Monday, January 29, 2007

glassenheit

an Anabaptist word that means abandonment of one’s self that leads to peace and calm, the surrendering of one’s self to the kingdom of God and to the community of believers. It means a life now lived in on-going discipleship and living out the indwelling of Christ.
Perhaps we could say that one is not Christian unless he/she enters into glassenheit.
It is often translated as submission. I don't believe the simple word "submission" does justice to the more robust definition below. Submission paints a picture of a spinelessness. A beat and whimpering puppy, perhaps. The connotations simply don't work. Submission suggests cowardice and weakness. Glassenheit is a silent strength that thrusts its hand into the circle of believers, receiving in return the support of many hands.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

lovin the YMCA

I don’t use my shower at home. I go to the YMCA. No hair to clean up. No soap scum. It’s great! If I’d live alone, I wouldn’t need to clean the bathroom at all.

Then there is the steam room. It is heaven in a box. After a long swim, it feels like wet summer. I love to sit there and sweat like a waterfall. It helps me keep my body temperature above the shiver of the climate in my house. It also keeps my face clear. There’s no need to buy all those expensive pore cleaners and reducers. My face just needs a sauna.

And all of this for only $22 a month. If you are on a Health Partners plan, you log at least 12 visits a month and if you have a house mate on the same plan with you.

Friday, January 26, 2007

lead us out of temptation

Recently, my mind has been turned to consider the art of encouraging others to do as they are compelled, not as they desire. In this particular instance it is a delicate matter, concerning the proper relationship between a married man and a woman (single or married). The more mature talk about it and choose to do what is right. I will never forget the married woman who told me that she had had a conversation with a married male co-worker about their attraction toward each other. They acknowledged it and resolved to direct it in a way that would enhance their work together and also their commitments to their own spouses. I since then have striven for that kind of bold honesty. There’s something about it that takes the temptation to relate falsely to others right out of the equation.

In my work environment (and I have several of them), I have encountered a very married man who I’ve sensed doesn’t really want to act like he is married at times. Although I have seen nothing inappropriate, I’ve gone with my gut on this one and have decidedly been encouraging toward a comfortable, engaging and open relationship with him. I have been aware of the fact that he finds me intriguing. Many people do—men and women. However, I wish to use that intrigue that they have for me and the intrigue I have for them toward God’s intention. And it’s not that I don’t find him attractive. But more importantly I believe friendship to be a very honest and high ideal in my book, a higher goal than romance I think, given the bent of society.

A few times I’ve had to meet with this married man one-on-one. Given my sense about him, I ran a mental list of how I would contribute to the interaction. I allowed myself only one touch on the shoulder—if I needed to make a strong point. I had to watch for and avoid (like the plague) the true accidental knee bumping. I would not lean forward too much or appear too comfortable in my posture. If things were getting too cozy I was going to clip my words, straighten my back and be more brusque. I was not going to dawdle at length over chit chat conversation.

An insignificant amount of time ago my suspicions were confirmed. I happened to see him (the married man) out with a young single woman, who I also knew. They were chatting, leaning towards each other, gazing into each others eyes, her feet resting inside the circle of his legs, touching at the calves.

Thanks, Lord, for the sight.

I write this because it is a real daily occurrence for many people. Yet we need to be real about it.

P.S. Do not assume this story happened outside of my Christian environment.

sexual abuse amongst the Amish and conservative Mennonites

I began researching things early in my life. Whenever I didn’t understand something, I researched it to death and thought it to death until I did understand it. One of the topics I researched while I was a teen was sexual abuse. I had a suspicion that a peer and a friend from my conservative church, showed signs of being sexually abused. Since she was coming to me for “counseling” about a million other issues, I decided I should figure out what was at the root of all this trouble. So, I prayed and I researched. It was quite amazing that I even came to the conclusion I did about her root issue, since nobody talked about such things, counselors were unheard of and psychology was a bad word. I agonized in prayer over her pain and sensed that God was reassuring me that he would bring the secret out and she would be helped. Soon thereafter she attended a bible school and it was there that a pastor with some training in counseling, prayed and counseled with her and some of her friends. She came home a changed person and began telling everyone the story of her liberation, boldly. Interestingly, it was the catalyst that pulled a few other things out from under the carpet. Two other girls confessed to being molested and the reaction of two other women gave them away. Then, there were the male “perpetrators.” Most people weren’t quite as happy about her liberation as she was.

My brother also, once dated a girl who had been molested by her older brother. Other accounts get circulated. While I was at SMBI, quite a few years ago, I ran into a teacher and his wife who both who actually had a degree in counseling and psychology and had worked to integrate it into their conservative faith. They had done a good job of it. One of the issues he and his wife deal with is sexual abuse. He gauged, based on what he had encountered, that within the Amish-Mennonite communities, the prevalence of sexual abuse was as high if not higher than in mainstream culture. Some communities are riddled with incest.

A few years ago, when stories of Mary Byler came out everyone was shocked. She was the young woman who decided to take legal action against her brother in the state of Wisconsin, for molesting her. The media monster enjoyed the sensational news. But some people I know outright refused to believe the report.

Now, I don’t just write about this to add to the sensation. I write about this because these conservative communities are in quite a bind. They refuse to acknowledge the legal system and generally refuse to respect the psychological profession. When these stories come to light, the leaders of the communities truly try to use the tools they have—forgiveness and confession—which seem worthless to those who look in from the outside. They too need kinsmen redeemers who bring them new tools, integrating them with the important tenants of their life as a community.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

quote of the day

from the lady who lives in a shoe...

No Sir, we don't have a TV, and you're not gonna tempt these hardcore Mennonites by saying it's free!"
Emily (her daughter), to a telemarketer

Monday, January 22, 2007

passing on problems

On the east side we’ve had numerous discussions about problem properties and vacant buildings. The terms are almost a mantra that runs through my brain every time I’m at a community meeting. The discussion is usually framed in terms of undesirable property and housing. It’s really about people.

There’s new legislation coming down in the city of St. Paul that is of interest to all “landlords.” Since the quality of human life has been threatened by numerous transient folks who generally live in rental properties, the city has decided to crack down on the landlords in an attempt to hold the noses of the absentee landlords to the grindstone. With the new legislation, rental properties (now, including duplexes and single family homes) will be subject to inspection and licensure by the city. If the tenants living in another’s property are of the unruly kind and the neighbors call the police on them and a nuisance violation gets filed the property becomes subject to more frequent city inspection. So, the bottom line is—if you are a landlord, you don’t want to rent to “delinquents” or basically, those with issues.

The city, now, also, is inspecting homes for fire code occupancy violations, now duplexes and single family homes are also subject to routine inspection. There was an incident last summer with the home of an ethnic family that had caught fire. There was a fatality or two. Investigators then found that the number of occupants exceeded the occupancy code. This is not new news to those who know the living situations of new Americans.

So my neighborhood is potentially becoming more hostile to the poor, the large family, the alien and the unruly. "Problems" aren’t being solved. We’ll just push them along.

City Hall has already gotten an earful about it. Read about it here. http://www.startribune.com/462/story/943451.html I was drafted to join the line of people speaking to this issue along with this woman, but as usual, my district got the date and time confused. I suppose I can just prepare myself for a verbal jousting with the lawyer on my board, come Tuesday night, just for fun. On my board of directors, all but I voted in initial favor of this legislation. The legislation will pass and people will look for new loopholes.

I think I am sufficiently reassured that laws and legislation have its part in shifting the landscape. However, no matter how much one pushes dirt around, there is still just as much dirt in the end as when one began. Personally, I would rather be involved in the transformation of my unruly neighbor than in the force that moves them along. What one calls a problem is a matter of perspective. It could be a challenge—a challenge which calls one to rise to the occasion of loving one’s neighbor. Everyone needs redemption. Everyone needs a kinsman redeemer.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

issue with getting started

For over a year now my car has had this problem where it occasionally won’t start for me. I go out in the morning. It gives me one Rrrrrrhhh and that’s it. I did have it in once but they couldn’t figure out what it was. It started just fine for them. The problem is so intermittent it’s very difficult to judge when it will happen again. It happens when it is really cold but not always. It happens in the mornings. And it never happens in the summer. But usually I can persuade it to start eventually, if I wait a minute or two to crank again. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes of persuasion.

One of my friends suggested I just get rid of my car and my truck for that matter and go buy something that runs. I’m pretty reluctant to do that, though. Because I have been with my car for a long time and now I know how to work with its little problem. It has taught me patience and persistence. There are no better promises with anything new. If I trade it in to a dealer, I’ll loose money and the dealer likely won’t fix it—rather, they might just sell it in the summer leaving someone else with the problem. My father taught me that it is unethical to do such a thing even to a stranger. Same with my truck. It is nearly dead and I can’t sell the deathtrap to anyone. I also have fond memories of it. Once, the alternator died. But it took a few discussions with my mechanic brother and father to figure that out. Meanwhile, I parked it on a hill near my house and did the "pop the clutch" thing to get it started every morning for work and to go home I rolled it down the slight incline of the faculty parking lot at work. Despite all the trouble, I couldn’t possibly be angry because the image of what I look like—in my skirt (and sandals) pushing the rusty junker down a hill—is just too funny.

A few days ago I tried to do the same thing with my car (it is also a stick). I grunted and heaved it out of its parking spot and ran it down the parking lot incline. I was exhausted by the time I got it started but I decided. This is it! I’m brining it to the service station. When I explained the problem, the guy behind the desk got all talkative and detailed and engaged me (it’s a rarity, but it happens). He told me there were two possibilities. We eliminated the one and figured out that the other problem only the dealer can solve. Then, he let me go without charging me anything! So, now I’m waiting for another cold snap, so that I can bring it in to the dealer and he can do his thing. Meanwhile, on the colder nights I’ll park on the hill.

Funny, I remember my dad parking the 4010 on the hill a lot. In fact, I think that was the tractor's permanent parking spot. I don’t know what the deal was—why dad didn’t get it fixed. Likely, he was either out of money or far too busy to address it immediately.

Admittedly, I am VERY much my father’s daughter.

BTW--this could be a parable. or if you please, I'm just babbling about myself, my car and revealing to all what kind of hickish behavior I still harbor.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

church life interpreted

The symbolic significance of the potatoes is hearty spiritual sustenance. The dreamer is afraid to do the work of harvesting for spiritual nourishment for her church because of the bears. The bears represent a particular evil—the sort of evil that will rob this body of believers of its spiritual sustenance. There is no one to protect or help the narrator as he/she harvests. Pastors are busy at the carnival carts serving the food. But serving food to babies carnival style is a bit awkward or simply non-functioning. According to situational leadership theory, the wrong method is being used for the situation. Essentially, the message is: there are many baby Christians in this church and they are being served spiritual nourishment in a manner unsuited for their maturity. Additionally, these baby Christians are stinking up the place. They are not being cared for and are being left to their own devices.

The theatre itself suggests teaching framed as entertainment. The teaching includes indoctrination that accustoms the congregants to the presence of evil (the bears) among them that will rob them of their spiritual sustenance. The interesting man is the very presence/vessel of this particular evil at times. He is telling folks to not be afraid of the very thing they should be afraid of—that which robs them of their spiritual sustenance.

How would you like someone to say these things about your church—assuming that you like your church.

Monday, January 15, 2007

church life

I was at a church picnic. To prepare for it, I had been assigned the work of gathering potatoes. These potatoes were to be cooked, mashed and served. The potatoes, which had been damaged by snow, were in a garden off a main highway. The highway department had created a detour by plowing out an area near the garden. At the garden I encountered bears, who were already there digging them up and eating them. I was afraid to harvest. So, I didn’t. I went back to the picnic to tell the man who had offered to cook them that I was afraid to go near the bears.

I looked around the picnicking grounds, which were in a wooded area in the middle of the city at Hamm’s Hill. There were babies everywhere. They were in the crawling stage. They were unattended and the feces they were losing from their diapers lay everywhere. The food was set up carnival style. Vendors sold it in booths like the state fair. Everything seemed to be backwards and chaotic. I wondered, “Why did a man cook and a woman gather in a dangerous place? Why wasn’t there anyone tending to the babies? Why was the food set up carnival style with people getting chicken from one booth, walking to another booth for mashed potatoes, another for gravy, etc?”

Later, I was sitting inside a building with others who were watching videos in a theatre area of the church. Children and babies were again playing everywhere. A very friendly, interesting man sat down next to me. We talked and watched the video. Bears appeared on the video screen. They were eating potatoes. The man told me not to be afraid of bears. When I looked at him to comment, he morphed into a bear (a superficially friendly bear) and then morphed back again.

This dream was had by a friend of mine and is dedicated to Michelle, who is brave enough to share a dream that “felt” significant. It’s risky to share dreams and attribute meaning to them. Previously, I’ve been ambiguous mostly—calling them parables. It gets close to intellectual suicide. But I suppose, if challenged, I would just argue my point in uber-intellectual cant.

As for these dreams, I find them much more aggressive in their critique of the church than, say, the Church Infiltrator Series below. This one is actually directly applicable to a specific church. Keep checking up on more infiltrators. I’m working on them.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Anyone got any children I could borrow for a day?

You see, I'm remodeling my bathroom and I could use a hand. And this little girl isn't available always...

Actually, I love doing what my parents and grandparents always did. There is this memory I have of my grandpa who came to visit for a week. Grandpa was a mechanic of farming machinery and this time he decided to over-haul my dad's 4010. My younger brother, Jon, was following him around, asking a million and one questions about everything grandpa did. Every once in a while grandpa would say, “Well, Jon, now you have to wait a little while before you ask the next question.” So, grandpa had the 4010 all torn apart and had run into a glitch. He pensively stalked over to sit on a stump, striking a pose like “the thinker”, with my brother 2 steps behind. My brother, confused, looks at grandpa, asks, "What are you doing grandpa.” “vel, Jon, wir mussen hoken fur eine weile un denke.” (Well, we have to sit and think a while.)

Surprisingly, that particular brother is the family mechanic.

Likewise, I have taken it upon myself to occupy the minds and hands of children that happen to be put to my charge. While I do occupy them with the usual crayon and marker projects, I also bring them along in every day life, like my parents did. One thing I like to do with them is construction, because it blows their mind—going from a process of tearing something apart and then putting it all back together again. Once, I stripped a room down to the studs. I handed the 12 year-old neighbor girl a heavy hammer and some goggles and she tore down the whole wall of plaster and lath. And she had fun doing it.

This little girl was my shadow last Saturday. We went to buy some lumber and cement board at Menards. And we ate some candy that made our tongues funny colors.
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Friday, January 05, 2007

am I saved?

Here I've posted the story of my
(a) spiritual journey
(b) coming along in faith
(c) salvation
(d) moments of gone crazy
(e) corruption
(f) fall
Take your pick. It is one of the above.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

friendship

In my book, Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love, which I have been reading recently with a hungry sort of ache in my heart, I’ve been taken through a historical survey of various Western philosophers’ and theologians’ metaphysic of love, friendship and especially caritas— which is broadly defined as Christian love.

All theologians create a basic category for the God-human friendship which is rightly central or primary to all other relationships. All other friendships flow from this source, whether with fellow humans or with angels. One contrast is between friendship that is a particular loyalty to a more universal gospel command to love one’s neighbor. What Thomas Aquinas has to say about the universal effect of caritas as friendship with God is significant. It effects eternity as God is enjoined to the other through our love for God and neighbor. Our love for the stranger, for our enemy, who are our particular neighbors are essential to the salvation of them and the creation. “Friendship-love is the moral determinant of the relationship to each and every other human being.” This friendship-love is impartial and given liberally to all by those who are friends of God, or who are at one with God, essentially, in the way that he loves. In this way, friendship love cannot be exclusive and each particular friendship must hold more and more an element of the all-embracing love of humankind. Thomas does expound on the particular friendship-love relationship. However, I found the contrast in Augustine’s experience and description of particular loyalties more pronounced. Augustine’s maturation environment and public life was filled with fierce loyalties and effected by influential friends—which is to say, the friendships forged were for personal merit and power. His particular preoccupation with the nature of human relationships is evident in his writings as he moved from particular loyalties and patronage to a new ideal of Christian friendship. He longed for the joy and mutuality in particular friendships “to love and be loved in return” but also encountered the destructive nature and pain of exclusive friendships. He notes that Jesus, chose fisherman as particular friends, not senators. This seems to suggest that status has much to do with how true a friend can be. While in Christ, God so loved the world, those who participate in the fellowship of God and the saints, thus, overflow in their love to all creation.

Evil Influence #7

The Fallout from Marriage Delay. Age lessons and loss of innocence inclines singles to become more protective and less open to love. It also inflates expectations as one becomes a more fixed personality. One also ages, decreasing his/her chances in a youth obsessed culture.

Evil Influence #6

Celebrity Standard. Celebrities have multiple partners and disposable relationships, live single glamorous lifestyles, party till dawn etc. Living in the lap of luxury services and goods is the projected message and credit cards make it possible.

Church Infiltrator #5

When I was in college, there was a pastor/professor who sort of tried “converting” me. His words are etched in my brain forever. The faults of my community were very obvious to me and to him as well. So, one day we found ourselves in a conversation about the troubles of my community and the hardship it would bring to me in my life. My professor friend said to me, “Why put up with all that? You don’t need to deal with that kind of crap. Leave and take as many people with you as possible.” His advice troubled me. I didn’t take it and I am glad I didn’t. Yet this is the word of the day. “I need to take care of me.” And I shouldn’t have to suffer. If a relationship with a body of believers causes me to suffer, I am entitled to walk away for my own self preservation.

This is absolutely NOT the gospel. The gospel assumes suffering. Being with the fellowship of believers will cause great heartache and pain. We are not entitled to a life free of suffering and emotional pain.

Evil Influence #5

“Why Suffer?” Mentality. The lack of Suffering and the inclination and opportunity to leave a situation of discomfort and suffering is the entitlement of GenX. True GenXers truly believe they are entitled to fun and easy relationships without challenge and work.

Church Infiltrator #4

Traditional male-female roles in the church are becoming less and less defined or an arena of great tension as the sexes battle over the paradigm for relating. Bottom line is things aren’t categorically clear and confusion of expectations is the least of the issues. Since the door has become more open to women co-laboring in the kingdom alongside men—there are plenty of linked issues that crop up. Some men are visibly terrified of what a relationship with a female co-laborer in the church might come to—numerous sex-scandals in the church to blame. I sense a significantly less tense environment in my community work, likely because if worst case scenario occurred, people care less. The church is held to a much higher standard.

Some women try to make themselves into men, in order to share the “power”. I’ve seen women leaders within the church fight to maintain their status as rational creatures and intellectual equals able and willing to work alongside men. Some women have turned into E woman personalities (stands for the Everything woman—this is my pitfall). Others disassociate themselves from their gender. I saw one bad example of a married woman with children attempting to disassociate herself from the nursery and establish herself as a intellectual equal to men. She was introducing herself to the congregation from the pulpit with her husband and children beside her. “I love my children, but I don’t like babies,” were her exact words. Instead she liked books, ministry, theology etc. It was ugly.

In the church there is a lot of tension and confusion with respect to gender and gender roles, to say the least. This is unfortunate, since God created man and woman (and the relating of the two) in his own image.

Evil Influence #4

Inadvertent Effects of Feminism. Traditional roles in dating are eradicated resulting in confusion of expectations regarding roles and inflated expectations of marriage. There is a tendency for both genders to learn both traditional gender skills, leaving one without the “need”(hence the motivation) for a partner to function in day to day survival.

Church Infiltrator #3

What is a church Divorce? Excommunication—Amish style. I’ve experienced that. But most evangelicals have experience something comparable: membership and non-membership. Perhaps it is more rightly referred to as exclusion and inclusion. Every society and social group and church has it, whether or not it is as spelled out as the sensationalized ritual of excommunication. I’ve also been “excommunicated” from a mega-church. After some very intimate fellowship there came a time when they simply failed to acknowledge my existence. It was as though I had evaporated.

Membership is a formality. Loyalty is a misnomer. Churches don’t really deal with day-to-day resolution of interpersonal issues. Usually, the best people can do is ignore the issues and if they get bad enough, they walk away and have higher expectations of the next congregation they attempt to join.

There are however, two categories that have been shaking out for me. There are those who recognize the lack of relational faithfulness and struggle with changing it and then there are those who simply follow the broken relational model unreflectively out of an urge to self-protect. The later are like the unconverted. They have not yet seen the light.

All in all, comparatively, I would rather be excommunicated by the Amish Mennonites than to be “beamed out” by the mainline Protestants. There was no struggle to acknowledge, I suddenly failed to exist. Comparably, I was able to feel like I still existed within Beachy excommunication because there was yet communication. I watched my parents’ struggle for 20 some years in the church I grew up in. They didn’t abandon the struggle.

Divorce is simply unresolved conflict which has severed human growth in relationship. We don’t know how the resolve conflict on and interpersonal, familial, social network or a national level. The church is no different.

Evil Influence #3

The Divorce Effect. Products of divorce leads one to be skeptical of marriage and children. Children of divorce lack examples of differences that have been worked out in place of walked away from. It also increases the pressure for those looking to find the perfect one, when one could focus energy on becoming the right one.

Church Infiltrator #2

Multiple Choice Church. The choices of varieties and brands of churches are daunting. Their poster cover is the Sunday morning service. And then there are the varieties of programs available. You can go here for this small group and go there for that teaching. Information and healing and councelling and stuff here and stuff there. I just want a real, sincere relationship with brother and sister in Christ. But the lure of new and exciting experiences or teachings here and there tempt me to the hunt.

Evil Influence #2

Multiple Choice Culture. Potential choices in partners are expanded with technological advancement. Checklists become more detailed. Time for a true encounter becomes more veiled. Results leave us with a mode of operation resulting in commodification, impatience with a true potential mate. The promise of eternal options lure one out of solid commitments.

Church Infiltrator #1

This is the ultimate blasphemy, which turns church from worshiping God to worshiping the self. Church is supposed to be about filling my needs. I left that one church because it wasn’t filling my needs. It wasn’t servicing me in the way I needed to be serviced. Ah!! Yikes! When the self is the only driving reason, the point of the “fellowship of believers” and “the marriage supper of the lamb” is entirely missed. When the Sunday morning service gets likened to a gas station where I can get my spiritual tank filled, I get a little wigged out. Then there are the reasons for why we miss gathering together with the fellowship of believers—they simply demonstrates vividly what is important to us. I too like my self-centered Christian brothers and sisters am guilty as charged.

Evil Influence #1

The Cult of I. The focus ultimately rests on personal needs, wants, goals and feelings. Educational, financial, career goals are prioritized above marriage as well as relational goals and expectations. GenX has taken the heritage of self-orientation to an extreme new level.

UnHooked Generation: The truth about why we're still single.

I recently read a book that I found quite interesting and on target, which also demonstrates what I like about Western culture so much. As distinguished from every other culture, Western culture does a thorough analysis of whatever thing and then comes up with a concise report of findings. This is especially true in topics pertaining to self-analysis, which is very nice for me, because it gives an outsider like me all the insider “secrets” and because I like directness.

My roommate, also enjoyed this book, and she is exceedingly critical and hard to impress. Her comments ran along the lines of “...someone is saying (this) about our culture? Let’s give her a prize. She is brilliant.” I too think it an interesting read, just from the fact that the author is not Christian--at least she doesn't claim to be.

I thought I could share my notes on the book and add my furthermores. While this book is a self-help for singles, the same concepts and “Evil Influences” apply to other arenas of life, such as, another subtitle could be, The truth about why we are still unchurched. I thought my furthermores could include how each evil influence effects our relationship to the body of Christ.

Monday, January 01, 2007

if you think you are humble...

Try repenting of a wrong you have done to someone, who you believe has done you much more wrong, than you have done her.

Try acknowledging you have learned an important piece of wisdom from someone with low status amongst your peers.

Try to withhold yourself from blaming others for the problem and instead figure out how you could have been the solution to the issue that arose.

Try withholding from giving an extensive, defensive explanation about a misunderstanding someone had about you that has cast you in a negative light.

Try admitting you are hurt.

Try just saying sorry, even though it wasn’t technically your fault.