Christmas as Clergy

I especially like the impression here that Joseph, Mary and Jesus may have halos or may be getting struck by lightening. Difficult to say.

There are many things that I would do if I had more time and didn't have so many episodes of Rules of Engagement to watch. One of them would be creating some religious Christmas cards that do not make me throw up in my mouth.

As a clergyperson, I always begin the season believing that I should show my integrity as a Christian person by sending Christmas cards that at least tangentially reference the spiritual foundation of the holiday which we are celebrating. But then I go to the store and notice that, yet again, absolutely every single religious Christmas card is either a) hideously ugly, like a colorized version of a poorly animated Children's bible or b) theologically inappropriate or ambiguous or c) HILARIOUS but not appropriate for all audiences.*

Is there not a single theologically aware Hallmark employee in the world who might provide us with something better than the cheeseball crap currently available at our country's finest retailers?



*This one made me chuckle aloud:

Yum.

Enough about death, though. Let's talk food. Thankgiving is by far one of my favorite holidays, because it doesn't involve last minute, anxiety inducing gift buying trips to Target but instead involves eating foods that don't make sense in any other context, like stuffing which, to be honest, who the hell eats stuffing except for at Thanksgiving.

This year we had the culinary joy of having two thanksgivings: a traditional feast with all the fixins' with Mr. L's family on Thanksgiving day and a non-traditional gastronomic festival at our home for my family on Black Friday. We decided to forgo all the traditional eats for our second meal--we thought everyone would already have overdoxed on tryptophan--and instead went for an Italian spread. On the menu:
Pear-Rosemary Cocktails
Roquefort Grapes
Peppered Pecans
Raw Tuscan Kale Salad
Spinach Salad with Candied Pecans, Pears and Gorgonzola
Pumpkin Manicotti
Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Brow Butter and Pine Nuts
Parmesean Twists
Chocolate Hazelnut Torte with Sea Salt
Zucotto with Raspberry Sauce (from my favorite cookbook of ALL TIME: Cooking with Spirit.)
and Pumpkin Pie (okay, it's not Italian, but you really couldn't have thanksgiving without it, could you?)

Somehow, we managed to fit 12 around our dining table and didn't get up for hours.A wonderful feast.

Death, Decay and Giving Thanks

I marched into the kitchen about three weeks ago and made the following proclamation to Mr. L: "My entire life right now has become about decay and death." To which he responded, without missing a beat: "I'm really sorry to hear that."

This short snippet from our life of domestic bliss is both a) proof that Mr. L is the best husband in the world and b) an explanation of why I haven't found much time or energy to write on here recently. 

Death has been playing a huge part in my life of late. Our congregation has experienced a number of deaths, which has meant my days have been taken up visiting those who are about to die, meeting with the families of the recently deceased and mourning with those who are newly adjusting to life without a loved one. As you might imagine, this constant barrage of life-end situations has taken a huge toll on my reserves of mental and physical energy. Each day for the last month or so, when I have finally arrived home, I have had stamina for little else except take out, a few hours of mindless television (Drop Dead Diva being my mental junk food of choice these days) and a night of restless sleep.

And death in my work was reflected at my homestead as well. I look out my window at the luscious garden beds and boxes to which I have lovingly tended all summer and see them fading into decay. The hours I've had to spare these past few weeks have been dedicated to tearing out plants at the end of their life: slumping corn stalks, yellowing tomato plants, shriveled pumpkin vines: our yard debris can like a hearse carrying away the remains of a fruitful harvest.

All this to say I've spent most of the last month being tired. And drained. And sad. But I've also been strangely thankful. As has become clear to me lately, many people in this culture do not have an opportunity to face death very often. And it is overwhelming and terrifying and crushing as a pastor so as for anyone. But it is also, I now believe, one of the greatest privileges of being a minister: to journey with people out of this life. It is an honor which I now face with much more humility. It is also, I now understand, a juncture for absorbing some of life's most important lessons. 

Most of the people I've sat with recently who have faced death were not on a whirlwind journey of the world trying to finish off the last items on their bucket list. At their death bed, they were not thinking they should have climbed Mt. Everest or rafted the Amazon or been elected President; they were trying to spend their last meaningful moments with their friends and family. Most of them had no regrets, except that the time they had to spend with those they love was now limited.

And so when I came to the thanksgiving table last week, to sit down for the first time in six years and as many holidays with my family--cousins and aunts, sisters and parents and nephews--I realized in a new way that they are the most valuable thing. And I was more thankful than perhaps I could have ever otherwise been that I was alive and that I had been given this time to spend with them. At our thanksgiving table, all their idiosyncrasies were more loveable, the stories I've heard a million times more hilarious, the recipes we've shared for decades a bit more rich for knowing what a simple but invaluable blessing they are.

So despite the death that has followed me everywhere, a life of gratitude has taken root here in the land of the LIOLIs. And in that spirit I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.

I Quit Halloween

Thanks to squidoo.com for the capturing my feelings so well!

Last weekend, when the jack-o-latern I had carved at our church's fall festival molded--not like a few little white specs but full on green and white fuzzy mold puffing out its eyes--and then became the hottest new hangout for every snail within a 3 mile radius of our home, and even more so when Mr. L went to throw it away and found it had also become a vacation home for a frog and a lizard, I decided to quit Halloween. Like forever. Which is fine because I actually--if you can't admit it here*, where can you?--kind of hated Halloween already what with all the crappy candy**, the costumes that betray our deepest societal dysfunction and fears around sex and death*** and the kids that ring my doorbell and make my dog go crazy every two seconds for what feels like days.

But you know what is awesome about Halloween? Friggin' pumpkins.**** I love pumpkins. Not the jack-o-lantern variety, but just plain old pumpkins, 10 of which I grew this year, 8 of which I processed last night into pureed pumpkin to be frozen for future baking delicacies and two of which I put on my porch to welcome children to this not very hallo-tastic house of ours.*****

How did pumpkins become associated with Halloween, you ask? Well, let me tell you. (And by that I mean, let me pretend to have known this when actually I just looked it up on Wikipedia.) Pumpkins, it turns out, were easier to carve than the original go-to vegetable for jack-o-lanterns in antiquity: turnips. When immigrants from Ireland brought their Celtic celebration of Samhain to North America and found the turnips here inadequate for anti-demon lantern creation, the carved pumpkin was born.

So happy day-of-the-pumpkin to all you readers out there. Even though I quit Halloween, I hope you lovers of this death-oriented day of diabetic comas are donning right at this moment some killer costumes and headed out for a spooky-good time.




*If I were really terrifying, I could join this facebook group of whack-job evangelicals who think Halloween is all about devil worship.
**I'm kind of a 70% cacao kind of girl.
***In just a quick google search, I was able to find a costume that would allow me to dress as a sexy construction zone flagger. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? See my thoughts here.
****Fat toddlers dressed as pumpkins are also pretty awesome.
*****At least we didn't go this far. But I did laugh aloud when I saw this and considered it for 2 seconds.

Proof

I've been wrong about many things, and most of the time able to graciously admit my mistake. (For instance, one time I tried to convince my friends DRJ and EDJ that fried ice cream isn't really fried. Guess what? It is.* But I digress.) But all of this doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a little confirmation of my rightness when it comes my way.

In the not too distant past, I posted here a note about my impressions of hipsters upsetting the social heirarchy by suggesting that what is uncool is now cool. This has been by far my most popular post ever, with nearly 2,000 hits. No, I'm not kidding; two thousand people give more of a shit about hipsters than about anything else I've pretty much ever said combined. No, I'm not bitter.. Anyhow, I wanted to share some follow up which has confirmed my suspicions.

Upon entering a small and funky antique store on my way to class the other evening, a skinny-jean clad, big-chunky-non-prescription glasses wearing, 30-something woman said to me the following:

"Your color palate is just so.......dweeby right now! I'm so jealous."

And I thus entered the crushing uncertainty that only the hipster social unheaval could create: was it a compliment or not? how to tell?

I settled on feeling good that I had pegged the hipsters right. And vowed to try for more muted pinks and browns next time.


*But how is this possible, you ask? It's, like, super-frozen first. Strange, I know.

Day Four

Here are four days that I revisit in my work life approximately every 4-6 weeks with Groundhog-Day-esque regularity:

One: the day on which I have completely and utterly run dry my stores of compassion and can no longer bring myself to care at all about any person or problem that comes through my door. From missing silver spoons to sick spouses to broken printers to "we-never-sing-the-good-old-hymns-anymore" to "I've been having a really tough time lately," all of them are undeserved annoyances rather than opportunities for ministry.  Should a serious pastoral issue arise on this day, I must run on the back-up generator of emergency active listening skills which I learned long ago under the tutelage of a terrifying and manipulative German woman. "Mmhmmm," I say regularly. "Yes," I throw in. "That sounds overwhelming," I conclude, as I pray that the fumes of empathy on which I am depending in that moment will not run dry. I run home as soon as I am able and plot to go into some wing of denominational leadership that requires no interpersonal engagement.

Two: the day on which I conclude that the church has, inevitably, become completely and utterly irrelevant and that it is, in its entirety, a meaningless and pointless endeavor, a sham on which I am wasting my gifts and my life, and, sadly, into which I am also inviting others, which I am sure will lead to some sort of eternal punishment, except for the fact that I no longer have faith in the eternal. Why are we even here? is the question of this day, though no answer comes. It is on day two that I can see nothing of the importance of the songs we will sing or the words I will say on Sunday, and thus I spend a good part of the day hiding in my office pretending to write my sermon, but actually searching the internet for late admission law school programs, or public policy programs, or MFA programs or, in the darkest times, jobs in the food industry.

Three: The day on which I become convinced that it is not the church which is the problem, but rather me, devoid as I am of any skill or relevant talent that could provide meaningful care and leadership to this little community of wayfarers. It is on this day that I am absolutely sure that if I had any business being in the ministry at all I would have already led the church through an astonishing and energizing process of growth and transformation, a moderate Protestant version of the evangelical fervor of the 90s, the envy of church consultants' everywhere. On this day, the decline of Christendom is somehow my own personal failing, a shameful truth which will likely soon be exposed. This is the day on which my administrator thinks it strange that I have decided to take on making copies and rearranging the pens in the supply cabinet, and vacuuming the fellowship hall, scrambling, as I am, for some sense of having accomplished anything at all.

Four: the day on which these other three days seem impossible. This is the day on which for some unknown reason the sun comes up shining a little brighter, which for some unknown reason I am able to interpret as a sure sign that things are as they should be or at least that there is a purpose to the way things are. On this day, as I sit beside those who mourn, as I offer prayers at the bedside of the dying, as I write and sing and yes, search for missing silver spoons, I am certain I am just where I should be.

I don't know how or why these four days follow me so faithfully. I don't know if they are par for the course of ministry or if they are simply my own idiosyncratic reaction to this unique calling. What I know is that they keep coming around. I am learning that when I find myself on day one or two or three, when I am composing aloud in the car my law school admissions essay or my impassioned letter of resignation from the denomination or even selections from my memoir about my failure as a minister, I stop, take a breathe, and live into the hope that day four will come.

Friends

And another thing....why didn't anyone tell me it would be nearly impossible to make friends after age 28? It all seemed so easy up to that point, surrounded such as I was until that time with built-in systems of friend production: school, college, "leadership" opportunities and conferences, structured post-college employment experiences, graduate school.....But then it was off the edge of the cliff into the real world where friend making becomes a gauntlet almost as formidable as internet dating. Real life, it tuns out, presents numerous obstacles to profound friendship creation including, but not limited to:
a) a vast majority of one's time spent actually working rather than engaged in some form of thinly masked socializing such as "studying" or "team-building."
b) the reality that relationships with others at work, even if one finds those others amicable and not aggrevating, are inevitably complicated by hierarchical concerns and questions of appropriateness
c) the growing sense that everyone else has already settled into their friend patterns and that there seems to be growing rigidity around accepting new additions.
d) the truth that making friends takes time, which is a commodity in shorter supply when one actually lives in the real world where such concerns as financial well-being, professional achievement, intimate relationships and family building, homemaking and maintenance take up the lion's share of one's time and mental energy, leaving little room for the unending social marathons of youth. 

Ah, to be 20 again, completely self-absorbed and full of unlimited potential, new friends raining down left and right like so many apples from the trees in fall! A dream, now, no?