My First Project

Here’s my first sewing project in Korea. Simple but (in my opinion) essential. With fabric that I had in my suitcase – and I didn’t bring much – I made two pillow covers for the cushions that came with our convertible sofa/bed. We didn't bring pillows and the only ones that came with the tiny apartment match the vinyl upholstery of the couch (on which they rest).

Although I did bring my sewing machine in my suitcase, I hand stitched these. It took a long time but I kind of like the tactile nature of using a needle and thread. And now, thanks to Vija, I also have a thimble and my finger won't get that horrible little hole in it from the needle poking in. I may have a whole year of hand-stitched quilting ahead of me; I found that my power converter doesn't work with my blow-dryer and I'm a little afraid to try it with the sewing machine.

God does answer prayers on airplanes

The first time I traveled to a foreign country, I was more or less in the position that Naomi is – the child of parents who decided to transplant our family to a new location because of their calling to teach English internationally. This time I’m the parent, and this past weekend, Naomi and I traveled from Seattle to Seoul. Perhaps needless to say I was somewhat anxious about being the sole parent and adult our little traveling party.

I know that many people were praying for us, but I’m ashamed to say that I have not spent much time in prayer or communion with the Divine at all in these past few weeks. There was very little time to relax or think of much of anything on the plane, as I was entertaining Naomi or responding to her millions of questions, observations, and demands. That we would get a visa to enter Korea has never been a certainty. At least, a visa for any considerable length of time. We did not apply for a visa’s as Joe’s dependents so I was counting on our Canadian passports to get us six month tourist visa’s. But we don’t have return tickets and more than once, both by the Korean consulate in Seattle and by the worried looking check-in agent at the Korean Air desk in Seatac Airport, that it’s all up to the customs agent and Koreans don’t like it when you come into the country without a return ticket. Thus, when I was on the plane, and Naomi had finally fallen asleep in the final hours of the flight, my prayer was simple and direct: God, may we go through customs smoothly. I said this on repeat as I watched the miniature plane on the screen in front of me get closer and closer to Incheon on the map.

I thought that if I landed at the airport in the state I was in, and I was asked even one question like, “Do you have a return ticket out of Korea?” (no) or “How long are you planning on staying?” (a year) I would probably start crying. I was lugging a tired and pee-stained preschooler, my bags and hers, and had not slept for about 24 hours. And yet the customs agent barely glanced at us long enough to verify that we were the people in our passport pictures. A quick stamp and a scribbled ‘6 mos’ and we were through the doors and waiting for Joe.

Five or six months from now, when Joe and I and Naomi are returning from our yet unplanned vacation through Asia, I hope God is listening again!

The Gift of Time

Sabbatical at last. Perhaps it should have been obvious to me that the greatest gift that God would offer during this year would have to offer was the luxury to stretch out into time. I am in Seattle a little (well, a lot) longer than I had planned. I should have been in South Korea with Joe already, but as it turns out, because of the miracle of finding a buyer for our condo Naomi and I are hanging out in a mostly empty house and bumming around Lake City for 5 additional weeks waiting for closing, signing papers, doing errands, tidying up the loose ends that moving overseas inevitably causes, giving away and selling the furniture and odds and ends left in our house, cleaning out the cupboards and the fridge and packing up what needs to come along.

Well that's what I've been doing. Naomi's been building legos, playing outside, watching videos (a little too much of that probably), going to the park, going swimming, eating donuts, jumping on the trampoline, peeing in the potty (most of the time) and going to the farmers' market. And I've been able to do all of those things with her, plus all my errands and re-reading the whole Harry Potter series. All of this because of this awesome gift of time.

I have been reminded over and over again that it does take time to be with a preschooler. It's not only the potty training (which is definitely time consuming!) It took Naomi and me almost an hour to walk home from the park yesterday. The park is a 5 minute walk away. I was torn constantly between wanting to yank Naomi away from the one thousandth rock stuck in the mud, the sticks and pine-cones and blackberries, and allowing her and myself to revel in these thing. I should want and be able to draw pictures in the dirt by the side of the road with a stick, hop from paver to paver in the sidewalk and lick pretend ice-cream made from pine-cones.

I should but that doesn't mean that it's easy to relax into the pace of a three-year-old, and she is often as frustrated with me as I am with her. I have this whole plan of exploring quilting as a spiritual discipline, but I am beginning to wonder if one of the challenges (and gifts) that lies before me in this time of Sabbatical will be to discover what it means to live into the spiritual discipline of parenting. While I think a lot about what it means to introduce Naomi to Jesus and at whatever level she can understand it, the faith in which I live, it has never really been a full-time gig.

So, why shouldn't a five minute walk take ten times that long? No reason, when presented with the gift of time. God help me live into the gift. I will need it - both the gift and the help living into it.

God's Wrinkled Hands

I found this prayer today in Words for Worship II, a worship resource from Herald Press, in the 'Morning and Evening' section. I don't know what it was about it exactly, but it cut to some central longing in me. Likely it is related to my urgent need just now to be taken care of and the desire to "take everything...and pile it into [God's] wrinkled, loving hands." How surprised and delighted I was to find that it had been written by another Pacific Northwest pastor, Linda Nafziger-Meiser, from Boise ID.

We take everything that our day has held,
the best and the worst,
and we pile it into your wrinkled, loving hands.
We take everything that the world has held today,
the good and the bad,
and we heap it all into your lap, Grandmother God.
Then we crawl up into your lap, too.
And still there is room for us and the whole world.

Clearing the Table

In seminary, my classmates and I, in our class on worship and preaching, heard almost ad nauseum the metaphor of worship being like a meal at which we find nourishment. June Alliman Yoder, Marlene Kropf and Rebecca Slough (two of whom were the professors of said class) write in their book Preparing Sunday Dinner: A Collaborative Approach to Worship and Preaching,

If Sunday worship is the meal that nourishes and sustains individual Christians as well as the Christian community, then it is vital that leaders understand how to prepare and serve this meal. If this is the meal that keeps Christians alive, that delights our souls, that creates a context for fellowship and celebration, and that sustains the church's work and witness in the world, then we must cultivate skill in the kitchen as well as capacities for hosting and serving on the part of worship planners, preachers music leaders and other in worship ministry.

It's an apt analogy and one I like with regards to worship, especially because often our worship is literally before or around the Lord's table. I also like this analogy because I like to make the preparations. Just as I literally like to prepare food for my family or for guests or bake cookies with my daughter. And I like the results - whether its a meal enjoyed with others or worship well 'cooked' the participation in these activities gives me joy.

What I don't like is clean-up. It's as true of my culinary endeavors as it is of worship. I mean the physical clean up: putting away the candles and the table runners, vacuuming up the crumbs from Communion. I can be forgetful or neglectful about cleaning up on Sundays, to the annoyance of our facilities manager. And I am often a procrastinator.

But, since I am quickly approaching my sabbatical, I have made it my summer goal to reorganize the worship supply room, take inventory and restock. We have a beautiful (from my perspective at least) and well stocked space for worship supplies including candles and holders, vases, cloths in many colors, rocks, leaves, various types of stands and holders for things. All this can get into a bit of a jumble, however organized the space began and I spent the better part of the day today pulling out clothes and banners to see which have to go to the dry cleaner to get the wax removed, pulling out broken candle stubs from votives, sorting things into categorized bins.

I commented to Marian (the aforementioned facilities manager) that it would be nice if a volunteer would take on this task. And yet, I realized that cleaning up is as important a part of the worship cycle as preparing the table on Sunday morning. In addition to the joy of peeling melted wax off the sides of candles, I am receiving the gift of an afternoon away from my computer (so much for that...blog, blog, blog), the satisfaction of neatly organized shelves, and I am preparing in a different way than when I lay out the elements for Communion on a Sunday morning or light the candles on the worship table. I am making a space inviting and orderly for others who will use it in the next year. I hope I am making the space and its contents easy to use and accessible so that others will be able to prepare 'Sunday dinner' in my absence. May God's blessing be on the clearing up as it is in the setting out.

Bible Babble and the Babel Fish

Pentecost is here again and this year I was inspired by Douglas Adams. Remember the moment when Ford Prefect shoves the Babel fish in Arthur Dent's ear? Arthur, like he usually is, is confused because he has just arrived on a Vogon vessel and only moments before had no idea that Vogons existed. But then all of a sudden he can understand everything that's going on around him - or at least everything that's being said; he's still pretty confused much of the time. That moment of understanding, that is what happened on Pentecost.

In Acts 2, there are people from all over the known world gathered to celebrate one of the high Jewish holidays. All of these people who were just minding their own business tuning each other out because they couldn't understand what the person next to them was saying, now they can understand every word. And not only understand but realize that God was working through this miracle of understanding.

No doubt Douglas Adams named the Babel fish for the story in the Bible often associated with Pentecost as the anti-Pentecost, the place where all the trouble started. At Babel, in Genesis 11, the language are all mixed up and no one can hear or understand each other any longer. But Pentecost and the Holy Spirit gives that all back. In understanding they are suddenly able to create a community, because the barrier of language has been broken down. And that's not all, Peter quotes Joel as he interprets this event: even upon slaves, on men and women, on young and old. The Spirit is for everyone. This is the birth of the church.

Radical new community all because of a little fish...I mean the Holy Spirit.

Affirmation of Faith for Pentecost

We believe in God, creator of all,
whose love is more than mind can measure or time contain.

We believe that God's desire is fullness of life for all,
and from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell,
nothing and no one has fallen beyond the reach of God's mercy.

We believe in Jesus Christ,
who unveiled the divinity of human flesh
and revealed to us the nature of God;
who embodied God's holy wisdom
and brought forth fruits of love, joy, peace,
goodness, faithfulness and humility.

We believe in the way of the cross,
for when Christ embraced the outcasts
and unmasked the arrogant,
he stirred into deadly confrontation
the power of love and the love of power.
The enemies of life had their way with him,
tearing spirit from flesh,
but God's saving power raised him to life,
so that we and every person on earth
might follow him into the fullness of life which death cannot overcome.

We believe in the Holy Spirit
God's ceaseless and mysterious Go-between,
who kindles the fires of passion and integrity.
Elusive and uncontrollable,
comforting and disturbing,
she purges our delusions with fire
and whispers grace with a lover's breath,
empowering us to refuse what is evil,
and be taken up with praise.

Though sometimes fearful, in God we trust.
We lay ourselves open to the Spirit's touch
that we might be the body of Christ,
offering our life for the life of the world,
and being drawn into the mysterious dance of the Trinity,
through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory and praise forever.

- Nathan Nettleton, Laughing Bird Liturgical Resources