What Sort of God?

Last week, I headed north. North, there are mountains and canyons. In that part of the country, the canyons are deep and the mountains are high. The sheer size is overwhelming. The beauty is both breathtaking and incredulous. Northern Arizona is beautiful, but in Utah, I never wanted to close my eyes. There, the landscape is wild. Civilization encroaches upon the land rather than dominates it.

There, in those mountains, I hiked places I never dreamed I would hike--walking across and scrambling up and down mountain fins. I've never been a fast hiker, but covering only a mile in an hour is slow even for me. That's what happens when you have to stand for a bit to figure out where the trail goes. That happens when you can't easily climb the rocks before you.

There, in the midst of rock walls so large and smooth I can't imagine anyone being able to scale them, no matter what equipment they were given, I began to think of God. My thoughts were not of the pious, see-the-wonder-of-God variety. They were about how differently I would think of God if this were the landscape for my entire life.


The God of this landscape could not be safe God. Even the park-mapped trails were dangerous. Many places, falling would have meant a rescue team. The smoothness of most every peak and rock was overshadowed by the larger picture, which showed a landscape that was jagged and insurmountable.

In the middle of it all, I felt a smallness like I have never felt in my life. Not that I was insignificant, but that there was so much more. The promise of a God who will not let your foot slip makes far more sense in a place like that. An almighty God isn't one who can manipulate the minute details of daily life; an almighty God is one who can reign over something like that. A God beyond understanding seems the only possibility in a place so beyond the order most of us live in.


Hearing the biblical echoes so strongly in a place like that, I can't help but wonder about the sort of God  portrayed in church--church with comfy chairs, climate control, easily accessible. Church on Sunday morning hopes that everything goes as planned and we stick to a schedule. Church on a Sunday morning is designed to be hospitable, welcoming, safe.

Is that the sort of God worth following?

Yes, It's Ash Wednesday

I love Ash Wednesday. I think it outranks pretty much every other holy day as far as personal preferences go. That probably sounds strange to most people.

I love burning the palms from the years before and the messiness of it all--the smoke, the fire, the crumbling leaves, the scent that lingers.

I love the quietness of the service. Maybe there are Ash Wednesday services that are loud, but I can't imagine one.

I love the fact that we take time to confess that there's brokenness, sin, in our world. I love the fact that we take time to confess that there's brokenness, sin, in each of us.

But most of all, I love the reminder spoken with the imposition of ashes: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."

In so many ways, Church is about learning God's story, a story radically different from what our culture tells us. On Ash Wednesday, we see the chasm between the two stories, if we're willing to look.

Look at a billboard, a magazine, those sidebars in your browser, probably even inside your medicine cabinet or on your bathroom counter--youth! It's what's best. It's what we're seeking, or at least what we're told to seek. Smooth skin. Hair with no gray. Toned body. White teeth. None of the signs that naturally come with living. Perhaps most telling is the fact that ageless is one of the best adjectives that can be applied to a celebrity. I, who have to Google many names from pop culture because I really have no clue who they are, still can name a few folks who get the title of ageless.

Then, there's God's story. That story reminds us we are dust and to dust we will return. We will die, one day. There's no way around that in the world that we know. Each year, I offer that reminder to folks from four years old on up to about eight-four years old. Then, I turn, and a colleague offers that same reminder to me.

You are dust, and to dust you will return.

And that's holy, too. God who formed the dust into something will be ready to receive the dust when it is only dust, again. As I find a few gray hairs at my temples and notice a few lines at the corners of my eyes, I am comforted at the reminder: I am God's, in life and in death.

Ridin' on Faith

I have a decal on the back window of my truck that I mostly wish wasn't there. Most people miss it, I think, and I'm thankful for that. It's a cross with a bronco riding cowboy in front of it. Around the cross are the words, "Ridin' on Faith."

There are so many reasons I would never put that on my truck now. So many reasons. Guys who detail cars have given me lots of advice about how to get it off. I'm pretty sure they know their stuff and their recommendations would work.

Still, I choose to leave that decal on my truck, despite the fact it makes me cringe a little and despite the fact more than a few friends have made snarky comments about it. I leave it as a tangible reminder that we all have decisions we regret.

I was so excited to stick that decal on my truck when I was seventeen years old. Yes, I got the truck I still drive when I graduated high school. My best friend bought me the decal more than a year before and I tucked it away, waiting for the day when I would have a vehicle of my own to put it on.

The friend chose the decal well. I had a cowboy obsession, to put it mildly. I loved westerns and was especially fond of the illiterate poetry-writing cowboy with long hair in a short-lived television series based on a classic western. (For the record, he composed the poems in his head and had someone else write them down for him. I think his scribe was a prostitute/love interest.)

The friend who bought it and I grew up in the same conservative tradition. I was baptized by the youth minister from her church; she was the closest thing I had to family who was there that night. We carried our Bibles with us most every day. We led our school's morning devotion group.

Both the faith and the cowboy were good choices for the younger version of me. Still, I cringe when I notice the decal.

The cowboy obsession has long since died away. Well, mostly. My faith has morphed into something radically different than it was more than a decade ago. I would never make the same choice now. Actually, there's a whole variety of cringe-worthy decisions I could talk about from my teens. Well, probably my 20s, too. Undoubtedly, the same will be true for most every decade I encounter.

In some ways, that decal is incredibly insignificant. Still, it reminds me to forgive. I'm lucky that most of the decisions I made that I now regret did not end disastrously. For the most part, people look at my life and say, "She's got it together."

And I say, "I'm lucky." The drug dealers left me alone because I got good grades. It was a small high school. They never would have dared to offer me, well, anything. I was mostly unscathed by the stupid way that people with brand new driver's licenses handle a car. I could name a long list of things that, with one small change in the chain of events, would have meant police, or terrible injuries, or who knows what else. Maybe that's at the very core of, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

I don't know if I'll always get to say that. I know for certain a lot of people end up having to live with consequences for the same things I did unscathed.

So I leave that objectionable reminder on the back of my truck and remember that God is still present, still shoving, still calling us to new places and new things. And thanks be to God for that.

Again, Arizona?

By now you've probably heard of SB 1062, Arizona's newest attempt to climb back into the primordial ooze. In a nutshell: businesses can refuse service to gays and lesbians as long as the business owners assert their religious beliefs. The governor will sign or veto this week. By now, some of the support for the bill is waning and some of the Republicans who voted for the bill are calling for its veto.

More and more, it seems like SB 1062 won't become law, but yeah, it could be.

And if it does, I'll be one of the pastors working for its repeal. Yes, I've called the governor's office and signed a petition asking for veto, if you're wondering.

What drives me craziest of all, though, is the fact that, yet again, the voices calling themselves Christian aren't saying anything close to what Jesus Christ said. At all.

The voices we're hearing are the same voices that used Christianity to support slavery and segregation. These are the same voices that use Christianity to oppress women. Somehow, they've managed to use Christianity to support bigotry over and over again. In doing so, they've ignored more of what Jesus said than they're paying attention to.

And please, don't think for a moment those voices calling themselves Christian speak for all of us who call ourselves Christian.

Yay, Facebook! (Seriously!)

Some days, I get too excited by social media happenings. Most recently it's Facebook. For once, though, it's nothing that my friend posted nor something that my frenemy posted. Facebook changed their options for listing gender. There's now a custom option in addition to male and female. The custom feature opens a dropdown menu with a full offering of cisgender and transgender identities. You get the option of choosing what pronoun Facebook uses for you, too.

I'm pretty close to giddy.

You see, the words people use to describe me have generally been words I'd use to describe myself. For the most part, those words haven't been derogatory. I've been called a bitch by a few people and could live without that. I can get annoyed when I'm called a girl in a degrading way. Still, those are exceptions, not the rule.

I'm straight and cisgender. People look at me and assume I'm female. The only time I've been mistaken for a gender other than the one with which I was born and with which I identify is when people start talking to me before I get out of my truck. Yes, we are still that stuck in gender stereotypes. I have far too many stories about too many people assuming pastors are male.

For the most part, though, gender and all the words about gender come without a question for me. That's not true for all people.

So thank you, Facebook, for getting this right. Thank you for letting people choose the words to describe themselves. Thank you for reminding cisgender folks that there's a weird sounding word for us, too. Thank you for reminding us that it's not as black and white as male and female. We need it more than we realize!

Quarters & Grace

At the age of 5, I learned my first significant financial lesson. Yes, it sounds crazy to think a 5 year old could learn a major financial lesson, but I did. 

I did not enjoy kindergarten, to put it mildly. Last minute district decisions meant that I did not start kindergarten with the soft-spoken teacher I met during the weeks before school started. Instead, a nearing retirement teacher was moved to my school. The thing I liked least about her was her whistle. Now, I understand she used it to save her voice. Then, my just barely 5 years old self did not like that whistle, nor the generally noisy hustle and bustle of school. 

I cried every single day. 

My grandfather came up with a plan to get me to go to school: bribery. He paid me fifty cents a day not to cry. Each Friday, I reported to him if and when I cried that week, and he'd reward me accordingly. The pay for the day was based upon the cost of a can of pop from the school's vending machine. I was paid in quarters so that I could buy my pop at recess the next week. 

The only hitch to the system was that I rarely bought pop at recess. Instead, I saved up all the quarters in my little red wallet. By the spring carnival, I had about $75 saved. Yes, that's a chunk of change for most any 5 year old. This was in the spring of 1990. It was really a chunk of change then.

I spent every last quarter at the spring carnival. I bought a pencil with a salt dough unicorn on top and a red lace hairbow the size of my head and snacks and who knows how many tickets to play the games that were offered. My mom sold me most of the tickets while volunteering that day and it wasn't until the end of the day, when she saw my massive pile of loot, that she asked how much money I spent. 

Then she wanted to know where on earth I got that much money. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the months of stuffing more quarters into my wallet, having to work harder and harder each time to get it to zip. I didn't need the gravity of misspending explained to me, and never even wore that giant red lace hairbow. It was the first time in my life I was ever subjected to the interrogation adults give little kids, at least the first one I remember. There was no punishment. The money was mine to do with as I pleased, even if I missed having a bursting wallet.

Yes, that story has become part of family legend. 

I also learned to take responsibility for my actions. There were other lessons, of course, but this remains one of the most formative, tangible lessons. Of course, there have been times I haven't remembered that lesson. I've dodged my share of responsibility and blamed others more than a few times. Still, more often than not, when I've done something stupid, I've owned up to it, much like I did when it came to that $75 in quarters. 

Is that tied to the story of the prodigal son? Or maybe Moses who fled after committing murder? Or maybe the woman caught in adultery? Or maybe the woman at the well? 

Or maybe it's a broader story, written into so much of the Gospel: when you've done wrong, and can say so, there will be forgiveness. 

The grace comes when you take responsibility for what you've done and seek out a better Way. 

Not So Squeaky Clean

The woman talking struck me as the quintessential church lady. She was proper and spoke with authority when she was in charge of something. I imagine she might even wear a hat to church most Sunday mornings. She wondered about the people staying at her church as part of the emergency housing program both our congregations participate in.

"Is it ok to give him bandages? He had bloody marks all over him. They looked a lot like the ones you get when you use meth and start scratching. I didn't want to do anything I shouldn't."

She was assured that giving bandages was just fine and reminded to use gloves around blood. She nodded in agreement and we moved on to something else.

Too often the church has an image of only caring about being squeaky clean, pronouncing alcohol and cussing taboo for its members. My church pronounces neither taboo, for the record.

More importantly, though, most of the church folks I've known have never shied away from the grittiest, dirtiest places around. They go to the missions and soup kitchens in the worst parts of town, and do so willingly.

I think, even more surprisingly, they take their kids with them. In some cases, they let me take those kids.

The tweens never know how to make conversation, but the older kids, 15 or 16, do. And they sit and talk with drug addicts who will likely never seek recovery. They learn to leave alone the person talking to people only he sees.

Afterwards, I get the questions.

Why was that man shaking?

Why did she talk funny?

Why wasn't I allowed out where all the people were waiting?

They're hard questions. They mean talking about drugs and alcohol and how those two things can change people. They mean talking about mental illness. They mean talking about broken healthcare systems. In at least one case, going to the place that most needed help meant having a pre-emptive talk with kids about drug paraphernalia and making sure they knew what a condom looked like once it was out of the package so that they didn't pick up either of those things. The parents that I talked with before the conversation, knowing they guard their children carefully, all said, "Of course."

Never, not once, were kids offered a cautionary tale. No "See now, don't use drugs!" No "This is why you need to stay in school!"

It wasn't about scaring them straight or scaring them at all. It was about making sure they were in relationship with people very different from them, people also beloved by God. The conversations were  rooted in the reality that people on both sides of the serving line need each other.

The very fact that, for the most part, we had to travel several miles to get to the soup kitchens means that we're still broken. Poor and doing ok still live too far apart. We're still far from the reign of God if such interactions aren't part of our daily lives.

Still, when you sit a twelve year old kid from the suburbs next to a man who has been living on the streets for most of his life, and serve them both dinner, and watch them figure out how to talk to each other, you're a bit closer to the reign of God.

And the lack of squeaky cleanness is a big part of what makes it holy.