This litany we’ll use as our Call to Worship July 2. I always think hard about how to connect faith and citizenship, especially in this city. These words were such strong declarations of truth, and truth-telling, as we know in our individual and communal lives, is absolutely essential for freedom. Savor them a little more than just a few seconds on Sunday morning:
As we gather for worship on a day celebrating the freedom of our country and our faith, we affirm these things: It is not true that this world and its inhabitants are doomed to die and be lost;
This is true: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him shall not die, but have everlasting life.
It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction;
This is true: I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
It is not true that violence and hatred shall have the last word, and that war and destruction have come to stay forever;
This is true: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, in whom authority will rest, and whose name will be Prince of Peace.
It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil that seek to rule the world;
This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo, I am with you always, to the end of the world.
It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are prophets of the church, before we can do anything;
This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all people, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young people shall see visions, and your old folk shall dream dreams.
It is not true that our dreams of liberation of humankind, our dreams of justice, of human dignity, of peace, are not meant for this earth and its history;
This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth. Thanks be to God.
A modified version of an address by Allan A. Boesak to the World Council of Churches VI Assembly on the theme: Jesus Christ, the Life of the World.
Archive for June, 2006
Who would have thought that the first person in our family to undergo cosmetic surgery would be Mark? (Not really anyone who has ever met us, I am thinking . . . ).
This past week was highlighted by the drama of Mark’s 
Lasik eye surgery. He’s worn glasses for long over 20 years and, he says, his softball career has suffered as a result. He can’t see things all that clearly with his glasses, and taking them off to wipe the sweat off his brow is interfering.
Hmmmm.
Thursday morning was the big event, and I got to watch on the monitor as the doctor sliced into his eye, peeled back a flap of skin and did some magical laser-y thing. I am not sure what happened toward the end of the procedure as everything started going black and white and woozy and I spent the rest of the procedure sitting with my head between my knees trying not to faint.
I’m fairly certain it was pretty much the same as what happens on The Swan, but, alas, I did not make it all the way through Mark’s procedure. As I was sitting in the waiting room trying not to pass out, I did happen to overhear the office staff talking about when they performed Lasik eye surgery on the president. Of the United States. Somehow this made me hyperventilate more.
In the end, I fear I was more affected by the whole experience than Mark was, as he seemed to really enjoy wearing his sunglasses all night (even while asleep) and showing off to anyone who would listen by reading the time aloud off the digital clock on the microwave from all the way on the other side of the room. (I’ll admit it was slightly exciting the first three times but after that it got kind of old.)
Mark was back to work the next day and seems to have suffered no ill effects. He’s still enjoying wearing his sunglasses and running around the house channeling Corey Hart, which is beginning to drive all of us crazy. 
The only other effect he’s reported is that when he looks at me there seems to be some kind of glowing halo around my head. (Finally someone can see it!)
The doctor says the whole halo thing is part of the healing process, but I personally think this is just evidence of the miracle of modern medicine!
Referencing Wednesday’s post: if you care, here are the answers to Mark’s super difficult 8-year old treasure hunt. How many did you get?
- OVEN (Apparently you are supposed to look at the first letter of each line? Go figure.)
- The bar that holds the shower curtain in the kids’ bathroom.
- Underneath the big tub of dog food . . . .
- SWING SET FORT
- With the parents, of course. Who else would be the source of all wisdom?
Mark and I are often bored, with hours and hours of free time on our hands and nothing, just nothing, to 
fill them.
Perhaps this delusional thought was what spurred us to plan a treasure hunt birthday party for our newly-minted 8 year old.
Either that or we were trying to come up with something . . . anything . . . to rival best friend Max’s Star Wars birthday party a few weeks ago.
At any rate, all of these factors, combined with recent heated discussion about the DaVinci Code led us to create 5 clues for the gang to solve in order to discover a big box filled with treasure (in actual fact, mostly cheap toys that will clutter my house for years to come).
My job was to acquire the treasure; Mark’s job was to write the clues. All was well until I got ready to print the clues out and realized I had no idea how to even begin solving any of them.
Not one.
Now, please know that the division of labor in our house is carefully arranged . . . Mark does things like write the clues for treasure hunt birthday parties because he’s good at that sort of thing. I fully admit writing or solving puzzles is not my forte. However, am I completely out of line to assume I might at least have some idea about the answers to riddles for an 8-year old treasure hunt?
Mark scoffed at my concern. They’d get them, he told me . . . I would see. I shook my head in disbelief but went on with the plan (primarily because the party was about to start).
Turns out Mark was right (hmmm, very unusual!). The kids needed a little bit of help, but for the most part they were successful.
I still think the clues were ridiculously hard, but Mark’s clues provided the better part of one hour of intense activity allowing the parental units to sit on the porch and recover.
See if I’m completely crazy or if you are as clueless as I was:
On this hunt, which stop should come first?
Very simple you’d think the first stop should be, but
Especially after spending your time on these lines,
No doubt you’ll be miffed at its simplicity.
Well done all, you’ve solved your first clue,
But don’t you worry, the next bar will be higher.
So scrub off your brains and get ready to think,
You can look all you want, but you’ll be warm by a sink.
Is it music or art that’s food for the soul?
I guess in this case you won’t really care.
For it’s a big source of food unfit for a person
That keeps the next clue tucked away under there.
Surely by now you’ll just want me to spell out the next place,
But I can’t seem to get my letters in order–can you?
FROGS WIN TEST
GREW FISTS NOT
FEW TONGS STIR
NETS FOR TWIGS
GENTS FOR WITS
FEW STINGS ROT
Yet another clue—when will it end?
A true pirate never gives up and never surrenders.
But if you’re really tired and wanting to eat dinner,
Find the source of all wisdom and see what they’ll render.
I was talking with a friend today who was telling me about her family’s recent decision to become guardians of a 16 year old boy.
The boy is the son, you see, of this friend’s adopted daughter’s birth mother (got it?). They decided to become his guardians after discovering that this young man was no longer attending school but staying home to take care of his very ill mother instead.
My friends invited Jamal to come live with them so that he could be 
relieved of a responsibility far too heavy for a 16 year old and so he could try to finish high school, at least.
My friend explained, “He is such a great kid. Tall, handsome, bright . . . he has so much potential. We are hoping he’ll go far with good support.”
I mentioned how laudable I thought their decision to give this kid a chance was and my friend replied, “Oh, no. I’m getting so much from him.”
She went on to tell me about a conversation her husband had with Jamal just the other night. They were talking over dinner and my friend’s husband was trying to impart to Jamal the importance of education. The husband said with enthusiasm and encouragement, “You know, Jamal, if you work hard and get an education, you can really become somebody!”
Jamal looked up from across the table and said quietly, with a large measure of conviction, “Mr. King, I already am somebody.”
After the silence that followed her telling me this story, my friend said, “You know, my whole life I have struggled with the belief that I am not good enough . . . not smart enough, not pretty enough, not accomplished enough. If only I knew at 16 what Jamal knows . . . that I already am somebody,” she said wistfully.
If only we ever really and fully believed, with even the smallest conviction, the love of our Creator, then maybe we could all say along with the Psalmist (and Jamal): “You, O God, were the one who put me together inside my mother’s womb, and I praise you because of the wonderful way you created me. Everything you do, O God, is marvelous . . . !”
In general there are excessive books in our house. This being the end of the school year, there are even more than usual lying around. This has resulted in more than the normal amount of clutter but, as usual, some moments of utter inspiration.
Yesterday I happened upon one of my little offspring engrossed in a 
book and I asked him what he was reading. Looking up he answered, “This is some story. It’s a story that almost made me cry!” (To be so caught up in a book that you feel tearful . . . this is right up there toward the top of my best wishes for anybody I love.) I asked him to tell me more and he said, “Here, let me read it to you; you’ll see.”
The book was Tomie dePaola’s book Now One Foot, Now The Other, the story of a young boy whose grandfather teaches him to walk and then a few years later he, in turn teaches his grandfather how to walk after his grandfather suffers a debilitating stroke.
My Sam explained, “The part that almost made me cry was the part when he had a stroke.”
My question, of course, was, “So why DIDN’T you cry??!”
“Listen to the story and you’ll see,” he said.
So I did. Listen, that is.
And at the end Sam said, “You see, even though it was sad that he had a stroke, the grandpa taught the little boy how to walk. For his whole life he would remember how to walk and remember his grandpa, because his grandpa taught him.”
We are saying goodbye to a member of our congregation who was fading fast when I came to Calvary three years ago. Though he had begun his decline by then, a visit with Bob is always something to look forward to. Even with the frustration of finding words and the elusive memories he can’t quite hang onto, Bob always has a twinkle in his eye and wants desperately to know what’s going on at Calvary.
Whenever I see him I always remind him that his church family loves him, and more often than not a tear runs down his cheek. To be part of this family of faith was so important to Bob and his wife, Nell.
Last week things started going downhill very quickly for Bob; we’re not sure how much longer he’ll be with us. One of our church members visited him a few days ago and wrote me the following email: “He was pretty alert and talkative to me today. But Bill and Larry said he is sleeping a lot. He is slipping away from us. On his wall was part of this poem from James Lowell. Amy — you would have loved knowing him better in his younger days. He loved language and poetry and writing — you would have had much to talk about —
I didn’t know Bob before he started “slipping away from us” as Carol so poignantly put it. But in a church family the legacy of one’s life lives on . . . we all know who leaves a legacy of dissention and pain and who lives a life marked by the love of God. From what I know of Bob now, but more importantly from what I know of those who were part of the church when Bob was still active, I know that Bob lived a life marked by the love of God.
Hearing from Carol about Bob slipping away from us is a story that almost makes you cry.
Until you remember, of course, that Bob taught a lot of the people in this congregation how to walk the walk of faith.
And, as Sam so succinctly pointed out, you never forget the person who taught you how to walk.
I confess I was a little dubious. Ambivalent. Okay, actually kind of filled with trepidation.
I mean, I know it is part of my job and everything, but I’m not much of a river rat myself. I can handle baptisms in the calm, warm waters of our church baptistery, but Zach really, really wanted to be baptized at our church camp that sits on the banks of the Potomac River.
Do you know what sorts of germs are in the water of the Potomac River? If you don’t, believe me, you definitely do not want to know. Forget the germs . . . there are also strange life forms in the Potomac, animals that I would prefer to view from behind glass walls in an aquarium, if you know what I mean. (Ever heard of the northern snakehead fish? Yeah, I wish I hadn’t either.)
But Zach loves the outdoors, and for him, taking this step of faith in the river was really important. So, last Saturday about 50 of us trudged down the hill from camp to the banks of the Potomac River. We slogged through some mud and climbed over branches to get down there, about a 30 minute hike each way.
When we got to the river I confess one of my main concerns was finding a place to change. I wore my bathing suit but sincerely hoped for a large tree behind which I could don the white robe I carried down to the river. Alas, there were no trees. (I am currently considering opening discussions of hardship pay with the trustees, as appearing in my bathing suit in front of a large part of the congregation seems an excessive professional requirement.) 
Once we got in our robes and hiked down the hill to the river banks, that’s when I remembered (again) the utter joy of doing this job. Voices swelled as we sang Shall We Gather at the River, we crowded around for a prayer, and then we heard Zach’s story of faith.
He told about an urgency deep within his heart to find God. He talked about pain that pushed him to reevaluate his life, and then he talked about the community of Christ at Calvary, mentioning the names of the many who had taken him by the hand and helped him find life-giving relationship with God.
I started to think it was all worth it when I heard him talk, but the best was still ahead.
Zach and I both took deep breaths and waded 
into the water. Funny, it wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be. It wasn’t crystal clear, but neither was it dirty. I didn’t see any snakes, spiders or northern snakeheads at all! In fact, what I felt most deeply was the caress of the sun, surely there to remind us of the presence of God, the steady pressure of Zach’s hand as we walked out together and the energy of the group on the riverbank . . . joy, expectation and gladness floating out over the water like a blessing.
The current was rushing pretty fast and it was hard to stay upright, but we managed to say the words of institution and get Zach all the way under.
And when he came up dripping we waded into shore to the sounds of Amens, sung over and over. Then there were prayers, and pictures, hugs and words of blessing . . . even a few tears.
I’ve reflected since that experience that, if it were left up to me, I’d probably have voted to stay out of the river altogether. Thank goodness that God comes to us all in different ways and invites us each to express our faith individually, thank goodness that Zach felt so compelled to share his baptism with us in the Potomac River . . . because it was in wading out into the river that I remembered once again what holy honor it is to do my job; that I have the incredible opportunity to stand on the sidelines at all of these incredibly amazing moments, to say the words of faith and to hold the hands of those wading into the water of relationship with God.
I never thought I’d be saying this, but I can’t wait to get back in the river to baptize the next new believer who wants to boldly proclaim her faith in Jesus Christ. Northern snakeheads or no, I’ve been converted. Take me to the water!
We came home this weekend. Well, technically we didn’t really move that far (right next door), and by “we” I mean the congregation of 
Calvary Baptist Church.
For the past three plus years the church has been occupying our built-during-the-Civil-War sanctuary for everything from quarterly business meetings to Christmas sing-alongs. The administrative, educational and programming space of the church has been undergoing total renovation and actually being completely rebuilt in part. The new space includes a beautiful recording studio, a gym, a commercial kitchen, a music suite, a couple of beautiful performance spaces and some fabulous new offices for church staff.
In fact, the whole place is so big and so new and so beautiful that it can be a little intimidating when you walk in.
One of the most intimidating things is the long, long hallways that stretch almost the whole length of the third building. You could bowl down those hallways! 
It occurred to me last week that stepping off the elevator and walking down a long sterile hallway like this one might be a little bit scary for someone visiting the church and wondering what goes on in this place and if there might possibly be some place they might feel at home . . . those intimidating hallways made me wonder.
But thanks to photographer Mike Kalyan, the long hall that leads to the sanctuary is now illustrated with a gallery of pictures depicting the various faces and expressions of this congregation. They went up last weekend, and, I have to tell you, having them there changes the whole feeling of the space.
It used to be, even for those of us who knew where we were going, that getting down that hallway quickly to get wherever you needed to go was the compelling objective.
That’s all changed, though. Now it takes some time to make it all the way down the hall. You’d want to linger, you see, to check out all the different faces of this congregation—wildly diverse yet engaging in the life of a community of faith all together.
You’d be curious about the choir singing. You’d want to look rather closely at some of the architecturally interesting shots of the sanctuary. You’ll stay and linger over the image of a young family on the day of their baby’s dedication and you’ll want to jump right into the picture of the whole congregation passing the peace of Christ.
I think that’s what you’d want to do, because it’s what I want to do when I walk down the hall. And I sure am glad about that because, for this place to be home, to be a real family of faith, it certainly is going to have to be more than beautiful new Sunday School rooms and gleaming long hallways.
To be who God has called us to be we’re going to have to have a hallway in which we hang pictures that you would glance at, stop to look more closely at the detail, linger then for a few minutes immersing yourself in the images and then imagining yourself right there in the middle of the fray . . . moving down the hallway to a place you might be able to call home.
I’ve been watching quite a bit of Little League baseball recently because certain individuals in my household participate (not me).
So, anyway, I find it part of my family responsibilities to sit in a folding chair at the baseball field and cheer on two Takoma Park Little League teams. I have to tell you: somehow this is not exactly what I imagined being a cheerleader might be like, but I guess better late than never, right?
In addition to watching kids learn to play ball, cheering on my sons (did I mention my eldest is quite a promising pitcher? My genetic contribution, in case there was any doubt . . .), some of the most curious things I’ve observed on the field these past weeks . . . are the fathers.
You know those guys in high school who were kind of nerdy, could never saunter in a cool way down the hall 
and usually belonged to the Chess Team? Have you ever wondered where those nerdy guys who could never make the football team ended up?
I found them.
They’re here, on the Little League field, wearing T-shirts that read COACH, authoritatively wielding clipboards and making solemn pronouncements about the Infield Fly Rule. They’re generally encouraging but sometimes rather gruff (just like you’d imagine a coach to be, I’m assuming). They regularly sling around sporty jargon like, “Good cut!” or “Watch your stance!” . . . as if normal people talk in this manner.
Stolen bases and possible violations of league rules become matters of life and death to these baseball-cap-wearing middle-aged men, and I have to admit I’ve worked rather diligently to stifle a few giggles and a couple of outright bursts of laughter as I’ve cheered from the sidelines.
We all know, of course, that these fathers are living the dream vicariously through their 4-foot-11-inch offspring, but there’s something rather amusing and even a little endearing about those Dads.
Yes, I’ve noticed that all those guys who loped down the hall with utter grace and dated the cheerleaders (not the ones in folding chairs; the ones in short skirts) are generally not the guys out there offering pointers on fielding and barking authoritatively about RBIs. Nope, it’s the sport hero wannabes who are living the dream on the Little League Field.
I have to applaud them; after all, if they didn’t approach the job with such vigor and commitment, well, then, who would be there week after week planting the seeds of dreams in the twinkling eyes of all those little baseball players, most of whom will have long and successful careers on the Chess Team?
And then grow up to authoritatively wield their own clipboards and make solemn pronouncements about the Infield Fly Rule to the next generation?
We spent Memorial Day on the water, just a few miles from downtown DC. Our older two kids were out of town so our abbreviated family seemed so much more . . . mobile.
We decided to take Monday to explore Annapolis. Hanging out along the waterfront we had an afternoon of ice cream, sail boats and crab cakes.
Isn’t it such an irony that we often live in a city but don’t always take advantage of the beauty right in our backyards?
We’re definitely headed back. Soon!
