If anyone has read the LemmonDrops blog but hasn't checked in lately, this news will be sad and poignant. The Pioneer Press' Molly Millett wrote this story last week: Read story here
Emilie asked to meet me for lunch some years back when I was still at the Pioneer Press. She was a reporter at the Catholic Spirit at the time and said she wanted to learn what she could about daily newspaper journalism.
As it turned out, through Emilie's courageous testimonial blog for these past several months, I learned far more from her.
As the old year turns to the new, peace.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Something Unexpected
Children will play in the snow,
and reluctantly come in when gently prodded
by those who will have prepared
for them
a hot meal.
A long conversation
that languishes over dessert and shared
stories will carry on until the fire burns down
to red embers in the fireplace.
Their beds will be warm.
Those with no children will know, too,
the sounds of laughter, the joy of a meal
shared among those who care about their stories.
Who see to it they, too, will never be cold, not even in winter.
Not even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, not even then will there be sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
Spring will follow, like morning after night,
streams trickling, then rivers gushing noisily.
We will get out of doors, and breathe in,
and remember what it’s like to run.
None shall be confined anymore.
None shall be lame.
Each of us will be resurrected
and live in gratitude.
As days lengthen and the nightfall recedes,
we will realize God has made good
on winter’s promise.
We lived in darkness, but now we have seen a great light.
We will see beauty, in old men resting their hands upon canes
as they sit on park benches
or perch around tables and share coffee and doughnuts.
In neighbors from Mexico, Laos or Iowa.
In cities that are clean.
In groups of teenagers walking down the street.
In storm clouds.
In the eyes of those who sit on our left and our right.
Trees will not die of Dutch elm disease.
Fish will not wash up on trash-littered beaches.
Greenhouses will nurture hyacinths and dahlias,
but the term will cease meaning for the trapping of noxious gases in our atmosphere.
The celestial sphere will regain its radiance,
a dome of awesome wonder,
stretching our imagination and our yearning
to heaven’s farthest reach.
Hot summer nights will not be filled
with the sound of husbands and wives arguing
behind open windows and closed doors.
Dark alleys will not invite fear,
for they will lead instead to curious bookshops and hidden cafes,
where people in cozy light will gab with strangers
about how the world somehow in all its complexity makes sense.
Their talk will linger on till morning and they once again
will have made it through the night
with no thought of ghosts underneath the bed.
War veterans will not worry where their next meal will come from,
not wonder under which bridge
to seek shelter.
We will stop making war veterans.
Grandmothers will need not long for the sound
of their distant daughter’s voice,
and grown brothers and sisters
will relish memories that no one else could possibly understand.
The imaginations of our childhoods will not be abandoned.
We will laugh quietly at the hubris of our “five-year plan”
and our latest diet
and the new leaf we intended to turn over,
but we will go easy on ourselves,
knowing God laughs, too,
when we become so sure of ourselves.
And less sure of God.
God who is there like wind and sky and leaves
falling every which way,
dripping like paint off trees,
dappling color in indiscriminate splotches.
God who speaks
as much as listens
and cries out for us to hear even when the roar
of doomsayers seems to drown out
the good word.
Knowing God is there,
we will not be afraid of silence.
~
We will not be afraid of autumn days.
We will marvel at the change of seasons
as an improbable gift of blessing. It will teach us to pay attention.
When our conversations move indoors
we will not talk of politics
but of how we might
be a community that helps each other.
We will not dream of peace but live in it.
We will believe the words when we hear them:
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners,”
especially those who are prisoner to illness of body or mind,
or abuse,
or poverty.
There will be no joblessness,
because we will recognize our God-given abilities
are just what the world needs,
and the world will see that, too.
When the snow returns it will give rest to our souls.
We will wipe our brows from summer’s heat and harvest’s toil
and put on parkas
and be amazed at how God has created us
to adapt to changing conditions.
It won’t be commercials
that call us to contemplate the question,
what should we get for Christmas this year?
It will be something that stirs us to remember
what we’ve always known,
that we’ve already received more than we could have dreamt up,
and that Christmas is really Thanksgiving
all dressed up with lights.
Christmas is also a prayer, that all this shall come to pass.
All that God intended, the new heaven, the new earth, born in Christ, born in peace, born in joy.
~
Even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, even then will there be no sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
and reluctantly come in when gently prodded
by those who will have prepared
for them
a hot meal.
A long conversation
that languishes over dessert and shared
stories will carry on until the fire burns down
to red embers in the fireplace.
Their beds will be warm.
Those with no children will know, too,
the sounds of laughter, the joy of a meal
shared among those who care about their stories.
Who see to it they, too, will never be cold, not even in winter.
Not even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, not even then will there be sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
Spring will follow, like morning after night,
streams trickling, then rivers gushing noisily.
We will get out of doors, and breathe in,
and remember what it’s like to run.
None shall be confined anymore.
None shall be lame.
Each of us will be resurrected
and live in gratitude.
As days lengthen and the nightfall recedes,
we will realize God has made good
on winter’s promise.
We lived in darkness, but now we have seen a great light.
We will see beauty, in old men resting their hands upon canes
as they sit on park benches
or perch around tables and share coffee and doughnuts.
In neighbors from Mexico, Laos or Iowa.
In cities that are clean.
In groups of teenagers walking down the street.
In storm clouds.
In the eyes of those who sit on our left and our right.
Trees will not die of Dutch elm disease.
Fish will not wash up on trash-littered beaches.
Greenhouses will nurture hyacinths and dahlias,
but the term will cease meaning for the trapping of noxious gases in our atmosphere.
The celestial sphere will regain its radiance,
a dome of awesome wonder,
stretching our imagination and our yearning
to heaven’s farthest reach.
Hot summer nights will not be filled
with the sound of husbands and wives arguing
behind open windows and closed doors.
Dark alleys will not invite fear,
for they will lead instead to curious bookshops and hidden cafes,
where people in cozy light will gab with strangers
about how the world somehow in all its complexity makes sense.
Their talk will linger on till morning and they once again
will have made it through the night
with no thought of ghosts underneath the bed.
War veterans will not worry where their next meal will come from,
not wonder under which bridge
to seek shelter.
We will stop making war veterans.
Grandmothers will need not long for the sound
of their distant daughter’s voice,
and grown brothers and sisters
will relish memories that no one else could possibly understand.
The imaginations of our childhoods will not be abandoned.
We will laugh quietly at the hubris of our “five-year plan”
and our latest diet
and the new leaf we intended to turn over,
but we will go easy on ourselves,
knowing God laughs, too,
when we become so sure of ourselves.
And less sure of God.
God who is there like wind and sky and leaves
falling every which way,
dripping like paint off trees,
dappling color in indiscriminate splotches.
God who speaks
as much as listens
and cries out for us to hear even when the roar
of doomsayers seems to drown out
the good word.
Knowing God is there,
we will not be afraid of silence.
~
We will not be afraid of autumn days.
We will marvel at the change of seasons
as an improbable gift of blessing. It will teach us to pay attention.
When our conversations move indoors
we will not talk of politics
but of how we might
be a community that helps each other.
We will not dream of peace but live in it.
We will believe the words when we hear them:
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners,”
especially those who are prisoner to illness of body or mind,
or abuse,
or poverty.
There will be no joblessness,
because we will recognize our God-given abilities
are just what the world needs,
and the world will see that, too.
When the snow returns it will give rest to our souls.
We will wipe our brows from summer’s heat and harvest’s toil
and put on parkas
and be amazed at how God has created us
to adapt to changing conditions.
It won’t be commercials
that call us to contemplate the question,
what should we get for Christmas this year?
It will be something that stirs us to remember
what we’ve always known,
that we’ve already received more than we could have dreamt up,
and that Christmas is really Thanksgiving
all dressed up with lights.
Christmas is also a prayer, that all this shall come to pass.
All that God intended, the new heaven, the new earth, born in Christ, born in peace, born in joy.
~
Even in winter, when people gather
and gift each other with memories of Christmases
past, even then will there be no sadness,
or wistfulness,
or the remembering of anything other than
God’s visiting the common people in the middle of the night.
God being born, again and again, year after year,
day after day even,
God incarnate.
As a baby, sure, as a baby at first.
But as something unexpected
always.
sps 12.13.08
Monday, December 1, 2008
Lake Delton: Fill-er-up
Remember the lake that vanished from central Wisconsin this summer?
It's coming back -- beginning this week, according to the Associated Press in this story.
Once again, it's only the economic impact that seems to make news. It remains a fascinating hydrogeographic event.
It's coming back -- beginning this week, according to the Associated Press in this story.
Once again, it's only the economic impact that seems to make news. It remains a fascinating hydrogeographic event.
Fortunately for her, she was wrong
A new biography of Michelle Obama details her years as a student at Princeton. The author (as quoted in this Chicago Sun-Times story) calls the conclusion of Obama's senior thesis "one of the most ironic sentences ever written." The sentence:Princeton "will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant," Michelle Obama wrote.
Photo from Zimbio by Ethan Miller/Getty Images North America
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
What happy people do
Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.That's according to this New York Times story. Let's hear it for church and newspapers!
Something I did not know
Harrison Ford, Al Jarreau, Spencer Tracy and Dick Bennett all are alumni of Ripon College, a school of 1,000 students in east-central Wisconsin. Just something I came across while looking up something else.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Forty years later
Last night's enduring image will be the scene at Chicago's Grant Park awaiting Obama's arrival as president-elect. Quite the antithesis to Grant Park 40 years earlier (a moment in history caught audibly on the Chicago Transit Authority's first album*.)And in my relatively brief lifespan, Election '08 will join these other retrospections:
'68 c'mon, I was 8
'72 huge McGovern poster hanging on my bedroom wall
'76 almost shook Carter's hand when he visited my hometown
'80 a newsroom colleague asking me if I knew Spanish because the new president would send me to Nicaragua
'84 the native son (I was in St. Paul then) loses in a landslide
'88 writing letters to editor about the environment and vigorously debating my neighbor across the yard
'92 the shroud of iraq
'96 wow -- a two-term democrat
'00 staying up til 6 a.m. watching a blur of blue and red on TV
'04 the shroud of iraq
(* Prologue, August 29 1968, is the actual recording of the Democratic Convention in Chicago: black militants exhorting demonstrators: "God Give Us the Blood to Keep Going"; march begins; police attempt to disperse marchers; chant: "The Whole World's Watching.")
The wonder of small books, part II
Knowledge for those with short attention spans (or busy lives):Oxford University Press, eminent among the estimable houses, publishes a series of volumes called "Very Short Introductions."
The title list reads like a college catalog, without the tuition freight.
Another cudgel against illiteracy.
OUP has a great blog, too.
(See The wonder of small books, part I.)
Reaganomics runs its course
A fascinating piece on the historic meaning of yesterday's election, by Steve Berg at MinnPost.com. (He wrote a great lede, which I won't spoil here but is well worth reading here.)Elsewhere, he writes:
"Between 1979 and 2005, the incomes of households in the bottom fifth of the population rose only 6 percent in real terms, while the incomes of those in the middle three-fifths rose by 17 to 21 percent, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
"But incomes in the upper fifth soared by 69 percent, and in the top 1 percent by a whopping 176 percent. ... Not since the 1920s had so much of the nation's income been held by such a narrow slice of its people. The trickle-down never trickled."
Monday, October 13, 2008
The morning after
The American economy looks like the morning after an expensive dinner party. Empty glasses everywhere, stains on the tablecloth, dirty plates stacked high, and the vapor of stale wine and beer as thick as fog.
It's not a pretty picture. Does anyone think a federal economic bailout is like bringing in more liquor at 8 a.m. to re-start the party?
Given our current economic hangover, our friend Robb says this might be just the right time for another Great Awakening.
"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, neither 18 percent profit margins, nor mutual funds, nor stock options. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. You shall not covet your neighbor's boat, summer home or investment portfolio." [A slight paraphrase of Exodus 20]
The momentous challenge of another Great Awakening will be to dispel us of our belief in lesser gods.
"You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied ... and my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of (you), and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other." [Joel 2:26-27]
It's not a pretty picture. Does anyone think a federal economic bailout is like bringing in more liquor at 8 a.m. to re-start the party?
Given our current economic hangover, our friend Robb says this might be just the right time for another Great Awakening.
"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, neither 18 percent profit margins, nor mutual funds, nor stock options. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. You shall not covet your neighbor's boat, summer home or investment portfolio." [A slight paraphrase of Exodus 20]
The momentous challenge of another Great Awakening will be to dispel us of our belief in lesser gods.
"You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied ... and my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of (you), and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other." [Joel 2:26-27]
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
October baseball
Thirty teams begin on Opening Day. Only eight get to play into October. The Cubs have been wallflowers at this party for too many seasons to count. But tomorrow, it's Dodgers-Cubs at Wrigley Field, as the National League playoffs begin. Here's to all the Cubs teams who've played in the postseason:
1906 * 1907 * 1908 * 1910 * 1918 * 1929 * 1932 * 1935 * 1938 1945 * 1984 * 1989 * 1998 * 2003 * 2007 * 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Here's a vote against endorsements
Nearly three dozen pastors on Sunday took a stand against IRS rules that bar churches from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit. The pastors want to change federal laws that strip churches (and other nonprofits) of their tax-exempt status if they endorse particular candidates.
The pastors believe the restrictions put a muzzle on people of faith and hinder their influence in American politics. Their argument: Christians need to be told which candidates hold a "biblical worldview."
That assumes that one candidate or one party has a monopoly on such a worldview. (Seeing as how the Gospel was used to support slavery in the 1860s and oppose it in the 1960s, that worldview might be up for some interpretation.)
People of faith are called to live out their faith in the political arena (along with the workplace, the home, the church, etc.) They do so by reflecting upon Scripture, appealing to reason, evaluating human experience, and relying on the broad tradition of the Christian church. Not to mention by praying: for discernment about how to live faithfully in the modern world.
That's not easy to do. But if clergy believe they need to endorse a particular candidate, is it that parishioners can't be trusted to figure it out on their own?
As the church, wouldn't it be better to help our congregations learn how to openly and faithfully discuss and pray over complex issues, rather than adding to the spin of partisan oversimplification?
The pastors believe the restrictions put a muzzle on people of faith and hinder their influence in American politics. Their argument: Christians need to be told which candidates hold a "biblical worldview."
That assumes that one candidate or one party has a monopoly on such a worldview. (Seeing as how the Gospel was used to support slavery in the 1860s and oppose it in the 1960s, that worldview might be up for some interpretation.)
People of faith are called to live out their faith in the political arena (along with the workplace, the home, the church, etc.) They do so by reflecting upon Scripture, appealing to reason, evaluating human experience, and relying on the broad tradition of the Christian church. Not to mention by praying: for discernment about how to live faithfully in the modern world.
That's not easy to do. But if clergy believe they need to endorse a particular candidate, is it that parishioners can't be trusted to figure it out on their own?
As the church, wouldn't it be better to help our congregations learn how to openly and faithfully discuss and pray over complex issues, rather than adding to the spin of partisan oversimplification?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Another view on the economy
Looking for a great article to explain what's happened, is happening and might happen?
See today's column by the Chicago Tribune's Gail Marks-Jarvis (a former St. Paul Pioneer Press business writer, by the way).
See today's column by the Chicago Tribune's Gail Marks-Jarvis (a former St. Paul Pioneer Press business writer, by the way).
The first and the last
Jesus said, on more than one occasion, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. I first saw that painted on the back of my church youth group's sputtering blue school bus (emphasis on "the last shall be first" -- the bus topped out at 50 mph, when it worked at all).
"The first shall be last and the last shall be first" is an eye-opener in today's economy. As someone wrote recently, if that means CEOs are a 10 and the poorest of the poor are a 1, we should pray to be a 5. Then when the first become last and vice versa, we'll stay right where we are.
There's some truth in that, I suppose. God never intended for anyone to be poor. (You can look it up.) God also never intended anyone to be rich at the expense of the poor.
As a colleague said yesterday, maybe things are shaking out the way they have to in order for us to remember what prosperity really means, to rediscover the difference between our rights and our privileges, and to revive our understanding of what it means to live in the kingdom of God (not just the kingdom of captitalism and consumption).
That said, a lot of people are getting smacked by the short end of an economic stick and are suffering the sting. Like the man who told me over the weekend his savings had lost eight months' worth of nursing home care for his wife in the span of five days.
What do we do about that?
"The first shall be last and the last shall be first" is an eye-opener in today's economy. As someone wrote recently, if that means CEOs are a 10 and the poorest of the poor are a 1, we should pray to be a 5. Then when the first become last and vice versa, we'll stay right where we are.
There's some truth in that, I suppose. God never intended for anyone to be poor. (You can look it up.) God also never intended anyone to be rich at the expense of the poor.
As a colleague said yesterday, maybe things are shaking out the way they have to in order for us to remember what prosperity really means, to rediscover the difference between our rights and our privileges, and to revive our understanding of what it means to live in the kingdom of God (not just the kingdom of captitalism and consumption).
That said, a lot of people are getting smacked by the short end of an economic stick and are suffering the sting. Like the man who told me over the weekend his savings had lost eight months' worth of nursing home care for his wife in the span of five days.
What do we do about that?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Hey, Chicago
With five games left in baseball's regular schedule, it's been a sweet season on Chicago's North Side. Here are the most wins in a season by the Cubs during my lifetime (that's 48 seasons):96 -- 1984
95* -- 2008
93 -- 1989
92 -- 1969
90 -- 1998
* With five games remaining
I've been meaning to write about procrastination
Things I should be doing:
Weeding, to assuage a summer of regretfulness at not tending the garden, lest the thicket rears its shaming head next spring.
Reading "Learning While Leading" or "The Witness of Preaching." 
Replacing the worn-out battery in the Honda scooter.
Seeing an allergist.
Working out.
Catching up on back issues of The Economist.
Making an appointment with my financial adviser.
Transcribing notes from interviews still trapped in illegibly scrawled notebooks.
Getting bifocals.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Thinking about Doubting Thomas
(Whose tale is told in John 20:19-31)
We read a book to get to the end of the story. Most of us, anyway, unless you are like me and have a half-dozen books scattered about the house in various stages of incompletion. A spouse’s or roommate’s surest form of torture would be to sneak in unawares and rearrange the bookmarks, greeting the absent reader with a frustrating sense of bewilderment upon returning to the discombobulated text.
Some books, of course, propel us forward with abandonment of time and distraction. We can’t put them down, can’t wait to get to the climax, to the resolution, to the solving of the mystery.
That’s why I feel so frustrated getting to the end of the Gospel of John. For 19 chapters we have been tugged and prodded, teased and cajoled, humbled and inspired by this most amazing “Good News,” and then we get to the final act, the death and resurrection of Jesus – and we have this truncated epilogue that almost apologizes for its incompleteness.
Nineteen chapters of the greatest story ever told, and we get one chapter, the 20th, that sums it up, tells us what it all means, and more importantly, tells us what we do now. The early church may have recognized this inadequacy by adding what most scholars conclude is an editorial afterward, the 21st chapter of John in most Bible translations.
But we are left here at the end of the 20th, hearing that there were many other signs of Jesus appearing amidst the disciples, but that they are not written in this book.
We are like the disciples, gripped in the drama all along, ever since Jesus called us as one of the 12, who have been left in agony at Jesus’ death and bewildered beyond all belief at his resurrection. That is the next-to-last chapter in the story.
But then, as this last chapter is being written, Thomas has gone missing. Thomas was not with them with Jesus came. Perhaps too distraught or overcome to continue, he left the book sitting on the table. Where did Thomas go? Out for air? Was he mourning in the woods? Was he out drowning his sorrows? Was he stuffing his real feelings down inside by getting back to work and losing himself in his old routine?
There are those of us who need our space. When the world gets loud, we need the quiet to process, to take stock, to reground ourselves. It’s a way of staying sane for some of us. Paradoxically, sometimes in solitude we are able to reconnect with the divine.
But it is always at some risk. Thomas was at some risk, for the Gospel writer tells us that the disciples were huddled together behind a locked door for fear of their detractors. Thomas was out roaming free, unprotected from enemies, without the consolation of his comrades.
And then, sure enough, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to those who had cleaved to one another, Thomas is not there. Is it any wonder then when he returns – and again, we no more know why he returned than why he left – he rejoins his brothers (and we presume sisters) with a case of shellshock. They tell him they have seen the risen Lord. He says, show me, don’t tell me. Is it that Thomas is the proverbial doubter, as he is so often known, or is it that absent the care of the Christ-following community his heart has been hardened to miracle? He has come back to pick up the book that he has been reading and the bookmark has been moved, and nothing seems to make sense.
Jesus certainly had to notice Thomas’ absence that day, for when he returns to the disciples’ enclave a week later, he speaks directly to Thomas. “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”
Thomas and we are one with the pleading man in Mark’s gospel who cries out, “I believe! Help my unbelief!”
Belief and unbelief are not an either/or proposition.
True, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” But this is not a rebuke; it is what it says it is: a blessing. Jesus understood that there would be many Thomases to come – Thomases like us – who would yearn to touch the flesh of the divine but would come to learn that it is a thing of the heart, ultimately, this business of belief.
We also learn that getting to the end of this story in the Gospel is really just the beginning of the story. Rather than crumpling in dissatisfaction that all the loose ends aren’t tied up, Jesus invites us to keep living into the story, in our going out and coming in, to grow to believe that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name.
We read a book to get to the end of the story. Most of us, anyway, unless you are like me and have a half-dozen books scattered about the house in various stages of incompletion. A spouse’s or roommate’s surest form of torture would be to sneak in unawares and rearrange the bookmarks, greeting the absent reader with a frustrating sense of bewilderment upon returning to the discombobulated text.
Some books, of course, propel us forward with abandonment of time and distraction. We can’t put them down, can’t wait to get to the climax, to the resolution, to the solving of the mystery.
That’s why I feel so frustrated getting to the end of the Gospel of John. For 19 chapters we have been tugged and prodded, teased and cajoled, humbled and inspired by this most amazing “Good News,” and then we get to the final act, the death and resurrection of Jesus – and we have this truncated epilogue that almost apologizes for its incompleteness.
Nineteen chapters of the greatest story ever told, and we get one chapter, the 20th, that sums it up, tells us what it all means, and more importantly, tells us what we do now. The early church may have recognized this inadequacy by adding what most scholars conclude is an editorial afterward, the 21st chapter of John in most Bible translations.
But we are left here at the end of the 20th, hearing that there were many other signs of Jesus appearing amidst the disciples, but that they are not written in this book.
We are like the disciples, gripped in the drama all along, ever since Jesus called us as one of the 12, who have been left in agony at Jesus’ death and bewildered beyond all belief at his resurrection. That is the next-to-last chapter in the story.
But then, as this last chapter is being written, Thomas has gone missing. Thomas was not with them with Jesus came. Perhaps too distraught or overcome to continue, he left the book sitting on the table. Where did Thomas go? Out for air? Was he mourning in the woods? Was he out drowning his sorrows? Was he stuffing his real feelings down inside by getting back to work and losing himself in his old routine?
There are those of us who need our space. When the world gets loud, we need the quiet to process, to take stock, to reground ourselves. It’s a way of staying sane for some of us. Paradoxically, sometimes in solitude we are able to reconnect with the divine.
But it is always at some risk. Thomas was at some risk, for the Gospel writer tells us that the disciples were huddled together behind a locked door for fear of their detractors. Thomas was out roaming free, unprotected from enemies, without the consolation of his comrades.
And then, sure enough, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to those who had cleaved to one another, Thomas is not there. Is it any wonder then when he returns – and again, we no more know why he returned than why he left – he rejoins his brothers (and we presume sisters) with a case of shellshock. They tell him they have seen the risen Lord. He says, show me, don’t tell me. Is it that Thomas is the proverbial doubter, as he is so often known, or is it that absent the care of the Christ-following community his heart has been hardened to miracle? He has come back to pick up the book that he has been reading and the bookmark has been moved, and nothing seems to make sense.
Jesus certainly had to notice Thomas’ absence that day, for when he returns to the disciples’ enclave a week later, he speaks directly to Thomas. “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”
Thomas and we are one with the pleading man in Mark’s gospel who cries out, “I believe! Help my unbelief!”
Belief and unbelief are not an either/or proposition.
True, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” But this is not a rebuke; it is what it says it is: a blessing. Jesus understood that there would be many Thomases to come – Thomases like us – who would yearn to touch the flesh of the divine but would come to learn that it is a thing of the heart, ultimately, this business of belief.
We also learn that getting to the end of this story in the Gospel is really just the beginning of the story. Rather than crumpling in dissatisfaction that all the loose ends aren’t tied up, Jesus invites us to keep living into the story, in our going out and coming in, to grow to believe that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name.
Thinking about white privilege, too
For a disarming piece, read the latest post at A Seeking Spirit (linked here or permanently at left).
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Family Reunion, Part II
"The eating begins. Clams steam, corn steams, salad wilts, butter runs, hot dogs turn, torn chicken shines in the savage light. Iced tea, brewed in forty-quart milk cans, chuckles when sloshed. Paper plates buckle on broad laps. Plastic butter knives, asked to cut cold ham, refuse. Children underfoot in the pleased frenzy eat only potato chips. Somehow, as the first wave of appetite subsides, the long tables turn musical, and a murmur rises to the blank sky, a cackle rendered harmonious by a remote singleness of ancestor; a kind of fabric is woven and hung, a tapestry of the family fortunes, the threads of which include milkmen, ministers, mailmen, bankruptcy, death by war, death by automobile, insanity . . . The family has hovered in honorable obscurity, between poverty and wealth, between jail and high office. Real-estate dealers, schoolteachers, veterinarians are its noblemen; butchers, electricians, door-to-door salesmen its yeomen. Protestant and teetotalling, ironically virtous and mildly proud, it has added to America's statistics without altering their meaning. Whence, then, this strange joy?"-- From "The Family Meadow," a short story by John Updike, published in The Early Stories: 1953-1975, copyright 2003, Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
A Family Reunion
The ghost of U.S. Grant may year in and out summon the tourist horde to Galena, Ill., but we went there this weekend to celebrate family -- with a grand reunion of a 25/32nds representation of the clan, immediate and extended. The occasion was to celebrate Dave and Carm's golden wedding anniversary.As Mark so eloquently pontificated in his toast to the celebrated couple, the family has increased and decreased -- in each way markedly -- over those 50 years. But the spirit of kin past and present filled the room, and it was much more tangible than just the commonality of lineage, genealogy or last name. Even as we extolled the virtue and marvel of being married 50 years, we watched the future spill out in front of us as the next generation filled the room with shouting and play. As the cousins -- the oldest one 13 -- flailed about in the motel pool or scurried off to the game rooms, it was clear they were already about making the memories that we were reminiscing about ourselves while sitting around the dinner table a few hours earlier. And so the beat goes on from one era to the next.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Still car shopping
Apparently we've been too busy car shopping for me to blog lately. After an exhaustive search of our domestic options, I think we're going to go the import route. I keep coming back to this little beauty I found in Prague.photo by jason tetzloff 3.08
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
She (and they) worth the drive
It was a long trip back from central Illinois today, bypassing the flooded highways of southern Wisconsin. But the visit to granddaughter's (and daughter's and son-in-law's) was worth it.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Lake Delton's disappearance
Lake Delton disappeared last week.
Sounds like the beginning of a Robert Ludlum or Thomas Pynchon novel, doesn't it? Last week's news story seemed stranger than fiction. The storm-ravaged lake in the heart of Wisconsin's tourist country burst its earthen perimeter and within two hours disembogued 600 million gallons of water.
The official response poured forth as swiftly as the lake's discharge into the nearby Wisconsin River. We'll refill the lake, Gov. James Doyle reassured would-be visitors and propietors of the tourism industry, whose livelihood dried up faster than you can say Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau.
The lake is (was?) home to the famed Tommy Bartlett acrobatic water ski show, a portion of the charmingly anachronistic Duck boat tours, and several resorts that ringed the 267-acre lake. The Wisconsin Dells known and loved by tourists -- including its kitschy main street -- exists far beyond the lake's shores, so visitors still can find plenty of mini golf. But losing the lake in the middle of it all nonetheless drains some of the enthusiasm.
Everyone respects the economic impact of the swampy void that is Lake Delton, as well as the several other flood-related afflictions across the state last week. But while we're quick to express shock at the consequences, where's the wonder at the climactic and geological forces at work?
This story is about sediment and spillways as much as dollars and destinations. (Ironically, Lake Delton is a newly sensationational tourist temptation for onlookers curious about what a lake looks like underneath all that water.)
The Chicago Tribune reported the response of University of Wisconsin sedimentary geologist Shanan Peters to the lake's sudden purge. He said the result reminded him of a glacial lake draining, which is exactly what exposed the Dells millenniums ago, according to the Tribune. "A finger of water found its way through loose soil and the soft sandstone, and then a torrent followed it," the newspaper reported.
The Tribune continued: "Civil engineering experts and geologists blame prodigious downpours that in recent weeks soaked and softened the low point between Lake Delton and the river.
A spillway and dam couldn't keep pace with the lake's rising waters, which cut a yellow gash in the ancient, erosion-prone sandstone that ran straight to the river. And then the lake went down the drain.''
To me, that's the fascination of this cataclysm. Anyone who's ever traced a leak in their roof knows water goes where it wills itself to go. This is waterworks writ large, and a fascinating moment in Wisconsin's geology and geography, not just a scourge upon its economy.
Sounds like the beginning of a Robert Ludlum or Thomas Pynchon novel, doesn't it? Last week's news story seemed stranger than fiction. The storm-ravaged lake in the heart of Wisconsin's tourist country burst its earthen perimeter and within two hours disembogued 600 million gallons of water.
The official response poured forth as swiftly as the lake's discharge into the nearby Wisconsin River. We'll refill the lake, Gov. James Doyle reassured would-be visitors and propietors of the tourism industry, whose livelihood dried up faster than you can say Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau.
The lake is (was?) home to the famed Tommy Bartlett acrobatic water ski show, a portion of the charmingly anachronistic Duck boat tours, and several resorts that ringed the 267-acre lake. The Wisconsin Dells known and loved by tourists -- including its kitschy main street -- exists far beyond the lake's shores, so visitors still can find plenty of mini golf. But losing the lake in the middle of it all nonetheless drains some of the enthusiasm.
Everyone respects the economic impact of the swampy void that is Lake Delton, as well as the several other flood-related afflictions across the state last week. But while we're quick to express shock at the consequences, where's the wonder at the climactic and geological forces at work?
This story is about sediment and spillways as much as dollars and destinations. (Ironically, Lake Delton is a newly sensationational tourist temptation for onlookers curious about what a lake looks like underneath all that water.)
The Chicago Tribune reported the response of University of Wisconsin sedimentary geologist Shanan Peters to the lake's sudden purge. He said the result reminded him of a glacial lake draining, which is exactly what exposed the Dells millenniums ago, according to the Tribune. "A finger of water found its way through loose soil and the soft sandstone, and then a torrent followed it," the newspaper reported.
The Tribune continued: "Civil engineering experts and geologists blame prodigious downpours that in recent weeks soaked and softened the low point between Lake Delton and the river.
A spillway and dam couldn't keep pace with the lake's rising waters, which cut a yellow gash in the ancient, erosion-prone sandstone that ran straight to the river. And then the lake went down the drain.''
To me, that's the fascination of this cataclysm. Anyone who's ever traced a leak in their roof knows water goes where it wills itself to go. This is waterworks writ large, and a fascinating moment in Wisconsin's geology and geography, not just a scourge upon its economy.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
But it's too bright to read at the beach
I remember summers past according to the books read during those salubrious months of repose. Roger Angell's The Summer Game was the year before sixth grade. Stephen King's On Writing was three decades later, the New York summer. The Grapes of Wrath filled one afternoon and the next morning in the June of '87. Victor Hugo's Les Miserables consumed parts of a couple of summers, during neither of which did I come close to finishing the 1,463-page Signet Classic paperpack edition. Not counting 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, which I just picked up at a Goodwill for $3, here are some others I've cracked open or will soon.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Going global
A grad-school semester ends quietly, audible only in a collective exhale of relief. When the high school year ends, it does so with the clamor of a giant street party. For Jackson, sophomore year ended literally in jazz and celebration. Pictured here, he and the NRHS jazz ensemble closed out the year with an appearance at the state contest and the annual spring concert. Then it was off to Knoxville, Tenn., where the school's Destination Imagination® team competed for the second consecutive year at the Global Finals. The results are in: NRHS took 16th. That topped last year's placing of 21st (tied with Corpus Christi, Texas, and Victoria Junior College of Singapore). This morning they piled back into a borrowed RV for the return trip to Wisconsin.2008 Destination Imagination® Global Finals
Hit or Myth, Secondary Level
Top 25 (total of 52 schools competing)
1, Conroe (Texas) Academy of Science. 2, Miamisburg (Ohio) HS. 3, Oxford Hills (Maine) Comprehensive HS. 4, Plano (Texas) ISD. 5, St. Francis (Minn.) HS. 6t, Clarence School (N.Y.); Brimfield (Mass.) Monson HS. 7, Lynnfield (Mass.) HS. 8, Fairfield (Iowa) Maharishi School Gold. 9, Cordova (Tenn.) Hutchison School. 10, Concord (N.H.) HS. 11, Ravenna (Mich.) HS. 12, Ferndale (Mich.) Southfield Christian. 13, Central at Raymond (Neb.) 14, Bourbon (Ind.) Triton HS. 15, Humboldt (Tenn.) Milan HS. 16, New Richmond (Wis.) HS. 17, Woodridge (Ill.) Willowbrook. 18t, Yorktown Heights (N.Y.) HS; Penrose (Colo.) Florence HS. 19, Rockville (Md.) Richard Montgomery. 20t, Alliance (Ohio) Marlington Schools; Middleton (Wis.) HS. 21t, Carl Junction (Mo.) HS; Norco (Calif.) HS. 22, Auburn (N.H.) Pinkerton Academy. 23, Germantown (Wis.) HS. 24, Norton Shore (Mich.) Mona Shores School. 25, Vashon (Wash.) Annie Wright School.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
A preaching party
Naomi Tutu (photo by steve 22 may 08)We spent the past week with 2,100 preachers attending the Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis. Don't you wish you were there?
There was inspiration in abundance. Some of it came from the country's best preachers, who lectured and preached for five days. But some came from "normal" people. Normal people such as Naomi Tutu. She told a few tales on her famous father, the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
When Naomi and her siblings were young, they would begin murmuring "Amen" when they believed it was time for dad to wrap up his sermon, a cue he came to rely upon. Years later, he was asked to preach in an African-American church in the southern U.S. No sooner had Tutu begun speaking than the congregation began shouting "Amen." (In clergy circles, that's a funny story.)
In her own right, Naomi Tutu is an expert on race, justice and reconciliation. Another real treat was Beth Nielsen Chapman. On her latest CD, Prism, she sings in nine languages. She is melodic, spiritual and real. Another highlight was Prudence Johnson, especially when she sang an old Greg Brown tune. (See, preachers can have fun.)
See related post on the Festival of Homiletics.
There was inspiration in abundance. Some of it came from the country's best preachers, who lectured and preached for five days. But some came from "normal" people. Normal people such as Naomi Tutu. She told a few tales on her famous father, the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
When Naomi and her siblings were young, they would begin murmuring "Amen" when they believed it was time for dad to wrap up his sermon, a cue he came to rely upon. Years later, he was asked to preach in an African-American church in the southern U.S. No sooner had Tutu begun speaking than the congregation began shouting "Amen." (In clergy circles, that's a funny story.)
In her own right, Naomi Tutu is an expert on race, justice and reconciliation. Another real treat was Beth Nielsen Chapman. On her latest CD, Prism, she sings in nine languages. She is melodic, spiritual and real. Another highlight was Prudence Johnson, especially when she sang an old Greg Brown tune. (See, preachers can have fun.)
See related post on the Festival of Homiletics.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Staying in Jesusville for $12 a night
I've been in school so long I can't bear to imagine how many miles I've put on my car commuting to and from class. I'm often asked why seminaries don't offer correspondence courses. Some do. But the two I've attended don't for the most part. Despite the dents in my debit card from all those fill-ups at $3.73 a gallon, I believe that's a good thing.
Education doesn't take place in a vacuum. There's a good deal to be learned by class discussion. Hearing something in person deepens what you absorb in reading. And because Christianity is relational, learning in a classroom environment requires you to grapple with your own thoughts in light of how other people are experiencing and interpreting the material. (Not surprisingly, often quite differently than you are!)
Still, much of my education has been as a commuter student (except for some wonderful extended stays in Evanston). Now, as a UTS student in the Twin Cities, I motor in for class and then return to my abode. Said abode, however, is unavailable for these last two weeks of the semester, so I'm staying overnight in an on-campus commuter apartment. As one fellow squatter said last week, "welcome to Jesusville." And it costs only $12 a night.
I doubt I can live in our own home for $12 a night. Beyond the benefits of frugality, however, living where you learn gives you an entirely new perspective. It wrests you out of the fragmentation of "this is school, this is work, this is home, etc." It makes you feel like a participant in the whole learning thing, not just an observer or a note-taker.
I think that's why it's so important that churches need to create a space beyond a one-hour worship service for the give-and-take, the learning, the grappling, the questioning, the meal-sharing, etc. Without entering into that space, we can never really integrate what we learn with how we live.
I'm too old to go back to dorm life. But I'm heading back to Jesusville for a couple more nights as the semester ends this week. It's a good model for living with one another: be a good roomate, pick up after yourself, and bring your own linens.
Education doesn't take place in a vacuum. There's a good deal to be learned by class discussion. Hearing something in person deepens what you absorb in reading. And because Christianity is relational, learning in a classroom environment requires you to grapple with your own thoughts in light of how other people are experiencing and interpreting the material. (Not surprisingly, often quite differently than you are!)
Still, much of my education has been as a commuter student (except for some wonderful extended stays in Evanston). Now, as a UTS student in the Twin Cities, I motor in for class and then return to my abode. Said abode, however, is unavailable for these last two weeks of the semester, so I'm staying overnight in an on-campus commuter apartment. As one fellow squatter said last week, "welcome to Jesusville." And it costs only $12 a night.
I doubt I can live in our own home for $12 a night. Beyond the benefits of frugality, however, living where you learn gives you an entirely new perspective. It wrests you out of the fragmentation of "this is school, this is work, this is home, etc." It makes you feel like a participant in the whole learning thing, not just an observer or a note-taker.
I think that's why it's so important that churches need to create a space beyond a one-hour worship service for the give-and-take, the learning, the grappling, the questioning, the meal-sharing, etc. Without entering into that space, we can never really integrate what we learn with how we live.
I'm too old to go back to dorm life. But I'm heading back to Jesusville for a couple more nights as the semester ends this week. It's a good model for living with one another: be a good roomate, pick up after yourself, and bring your own linens.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Do you know the way to Santa Fe?
We went car shopping today. Well, not really shopping, because buying a car when only one of you is working and the other is in grad school isn't exactly tops on a financial planner's to-do list. But with the cost of gas outpacing the cost of tuition, it's pretty compelling to look for new wheels. Besides which, our two cars are a combined 15 years old with a cumulative 341,000 miles. That's 13 1/2 times around the Earth. These were the two test drives we're still talking about. Guess which one is whose favorite? Above left: The 2008 Hyundai Santa Fe. Above right: The 2004 MINI Cooper (in British Racing Green).
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Is the Bible an excuse to hate?
We watched the film For the Bible Tells Me So in our pastoral care class today. It is certain to provoke a response if you watch it.
The trailer is available here.
The trailer is available here.
Monday, May 5, 2008
There used to be a ballpark
This is the 95th season of baseball at Clark and Addison streets on Chicago's north side. Off-the-field talk centers on the pending sale of the Cubs and Wrigley Field, and a proposal to sell naming rights to the park. That's ludicrous: no one will ever call it anything but Wrigley, no matter how much a company pays to call it otherwise.The larger issue is the ballpark's future. I never thought I'd come to this, but I'm now accepting Wrigley is in its twilight years. Modern baseball economics would require too many changes to keep the park viable (more signage, corporate sponsorships, restructured seating), plus millions of $$$ in maintenance and repairs necessitated by its age.
Let the park age gracefully, rather than giving it so much cosmetic surgery that it obliterates the pristine qualities we loved about Wrigley in the first place. Plan now to build a new park (not a Wrigley clone), using all the design acumen that has made the rest of Chicago an architectural treasure. Allow six years for site procurement, design and construction. Open the new park in April 2014.
Meantime, enjoy Wrigley Field for its final seasons. Let's not be all maudlin about it. Just play baseball there, as it was meant to be. It its final season, its 100th, in 2013, don't sell season tickets. Instead, make single-game tickets available for every home game, and distribute them to schools, boys and girls clubs, church groups, families, and the legions of Cubs fans who haven't been able to get into the sold-out park for years because of the obscene prices and the overrun of ticket demand in this second-smallest park in the major leagues.
No one would miss Wrigley Field and grieve its passing more than I. I've attended more than 100 games there in 35 years, despite never living closer than a six-hour drive. I've saved every ticket stub, and most every scorecard. The memories are priceless. But I'd rather see Wrigley reach 100-years-old intact rather than watching it mutate into something unrecognizable for years to come. That would be far sadder.
Once the new park is open, allow Wrigley to remain the landmark it already is. Allow special games to be played there. Turn its concourses into a museum. It has every bit the charm of Cooperstown, and just as much history.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The wonder of small books
Maybe because it's the dog days of the semester, I've been turning lately to books I've not been assigned to read. Non-textbooks, that is. Little books, easy to digest. Not even books of stories but travel guides and short histories.Two of my favorite series are from Phaidon Press and Arcadia Publishing. I discovered the former in the Amsterdam airport, the latter in a used bookstore in Eau Claire, Wis.
Phaidon (whose Wallpaper City Guides are pictured above) publishes visually striking books on a realm of topics from art, architecture and design to travel, food and children's books.
Arcadia, as provincial as Phaidon is cosmopolitan, prints thousands of titles about local history. Your hometown might be published. You can search their extensive catalog by location, topic (baseball, campus histories, motoring, etc.) or theme (African-American, national parks, railroads, et al.).
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Time stops at random intersections
Ten days that reveal the apparent randomness of life:
Sun Apr 13 -- Jason, aka Prague traveling companion, visits E.C. to see his ailing dad, then comes over to our house where we share a wonderful meal. We bid farewell hoping to catch up with one another in a couple of months.
Thu Apr 17 -- I host a panel discussion at a Bethel University journalism conference that included the very talented Christina Capecchi, a recent Medill journalism grad, MinnPost colleague and former writer for The Catholic Spirit.
Fri Apr 18 -- Jason calls. His father died, after a long illness. Ann agrees to preside at the funeral.
Sun Apr 20 -- I see the rest of Jason's family for the first time in 23 years.
Mon Apr 21 -- At the funeral, as happens at funerals, eras collide: Lisa, Rob, others with whom we have had interconnected lives, gather to bring condolences. Everyone holds in tension the mix of memories, some superlative, some regretful. We commemorate it all.
Tue Apr 22 -- I play hooky from school (for the first time in my grad career) and travel with Jason up to the north woods. The past has its place; the present is 68 degrees and sunny on a grand April day. Many pictures are taken.
Today -- Christina e-mails a group of friends and aquaintances. Emilie, another former Catholic Spirit reporter, has received devastating news. (Her blog, LemmonDrops, is linked at left.) Time stops again at a random intersection where the lives of friends, family, co-workers, spouses, ex-spouses and acquaintances all meet.
Is there a constant through it all? God's promise to us: "Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come, follow me. And I will give you rest." (Listen to Be Not Afraid, by John Michael Talbot).
Ken Tetzloff, 12.29.25-4.17.08
Sun Apr 13 -- Jason, aka Prague traveling companion, visits E.C. to see his ailing dad, then comes over to our house where we share a wonderful meal. We bid farewell hoping to catch up with one another in a couple of months.
Thu Apr 17 -- I host a panel discussion at a Bethel University journalism conference that included the very talented Christina Capecchi, a recent Medill journalism grad, MinnPost colleague and former writer for The Catholic Spirit.
Fri Apr 18 -- Jason calls. His father died, after a long illness. Ann agrees to preside at the funeral.
Sun Apr 20 -- I see the rest of Jason's family for the first time in 23 years.
Mon Apr 21 -- At the funeral, as happens at funerals, eras collide: Lisa, Rob, others with whom we have had interconnected lives, gather to bring condolences. Everyone holds in tension the mix of memories, some superlative, some regretful. We commemorate it all.
Tue Apr 22 -- I play hooky from school (for the first time in my grad career) and travel with Jason up to the north woods. The past has its place; the present is 68 degrees and sunny on a grand April day. Many pictures are taken.
Today -- Christina e-mails a group of friends and aquaintances. Emilie, another former Catholic Spirit reporter, has received devastating news. (Her blog, LemmonDrops, is linked at left.) Time stops again at a random intersection where the lives of friends, family, co-workers, spouses, ex-spouses and acquaintances all meet.
Is there a constant through it all? God's promise to us: "Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come, follow me. And I will give you rest." (Listen to Be Not Afraid, by John Michael Talbot).
Ken Tetzloff, 12.29.25-4.17.08
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Playing center field: Pope Benedict
The Dalai Lama is traveling across the U.S. at the same time Pope Benedict XVI is visiting the East Coast. Perhaps the two most recognizable religious figures in the world nearly crossed paths in this foreign land.We forget that it is a foreign land to the rest of the world. True, American culture is ubiquitous. But these two spiritual leaders come from different worlds. The Dalai Lama descends from the reincarnated line of spiritual and temporal leaders of the Tibetan people. Although the pope heads the Western church (as opposed to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, for example), the U.S. church is a different animal altogether. The global Roman Catholic Church is considerably more ethnically diverse -- and theologically and politically conservative -- than what is often associated with U.S. Catholicism. And with all due respect to the poor within our borders, even the lower and middle economic classes in this country are rich by much of the world's standards.
Our media coverage of the visits of His Holiness and the Holy Father help interpret these leaders' views to us Americans. I wonder what interpretations they take back to the larger world of their visits here.
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Link to Steve's appearance on KSTP-TV in Minneapolis/St. Paul discussing the pope's visit.
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(Above: Doug Mills/New York Times photo of Pope Benedict XVI celebrating Mass at the Washington Nationals' new ballpark.)
Friday, April 11, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Knitting a web
I clicked on Gosford Park under the favorite movie listing in my own profile, and the first blogger to come up was Sway Knits from New York, N.Y. Now that wouldn't ordinarily catch my attention, except that knitting is to Ann as the ballpark is to me. Turns out it has beautiful photography and a dash of wit and style, not to mention knitting patterns. Of course, I've passed along the link.
All because I liked Gosford Park.
All because I liked Gosford Park.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Storm clouds west of Menopause
On my way to St. Paul the other day I left home in bright sunshine but encountered darkening skies halfway there. Innocuously, I sent a text message back home to say: "Storm clouds west of Menomonie." As text technology is inclined to do, it finished the word for me before I completed typing it. So the message read: "Storm clouds west of Menopause."
I'm guessing this is how authors get ideas for their book titles, or how bands come up with names for their songs. It made me realize what it must be like when I finish others' sentences during conversation. Or jump to conclusions in the middle of a story.
Perhaps it’s a worthwhile metaphor for taking the time to speak and listen. Or, as the automatic-word-finisher on my cell phone would say: "Person it’s a world Methodist form take they time to special Anderson list."
I'm guessing this is how authors get ideas for their book titles, or how bands come up with names for their songs. It made me realize what it must be like when I finish others' sentences during conversation. Or jump to conclusions in the middle of a story.
Perhaps it’s a worthwhile metaphor for taking the time to speak and listen. Or, as the automatic-word-finisher on my cell phone would say: "Person it’s a world Methodist form take they time to special Anderson list."
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
How to know you've been in school too long
Yesterday in class, the professor asked how many of us had read Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr. I was the only one who raised my hand. I mentioned that it was a required book in my first class at seminary. How old am I?
Longevity has its advantages. For example, I've discovered seven answers will pretty much get you through seminary. Regardless of the question, one of these responses likely will be suitable.
The Seven Answers to Get You Through Seminary
Context matters.
It's our eschatalogical hope.
We need a new paradigm.
That's evidence of our postmodern mileau.
We need to create space for ambiguity.
Everything is an interpretation.
It's not an either/or but a both/and.
Longevity has its advantages. For example, I've discovered seven answers will pretty much get you through seminary. Regardless of the question, one of these responses likely will be suitable.
The Seven Answers to Get You Through Seminary
Context matters.
It's our eschatalogical hope.
We need a new paradigm.
That's evidence of our postmodern mileau.
We need to create space for ambiguity.
Everything is an interpretation.
It's not an either/or but a both/and.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
From the Ivy League to ivy-covered walls
Today is the eve of another baseball season. Each Opening Day I remember why it is the best game around. It brings us out of doors after long winters. What other sport has inspired so many good books? And what other sport can claim that it lured away the president of Yale University to be its commissioner?
That former commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, wrote of baseball: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.''
Fall is a long way off. Tomorrow is the beginning of spring. Play ball.
That former commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, wrote of baseball: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.''
Fall is a long way off. Tomorrow is the beginning of spring. Play ball.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
One season ends, another begins
The Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball season came to an end yesterday at the hands of Davidson College. Despite what everyone is saying, this wasn't an upset. The Badgers had a great season -- an all-time Wisconsin record for victories (31) and the Big Ten championship. But Davidson, a little Presbyterian-founded school outside of Charlotte, N.C., has the real deal: a 6-foot-3 sophomore named Stephen Curry, who could follow his dad to the NBA someday. He's playing better than anyone in the country right now.So now it's on to baseball's Opening Day. The Cubs take on the Brewers at 1:20 p.m. Monday. It's time for spring -- although whoever makes the baseball schedule and decides for a Chicago team to open at home on March 31 has never visited there in early spring. The Cubs open against Milwaukee, which has a retractible-roof ballpark! Why not open in Milwaukee, then return to Chicago when the weather is warmer? No one asked me. They didn't ask me about the designated hitter, either, and that's been around since 1973.
Logo: University of Wisconsin
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Things I found in an old notebook
Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
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The Bible is like a human being. If you torture it long enough, it will say anything.
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The Bible is like a human being. If you torture it long enough, it will say anything.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Religion meets mathematics
Snow began falling the precise moment our sunrise service began Sunday at North Church. Easter is still the talk around town, including this morning at the 4:30 AM Coffee Shop in downtown Chippewa. Specifically, the talk is: "We never have this much snow on the ground at Easter."
Well, part of that is certainly because of a return to a "normal" winter, after several seasons of paltry snowfall. But the most obvious is that Easter occurred earlier this year -- March 23 -- than any year since 1913. It won't come nearly this early again until 2035, when it will be on March 25.
Since the fourth century, the Western Christian church has determined Easter to be the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after March 21, using the Gregorian calendar. Believe it or not, there's a formula to make this calculation:
((19*t+u-w-(u-(u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)+(32+2*x+2*y-(19*t+u-w- (u-(u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)-z)mod7)-7*(t+11*(19*t+u-w(u- (u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)+22*(32+2*x+2*y-(19*t+u-w-(u- (u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)-g)mod7)+114)\31
You thought understanding the Book of Revelation was difficult?
The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, rather than the Gregorian. So the Orthodox Easter this year will be April 27.
Well, part of that is certainly because of a return to a "normal" winter, after several seasons of paltry snowfall. But the most obvious is that Easter occurred earlier this year -- March 23 -- than any year since 1913. It won't come nearly this early again until 2035, when it will be on March 25.
Since the fourth century, the Western Christian church has determined Easter to be the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after March 21, using the Gregorian calendar. Believe it or not, there's a formula to make this calculation:
((19*t+u-w-(u-(u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)+(32+2*x+2*y-(19*t+u-w- (u-(u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)-z)mod7)-7*(t+11*(19*t+u-w(u- (u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)+22*(32+2*x+2*y-(19*t+u-w-(u- (u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)-g)mod7)+114)\31
You thought understanding the Book of Revelation was difficult?
The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, rather than the Gregorian. So the Orthodox Easter this year will be April 27.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Power of Place
Ann is off at Garrett seminary for a preaching seminar. If I had seven days in Prague, it's only fair she gets a few days to feed her soul in Evanston. Not only is it the place where we met (and later married), but it's where her father once lived and schooled, where her grandfather once taught journalism, and where my parents married. So it's a place powerful with connection, history and memory. Thank God there are such places, where meaning transcends the structure of bricks and mortar and roots us in sacred ground. Photo by Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary / Northwestern University.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Oscar and Felix have returned
Above: The Last Supper, chiseled above the entrance to the church at Vysehrad (the original home of the Bohemian prince). Right: Looking over Old Town to New Town and beyond. Photos by steve 11-12 mar 08.Yes, Jason has dropped his bags back in Ohio, and I have finished rearranging my sock drawer upon returning to Wisconsin. Can you hear the theme to "The Odd Couple" playing? Perhaps we couldn't permanently share an apartment (or a car), but a week in a flat in Prague went quite well.
I've had a chance to look at more Prague pictures since I've returned, and I've been pleased to note that a few of them are even in focus. Of course, I'm two years overdue for a bifocals prescription. This confirms Jason's blind-bird theory: take enough pictures, and one or two are bound to turn out (based upon the maxim "even a blind bird finds a worm once in a while"). A couple more are included above.
But I'm really looking forward to seeing Jason's photos taken with his 4x5 large-format camera. I'm certain he made a number of images that will render worthwhile that uphill dawn trudge with camera and tripod in tow. (Not to mention lenses that weighed as much as watermelons.)
Instead of sitting at the Bohemia Bagel Cafe, I'm now at The Bean Bag cafe in New Richmond, preparing a worship service for Easter Sunday while waiting for Jackson to finish a Destination Imagination practice at school. Can you say culture shock?
Monday, March 17, 2008
Easter week
" 'Irreligious' Prague still turns Easter into two-week fest." Posted today at MinnPost.com.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
How you say, dekuji vam?
That would be "thank you" in Czech. Jason has been a first-rate traveling companion, expert tour guide, patient cohort and masterful photo teacher (don't judge that by these photos). And, he just brought me a cappucino in the cafe where we've been posting all week. Photos from top: himself the artist preparing to make a photograph from above the city; St. Vitus Cathedral and the castle overlooking Praha; something for Ann; something for Jackson and Lara; and a train station south of the Little Quarter.
Photos by steve 11-12 mar 08.