Freelance Blues, or Gene Kelly is My Co-Pilot

Has it really been almost two weeks since I updated my blog? Time flies when you're busy with work. And....it becomes a blur when you're depressed. I worked like crazy for a while, then nothing...no phone calls, no leads, nothing. I made enough $$ in one week to last a while, but still.... Currently, my emotional life is riding the ups and downs of the freelance rollercoaster. I doubt myself, wonder what in the heck I'm doing, trying to be a freelance writer. Why not just get another corporate gig....work at Starbucks....move to the middle of Iowa and become an organic farmer? On days I don't have "real work", I sit in the coffee shop and stare at my computer, trying to force a work of art to flow out of my head and onto my computer screen. I have the beginnings of a novel rattling around in my brain, and some thoughts for a collection of essays. I last about two hours, and then get restless. My soul is restless, waiting for direction, some sign from God about how I can use my gifts. Who I can serve. Waiting for him to show me the next step on this journey. I try to see the "non-working" weeks as gifts from God....huge expanses of time I have to write things that are important to me. Write things other than direct mail letters and brochures. But then I get this nagging feeling that I should be doing "real work" and so I leave the coffee shop and go home and make a few job-related phone calls. This battle wages inside my head for days. Melancholy, my lifelong companion, shows up and I start sleeping more, and dragging around the house, wearing the same clothes everyday. David tries to cheer me up by playing his new favorite song, "Let's build a home", by White Stripes as loud as possible and doing his weird husband dance (I won't even try to describe it). He makes me laugh and I tell him how weird he is. His crazy dancing cheers me up for about a half an hour, then I go back to the computer and stare at the computer screen some more.

"Is there no way out of the mind?" Sylvia Plath once asked in one of her poems. This war inside my head, my lethargy, depression, self-doubt has haunted me since I was a child. I've learned to cope, and have, in recent years, had long stretches of joy and productivity. I think I have it whipped, that I'm "cured", but then it shows up again, unexpectedly. But I've been in this place so many times before that I know it won't last forever. That in a few days, or weeks, hopefully not longer, I will start to feel better. I will jog on the Lake path and see the sun reflecting on the waves, and see the city skyline in the distance at sunset. I will help a very pregnant friend clean her house, thankful that I'm not working so I can help her get ready for a new baby. I will go to church and hear the liturgy and see the sun shining through the stained glass. I will watch my husband dance, and thank God that I have someone who knows how to make me laugh. And I will pray, and eventually start feeling hopeful again.

Couch Church

I've been hearing about a new "house church" movement....Christians gathering together in houses to form small, intimate churches in reaction to the mega-churches that seem to have run their course. In light of that, David and I have instituted the "couch church." It's the church we attend on those Sundays when we can't gather the energy to drive downtown to Old St. Pats.

Order of service:

1. Ritual of the coffee pouring
2. The couch sitting of the congregants
3. The settling of the cat
4. The reading of the random spiritual book selection
5. Short discussion and meditation
6. Silent prayer

I feel guilty when we don't go to church. I guess it's left-over guilt from childhood when we attended church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night every week, every year, every decade....never missing a service. It's just what Christians did back then, especially Baptist Christians. It took me a while to figure out that being a Christian isn't about going to church and keeping all of the rules, but a relationship with God. And while my head got stuffed with Bible verses, Bible stories, hymns, and sermons, (which I don't regret, mind you), there was more emphasis on keeping the rules than transforming lives. We were too busy judging those who smoked, attended movies, danced, and wore short shorts to notice the ugliness eating away at our own hearts. Eventually, the little church imploded and one night while the deacons of our little baptist church were having a fist-fights on the front lawn after an especially cantankerous business meeting, my parents whisked us away and we never went back. We started attending another Baptist church, a half hour away, that had it's own problems, but had it's good points, too. It wasn't until I was living in Chicago in my 20s that I started making my faith my own. I stopped going to church for a while. (I figured I had enough sermons inside my head to last me a lifetime.) But then I missed community and I tried to figure out where I belonged in this Christian family. I'm still trying to figure it out. So I try not to feel guilty, and remember that where two or three are gathered, God is there with us.

So David, Lucy the cat, God and I meet on the couch on Sunday mornings sometimes. Last Sunday David read from a book called "Psalms for Praying" that a nun once gave me. It's a book of prayers that coincide with each Psalm. Psalm 76:

In loving places, O Beloved, are You known,
your mercy extends to all the earth.
Your abode has been established in our soul,
your dwelling place in our heart.
You break down our walls--our anger, fear and doubts.
Glorious are You, more majestic than the everlasting mountains.
That which is haughty within us is brought low,
our greed brings us to ruin;
The violence that we harbor turns in upon ourselves.
In your loving mercy, O Beloved,
You raise us up with love.

For you fill us with wonder!
You, who know our innermost being,
You forgive us and raise us up.
From the depths of our soul you call us to love,
to grow toward harmony and wholeness.
You well up in our hearts with the injunction
to liberate all the oppressed of the earth.

Surely our fear-filled hearts will one day praise you,
the gold that comes out of the ashes.
Abondon yourself to the Beloved with confidence;
and receive the blessings of Love
from the Heart of your heart,
From the One who forgives your transgressions,
Who welcomes you home with joy!


David said he loves the part where it says, "Surely our fear-filled hearts will one day praise you, the gold that comes out of the ashes." I like the last part that says, "abandon yourself to the Beloved with confidence....from the One who forgives your transgressions, Who welcomes you home with joy!"

Good stuff, this couch church. Maybe we'll try it more often.

Jesus is not a Republican

I'm encouraged by Evangelical voices I'm finally starting to hear above the din of the Religious Right. These voices are pointing out the difference between being "Christian" and being "Republican". My sister just sent me a link to an article by Randall Balmer published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. It's probably the best I've read on the topic. (You may have to subscribe to the Chronicle to read the article.) I haven't yet read Balmer's book "Thy Kingdom Come: How the religious right distorts the faith and threatens America," but I'm sure his points in the article can also be found in the book.

Balmer writes that the faith of the Religious Right is not the faith that he knows. That the most powerful Christian revivals in American History have come not from Christians being involved in the political process, but resulted in Christians being on the fringes society and critiquing political power and the "ways of the world".

Here's an excerpt:

"Is there a better way? Yes, I think so. It begins with an acknowledgement that religion in America has always functioned best from the margins, outside of the circles of power, and that any grasping for religious hegemony ultimately trivializes and diminishes the faith. The Puritans of the 17th century learned that lesson the hard way, as did the mainline Protestants of the 1950s, who sought to identify their faith with the white, middle-class values of the Eisenhower era. In both cases, it was the evangelicals who stepped in and offered a corrective, a vibrant expression of the faith untethered to cultural institutions that issued, first, in the Great Awakening and, second, in the evangelical resurgence of the 1970s.

For America's evangelicals, reclaiming the faith would produce a social and political ethic rather different from the one propagated by the religious right. Care for the earth and for God's creation provides a good place to start, building on the growing evangelical discontent with the rapacious environmental policies of the Republican-religious-right coalition. Once thinking evangelicals challenge religious-right orthodoxy on environmental matters, further challenges are possible. A full-throated, unconditional denunciation of the use of torture, even on political enemies, would certainly follow. Evangelicals opposed to abortion would be well advised to follow some Catholic teaching a bit further on this issue. As early as 1984, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the late archbishop of Chicago, talked about opposition to abortion as part of a "seamless garment" that included other "life issues": care for the poor and feeding the hungry, advocacy for human rights, and unequivocal opposition to capital punishment. Surely the adoption of what Bernardin called a "consistent ethic of life" carries with it greater moral authority than opposition to abortion alone....

...Indeed, one of the hallmarks of this grand experiment of democracy in America has been its vigilance over the rights of minorities. Evangelicals should appreciate that, for they were once a minority themselves. Evangelicals need once again to learn to be a counterculture, much as they were before the rise of the religious right, before succumbing to the seductions of power. The early followers of Jesus were a counterculture because they stood apart from the prevailing order. A counterculture can provide a critique of the powerful because it is utterly disinterested — it has no investment in the power structure itself."

Religion vs. the Kingdom

A few months ago I read an article in the New York Times titled "Disowning Conservative Politics: Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock." The article was about author/pastor Greg Boyd, who is a Yale and Princeton grad, who has written several books, including "The Myth of a Christian Nation How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church."

Here's an excerpt from the article (sorry NYT won't let me link. It was published July 30):

In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek ''power over'' others -- by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have ''power under'' others -- ''winning people's hearts'' by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said.

''America wasn't founded as a theocracy,'' he said. ''America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

''I am sorry to tell you,'' he continued, ''that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.''

Mr. Boyd lambasted the ''hypocrisy and pettiness'' of Christians who focus on ''sexual issues'' like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson's breast-revealing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. He said Christians these days were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public.

''Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act,'' he said. ''And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed.''

When I read the article, I had never heard of Greg Boyd, but I agree with him and now I want to read all of his books. I went to a worship service at North Park College last night, and it turns out he was the speaker. While he didn't speak about politics directly, he spoke about the difference between "Religion" and "Kingdom." If we are true followers of Christ, we are called to be a part of The Kingdom of God, which means we are to love above all else, not judging others. When we judge others, we get something in return -- it feeds our egos by making us feel superior. It divides us. It allows us to feel better about ourselves. If we condemn homosexuals and abortionists...telling ourselves those are the "worst" sins, we can allow ourselves to feel better about the sins in our own hearts...like pride, judgement, greed, gossip. But Christ turned this idea upside-down. Instead of judging prostitutes and tax collectors, he hung out with them. He loved them. And he calls us to love above all else.

This reminded me of a conversation David and I had with friends of ours who are athiests. Their main problem with religion, the say, is that it's divisive and inevitably leads to violence. David and I tried to tell them that what is represented as Christianity these days is far from what true Christianity is all about. That it's about love and the kingdom of God, loving the least of these.

Oh, how we could change the world if we could only love others like Christ loves us....

Lucy

I named her after the Lucy character in the Chronicles of Narnia. The Narnia Lucy represents the child of faith, the one who sees, the one who trusts, the one who courageously believes despite the doubt of her siblings. I love that character.

Lucy our cat does not live up to her name, unfortunately. She's needy, insecure, whiny, demanding, and has abandonment issues. I adopted her from Paw's Chicago -- a great organization that is trying to turn Chicago into a no-kill city. At one time, Chicago was euthanizing over 40,000 domestic animals a year in order to control the population of strays and unwanted animals. With the help of PAWs and other organizations, that number is down to around 20,000 animals a year. Cities like San Francisco have successfully eliminated the need for euthanizing animals....Chicago is trying to do the same.

I was told that someone found Lucy in the middle of Armitage avenue in Chicago. They brought her to PAWs, where I was volunteering at the time. I was looking for a second cat, and thought she would be the perfect companion for my cat, Ivy (who I wrote about in July 2005 post). Well, Lucy and Ivy never became friends and I lived in the midst of a cat fight for 5 years. Ivy died of cancer last fall, and now Lucy is the one and only pet....just the way she likes it. David and I enable her neediness, I'm sure. We feed her when she wants, we give into her demands for "play time" with her piece of yarn....she has us wrapped around her little paw. We call her The Parasite because she's constantly glued to one of us. We can't sit down without her jumping up on our lap. She's annoying. But we love her anyway....

The search ends

David has been searching for this poem by W.S. Merwin for years. He first read it in the New Yorker in '98 or '99, and then tried to find it in one of Merwin's poetry collections, to no avail. He finally found it on Maggi Dawn's blog.


"listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glassrooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you.
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars
and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable unchanged
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is."

So here's to Maggi Dawn and to the end of the search. And to finding hope and gratitude in the midst of this chaos.

By the way, Maggi Dawn is an Anglican priest/theologian/author who writes about the emerging church and postmodernism. Check out her blog. I especially like her comments on women in ministry (and the lack of female voices in the emerging movement).

On Christians and Culture

My brainiac nephew, Drew Dixon, who is a sophomore at Princeton, recently wrote an article titled "God Music or Good Music?" in a campus journal.

Drew writes that he doesn't listen to Christian music. "It's not that I have a problem with singing about God, or singing to God...it's just that every time I'm scanning the radio and stumble upon WGOD FM I'd rather listen to a play-by-play broadcast of the National Scrabble Tournament."

He brings up a point that has been troubling me (and many others who have been in Christendom for awhile): why does the quality of Christian music, literature, film often pale in comparison to music, literature, film in the broader culture? Drew doesn't listen to "Christian Music" anymore, just as I don't read "Christian fiction." Instead, we both look for signs of God in "secular" music and books. For him, he finds God by listening to the ambitious music of Sufjan Stevens. ("His lyrics are not an attempt at conversion through cliche, but an honest, intensely personal account of life by faith.") For me, it's reading books by Marilynn Robinson, author of "Gilead."

I became disillusioned with Christian publishing a long time ago -- when I was editor at Moody magazine. While there I was book/music review editor. I tried to do my job well by offering honest reviews (which was difficult -- Christian reviewers risk being labeled "unloving" and a bad Christian if they write an honest review.) I ended up just trying to find the best of the bad....and since it was the early 90s, when "Christian fiction" was just emerging as a new genre, believe me, it was difficult. I still cringe when I go to the religion section of Barnes and Noble and find books titled something like "Secrets of the Yada Yada Prayer Group", which is a total rip-off of the "secular" novel "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood." I mean, come on!

I officially left the Christian publishing world a while ago, although I still read CT's Books and Culture from time to time, and attend the Festival of Faith and Fiction at Calvin College every two years. I am finding others who share my disgust with Chrsitian fiction, and are trying to do something about it. Mars Hill Review was a journal that published quality fiction that reflected God...but it died in September 2005. I was bummed. But there are others that are popping up to take its place. Relief Journal will publish its first edition this fall. Also check out Don Miller's Burnside Writers Collective website.

I've known so many quality writers who are Christians whose work "falls through the cracks." Their writing is too honest and gritty -- in other words, real, for a Christian publisher that just wants nice Christian stories. And too "religous" for a secular publisher. A woman in my writers group, who has an MFA from Vermont and had a short story published in "Best American Short Stories" a while back recently had her novel rejected by a Christian publisher because of the "language"....even though it's written incredibly well and depicts a woman who is honestly seeking God. And, includes "language" that rings true. I guess it just wasn't "nice" enough for a Christian audience.

Let's hope these new journals and websites will be a venue for real Christian literature -- fiction and nonfiction that reflects the reality of the Christian life.

Knitting Lessons

My mother was a stay-at-home mom most of my childhood. Not that she had much choice in 1950's middle America. Back then that's just what women did. She was also a perfectionist and somewhat "type A," so she threw herself into homemaking....cleaning, sewing, cooking, entertaining, gardening, and knitting. Non-stop. She was a Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart (okay, not so much with the cooking, but everything else...), and I remember her sitting in the rocking chair in the living room, the clicking of her knitting needles in the background as we watched TV. In the 70's, she knit these hip ponchos for all for all four of us girls -- in red white and blue stripes, or gray and ivory. She also knit this floor-length, lined coat (a maxi-coat). My dad remembers her knitting that thing for a year....and by the time she got it done, it was too heavy for her to wear. So she cut it off so it was knee length. About 10 years ago, when the 70's fashions started coming back and when my mom was still alive, she said "Hey Karen, remember that coat I knit? It's back in style and I think you should wear it." So she gave it to me and I actually do wear it from time to time. My mom was the coolest.

When she died and we went through my parents house, getting rid of all of the things my dad didn't need in his new, smaller condo, I found a wicker basket filled with all of my mom's metal knitting needles -- tons of them in all shapes and sizes. I also found a half-knit ivory sweater with an intricate pattern on the front. "Oh yea," my sister said non-chalantly. "Mom was knitting that for you." I cried.

So I packed up the half-finished sweater and all of the knitting needles and brought them back with me to Chicago. I taught myself how to knit. Actually, I think my mom had taught me when I was a kid, so it came back easily. The first Christmas after my mom died I knit scarves for my three sisters and one sister-in-law. Sort of as a tribute to my mother, I think. There's something comforting about a hand-made warm and fuzzy scarf, and we needed all of the comfort we could get that year. Then I knit a poncho -- out of alpaca wool that I found out I'm allergic to. The first time I wore it I sprouted hives all over my face. I also started a baby blanket for a friend, which is still unfinished and her baby is now 2. And a half-finished baby hat that would have looked like the top of a tomato if I had finished it.

For the past year I've been working on a brown shawl. Yes -- the past year. I started it last summer, hoping to get it done before the weather got too cold to wear it. Then I gave up on it, and didin't pick it up again until recently. The problem is the pattern is unforgiving. With most knitting patterns, if you drop a stitch or make another mistake, you can go back and fix it. It's frustrating, but do-able. With this pattern, you're SUPPOSED to drop a stitch every five stitches to make a "channel" where you can go back and insert a ribbon. However, if you happen to drop the wrong stitch, it's almost impossible to go back and fix it.

I need to be able to make mistakes. I need to allow myself to fail. It took me a long time to figure that out in my life -- that it's OK to fail and make mistakes. To remember that usually you can fix your mistakes. But even if you can't, it's ok. My mother passed her perfectionism on to me, and for a while it paralyzed me (and still does). If I can't do it perfectly -- I won't even try. Slowly, over the years, I've tried to be gentle with myself. To allow myself to fail, to make mistakes, to not be perfect. To forgive myself, to move on, to not let a little slip-up paralyze me. But I struggle with it. Even in my work, I second-guess myself (did I say the right thing? Is my writing good enough? Did I make a mistake?)

So my brown shawl is 12 inches from being done. I am going to keep going until I finish (David says it's painful to watch). But I'm never going to knit another pattern that is so unforgiving.

Feel free to comment

Since I'm fairly new to blogging, I'm still learning. My husband tried to post a comment today and was frustrated that he had to create a Blogger account in order to post a comment. Well, after cursing Blogger for a half and hour, I finally figured out that it was my fault. I can change the settings so that anyone in the whole wide world can comment -- even if they don't have a Blogger account. So I changed the settings. I apologize if you've tried to comment and were unable to. So feel free to post your comments now....

I'm tired of Emerging....

I recently got in touch with an old friend, Larry Wilson, a writer I've known for 15 years. He and his new wife, Susan Isaacs both have great blogs. Larry writes a lot about the emerging church, and he and Susan recently wrote about an emerging church they attended in L.A. where they live. I love their passion and honesty.

I'm fascinated by the emerging church and post-modern discussion. I've read all of Brian McLaren's books. I've visited churches that call themselves "emerging". My friends and I have discussed post-modernity and the church for hours and hours. I've even read a "Derrida for dummies" book to get a snapshot of the French philosopher who started the whole idea of deconstructionism and postmodernity.

I'm encouraged that there's a discussion going on in the evangelical community to address "how we do church" in light of a shifting way of seeing truth.

The problem is: I'm tired of emerging. I've been doing it for a long time. Way back in the early 90's, I met this guy named Dave Fitch. He went to this church I was attending and invited me to a Bible study/gathering with some people. I was new to Chicago, working at Moody magazine, and trying to find myself and figure out my faith. The motley group of Christians who went to this Bible study became My Tribe. Dave was the sort-of, reluctant leader, who was getting a PhD at Garrett Theological Seminary. He started talking about postmodernity. About the church. About a new way of seeing. He changed my life--and my faith. Thanks to him and My Tribe, my faith came alive. It was scary having the foundations of my faith shaken. To have someone question the way I was reading scripture. For a while I didn't know what I believed. But then I realized that God is much bigger than our human philosophies and ponderings. And that we had been putting him in a modernistic box. The picture of God I had grown up with was framed in a 2 inch square frame. We had him all figured out. It made us feel good to understand him, to have him framed and hanging on the wall so we could just look up and admire him. The problem was, it made God so small our faith shriveled.

Well, My Tribe tried to start a church in the mid-90s. It was called Metanoia and I guess you could say it was an emerging church. We tried to figure out how to do church in a new way. It worked for a while. Some great things come from that little gathering. We grew as Christians. We discovered new, more meaningful ways to worship. We became a community with ties that, to this day, cannot be broken because we experienced God in a way that was so powerful we will never forget. But like most emerging things, there were struggles and growing pains and then some of our members got called to other places, and at one point we decided to fold up the chairs and move on.

So I went back to my old "modern" church until I couldn't take it anymore. For a few years I attended a smaller church filled with hip, young 20-somethings who called themselved "emerging". They lit candles, had cool haircuts, provided a space where you could paint or write poetry during worship, shunned the overly-produced worship bands in favor of a just a guy with a guitar, and were reaching out to the community through service projects. For a while it was refreshing and I was worshipping and meeting God there. It wasn't all bad. But then came the sermons. The verse, by verse, by verse, by verse Expository Preaching kind of sermons. I swear, this should be a new form of torture. Forget water-boarding....just expose the terrorists to a Sunday Morning Expository Preaching and they'll spill all of their secrets after an hour. I realized that this wasn't really a Postmodern, emerging church. It was just a Modern church dressed in Postmodern clothes from Urban Outfitters.

Then I got married to David McCracken and he and I tried to find a church together. I took him to the Urban Outfitters church, which he promptly renamed the "Hangin' Out With God" church after one of the pastors told us we were just going to "hang out with God". We decided it wasn't the place for us. Plus, it made us feel really old. So we looked for a new church, and after a few months decided to try out a Catholic church we'd been hearing about. It's not a typical Catholic church. Friends from my old church call it the "evangelical Catholic church". The minute we stepped into the building, we were smitten. The building is the oldest public building in Chicago, built by Irish immigrants. The intricate, beautifully painted designs on the ceiling, the stained glass windows, the marble floors, the robes, the liturgy, the communion....where we all say in unison, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but just say the word and I shall be healed." I love it all. And I'm so relieved to have stepped out of the turmoil of figuring out "how to do church." At least for now. (Although I think returning to the "ancient" forms of worship is part of the emerging movement....so maybe I'm still emerging after all. Isn't there a book called Ancient-Future Faith?)

Brian McLaren says that during this transition time from Modernity -- into who knows what -- the church will probably take around 100 years to make the transition. To find its way. To figure out a new way of doing things to address the needs of a postmodern world. To shake off all of the pictures of God in 2-inch picture frames. So I guess that means I won't be around when the church finally settles into a postmodern stride. I just know that I need a break from emerging, because emerging is painful and takes a lot of energy. I don't want to keep figuring out "how to do church." I just want to "do church." To worship God. To experience him at a deeper level.

So I'll be lingering on the fringes, reading books, browsing blogs, keeping up-to-date on the latest emerging trends. But on Sundays I'll be headed to the Catholic Church to hear the scripture readings, reciting the Nicene Creed, and taking communion. And hopefully meeting God there.