Normal

In the months leading up to and the months after the election, we reminded ourselves that this is not normal. This was not politics as usual, this was not governance as usual, this was not the behavior we expected from those seeking office and those in office. It was important, we told ourselves, to remember that this was not how things were supposed to be. We couldn't settle in and let this become our new normal. I remember reading several very earnest thinkpieces about this. A whole bunch of tweets, too. 

It's an open question, I guess, as to whether we actually settled into a new normal or not. Depends on your definition of normal. Normal is what you're used to, maybe, and eventually what you're used to becomes what you expect and what you expect becomes what you think is right. The ever-present veneer of stress that's coated everything from the last year maybe means that low levels of panic are the new normal, but I guess that's up for debate. It's not like it hasn't been a stressful year in my individual life, in its own small way, and it's hard to separate the subjective from the objective, or the shared subjective from the individual subjective. But regardless, we're all worn down, I think, and rightly so. If you're not, you're not paying attention. 

These past few weeks have given us a powerful example of that. If you think our nationwide conversation around sexual assault is telling us something new, you haven't been paying attention. If you think it's an anomaly, you've been living in a different world from everyone else. Those with power have always abused that power, whether it's the physical power to force themselves on someone or the social power to make someone do something they don't want to do and then keep quiet about it. Talking about sexual assault forces us to see vulnerability in myriad forms and confronts us with all the ways in which we have not protected or cared for the vulnerable. 

Advent is a time of repentance, though goodness knows we never think about it like that. It's a time of confronting what we've allowed to become normal, to measure our lives, our communities, our societies against the standards brought to us by the prophets and by Mary and, eventually, by Jesus. We have settled into either presumption or despair, asserting that this is the best we can do or that this is just the way things are, but that is not what the prophets tell us. The prophets scream that this is not normal. This is not the way that things should be. This, our world, our lives, these things are not right. They are not just. They are not love.

And so we must repent. We must turn away from these things that should not be and turn toward the vision of things as they will be. The mighty are sent away empty because they have already received their reward and the vulnerable are cared for and kept safe. The world at war because of pride and conceit will become the world at peace, where weapons are changed in shape from things that end life to things that tend it. The unfixable mess of a world that we have made will be redeemed into the world as it should be, where an end to tears comes not from hardness of heart but from healing. The new normal of the kingdom of heaven will be a beautiful rest compared to the normal built from the turbulent norms we've let accumulate here. 

So this Advent, as 2017 drags us on through its final month, let's seek a new normal. Let's tear down the norms inside of us that we've accepted in our presumption or despair and rebuild our expectations with justice in mind. Let's prepare ourselves for the night when we, with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and all of the least of these gather around a manger and see a normal that we never could have expected: all the unjust powers of this world brought to their knees by a vulnerable little baby asleep in the hay. 

Oh, Jesus. 

Get here soon. 

A Little Self-Confidence

You know, I can change my own oil. I can rotate my tires, check my fluids, change my wiper blades, fix a blown fuse. I can mend my own clothes, sew on a few buttons, patch a couple of holes, hem my dress pants. I’ve changed the locks by myself before. I make a mean casserole. I’ve re-caulked a shower. I’ve done my own taxes for a decade now. My cookies are generally well-received. I am extraordinarily competent.

I’ve got ribbons galore. Swim team, science fair, various academic competitions. Certificates, trophies, graduation caps, all sorts of knick-knacks showing my achievements. I’ve got handwritten notes and pictures and poems telling me how much I’ve meant to people. Postcards, birthday cards, thank you cards, clippings from newspapers I’ve been in. I’ve got boxes of this kind of stuff, stored away in various places because it’s all important, these physical reminders of organizational and individual kindness, gratitude, recognition. I am quite accomplished and very loved.

I have been all sorts of places. Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, Berlin. New York, LA, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas. I have friends across the globe and around the nation. I’ve performed in front of tens of thousands of people and have been on national television. I’ve been on a panel with world-renowned theologians. Hundreds of people read what I write. In the span of one conversation, I can talk with you about Milton and quantum mechanics and the Social Trinity. I can explain black holes to a third grader and holiness in speech to a toddler. I can set up a portable planetarium system in twelve minutes. I’m good at what I do.

I’m funny, you know? And charming. And gorgeous. And witty. I’m a fricking delight. I have excellent taste in music and popular culture and books and art. I have a beautiful voice and intelligent eyes and hair that a Disney princess would envy. In summary, I’m brilliant, I’m kind, I’m capable, and I’m cute as hell.

Whew.

Narcissism.

Sometimes it’s good for the soul.

Because, see, I live in a world that will tell me something completely different about myself. Or… maybe not completely different, but different enough to matter. I live in a world that will say to me, “Are you sure you want to travel alone?” or “Oh, honey, you shouldn’t be lifting that!” or “Do you know how hard it is to be a pastor?” I live in a world that has, at best, a complicated relationship with my intelligence and my body and my capabilities.

And I’m lucky.

I have plenty of people who affirm my place in ministry, who are excited about my smarts, who know I can do most things I put my mind to and celebrate that, and who think I'm wonderful for a myriad of reasons. When the world gives sound to the awful voices in my head that say I'm unworthy and unlovable and unloved, I have patient friends and family who remind me that those voices lie. No matter how right they sound, they lie. 

But I need to be able to tell myself that they're lying too. In all humility, I know my worth and my capabilities and my limitations. I do, in fact, have a balanced idea of myself, more or less. But I'm very good at listing off my faults and my "growing edges." I could be better at listing off my strengths. Should be pretty easy to do. I've been carrying mountains for decades now. 

So once more, from the top.

I can change my own oil. I can rotate my tires. I can...

For Christ's Sake

On Sunday morning, we had one of the most powerful All Saints Sunday services that I've ever been a part of. The church was full of people gathered to mourn the losses of the past year and to celebrate lives, long or short, lived well and lived deeply. The bell tolled more than seventy times as the list of names was read and the chancel was aflame with candlelight. The congregation was grieving the loss of both its oldest member (just a few weeks short of her one hundred and third birthday) and its youngest (just a few weeks past his and his twin brother's first birthday) and still, there was an abundance of joy. They lived in the place where hope meant deep strength rather than weakness.

It was beautiful.

It was beautiful and I was going to write about it.

I was going to unpack the service and really dig into the comment one of the parishioners made about it. ("It was heavy this morning, ladies. I know you gotta do it, but...")

I was going to let us sit with this lone empty high chair, which hit me like a sucker punch to the gut as I walked into the fellowship hall, because there should be two of them. This child should not have to grow up without his brother, nor this mother live without her son, but the fact of this emptiness remains and that's why we have Sundays like yesterday.

I was going to be deep and encouraging and I intended to share all of the gifts given to me that morning with all of you.

And then what happened in Sutherland Springs... happened.

Happened again.

How is this happening again?

How are we doing this insane dance again? How was once not enough? Playing like thoughts and prayers are sufficient when what does the Lord require of us but to do justice? Where is this famed mercy that we're supposed to be loving when people are bleeding out on the church floor? What kind of God are we walking with if we continue to allow instruments of murder to be easier to obtain than medical care, when we enable death and curtail life? Our hearts are cracked, every single one of us, with deep chasms that scream for fulfillment, and we pretend like bullets are safe things to have within reach.

God.

I swear.

Is one dead kid not enough? Wasn't twenty? How high does the pile of corpses have to be, exactly? I'd love it if you'd give me a number, just, you know, an upper limit for the number of acceptable gun deaths in a given period of time, because apparently we live in some twisted reality where that number is not zero. I mean, parents of toddlers put covers on all the outlets but it's not like we're outlawing electricity. We're just taking precautions because we decided that one kid dead from electric shock was too many. I don't understand how you can even pretend to be on the side of life when you value access to guns more than the safety of the most vulnerable among us.

So, is it a question of legislation? Or is it a question of enforcement? Training? Equipment? Is the real issue here domestic abuse and toxic masculinity and broken community? Radicalization and terrorism? Fear? Guilt? Greed?

You know, I honestly don't care anymore. It doesn't matter to me which fix we try. I just need to know that we can all see that there's a problem here. I need to know that we all know that this is not what normal should look like, that this is not what good or even fine looks like. I need us to acknowledge that this is not the life that we were freed for.

Dear God, what have we done that we continue to have Sundays like yesterday?