One leap of faith after another

One leap of faith after another

During Christmas we recall the familiar story of Joseph and a very-pregnant Mary returning to his hometown of Bethlehem, where Mary gives birth to Jesus and “laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the upper guest room,” according to Luke 2:7. The Greek word kataluma, meaning “upper room” or “guest room,” is correctly translated in Luke 22:11-12. This up-close reading of the Biblical text combined with the grand view of Biblical hospitality moves us to understand that Jesus was born in a home overflowing with guests!

     

Like any other Jewish family, Mary and Joseph would have been readily welcomed into their extended families’ homes. Biblical archaeology reveals that such first-century Palestinian peasant family houses were typically built around a common courtyard area, with each dwelling comprised of one or two rooms on the ground floor and loft space or an extra room above. The senior family members had the “highest” and cleanest area of the main room, opposite the “low” corner where animals were kept at night and where bodily functions happened—including the birthing of babies. Cooking took place outside in the courtyard area, where communal meals were prepared. Other adults stayed in the second room (if there was one) or another corner of the main room. Children were consigned to the loft or upper room. As occurs today, when guests arrived they would be given the children’s space, and the children had to either double-up or make do elsewhere.

     

Thus according to the Gospel birth narratives, Mary gave birth to Jesus in a house—in the corner of the main room where any other Palestinian peasant baby would be born; where bodily functions happened; where there was fresh, clean straw and water; where a manger (animal feeding trough) served as a make-shift crib; with many relatives to assist in the birth.

Why? Because there was no more room in the upper guest room – there were so many guests!

     

So what does this mean for us? Jesus was born into hospitality. And even though rejection became part of Jesus’ story, God did not allow rejection to have the last word.

I serve an Affirming Congregation in Scotland that is overflowing with guests. Measured by our size alone, we are very small, with less than 50 members and a very-part-time (15%) locum minister (me). Yet as we know, health is not determined by weight but by body-mass index. And the great height to which this light-weight church goes to practice Biblical hospitality—that is, welcome strangers as well as neighbors—not only calculates us to be “healthy” but keeps us continually “dying to new life.”

           

Anderston Kelvingrove Church is one of over a dozen Affirming Congregations in Scotland which strive to enact their statements of inclusion. In addition to our congregational activities, we rent (on a sliding scale) office space to several para-church organizations and an education organization; a half dozen other congregations (Chinese, Georgian Orthodox, Indian, Nigerian, Russian Orthodox, Salvation Army) use our building for worship and programs; many types of 12-step groups meet; dance classes and martial arts classes are held; we serve as the community center for a Sudanese Muslim group, the local community council, a few housing organizations, and various community programs serving mothers-and-infants, self-reliant-groups of women, and individuals and families facing homelessness or poverty; a dozen men seeking asylum in the U.K. and a few volunteers with the Glasgow Destitution Network reside in our building each night of the year from dinner-time to breakfast-time; and our church and the neighboring Catholic Church sponsor a program that serves up a hot lunch every Wednesday in our building for folks in the community.

The Clerk of Session figures that our building is used 160 hours per week.

Meanwhile The Church of Scotland denomination is finally making it possible—not perfect, but possible—for its congregations to employ a minister or deacon who is in a Civil Partnership (or married, thanks to Scotland’s same-gender marriage legislation that begins in 2015). It’s not perfect because it requires LGBT-affirming church Sessions to vote to “depart” from the “traditional” view of scripture—the “traditional” view defined as that which claims marriage is only between a man and a woman.

For us Christians who believe that lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and transgender people are created by God and their relationships have always been blessed by God and thus we do not want or need to “depart” from scripture, “traditional” or otherwise, this new rule erects an unjust and discriminatory hoop to jump through.

I’m thankful that Affirming Congregations—which have a healthy body-mass index—are willing and able to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to do all kinds of justice and welcome all kinds of people.

Humble Pie

Humble Pie

In my early years of being a stepmother—or “stepmonster,” as my middle stepchild Nick fondly calls me—each day presented new challenges to fulfilling the recommended daily allowance of what the LORD requires, according to the never-old Old Testament prophet Micah (6:8):

Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

Doing justice came easily to me as I entered my husband’s household of three nearly-adult children and we merged my two dogs with his boxer. Everybody had their own space, routine, and responsibilities. Where our spaces, routines, and responsibilities overlapped, chores were assigned so that each of us contributed to the smooth running of a clean and organized abode.

I soon stepped into the role of law-enforcement officer. I had always wanted to be a cop, from when I had watched as a teenager the movie “Serpico,” and I was prepared not only “to protect and to serve” but also to ferret out corruption from within the rank and file. Thus cash in return for extra tasks was not doled out until the tasks were finished in a timely manner and to my satisfaction—and I knew perfectly well that the money was paying for cigarettes that were not allowed in the house.

Like Goldilocks’s encounter with the three bears—what was she doing breaking into their home anyway?!—the doing justice came perhaps too easily, while the loving kindness was, at times, hard to come by. Little did I appreciate that walking humbly would help make things “just right.”

One by one, my stepchildren flew the coop, leaving me and my husband with the three dogs to patrol. The eldest (stepchild, that is) got married and started a career; the youngest finished high school and was bound for college; while the middle child, the aforementioned Nick, moved into his own apartment—two doors down the street from us. Now he had his own place to keep, however he wished; his own routine, if you could call playing video games into the wee hours and sleeping until noon a routine; and his own responsibilities, whatever he felt needed doing—or not.

This did not, however, prevent his new world from overlapping our world. One night, when I was home alone (my husband and youngest stepchild were away on a post-graduation road trip), I was awakened by the sound of firecrackers, the high-caliber kind not allowed in the state of Minnesota but readily obtained in the nearby state of Wisconsin. The screeching flares, loud pop-pop-pops, and awful bangs wrecked my sleep and caused the dogs to go ballistic.

I got up and went outside to see where this obnoxious activity was coming from. Not surprising, two doors away, Nick and his buddies were going at it full blast. So I went home, called the police, and reported illegal fireworks at Nick’s address. The police came by and quietened the situation, but my nerves stayed awake until the early hours of the morning when I let the dogs outside to do their duty.

Angry and tired after having my night ruined, which meant the whole rest of the day would be a waste, I plotted my revenge. The dogs provided me with ammunition: I bagged up their fresh poop and, in the dawn’s early light, I went over to Nick’s place and put the dog-doo on the front-door mat where it was sure to get stepped in.

Only it didn’t stay there. After going home, making some coffee, and mulling over the situation, I felt bad—bad enough to go back and remove the excrement from Nick’s doormat. As much as I relished justice, I didn’t want to end up in deep doo-doo with my stepson.

Over the dozen years since, I’ve experienced, especially as a stepmother, that doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly are not three different tasks but actually one and the same.

Recently, Nick emailed me:

“I am definitely your stepson.

Last night I called the police because some kids a couple of houses away were lighting off firecrackers. They started at 10:30 p.m. last night, and at 1 a.m. the previous morning. The fireworks interrupted my sleep/medicine schedule. They also upset Ruby. I called and 10 minutes later the cops did a drive-by.

I feel like I am officially an adult where I would rather call the cops and ruin someone's fun than sacrifice my sleep and my dog's well-being. Thank you for teaching me the values of adulthood.
Love, Nick”

Extra Special Deliveries

Extra Special Deliveries

When our home was broken into in April (see the April 15, 2014, blog article), the police that night asked us what the intruder(s) had touched or taken. We gave a cursory look around each room and, apart from the shattered back door, some drawers and cupboard doors left open, and muddy footprints, we did not notice anything amiss. Not until the next morning, when I was leaving the house to distribute leaflets to our neighbors about the break-in—and went to get my house keys—did I realize that my keys, the fanny pack they were in along with my wallet, and my backpack had been stolen. So had my partner’s wallet.

Why didn’t we immediately check the night before to see if our cash and credit cards were still there?

Partly, we were in shock. We had been in bed when the awful noise of someone breaking down our door propelled us into crisis mode: I phoned the police and relayed our details while my partner leaned over the stairs and yelled at the intruder(s). They were downstairs moving from room to room doing God knows what, and we were upstairs panicking for the police to arrive God knows when. The actual break-in lasted just minutes—according to the length of the conversation I had with the police dispatcher, which only ended when a police German shepherd and its uniformed handler ran up the stairs and assured me we were okay. But the adrenaline rush continued into the wee hours of the morning.

Mostly, though, money—or the loss of it—was the last thing on our minds.

When we discovered, twelve hours after the event, that our wallets were gone, it was more the minor hassle of calling the bank and credit card companies to cancel our cards than anything else. The only cash in my wallet is what I call “emergency taxi money,” and it stays out-of-sight in a zipped compartment so that I’m not tempted to spend it at charity shops. And my partner happened to have a ten-pound note in his wallet, so we were less a total of forty pounds (about sixty-four dollars). No big deal, especially compared to our personal safety.

Money’s unimportance was further confirmed when, later that day, the police delivered my stolen backpack, fanny pack, and wallet, with all the contents still intact—including my emergency taxi money—thanks to a good citizen who had spotted the items in a backyard and reported them to the authorities. I was delighted simply to recoup the bags themselves, not because they were expensive goods but rather they are utilitarian and durable. Also nerdy-looking, which I like to think caused the thief to drop them like a hot potato. The stuff inside the bags was, I found as I did a quick inventory, basically pieces of information recorded on paper or plastic—quite replaceable and worth nothing to a stranger. Unless the stranger wanted to masquerade as an organ-donating, library-using, National-Trust-and-Historic-Scotland-site-visiting, fair-trade shopping, Oxfam-contributing, and penniless Presbyterian minister who is available to hear Fifth Steps and serves as Chaplain of Affirmation Scotland.

It took a break-in for me to count what’s invaluable.

Then a couple months later, a postal worker knocked on our door and delivered my partner’s wallet. The postal worker said they had just found it in the yard of a house a few blocks away and saw our address inside it. I explained how it had been stolen during a break-in. Apart from having gotten a little damp and been chewed on by either a fox or a dog, who might have dragged it from one place to another, the wallet still contained everything except the ten pounds cash. Oh well.

But most important of all, tucked inside was a very-yellowed, somewhat-faded card that my partner has kept over the decades; you can tell, because it’s dated 11-1-70:

MY DECISION

Confessing to God that I am a sinner and

seeing my need of a Saviour, I here and now

accept Jesus Christ, God’s Son,

as my own personal Saviour.

Some things—even if they are stolen—can never be taken away from us.

Happy Ending

Happy Ending

Wednesday night right before 11 p.m. our house was broken into by someone—or someones, as we don’t know how many. We were in bed asleep when we heard a loud bang, followed by more banging. As soon as we realized the door was being smashed, I called 999 and was put straight through to the police while my partner started yelling down the stairs to try to warn off the intruder(s).

My partner, who used to be a volunteer fire fighter, had the presence of mind to post a message on the internet letting folks far and near know we were being burgled—only in his haste he typed, “There are burgers in the house.” Thankfully there was no bodily harm, and we were able to clean up the shattered glass and replace the contents of our stolen wallets with relative ease. The burglar(s) managed to steal a total of ten pounds sterling (about sixteen U.S. dollars), enough for a couple Happy Meals.

“They say” we humans learn by hearing, seeing, or doing. While most people employ all three to some degree, each of us relies primarily on one over the other two. In general males learn mainly by doing—giving credence to the stereotypes of not asking for directions or reading instructions. Females predominantly learn by hearing—perhaps because literacy and autonomous action have long since been denied us, and we’ve had to rely on “gossip” and oral forms of communication to impart wisdom and knowledge.

Speaking for myself, that horrible crashing noise—my first thought was that a vehicle had rammed into something on our street—is one sound I do not ever want to hear again. But even though we were victims of a crime, we were not left to feel victimized thanks to the verbal support and sympathy that was backed up by visual commitment and vigorous action.

From the second I phoned the police—the break-in was happening as we spoke—until I said good-bye—only after a uniformed officer ran up the stairs with a police dog to check things out—the dispatcher’s clear, calm tone helped us to focus on what was happening and to keep safe. She remained on the line with me, asking critical questions (Where are you? Where are the intruders? What’s the lay-out of your house?) and giving vital instructions (Stay upstairs. Open a window and watch for the police who are on their way.)

When I went downstairs, I was met by a female officer who asked me if I was okay and would I like a cup of tea. I poured myself a glass of milk and my partner got a little whisky to settle our nerves. We began to express to the police what had happened. Neither one of us saw the intruder(s), who left before the police arrived, and part of me is relieved not to know what they or he—everyone assumes the perpetrator(s) was male—looked like. The police asked us to point out what the intruder(s) had done: kitchen cupboard doors were left ajar (looking for a cookie jar with money in it?), a dining room closet door was opened (revealing the boiler and a stash of crackers and corn chips), and muddy footprints were left on a bathroom mat (which got washed as soon as the forensics official had dusted for fingerprints).

That night one officer took a statement from my partner in the living room while another officer took my statement in the study. The ability to converse—to hear myself answer who, what, where, when, and how (we’ll probably never know why)—was, I realize as I write this, a key step in recovering from the shock of the situation. And receiving from the officers concrete assurances (a carpenter would arrive soon to board up the broken door, and a forensics official would come in the morning to dust for fingerprints) enabled us eventually to get some rest.

While waiting for the carpenter to arrive in the wee hours I phoned my mother, six time zones away, and relayed what had just transpired. Hearing her familiar voice brought comfort, and then listening to her describe what she was fixing for dinner made me laugh—which was a huge relief. Afterward I took the opportunity to type up the basic facts about our break-in and print them on half-sheets of paper addressed to “Dear Neighbour.” Doing this helped check my adrenaline, but more importantly, it allowed me to take my own statement and thus take back some control of an uncontrollable event.

At 8 a.m. two different officers visited us before going door-to-door to alert residents in the area. We gave them our story and I showed them my leaflet. Over the course of the day, as we spoke to more and more people, our narrative unfolded. It became less about details, immediate and in the present tense, and more about drama, as last night’s actions became past-tense and we added our hindsights and hearsays and to-do’s.

One to-do was to thank the Glasgow Police officers and personnel, each of whom responded magnificently to us during and following our traumatic moment. In our letter of gratitude we again told the tale, beginning with the dispatcher, the officers who arrived on the scene within minutes, those who stayed to take our statements and patrol the area, the carpenter, the forensics official, and the two officers who worked on our case the whole next day. Lo and behold, they returned to our house at 5 p.m. with my stolen backpack, fanny pack, and wallet, with all the contents still intact. A good citizen had spotted the bags in a backyard and reported them to the police. We very much appreciate that it ended up being a long night and a long day for the police. For us it made for a happy ending.

Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday

Mother’s Day in the United States is said to have started after the Civil War in the 1860’s as a peace movement by women in the South and in the North who were tired of sons dying in battle. It was eventually set as the second Sunday in May.

Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom is much older and part of the church calendar; it always falls on the middle Sunday in Lent, which means paying attention to the weekends in March.

In both countries this event has been taken over by the greeting-card and floral industries. I recall giving my mother gifts on Mother’s Day—usually something I had made in school, like perfumed soap decorated with ribbons and pearl stick pins, or flowers made out of colored tissues and pipe cleaners. When I was in the 5th grade, a five-and-dime store opened near our house in Starkville, Mississippi—which was a big deal because the main street shops were too far to walk to alone—and I went to get something nice for my mother that was within the budget of my weekly quarter allowance. Only I managed to break the item I was considering buying—I forget what it was—and an employee escorted me out of the store. I ran home in tears and poured out my guilt to my mother, who proceeded to walk me back to the store to apologize and pay (surely with her help) for the damage.

Seminary taught me that Mother’s Day is not a loving occasion for everyone. Some people mourn not knowing a mother, while other folks deal with being neglected or abused by their mother. As a minister I pray on Mother’s Day and on Father’s Day for everyone who serves as a caring parent or a faithful guardian or a trusted mentor.

Then there are those of us who wanted to be mothers but it didn’t happen. For me, Mother’s Day was for many years a day to ignore for being ignored. Like barren women in the Bible I felt forgotten by God. Left out. Abandoned. Made to bear emptiness and bitterness and pain. Pain that punched me in the stomach every time I saw a school bus or was invited to a baby shower or heard children playing or read in the news about another abused child or watched other people’s kids pass milestones.

And wouldn’t you know it, the one stage of my life when I tried to get pregnant and, failing that, went through fertility treatment, I was serving the one congregation in my ministerial career that was brimming with young families. Every month somebody would announce during worship they were expecting, and I would endure, privately, my period again.

We considered adoption, first in Minnesota and soon after moving here to Scotland ten years ago, but learned that as non-U.K. citizens we were ineligible.

Then in March 2004 we were spending the night at a guest house along Loch Lomond, taking a break from house-painting and pastoring. Once again my anxiety and despair about being childless woke me up. Only this time I got up, got dressed, and went outside to have it out with God. I stood beside the lapping water and looked up at the clear dark sky filled with stars and said, “God, you gave me these maternal urges. You either satisfy them, or I’m giving them back to you. For good.”

Wouldn’t you know it, it was Mothering Sunday.

Since then I’ve made peace with myself. And with God. I still get angry when someone over here asks me, “Do you have family?” As though I could be an alien from a lonely planet. What they mean is, do I have children? But rather than answer in the negative, I answer in the positive: I have a partner and three wonderful stepchildren and their partners and three grandsons, and my mom who lives near my brother and my sister-in-law and my two nephews. Thank you very much.