body to glorify God. I no longer want to conform to the patterns of this world, but I want to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I want to be the teacher my students remember for being loving and gracious, and if I’m lucky, they’ll remember some of the language arts I teach them, too.

Peace.

 

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Posted in Buddhism, Christianity, Ethics, Family, Goals, Grace, Lent, Mental Health, Relationships, Religion, School, Spirituality, Teaching

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