On the Fourth Day of Christmas...

Holy moments. That's the theme today. Yesterday afternoon I was walking Meli around campus, watching her scuttle after squirrels and sniff trees, and I was so full of joy and relief I wanted to hug strangers. It reminded me of other times this year when I was filled up with goodness, felt drawn near to the heart of God, and experienced a holy moment when Spirit and soul embraced.

England. I left for England immediately after burying a friend, and I was raw. When I would step into these grand old churches that had been around for centuries, I was reminded that this faith of mine stretched back through the ages, that the people who stood on these stone floors or knelt before this altar were just like me: dealing with the losses of this earthly life with grief and with hope, with anger and frustration and with trust. "I belong to Jesus Christ," I would say under my breath, and the walls and glass and pews around me would echo the truth that all who had worshipped in these spaces had said the same. At an antiquities shoppe I bought a 4th c. crucifix as a reminder of the long reach of the faith.

Colorado. I had an amazing hike one evening on the ranch. A hike up to a waterfall as the sun was setting. The trail was almost empty. I love hiking in just about any circumstance, but the light on this evening, and the cooling of the woods, and the sounds of wildlife off in the distance...holy. I came down a different way than I hiked up, and I was praying, praying, praying as I do when I hike and suddenly realized that I wasn't sure where I was going. I stopped and attempted to get my bearings. Was this trail going to lead me back? And in the middle of my anxiety in the deepening darkness, I heard/sensed/felt the Spirit say, "Follow the trail. Follow where it leads. Enjoy the adventure." As I had been praying about my life/future/job/calling, I took this to be a literal and metaphorical instruction. I followed the trail. It was beautiful. I passed through this area of the forest that looked like a shire. I half-expected Frodo to pop around a corner. I made it back just as the stars were poking through the night sky.

Beulah View. My friends let me enjoy their lovely cabin for a weekend or two each year. The sheer quiet, the lack of TV/internet/phone, the view of the lake, the fireplace--all contribute to a calming of the soul that is hard to find elsewhere. I journal, sit, pray, read, sleep. And when Marie joins me we talk, run, hike, shop, visit fruitstands and talk more. Between my conversations with Marie and with God, I gain perspective, get my soul back, and return restored.

Which is why I am hoping to get up there this weekend. And which is why there will probably not be any posts for a few days.

So I hope you enjoy this last weekend of frivolity, say farewell to 2006, welcome in 2007, and do so knowing that the steadfast love of our Lord never ceases, God's mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is God's faithfulness.

She's Fine!!

The vet just called! The tumor was the lowest grade possible and the pathology report reveals that it was completely removed. No decisions to be made about treatment or agonizing choices about balancing affection for my girl with financial wisdom.

YES! THANK YOU! AMEN! HALLELUJAH!

Oh, the relief.

And now: we are going to go chase squirrels. Thanks to all of you for your care for us both.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Praise God all creatures here below!

Praise God above ye heavenly host!

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Amen!

On the Second, uh, Third Day of Christmas...

My vet still hasn't called. Sigh. I have moments of calm and waves of anxiety. Heh.

So, I'll post on a few more of my favorite things from 2006.

Books. I love books. I love to hold them, love to read them, love to have them filling my shelves and cluttering the floor next to my bed and reading chair.

Here are a few that captivated me this year:

1. Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos. A well-woven story of a elderly woman who lives in a mansion in Seattle, is diagnosed with brain cancer, and, much to her surprise as much as anyone else's, decides to take in borders. The people who come in create a community of artists and others who help this woman go back through her family history and redeem it. Line from the book: "Wanda O'Casey was as happy as she could be, given the fact that her heart was broken."

2. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. Beautiful prose for a haunting story. A physician delivers his own twin children on the night of a blizzard. His son is healthy, but his daughter has Down Syndrome. In an instant he makes the decision to give the girl to his nurse and asks her to take the baby to an institution. When his wife wakes up, he tells her that the girl died. The nurse, however, after driving out to the institution and sitting in its waiting area, realizes that she cannot do what she has been asked to do. She flees with the baby. A story that captures acutely what deception does to relationships. Would be great for my friend Neal's seminar. Or as the Book of the Quarter.

3. One of my favorite writers is Martha Beck, whom I first encounted in Expecting Adam, an astonishing memoir of her pregnancy with her son Adam. Adam was diagnosed with Down Syndrome while he was in utero. Martha and her husband were living in Cambridge earning Harvard degrees. Their colleagues thought them foolish to continue the pregnancy, but they did. And the Divine Care that held them during this pregnancy will blow you away. I have post-its tucked in all over this book. Just writing about it now makes me want to read it again.

4. I am currently reading Leaving the Saints, Martha's memoir of parting ways with the Mormons after being reared by one of their leading apologists. It's a gripping acccount of how memories of her father's treatment of her came back in a flood when her family moved back to Provo, Utah, after Adam's birth. She, like so many other women who endure this, is not believed by her family and makes the painful choice to leave the faith community of her childhood. Because of this, she loses her family, but she gains her soul. The truth will set you free, indeed, but why does it always come at such a cost?

5. Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor. A pastor chronicles the choice to leave parish ministry and become a professor. For some reason, this resonated with me. Hmmm..... Taylor is a smart, funny, poetic: recounting her appearance in a fancy dress (rather than black shirt with priest collar) at a party, she describes the response of the partygoers as similar to "seeing their Dentist in a Speedo."

6. It wouldn't be my list if it didn't have a book from Garrison Keillor on it. Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 is still leaning against my nightstand from when I read it this summer. I think this is his best book. In several spots I was laughing out loud, tears coming out of my eyes, as I read this semi-autobiographical account of an early teen's summer in Minnesota. I ate this book whole. I've read a lot of Keillor, and this one hits it out of the park.

On the First Day of Christmas...

My vet didn't call.

I finally called at 5:04p and learned that the pathology report is still "pending." The assistant gently told me that the doctor will call as soon as she sees the results.

After a weekend in which I maintained a good bit of peace and calm about this all (due in large part, I believe, to your prayers), I awoke this morning and immediately thought, "The vet could call today." Meli was asleep next to me and I reached over to give her a pat. She has recovered very well from the surgery, and is now able to hop on and off the bed like old times.

She's also been squirrel-chasing on Calvin's campus where the squirrels have been inured to large beings and therefore have a minimized fright reflex. This leads to Meli being able to get extremely close to them before they panickedly dash up trees and then engage in animated squirrel cursing in her general direction (all of which I find incredibly funny). So, on the whole she seems well and I am very grateful for that.

BUT, to switch gears, for these 12 Days of Christmas (the 12 days from Christmas to Epiphany), I'm going to chart out things that I have enjoyed or read or listened to in 2006 and think you should know about.

Here's #1: Wintersong by Sarah McLachlan. My truffle-making friend gave this to me as an early Christmas gift and I have just about worn it out. I move the CD from the house to the car and back to the house. It's fab. Great Christmas songs done in a mellow, sometimes plaintive, tone. Plus it has River (a Joni Mitchell classic) and the title track, written by Sarah herself. Love it, love it, love it. Now on sale for $15.99 at both Schulers and Barnes and Noble. Get it. Sing along. Be merry.

No news is...

. . . no news. It will be next week before we know the extent of Meli's cancer. I keep pleading for grade I/surgery is curative. We'll see.

I won't be blogging much this weekend, but if you need a few things to read in an effort to avoid shopping/wrapping/family members/carolers, here are some ideas:

For dog lovers, a nice piece from the NYT a few weeks ago.

For all of you writing/receiving those Christmas letters, enjoy a laugh from Garrison Keillor's latest column.

For those of you thinking that Christmas break may be a good time to get organized, read this NYT article first. [An excerpt: "Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes”) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands." I knew it!]

To all of you: Merry Christmas!

The Day After

Meli and I "slept" on the floor last night. She has an 8 inch-long incision down her abdomen which made lying down an uncomfortable idea. There were a couple of stretches when she was able to lie down and sleep for a while, but they were interrupted by times when she'd be sitting up and just whimpering. Finally at 4a I gave her a dose of pain meds (she'd had an injection of pain meds with the surgery which were supposed to take her to 8a, but those had obviously faded). She took the med (and kudos to whomever made those chewable!) and then we both slept for a few hours.

So, I'm staying close to home and close to her today.

Photo credit again to Aric Dershem, who took a pile of photos on Sunday. To see more of his great work, go here.

Surgery Day

Meli's surgery went well today. The vet took out a wide margin around the tumor, which is normal for this type of cancer. But we won't know anything more about the grade of the tumor until we get the pathology report back. That could come back as early as Friday or as late as next week, due to the holiday on Monday. I'm hoping for Friday, because it would stink to have this hanging out there over this long weekend. And the sooner we know what we are dealing with, the sooner we can plan. Those of you who know me know that I really like to have a plan.

My friend Aric took the above picture of us on Sunday afternoon.

Time's Person of the Year 2006!

Stephen Colbert has this bit on his show that he calls, "Who's Honoring Me Now?"

That's how I felt when I learned that I'd been named Time magazine's Person of the Year 2006. It's humbling; I didn't even know I was in the running. But I guess earning a PhD in 3 years is a qualifying feat and the triathlon just pushed me right to the top. What can I say? When you've got it, you've got it.

Wait. What?

What do you mean YOU were named Person of the Year, too? Are you KIDDING ME?

Okay, yeah, we all were. We control the information age, according to Time, so we influenced world events even more than, say, W. (If only we could click 'undo' as far as some of his actions go.) The phone camera at the Michael Richards night club snafu, the Macaca incident that ruined Sen. Allen's career, W.'s open mike gaffe at a summit meeting, the blogs that break stories and offer critiques of world events--suddenly all of us are journalists. Anything said or done in public can be snapped, taped, or blogged.

It's a sobering time to be a politician, I would think. I speak in public enough to know that there are times when things come out of my mouth that I would quickly like to retrieve. I can't imagine speaking a dozen times a day and knowing that every single word was being recorded and filmed. I would live in enormous fear that as fatigue set in the filters would weaken and I would say something incredibly stupid. Like "macaca."

But the reality is that any of us, anywhere, anytime are vulnerable to this. YouTube is proof enough that regular people do stupid things that just happen to be caught on tape. And as a prof I am well aware that an off-hand comment could land on someone's facebook page or even on the back of Chimes.

I haven't read through the new issue of Time to know if they are looking at how the new communication technologies affect interpersonal communication, but I hope someone is. My students spend hours instant messaging people who live just down the hall. They call their parents on their cell phones three times a day. There is no need for them to plan to meet people for lunch; they just leave class and make a few calls to see who's going to which dining hall when. It's not hard to imagine that these patterns are going to have long-term effects on how they engage in relationships, how they leave their parents, and how they shape their brains to consider long-term plans and their consequences.

For a day this fall I reviewed with my classes the risks and vulnerabilities of their public blogs, myspace pages and facebook sites. Some were clearly annoyed that such material could be used in disciplinary cases. Some thought college administrators had no business reading their "private" websites. "It's like putting it on a billboard," I told them. "Anyone passing through can read whatever you put out there." We talked about future employers reading their sites, about parents reading their sites, about me reading their sites. By the end of the hour, some of them were considering realities that they hadn't before.

Which we all need to do now, according to Time. So, beware bloggers and others. Orwell was right to a point: Big Brother isn't watching you. Everyone is.

Graduation Day

Today, December 18, is my official graduation day from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

It seems anticlimatic compared to everything else swirling in my life these days, but I am forcing myself to take a moment and be grateful for God's faithfulness to me through the years of grad school and dissertation writing. I am remembering how clear the leading was to go to UI, how the ideas for the thesis crystallized, how helpful my adviser was, how God put the right people in my life for that season, how the cottage on the lake opened up just when I needed it. So many signs of God's faithfulness and care.

I still have some moments when I find it hard to believe that I really did this: went through all of those classes, wrote papers, took exams, wrote the dissertation, defended it, and earned a PhD.

It's good for me to remember God's care in my life through the years, because I have a memory like a seive when it comes to the mercies of God. I face a difficult time (like now, with Meli's illness and anxieties about jobs and future and how to pay for Meli's treatment if she needs it) and all of the times God has helped me seem to vanish from my mind.

So, on this morning when I am anxious for what may come this week and in the weeks ahead, I am practicing the spiritual act of remembering. Psalm 77 is a good model for this, and corporate worship helps us, along with the communion of saints, and a day on the calendar, and a blog.

I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;

I will remember your wonders of old.

Psalm 77:11

Meli.

My dog has a tumor. It is a type of skin cancer.

Last night while I was playing with her, I noticed an odd bruise near her belly-button. I brought her into the vet today and they did a needle biopsy because they weren't sure what it was.

I knew it was bad when the tech called me back into the exam room and wouldn't look me in the eye. My vet came in and said that she has mast cell tumor, that she needs surgery, and that while sometimes surgery is curative, if the growth is more advanced Meli may need radiation and chemotherapy.

It was right about here when I started to cry.

As I've written (here and here) before, Meli has been the one constant thing in my life in the past 8 years. She has trained with me for 5ks and triathlons, she's forced me to get up and get moving on days when I could have stayed depressed in bed all day, and she brings a lot of joy to my life. It's hard to imagine that this very-healthy-looking Golden who loves to chase squirrels in the backyard is facing a serious health crisis.

The vet slid a box of tissues across the table to me and said, "Would you like some water?" Yes. She left the room and came back in with a bottle of water and a basket of chocolate. "I'm in a 12-step program with chocolate," she said. "Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate." This made me laugh a bit, and I was able to mop up and focus somewhat on the info she was telling me.

The surgery will be on Wednesday. They will remove the mass and will be able to tell if it is contained or spread. They will send samples to the pathology lab and then will know if the tumor is grade I, II, or III. The grade of the tumor will determine her treatment.

Now, I know this isn't on a par with the human suffering that some of us are experiencing up close, and I've never been one of those people who carries her dog in her purse at the mall or buys rhinestone collars that cost more than a good meal out, but I love my dog. She is my friend. Hers is the first face I see in the morning and the last one I see at night. And those of you who've met her know what a loving and affectionate dog she is.

So, those of you of the praying kind: please pray for Meli. For a successful surgery and really good news following it, for her recovery and for her owner. And if you think praying for a dog is silly, I remind you, first, that dogs were made before humans were (see Gen. 1), and, second, of this line in the doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise God all creatures here below
Praise God above ye heavenly host
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

May Meli be praising God in her squirrel-chasing ways for years to come.

A Prayer

In the evenings I've been using a book of prayers which was written by the Community of Jesus, and here is one of my favorite collects (a "collect" [pronounced kollekt] is a short prayer, especially one assigned to a particular day or season):

O great Creator of the earth,
cleanse the wounds of our souls with the freshness of your grace,
destroy wrong impulses,
and let us be filled with your good things.
Amen.

It's the second line that I am holding onto these days. It is a lyrical reflection of a deep human need. Maybe you'll latch onto it as well.

Come, Lord Jesus.

So You've Got Yourself Some White Male Privilege...

This morning I attended a panel discussion on Gender Diversity at the seminary. On the panel were Dr. Claudia Beversluis, newly anointed Provost at Calvin and, therefore, my boss; Calvin V.P. of Student Life Shirley Hoogstra; and Rev. Jack Roeda, long-time pastor of Church of the Servant. The panel was moderated by Dr. Ron Nydam, pastoral care professor at the seminary.

As you can imagine from this line-up, many good and wise and helpful things were said. But I found that they were stated more from a descriptive than a prescriptive perspective. That is, there were many more pictures of what male privilege looks like than there were really good ideas about how to challenge it.

In fact, one white male student stood and asked the panel, in essence, "So I'm a white male with privilege--what can I do about this?" He was sincere in his question. The answer came back to be aware of it, to start discussions, to try and bolster the representation of women in groups, to seek out the uniqueness of the others around you and hear their stories, etc.

Had the young man asked me, here's what I would have said:

1. Vote for women. You, white-man-who-will-soon-be-ordained, will have many opportunities in your career to vote for women to serve on denominational boards, committees, church councils, school boards, etc. In fact, merely because of your maleness you will be able to vote in elections in which I cannot. In which your mother cannot. So use that power to vote for women's participation in the leadership of our denomination and in other local bodies. How great would it be, for example, if half of the seminary board members were women?

2. Be an advocate. Those of us who are in the minority get weary of continually advocating on our own behalf. We don't want to be the ones who have to say in every meeting, "How is this affecting women?" "Latinos?" "Black people?" "People with disabilities?" I remember so well sitting in a Classis meeting when an issue about women's ordination was being debated and there were some white men who spoke up for using the gifts of all church members. It was such a relief that it wasn't all up to me.

3. Teach the next generation to work for shalom. Teach your daughters how to speak up and your sons how to listen. Teach all of your children (youth group members, Sunday School students, Children and Worship kids, nephews, nieces, friends) how to work on behalf of those who are oppressed due to race, gender, economic inequality, or belief system.

4. Get rid of the marginalization tables at Synod. Having a table for "ethnic minority advisers" and one for "women advisers" only appeases the consciences of those who really don't want these groups to have voting rights. Giving them these tables at which they can listen and speak but not vote is tokenism at best and partriarchal racism at worst. Instead, cultivate the people of racial and ethnic minorities within your congregation who could be elders or pastors and then be delegated to Synod. Perhaps classes could decide that they will always send at least two people of color as Synodical delegates. And, of course, let's refuse to ratify that ruling from Synod 2006 that prevents women elders and pastors from serving at Synod. See #1.

5. The short answer to the privilege question is also the mantra of Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility." You have access to the workings of the systems of power: denominational leadership, local church leadership, community leadership. If you do not choose to act on behalf of those who are less privileged, you are failing in your responsibility. It was Jesus who said "Whatever you do for the least of these, brothers and sisters of mine, you do for me." Don't think you won't be held accountable for how you wield your privilege.

The End is Near

My last class of my first semester as a college professor will be on Friday. At the last meeting of my Monday night speech class, one of my students (a goofy, joyous guy) gave me a hug and told me what a great class it was. How cool is that!

I also have to say that on Monday, the day their papers were due, suddenly the world seemed against them: printers quit working, grandparents fell ill, long lost relatives suddenly emailed---it was bizarre. And to look askance at such excuses is to appear heartless, but the newbie prof doesn't want to appear gullible either. A hard balance to find.

I'm now faced with 50 papers to grade, a final exam to write, and the interworkings of the KnightVision computer-grading-calculator to figure out. But I will say, after a few years of being the one writing the papers and studying for the exams, it is nice to be on this side of the desk. Don't let us profs fool ya: grading the exams is better than taking the exams. Plus, we can grade in the comfort of our homes while wearing our pajamas and drinking tea. I believe that this will put me in a generous state toward those whose work I evaluate. So, really, my comfort is for their benefit. It's all about the covenant youth.

Academy of Homiletics 2006

I was in Florida this past weekend, attending the annual meeting of the Academy of Homiletics (I gave the link, but you can't get to anything without the secret password, and they threatened me with bodily harm if I posted it on my blog. It's like our secret handshake.).

The Academy is a smallish adademic conference, especially when compared with such bohemoths as the National Communication Association. At this one, about 150 preachers and teachers of preaching mill about, chat, look at book tables, present their papers and have a banquet.

I attended the worshipy morning events, and a few paper presentations/discussions, and bought some books. But the oddest part of the event for me, a first-timer, was to mingle with folks whom I've only known previously via print. For example, at the Friday morning worshipy service (I'll get to why I call them "worshipy" in a bit), when the time came for the passing of the peace, the gentleman sitting next to me apologized for not wearing his nametag. "I'm Tom Troeger," he said. And I thought, "HEY! I've sung your hymns and read your books!" Then I turned to shake hands with the person behind me and it was Gene Lowry (of The Homiletical Plot fame. He also wins the prize for the best book title evah: Doing Time in the Pulpit). At a different worshipy service Ron Allen was behind me--I used his research in my dissertation. And on it went (Tom Long, Charles Campbell, Charles Rice, Richard Lischer....). Usually I've seen these people blended in with organists, worship people, musicians . . . at this conference I knew about 45% of the people by name before I even got there.

[Now, on "worshipy": My ideas about worship have been shaped over the last 15 years by my collaboration with such people as Emily Brink and John Witvliet and Ron Rienstra (whose WorshipHelps blog is great) and so I think that a worship service should have a theme and a flow and an overall vibe that pulls things together. The A.H. services had scripture readings and hymns and, ahem, special music but none of the elements had anything to do with any of the other elements (which is why I use the term "special music"). In one service a person stood to read scripture and then the preacher stood up and re-read the same passage---as if he didn't realize that it had already been read. One service began with a dramatic performance of Sojourner Truth's Ain't I a Woman but I have no idea why. So these times were worshipy in that they had various elements of worship, but they were not worship because the elements were in no way related to each other, or the Bible reading, or were used to present or build on any particular idea or theme that draws us deeper into a relationship with God. Random texts, songs, singers, and a preacher do not a worship service make.]

The best part, hands down, was the banquet. Since it occured on the last evening of the conference and followed an afternoon that was spent by many of us on the beach (airt temp: 84; water temp 74; seeing homileticians in their swimming gear: priceless), we were relaxed and happy. Once the bottles of wine were uncorked, we were even more so.

On my curve of my table was my colleague John Rottman; his adviser (and author of The Four Pages of the Sermon which all CTS students now use), Paul Wilson who teaches at the U of Toronto (he's beardless now, for those of you who look at the pic on the site); and Craig Satterlee who teaches at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and whom I knew from a gathering Craig hosted a while back to prepare for a book he was working on. I also need to give a shout out to Donna Prince, who brought us all samples of the nutrient-laced chocolate she's promoting at getmychocolate.com. Believe me, it's good and good for ya! Makes a great gift.

There was much laughing and hilarity at our table. This was despite the temperature of the room which had to be at about 57 degrees. We were freezing. After enjoying beverages on the outside patio where the moon was shining and the warm sea breeze was blowing, we were herded into the refigeration compartment which served as our dining area. Thankfully, we made a few trips to the bar to check the scores of football games and bring back warming liquids.

After the banquet dispersed, Paul, John, John's wife Marilyn and I sat outside enjoying our beverages and laughing more. For those of you who know John and his wit, you will know what I mean when I say that he and Paul are like two peas in a pod. Paul's wit is a bit drier and just as quick, and we four had a lively conversation.

But alas, the hour grew late and I had an early flight. The good news is that Paul is coming to the Worship Symposium at Calvin in January so I can see him again. In all, it was a fine few days of work and play in Palm Beach. Ah, the life of an academic!

(And, yes, I had a job interview while there and, yes, I think it went well. And I think more interviews are in my future at a couple of other places. Exciting? Yep. Stressful? You betcha. Your prayers welcome.)