Single-tasking

Single-tasking

Not to brag but I’m a single-tasker. I can do many things one at a time.

Take this morning for example. I woke up and then drank some coffee. Without caffeine I’m a non-tasker.

After my shower I regularly practice single-tasking by going through the following motions in this order:

Wipe down the shower stall to keep mildew at bay;

Wad a little toilet paper to clean (my) hair from the shower drain;

Comb my hair;

Put on deodorant;

Turn off the power to the shower.

I’ll spare the mundane details of getting dressed other than to report that I’ve yet to perfect the time-saving move of putting on my pants both legs at once.

When I’m ready to go into work I collect my coffee mug, any books I need, and this notebook for recording important matters, put on my house slippers, and go downstairs.

The commute to my office takes anywhere from 0 to 60 minutes depending on if I plan to jog sometime during the day because that determines whether I eat breakfast or not. I can’t exercise on even a partially-full stomach.

Today isn’t a jogging day but I do have somewhere to be after first mailing some things so I put on my waist pack and jacket and pick up my packages and shout “I’m off—I love you!” and head to the post office.

It is here at the P.O. I discover I don’t have my debit card. Oh no! Did I lose it? Or leave it somewhere? I substitute my credit card while I mentally retrace my steps. Yesterday I had taken out my debit card to withdraw some cash and then to purchase some soap refills at the fair-trade store. After that I had stopped by the computer-repair shop to be shown step-by-step how to operate my new cell phone but—in spite of my offer to pay for their time and expertise setting up my first-ever mobile form of communication apart from singing and hollering which come to think of it I do simultaneously on a frequent basis—they wouldn’t accept any compensation.

This leaves the fair-trade store as the last place to see my debit card in action unless I dropped it and someone right now is emptying our checking account. Thankfully it’s the end of the month and there’s not much money left.

“I’m back—I’ve lost my debit card,” I yell upon entering the house. I go directly to the paper-recycling container where I had filed the fair-trade receipt and I call the phone number of the store only to get an answering machine so I leave my name and number and ask them to call me whether or not I have left my card there.

By now it’s a few minutes before ten o’clock when I’m due to catch the next train into town so I dash out of the house again, “Love you—Bye!” and hurry to the train platform where a half dozen workers in flash-orange suits are taking this day of all days to install electric lines overhead whereas the train up until now ran partly on diesel. Sorry, no rail service today, I am told.

So I rush back to the house. “Me again—the train’s not running!” Bummer but on the flip side it allows me to call the fair-trade store when they open at ten and ask if they have my card.

Yes! It’s there and they were going to call me and even offer to bring it to my house but I tell them I will come and get it as I am going out anyway. Grabbing two pound coins and a fifty-pence piece I put extra energy into stating my intention, “I’m outta here—Love you!” and walk quickly to catch the bus.

This heated bus with comfortable padded seats is my first opportunity to pause for a few minutes before arriving at the fair-trade store where they give me my card and I exonerate their guilt for not handing it to me yesterday—apparently the manager has forgotten on more than one occasion—and for not contacting me.

With our worldly accounts intact I use my cheap all-day ticket to ride into town to catch another bus to get to where I'm going. The second bus doesn’t come so I end up taking the train and arriving at my destination in time for a cup of coffee followed by lunch.

Not bad for a linear-operator who trips if more than one foot is placed in front of the other.

Where do prayers go?

Where do prayers go?

All prayers—including “bad” ones—are destined for our Higher Power, however named, and thus are to be addressed that way. Some ministers use prayers as back-handed ways to lecture their congregations or repeat their sermons; this is bad form. These kinds of prayers still make it to God, but I suspect God sees right through them and responds accordingly.

In a previous article I said there’s no “right” or “wrong” about prayers or praying. There are, however, “good” and “bad” prayers. And, like art, the beauty of a prayer is in the ear of the beholder.

Speaking of praying aloud, I take a deep breath and pause before praying publicly. I script the prayers such that each line can be expressed easily in one breath. I practice reading aloud the prayers, which helps me decide where to breathe, and I underline certain words for emphasis. Rather than read a prayer, I deliver, give up a prayer, which means taking the time to nurture ideas and experiment with words and phrases, all the while listening from within. And I’ll incorporate silence into a prayer, for it is not just the spoken words that comprise a prayer but also the hidden thoughts, the secret feelings, even the subconscious.

Here is a litany quilted from the statements of Christian organizations working to include transgender, lesbian, bisexual, and gay people in the Church of Scotland, Baptist churches, churches in Ireland, evangelical churches, Episcopal and Anglican churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and other Christian groups:

Leader: Let us respond to God by offering our prayers for ourselves and others. Following each set of prayers, the pray-er will say, “Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened!” and you are invited to open yourself to listen, in the quiet stillness, and reflect from within. Let us pray:

Prayer 1: Dear God our Creator, we thank you for your gift of human sexuality in all its richness. Make us proud owners of our bodies and bold stewards of our abilities. By the power of your Holy Spirit, reunite our bodies and souls to embrace and honor our sexuality as an expression of your covenant love for all creation. Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened! [Pause]

Prayer 2: O Good Shepherd, deliver us from paths of denial, bargaining, violence—even suicide. Lead us to be honest, to live with integrity, and to experience healing—especially where there is no cure. Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened! [Pause]

Prayer 3: Holy Inspirer of the Old and New Testaments, break our love-hate relationship with the Bible. Melt our idolatries—our sacred cows—about scripture. Re-mold us by your Wisdom and Word made real in Jesus Christ. Fill us with the Good News that nothing can separate us from your love. Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened! [Pause]

Prayer 4: O God who fashioned Adam and Eve and Adam and Steve and Eve and her partner, restore to the Church the privilege of nurturing individuals in their faith development, including their sexuality. Rejuvenate the Church’s blessing of faithful commitments, including same-gender relationships. Free us to respond to your steadfast love in all our relationships, that we might mirror Christ’s relational pattern of genuine love, mutual affection, and egalitarian service. Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened! [Pause]

Prayer 5: Divine Maker of all things bright and beautiful, embody us to be comfortable with our feminine side and our masculine side and those parts of us that defy stereotypes. Holy Designer of all genders, enable each of us to simply be our self, to enjoy being transgender in safe environments, including the Church, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened! [Pause]

Prayer 6: O Liberator of all creatures great and small, use our experiences of discrimination and hate crimes to make every one of us advocates for children, youth, and adults who are victims of abuse or exploitation because of their skin color, class, mental or emotional or physical state, perceived gender or sexual orientation, religious or national heritage. Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened! [Pause]

Prayer 7: Powerful Source of all things wise and wonderful, we thank you that it is entirely compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same gender but also to express that love fully in a personal sexual relationship. Thank you that I can be a sexual person and a spiritual person. Eph΄-pha-tha! Be opened! [Pause]

Amen.

Bottom line: There’s no such thing as a “perfect” prayer—only an honest prayer. God wants it all, and honestly, God can handle it.

Where do prayers take us?

Where do prayers take us?

Sometimes I don’t know where a prayer is going to lead, and that’s a good thing. Too often prayers are used, especially by us professional pray-ers, to try to harness the power of the Holy Spirit (who is female in the Hebrew language, ruach, “breath,” “wind”). In reality, She empowers us and blows us wherever She chooses. I’ve never been sucked up by a tornado or hurled through the air in a hurricane, but I have been up-ended in the ocean by the undertow and seen huge trees that were snapped in two like matchsticks by a windstorm. Believe you me, the Holy Spirit is the driving force in praying.

It’s very tempting, however, to treat prayer like a party trick that we bring out, particularly on Sunday mornings when we have a captive audience, to engage the crowd and show off. Or to play at prayer as though it’s a Ouija board, fooling ourselves that it’s the Spirit moving when in fact it’s our own divining rods at work.

How do we keep from trying to be a mover, and open ourselves to be moved by prayer? My worship professor taught us to stay away from “musty lettuce,” that is, sentences that start “We must …” or “Let us …” It’s not our job to tell God what we must do or, even more twisted, what God needs to let us do. I also avoid sentences beginning, “We just want to …”

Words are the building blocks of prayers, but words are just as likely to block prayers. In group prayers of confession I don’t “should” on people, that is, shame them or blame them. Our tendency to shame and blame—to play the judge—is something I believe we need to confess rather than practice. Confessions are not all about “sins.” Instead, we are to confess our whole selves to God: our joys as well as our sadnesses, our proud moments as well as embarrassing episodes, courage as well as fear, peace as well as anger. And anger isn’t bad; how we choose to express anger, which is a natural feeling, can be healthy or unhealthy. Internalized anger—unspoken, repressed—often leads to depression or triggers dis-ease, while acting out in anger is abuse and violence. Healthy ways of dealing with anger include crying, singing, shouting up at the sky, physical exercise, punching a pillow, journaling, praying, and meditation. “Sin” isn’t merely doing bad things or not doing good things; it’s “missing the mark” or “separating from God,” which is more about where we position ourselves in relation to God, where we find ourselves spiritually.

Our Heavenly Creator,

we are sorry for misusing your name.

We confess we don’t always get your kingdom,

much less believe it’s coming.

We can’t imagine your will as it is in heaven,

let alone being done on earth.

We take way more than our share—

truth be told, we throw away more than our share—

day after day, leaving many in the world with nothing.

We would rather forget our debts and go after our debtors.

If we’re honest, our petitions to be saved from the time of trial

and to be delivered from evil—they ring hollow.

Move us out of our comfort zones

to take in, dear God, your wisdom.

Give us over to your power.

Turn us to reflect your glory.

Amen.

As a recovering racist I challenge myself to use “black” and “white” or “dark” and “light” to describe rather than discriminate. With all due respect to the gospel of John which is chock full of light and dark imagery, I believe (as does the Song of Songs) that black is beautiful. White is traditionally used, not surprisingly by white people, to designate purity or newness; white people have also been known to whitewash history to their advantage or invent white lies that don’t get them in trouble with the (white) powers that be. Jesus is said to be the Light of the world but who wants a fair-weather savior? I need Jesus, who was a person of color, to be with me in the middle of the night whether I’m feeling anxious or at peace. One of my most cleansing experiences happened while receiving Holy Communion in the dark basement of a bar in north Minneapolis, after having been blind-sided by a white knight in shining armor.

Dear Maker of the Dark and of the Light,

of the evening and of the morning,

each day since the first day,

we thank you for the darkness of waiting,

of not knowing what is to come,

of staying ready and quiet and attentive.

May we treat the darkness as a friend,

a mystery not to be solved

but to be amazed in.

May we become aware of you

in what we don’t see

deep in our hearts

without fear.

Amen.

Too often we institutional pray-ers employ only male experiences in worship and ignore female experiences which tend to be the polar opposite. For example, men may suffer from having too much pride, but women suffer from low self-esteem or not enough pride and thus need to be encouraged to love themselves and express their needs and wants, at least to God. Likewise, women may suffer from doing too much for others—especially the males in their lives—whereas men need to be encouraged to love themselves and take care of their needs and wants which they usually rely on women to take care of.

Dear God, as we look around,

help us notice what really matters to you:

As we look down, careful about where we step,

help us tread lightly on your good earth:

Dear Jesus, as we look out,

help us see beyond our wildest imaginations:

Help us look out for ourselves:

Help us look out for the least among us:

Help us look outside our own world view

to consider the worlds other people live in:

O Holy Spirit, as we look up,

raise our spirits to love kindness,

do justice,

and walk humbly—with our heads held high—

with God each and every day.

Amen.

While it’s important not to assume everybody shares the same experiences, it is divinely imperative to use inclusive language. The first commandment—Thou shalt have no other gods before me—forbids what I call “Heism,” worshiping exclusively-male images. Be both theologically-correct and anatomically-comprehensive when referring to humanity (women and men, boys and girls, people of all genders, remembering there are more than two genders) and God (in whose image we are each created and who is portrayed in the Bible as a Mother as well as a Daddy) and Jesus Christ (who as an earthly male had an unabashedly feminine side and who as the Risen One is holy transgender) and the Holy Spirit Ruach. The Good Book uses lots of female and male imagery; the Hebrew language is full of euphemisms and word plays and humor; and Jesus was constantly being tested by people’s strictures and responded by opening up the scriptures, thus turning people’s words and worlds upside down. When it comes to prayer, the sky’s the limit, literally and literarily.