Lent, First Sunday in...

In the church calendar, Sundays are usually known as the "Sundays of" as in the 4th Sunday of Pentecost or the 2nd Sunday of Advent.

But during Lent, they're known as the "Sundays in" as in today is the first Sunday in Lent. If I put my outsider's hat on again (that I grew up outside the church) and do the math geek thing that's hardwired in my genes, there are more than 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. In fact, it's off by 6 because Sundays don't count. Sundays are mini-Easters and therefore they are "in" rather than part "of" the Lenten season. (And my mother should be proud of me now because as fantastic as my math scores were, I could never choose the proper preposition back in high school -- and she was a high school English teacher.)

Lent Days 3 and 4: Ritual and Meaning

[I was too busy/tired to write last night, but remembered my thoughts for the day vividly.]

The day began with the usual routine, with NPR's Morning Edition blasting just louder than the spray of the shower nozzle. I had mentally tuned out at the end of a story and almost missed their 'tag' between stories, about Joe Biden having a mysterious bruise on his forehead. Actually, it was NPR reporting about how a Sky One News correspondent forgot it was Ash Wednesday and that 'bruise' was mark left by the ashes imposed as part of the Ash Wednesday ritual. Her embarrassed response was quite amusing: "I know that I am a very bad Catholic. I know now that it is Ash Wednesday and I know that those are ashes on his forehead. I hang my head in shame. I'll be back in just a moment." (Link to NPR transcript)

Lent Day 2: Quiet Time and Psalm 51

The new routines continued today, providing an emerging clarity in and of my daily life.

In previous Lenten seasons I have given up favorite foods or activities, but in recent years I've settled on giving up the radio in the car. Without the driving rhythm of music or the steady drone of NPR news or commentary, I would give myself the time to just think while driving... kind of a random patter of thoughts while I navigate through traffic safely. I would also invariably hear if anything was mechanically wrong with the car.

But this year I'm back to being a mass transit commuter, and the one mile walk to the train station is also without tunes or instructional audio like foreign language lessons.

Lent 2010: Prologue

A colleague lost her father over the weekend, and I went to the visitation on Mardi Gras, traditionally the last big bash before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. For many reasons I was looking forward to Lent, for Christians the season of sacrifice and penance and/or deeper focus of one's faith, depending on who you ask.

I drove from work to the visitation, and gave a ride to our project manager (I'll call him 'N') because he comes from out of town to work in St. Louis during the week. He had never been to a (Christian) visitation, having come from India as a practicing Hindu. He asked if there was anything he needed to know prior to entering the visitation and it led to a fascinating comparison of different mourning rituals.

N shared with me about when his father passed away in India a few years ago, and that after the cremation he had to throw his father's bones in the river. And that after that experience he no longer feared death.

All this discussion led N to a scintillating line, one that topped any of my own personal preparations for Lent, and one that I'll mull over for the entire season of Lent: "Death is the beginning of all religions."

Lent Day 1: Spiritual Hunger

I hunger.

Not in the physical or the emotional sense that have wreaked havoc on my health over the past months from stressing over work and other responsibilities.

No, it's a spiritual hunger, aching for renewal and rejuvenation, seeking a sense of peace with others and with myself. And ultimately, with God. I'm missing joy, but not just the feelings associated with joy -- I sense an evolving cynicism and jadedness that I've often faked and mocked in my younger days. I don't greet the day with the enthusiasm I used to, but rather just gird myself to get through what needs doing, as the Powdermilk Biscuits theme song from Prairie Home Companion likes to remind us.

I enter this Lenten season more eager than I ever have. I've planned small changes in my daily routines to start today, Ash Wednesday, to support renewal of myself - body, mind and soul.

Jesus, Justice, Jazz and Beyond (ELCA National Youth Gathering)

Sitting at the Superdome for the first mass event (37,000 teens and counselors), my muscle memory kicked me hard: my only previous visit to the Superdome and New Orleans was for the ELCA youth gathering in 1997. Not only is this Gathering different because I actually have my own teenager participating, but also and mostly because I couldn’t get the CNN images of post-Katrina Superdome and Convention Center out of my head. In 2005 the world stopped to gawk in disbelief not so much at the physical destruction from the storm, but rather the aftermath of how people responded (or didn’t) to the crisis. And since then, the focus has mostly left New Orleans as a place that will take many years to recover, out of the news spotlight.

And yet in my Superdome seat, peering over the sea of t-shirts declaring “Jesus, Justice, Jazz” customized for congregation or synod, listening to the Peter Mayer-led House Band, watching the half-dozen giant-size monitors for close-ups of the stage, I sat quite comfortably, as if waiting for an NFL game. Indeed, among the championship banners hanging in the rafters, was a special one for the 2006 Fans of the New Orleans Saints football team – for supporting the team in the chaos-filled season immediately after Hurricane Katrina. In a way, this Gathering seemed like other youth gatherings, filled with inspirational speakers, cheering when one’s home city or state in mentioned, dancing in the aisles to the Christian rock/hip-hop warm-up music and mass worship with 37,000 young folk sharing communion.

But it was more than that. Much more. For three consecutive days, dozens of buses departed from multiple locations at coordinated launch times. 12,000 people per day fanned out across the region, an ocean of orange volunteer t-shirts spreading across the metro area, to fill backpacks with school supplies for the coming school year, to work literacy programs with grade school students to paint murals for schools re-opening for the first time since Katrina, to clean up Katrina-muck still mired in the Ninth Ward and many more projects. It was a herculean task just to deploy that many people, let alone work their projects.

Bethel’s own project was removing weed trees (Chinese Tallow) that invaded and dominated what had been majestic oak and pine trees. 80% of those trees were destroyed overnight – changing the ecosystem classification from a forest to shrubbery zone, almost literally in the blink of eye – and any oak and pine saplings have been choked out by the invasive species ever since. Our youth did a great job that day, clearing a small but significant swath in the Fontainebleau State Park that will hopefully allow some oak and pine to thrive. Our site administrator wasn’t a park ranger but a retiree who volunteers his time for the Sisyphean task of almost single-handedly fighting the weed trees. He had no idea what to expect that day, but had to quickly shift from working with a handful of folks to mentoring and supervising 120 orange shirts. By his own admission, he didn’t shift quickly to his new role but he persevered, glad to know that his mentoring work would cover the next two servant event days. I had to break the news to him that our workgroup was the first of three different workgroups; I’ve never seen a man’s face so subtly yet clearly laugh and cry simultaneously without twitching a muscle.

We worked hard and enthusiastically that morning, “being the change” – the unofficial Gathering slogan – and after the work was done, some of us jumped in the clean, fresh, cooling waters of Lake Pontchartrain (just a few hundred yards from our work zone) and then picnicked on Subway (restaurant) sandwiches before climbing on the bus back to New Orleans. I didn’t jump in the lake (insert your own punch line here), but found a shady spot in the picnic area with others in our group who judged that our work clothes wouldn’t dry out in time for the return bus ride. We struck up a conversation with two sisters who had brought their families for a day out. We shared our stories (on our work bus there were also congregations from Jamestown, NY, and Wasilla, AK), and the sisters recounted to us their tales of evacuation to separate cities (Shreveport and Tulsa), despite their best intentions to remain together. We discovered it was their first time back to this state park since Katrina and the park had only re-opened just a few weeks prior. We later learned that the official park ranger had lost his home in the floods (along with many irreplaceable historical artifacts collected by him and his wife) and relocated nearby the park, mostly because they (and many others) could not afford the new rates for New Orleans insurance.

As we reacclimated to the New Orleans city rhythm that evening, THE ice-breaker question (as we waited in many lines) to/from strangers for this Gathering was “Hey, what was your service event?” which replaced the previous Gatherings’ ice-breakers of “Where are you from?” and “What did you think of last night’s speaker?” And as much as we made new friends among the Gathering with a sense of camaraderie at the Superdome events, the most telling sign of our presence in New Orleans was among the locals.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just our (as in Bethel’s or all the other teens’) presence. It was God’s presence, as in Jesus-died-and-rose-for-us and the Holy Spirit called us to New Orleans to be God’s presence to rebuild and redeem Creation as God had intended it.

No, our presence in New Orleans was reflected in a joke by a passing motorist as we walked by a statue (as I discovered later ironically it was General Robert E. Lee). As we were about to cross the roundabout, a driver stopped and asked us “Hey, y’all know why that statue is facing north?” We shrugged our shoulders. “’Cause you never turn your back on a Yankee!” He then added in softened, sincere tones, “Thanks for all the work y’all are doing here.” And proceeded on his way.

For me, those 2005 CNN images of the Katrina-ravaged Superdome have been replaced by more than just 37,000 young adults recently rocking out in it. It’s also been supplanted by the park rangers and volunteers, the picnicking sisters and the somewhat random sarcastic/sincere grateful motorist, sharing their stories and their appreciation. This Gathering may not have garnered much national media attention (although ELCA Bishop Mark Hanson did read a letter of thanks from President Obama at the Gathering’s last evening) because feel-good stories, especially religious/church-led efforts, don’t make for good news. But they do make for Good News. And that blessing is more than enough for me.

To see some of Bethel’s photos and videos from the trip, please visit http://byg-jjj2009.blogspot.com/

The Week in TV ending 3/6/09

Die Hard meets The West Wing, Burn Notices abound, Texans continue to blow dust in my eyes, Playing catch-up with the Galacticans, and It's the Archbishop

It's the first week of February sweeps (which thanks to the now canceled digital TV switchover is in March), and what great viewing there's been.  Thanks to some downtime from dental surgery I got a bit more viewing in than usual and cleared off a backlog on the DVR.

Die Hard meets The West Wing:  The 'Die Hard' part isn't original (I'm sure I read this in Sepinwall's blog) but I added The West Wing part.  "24" always stretches plausibility, sometimes ludicrously, but to have a renegade general actually take over the White House with First Family hostages?  It's not the What that they do, it's How they make us feel the pain and angst that have made this episode and this season among the best of the entire series.

Burn Notices Abound:  I started watching Burn Notice as season 2 started, doing a marathon of season 1 wherever I could catch reruns.  What started out as a cool spy-thriller-conspiracy diversion (with a bit of Robin Hood magic for the clients of the week) has morphed into absolutely must-see TV.  There aren't many recent movies or even TV series that have packed this much intrigue, character development and action per minute that I can recall.  USA Network has got a fan in me for life.  (No spoilers here -- you just need to watch this)

Texans continue to blow dust in my eyes:  Friday Night Lights, you have officially returned to season 1 form, where the benchmark was how many times did I wipe a tear from my eye.  Yes, the plotlines definitely stretched credulity -- Jason Street goes to NY to get a job as a sport agent (which are hard for even Harvard grads to land), but does it really matter when all TPTB (the powers that be) want is to showcase the relationships on the show?  Who cares that Tim Riggins is AWOL from practice to help Jason on this quest -- Riggins has missed so many practices over three years I wonder if it's easier to count the number of times he's actually shown.  What matters is "Texas Forever!" friendship between these lifelong buddies. More detail in a future post where I'll also contrast the Coach/Principal Taylor marriage (best on TV) to the sweetheart romance of their daughter Julie with former QB1 Matt Saracen.

Playing catch-up with the Galacticans:  Battlestar Galactica may be the best drama on TV right now as it ramps up to its series finale in a few weeks.  When my former DVR crapped out last spring I fell behind, then decided to stockpile reruns to watch in marathon form.  In some ways its Sci-Fi setting is a hindrance -- most people see the spaceships and the robots and think, oh it's geek culture.  But its Sci-Fi characteristics are actually powerful devices for exploring human nature and tremendous metaphors for our own post-9/11 world.  Week in and week out I'm impressed with the ambition, vision and execution of these story tellers, and will miss this greatly after it ends in a few weeks.

Lost:  I'm trying to keep these weekly recaps to only five shows, but need to mention this week's Lost.  From a strict mythology perspective, there was nothing really new here.  What's been amazing about Lost lately is how, even in a fill-in-the-blank episodes, they make us care about secondary characters.  I never cared much for Charlotte until the last three episodes before she died; and this week it was Juliet's turn.  Impressive.

It's the Archbishop:  But the TV event of the week, and perhaps of the year so far, was Archbishop Desmond Tutu guesting on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.  I heard the Archbishop speak for almost an hour at a national youth gathering here in St. Louis in 2000 -- he's an engaging and inspirational speaker, even without his contribution and notoriety from the South African Apartheid struggles.  And most people know I'm a huge fan of Craig Ferguson because of his ability to effortlessly switch from the inane to the serious because of his openness.  To have the two share the screen for half an hour, plus the preceding half hour during which Craig prepped the audience for Father Tutu, made for one of the best hours of TV I've ever watched.  Such a beautiful pairing of intelligent, sensitive, focused gentlemen.   Fantastic viewing this week!