Of course, tornado drills were a frequent part of school.  And I remember a fair number of tornados too, including the "Terrible Tuesday" tornado that struck Lawton (and Wichita Falls, TX) in 1979.  It is an understatement to say that the devastation was incredible--I can still picture, for example, the huge metal signs at one of the car dealerships bent over to the ground and businesses completely gone.  

Thus, my heart goes out to the folks in Oklahoma.  But I don't have anything beyond that to say, really.  Partly, because I think we "over-talk" tragedies.  Sometimes there's nothing much to be said.

But also because as I've been finishing my grading today, I took a break or two (don't judge!) and came across a couple of things that I wanted to share--and they seemed like better responses anyway.  And that's one of the joys of having a place to blog: it doesn't always have to be me.  Noticiing things is only fun when you get to show them to other people.

So three things:

First, a provocative commencement speech given by the artist Makoto Fujimura at Messiah College. David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" has been making the rounds again of late--now in a video form--but Fujimura's asks some important questions as well.  

Second, the very inspiring story of Zach Sobiech, who died Sunday, is going viral.  Watch and see why: 

Third, a moment of joy.

What more can be said after that?

And we celebrated his countless contributions to our college.  Maybe it’s appropriate, then, that today (Tuesday when I’m writing this) is “Thank a Teacher Day.”   Ken was never my instructor in the undergraduate classroom, but I did work with him for many years in the honors program as the associate director.  And in that role, he did teach me a great deal about administering a program, about working with faculty and some of our brightest students, about understanding institutional history and politics.  Most of all, he modeled dignity (the word “gravitas” was invented for him, I think) and good humor and generosity and servanthood in spades.  His example has called us all to be better colleagues.

Actually, I’ve been very fortunate in the teachers in my life.  Their names come back so easily (many of them assuming almost mythic status in my family’s lore): Anquanita Ash and Gary Ross, Judy Rogers, Donna Hansen, Harriet Linkin, Darlis Miller, Donna Gerstenberger.  And there were many, many more.  I count myself supremely blessed in the number of teachers in every one of the eleven schools I attended who took such a strong interest in me, who so deeply invested in my life.  For someone who moved often in my growing up years, I had a constant in church and in teachers.  They saw the nerdy, exuberant kid and figured out how to channel all that energy and curiosity and intellectual drive.  They made me gleeful and unapologetic about pursuing the life of the mind.

The Oxford English Dictionary lists the oldest definitions of “teach” not as imparting information or giving instruction, but as (I think a subtle difference) providing direction:

1)   to show, present or offer a view

2)   to show or point out (a thing, the way, a place) to a person

3)   to direct, conduct, convoy, guide; to send away

I like these earlier definitions as metaphors of what all of us who teach try to do in the classroom: helping students to see something new, to guide them on their way, to assist them in being attentive to “the thing, the way, a place” as they journey.

But I like the other antiquated definition that the OED provides even better.  In shipbuilding, according to the example provided from W.H. Smyth’s 1867 Sailor’s Word-book, “To Teach, in marine architecture, is applied to the direction which any line or curve seems to point out.” In other words, the teaching is following the line to where it seems to go—and learning, one presumes, all along the way.  Of course, as the book of James famously warns, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”  Pointing someone in the wrong direction is serious business indeed.  But most teachers I know understand this only too well.

Wednesday, as you are reading this, I’ll be teaching my last classes of this academic year.  And I’ll be hoping—as I do every year—that I did right by this year’s crop of students and praying that the lines we’ve traced together will continue to guide them in the right ways. 

And I’ll be thinking with gratitude about all those who taught—and are continuing to teach—me. In the words of Psalm 16 (NIV): “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”   

As we all know, last week was stormy in other ways as well (and as my colleagues here have beautifully discussed): Boston—and all of us really—caught in the awful tumult created by the appalling violence of two young men. 

I am struck by how many verses about floods and storms are contained in scripture.  Whether natural or metaphorical, it is clear that few things expose our feeble power, our incredible fantasies of control more than raging water, whatever form it takes.

The magnificent short psalm, Psalm 93, is full of overwhelming deluges:

And yet, as Calvin reflects in his commentary on this psalm:

It is then declared that such is his faithfulness that he never deceives his own people, who, embracing his promises, wait with tranquil minds for their salvation amidst all the tempests and agitations of the world.

What interests me especially here is Calvin’s sense that part of God’s faithfulness lies in not “deceiv[ing]” us about the calamities that threaten to devastate us. The “testimonies,” then, that are “fully confirmed” celebrates the ultimate power of the “Lord on high” but don’t diminish the real terror of the loud and looming waters.

The unseasonableness of both the weather and the news made me think of a Mary Oliver poem, written not for spring, but for the coming of winter.  Nevertheless, the poem’s conclusion provides at least a small measure of consolation in a moment when spring seems very far away indeed. 

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

  by Mary Oliver

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don't say
it's easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed. 

"Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness" by Mary Oliver, from A Thousand Mornings. © The Penguin Press, 2012.  If you do not own a book of Mary Oliver’s poetry, you need to remedy that today.  

This version of the poem appears at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2012/12/13

These last few days on The 12 it seems as if we’re in the middle of something of an intentional series here, thinking through various biblical texts.  Not anything we planned, but a good reminder about how lovely it is to continue to be surprised by the plentitude of scripture.  That is a gift, no doubt: the way that each time we return to a passage, it tells us something more, something new, something else about God, creation, ourselves.

This was true for me quite recently—and with one of the most familiar texts possible.  On Easter this year, I was asked to read aloud for the congregation the story of the resurrection, given in Matthew 28.  Here it is:

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

² There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

⁵ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

Now, a few things stuck out to me that I don’t remember paying much attention to before.  And they all relate to what I’ve decided is a rather attitudinal angel.

I mean, first of all: what’s with the angel sitting down and hanging out after he rolls away the stone?  Clearly it’s not a hard effort on his part.  And even though the soldiers are scared to the point of passing out (which one might be if Lightning Boy had just come down and casually whipped away a ginormously heavy rock), the angel himself seems super casual as he lingers.  The resurrection is effortless.  No big. 

But the lingering struck me as weird too: you’d think the angel’s assignment might be roll away stone, get on with day.  But no—it’s clear that communicating what happened is part of the resurrection process too.  Of course, Christ’s resurrection doesn’t depend on an absent stone—the later appearances of Jesus through doors prove that nothing can hold him. But the stone removal is important because it makes the resurrection clear to us.  And just in case we don’t understand that symbol, the angel says to the women the equivalent of “hey, I knew you were coming. Let me give you a tour just to make sure you get it.”

The thing is, we’re not very quick learners.  I can’t tell you how often my colleagues and I lament about how we have told our students something over and again, and yet, when the time comes for that information to be applied, somehow the students haven’t heard, didn’t get it, weren’t paying attention.  And we say to each other, “seriously—I must have told them a hundred times to do X and such. Don’t they ever listen?”  But, of course, we’re just as guilty.  That’s pretty much the human condition.  The two Marys show up convinced that Christ is still in that tomb, and the touch of incredulity in the angel’s words--“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said”—suggests, that like me with my students—the angel can’t quite believe that the women didn’t act on what they had been told, that they didn’t really believe what Jesus had told them so many times.   But that is a profound pedagogical principle (not surprising from Jesus, whom Mary Magdalene immediately calls Rabboni, teacher): it is that hearing is not enough—intellectual assent is transformed into belief through lived experience.  Come, see, look.

The part I was most surprised by, however, and the part I think I like best is when the angel declares, “Now I have told you.”  What an odd thing to say.  What does that mean?  It sounds somewhat dismissive, somewhat impatient.  A version of “okay, my work here is done—move along.”  But maybe that’s exactly what it means: the angel’s job is done, and now it’s the women’s job to begin spreading the very good news to the other disciples, and for the women and the other disciples to begin living in a post-Resurrection reality. With “now I have told you,” the angel puts the responsibility squarely on Jesus’s followers to continue the work of rolling the stone away and revealing Jesus’s miraculous defeat of death.  

Lingering at the tomb is not on the day’s agenda. 

In “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection,” Hopkins asks us to consider the ways that the way of the world is destruction. Both nature (here the rain storm) and mortality (here represented by the use of the pre-Platonic Greek philosopher Heraclitus’s concept that the essential character of the universe is fire) ultimately annihilate everything.  Even humanity: no matter what our accomplishments (our “firedint,” our “mark” on the world) all is eventually “blot[ted] black out,” and all is “blur[red]” and “leveled” into oblivion.

In fact, nothing remains but the “enormous dark”—and Hopkins’ anguished response, “O pity and indignation” is the response of all of us who understand the despair of a world where death is a finality.  

But that’s not the final word.  “Enough!” says Hopkins.  Christ’s resurrection is like a trumpet rousing him to remember that the resurrection has significant consequences for Hopkins himself.  It transforms not only his relationship to his own mortality, but also his own self-image.  Yes, broken and ridiculous, but also beautiful and eternal.  I won't say more: read the powerful ending for yourself.

And then, go forth remembering that your identity—now and forever more—is an “immortal diamond.”  And that Easter is what makes that so.  That is the comfort of the resurrection, indeed.

That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

I don't like it when people say I'll pray for you. “I'll pray for you, I'll pray for you.” You're gonna pray for me? So basically you're gonna sit at home and do nothing? Because that's what your prayers are. You're doing nothing while I'm struggling with a situation.  So don't pray for me: make me a sandwich or something. ‘Cause I'm very upset right now and I can't make my own sandwiches, so that would be cool if you made me a sandwich instead of praying,  That's very lazy.

My friend entitled her posting: Sometimes I Just Need a Sandwich.

Which struck me as about as clear an articulation as one can get for the absolute necessity for us to be, as Barbara Brown Taylor has it, “God’s sign language.”  Or as Gerard Manley Hopkins (who I’ve been teaching of late) tells us: “the just man justices.”  Instead, how often we easily lapse into God-talk, how often a pious platitude comes to our lips.  And how often that is accompanied by a failure to embody our faith, by a failure to live out the words of Matthew 25:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

It can’t be all sandwich-making, naturally, and I am certainly all for a robust theologically informed praxis, but I appreciated the reminder that daily kindnesses are powerful witnesses.  We know that, of course: you will know them by their fruit and all that.  But I wondered how often my friend had received what sounded to her like empty words when an apple—literally—might have been as welcome. 

This was all on my mind last week when I had the opportunity to talk to one of my current students, Lauren Farris, at a strategic planning event.  We were discussing the necessity of Christian colleges like ours striving to find ways to serve poor students.  And she shared with me a bit of her own story.  I asked if she might allow me to share it with you, and this is what she wrote:

Growing up surrounded by the humble cornfields and rolling acres of pumpkins in Chillicothe, IL, the words “Calvin College” “Dutch,” and “CRC” were all foreign to my vocabulary. Not until Hope College recruited a dear friend of mine did Western Michigan begin to weave itself intricately into the narrative of my life. After a day of visiting him, I decided to check out Calvin College, since I was in the neighborhood already. Turns out, this impromptu visit to Grand Rapids would change my life. Immediately, I felt at home at Calvin.

This sense of belonging prompted me to partake in a more formal visit in the fall, where I quickly learned to love the vibrant community, bold faith, and excellent academics—more or less confirming that Calvin was where I belonged. I continued to look at other schools, but with much prayer, I kept returning to Calvin as my college of choice with an overwhelming sense of peace.

There was one glitch to my grand scheme—money. I know if you ask the majority of students, they would complain at the expense of attendance, but my situation was slightly different. After receiving financial aid and an abundance of scholarships as well as calculating out the amount of loans I could take out, I still needed around $40,000 to complete my education.

That enormous sum juxtaposed itself to the economic conditions and demographics of my sweet Chillicothe, a town where it is a privilege to attend college, where most of my neighbors collect welfare to make ends meet, and where the upper-middle class world of Calvin College is extremely foreign. Yet, through much pray and petition, I remained convinced that Calvin was where I was supposed to go.

So for the next five months, I told people I was going to attend Calvin.   Yet I knew full well that there was no possible way I would show up in Michigan in the fall if I didn’t acquire the money to make it through.

Tears and rejoicing intermingled during this period of waiting—sometimes I couldn’t help surrendering such an enormous mountain to the Lord to move.  But sometimes I just cried, feeling totally defeated by the task of attending college.

Around March, I learned of a group in my community who raised money for high achieving students who couldn’t afford college.  They invited me to apply for a series of scholarships that members of my community had raised over the past year, unbeknownst to me. After a month of rigorous essay writing and recommendation gathering, I submitted my heart to the people of Chillicothe. And I waited.

On May 17th, 2011—the night of our high school award ceremony—my neighbors surprised me by announcing that they were awarding me $40,000 in scholarship money that they had accumulated throughout the year, tangibly giving me the very gift of college. Never before have I felt as deeply loved and cared for as I did in that moment.

To this day, the people of Chillicothe continue to write me at Calvin, are always checking in on me as I come home, and continue to celebrate my journey through higher education. Thus, my attending Calvin College is a collective experience, derived from the gracious sacrifice and generosity of my neighbors.

 May the same be said of us: that we are sandwich-makers and scholarship raisers and true neighbors indeed.  

Though I was slight and small, I was quite a fearless little kid.  When we moved to Korea in the early 1970s, I was six, my brother was four, and my sister was but eight months old.  Army housing is assigned by rank and number of children, so our quarters had three bedrooms in one half of a duplex.  Given our ages, my parents decided that we kids would have a sleeping room and a playroom--and proceeded to have a bunk bed custom-made for my brother and me.  To this day, it remains the tallest bunk bed I have ever seen.  It dominated the already small room, a bulwark against all comers and a perfect fort.  Against the other wall of the bedroom, perpendicular to the bunk bed monstrosity, was my sister’s crib.  So, naturally, my brother and I thought it would be great fun to do some precise parachuting from the top of the bunk bed and to launch ourselves into the crib.  Looking back, I’m always amazed a) that we always landed in the crib and not in a heap on the ground with a broken limb or worse, b) that the crib never broke, and c) that our mother always discovered us.  Perhaps it was the high-pitched shrieking of “Geronimo” coming from the bedroom that tipped her off.

With a childhood such as that, it will not astonish you to learn that I was probably 10 or so before I realized that I was technically a “civilian.” So obviously I loved the celebration every year on Armed Forces Day.  Since the 1950s, Armed Forces Day has been celebrated on bases around the world, often by opening training facilities to family members and sometimes the general public too. 

No surprise, then: that first year in Korea, I decided I wanted to jump out of the training tower.  (If you need a visual, think of a zipline that goes from the tower down, so you can practice your landing skills, or the picture below shows what the opening of the tower looks like). My mother was somewhat dubious, given that the narrow tower reached about 75 feet into the sky (at least, that’s how tall my father remembered it when I asked him about this recently.  I just remember its seemed to stretch on and on).  It also required that the jumper climb to the top alone—no parent, no nothing (ah, the ‘70s.  Could we get away with such today?) 

But despite her protestations, I was determined.  And so, I began the long climb up.  The tower was open on the sides, so you could feel the breeze as you got farther and farther away from the ground.  The metal steps were closer to a ladder than a real staircase—and it turns out, there were a lot of them.

Midway up, I began to reconsider.  I had already climbed a long way, and it seemed like there were still hundreds of steps in front of me.  And it was way higher than I had imagined.

Still, looking down, I realized how very scary it would be to climb backwards all the way back to the ground.  And I knew I couldn’t stay paralyzed in the middle of the tower.

I kept climbing.

When I got to the top, the men got me in my harness and told me that, because I was so little, I would have to take a running start.  Taking off, I whipped down that line so fast that I’m not even sure I was breathing. 

Actually, the jump was the least frightening part of the whole experience because, unlike my solo climb to the top, I knew my father was at the end of the line, ready to catch me as I landed.  In that, I had complete confidence.   And he did not disappoint.

It’s funny, though: when we talked about this recently, he told me he hadn't been too sure, given my velocity, if he would indeed be able to catch me.  It’s a good thing God is a little stronger, no matter what we throw at him.

It’s easy to decide to never climb the daunting towers of our lives.

It’s easy to get paralyzed in the middle or think somehow we can go back to where we were before.

It’s easy to get weary of the climb.

But thankfully, we never climb alone.

May we help each other face the arduous climb that lies before each of us, urging each other on to love and good works and reminding ourselves of this truth: that our God goes before us, ready to catch us when we take the leap.

Ash Wednesday was not part of my tradition growing up—the imposition of ashes was a little too “high” for my family's solid low-church leanings.  We didn’t give up anything for Lent, either.  That was all something that only Catholics (or perhaps, as we thought of them, pseudo-Catholic Episcopalians) did.  It wasn’t just Ash Wednesday and Lent, of course: my grandmother’s view of liturgy (any liturgy, mind you) was that it most closely resembled, in her words, “the vain incantation of the heathen.”  

On Monday, as I read the responses to Pope Benedict’s resignation announcement (the New York Times alone devoted four different opinion columns to the news, including this appreciative response from Carol Zaleski of Smith, who writes regularly for Christian Century), I reflected with some gladness about how far we have traveled as “one holy catholic church” since my 1970s childhood. So much so that many of the denominational demarcations of the 1970s have lessened or disappeared, with many ecumenical practices incorporated across worshipping communities.  Indeed, my Protestant college has had an Ash Wednesday service for many years now.  And just last month, the Christian Reformed Church joined with other Protestant denominations in signing the Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism with Catholics.

Rather than a cause for celebration, rather than an affirmation of the New Testament's insistence on unity in the Body, this could all sound like the triumph of the lowest common denominator--that is, the fear of ecumenicalism as a watering down. I think that would be a mistake. But I also believe that the move towards unity is not one that needs to erase the richness of the multiple heritages of the Church Universal.  

As an Army brat, I think my experience in going to the "General Army Protestant" service each week as a child gives me, perhaps, a different view and a stronger appreciation for difference. In the chapel, I worshipped each week with people from a range of Protestant denominations. This meant that in our service, we worshipped together, but simulaneously we also worshipped according to what our own traditions dictated. For example, people took communion while seated, while kneeling in the pew, or while kneeling at the altar.  We had infant baptisms, and we had infant dedications, and we had infant christenings.  We sang hymns that ran the gamut. But the result was not some kind of inoffensive pablum that obscured all theological flavor; the result was an experience where I learned to respect the differences of my fellow Christians, even while worshipping side by side--as the holy catholic church--with them each week.  Like a prism, each Christian tradition refracted the plentitude of God, helping me see ever more ways to love God in heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

As importantly, we shared the sanctuary with our Catholic brothers and sisters--something vital, I believe. And not just the same sanctuary, but the same altar.  On that altar was a curious thing: a unique cross.  For the Protestant service, the cross presented a plain, metal front to the congregation.  But for the Mass, that same cross was turned around to reveal the figure of Jesus hanging upon it. 

Every time I describe that cross, it generates a good deal of chuckling.  And I admit, there's a certain amount of whimsy in a "flippy cross."  On the other hand, it has always been, for me, a powerful image.  The Catholic emphasis on the crucifix, the Protestant emphasis on the resurrection: the redemptive work of Christ represented in one object.  

When I recite the Apostles' Creed and I affirm the "holy catholic church," then, what I am really affirming is that I need as many eyes as possible to help me fully see and deeply understand the work of Christ.  That's an important reminder, especially for those of us who spend our days mostly in conversation with others within our theological circle.  

Sometimes, we need to a reminder to turn the cross around.  

I reported in my last post about the flurry of activities that is occurring these days around the work of the writer Frederick Buechner.  This past weekend, I was on-hand for the Buechner Institute’s annual lectureship—this year featuring the poet and essayist, Kathleen Norris.  It was a lovely day, made possible by the work of the Institute’s director Dale Brown and his team—and the Institute’s very real commitment to cultivating a rich conversation about the intersections of faith and culture.

As part of the day’s activities, my friend and fellow The 12 blogger, Jeff Munroe, conducted a masterful on-stage interview with Norris.  (I imagine Jeff may have more to say on the activities of the day--and his interview--in his next blog).

I was very struck by the answer Norris gave when asked to discuss the vows she had taken as an oblate of the Benedictine monastery, Assumption Abbey (which she had joined in 1986).  In her response, Norris emphasized two vows that Benedictines take: the vow of stability and the vow of conversion.  With the first, Benedictines promise to remain with the same community in the same place for the rest of their lives.  I had not realized that Benedictines commit not just to an order but to a very specific iteration of that order.  In other words, the monastery that they enter will be the one from which they are buried.  As someone who moved nine times growing up (and has moved many more times as an adult) and who has changed churches three times in the place I now live, I marveled at the testimony of people willing to make such a vow.  For all our much-vaunted talk about community, I wonder if (or how much) we are really willing to put in the hard work required for community to be achieved, even in small measure?  Outside of monastic orders, has the church lost the ability to nurture this at least in some form?  Do we care if we can’t—or is it all too much bother anyway?

At the same time, Norris noted, the vow of stability is importantly counterweighted by the vow of conversion.  As Norris explained it, this is a promise to continue to grow and develop as a person of faith; it is a vow that values change. Thus, the vow of stability alone could lead to stagnation and nostalgia (“we’re rooted here, and it needs to stay like it always has”), while the vow of conversion could lead to valuing change above all. 

My institution is currently undergoing a prioritization process, and Norris's remarks have reminded me anew how the principles these two vows articulate—a commitment to a place and a people, but a commitment too to continue to grow together—is vital for our good survival as an institution. 

How to do it?  I don’t know. But perhaps expressing these principles as values for those of us in the wider Christian community to attempt, even in a small way, is a start.  

That said, one of the aspects of belonging to this blogging team that really appeals to me is all the things to which my fellow writers introduce me.

So, let me reciprocate.  It’s the least I can do in exchange for a short post. 

Frederick Buechner, who I've heard referred to as St. Freddie of Rupert, has been an important writer for so many people that I thought folks might be interested in knowing about the flurry of work that has been going on around him and his writing.

First, there’s the Buechner Institute at King College.  Launched in 2008 to honor the life, work, and example of Buechner, the Institute hosts a year-long lecture series that explores the interplay between culture and faith.  Once a year, too, the Institute hosts the Buechner lectureship.  Buechner kicked the whole thing off six years ago, and last year was Marilynne Robinson.  Next week, The 12’s own Jeff Munroe will be on-hand to interview Kathleen Norris, this year’s lecturer.  

Jeff and I also both get to serve on the National Advisory board, (along with people far more renowed than we are), and so this summer, we’ll be participating in the 2^nd Annual Buechnerfest, a retreat devoted to all things Fred.  Registration is open now, so do have a look if you’re in the mood for a mindful vacation. 

The other big news in Buechnerland is the pre-release website recently unveiled by the Buechner Center.     Established to “share the works of Christian author Frederick Buechner with communities around the world,” the site is a treasure trove of previously unavailable or uncollected audio and video files.  The site also features much more: compelling quotes and frequent themes, bibliographies, reflections from other writers, and resources for all kinds of people—from pastors to seekers.  And this already rich collection is still under-development and open for user input.  It’s worth a visit.