Brokenness in the Real World “When we fall, as we always do, we pick ourselves up and start again. And when our trust is betrayed the only response that is not destructive is to trust again. Not stupidly, you understand, but fully aware of the facts”
Madeline L’engle a quote of Grandpa Austin’s p. 144 of “The Young Unicorns”
Just letting everyone know I plan to do an awesome post about Fairy Tales soon 🙂
But not tonight, tonight I have a session meeting..
My almost 5year old has started a loving obsession of Dr. Suess. It all started when we saw a play version on Netflix. Now the first movie Franklin ever, ever loved was The Grinch that Stole Christmas (we saw it everyday for almost a year) so it makes sense that my “more mature” child now likes Cat in the Hat.
It was sort of a perfect storm of events though.
I had just done a play version of Charlie Brown Christmas (live) at my church, Franklin learned he loved plays, the play version of Cat in the Hat appeared. He then decided to act it out via paper props (which he made new ones every day complete with a skinny belt as a tail and at least 3 paper striped hats). Our house was full of crafty scraps for literally a month! He would spread out to make all his props–appropriately referencing the book of course (that’s our librarian’s child). Double, Plus Dr. Suess’s birthday was upcoming, and he re-found his book version of Cat in the Hat.
I have never been too big on Cat in the Hat. I’m more on the anxiety end of life (my family and I have a theory that you react to stress either with depression or anxiety–if your really luck you get both). Like I said, anxiety end–so when the cat appeared in the house, it worried me. And the character of the fish totally voiced all of my worries….which didn’t help..
However, Franklin, and the actor in Cat in the Hat, made me realize that the Cat in the Hat is just a mischevious child. It isn’t that he “isn’t listening” its that “he isn’t able to listen because he is having so much fun” and to me that is the essence of child.
My grandmother was a little more concerned with propriety than my parents (heck the whole world is probably more concerned with propriety than me and my family). But, she love, love, Loved Kids–so if you told her that a child “just couldn’t resist……” she could be So forgiving.
My parents were out of town when our whole front lawn had to be redone due to some town plumbing issue (YAY for free new plumbing and free new front yard). After they dug everything up and before they planted the new yard, it rained…so naturally my brother and I ages 10 and 8year old had a glorious mud fight 🙂
(not my bro or me)
My grandmother thought it was messy and gross…but we were like the Cat in the Hat, we couldn’t resist (besides I knew they would be replanting it anyway, but you know it was still mess and gross)….That and a snowball fight I started in 7th grade all contributed to my own Cat in the Hat moments. And you know what? They were great.
Yay Cat in the Hat!!
Here’s the Play-Movie if you want to start an obsession in your household
(by the by currently he’s starting in on Horten Hears a Who which does not have such a great version…but the story is awesome can’t beat “A Person’s a Person, no matter how small!!!)
“I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.”
Rob Bell “comes out” on homosexuality http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-carey/rob-bell-comes-gay-marriage_b_2898394.html
Reflections of females in ministry, church and life—
I had my first ever, official media interview last week. It felt major. I mean, I’ve been practicing for this moment since I was seven and figured out that hair brushes were the universal stand-in for microphones. I propped myself in front of the mirror for hours, practicing my Julia Roberts-horse laugh whilst answering questions about my professional goals (to star alongside Christian Slater in Kuffs 2) and giving advice to other little girls about how to make it in the biz (lots of practice and a premature perm). So it caught me off guard to be stumped by a question I’ve thought about for years: “What can the Church do to better address gender in its day-to-day life?”
Earlier in the interview, I had mentioned the upcoming anthology I’m co-editing, Talking Taboo (White Cloud Press, Oct 2013) and how it was hard for many contributors to even admit that sexism is…
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Currently I’m in the middle of The Mary Russell Series, Wrinkle in Time Quartet and Strangers in Paradise–all of these are re-reads, all of them are theologically relevant, and all of them balance into the complex person that I am 🙂 Cheers!
A nice shout out to the blogs of workings moms, especially those in ministry!
http://christianitypaused.blogspot.com/2013/03/mims-word.html
“I don’t think that’s going to work” This remark was not made as a criticism, but as a statement of what this person saw as the facts of the situation.
“I don’t think people are going to let go”
“Well, that is what we are going to have to learn” I responded
Ultimately we discussed the matter a little more and it ended with the remark “I don’t think people are going to change”
To which I replied “I have to believe they can, or I can’t be a pastor–I have to believe people will change for the better an learn to work together, otherwise what am I doing here?”
Ah, Truth!
What controversial issue was I discussing? Something about technology or homosexuality, something to do with theology or principles? Some issue about the order of worship or where church takes place or who is sitting in what pews (these issues are so often where the rubber hits the road in ministry)
Nope:
Name: Pastor Katy
Quest: To minister to the body of Christ so that we can build the Kingdom of God
Current Mission: To get people to share in the leadership of the Farmer’s Market.
That’s it, the issue is the people who ran the farmer’s market last year have some very important grandparenting duties this summer, plus it was a super-duper-success last year
So I told them, I wanted to put two people in charge of the Farmer’s Market in June, July and August (with me to open and close in May and Sept/Oct). I started out by noting that
a. delegating is harder work than doing it yourself
b. people are not going to be doing things exactly as we want them
c. BUT its important that people are invested.
Here is the test of ministry, not on theology or worship but politics. How do we work together as a community–but I have said it before and I’ll say it again. I believe the church exists ultimately as community builders–that is true 
Kingdom building work, and its hard, its messy and its dirty–but there it is!!!
Now to figure out how to do it!!!!
How can we give away our fruit? How can we build community? How can we stop looking at the bottom line?
Or my take on it, how can we be fig trees https://katyandtheword.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/the-fig-tree/
One day Jesus told a parable (Luke 13:1-9)…there was a fig tree and the master came out to inspect it.
“This tree has been here 3 years and never produced fruit, cut it down”
“Tell you what, I’ll dig out a new home for the tree and give it fresh fertilizer (and water), why don’t you wait a year and see if it produces fruit then” the gardener persuaded
“Fine but if it doesn’t grow, chop it down”
And that is the end of the story…no resolution, no happily ever after, why?
Because the point of the story is the need for nourishment, as the kids in church said today, chopping down a tree isn’t going to help it to produce fruit, but encouragement does…
But digging even deeper into the story, we have to wonder, what is the point of the fig tree producing fruit anyway? Here it goes to all the trouble of growing fruit for what…
to nourish itself?
to have it sit there forever?
to help itself to grow bigger and stronger?
No, it does it so that some other creature can eat its fruit! The usefulness of the tree is not in the tree structure itself; the tree was growing just fine without any fruit, but in how it nourishes others…
And that, my friend is the church, we exist not to nourish or help ourselves, but to share our fruits with others.
If we have no fruit, if we go on upholding our structure, then we are not, in fact, successful.
There is a theory (probably most famously put forth in the book “Bowling Alone”) that society embraced and loved institutions in the 1950s. There were many groups that flourished in this time: scouts, elks, bowling clubs, churches. Churches adapted the institutional structure and did as well as the rest.
Today the structure is to make your own kind of community. You do yoga alone, you make connections online and through relay rides and couchsurfers (for my thoughts on millennials read here). But, that doesn’t mean the hunger/the thirst for God isn’t still there (Psalm 63 was paired with the fig tree gospel reading for a reason). People long for a spirituality that feeds them, has integrity (***please note, I do not mean they want a vending machine or religion that caters to their every whim, but something that is both relevant and still full of integrity), and one that practices what it preaches–supporting social justice & those in need. Millennials have just internalized the independent nature of our culture (I’ll do it alone, in fact I’ll make a community all on my own) hence: Spiritual but not religious. Church’s need to figure out how to nourish that independent nature so it too can produce fruit.
Its like a Farmer’s Market where people want to take responsibility for their food by connecting to the people who grow it…How can church be less like a supermarket and more like a Farmer’s Market?
After all, Jesus came and gave his ENTIRE LIFE as nourishment for all of us, that is why we (Presbyterians) practice open communion, because everyone gets to share in the spiritual fruits of Christ!
I’m not saying bowling is better than yoga or vice versa, I’m saying that when the church is able to make spiritual fruit to nourish others, that is called ministry! (again we are back to the Farmer’s Market at my church, how can we make it MORE nourishing)
How can we, as a church, make the fruit to nourish others.
PS do you know olive trees live thousands of years? In the Garden of Gethsemane I was able to see some fig trees which, in all likelihood, stood while Jesus prayed right before his crucifixion. So really, giving a church/person/tree of a couple of years when we can grow and be shaped by thousands is looking at things from a human perspective…How much more can God see, from where she sits? Here is a picture of some of those ACTUAL trees!
katyandtheword 