singing with full voice [sermon]

[a sermon preached at first united methodist church in dayton, texas on sunday april 14, 2013]

revelation 5:11-14
“then i looked, and i heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice,
“worthy is the lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”
then i heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,
“to the one seated on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
and the four living creatures said, “amen!” and the elders fell down and worshipped.

may the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you; o lord, our rock and our redeemer. amen

singing with full voice

today marks the third sunday of easter–we are fifteen days into the fifty days of easter–a time in which we continue to remember the passion and crucifixion and raising of jesus the christ. it was wise of those who assembled the year of the christian calendar to give us fifty days to dwell in eastertide. fifty days to ponder the great mystery of our faith “christ has died. christ has risen. christ will come again.” a time where the memories of easter week are still fresh in our minds–the juxtaposition of shouted and sung hosana’s and foreshadowing of betrayal and denial on palm sunday; the servanthood of christ on manudy thursday when jesus took the role of servant and washed the feet of the disciples; the darkness of good friday; and the depth of the unknown of holy saturday which then bursts forth into gladsome light on easter morning when we read of the women going to the tomb, of jesus saying; “mary.” and she, as if being resurrected herself, comes to life again.

it is a good thing we have fifty days.

and on this, the third sunday of easter, i am going to muddy the waters a bit as we dive into the apocalyptic mystery that is the book of revelation. i must confess, preaching from the book of revelation makes me about as nervous as the time i couldn’t read the arabic sign to decipher if i was getting on the correct ferry to jordan or the very incorrect ferry to saudi arabia… (i got on the right ferry.)

for this decision to read from revelation i can only blame the holy spirit. and trust this is the path we need to be walking down together this morning.
_

singing has been a part of my life for a long time. being a timid singer has been a part of my life since sometime in middle school, when that ontological change happens in a young teen’s life and confidence takes a nose dive. so, when i got to university to audition for choir i had to be taught to be what dr. paul drummond called a “first note singer.”

because singing timidly tends to not be overly compelling for the listener. often shallow, and, in the life of a choir, not a terribly helpful addition to the ensemble.

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in revelation 5 we find john standing before the Lamb, the one that was slaughtered, and the company of heaven whose numbers were a “myriad of myriads, and thousands of thousands” and they were doing something that, by my best reading, only occurs in what john calls ‘heaven’ and when earth is portraying heaven: they are singing with full voice.

these are not the voices of of the timid. these are the voices of those who are standing with the Lamb, those who have experience of the one who was crucified.

all the living creatures, and the elders sing “worthy is the lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

we need fifty days for easter. we need these fifty days to work on the strength of our voices, building up the strength of the vocal folds so we can be singing with full voice when pentecost finds us and lights our hearts on fire.

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today i very much wanted to tell you all about the karimajong people of north eastern uganda, east africa. i lived in a karimajong community for three years and spent ample amounts of time playing rogue anthropologist and ethnographer, trying to learn the culture and oral histories of the karimajong. during that time i fell in love with their traditional singing and dancing–in many ways it is simple, in many ways it is complex–and i wanted to use their ways as an illustration for singing with full voice.

however, yesterday, when researching tibetan monks throat singing i stumbled across something that struck me as an illustration whispered into my ear by the holy spirit herself that my karimajong example felt bulky. forced. feel free to ask me about the karimajong, their strong and defiant women, and their warrior culture any time.

so, yesterday, while on that highly scholarly site, youtube, searching hither and yon for tibetan or mongolian throat singing i noticed something called inuit throat singing.

pause. obsession.

before i tell you about traditional inuit throat singing, let me first say why i went hunting for throat singing in the first place. when one is properly executing this way of producing noise, there are up to three different notes created from one person at one time. throat singing often also involves cyclical breathing–meaning the music continues as long as there is breath.

traditional inuit throat singing tend to be duets sung by two women. watching these pairs singing felt as if i were intruding on an intimate and special moment. the feeling of potential intrusion was similar to how i felt in the women’s only train car on the cairo subway when the women would remove their hajib (head coverings), fix their hair, and have their friends/mothers/aunties help them deftly re-pin them before the next stop. i felt like an interloper.

and even here, on youtube, where my presence is an unknown number, i felt as if these were precious moments that did not belong to me.

the two women face each other, often standing, sometimes crouching, almost always holding the other’s arms. from my afternoon’s worth of information gathering, these women tend to stand quite close to one another. one woman is leading while the other responds; the leader produces a short rhythmic motif that she repeats with a short gap in between, while the other rhythmically fills in the gaps.

the lead can change the pattern at any time, and the partner must feel, see, and hear the change and bridge that gap.

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back in revelation, the lamb receiving honor and the praise of the company of heaven in today’s reading was, in the preceding verses of chapter five, deemed as the only one able to open the scroll of the seven seals. after the lamb takes the scroll they sing “you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God.”

the lamb becomes the bridge between the gap of heaven and earth. the one who was dead is now alive and shares god’s throne.

the lamb–that is jesus–is the bridge between heaven and earth. jesus, as we remembered all during holy week, solidified that bridge by living fully into what he had come to be. jesus was singing with full voice. holding nothing back, accepting the torture and pain of execution.

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while watching every single video and viewing every single photograph i could conjure, the image of two women, clasping at each other’s elbows, swaying from side to side and each singing her distinct part opened a new space of imagination for me.

if one takes the lead, we could say that this one is like the creator. the lead, god. sets the tone, the pace and the theme. the partner, the bridge, the son; fills in the gap and acts as a bridge between the lead, the creator and completes the song. one could argue, to complete the trinity in this illustration, that the holy spirit is the breath passed back and forth between the creator and the son-the audible tune we hear.

these two, lead and partner–creator and son–are two who move and sing as one, complementing the other, both moving in the same direction.

in throat singing there are notes being sung on both the inhale and the exhale. when the lead is on the inhale, the partner is on the exhale. and vice versa. constant breath. perpetual music.

in one interview a inuit woman said that “when you first start throat singing learning how to breathe properly is really important. if you don’t take in enough air and you don’t let enough out you start to become lightheaded.” and another woman said “it is easier when the people know each other.”

for jesus, the son, the partner, to know god, the creator, the lead is key. were this relationship not an extraordinarily intimate one jesus would not be able to follow the lead of the creator. this is our example. this is what we, the children of god, learn at the feet of the slowly circling and ever -singing creator and son. that for us to sing our part in the song, with full voice, we must know god intimately.

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what does it mean for us, as followers and imitators of christ, to sing with full voice? how do you and i, personally embrace the motion of the dancing creator and son? where does your voice fit?
it is so good to have fifty days of easter.

not only is jesus’ obedience in crucifixion an example of his singing with his full voice, so are the events that lead up to that moment. more often than not, when jesus sang with full voice–when he lived boldly and fully as himself–he got into a lot of trouble.

the rebel-rouser who knowingly and willing upset the Powers That Be by speaking and living Truth (with a capitol T) he was chastised, ridiculed.

what are those places in your life? not your neighbor’s life, nor your spouses’ life. not even your children or parents lives. but what are those places in your life, where to sing with full voice you may get called out. laughed at. make a mess or make some unwanted noise?

these spaces, friends, these spaces of grasping the creator by the elbow and joining in the song already in progress are the spaces and times that we are singing with full voice. when we are being who we were created to be.

what do you have to release to have a hand free to grasp god?

is it your phone? the falsity of perpetual business? greed or envy? a misunderstanding that has morphed into rivalry and spite? the desire to be right?

what do you have to stop saying so you can sing with full voice?

is it gossip? is it your silence on something? should you voice you opinion? should your hold your opinion more often?

what is it?

leave it there, grasp god. and get to singing.

close your eyes, tilt your head back, let go, and sing.

“to the one seated on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” and the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

amen.

excuse me, young lady, your privilege is showing

my intention was to take the bus.

i remember my alarm going off at 555 this morning. i also remember going back to sleep. i do not remember turning off the alarm.

therefore i woke up, by chance from a disturbing dream about suddenly only speaking portuguese and not being able to speak english no matter how hard i tried–(yes, it was really frustrating)–at 715. crap.

out the door in a record 15 minutes i had to drive my car as park in longterm parking at the airport. which is much more expensive than the bus.

can you see my privilege? i can see it and feel it.

assuaging my guilt of privilege by taking the bus was thwarted. and i had to feel it anyway.

happy monday.

running vignette

recently when running around the newly made paths at lakeview methodist camp, texas, usa; my feet were reminded of running around kaabong town, kaabong district, uganda.

hills.

sand.

that is where the similarities end as far as scenery and surroundings.
kaabong is predominately sand, short scrub trees and stacks of large rocks dotting “the undulating hills of dadoth” like stacks of rocks one would make on the playground, only these would have had to been made by giants.

lakeview is “behind the pine curtain” in east texas–these hills full of tall texas pine–holding one’s view to within a few yards rather than the several miles one can see without straining one’s eyes in kaabong. if there are large stacks of boulders around lakeview, they must be on the backs of the turtles that create the earth and all of them covered with east texas sand.

these differences were noted by my eyes, my skin (the air was chilly here in texas yet managed to be humid, my skin remembers the dry, constant heat of kaabong), my lungs–but my feet…they became confused.

about 1.5 miles into a run, my feet and i encountered a rather large hill. this hill caused me to focus my eyes predominately on my feet so as to not trip, or misjudge the grade of the hill.

i have recently been meeting difficult portions of distance runs by counting my steps. i will count to one hundred and then promptly begin at one again. i had counted several hundred steps during and post hill-climbing when my eyes caught a glimpse of something in my path.

not a full vision of something, but a small incomplete picture of what lay ahead. this incomplete version of reality triggered something way in the back of my brain. i stopped running–froze on the path–heart pounding and attempting to hold my breath.

the word that the back of my brain screamed into my internal ears in those milliseconds was what stopped me. it took at least 10 times as long for that reasoning to come from the non-cognitive place inside my head to the cognizant part of my head where i was able to examine this word and consider it rationally.

the word?

land mine.

there is a extraordinarily good change that there are zero land mines around the lake at lakeview. one could probably safely assume that there are little to no land mines around east texas. but for a few milliseconds that felt like a few millennia there was at least one land mine, and it was in my path, and it stopped my heart.

interestingly enough, this makes me wonder about encountering jesus in those around me.

i’ll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

#rethinkchurch:lent [who am i?]

i am black coffee and gray chuck taylors; red nails and a clerical collar.
daughter, friend; sister in spirit and ministry.
woods, coffman, locke, freeman. immigrant, first people: muddled.
i am curly and sassy, short and long. tall.
a learner, a teacher. i am a pastor, a shepherd: a sheep.

i am a collector of sunsets, traveler and pilgrim.
an admirer of art, creator of things; found object finder.
a believer in the power of touch; love. a connector of people.
reader of books: library card holder.bike rider.
dark beer and red wine enthusiast, talking introvert. company enjoyer.

napkin user, young gardner, sewing machine tinkerer:
lover of “old fashioned” and “old timey”.
singer, wailer, hummer. listener, harmonizer.
infp: deep feeler. prays to be a mystic, faster, indulger.
dreamer of dreams, reader of poems, wrestler with scripture.

journal-er. blogger, facebook and twitter happy instragrammer.
excellent communicator. terrible communicator.
sarcastic. gentle. paradoxical.

peace loving, freedom for all, lover of the potential of the human race.
activist, protester, letter writing voter. political but not political.

defender of animals, holder of babies, caretaker of the earth. green.
i am one who talks to birds and bunnies. cats and dogs. seeker of isis.
tie-er of ribbons and string to trees, impromptu ‘shrine’ builder: photographer.
lives in the moment, lost in a day-dream, inspector of details. sloppy.

i am fearfully and wonderfully made, whole: incomplete. already:not yet.
clasp-er of grace, often forgetful: repentant. dust. beloved and loved.

i am who i am because of The  ”tell them,” “I Am who I Am” has sent you.”

thanks be to god.
amen.

a traveling she will go: just another transport story

2 trains + 2 busses + airplane + 2 busses = nashville, tn, usa.

show your work.

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early wednesday morning began in my friend and colleague katie’s vehicle pointed toward the nearest DART station in richardson, texas just outside of dallas. she dropped me off with a wave and i made a bee-line toward the ticket machine to purchase my half-day pass. it wouldn’t accept my credit card. awesome. i tried the next one beside it. denied.

denial.

try first machine again.

denied.

second machine.

denied.

“what the…”

the fellow also buying a ticket at the time offered his sympathies and suggested i try cash. i smiled at him, sweetly, and said; “if i had cash, i would certainly be using it…are there people in that building?”

“oh. uh. yeah, maybe.”

so i drug my little red suitcase across the bus turn-around and clanked it up to the service desk at the transit center terminal. i said that the machines weren’t taking my card, but that i needed to get to the airport on time.

little to no sympathy. mostly none.

okay, no sympathy from the two people at the desk.

all they had to offer was “there are two more machines, maybe you should try them…”

so, i did. you will probably not be surprised to hear that my card was denied at both of those as well. (stop panicking, i wasn’t out of money and my card wasn’t shut down.) in a small act of desperation i dug through my wallet and found exactly how much money i needed.

oops. sorry dude i snarked at. sorta. i was sorta sorry. maybe a little. okay, about as much as the sorry as the amount of sympathy i received from the help-desk.

made the train.

made the next train.

made the bus.

with a little use of my patented “lost traveller” look (so handy. who needs ego when you can just play lost and confused female and get help. judge me if you must.) i was directed to which bus i needed from remote parking at DFW and arrived at the terminal.

while on this second bus i received a text message from us airways notifying me that my plane was delayed 30 minutes. then a second one saying “oh, more like an hour and a half.”

for those of you keeping track at home, my first flight was to be to charlotte, north carolina and then i would transfer to a flight to nashville, tn. this delay would force me to miss my connecting flight.

i didn’t panic. (seewhatididthere?)

i took off my “panicked lost female” look and put on my travel-savvy-calm-cool-collected look, breezed through security and made my way to my original gate where i quietly waited near the desk for someone to appear. the moment he did, i casually walked up to the desk, explained my situation and let him do the rest. this non-panicky move ended me up transferred for free to an american airlines direct flight with a refund on my seat changes.

yes.

i even. had time. for lunch. bazinga.

upon arrival in nashville i looked into the price for the shuttle between the airport and the resort $28 one way $40 round trip. no, thank you. i’d rather walk.

it’s cold. so i took the bus.

two nashville public busses to be precise.

the first bus was unremarkable, just what one wants in public transportation. nothing exciting happened. like.

walking between the first bus and the second bus was…interesting. no sidewalk (wouldn’t bother me so much normally, but the ground was slightly soggy, and i was pulling my little red suitcase behind me. oy.

there was a lovely police officer who was directing traffic at a bridge that was partially closed. he instructed me where the bus stop was-and then he totally stopped traffic so i could cross the 4 lanes of traffic.

“thank you!!”

the second bus was at the national cemetery. two mildly creepy looking gentleman asked if i wanted a ride. one woman rolled down her window at the stoplight and said, “aren’t you cold?!”

i shrugged.

the second bus deposited me at the door of the gaylord opryland hotel and resort magnolia entrance. which was nice. and i had arrived just in time to register and make it to opening worship only a little late.

i made a presto-chango in the nearest restroom so as to look at least respectable after a long day of travel (all told, about 10 hours) checked in, got lost in this massive place, found my room and used my map to find the group of methodists.

2 trains + 2 busses + airplane + two busses = nashville, tn, usa.

“you haven’t said anything about “friday” yet…”

there are some many conversations starting and restarting across the united states of america right now regarding gun violence, mental health, religion in schools, religion in general and even regarding our school systems in general.

and these are very good conversations to have.

my question: why, in heaven’s name, does it take a tragic event for us to come into these conversations with the sort of zeal and gusto that i suspect are all over facebook, twitter, television news and even the radio? i have been purposefully not looking at my facebook news feed, reading anything on twitter, i don’t own a television and i turn off the radio when someone starts postulating. i don’t have to look because i feel like i know the people of this country well enough to remember reactions to 9/11, the colombine shooting, and the shooting in aurora, colorado and any number of other incidents that have taken place during my lifetime.

those who already want to discuss gun violence and the laws that this country has regarding carrying weapons are shouting their affirmation for “the right to bear arms” and saying things like “well i carry a Glock everyday and i’m not planning on doing this sort of thing” loudly and proudly. and those who are on the other side of the fence are probably posting things like statistics and stories regarding those lives lost due to weaponry in civilian hands and maybe even condemning the use of force outside of our own land and upon other people through hot war, drones and the like.

both sides are saying the things they already think–perhaps even using religious language to make their argument as to why they must be correct–both sides will shout and spew, hem and haw, shout and scream  until they’re blue in the face.

or,

as tends to happen in this country, this zeal and vitriol–this passion and firm belief that “things need to change!” or “things need to stay the way they are!” will fade back into the background of everyday life and life will get on as usual. there are, of course, christmas presents to finish purchasing and wrapping–family to cook for–and day to day frustrations that will take the fore of our minds and we will feel ‘safe’ again.

this, somewhat, brings me back to my question: why does it take a “threat” on our “security” and the loss of many lives for us to have this conversation?

perhaps more importantly: why, after these questions are raised, do we not create a larger over-arching space for these conversations and debates to be made? are we, as the people of the united states, even currently capable of having these conversations together without screaming and yelling–without closing our ears to what the other side is trying to say? are we even capable of coming together and having a conversation where we do not just assume that we already know the outcome?

are we?

because, dear people, i fear that in many ways we are not ready to have this conversation with each other.

it hasn’t been a deep and overarching conversation with anyone who disagrees with us–but with those who we know are “on our side.”

i implore you to let go of what you “think” take a hold of jesus and start having conversations, real conversations where each member listens to what the other has to say with grace and an open heart regarding violence, guns, mental health, schools, safety and even this jesus fellow.

stop postulating. start listening.

and for the love–pray.

soon and very soon–a sermon

the sermon i delivered for commissioning and reworked for conference office chapel this morning.

hymn: let us gather at the river

revelation 7:9-17

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands 10 they cried out in a loud voice saying: “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the lamb!” 11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,”Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might to be our God forever and ever amen.” 13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white and where have they come from? 14 I said to him, “Sir you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God and worship him day and night within his temple and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them 16 they will hunger no more and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat 17 for the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Let us pray: Holy God we thank you for this new day and for the honor to worship you here together. Send your Holy Spirit to be among us, to comfort and guide us. Help us to hear your voice this day and always. And may the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, o lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

There is great suffering in this world. Some places and people are experiencing crippling drought, or rising floodwaters, a scarcity of food or skyrocketing commodities prices making the purchase of food nearly impossible. Family members and friends all over the world go off to war, embassies and civilians are attacked…we all feel the pain of the unknown, of the possibilities. At times it seems that pain and loss lurk around every corner plaguing humanity. And this suffering is not just out there somewhere in the world, but there is great suffering within our community, as well. Each and every one of us as human beings, living in this broken and sinful world, feels pain. We suffer from our own personal demons or life circumstances.

In this community, we have all known great loss, great conflict, great pain.

A great day in the life of the church is All Saint’s day. A day of remembering and celebrating the Communion of Saints: saints of old whom we never met nor knew, and who were faithful servants of God. All Saint’s is also a time to remember those saints we have known, and loved and held with our own hands. Those whose voices have been added to the great cloud of witnesses singing praises to God for eternity, joining the uncountable number dressed in white. All Saints is not typically observed until early November, however we can remember the Saints any day. In this reading from Revelation we find those who have been “through the great ordeal” waving palm branches and singing praises to God.

In whatever way one interprets the phrase “the great ordeal” one thing is fairly clear: anything referred to as “the great ordeal” was probably not a lazy Saturday afternoon having a picnic in the park, but something of a difficulty, where perhaps suffering was involved.

It was on the Thursday of Easter-week in 1994 that the horrific events of what is simply known as the “Rwandan Genocide” started to become reality. I will not go into too much detail on these events in this context, suffice to say that the people and land of Rwanda endured over a hundred days and nights filled with terror, brutality and death. There are stories of pastors letting their congregations be locked inside the church, and the building then being set ablaze; stories of trusted family friends turning on those who they had promised to protect. Communities that were seemingly tight-knit were plunged into a new reality of suspicion and mistrust. Friends were violently turning on friends and blood ran through the thousand hills of a beautiful country. Rwanda has known great and deep suffering.

Just over 13 years later, in the summer of 2007 I was traveling with a group from seminary in Rwanda. Over the course of the previous semester we had learned the history of the genocide, discussed the political and religious climate of the time and struggled theologically to understand how human beings could behave this way. Our studies culminated in a pilgrimage to the places we had been reading and hearing about. One Sunday morning began at the Gikongolo Genocide Memorial in southern Rwanda. Located in a former vocational school, and sight of large massacre, the Memorial is an attack on the senses that viscerally forced my body to deal with the physicality of death. Our guide and storyteller was a man who had survived this massacre–he narrated the story and then invited us to walk around the school. All of the victim’s bodies that had been haphazardly buried in mass graves and doused in lye, but after the genocide were unearthed and placed back into the classrooms. Thousands of murdered bodies, mummified by the lye lay silently on wooden pallets in classrooms.

After spending some time wandering in and out of the rooms, contemplating and praying individually we loaded back on our bus, silently, and were taken to a Sunday morning church service. In the twenty-minutes it took to reach Butare Free Methodist Church I do not remember one person speaking. It was clear as we began descending the hill to the already-in-progress church service that we were uncomfortable. More often than not, church services in East Africa are not quiet affairs. The music is loud, the preaching is loud, and the speakers are turned up as loud as they will go. Church can get quite loud. And Butare Free Methodist Church was no exception. We were shocked from our quiet reverence into loud singing and dancing.

It was not until after the service that the beauty of this particular jarring juxtaposition began to revel itself. As guests to the church, we were invited to stay for lunch with the choir members and clergy. The reverend, without dicing words, said that the members of this church and community were the same people whom only years before were slaughtering each other.

These very same people. Someone in this congregation may very well be sitting next to the sibling of the person who murdered their family, or even tried to murder them. Yet, here they are sitting next to each other in church, week after week, and singing together.

One of the Rwandan choir members, in a moment that I can only say was truly Holy Spirit inspired, stood and began singing “Soon and Very Soon.” Soon and very soon we are going to see the King, Hallelujah! Through the shock of the reality of the genocide, and through the shock of the reality of this worshiping community, we tentatively, then boldly, began to sing along: No more crying there, we are going to see the King, Hallelujah! There was a lot of dancing and clapping going on in that little room–and a lot of tears– we all danced and sang together with perhaps more gusto than I have experienced before of since: No more dying there, we are going to see the King, Hallelujah! We’re going to see the King!

What I have described and what we experienced in that little room in that church in Butare, Rwanda, was a glimpse of what the author of Revelation is talking about in this passage today. Those saints who have been through “the great ordeal” gather around the Lamb who promises to shelter them, and they in turn sing praises to God. Through all of the pain and suffering, loss and tears; through all the unanswered questions and despite of the horror of part of their collective history, these saints sang praises to God. It was like catching a glimpse of the massacred bodies from Gikongolo in their new location, gathered around the throne of God and singing praises!

Now, I suspect that most of us do not know what it feels like to have escaped genocide. However that does not mean that the pain and suffering that we personally feel is negated by such a tragedy. The deepness of the pain that each of us feels in our own belly, our own chest our own heart is as real as anyone else’s pain.

Even though the pain of loss can at times be all encompassing, this passage from Revelation serves as a reminder that regardless of the “great ordeal” each one of us bears individually and what we bear together as a community, the Lamb is seated at the center of the throne. While we struggle and suffer in the human predicament of being in and yet not of this world, we can be assured that God does not abandon us in our time of suffering, because “the one who is seated on the throne will shelter” us.

This is not to say that we will not suffer, that we will not feel the pain of the reality of sin and evil in the world. But it is to say that we have the promise of a Holy and Almighty God, in whose image we are created, who is madly in love with each of us despite our sin and downfalls. No matter what our “great ordeal” the Lamb, Christ, is still seated at the center of the throne. It is because of Christ the Lamb who is the shepherd who leads us that we can have the audacity to sing praises to God in spite the suffering we may endure in this life.

After the singing subsided in Rwanda and lunch began, our group and the choir of Butare Free Methodist mingled and shared lunch together. Speaking through a translator, I mustered up the courage to ask one of the members what “Soon and Very Soon” meant for her. She told me that it meant that God is bigger then genocide. God is bigger than the pain she and her country had endured. She kept her faith not because she managed to survive but because she believes deeply that all of those she lost– those saints whose lives were cut short–were singing that song with Christ, forever, she was anxious one day join those she missed and to sing with them.

Let us remember the saints who are gathered around the throne of God, singing songs of praise–where there is no hunger, thirst, or pain. Whose “great ordeal” has ended and are worshiping the lamb for eternity. Let us remember that this is our destination. When the pain and suffering of this world reach the unbearable point let us remember that because of Christ we are gifted with the audacity to sing praises to God in the midst of our trouble. Let us remember God’s promise to shelter us.

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands 10 they cried out in a loud voice saying: “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the lamb!”

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King, Hallelujah.
Amen

hymn: soon and very soon
(then i came to my office and listened to ‘when death dies’ by gungor)

potential upcoming posts (i make no promises, however)

* an open letter to united methodists: shut up about nadia bolz-weber and get to work being the Church.
* an open letter to married people: stop pitying my singleness.

* being single: not a disease or something to overcome.

* reentry: leaving my house after dark

* houston food truck love (a photo essay)

* reentry: team sudganda (lite) reunion, texas edition

again, i make no promises. but i think about you, dear blog readers, often. its not you, its me.

i killed my kombucha scoby.

i killed my kombucha scoby.

so it turns out that i’m not a ‘natural’ at brewing my own kombucha. as a matter of fact, i’m so bad at brewing my own kombucha that i killed the scoby. this is what happens when one assumes that one knows what one is doing and just forges ahead with just a little research and a desire to have cheap kombucha. turns out i starved the poor thing by not feeding it enough sugar. go figure.

this would be less sad if i hadn’t received the scoby from a friend, who had received her start from a friend, too. as penance i am going to just order a scoby from someone i don’t know from that highly impersonal place that is the internet.

this is actually becoming a trend in the life of t. killing things i mean. stop panicking and let me explain.
i planted several sets of seeds about a month ago–cilantro, basil, strawberries, flowers, peppers of various kinds and some tomato seeds. i killed ALL of them! people, this is out of the ordinary. i had a thriving little bunch of kitchen herbs taking over my veranda in uganda–all started on my back veranda by yours truly in milk containers. but kitchen herbs in america? forget it, apparently.

i’m willing to try again. and have even purchased better soil than the cocoa-peet that came with some of my starter seeds. i’ll even be sure to sing to my plants more this time around (hey, it worked in uganda…can’t hurt.)

maybe i need to sing to my new kombucha scoby when she arrives? what kinds of songs does mold one ferments tea with like, you think?

typically i  don’t spend a lot of time with middle school/midhigh aged students.

a few weeks ago, however, i spent several hours with about 40 students in this age range–observing and (sort of)facilitating their participation in some low ropes activities. here are some observations:here are some observations:

 

middle school girls are REALLY LOUD. there was a lot of yelling and talking over each other. many high-pitched shreeks and perpetual attempts to bee heard.  this rather reminded me of several meetings i have been in–ironically, all the meetings that came to mind were church related in some way. am i saying that church meetings are conducted like a gathering of middle school girls? maybe a little. maybe a lot.

 

middle school boys can be just as harsh toeach other as middle school girls. there was a group of boys who had been living together all week (they were a cabin at camp) and who had nicknames all given by their ring-leader (alpha-boy, i guess). everyone got a nickname, but there were two in particular that were clearly backhanded.

 

overall i was really glad to know that cricitcal thinking skills are taught in american schools–and glad to know that we have things like low-ropes courses to teach students (and adults) better communication skills in this somewhat-sneaky and quite fun way.

 

so, i guess that’s my this on that.