Presbytery

My family’s been Presbyterian since it became impractical to be Druids. I grew up with it around me like air. But in the wisdom of my youth I decided that if I was going to do this theology thing, I ought to shop. I don’t know if I was looking for low bids or what. I attended a seminary/graduate school hooked up with the University of California at Berkeley. As the Presbyterian San Francisco Theological Seminary it was one of twelve such schools in the Graduate Theological Union. I took classes in them all, Buddhist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Franciscan, Jesuit, Baptist, etc. It was interesting. Lots of different spins going on all at the same time. Interestingly, the more I wandered, the more I gravitated back to good old Calvinism.
So, thirty odd years later, I’m looking back on a career. Pretty wild, huh? I’ve worked all this time in a handful of churches, using a theological perspective that my ancestors helped build. Nothing like coming full circle.
The night before last we had a Presbytery meeting. All the ministers from about fifty churches and lay representatives to balance them meet periodically to do the business of this governing body. Conflict simmered beneath a crust of parliamentary function. It was more fun than chicken pox, but not much. Differences in perspectives and attitudes coupled with a power vacuum have yielded a lack of trust and loss of common vision. It’s a microcosm of our culture. The gorilla in the room refused us to let us get much done unless we operated at a level so shallow as to make the meeting nearly meaningless. At one especially difficult juncture, after a hasty conference with my wife, I got up and commented on the presence of the gorilla, and in an effort to deal with our commonality invited the whole presbytery to our house for a party in October. They laughed. But I waded in and finally convinced them Chris and I meant business. Hospitality created the church. Maybe Hospitality can help it now.
I love the church. I love its scholarship and insistence on self criticism. I love its inclusiveness that demands an openness uncomfortable in a polarized society. I love its unflinching approach to suffering and its willingness to stand in the face of injustice. I love the way it supports art and music and drama and in a cynical and lonely world insists on celebrating and pot luck suppers. I love the way it shelters the victim, prods the arrogant, invites the greedy, embraces the isolated, touches the outcast, and tells jokes to the self important. I love the way it points beyond itself toward something we may not be able to see but that something opens the mind and the universe to relationships more powerful than death. I can’t stand its marginalization because of narcissism and traveling soccer.
I think the world should take lessons from my wife. I do. She knows how to be good. It’s called loving. She wants to make sure we don’t overcrowd the house. People won’t have the opportunity to really get to know each other. Maybe there should be two parties. She understands.
The Hispanic church is making tostadas. Here goes nothin’. Or maybe here goes something.

Presbytery

My family has been Presbyterian just after it became impractical to be Druids. So you could say it's been in the family a while. When I decided to do the ministry thing, I went to a seminary with twelve, yup, twelve different schools included in the amalgum. I took classes at them all, Buddhist, Unitarian, Baptist, Episcopalian, Franciscan, Jesuit, etc. Learned a lot about a lot. And in the process I migrated to this interesting place called home. Boiling it all down Presbyterianism made the most sense to me. It had just as many warts as most of them, but there was a grace in it, a freedom with a down to earth sense of realism and honesty that drew me.

Fast forward thirty odd years and I still feel that way. It's not the easiest way to go. It bonds us with people that alternately infuriate and frustrate what I sense is best. But that very bonding is perhaps the best part. All the abrasion and struggle demands tolerance and patience and putting the Law of Love into action.

Last night we had a regular meeting of the Presbytery. This is a gathering of all the ministers from about 50 churches and an equal number of elder delegates. We do the business of this governing body. These meetings will fry your brain if you let them. Kick in the tolerance and patience and add stamina. But we worship and we laugh and we get to see people that we've been too busy to see since last meeting.

There was conflict simmering just beneath the business. Factions doing their thing. Financial issues coupled with dissatisfaction with staff. Sound familiar? So I got up and invited everybody to a party at our house in October(Chris and I planned it in about 30 seconds during debate over an amendment to the original motion). They all laughed and I had to give a speech about the church needing more hospitality and less business. We'll see what happens. My wife is a saint. They should all take lessons from her. I do.

I love the church. I love how it has lifted up scholarship and learning and wisdom and caring and the arts and music and fellowship in a cynical and lonely world. I love the way it points beyond itself to something we can't even see, but we affirm as being as or more real than anything the culture sells. I love the way it won't settle for easy answers. I love the way it transcends boundaries and pulls at polarities and pokes at self importance and arrogance. I love the way it couragously embraces suffering and humbly confronts evil. I hate seeing it die because people are too busy and too narcissistic(however you spell that). But if we've got to die we'll go out the way we've always been. Obstinate and unwilling to settle for anything less than the kingdom of God.

What do you think? Should we play twister at the party?

Buying a House and Dying

We bought a house! That may seem a prosaic observation. Not real philosophic, but this is like my first girl friend. No it's not, it's better. My first girl friend was more a product of my own imagination than real flesh and blood. This place has a front yard and a kitchen and a mortgage.
The process is amazing, offers and counter offers flying through agents. They should be called seconds. They carry our blades and make sure we get to the dueling field on time. (See? I'm out there in my imagination already.) Getting married is easy compared to all the hoops of buy a house.
In some ways that's appropriate. Claiming one another needs no signature, it needs a commitment of spirit. Claiming a property as your own requires a putting down of foundations and roots that have a profound effect on a whole community of people. Maybe we should sign more papers to get married. We'd probably take it more seriously. Who would do the inspections? Anyway, the process of choosing, bidding, signing reorients world order and perspective. That specific part of the map begins to grow in importance.
Here's where death comes in.
In the movie Signs, the main character's wife is pinned agains a tree by a truck. She's basically cut in half, killed, but kept alive by the pressure of the truck, momentarily. Her husband comes to see her and hold her hand as she dies. The movie made me think about the process of dying. Do we desperately try to hold on to the life we've known, the life of wonder and glory that has meant so much to us? Or do we turn in expectation to the unknown that is a whisper away?
One could say it's only fear that keeps us from turning to the new and leaving this, all of this behind. But I think that's cheap. The bonds of affection and appreciation run deep. And we not only grieve for the loss of our own life here, we grieve for the others who are not going with us on the great adventure of life beyond life. No wonder there are tears. They are a mixture of joy and pain, of anxiety and anticipation.
So now here I am, feet on two sides of moments of my life. It will be a while before we leave, years. But the tide is changing. No one else can see it. It runs within me, a tide of the heart. But it is coming.