glad block
My family plays The Glad Game when things aren’t going as planned. The Glad Game, which I adopted from my college roommate Sarah and which Sarah’s family got, I believe, from the movie Pollyanna, consists of taking turns finding upsides to the current not-so-up situation.
My usual first entry into any installment of the glad game is, “No one’s puking.” I have a phobia of vomit (I’ve been known to hold my breath around people with the stomach flu so I won’t inhale their germs) and an absence of these symptoms is usually a solid start to the game. Usually—once, during an episode involving my family, a 14-hour car ride, and some bad shrimp, I had to find something else.
Anyway, the glad game was created for days like today. I spent the first 40 minutes diagnosing my computer’s inability to connect to the internet. After uninstalling and reinstalling AirPort Express and restarting the modem several times, I called Comcast in desperation to find their system was down in south Nashville. I know, you Mac evangelists, I should have known it could never be AirPort’s fault. I hate Comcast.
I stomped off to continue being angry while taking a shower, during which Louie the cat threw up on my office floor. Like many native Californians, Louie has an eating disorder and throws up immediately after eating at least three times a week. This morning was not the best time.
After cleaning that up and doing my one to-do-list item not requiring internet access, I am now in the public library, getting close to lunchtime and having accomplished very little. The library must be a Comcast customer as well because their internet access stays up long enough for me to see I have 14 urgent email messages but not long enough to open any of them. I could drive to another of my free Wi-Fi haunts across town, but on top of everything else, Nashville is without gas. The hurricanes disrupted shipments to much of the Southeast, with Tennessee being hit the hardest, and most Nashville residents spent at least part of their weekend in one or two hour lines, ironically burning what gas they had left to creep up for their turn at the few stations with any supply. Since the problem’s expected to continue until Friday, I don’t want to use my remaining ½ tank chasing the internet.
So, today is a great opportunity to practice The Glad Game. Let’s see, I do still have that ½ tank and didn’t end up stranded on the road this weekend like many people. It’s a beautiful late-summer day outside. I can concentrate here without Isaiah jumping on the ceiling. Comcast is working on the internet problem and will, presumably, fix it before late summer becomes fall. And if you’re reading this, the library eventually came through.
And no one’s puking. Well, except for Louie.
P.S. I originally wrote this last Monday, but the blog site has been down. I have NOT been glad.
space invaders
Two times this past week, on two of the rare afternoons I was working at home without the front door locked, my four-year-old neighbor Isaiah burst inside without knocking and looked at me in confusion.
Isaiah lives upstairs with his parents and two brothers, who enjoy jumping off their beds onto my ceiling, and Rachael, his mom, has recently mandated a more-jumping-outside policy. (For which she has my eternal gratitude.) But at dinner time, three staircases is a lot for a little guy. Sometimes he loses count–and ends up in my living room.
Both times I just said, “Hi, Isaiah. You’re in the wrong house. You need to go upstairs.” One time he closed the door on his way out, one time he didn’t. Rachael has her hands full.
I find this small imposition funny, but after reading an article in the latest issue of Relevant magazine, I’m not sure I’d be so easygoing with a bigger version.
The article describes the experience of four couples who decided to pool their resources, buy an old house near their church, and live there together. Matt Connor, the author and church planter, initially explored the idea because he felt uncomfortable leaving his new wife home alone in the rough area of town where the church ministered. He describes how the choice also saves money, provides emotional and spiritual support, and builds community.
This last part is the tricky bit. Connor describes the very real confrontations and forgiveness required to work through the practical details of such an arrangement–the frustration of not liking dinner, of having to empty the washer of another family’s wet clothes, of tolerating too-loud music.
“…It’s in that tension that you realize the selfishness coloring your outlook–and what you need to sacrifice,” he writes. “The same can be said for personal belongings….It’s a lesson in ownership–whether we own our things or whether they own us, as the saying goes. It offers another place of forgiveness, allowing people to ruin, break, borrow, chip, bend or stain an item and not the relationship.”
I love that, but I’d find it difficult. I like knowing all the mango sorbet in the freezer is mine, I like having sole possession of the remote, and I like calling the shots on the thermostat setting. Basically, I like control, and control is the opposite of community.
Yet just this weekend I complained to friends about many churches’ insipid approach to communion: the weekly routine of it, the little fish food pellets of bread, the thimblefuls of grape juice, the trays shared from hand to hand without any sharing of life. It seems a far cry from the early church we supposedly emulate.
But do I want to share life, with the messiness and work that requires? Living in community with my church family means hanging in even when I don’t like the sermon, don’t like the music, and don’t like the person next to me. It means speaking the truth but it also means hearing the truth about myself. It means forgiving others for not being perfect and acknowledging my own brokenness. It means a deeper, richer life–and a more difficult one.
Whether it’s God’s place or mine, choosing community means choosing not to say, “You’re in the wrong house.” Is that why we’re content to swallow the pellet and keep the tray moving along?
I don’t have it all figured out, and the “right” expression of community life will look different for each of us. But I do hope this is the week Isaiah figures out where he lives.
Fellowship 1, Jen 0
I don’t usually enjoy most things IT, but I do enjoy paying my rent each month, so recently I accepted a short-term gig helping a megachurch discover how they are (or are not) using the Fellowship 1 church database they purchased a few years ago. Fellowship 1, or F1, is one of the top software programs churches can use to track attendance, create online registration for events, check children into their programming with unique security codes, and more.
Like most such initiatives without a strong champion, F1 at this church faces an uphill battle for fans. A few users, most of whom have previously worked with more primitive databases, love the system. Many more dislike its, shall we say, “less than intuitive” interface. And then there’s the fun group who’s never actually used it, but has lunch with the haters, and therefore also think it’s terrible.
So my job is to figure out how the church can use it more effectively and then train/cajole/bribe the current staff into using it that way, with the end goal of creating absolutely raving fans who scurry en masse to get “F1 4eva” tattoed on their lower backs……or at least use it most days with a minimum of grumbling.
Now here’s the deal: I am scrambling to learn as much about this system as I can, and I’d love any help you can give me. Every church’s processes and programs are different, but part of the F1 joy is it doesn’t offer tons of customization–so I’m betting if you’re using it in some winning ways, this church could too. Does your church use F1? What has been your experience? Any tips for making ministries more productive with it? And what did you bribe your staff with?
peace and quiet
Authors like Brian McLaren and Robert Webber have written about “ancient-future” worship and spiritual practices. Many churches have added more contemplative vespers or chapel services in addition to the guitars and SermonSpice videos on Sunday morning, and Taize prayer services have started to pop up everywhere from the Unitarians to the Presbyterians.
Clearly, there is a growing desire for simpler, quieter worship options, even (especially?) among the younger generations. Is this symptomatic of larger doctrinal shifts, or simply the inevitable pendulum swing after years of the other extreme in American worship?
I’m guessing both, but for me it’s simply an opportunity to be still and to reflect, and I join hundreds of others the first Friday evening of each month at Christ Cathedral in downtown Nashville. Although all of the services offered at this Episcopal congregation are open to the community, they created the First Friday services as a “sacred space” especially for the city.
To pursue this mission the cathedral also offers violin and organ concerts, choral music performances, quarterly evensong services, and even something called “Liturgical Floral Design.” I’ve attended several of these events (not the floral one) but my favorite is First Friday. Each month the 90-minute service combines traditional elements of Episcopalian and Anglican liturgy, including a complete communion service, with surprisingly modern touches.
For instance, this past Friday’s service focused on the value of story as a way to communicate deep spiritual truths. A guest speaker shared several parables throughout the service (one accompanied by a dance from the church’s Epiphany Dance Company), and songs included not only the expected staid hymns but also a swinging version of “I Love to Tell the Story.” This being Nashville, the music at First Friday is always top-notch, and always different; this service had a jazz and piano feel while other Fridays have featured a bluegrass combo or a children’s choir.
The services include so many simple but effective elements, many of which–like the uptempo “Sanctus” sung three times before communion and accompanied by hand motions–don’t fit the stereotype. And each one also features something different to reinforce the theme; this month the church provided a basket of fabric scraps and encouraged each worshipper to take one and write a word or symbol on it to represent the story of his own life. “At the offertory, you are invited to bring your cloth forward and attach it to a larger cloth that will be placed on the altar in preparation for the Holy Eucharist as a way of offering your life to the One who redeems and makes all things new,” they wrote in the order of service.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to become Episcopalian–the incense alone is enough to put me off that idea. But I do love entering this sacred space every month or two and finding an oasis of quiet where I can slow my racing thoughts and think about that One in a new way. I’ll leave it to our contemporary authors to explore the theological implications of these trends, although Webber’s work is on my should-have-read-a-year-ago list. For now, I’m content to sit in the back of Christ Cathedral, soak in the calm, and appreciate all those liturgical flower arrangements.
listen here
Good blogging requires frequent–even daily–posts, according to The Experts, and by this standard I’m dropping the ball. Problem is, frequent posts require 1) lots of time and 2) a life worth writing about. These two magical states don’t usually occur simultaneously, and certainly didn’t in August. Instead, I fell victim to a curious freelancing phenomenon in which six projects for six employers are all due the same week, which is also the week you’re required to start project #7 in another state. All work and no play is good for the wallet, not so good for the blog.
Or the relationships, or the health, so tonight I ventured forth with a couple of friends to the third installment of “Tokens” at Lipscomb University. Tokens is ostensibly a radio show, recorded for broadcast and aired online via Noisetrade. But it’s also an engaging live experience, full of excellent music, thoughtful commentary, and short but insightful interviews.
Tonight’s show on “The Politics of Jesus” was planned long before McCain and Obama received their nominations, and focused on issues instead of candidates–issues like, do the professions of piety by presidential candidates make any difference after their election? (With the exception of Jimmy Carter, author Randall Balmer says no.) If not, why the intense interest in their faith? Our country’s separation of church and state actually makes our citizens statistically some of the most religious in the world–why keep pressing for the 10 Commandments in a courthouse? And, my favorite quote of the evening, “The question is not whether Jesus was political–but if we want his kind of politics.”
Lest this all sound unbearably heavy, the evening also featured music by Derek Webb (of Caedmon’s Call fame), Buddy Greene, and an assortment of very talented others. Lee Camp, a Lipscomb professor and author, started Tokens in February and it’s already outgrowing its space (tonight they did two shows instead of the usual one, and charged an entry fee for the first time). With musicians of Webb’s caliber and interviews of A.J. Jacobs (you know, the “Year of Living Biblically” guy), Brian McLaren, and Shane Claiborne, it’s easy to see why.
If, like me, you already enjoy NPR (yes, I’m old), This American Life, and Mars Hill Audio Journals, swing by Nashville for the Christmas installment of Tokens. We’ll carpool together and stop for creamed corn and fried okra at The Copper Kettle across the street.
In the meantime, I promise to do something else worth blogging about before December.
Jennifer Taylor
My Other Sites
Twittering @seejenwrite- seejenwrite: Some days are better than others. This was one of the others.
- seejenwrite: RT @christiemfarley: I've already begun wearing my Christmas socks.
- seejenwrite: Jen Taylor, now up to 9 different email accounts. I RULE.
- seejenwrite: Why do I have ideas for clients I don't have? Like, if you had a sewing shop, your tag line could be "Keeping You in Stitches." See??
