The Sermon I'll Never Give

This summer, my niece was needling me a bit for not blogging about her graduation ("I must not be very important to you!"). Reflecting on that made me wonder, "What might I have written?" From there, I started to wonder what I would say if I had the chance to address the graduates... which in turn led me to think about sermons.

As a pastor's spouse, I have been called upon to deliver a message a couple of times -- in fact I'm doing one in a few weeks -- and I find it to be a tightrope act. I may be overly sensitive, but I always feel the onus of expectations:

• Some people feel that being married to a minister gives me extra qualifications, at least an extension phone on the God hotline;
• Some are suspicious that I'm secretly up there to be her mouthpiece (maybe even to say things she's afraid to say);
• Some will discount me entirely because I don't have a seminary education.

In any of these cases I feel a burden not to stray into Forbidden Territory -- I try to be commonsense, not "theological", and to foster a sense of community rather than calling people out. I'm willing to be a bit transparent and share my own struggles in an effort to encourage folks to look honestly at themselves.

I've often fantasized about what I would say if magically dropped into a place where I could hit and run with no repercussions of any kind (however, I should make clear up front that I am talking about issues that plague every church I've ever experienced, or for that matter any church you could name) . This really won't be organized into a sermon -- it may have more or less than 3 points, I might have to cherry-pick several disparate Scripture verses, and there's no poem at the end (there might not even be a humorous anecdaote at the beginning), but I think these would be the topics:

• The church needs to stop being just another Neighborhood Organization and start being the Body of Christ, "who, being in very nature God, made himself nothing... he humbled himself and became obedient..." (from Phil. 2:6-8). I am continually frustrated with people who are part of a church and get in a snit when things don't go their way, or leave when they get their feelings hurt, or just generally act as if everything should revolve around them. I have seen plenty of Church Folks who were just as self-important as any jest-set celebrity you could name, and many who were grudge-holders to put the Hatfields and McCoys to shame. If you want to know why our pews get less crowded, one reason is that people don't have to make the extra effort of getting up early on Sunday morning for the privilege of being treated the way they often are within our doors. And for my next act, I'll be going out and applying the above verses to my marriage, and all my relationships....
• The church is broke (or at least many are struggling financially) because we don't understand the basis for giving. I believe that many in our pews toss in a couple bucks a week because for them, it's equivalent to the "suggested donation" -- or even the admission charge -- at a community fundraiser or entertainment event. There are others who decide, "Until my church, and my pastor, do things my way, they won't get a dime of my money." What they fail to acknowledge is that it's not my church or my money. Both are God's, and nothing makes more sense than to take a significant portion of His money and give it to His church. We don't give to support the church we love, even though we do love it; we don't give in appreciation of the pastor (although I hope you do appreciate him/her, and I would say the same regardless of marital status :-); we don't give to fund worthwhile ministries, though I pray your church does exciting and Spirit-filled things. We give because God gave, and continues to give, to us; because we're grateful for His blessings; because it belongs to Him and it's only right to give back; and also because He has wired us to be generous beings and to have wonderful and joy-filled things happen in our souls when we do give.

I can't help but reflect wistfully on the original New Testament church, which is described as "one in heart and mind" and giving "to anyone as he had need." And what was the punchline? "More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number." (See Acts 2-5).

Cleaning Out

I've made no secret of the fact that I've been all about the reality shows this summer. Frankly, there's not that much choice: summer viewing alternatives are baseball, game shows, repeats, or the kind of shows variously described as "gritty" or "quirky"... and none of the above score highly in the rankings around here (keeping in mind that in a group of two, the only "majority" vote is unanimous).

I always postscript the bit about reality shows with the bit about, "but only the quality ones." I should point out that even PBS does reality shows; what's more Quality than that? As a fan of the Quality Reality subgenre -- I pledge, no Flavor Flav here -- I'm already looking forward to the next season of Project Runway; till it gets here I was interested to check out Tim Gunn's Guide to Style.

If you're not a fan, Project Runway is a contest for aspiring fashion designers, and Tim Gunn (a professor at the Parsons School of Design) is the resident mentor and den mother who dispenses sage advice (often saving the contestants from themselves). He's fascinating to watch; he projects such an aura of warmth and caring, and he's the living embodiment of the phrase "constructive criticism".

His new show is a weekly fashion makeover: helping style-challenged women find a look that works for who they are. In the "preview" episode, he dealt with a 41-year-old mother/professional (which sounded vaguely familiar) who was trying to dress much younger, with extremely embarrassing results.

She was also holding on to a dress she wore when she was 21. She had no intention of wearing it again, and it didn't even fit with the rest of her misbegotten wardrobe, but she was keeping it because it represented her youth. Tim eventually convinced her that she wouldn't move forward with The New Her until she let go of the old her, and the dress/talisman.

The show really came home to me the other day at the recycling center. The weekend before we had been cleaning out a storage shed at camp -- OK, she was cleaning; I was sorting through "my stuff" As Directed -- when we came across 2 boxes of books I've been hauling around for 10 years.

They were math textbooks, a remnant of my previous teaching career; the cliche' is "a previous life", but really not that much of an exaggeration. It was, after all, 10 years, not to mention 3 homes and 2 states. I hung onto them for so long because...

Sorry to say I'm at a loss for a punchline there. I have no idea why. It's not like I was going to wake up one day and say, "You know what? I take it all back, I really should be a teacher," although with my dearth of imagination, if I failed at this career, it's unlikely I'd be able to think up a third one.

I had also kept a lot of papers, tests, projects, and notes from my college and graduate math classes. These of course were fragile, inscribed as they were on papyrus with a quill pen dipped in the juice of crushed berries, but I looked through a few nonetheless. In so doing, I discovered something perhaps astonishing, at minimum disheartening:

I was a lot smarter back then.

I found stuff, written in my handwriting, that I had clearly understood at that time -- material that to my 2007 eyes might as well have been written in [insert incomprehensibility cliche' here]. I should hasten to add, none of the profound stuff came from my teaching career; I spent most of that teaching 0-level courses (that's a zero). I told a friend that just the other day and she said, "I didn't even know they had 0-level courses." Oh yes, yes they do; believe, and tremble.

Obviously I haven't wrestled with higher-level math for a number of years, and I'm sure that if I just immersed myself for awhile I'd be right back blah blah blah yeah sure you would.

I think maybe I spent too many years with a subscription to TV Guide, and too much time talking to 3-year-olds (and have you ever seen a Strawberry Shortcake video??? I lose 10 IQ points every time I hear the theme song). No, my friends, that ship has sailed for ever and ever.

As always, I have no intention of being unduly self-effacing. I can still count my change at the checkout, and I have held a job which requires me to interact more or less equally with fearsomely bright adults. And I do have 90+ pieces of evidence that I can write a coherent, albeit over-punctuated, English sentence in a style best described as witty-ish. But I can say with a comfortable degree of accuracy that my days of aspiring to be "intellectual" are in all likelihood past and gone.

So that's how I found myself standing in front of a dumpster (recycling container, please; I'm not trying to fill up the landfill) emptying two cardboard boxes of old texts and even older papers and notes. It became for me almost a ceremony of laying aside the past and embracing who I am now: a middle-aged guy, wife & 2 kids, good job; fairly well-read, semi-informed, not a Nobel-prize-winning mathematician... but I'd like to think smart enough from most angles.

Fall Guy

Fall is one of those typical times of transition. It's back-to-school time, a time in a lot of families where some of its members have to sort of step up and take on new responsibilities -- move on to the next level. One day you only have to focus for a few hours, 3 days a week; seemingly overnight you have to adjust to a longer day AND everyday.

I'm speaking, of course, about myself.

Since our son was born, way back in the previous millenium (!), I have been working part-time -- actually, if you're scoring along at home, there was only one two-year period (1997-99) when I worked a conventional 40-hour week, but that may be a subject for another day. I went down to 30 hours at that time; then, after our daughter was born, we moved here, and my wife went back to full-time, I dropped to 20 hours. I've been working half-time since spring '03 and spending many, many hours with the kids and/or "managing the household".

Well, the household will still need managing, I suppose -- but suddenly there are many fewer kid-hours, as my daughter is off to kindergarten. So there isn't much demand for childcare during the school day.

I then am presented with two options: (1) increase my blog-posting frequency, intensify my piano practice, maybe start exercising, and fit in an occasional nap; or (2) increase my work hours. As you can guess, both options hold a certain level of appeal. Naturally, I'm also mindful that the former alternative, with its cachet of "too much free time", is probably going to imply as well an increased emphasis on the household management aspect.

In the end, I'm choosing to be inspired by my daughter. After all, in preschool she's been going 3 days a week for an abbreviated day, and now she's stepping up to five full days a week. And... so am I. Well, not "full" in the... you know... "working full-time" sense -- but starting in a week and a half, whenever the kids are in school, I'll be squirreled away in my cave-like space toiling for the greater good of A Major Multinational Corporation.

I'm certainly not going to object to the increased paycheck, and my co-workers won't object to my increased availability: I miss a lot of meetings and trainings just because "oops, that's not one of my days in the office." Sometimes they even end up covering for me, which is just really unpleasant for all concerned.

Not only that, but do you know that sensation you get when you come back from vacation? For one thing, you have a million things to catch up on: mail, meetings you got scheduled into while you weren't looking, projects that are in a whole different place than the last you knew. But besides that, don't you get a feeling that you're starting from scratch, sorta relearning your job?

I have that sensation every week. I leave work on Thursday at 3:15 and I don't come back till Tuesday at 8 (i.e. 4 1/2 days), so Tuesday morning is always "What do I actually do, again?" time.

I'm hoping that altering my work schedule will do more than just screw up my chore schedule -- it'll enable me to maintain a little continuity and momentum, and diminish that sort of jetlagged sensation. Maybe I'll even get better at my job! After all, as one of my favorite sages wrote, "Eighty percent of success is showing up."

I'm not sure, but I think that means I'll be 32% further ahead of the game.