Kirkepiscatoid

John 15:1-17:

”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. ²He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. ³You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ¹²“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another."

This not so great example of my horticultural skills is one of my lilac bushes. Now, my other lilac bushes look fine; the one right next to this one, in fact, is gorgeous. This one, ehhh...not so much.

It took a bit of a beating a couple years back and has just now started to bounce back. The tree to the right of it dropped a big limb on it in a storm one night. This part of the yard flooded out last summer and the "13 inches of rain in one day in Kirksville" got it even more bedraggled. I wasn't even sure if it was going to make it this year. But as you can see, there's a little life left in it.

I probably got to worrying about this bush last fall. For starters, when I'd dump the ashes out of my chiminea, I started putting the ashes at the foot of this bush. My late grandpa thought "wood ashes cured everything" when it came to yard plants. Then, this spring, I saw the ends of some of the branches start some leaves, so I knew it was still alive. When it had blossomed, out came the loppers. I have, at this point, pretty much lopped everything dead off of it.

If you notice at the bottom of the picture, some new shoots are coming up around the base. So, barring catastrophe, I think it will make it.

The stuff I lopped off, well, guess what...it has been going in my chiminea as kindling...to make more ashes...to enjoy my fire and have more wood ashes to feed some other yard plants. Yup, I put the withered branches in the fire and burned 'em. Hmmm.

As you all know, I have and to some degree continue to have a problem with the Gospel of John. One of the things that bugs me is it is full of a lot of stuff that people pass off as "judgment." You know...wheat/chaff, cast stuff out, burn it in the fire, fiery flames of Hell and all that stuff that too many fundamentalist Christians seem to groove on, and shove the Gospel of John in your face the whole time.

But right now, this evening, I am sitting by my now semi-famous chiminea (you've been sitting with me all fall and winter, and now into spring), and a few of those lilac branches were used to start my fire. I don't have any malice towards those withered lilac branches. They just aren't any good on my lilac bush anymore! In fact, I used them to a good purpose...to start my fire that I am now enjoying. The ashes will go to feed my other yard plants. This is NOT consigning them to Hell at all. I'm just finding a new (and good) purpose for them.

So, in that sense, I'm not sure the fundamentalists are really on target with this one. Yeah, I cast them out from the lilac bush, but they are being used for good, and really, a better purpose than the one they were occupying previously. Their presence harms the bush, but, burned into ashes, they can help the same bush.

Likewise, I don't think God casts out his creation that he loves. How does this work after we die? I don't know; neither do you; no one really knows. I think there are some people who like to THINK they know, but I think that is to assuage their own sense of judgment than anything else. I think I'm okay "not knowing." I just know that if I am in the image of God, and if I am taking these dead, withered branches and using them for a good purpose, I guess I can have enough faith and trust that God knows how to use dead, withered branches for good purposes.

I've been dealing with John 4 this week and something seemingly unremarkable caught my eye in v. 6: “Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.”

So...where’s Jacob’s well? And what’s Jacob’s well got to do with it?

Well, a little Googling gave the answer. Jacob’s well is still in Sychar, and it is now a shrine, tended by Eastern Orthodox monks. In fact, the monks have kept records on the well since the first century...and here’s what is cool that goes with the story. It is a VERY deep well. The deepest it has been is 240 feet to hit water (670 AD) and the shallowest it is was 67 feet (1881 AD). It also turns out to be spring fed. The Aramaic term for moving, spring fed water is “living water.” Hmmmmmm.

You know, when I think of this story, I always thought of just “a well like a NE Missouri well” with the water table 15-30 feet below me or so. Uh-uh. This well is DEEP. So people coming to get a drink, had to lower the community bucket at least a hundred feet or so before they hit water. So this well is not just a piddly-assed well...it is deep and dark and must have looked like a bottomless pit to them—dark, foreboding, with the potential to swallow you up.

Also, this spring fed water must have been incredibly refreshing and cool to people in an arid climate. It truly must have felt life-giving. So when Jesus and the Samaritan woman are talking about “living water”, it makes it even more of a “DUH” when you think of those who mistakenly think it’s important to take Jesus literally. It’s not like the Samaritan woman is sounding like a literal fool. She knows what “living water” is. It’s cool and spring fed water and she has been refreshed by living water many times before. She knows the feel already of what getting a drink of “living water” feels like.

(I have to get a little irked at the author of this part of my Bible commentary. The commentary sort of paints her as being a little on the ignorant side with her strange literal questions. I am thinking her initial conversation with Jesus was more "banter." As a Samaritan, she is not used to any Jewish folk being civil to her. When he asks for a drink, I can see her sort of going, "Hellooooooo? Did you sort of notice, sweetie, that I'm a Samaritan? Do you know what you're asking for?....What? You're going to give me a drink of living water? Well, DUH, I don't see any bucket on you? You been out in the sun too long?")

Wow...this is a little like my own journey, isn’t it? I travel through times of dark deep nothing that feels like there’s no bottom at times, but at the bottom of that dark pit...is living water...and the taste of that water is so good and sweet, even for just a little gulp or two, to my arid soul, that I want as much of that water as I can get, and I become more and more willing to traverse the pit to get to it. Hmmm.

It's not every day you go for a walk with the vicar and get to see a minutes old puppy!

We were doing one of our "walk and chats" out at the campground at 1000 Hills lake. As we walked by a tent, a young man goes, "Hey! My dog just had a puppy!" So of course, I had to go over and investigate. Sure enough, his dog had a minutes old puppy next to her.

The man and I got to talking and there is a great story about his dog (the mama dog's name is Roxy, by the way.) Well, he and his wife had taken Roxy to the vet to get fixed. Hmmm. All I can say is "they didn't fix her." He noticed she was looking pregnant, and told the vet, who said she'd be glad to um...re-fix her...for free. But in the meanwhile, they had taken Ms. Roxy on their camping trip, and I guess she decided that having her pups at the state park seemed like a good idea.

I don't know how many pups she ended up having, because we continued on our walk, but Ms. Roxy seems to understand the motherhood thing ok for being a first-time mom, and this little guy she had first is incredibly cute.

But I'm not sure going for a "walk and chat" with the vicar is ever going to be the same...I think he's going to get the idea that very weird things can happen when you hang out with me...

Ok, after my return from my little jaunt to the monastery, one of the books recommended to me was "St. Benedict's Toolbox", by Jane Tomaine. I will probably be mentioning this book now and then as I work my way through it. It is not meant to be a "speed read". (Uh, I'm sort of guessing it was meant to be read in a more or less "Benedictine" fashion...hmmmm?) So, for the last week or so, I've been going through Chapter 1 slowly and stopping on the questions, and times to think and reflect. The book has a series of "tools" designed to cultivate the Benedictine values of stability, obedience, and conversion. (My priest has been razzing me that I would be attracted to any book with the word "tool" in it. Well, ok, can't fight there.)

This is the tool in Chapter 1 that really hooked me as I read it--it refers to "living reflectively":

“Develop the skill of observation. Mentally step outside yourself during the day and gently assess your attitudes and actions. Do the same when in conversation with others. Before going to bed, think about the day, looking gently at who you were and what you did throughout the day.”

I got to thinking...I DO these things, I am very observant, I am learning to be reflective, but I sure do not historically do them GENTLY. I am terribly hard on myself. I historically kick my own rear end something fierce. This often comes from the demands and expectations that were placed on me in my medical training, and the nagging sense of “failed perfection” that I grew up with. Learning to do this GENTLY takes some thought.

So I got stuck on that thought, "How does one 'gently reflect' when one is used to a lifetime of harsh reality causing the equal and opposite reaction of harsh reflection?" Some of you have heard me say before that I don't belive that God operates outside the laws of physics...at least not in this plane of existence. The universe has cosmic law. The laws of physics are our understanding, feeble as it might be, of cosmic law. This all seems congruent to me, because if the universe is a creation of God, then cosmic law would also be God's law, at least in terms of "how things work" in the universe. I know I sound a little like our friend MadPriest when I get to thinking this way, but let's be real. I'm schooled in the sciences. It is my default sphere of reference.

Well, I got to thinking in terms of electrical current. If you really think about it, our brain can function as a capacitor. All our stored memories and experience can more or less up the charge of any given piece of information. So, it's conceivable that a piece of information that has similarities to our stored up memories and experience can become more "charged".

So in that vein, maybe "reflecting gently" simply means to take your observations for what they are, and not put more "charge" to it by letting it connect to all the things that are already in your brain that can hook it.

I got to thinking about my recent daily foray into the book of John. It is easy for me to feel "charged" about this gospel because I historically don't like it. Something I am noticing as I go through this Gospel every morning is that I am catching myself identifying with the people in the stories. I wonder if this is part of how to "live reflectively"--to imagine yourself in the shoes of others, even if they lived 2000 years ago.

Last week, I sort of “became Nicodemus.” I can understand how Nicodemus, one of the Sanhedrin, had to come to see Jesus under cover of darkness. I don't think it was that Nicodemus meant Jesus harm, or that he was a jerk who could not give up the trappings of his power, as some make him out to be. I think it was just that he had a real and earnest curiosity about Jesus, and until he could figure it out, he could not risk his position. What John mentions of Nicodemus, Nicodemus seems to be a "good man." I think he was simply a "torn man." I think he knew there was something very authentic about that Jesus guy. But he was steeped in years and years of rabbinical training and how could he possibly suspend disbelief to go against his training?

I think about my own years and years of training in the applied biological sciences. I had a hard time believing Helicobacter caused peptic ulcer disease for a long time. I had been told for years that ulcers were caused by stress and the "modern lifestyle" and the lack of psychological coping mechanisms. We cut vagus nerves to stop this disease. We resected chunks of stomach. Yet, someone wanted me to believe that a BACTERIUM caused this? That sounded like science fiction to me. But over time, the proof was there, and I could believe.

How is this any different from the evolution of my understanding of gays and lesbians? How is this any different than my understanding of God compared to the God of my youth? The "proof", and our acceptance of the proof, takes time to process. So in that sense, I can understand Nicodemus in a way I could not if I just read the passage and read someone's commentary.

This week, sitting in John 4, I see I am already trying to "be" the Samaritan woman. Overall, I think this is good. I am trying to put myself in the shoes of these people and trying to be aware of the parts of them in myself. Maybe this is part of how I can take information about myself and sort of keep it divorced from the things in my brain that can hook it and act as a capacitor and make it more "charged." Maybe by truly putting myself in the shoes of others, I can in fact be more gentle with myself. I remember an argument I had with a friend once. I was royally pissed that he was just doing the "you're wrong" thing over a decision I had made. I remember in exasperation going, "Hold it! Just for 30 seconds, I want you to imagine you're ME. MY life, MY job, MY baggage. NOW tell me why I'm wrong." I remember it slowed him down and he went, "Huh. You're right. I was looking at it solely from my view of the world as seen by my life. I think I WOULD have handled it differently if I were you."

I'll tell you the hardest part of trying to figure out what God wants me doing or being in a given situation. I know we are all called to a ministry, even as a lay person. Sometimes I think the priestly crowd gets off easy. They are given a collar and an identity for their ministry. We lay folk are not. The priestly set does "discernment" with a finite goal--ordination--to either look at and go "yea" or "nay." We lay folk see these "traditional ministerial roles" and go, "Nope, nope, nope, not this, that, or t'other" and may, in fact, diss the idea that our ministry is "out of the box." Few of our ministries fall into a distinct category. I think all ministries are like snowflakes, priest or lay--they are unique--but the "defined" ones have their own common trappings, just like "White coat = health care." We see clearly who we are, yet go, "Nahhhhh, that's not a MINISTRY. That's just me bein' me." We're wrong as wrong can be when we do that, but we just get blinders about it.

I know my blinders. I get the big attack of, “Ehhh, I’m such a ‘not standard model Christian’ (whatever that is), so how in the hell can God use ME?”

Somewhere in my brain is this archetype of "Christian." Shiny, happy, got a halo over your head, every time you open your mouth, it's all peace and love and la la la. Never gets mad at God, never questions the Gospel accounts, and Jesus sits on your shoulder. Then that flip, raw, salty, 4 letter word-laden me stands next to it and might as well have a big sign that says, "UNCLEAN".

My brain plays out the inner struggle of "unclean" vs. "Hey, wait a minute...God made my personality what it is. So it must be ok to not be a shiny happy sort of Christian." More and more, as I read the New Testament, I am learning that Shiny Happy Christian is a myth. Jesus opened up a can of whoopass in the temple. The disciples were horribly martyred. The desert monks all seem a little grouchy. When Jesus rebukes Peter (as he often does,) I get the feeling he doesn't go, "I rebuke you, Pete." I have a feeling Peter gets, as my granny used to say, "A good old-fashioned ass chewing." Paul's letters deal with all sorts of church dissention that make my church's coffee hour gossip look pretty dull. "Shiny happy" is a delusion.

It doesn't change the fact, though, that trying to understand "my ministry" gnaws on me. It is maybe more itchy and gnawing than it used to be, simply b/c my awareness of God has changed. It did not “itch” me two years ago. It did not “itch” me as much one year ago. It gets itchier and itchier, like an allergic reaction. I expect to break out in hives any day now.

In some ways, I know God loves me more than I ever realized. Yet “My ministry” is less clear than it was a year ago. Thinking of this in Benedictine terms, the world is playing on my “stability” nerve, I still have problems believing my own “conversion,” and it leaves me only with the one thing I try to do—obey—and sometimes obeying feels like I am banging my head against the wall.

Then I think of another something my granny used to say..."Well, do SOMETHING, even if it's wrong." It's not "decision", it's not "mistakes" that kill potential. It's inertia. Well, I refuse to be inert. So, I may not know what "reflecting gently" really means, but by golly, I'll try something, even if it's wrong. I guess even "sitting still and letting it come to you" is doing something. I know one thing; when you try something and it doesn't work, you certainly know "what not to do next time!"

Hat tip to Bosco for this gem of a link!

There's no doubt. I've been Oscar the Grouch the last few days. For lack of more detail, let's just say I have gotten on a run of defining myself by my inadequacies. I have had a fair more number of "unknown quantities" in my life lately, most of which have the potential of impinging on my new-found discovery of needing "silent time" in my life. Another part of it is that I find myself having to "sit still" with a situation that I have only a limited amount of control over certain details and outcome. Still yet another part is that, because of the uncertainty, I have a decreased ability to readily commit to things I have historically been able to usually handle on short notice.

It's all frustrating. It's made me "armor up" in some ways. The problem, of course, is when I'm "armored up," it makes me go out and "pick fights." Things that normally don't bother me get under my skin. It gets me in my "is anybody botherin' to notice me?" mood. It puts a chip on my shoulder. I put myself in the impossible situation of desiring a little nurturing but not being able to really bring myself to be vulnerable.



So, I went off in the corner and did a little reading about St. Moses of Ethiopia. He was one of the early 1st century desert monks. One of his most famous quotes, when another monk came to him for advice, is “Go, and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.”

He was a formerly violent person (in getting revenge on a shepherd, he killed four of the shepherd's finest rams, eating and selling the meat) but later became a hermit.

So, in a manner of speaking, this evening I've been sitting in "my cell," so to speak. St. Moses endured many prejudices because of his skin color, and even met his own end at the hand of robbers. So I imagine he had more reason to feel "slighted" than I do. In that light, I think I can get over being a grouch!

One of my medical students sent me this on Facebook...I had to post it...it is abso-freakin-lutely AWESOME!