POTUS

Christmas Memories

My former roommate Jennifer reminded me of the only time I have ever had my very own Christmas tree. This was our apartment at school--GreenVilla 104!! I miss that apartment more than I should--the extraordinarily high temperatures, the lack of water in the shower, no (I mean no) counter space in the kitchen, throwing the garbage out the window, our "fish" and their offspring, moving the furniture every other day, full length mirrors that matched our skin tone, all of the rules, and the couch! Sigh...

Coming Down from the Mountains

I drove from the Adirondack Mountains to the "flatlands" of New Jersey yesterday. I woke up yesterday to the sound of...nothing. I peered out my window to see the slightly hazy sky, hemlock trees, and Indian Paintbrushes just waiting for the sun to shine on them so they would know it was time to open up and show off their bright yellow paint. Beyond these things, Lake Sacandaga lay still as glass. The air was crisp, but warming. I bid farewell to this, not believing that a whole summer had actually passed, got into my car and drove...south. I don't know how geese do it. I hate going south for the winter. I imagine they find it easier because they travel in flocks. I was all alone in my Honda. I drove down past the already changing leaves, down out of the mountains, over the Great Sacandaga Reservoir, outside the Blue Line, over the Catskills, and finally into New Jersey. I left the place where I know who I am, or at least who I will be, and entered a place where I am less certain--a place where I forget and lose my way. But this is the way it is with mountains, beyond the wilderness. God appears in strange and marvelous ways on mountains--in cloud and thunder, in burning bushes that are not consumed...and to leave holy ground makes the shoes on one's feet feel heavy.

But then a funny thing happened. I went to chapel at Drew this morning. I was handed an order of worship and two hymnals (why have just one?). As I looked down at the bright pink paper in my hand, I smiled. The first song we would sing would be "Bring Forth the Kingdom." (Of course, in true Drew fashion, the words were changed from "Kingdom," which is far to hierarchical and masculine, to "reign." Personally, I don't see how "reign" is any less hierarchical, but it's good to try). And then it was time to read the scripture passage. I looked down again and saw that it was Exodus 3: 1-15, the story of Moses and the Burning Bush which was the text every Sunday this summer. That's when I knew that God had gone before me and is even in this place...and is probably winking at me.

Polar Bear Swim!!

This is what I did at 7:15 this morning! Woohoo, I love camp! (And, if you couldn't tell, polar bearing is Jonah the dog's favorite camp activity ever!)

Summer Sermon Number 1

Turn and Be Healed
Camp Fowler – July 13, 2008

We find JC frustrated in this passage…and actually he’s been in a bad mood for at least a chapter (which is really just the same day). He’s just been yelling “You brood of vipers!” at the Pharasees…and then his mother and brothers show up and someone tells him they are there, but instead of greeting them, he ignores them and calls his disciples his brothers, sisters and mother. (I’m sure he prefaced it, as Kent always does, with “I love my mother…”). He has also been busy doing a lot of healing, which is probably why such great crowds are following him around—such a big crowd, in fact, that he goes out in a boat to teach from there. His frustration only continues because no one is getting it. He tells parables, and no one understands. It’s like he’s talking to a bunch of bored, spaced out, “I’m too cool for everything” campers. He can’t get them to sing Pharaoh, Pharaoh—he can’t get them to play four square—he can’t even get them excited about oatmeal. Nothing is working. He probably wants to give up and just say, “Hey, go sit in your cabin for the rest of the week. See if I care.” But he doesn’t. He tells them parable after parable: The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field—The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed—The kingdom of heaven is like yeast—the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field—the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls—the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind. “Do you get it yet? Hello? Is anyone listening?” But they aren’t listening. Jesus, like Isaiah before him, is speaking truth, and no one is hearing him.

And this is exactly what the author of Matthew is trying to get across. That this Jesus is just like Isaiah. He’s trying to tell his Jewish readers that JC is legit. He goes out of his way to point out all the ways JC is like Moses, and Isaiah, and all the other connections he has to the Jewish scriptures and traditions. Matthew wants to make it clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jesus is the one that Israel has been waiting for. Two chapters before our story today, John the Baptist, who is stuck in prison, sends messengers to ask Jesus just that. “Are you the one? Or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answers him this way—he says, “Tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” In other words, Jesus says, “Tell John what you hear and see. The things that Isaiah talked about are happening now. I am the one he was talking about. Don’t wait for another.”

And Jesus isn’t done quoting Isaiah. He does it again in our story. When the disciples ask, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” he pulls out old Isaiah again and recites from the sixth chapter:
“The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says, “You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them.’”

“ And I would heal them.” If they turned. We have to turn to be healed, but what does that mean? Turn or burn? I’d like to think not. What does it really mean to turn? To open our eyes? To listen with our ears? To understand with our hearts? To understand and perceive, not just listen and look? To remove the dullness from our hearts? How do you do that?

Maybe it has something to do with what Isaiah said—what Matthew says JC is all about—proclaiming good news to the oppressed, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, proclaiming the year of the LORD’s favor (Isaiah 61). I wonder if we are really the oppressed, broken-hearted, captive ones. Are we trapped by our own failure to perceive and understand? Maybe Isaiah (and Jesus) aren’t talking about people who are literally in jail, but instead people who are captive by their inability to see and hear. If we could see and understand, maybe we would be free—free, that is, to give up things. Free to let go of things. All of the parables that Jesus tells in this section of Matthew talk about the Kingdom of God, and all of them say one of two things about the Kingdom: the Kingdom of God is something that you search for and search for, no matter how long it takes or how much you have to leave behind to find it, OR the Kingdom of God is a place where the good is found, and the bad is burned away or thrown away. It seems, the only way to realize the Kingdom of God is to let go of some things. And I bet these things are things we don’t even know we are holding onto. They are things we are blind and deaf to—things we’ve held onto for so long…or things that so many people hold onto…that we no longer can perceive them. When things become “normal” they disappear. (And the trouble with “normal” is, it always gets worse).

We all know what is “normal”—what is acceptable in our society—what we are “supposed to” do—what fits the mold and stays inside the box. But the thing is…there isn’t really a box. The box is something we impose on ourselves. We bump into it when we say things like, “We have to do it this way because we’ve always done it this way.” Or “We do it this way because we just do.” Camp is one of those wonderful places where we can open our eyes and see that there isn’t really a box out there. Here, we have the freedom to take apart how we do things, and even to take apart ourselves, and then to put the pieces back together in new, creative, inspired ways. Here, there can be trains with square wheels, cowboys who ride ostriches, and squirt guns that shoot grape jelly. This is a place where we can recreate and reinvent how we live.

Scripture tells us that there are two things of utmost importance in life: one is to love God, and the other is to love your neighbor as yourself. There are actually three things to love in there: your God, your Self, and your Neighbor. The more we hold onto “normal,” the less we can do these things. When we try to make ourselves fit a societal mold instead of being true to who we really are, we do violence to ourselves. We carry around anger, guilt, blame—we oppress ourselves with inferiority—we imprison ourselves with disappointment. When we try to make others fit into our “normal”—our only one right way of being—we do violence to them. We cling to ideas and stereotypes about others that are racist, sexist, heterosexist, ageist, ableist, religionist, etc, We push people out and label them as inferior.

We can’t hold onto injustices AND look for the kingdom of God at the same time. If we cannot love ourselves, and we cannot love our neighbors—then we cannot love God, and we cannot realize the Kingdom of God.

I think most of all, we need permission to let go of these things. It’s okay if we are not perfect—it’s okay to forgive ourselves if we mess up (and we will). And it’s okay to love people even when they are different from us—when they act differently, practice their religion differently, think differently. Difference doesn’t hurt—intolerance of difference does. It is, in fact, more than okay. It is what we are called to do. Proclaim good news to the oppressed, bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor. Recreate the way you live—recreate the way we live together—recreate the way we teach campers to live. Dare to love yourself—dare to love your neighbor—dare to love your God and to catch a glimpse of the Kingdom so that we might all turn and be healed. Amen.

The First Week of Camp

The first week of camp, I was the director/chaplain of the daycamp program that we run at First Reformed Church in Albany. I had also been the director/chaplain last year at First Albany, but this year struck me differently. Last year, things were rough and we were exhausted by the end of the week. We actually drove into camp and jumped out of the van and kissed the ground. The campers were tough, there were problems with volunteers and the staff had been fighting amongst themselves. I couldn't wait to be home and not be in charge anymore! This year, however, the staff was amazing and worked extremely hard and extremely well together. This is, perhaps, what helped us to see where the real problems in the program are.

We had 26 campers, most of whom were from the inner city of Albany. Three of them were white, and about three of them came from the suburbs. They rest were minority kids who lived in or near the projects. It became clear to us right away that these were kids who did not have adults in their lives who spent time with them, or listened to them, or played with them. Most of the time, their parents or guardians were working so hard to try to earn enough money to survive, that they just didn't have time or energy to play or listen. Many of our kids would come in in the morning and devour breakfast (two bagels and three muffins at a time) and then heap their plates full at lunchtime. There was hardly any leftover food--they ate it all. They simply don't have food like that at home.

Many of our kids also had special needs. We're pretty sure one of our nine year old boys is OCD (he only eats food in even numbers) and probably has something else as well. He had a complete meltdown on Wednesday afternoon. We had taken them on a field trip to a suburban church that had a lot of open space and a nature trail through the woods to a lake. There was all sorts of environmental ed. programming, and arts projects, and fun games. It was a great day...until the water balloon toss. The toss itself went fine and the kids had such a good time, but then there was one balloon left...and then it was popped, and then our little friend went off the deep end. He yelled and screamed and kicked and punched and bit for about an hour. We have ZERO training for situations like this. I can do CPR and first aid and save you from drowning, but I have no idea how to restrain a kid or calm him down from a fit like this was. And I had to figure out how to get him home. In the end, we got him back to the church and he was fine, but fell asleep standing up and I had to catch him as he fell over. But then he and I went upstairs to the parlor where he picked up a guitar and proceeded to write a song. He taught it to me, and then asked me what the notes were so that he could write it down. Then he wrote it down exactly as he had played it. It was completely amazing.

One of our other kids absolutely broke my heart on the last day. She has been pretty clingy and affectionate all week, but on the last day, when it was finally time to go home, she refused to let go of me. She is one of the youngest in a family of 10 adopted/foster children. Three of her siblings were at camp with her, and a few others had come to pick them up and walk them home. As she clung to me, I walked with them to the corner. Her brothers and sisters kept yelling at her to let go and to stop crying, which only made her hold me tighter and cry harder. I am quite sure that she gets yelled at and ignored all the time by her siblings...and her father just seemed too exhausted to do anything about it.

This week was the most challenging and probably the best of my summer. I miss these kids a lot, and can't help but wonder how they are doing...