Author: Danny

Occasional Ecuadorian

The Same Thing Differently

I ordered a book of sheet music this week, and upon opening it for the first time, I had to laugh. The first song in the book was O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing. Since the book was a United Methodist hymnal supplement, I shouldn’t have been surprised. O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing has been the first song in each Methodist Hymnal since it was included in A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists… all the way back in 1780. Despite being numbered 57, it’s still the first actual hymn in the hymnal today. But I laughed not about that piece of trivia. I laughed because my brother loves this song. And my Mom hates it.

My brother had a children’s choir director who taught him this song sometime when he was very young at Berkmar United Methodist Church in Lilburn, Georgia. For him, it brings back fond memories of fun times with Mrs. Sandy. My mom learned this song growing up in Hazardville Methodist Church in Hazardville Connecticut. She doesn’t have a good reason for hating it. She just thinks 4 verses of anything should get the job done, whereas this song has seven verses, and she’s tired of singing by the end of it (When I feel like messing with her, I remind her that Charles Wesley originally wrote 18 verses to this song. You can clip over to page 58 in the hymnal to see most of them).

People have been seeing the same things differently from each other for a very long time. Even experiences with God. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night because he heard his teachings very differently than his fellow Pharisees who plotted against Jesus. Only 1 of the 10 lepers recognized God’s power in his healing enough to thank Jesus for it. The pandemic is pretty universally affecting us right now. But we don’t all experience it universally or similarly. I hope we all have compassion for those who see things differently than us, those who are more or less frustrated than we each are, those who are more or less isolated than we each are. And as as Jesus “bids our sorrows cease,” may we truly find his name “life, and health, and peace.”

Holy Conferencing

This morning was the 2020 meeting of the North Carolina Annual Conference. Like many things this year, it was not in person, but online. The video was “live,” but most segments were pre-recorded. I missed gathering with people. I missed eating Mexican food in Greenville. And as I listened to reports and participated in a minimal number of votes with no debate, I missed using my voice. If what we do each June is Holy Conferencing, this morning I just felt like I was a Holy Spectator.

And yet the Rev. Steve Manskar said about Holy Conferencing that it teaches us that we rely on one another in our journey of understanding our Call and our life with God. This morning I was reliant on others who created the rules, who did the work of nominations and creating the budget. And I didn’t get to speak, but I got to hear. I heard the musicians, I heard those who gave reports, I heard those who prayed over pastors moving, and I heard our Bishop preach and call us to look and ask questions about the things going on around us. I heard from others who are mourning, others who are struggling, others who are seeking justice, others who are seeking the way God calls them to use their gifts in this unique time, others who are learning to say, like Samuel, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” I’m thankful that God reminds us how reliant we are on Him, and on one another.

Contando los días

Yesterday one of my Facebook memories was a post from my friend Jose Luis. It has been years and years since we worked together, but each spring or summer I make sure that I see him when I’m in Ecuador. And in preparation for one of those trips, he wrote that he was “counting the days” until he saw me.

This week will be the Second Sunday in the Season after Pentecost. The Season after Pentecost is also known as “Ordinary Time,” when we use Ordinal Numbers to name the Sundays. The First Sunday. The Second Sunday. This year we’ll get all the way to the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost before Christ the King Sunday and then we start naming the weeks in Advent. Even before we reached this very long liturgical season, we were counting. “It’s been 11 weeks since we met in person for worship.” “I haven’t had a haircut in four months.” “We’ve baked 30 loaves of sourdough bread.” There has been plenty to count.

The writer of Psalm 90 reminds us to number our days. To count them, and to treat each day not just like it’s our last, but as a day with purpose. It gets monotonous to keep track of how many days things have been this way. But I pray that we all see through the monotony and recognize each day as one that belongs to God.

A Pile of Rocks

I’ve been re-reading the histories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob this week. A big chunk of the Bible is written about these guys, and the things they did. And one of the things they all spent a lot of time doing: stacking up rocks. The did this when they built altars. Now we see the word “altar” and think about the large wooden tables we have in sanctuaries. In the places we’ve set aside (made Holy) and regularly revisit for a time and place of worship. But these three left altars all over the place.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob didn’t hop on a camel to go worship on a schedule in the temple (which wouldn’t even be around for several hundred more years), but they built altars when and where they met God throughout their own journeys. And the descriptions we have of the kind of monuments these men were building were more like “Let me grab the tallest rock in my immediate surroundings and stand it upright,” or “I’m gonna just make a pile of rocks right where I stand.” Rocks. I mean, come on, really? Rocks? They were ordinary. But so were the moments before any of these guys simply realized they were already in the presence of God. Their altars were built from what they had. From what God provided for them, really. If worship is a response to God, then our responsibility is to be aware of just how much we are surrounded by His presence, providence, Grace, and love at all times. It’s to make altars from God’s gifts, ordinary as they may seem to us. From the arts, from friendships, from coffee, and from the very rocks and ground upon which we stand right now. God’s is present all around us even when we’re not in the sanctuary. Let’s pile up some rocks.

That’s Not Going Back Like It Was

Yesterday was the first day of Preschool Drive-By Parades to celebrate the end of the school year. It was cold and it was rainy, and it was the first thing on my schedule for the day, so I brought my coffee mug outside with me. The parade itself was great, and it was wonderful to see all our preschool students who we’ve been missing since March. But in my haste to “catch” an air hug from one of the kids, I dropped my coffee mug. It cracked into three big pieces, and even though I eventually picked it up and tried to fit the shards back like a 3D puzzle, my first thought was “that’s not going back like it was.”

The preschool teachers (and probably many of you) have all seen me walking around the building in the mornings with my Dunkin’ Donuts coffee mug. I’ve used it pretty much every morning Sunday-Thursday for years. And I’ll miss it. But it turns out it was pretty easy to shrug off that tiny change. We’ve all had to be adaptable lately, and I think we’ll all have to continue being adaptable for a long time. Even as our state slowly reopens, we’ll be looking around at a lot of things and thinking “that’s not going back like it was.” When Paul says “the old has passed away,” he does so with excitement. And when the changes around us are bigger than our coffee mugs, I hope we remain adaptable and choose to celebrate what is rather than mourn what was.

You Haven’t Quite Got This Figured Out Yet

One of the places I always take my short-term teams in Ecuador is the Artisan Market between North and Central Quito. There are rows and rows of stalls where vendors have all kinds of handicrafts: blankets, paintings, sweaters, dishes, tablecloths; all kinds of woven or carved or painted objects to use or to have as souveniers. Even in a market that takes up an entire city block (it’s entertainingly on the corner of Jorge Washington and Reina Victoria streets in the gringolandia neighborhood… they know their target demo, I suppose), I know after all this time exactly where some of the vendors are. Who is selling what, and who will give you a good deal. And reliably just outside the market on the sidewalk, every day of the week, is a man who sells flags. He has all different sized flags sticking out of a backpack, and he’s usually carrying around an oversized flag in his arms. A few will have the Quito soccer team logo, but most are the Ecuadorian national flag.

All over the market you can hear people shouting what they have for sale. “Sueters!” “Cobijas/blankets!” “Camisetas/ t-shirts!” Vendors who are energetically trying to get your attention and your dollars. But the flag guy just leisurely paces up and down the sidewalk, slowly saying, at a volume just barely above a normal speaking voice, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeecuador! …Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeecuador!” Not “flags!” Not even “banderas!” (the Spanish word). Just “Ecuador” over and over again. If you wanted a flag of the city of Quito or of the Liga soccer team, you would have to happen to know that he has those. He does the worst job advertising for himself of anybody in the place. And yet, I’ve been going there since 2007 and I have never once not seen him. And as much as I always want to say to him “Dude, you have not got this figured out,” he seems to keep making sales after all this time.

Nine weeks into stay-at-home orders and social distancing and online everything… we don’t all necessarily have this whole thing figured out. But I hope that we all continue with endurance, recognizing the Grace that covers our weaknessas we all go on to Perfection.

Roll Over and Eat an Avocado

Much as I’m ready for the pandemic to be over, I’ve enjoyed getting to spend some time at my brother’s house during all of this. It has meant a lot of playing with my nephew, Quentin, and my niece, Riley. They’re almost 2 years old, and 5 months old, respectively. And while I was around, Riley hit some milestones. We’ve been waiting for a while for her to roll over. She was soooo close for a while, and this week she finally did it. She also got to try a solid(ish) food a couple days ago. She ate an avocado. Although “ate” is a strong word. “Smashed around in the general vicinity of her mouth” might be more accurate. The avocado “eating” in particular, though, was so momentous that it was worthy of a Zoom call including both sets of grandparents. When she did something approximating taking a bite of it, her grandmothers would both cheer aloud and tell her what a good job she was doing. She mostly just frowned, but kept on gnawing at it with those baby gums.

My accomplishments seem smaller lately. Everything takes longer. Everything has to be done from behind a screen. I feel like what I get done is about as impressive as eating an avocado. And yet, where Riley is in life, that is a big deal. As Ecclesiastes (and Pete Seeger, and The Byrds), tells us, there is a season for everything. And if we keep reading past those 8 more famous verses, the chapter seems to get less blunt and more encouraging when it tells us that we don’t see the big picture, but God does, and he has made everything (and “everything” includes us!) suitable for its time. 

May you feel suited to the uniqueness of this time. And may you celebrate your accomplishments. Even if it’s rolling over and eating an avocado.

Keep the Faith; don’t hit the wall

My Grandpa used to stand in the driveway and wave when people left his house. And good Catholic that he was, he’d shout at them as they pulled down the driveway “Keep the faith!” Grandpa’s house sat pretty far back from the street, and there was a concrete wall that ran beside the long, twisty driveway. And just after anyone shifted their car into reverse and started to move, he’d suddenly remember to warn them and shout “Don’t hit the wall!” I think more than a few rear bumpers had lasting impressions from visits to Grandpa Bill’s house. My lasting impression was of those two phrases bellowed back-to-back at departing loved ones and vehicles. “Keep the faith… DON’T HIT THE WALL!”

There are days in this time of isolation where I hit the metaphorical wall of boredom. Or loneliness. Or frustration over One More Thing being canceled. But like the exiled people of God (who still had to wait through their “70 years”), we are heard by God, and promised that he’s still here and at work. Keep the faith. Don’t hit the wall.

Disembodied Voices

My office in Elizabeth City was on the third floor, near all the youth and children’s classrooms, but far away from everyone else who worked in the church building. There would be lots of activity around me in the afternoon when kids came to tutoring, or when meetings or programs were going on; but on weekday mornings, it tended to be nearly silent around me. Until I would hear the Voice.

The first time I thought I was alone on the third floor and the Voice started talking to me, I thought “Well, this is it. I’ve totally lost it.” But I walked down the hallway and realized the disembodied voice was coming from the speaker in the top of the elevator. A robocaller had dialed the emergency phone line in the elevator car, and apparently that phone line would automatically answer incoming calls. It got to be an entertaining, reoccurring event. I never knew when the Voice From Above would speak to me, but it was always potentially there.

We’re all spending lots of time with disembodied voices. The floating heads in my Zoom calls make me feel like a wizard using the Floo Network. And the absurdity of how we all have to communicate these days keeps reminding me of that elevator voice. As our Zoom meetings and our social media feeds and computer and TV screens are filled with the voices of those we love and those with whom we gather for worship, may we pay attention to the Voice From Above and know that he is still with us. If I were to write an April 2020 translation of the end of Matthew 28, it would include a reminder to myself like “lo, I am with you always, even unto all your social distancing and stay-at-home orders.”

Holey, Wholly, Holy

When I got out a towel to film the Maundy Thursday video, I noticed that it had a hole in it. It was imperfect, and I almost put it back and used a different one. But I decided quickly it seemed appropriate to use a holey towel. This Holy Week feels like it has some holes in it. We can do the Maundy Thursday liturgy at home. We will have a Good Friday video that many of you helped create. And we’ll have a several options for digital worship services on Sunday morning. But we’re not together. It seems strange not to be in the sanctuary or the chapel this week. It’s disappointing to be away from our friends and our church family. But the imperfections the differences from the normal do not change the meaning of this week.

The Disciples probably didn’t enjoy the first Holy Week very much either. They experienced disappointment, sadness, loss and grief. While we know we’re waiting for the day our sanctuary is full again, the disciples didn’t quite understand that they were waiting for the morning when the tomb would be empty. God takes these Holey moments of ours and works them into something that is Wholly his. Our week isn’t Holy because it’s perfect, or because it goes the way we planned. It’s Holy because God is in it.