Women of the ELCA

In her book Listen with the Heart, Sister Joan Chittister writes that The Rule of Benedict “does not ask for stringent penances during Lent. Benedict asks that we ‘withdraw some food and add some reading.’ The relationship is clear: Lent is the time for filling ourselves with ideas that will nourish the soul in the way that nothing else can.”

What a great idea – I’m always ready to add some reading to my schedule!

Since last fall, I’ve joined two book groups, so I’m already doing a lot of reading; but this Lent I’ve been reading Fragments of Your Ancient Name by Joyce Rupp, sitting with the daily meditations that Rupp offers.

Sister Joan Chittister also notes that by calling for more reading, Benedict is “calling for change, not invariability. The spiritual life is a process of growth, not a checklist of religious activities.”

There are any number of books I’ve read that have challenged me, provoked me, brought me to a new place. Yes, books are a companion for me in my spiritual life, moving me and moving with me in a process of growth.

Have you added reading to your Lenten discipline? What books have pushed you to change? What books have helped you grow in your spiritual life?

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A lot of people are upset about Pastor Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived because in it, he says that he doesn’t think God has condemned all the billions who never heard of Jesus Christ or the millions who heard of him but failed to believe.

I am reminded of a young, quasi-Buddhist friend who is convinced the “church” is nearing the end of its arc of relevance. I wonder how right she may be …

Have we followers of the triune God forced God into too small of a space? Is it possible that God is so huge and grand that there are God-plans that we have not been made privy to?

And if the answer to those questions could be “yes,” what does that say about our faith?

The Jesus I have come to know has amazing forbearance for the sincerely ignorant (and that would include me on many days) and is also sorrowful and reproving toward the belligerently sure and satisfied (that would also be me on my other days). So, I admit, I do not have a corner on understanding what God is all about.

I have a really hard time seeing Jesus in some of what is being said by many so-called Christians today (are you listening, Glenn Beck?). I don’t see the compassion of Christ in the American exceptionalist movement claiming divine guidance, which is how Mary Beth Norton, a professor of American history at Cornell University, describes an element of the Tea Party movement.

Church attendance in mainline denominations continues to decrease. Is the church age coming to some kind of sputtering finale not foretold in our holy writ? Or, is the church transitioning into something more?

I confess I am so spiritually needy that I have no other option than to follow Jesus. He captured me with only a corner of his eye and I have remained spellbound ever since. I have been compelled to seek him. Since that time I first felt the hem of his garment, I have been tripping after him. He called my name and I have been calling his name daily, if not moment-by-moment.

I just wish I could see him more when people claim him—you know?

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Brain overload. We all experience it, and now here I am contributing to it. By putting one more blog post out there. By posting on my Facebook profile. By sending a Twitter message into the Twittersphere.

A recent Newsweek article by one of my favorite writers, Sharon Begley, claims all the information swirling inside and outside our brains is affecting the way we make decisions. And not in a good way.

Apparently, when we reach “information overload,” we make “stupid mistakes and bad choices. … Trying to drink from a firehose of information has harmful cognitive effects,” Begley reports. “And nowhere are those effects clearer, and more worrying, than in our ability to make smart, creative, successful decisions.”

Sometimes well-informed decisions are helpful, she writes, like when we’re looking up used-car reports or researching physicians. But often, say when we’re deciding where to vacation, Begley tells us that all those travel Web sites can be daunting, so much so that  we often just opt to stay home.

I often use the travel review site tripadvisor to help me decide which hotel I should choose. And it can be overwhelming. Once I decide how much I can spend, I read others’ reviews on the hotels I can afford. Here’s what I got on a hotel I was looking at in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (a very pricey area): “Cozy and rustic.” And “Not worth consideration unless you are desperate.” And “Great place to stay!”

So which of the 61 wildly disparate reviews should I use to make my decision? “I’ll just sleep on it,” I thought.  And, lo and behold, that was the right decision.

Decision science has shown that when people are faced with a lot of choices, they likely make no decision at all, Begley writes. However, she adds, it also finds that “creative decisions are more likely to bubble up from a brain that applies unconscious thought to a problem, rather than going at it in a full-frontal, analytical assault.”

What does all this mean for you and me?  Maybe we should turn off our computers and smart phones for a few hours every few days and go silently into our sacred spaces where we can try to free our minds from information onslaught. Maybe the occasional electronic information fast would be good for our spirits, too.

Let me know how you do with that and whether you find yourself making better decisions and feeling less anxious.

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 I always celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in a big way. I have known my entire life that this holiday holds significance for me, not really because of what St. Patrick did to drive out paganism in Ireland but because it has always been important to those of us of Irish descent.

When I was a kid, we always wore green to school or ate green eggs for breakfast, and maybe my mom would bake soda bread.

My grandfather dyed his hair green every year before heading off to work at the fruit market in Chicago. Although I have to say I’ve never considered that, I do try to honor his tradition in other ways.

I would never wear sweaters with sparkly Christmas trees on them, but I am known to don a “Kiss me, I’m Irish pin” or wear something made by Guinness.

But I feel less celebratory this year. Even the photos I took of my dog, Iggy, in an Irish knit sweater that my mom knitted him for the Northwest Side Irish parade, remain un-posted to my Facebook page.

I cannot turn away from CNN updates about the increasing nuclear crisis in Japan and the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. I imagine what it would be like if I couldn’t make contact with my mom for days to know whether she was alive or couldn’t find my husband. I feel powerless, although I keep praying that the reactors will cool down and families will find their missing loved ones.

What else can I do? I can take time during Lent to be a better steward of the creation around me and strive for a low-consumption lifestyle. I can take a moment to appreciate my family and feel lucky that I’ve never suffered through a natural disaster.

And I can take what more I might otherwise have spent celebrating and give it to ELCA Disaster Response. I invite you to do the same.

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Every day on my way to work, I drive past a couple makeshift roadside memorials, placed there by the families and friends of someone who died along those stretches of road. One is along a stretch of forest preserve that’s at least a mile long and that people like to fly through going way too fast, and the other is along a street where someone crashed into a tree while having a medical emergency of some kind (I looked it up in the paper a few days later).

Here’s the thing about these memorials: I find them macabre. I don’t like them, and I’ve been asking myself why I don’t like them. To me, they’re just plain morbid (but then death is, being death, morbid, and when it happens in a moving vehicle, it’s never pretty).

So I try to empathize with the grieving, reminding myself that public expressions of grief are a part of the healing process for many people, even though that doesn’t resonate with me at all. Grieving, for me, is a private matter, something I’ve shared with a select few, so sharing it with thousands of strangers passing by in their cars is odd to me indeed.

I try to intellectualize it, wondering if maybe this phenomenon is tied to the growing rejection of organized religion in our culture, and so it fills people’s need for memorial and ritual, replete with whatever symbols seem meaningful to them.

I try to find the practical good in it, that maybe these memorials cause people to slow down or drive more carefully, but really, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

And then I dive into my psyche some more and just admit to myself that it bugs me when someone is working out the grief of their private tragedy in a public space in a way that invades my psychic space with unbidden reminders of death, mortality and life’s unpredictability.

I seem less bothered by a little white cross and some flowers than some of the more elaborate displays of memorabilia, which gradually get destroyed by wind and rain and then just look trashy and ghoulish, with their deflated balloons, soggy stuffed animals and moldy silk flowers. This, to me, seems no way to honor a dead loved one.

Lest you think the significance of place means nothing to me, I should tell you that there’s an intersection in Chicago where a friend of mine lost both her sister and her brother to a drunk driver. Rarely do I pass through that intersection without this coming to mind for at least a moment. It happened more than 20 years ago. But no one has ever put flowers on the northwest corner of Lawrence and Damen.

I’m not suggesting these memorials be banned; I’m not that heartless (though a time limit on them might be in order). I just don’t get it. Do you?

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What would you say if you heard that the hypothetical leader of a hypothetical group of 535 people took important steps to reduce their carbon footprint? They decided not to have foam-plastic coffee cups or plates in the cafeteria. They took several major steps like converting the heating and cooling from coal to natural gas. Compact fluorescent lighting and energy-efficient vending machines were introduced in their meeting space.

The leader even figured out a way to compost the new office biodegradable coffee cups to fertilize the big lawn in front of their office building.

Now what would you say if after four years of environment-friendly initiatives, a new leader was chosen and suddenly foam-plastic coffee cups made a comeback? The four separate recycling and sorting stations that were installed by the previous leader have been removed. No more composting. No more “green” cafeteria.

Why would someone do that? Why would somebody reverse four years of progress toward a cleaner environment? Good question.

Now would you say if this reversal scenario actually happened in the United States Congress?

The about-turn on environmental steps was announced by a press aide to John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives. The aide tweeted a week ago: “The new majority – plasticware is back.”

What would happen if all the individuals, families, schools, churches, and businesses in America who are actively “going green” decided to reverse their action? What would this mean for our planet and our future?

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I’ve been listening to a radio series on NPR debating whether women who join the military should see combat. Maybe it’s because I’m old and my bones hurt, but honestly, I just can’t imagine volunteering to serve on a battlefield. Serving perhaps, yes, but in combat?

In my mind, I see women sleeping under the stars in cots, crawling in the mud, carrying heavy artillery, positioning themselves to kill someone (or avoid being killed), and I think, “Honey, leave it alone.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for equal pay for equal work. When men get paid more than women for doing the very same job, it makes the veins in my head pop out. But at the same time, I would never, ever in a million years want to play football with a bunch of 300-pound muscle men. And there are probably some women out there lobbying for that very right. Just watching football on Sunday afternoons with my husband makes me wince and turn my eyes from the TV.

 I am not one who thinks women should be shut up in their homes taking care of the children. Especially if they don’t want to be.  I am a self-acknowledged tomboy, and my husband and I split duties in odd ways. He cooks and I often mow the yard (well, I did more in Tennessee, where it was really hot and humid, because he couldn’t stand the heat). I can fix things. Sort of. I owned power tools before we married.

But I often wonder if exerting our equality with men is sometimes just about being ornery. Do we always want equality with men? Should we?

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If you read my previous post about cooking, you know that I grew up in a family where my mom was a bad cook. I am anxious and reluctant about cooking. Now, at age 52, I am discovering what it’s like to cook food–real food–and enjoy it.

Today I’m writing about my issue with apples. I buy lots of apples. I read about how much fruit we are supposed to eat (five servings? five?!) and apples are cheap (usually),  so I  buy them by the bag. But then I get tired and bored with them pretty quickly, and after a while my kitchen fruit bowl full of apples that are, well, just past their prime. And then, feeling guilty, I think, I can’t throw them out!

I was at a local restaurant a few weeks ago, and the owners were touting their home-made apple sauce. Now, I thought all apple sauce came out of a big jar. I had no idea that we could make it ourselves! Wow! Apples we cook!

Here’s my solution to too many apples: Peel and grate the apples. Mix the apple mush with a sweet liquid–honey or real maple syrup or brown sugar mixed with water. (I really liked the the maple syrup–both add interesting flavor.) Add cinnamon and nutmeg to taste, and chopped nuts (I use walnuts because I read they are good for your heart, but I’m sure any–or no–nuts would be fine). Mostly I was going for the taste of apple pie. Bake for about an hour at 350. Then cool.

How to use this resulting mush: 1. on oatmeal 2. in yogurt (plain) 3. in muffin mix 4. heated and poured on vanilla ice cream for dessert.

 I had the apple mush for breakfast and for dessert, and really, it was great–fiber and fruit and flavor. I now realize how our ancestors dealt with whatever food was available to them!

And I’m feeling just a tad less hapless.

Have you discovered the joy of working with a food you haven’t done much with before? Tell us about it.

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