Happy Halloween!

The Head and the Heart...

My first day of class at William Jewell College in 1996, the professor announced that Moses and that whole 10 Commandments business never actually happened, and then assigned us to read 60 pages in a three-ring binder-of-all-binders textbook that he and another religion professor were writing together. My professor smiled, laughed and sent us on our way.

And that pretty much sums up my Jewell experience.

I was shocked at what I didn’t know about the Bible (or rather, what I had spent years asking the church about, but never received any answers for).

I was shocked when I met students from small towns and conservative backgrounds here at Jewell who thought that women couldn’t do the same thing as men, that women didn’t belong in church leadership.

I was shocked that I couldn’t have a good Christian boy in my dorm room past 10pm on weeknights, and I was shocked when that same good Christian boy (and many others after him) sent all my romantic ideals sprawling after breaking my heart.

But I was kind of naïve back then. Perhaps I still am.

I started calling God “She” at some point during my junior year at Jewell I think. I did it mostly to prove a point to my male classmates, to make them feel as estranged by the gospel as I sometimes felt. And sometimes when I would read whole passages of scripture out loud, I substituted all the “he’s” with “she’s,” but mostly that was just to drive my point home. If Jesus could be hyperbolic (remember that whole if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off story?) then so could I.

Once I got to seminary I actually got called out once by a professor for some over the top feminist comment I wrote in one of my papers. “I think you’re citing this source just to be dramatic,” he wrote in the margin. Perhaps I thought, as I flipped through my paper, noting that he gave me an “A” anyway.

I was kind of dogmatic back then. Perhaps I still am.

The world we live in is a startling place. If one thing isn’t surprising you, it’s surprising someone else. And what seems status quo to someone else is shocking the socks off you. Cause we’re all at different places on our journey and the curious part about journey is we don’t even end up at the same destination. My grandfather was baptized by immersion in my parents’ Baptist church when he was 89 years old despite the fact that he grew up in the Methodist church and continued to attend the Methodist church after his Baptist baptism. My second cousin is a UU (pronounced youyou), a Unitarian Universalist despite the fact that for years she taught on a religion faculty and called herself a Christian. A woman I went to seminary with dropped out halfway through our time there, converted to Judaism, and then married a rabbi. Albert Camus, arguably one of the greatest existential thinkers and nihilists of modern time is said to have converted to Christianity on his deathbed.

The funny thing about the journey is that we don’t all end up at the same place.

I wrote a friend once, “Do you think it’s possible to believe in Jesus but not believe in God?”

“Well,” she responded, “Most people who abandon one tend to believe in God but let go of the Jesus stuff. But you’re not most people and that’s what I love about you.”

Why am I telling you all this? Why tell the stories of those who have left the faith, confused the faith, added to the faith, subtracted from the faith? Shouldn’t Jewell have hired me to come give you clarity, insight, hope, maybe even a little God-breathed Holy Spirit?

I was asked to speak tonight about the head and the heart. How do we reconcile intellectual Christianity with emotional Christianity? Are they compatible? If so, how do we balance the two? How do they influence and inform each other?

While I enjoy speaking from a specific text and equally enjoy speaking on a given subject as both give me time to wrestle with my thoughts juxtapose them with academia, ask how that relates to my personal experiences and then wonder at the role that beauty plays in it all, this subject of “the head and the heart” really threw me for a loop.

And then I remembered something another religion professor said to me my second year at Jewell. “Christianity should be like a three-legged stool,” he said, “the Bible, your experience, and Christian tradition” (or what I would call, community) “should all three inform your faith.”

A three-legged stool.

And if we apply this head and heart thing to the stool analogy, then the head or academia would be Scripture: our stories, our laws, our literature. And the heart would of course be our experiences. And if that’s the case, then the two elements of our faith that we’re talking about tonight are insufficient in and of themselves. Using this metaphor, our stool would only have two legs.

So I turned to the text.

The Jewish shema, or Deuteronomic code, found in Deuteronomy 6 is a prayer and admonition that sums of the Torah and its teachings, sums up the law. If anyone asks a Jewish person to give a testimony of their faith in 10 seconds, this would be a possible starting place. “The LORD our God, the LORD is one,” it reads. “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

If you’ve never read Deuteronomy 6:4-9, it will at least sound familiar to you because it’s the latter half of this that Jesus cites when he is cornered by the Pharisees and others who ask, what is the greatest commandment of all. Each of the synoptic gospels records a similar response.

In Matthew, Jesus states, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (22:37). And in Mark he says, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (12:30). And in Luke 10:27 we read, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.”

As Luke 10 demonstrates, Jesus and the man talking to him, add, “Love your neighbor as yourself” to the “love your God with your heart and mind” part of the Deuteronomic code. Matthew and Mark do the same: “‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” writes Matthew (22:39). And Mark says, “‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (12:31).

In John we don’t get quite the same stories in quite the same fashion. In John, Jesus doesn’t reference the Shema, he simply tells his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34).

So in reflecting on these texts, I wonder if this whole head and heart conversation is missing something… what if it’s missing our hands? What if the question of intellect and emotion isn’t leaving out part of the equation? What if the best Christianity is practiced when it’s a combination of our heads, our hearts and our hands?

There were Jewish scholars like Nicodemus who snuck out at night to have theological conversations with Jesus. There were broken-hearted women who came to him seeking acceptance and love. There were sick, bleeding and ostracized people who needed a little dirt and spit rubbed into their wounds. And to each Jesus gave his mind, his heart and his hands.

And perhaps, so should we.

Some of us make great medical missionaries, we build houses with the best of them, we can teach sewing and farming and other sustainable economic options. We know how to use our hands.

And there are some of us who can go into the rich, white, suburban classrooms where the teenagers have everything their hearts’ desire (clothes, cars, collagen, cocaine, all the best colleges calling on the phone) and offer those teenagers hope, that indeed, despite all their stuff, stuff that will eventually expire, there is grace, that indeed, there is a God who loves them apart from it all, loves them as they are with or without the purse, with or without their ability to perform.

And there are some of us who can look at the night sky and name all the stars and constellations and clusters, and give a name to the Wonder who created them.

The hands, the heart, and the head. Some of us are better at one over another, but truthfully, we need all three to survive. And it’s all three that Jesus asks us to engage.

Love the Lord your God will all your heart and mind, and love your neighbor. Love God with everything that you are, and take care of the people around you.

Your heart, your head and your hands. I don’t know where you’ll end up if you engage all three. I can’t quite even tell you where my faith will lead me. All I can do is remind you to be gentle with one another, for you never know where your neighbor is in the head, heart, and hands journey. And be gentle with yourself too. The world is a scary, shocking place, and if you haven’t discovered that the world will hurt you, you will soon enough, and you will discover that you do your fair share of hurting others too. But with a balance of our heads, our hearts, and our hands, we stand a better chance of being the whole and healthy people God longs for us to be…

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and for heaven’s sake, love your neighbor as yourself.

Deo Fisus Labora.

Rev. Ann Pittman

William Jewell College "Mosaic"

October 27, 2011

When Americans Occupy

When Americans occupy Wall Street or anywhere for that matter, it is unclear to me why is it okay for this to happen. Aren't we supposed to be a civilized nation? Why is it okay to treat our own citizens like this?

Can someone please explain to me why this is happening?

Furthermore, I have a question for rich people.

Perhaps it is okay for you to oppress your fellow Americans. To call us names and tell us if we just had more drive, a greater perseverance, we could be wealthy too; to ask us to bear the burdon of the tax load while your second and third vacation home gets off scot free, but in the grand scheme of things, keep in mind that someday you may be held accountable for all of this: for the way you treated us when we tried to exercise our right to freedom of assembly and our right to petition the government. And in the grand scheme of things, keep in mind that we, the American poor, we the American middle class, we the American upper middle class, are the 1% ourselves. So what does that make you compared to this...

Shame. On. Us. All.

500 Words

The heart breaking makes a sound, I never knew could be so beautiful and loud, fury filled and we… collide.

The heart breaking makes a sound.

Sometimes it’s loud, like a freight train’s horn as it rattles by you sitting in your car facing the tracks. Sometimes it’s softer like the sound of your roommate’s glasses under your left foot when you jump from the top bunk to the floor.

Loud or soft, it makes a sound.

It’s nice when it’s loud. You hear it, and your professor hears it, and your mother, and even your 82-year-old grandfather who won’t wear his hearing aides hears it. And this is comforting. Most everyone will give you space to pick up the pieces… grief has struck and everyone knows it takes time to put your heart back together.

When the sound is softer, managing our hearts becomes a little trickier. We may not even recognize that the crack, that little pain, those wide eyes with the fluttering lids symbolize the breaking of our hearts, our ideals, our paradigms… ourselves.

I did a lot of laughing when I came to Jewell. I loved, loved, loved college and my gluttony for this new chapter of life was not without cause. I was getting a great education, making fabulous friends, eating delicious desserts at every meal…

But for as much as I loved my first year at Jewell, it did not pass without a tear or two. For “Responsible Self” I turned in a reflective essay to Dr. Walters at the end of the semester: a 17 page, size 9 font, personal novella about my struggles (sorry Mark!).

Life which had seemed so fun to explore, so easy to discern, so manageable became convoluted, complicated, and more confusing the further away from home I traveled.

You know what I mean.

You watch 60+ wild, beautiful animals killed after their owner set them loose and then committed suicide; you see the rebellions in Libya, Egypt, Syria, the cost of which we hope is worth the freedom; you read about the middle class marching on Wall Street and beyond, not welfare families, but people like us seeking justice in this shallow, selfish economy; the 13^th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death passes and you know we’re still not done hating the gays; and to top it all off, you can hear your suitemate throwing up her food every night and you struggle whether or not to tell someone.

The heart breaking makes a sound, I never knew could be so beautiful and loud, fury filled and we… collide.

Take hope.

The God who gives us the Ozarks and cherry pie and Arrested Development is the same God who gave Abraham a promise, the Hebrews manna, and Israel a Messiah. God has not left us without hope. The Spirit moves among us like a crisp breeze, breathing sustenance into fatigue and life into death. And we… collide… with God.

And in that collision the depravity and the divinity get all jumbled together and we begin to see it all is sacred so long as God is with us on the journey. So long as God is at home in our hearts.

Amen.

Rev. Ann Pittman

William Jewell College Chapel

October 26, 2011

Grandpa's Eulogy

It will be the past


and we'll live there together.



Not as it was to live


but as it is remembered.



It will be the past.


We'll all go back together.



Everyone we ever loved,


and lost, and must remember.



It will be the past.


And it will last forever. ("Heaven" by Patrick Phillips)

In my first memories of my grandfather, he is always outside. He is on a tractor mowing acres of grass on a farm in Minnesota. He is reeling back and casting into a lake to pull out a fish much bigger in his imagination. He is sitting in a chair on a porch or in a garden watching my grandmother pick green beans off a vine or maybe raspberries off a bush. He is emerging from cornfields with the husks waving high above even his head. He is on a beach in Hawaii in a photo he’s brought back to Missouri; he’s reading a book on a beach. He is outside, living.

"This is what you shall do,” Walt Whitman once wrote. “Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

My grandfather was outside living.

He gave me some fossils when I was a little girl, some old fossils I suppose he had kept in his science classroom, but once retired, he passed on these little treasures in an old cigar box: a leaf imprinted in stone, a piece of petrified wood, and I kept those fossils in the cigar box and in my bedroom knowing that they connected me not only to my grandfather who loved science and nature and this beautiful world we live in, but they connected me to something much greater, much older, much bigger than even he or I could imagine… they connected me to the Creator.

My grandfather was outside living. But he didn’t just love the land, he loved animals too. I’ve heard stories of the farm in Minnesota and raccoons you could pet, and domesticated ducks named Ike and Mayme, and the old black and white photos of some cat grandpa loved, or Liza who used to lay at his feet near his favorite chair. My Aunt Milly describes the critters that were always kept around the house or in the yard or in Grandpa’s classroom: little mice, salamanders, guinea pigs, snakes and all kinds of interesting things. I can remember as a child, driving back up to the farm from Missouri to Minnesota, if ever we would spot a turtle alongside the road, my grandpa would pull the car over, get out to inspect it, and if it wasn’t a snapping turtle, we were often allowed to keep it, or at the very least play with it for a few minutes in the tall grass alongside the highway.

My grandfather father spent much time living outside and much time living outside himself.

Maybe it was his understanding of science and nature that summoned forth a reverence for the Creator of all things. Maybe it was his sense of connection to all things created, the handiwork of God that inspired his faith. But my grandfather was a faithful man, a man who lived outside himself.

“We’ll take the bill,” I can hear my grandpa announcing to the waitress, loud enough that my mom and dad could hear and later loud enough that I could hear so that none of us would be tempted to lay a hand on the little white slip of paper that would be delivered to the table where we were dining. He was insistent on providing for his family, not because he was the man of the house or out of some acquiesce to a sensationalized gender role, but because he adored his family, because he wanted to make sure that we were all cared for, that we knew we were loved and supported.

His prayers would have been enough though.

“I’m praying for you,” he said to me almost every time I would leave or arrive in St. Joseph for a holiday or vacation. “I’m praying for you,” and I knew he was, more than I (the minister) was praying for him, I’m sure. Even the last time I saw him, when he could barely speak and rarely would put his teeth in which made communication even more difficult, he said to me, and I could understand him, “I’m praying for you.” I can remember my grandpa praying, years ago, at the table in his dining room on Sunday afternoons when we would gather for lunch after church. He would pray for all of those who weren’t with us there in that moment, wherever they were. And I knew he was talking about John and Ardys in Duluth and Ann and John in Honolulu and Milly and Mike and my cousins in Columbia and especially my aunt Gloria in Hawaii. Sometimes he would cry when he came to this part in the prayer. And I never knew why someone would cry right before lunch in the middle of the afternoon. At that time in my life I didn’t understand what it meant to do something you loved, to be somewhere you were called, even if that meant leaving the family you needed. But my grandpa understood that. And while he always wanted each of us to be happy, he voiced in his prayer the desire that all of us would be together in spirit, wherever we were.

His prayers would have been enough, but that’s not all he gave us.

Grandpa loved each one of his children and grandchildren exactly as we are. This kind of love should be a fine art. To allow another person to be fully themselves and to love them without expectation or judgment is a rare trait to find. In a world that spends so much time telling women and men to be skinny, athletic, successful, one-of-a-kind, valuing independence and perfection while at the same time pushing us all toward one generic prototype, we as a people have forgotten what it means to live communally, to live as the body of Christ letting the hand be the hand and the large intestine be the large intestine. J In a world that would rather report on what multi-millionaire just got married instead of what mother just worked three jobs to put her kid through college, my grandfather never asked anything of any of us other than that we be ourselves.

He was so careful to tell every one of us that we were loved. And he always treated people with respect and dignity. My cousin Ruth writes, “One thing that comes to my mind when I think about Grandpa is how he always seemed to accept me as I was. No matter what color my hair was or what crazy trend I was into, he always treated me with love and kindness. I remember when I was a teenager someone in the family commented negatively on how I was wearing my hair. Grandpa jumped in to stand up for me and said (in a matter of fact tone) ‘Well I like it how it is!’” J Similarly, my youngest sister, Emily recalls, “Every time I left grandpa he was always sure to tell me to ‘keep doing what you're doing!’ and would always let me know just how proud he was.”

And my grandfather was nothing if not forthright. While he didn’t always say much, if he had something on his mind, you can bet he was going to say it. And in a family full of Maker women, I suppose you’d have to learn how to be heard. My father recalls one of the first times he was having dinner with the Maker family. Of course, he joined my grandfather as the only man at the table. And as my grandma and the three daughters chattered on and on about the day and school and dinner, my father describes watching my grandpa ask for someone to please pass the butter. Being on the far end of the table, my father couldn’t reach the butter to pass it to his future-father-in-law, and being new, he didn’t feel it proper to tell one of the girls to listen to their dad. But grandpa kept asking and the Maker women kept right on talking until finally my grandpa shouted, “I said, ‘Pass the butter!’ Dagnabbit!” J As my Grandfather grew older and communication became even more difficult, we discovered that Grandpa only spoke when he felt like something was really worth saying. Usually this too was at the dinner table... and often had no relevance to the conversation at hand because my grandfather couldn’t hear well, and was pesky about putting his hearing aides in. So while the rest of the family would be discussing the price of sweet corn or the new candidate who just joined the political race, my grandfather would suddenly bellow out, “Are you keeping Austin weird, Ann?”

“Yes Grandpa, I’m keeping Austin weird.”

“Good, I’m praying for you.”

His prayers would have been enough, but that’s not all he gave us.

For a while in the late nineties I think, my grandfather began wearing a little gold angel on his lapel. Like the politicians who speak mindlessly from their podiums about liberty and freedom with their little flags pinned to their jackets, so did my grandpa wear his angel, but thoughtfully, to remind him of who he was and who was in control. One afternoon when I was home from college one weekend, he gave me and my sisters little gold crosses on clunky gold chains. The necklaces were not delicate or fancy, but then again, neither is the gospel, and I think my grandpa knew that. He knew the unending generosity of God and that too much generosity, too much compassion, too much truth-telling eventually led Christ to the cross. And handing us those crosses was his way of handing us his faith. A man of few words but a great many actions, the cross was a symbol of the lifestyle my grandfather had chosen and the faith he hoped we too would embrace, wear around our necks, lay against our hearts. I’m wearing that necklack today.

My grandfather touched many people’s lives. Beyond his wife and his three daughters and their partners and his eight grandchildren and little Jacob his great-grandson, my grandfather touched the lives of students over the years, of people at the church and in his Sunday School class, friends at the senior center and the archaeology society.

My Aunt Gloria tells of how proud she was that the city of St. Joseph called her father, “the expert” when dinosaur bones were found nearby. My grandfather’s expertise and compassion and inclusivity touched the lives of many people.

And we all touch each other in so many different ways. Sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. Marge Piercy in her poem, The Tao of Touch writes:

What magic does touch create

that we crave it so. That babies


do not thrive without it. That 


the nurse who cuts tough nails


and sands calluses on the elderly 


tells me sometimes men weep


as she rubs lotion on their feet.
…


We touch each other so many


ways, in curiosity, in anger,


to command attention, to soothe,


to quiet, to rouse, to cure. 


Touch is our first language


and often, our last as the breath


ebbs and a hand closes our eyes.

We all touch each other in so many different ways literally and figuratively. And that’s part of the great choice we are faced with in this world. What difference will we make? Who will we be? How will we treat others?

When asked what the greatest of all commandments was, how the law, the all encompassing life of the Jewish people could be summarized, Christ answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

And so as we go forth from this sanctuary today honoring not only a man but our memories. Those memories are testimonies to the life my grandfather led. He lived life abundantly under the influence of Christ’s sacrificial, all encompassing love. And it is abundant life, that is offered to us as well (John 10:10). The life my grandfather embraced was a life in love with God and a life that loved God’s people, no matter who they were.

May we too inherit the legacy of living life outside and living outside ourselves… Amen.

Murdock Robert (Bob) Maker, may he rest in peace

It will be the past

and we'll live there together

Not as it was to live

but as it is remembered.

It will be the past.

We'll all go back together.

Everyone we ever loved,

and lost, and must remember.

It will be the past.

And it will last forever.

My grandfather, Bob Maker, passed away last Sunday, October 9, 2011. He was a really wonderful (if occasionally grumpy) man and he will be missed. I mean who will we warn not to eat the popery at Christmas? ("It's not a cinnimon stick, Grandpa!")

The obituary that he wrote himself is pretty great if, as my mother said, a little exaggerated. :) You can read it in the St. Joseph News Press Gazette. His other obituary was published in the Lake Crystal Tribune, but they don't have a website for that up there in rural Minnesota. His funeral will be Sunday October 23rd at 3:30pm at Huffman United Methodist Church in St. Joseph, MO. I and Rev. Jacobs have the honor of officiating the service.

This is a great picture of my Grandpa and Grandma here in Austin (at Threadgill's) in 2006. It was his birthday...

...And this is my favorite picture of the Maker family because it's how I remember everyone from when I was a kid.

I fly home on Saturday and expect it to be a very fun, if weepy, time of celebration. That man had life, spunk and a little spit in him! What an amazing person my grandpa was...

(initial poem titled "Heaven" and written by Patrick Phillips)

One Year Later

Summer sunlight

glitters on the water.

Sweet colors of fall

drift down and land

on my new woodpile.

Winter is full of snow

and cold, but inside

the woodstove glows.

Then spring again

Our lives pass away.

It's been one year since I quit my professional job, and to be a self-employed actor, writer, speaker and... nanny.

One year.

One year ago, I wrote this blog which began... "the day my job ended, I flew to Disney World..."

And one year later, I flew back. I ran/walked my second 5K through animal kingdom (and as this year I was prepared, I ran as the Red Queen of Hearts from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland).

However, I passed on the offer to yet again run 5 miles later that evening as part of the Wine & Dine Half Marathon Relay. I gave explicit instructions to Sam and Lynnette to protect me should my adrenaline rush or any euphoria from the Magic Kingdom delude me into agreeing to do so (because I knew the Davidsons would play paper/rock/scissors for who would run that night and I knew I'd get volunteered!). While Lindley seemed less enthused about her run this year in the kids races (I guess Disney isn't always the "happiest" place on earth), the rest of the weekend was a blast and I love spending time with the oogly Ogles and the definitely a little cray cray Davidson family. Thanks again guys for including me in your family reunion. Being adopted by families is the best.

One year ago to gain steady (ahem) income I began nannying for one of my best friends who had beat cancer just a few months earlier... so we thought. But cancer's a bitch, and it came back with a vengeance as you may remember. One year later though and my friend beat cancer a second time and survived her bone marrow transplant and just last week (Wednesday Sept 28th to be exact) she found out that her scans were clean! I gave her a necklace that evening that I'd bought for her with wishful thinking at the Pecan Street Festival the Sunday before. It read, "I Kicked Cancer's Ass." Awesome. And she did.

One year ago I got my first boyfriend (you knew it was coming) since I don't know, like 2008. He was pretty swell, and I did love him dearly. Relationships are hard though, and one year later, we were done with that one. (Yes, I kept the nose ring).

One year ago I began auditioning in and around Austin to begin pursuing an acting (dare I say it?) career. At my second audition I was cast as Eva Peron in Evita, at my seventh audition, I was cast in the chorus of Stop the World I Want to Get Off at my first professional theatrical performance since 1997, and at my twentieth audition, I was cast as Amalia in She Loves Me which opens November 18th with the Wimberley Players. Theater is hard work and despite multiple callbacks, several "we hope to work with you in the future," and even one "wow, you have a wonderful voice, now could you sing that again and pretend to be a gazelle being chased by a lion," 17 rejections is still a lot of rejections. Fortunately, I've been doing theater for over 26 years (my first voice-over was for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I was six years old). And I've directed, produced, and choreographed multiple shows in those 29 years and I know that not being cast is (usually) nothing personal. The director has a vision, and you either fit it or you don't. So I keep looking to mesh my dream with someone else's... and three times in one year, that happened. I consider myself a pretty lucky woman.

One year ago I committed myself to more writing, more speaking, more... creating. I called it Operation Strange Bird and since then, I started an author fan page on Facebook (please *like* me!). I flew to Santa Fe to officiate my best friend's wedding. I flew to Colorado and wrote a book (which I promptly decided was horrible). And I flew to Guatemala to speak at a pastor's conference in Queltzaltenango (funded entirely by Crazy Carol Pittman, the Missouri Baptist Convention and the Guatemalan Baptist Convention) about art & faith (feel free to read my notes on storytelling and claiming beauty). It was an amazing (if short) trip and I learned so much and met some freaking amazing like the little girl whose toes were eaten off by rats. I wrote almost every day for 30 days taking the Trust Me Ralph Waldo Emerson challenge. I started writing more openly about my view on politics especially with regard to it's interaction with the church and religion. I preached at a church here in Austin (read the sermon if you want), and October 26 & 27 I will preach at my Alma mater, William Jewell College! I sang at a gala and in churches and for funerals and was hired to officiate a second wedding via a "need a minister?" website reference. I met with a very gifted Internet guru who people would have paid thousands of dollars to get an audience with to talk about a Strange Bird website. All in all, while no one is beating down my door to hear me preach or dying to front me money for a book deal, I am making progress. Baby steps, they say.

In the past year, I've gone home to Missouri four times. Wow! (Thanksgiving, Christmas, for my vacation and when my grandpa got sick). And I'll be home again in a few weeks (when I speak at Jewell) and again at Christmas. I LOVE MY FAMILY! Going home is awesome. I wish everyone could do it more often.

To help pay the mortgage (because nannying, acting, and preaching aren't terribly lucrative), I rented out my second bedroom, thank goodness, because the month I quit my job, my roommate told me she was moving back to Houston. This was great for her, but scary timing for me. Since then I've welcomed three more amazing women to 5406 (and had to say goodbye too) and one year later (tomorrow in fact), two more roomies will move in (I hope they like Halloween!...).

Like you, I said goodbye to a decade, and on 1-1-11 I remembered the past and I mondo beyondo-ed the future. I learned how to live life apart from the church and the church learned to live without me :) In general, I wrote a little and thought a lot. I had very little money and just enough money. I gave much away (mostly books) and took much in (mostly beauty). My faith has broadened as the less secure I felt, the more I depended on God. And my friends, well, I made lots of new ones: Hildreth, Wendy, Taylor, Angela... and I was reminded that sometimes you get by with a little help from friends, and sometimes... with a lot of help. Thank you Chris & Michelle, Lynnette & Sam, Cathy & Ken, Josie & Jay, Jane & Bill, and Bethany, Amy, Melanie, Nicolette, and all the others...

What a year, one year later.

("Our Lives Pass Away" by David Budbill)

Happy Birthday, Carol!

Hey everyone, it's my mom's birthday!

I won't tell you how old she is (mostly cause I don't want to do the math), but she's still a cutie, eh? She's a retired French and Latin teacher who now works part-time as a children's minister at the church I grew up in. She's been married to my dad for over 40 years (yeah, I didn't want to add those numbers up either). And together, they make a pretty sweet couple.

Carol loves art museums, traveling, reading, theater, jewelry, going to the pool, eating delicious food, going to movies, and cooking (or if she doesn't, she sure does it a lot). She also loves my grandparents whom she helps take care of. Here they are last month at their sixty-something-th wedding anniversary. Whoa.

And if that weren't enough, she also loves her three daughters...

But really, who wouldn't?

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Thinking and Other Fun Things

I like interesting videos. Especially ones that make my mind go places it hasn't gone before. So today's post is merely a post of interesting videos I've watched lately. Most of them come via my friend who used to write haikus. Scan thru them and see if there's one or two that interest you...

This first one is a video posted by an Australian TV show that recruits ad agencies to sell "things" people would never really sell or buy for that matter like say "An invasion on New Zealand" or as this episode shows, "A Ban On All Religion." Wow. While I (and most of them) obviously think this is a horrible idea (and an assault on human rights), it was interesting to me to see the two angles the ad agencies took to "sell" this "product." Check it out...

This second is spoof on one of my favorite movies of all time, originally owned on VHS (though I do lack the DVD version - for shame!). It is the opening scene of Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast as told by a gay man. It is titled "Bonjour, Girl."

And then there's the counterpart, "Advice for Young Girls From The Little Mermaid" by Second City. Or what a feminist hears when she hears Ariel sing. "My best feature is my voice so I sold it for plastic surgery :)"

This final set of videos arrived in my inbox the same day that I posted my thoughts on literalism and the Adam & Eve story. I guess evolution was in the air. The first video is the Miss USA 2011 contestants and their responses to the question, "Should evolution be taught in schools?" The second is a spoof of this legitimate (if startling video) titled, "Should math be taught in schools?"

Because the first video is long, I'll recap for you...

• Best Response: Miss Vermont.
• Worst Response: Miss Georgia even though, yes, "we're smarter than ever these days."
• Dumbest Response: Miss Indiana who thinks we should leave the decision "up to the government... leave [evolution] out of the equation." We don't understand what you mean either.
• Most Ridiculous Response: Miss Kentucky who said, "You can't ever have too much knowledge on any subject but I do feel evolution shouldn't be taught in schools." Are you even listening to yourself.
• Miss Missouri: I got bored. You don't represent me. Quit being so wishy washy and SHOW ME what you're made of.
• Miss Texas: Really? Science is just "something extra for kids to know about"? Obviously the heat has messed with your brain.
• And Miss Hawaii... What is "creationtism"?

The spoof is short. But awesome.

Enjoy!

Donde Esta Yogi the Bear?

Or maybe it's Smokey the Bear. Somebody the Bear. We need somebody to help us bear this burden.

The fires in Texas, specifically in and around Austin are awful.

Just. Awful.

And super scary.

Friends keep calling and texting and messaging me, "Are you okay?" and "I know you tend to freak out anyway, so I can't imagine you in a natural disaster..." or "Is it near you?"

I and my home are okay, for right now, but fires are dangerous. This video is 50 seconds long. Look how much ground the fire covers in 50 seconds.

The fires here have been burning for 3 days.

We've lost (at the latest report) all but 100 acres of Bastrop State Park. That was one of the only shaded hiking parks in the central Texas area. A very unique place. Gone. Well, the park's gone. But the fire isn't. Check out this website showing where the current fires are located in Texas. And this one shows the smoke concentrations. The news reported that astronauts in the space station can see the Bastrop fire smoke.

So can we.

That is Austin's downtown skyline (yesterday) taken from Mount Bonnell in West Austin.

The last report I heard said that over 700 homes had been affected (destroyed) by the fire. The human casualty list is very low (only 2 dead I think), which is good, but it's still a really sad, sad story.

Here's a picture from today...

Crazy. You can't imagine what it's like driving on the highway, going to work or coming home from the grocery store and seeing the smoke.

The major parts of Austin that have been hit are Steiner Ranch (where many really rich West Austiners live), Bastrop as I mentioned, Leander, and today we added a fire on Parmer near Mopac.

The amount of land that has been burned by fire in Texas this year is equivalent to the state of Connecticut. CONNECTICUT. What? What's worse, our govenor, Rick Perry (who is running for President), cut funding to our fire departments 75% this year. Yep, this was not helpful. FEMA, please come quick.

On the other side of scary though, people are being so generous. We've had volunteer fire fighters, Bastrop had to evacuate an animal shelter, I've seen posts by people on FB offering up stalls on farms for people who are trying to figure out what to do with their horses, people opening homes and bedrooms, it's really great. And Facebook has been wonderful for that.

If you want to know how to help, there are lots of places to look...

If you live in the area...

• Austin Pets Alive has most of the animals who were in the Bastrop shelter. Foster an animal!
• KUT lists where you can donate items for victims of the fires. So does KVUE. (I've heard the firefighters need socks). My friend (and former student!) Anna Taylor made a google map of all the places you can donate stuff. You go girl.
• The Distribution Center for displaced people in Bastrop has been calling for volunteers. So contact them if you're free.
• And you can help by feeding firefighters Wednesday 3:30-6:30 at the Bastrop Civic Center too!
• Or if you own a business, how can you help others? U-Haul is offering 30 days of free storage for fire victims!

Or you can call or donate money to...

• The Austin Disaster Relief Network
• or the American Red Cross of Texas
• or the Central Texas Fire Relief Emergency Fund.

Additionally, you don't have to be in the area, but there's a call out for lawyers too. If you can take calls and help answer victims questions, contact delaine@austinbar.org.

Overall, the Facebook Central Texas Wildfire Recovery page seems to be really helpful for people wanting to help :)

So that's the scoop. I'm fine, but others are not.

Elderly Protesting

I'm kind of obsessed with elderly (or at least old-er people) who protest.

I admit, I google image them.

But look at these people?! Don't you just want to be their friend?

Cause I do.

On Adam & Eve, Or Why No One Would Be Shocked If We Could Read From Left to Right

Adam and Eve weren't real people.

Why?

The Bible tells us so.

Let me back up.

Recently published by NPR, this article discusses the Evangelical trend of late in "not believing" Adam and Eve were real people. Evidence cited relies heavily on science (mapping the human genome and evolution) to which the rest of the world (non-literalist, non-Evangelicals) says, "Duh."

I too say, "duh," but I don't need to be a scientist or take a biology class or even read scientific articles or to know that.

All I have to do is read left to right.

And so do you.

Which means that anyone completing, I don't know, how about the second grade, should be able to tell biblical literalists that Adam and Eve aren't read people. Because "the Bible tells me so."

Here's why. Get out your Bible.

Genesis Chapter One starts off with a void and then we get some order and God makes a bunch of stuff in a fairly systematic way, it's even ordered systematically: Day One... light... it was good. Day Two... sky... it was good. Day Three... seas and plants... it was good. Etc. You get the picture. And the pictures of Days 1-6 were probably hanging up all over your Sunday School classroom as a kid. Super.

Fast forward (Day Four: sun & stars, Day Five: animals & birds) to Day Six when God creates humanity. I'll go ahead and cite this directly instead of just summarizing so we're all on the same page...

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Okay, Day six, God created humanity (italics mine): male and female it says (i.e. both genders) at the same time. Hmm. Cool. Day Six: humanity. And while we don't know how many men and how many women, humanity is definitely plural. And just to make sure we get it, the text says, "Men and Women God created them."

(P.S. This will be an general overview of Genesis 1-4 for the purposes stated above; if you're wondering about stuff like "let us make humankind in our image" that will require another blog. Or hire me to come speak, teach or lecture on the topic of Creation or Genesis at your church, school, or convention!)

Day 7: God takes a nap (that's a Pittman paraphrase).

Then Genesis 2:1 says, "Thus the heaven's and the earth were finished..." and the reader recognizes the story drawing to a close. God takes a breather (It's exhausting being that powerful - have you seen Harry Potter?!). And it's a good - pardon me - very good story.

But then in Genesis 2:4 we read, "These are the generations of the heaven and earth when they were created." Okay, I know, the reader thinks. I just read that.

But then a new story starts. Or starts over maybe.

And all of the sudden we're back at the beginning when nothing existed and we find ourself reading, yep, you guessed it, a second creation story.

Again, to let you read the text directly...

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So we appear to have started over. And the chronology of this creation story doesn't match the first one. Remember the first one? Really organized, right? (Day One: light, Day Two: sky, Day Three: vegetation, Day Four: celestial beings, Day Five: living creatures, Day Six: humanity). Well this second creation account tells the story a little differently. If we had to ascribe an order (though the text doesn't lend itself well to that) it might be: 1. Water (Streams & Rivers) 2. A Man 3. Trees and then here's the rest of the text

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LordGod caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

So we add 4. Animals 5. A Woman to our list.

Wow. That sounds nothing like the first creation story we just read. I mean there are some similarities; God is in both stories, trees and animals are in both stories, people are in both stories, but that's about where the similarities end.

And my two lists... Day 1-6 (From Genesis 1:1-2:4) and Events 1-5 (From Genesis 2:4-22) are neither in the same order, or (based on what God says) created for the same reasons.

How do I know this? Because I can read from left to right.

Please note that I have thrown in nothing that the average 2nd grade reader could not tell you.

I haven't mentioned that the word for "God" used all the way through Genesis 1:1-2:4 is "Elohim" or that in Genesis 2:5 the word for God changes to "Yahweh" which is used for the remainder of the chapter and several of the following chapters. Neither have I told you that the groups of Israelites who used these separate words for God lived hundreds of years apart. Neither have I mentioned that the group of people who called God "Elohim" were priests who loved order and systematized theology and probably would have read the first Genesis account in worship kind of like you recite the Lord's Prayer or the Apostle's Creed. Neither have I told you that the people group who called God "Yahweh" lived during the exile when all the things God promised them like a land and a people and a Temple (remember Abraham and those promises a little later in Genesis?) are all gone and they have to find God somewhere else. Lo and behold, they find God in their hearts! God was with them all along! God is not in a land or living in a Temple, God is with us - hallelujah! So in the creation story they write, God is with Adam and Eve on the earth. God walks. God talks. God makes a mud pie. God is "immanent." God is with the people.

I didn't tell you all the things I would have told you if I was teaching a class on Genesis 1-2. All you had to do was read the Bible yourself, from left to right. TWO STORIES. And any literate second grader could have told you that.

So what does it mean then when NPR reports that Evangelicals can "no longer believe the Genesis account?" "No longer believe it?" I want to ask. "Why not?" If the people who put the book of Genesis together (And no, Moses didn't write the Torah i.e. Genesis thru Deuteronomy. That'd be pretty miraculous considering he dies in Deuteronomy. Again, please put two and two together by reading left to right) intentionally put two creation stories right next to each other, then maybe the point of the story(ies) is not the literal how (order of creation, how long it took, etc.) the world was created.

And if that's not the point then we need to ask some new questions.

Like, "What do the creation stories teach me about God?" "What do they teach me about God's relationship with men and women? What do they teach me about how I should treat the world God created? What do they teach me about the purpose of existence?" In which case, based on what you answer these questions with, the statement "no longer believe the Genesis account" takes on new meaning. Do I "believe" what the Genesis creation stories teach me about God? Well, they teach me that God was so powerful that merely speaking a word made life come into existence (1st creation story), they teach me that God loves me so much that God got down in the dirt and created me with His own hands (2nd creation story)! They teach me that God is sovereign, powerful, and kind of freaking awesome (1st creation story) but not so cool that God can't come on down here to earth and be with me and talk through things with me (2nd creation story). Do I believe Adam and Eve were real people? No. Do I believe the Genesis accounts? Yes.

But maybe you don't. Okay, so let's keep going. I call this section "Further Proof That Adam & Eve Don't Exist Thanks to My Ability to Read From Right to Left."

So according to the second creation story which keeps going (it's several chapters long), Adam and Eve get pregnant and have a son. Aw... so sweet. And then they have another son. And we begin to read about the first nuclear family. Super. I just love it when people get married and have babies and live happily ever after.

Except this family doesn't. Sibling rivalry rears its ugly head even in a family who's parents got to freakin' walk and talk with God Herself in the God (except God is described as male in Genesis 2, but I like to be inclusive). These two kids, Cain and Able are like PKs on steroids. And one thing leads to another and Cain murders his brother, Able.

And tries to pretend like it doesn't happen.

I'll let you read it for yourself...

Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.’ Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.’ And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

God, being God, knows exactly what happened, but here in this story God tries to give Cain a little grace and let him fess up to what he did. He doesn't. So God calls him out on it. And then, realizing that you can't hide from God, Cain starts to freak out. "My punishment is more than I can bear! I'll be a vagrant, I'll be like those men who stand with a cardboard sign underneath I35. It'll be awful. And anyone who meets me may kill me!" Yes, this is a very flawed world we live in where eye for an eye is still the preferred road toward reconciliation. But that's not the point. The point is, anyone who meets me might kill me... anyone who meets me... anyone. Anyone? If we take this creation story by itself (i.e. skip Genesis One) and if we read it literally, then anyone is only Cain's parents, right? A literalist has to say that anyone would be only Mom and Dad, Eve and Adam. But that's obviously not who Cain is referring to. He speaks of being exiled and being afraid that his past, his story, will follow him and people won't want a murderer living among them. His life is in danger from other people in the world.

Hmm.

And here's the second major setback for literalists. If they can find someway to get past two creation stories, now they have to get past Four people becoming three people becoming lots of people populating other cities.

And a second grader could tell you either the author didn't know what she was writing, or there's some other point to the story.

Again, I didn't point out that the early Israelites were shepherds and in a battle between shepherds and farmers (if you are the shepherd and you're telling the story) who would you say God would favor (i.e. who's offering would God like the most). Neither did I point out that the first few chapters of Genesis reflect lots of similar etiological explanations (Why don't snakes have legs? Why is childbirth painful? Why do we raise sheep? Why do people speak lots of different languages? Where did the rainbow come from? Etc.) Neither did I mention that there are several other very similar creation stories pre-dating the second creation story with slight variances. And I didn't mention that the slight variances the Israelites probably put on those stories - and retelling them as their own - have major theological significance (ex: in the Babylonian creation myth, humanity was created to be servants to the gods - the Israelites re-tell the story claiming humanity was created at the climax of God's creative genius and God called us very good). I didn't do any cultural exegesis of the text or delve into the Hebrew language or anything. I just read from left to right. And that's all anyone has to do to understand that the people who put the Bible together (inspired by God) didn't mean for Adam and Eve to be read as real people. They didn't put these stories next to each other for us to choose to triumph one over the other. And they didn't mean for them to be scientific evidence of the creation of the world.

Are you with me?

So when NPR quotes Fuzale Rana as saying "I think this is going to be a pivotal point in Church history because what rests at the very heart of this debate is whether or not key ideas within Christianity are ultimately true or not," I'd have to ask, what do you mean by true? Because the truth I ascertain from these two creation accounts and their subsequent stories is not how the world was literally created. That truth isn't even offered. Unless of course you're referring to how the world was created in a different way... i.e.... how it was created in love, in tenderness, in a very colorful, creative way. And if that's what you mean by truth, then NO, I don't think science is a threat to key ideas within Christianity. Because it isn't science's job to interpret events, only we can do that. And through storytelling and imagination, the early religious leaders put together the stories their people had collected about the beginning of the world and beyond, and finally in written form, these stories were passed on and on and on and eventually to us.

So let's do these ancient texts the service of reading them. From left to right. And over and over again. And let's stop talking about whether or not the earth was created in 6 days and whether or not Adam and Eve were real people. Their stories are real in our hearts and our minds as we do our best to walk with God here and now.

And that, indeed is very good.