Whatcha reading?

 I've been on a reading kick in the last year. I typically have two Kindles at my bedside, just in case my batteries run down on the one, I have my backup ready to go. I go in streaks in my reading habits. I'll read several books about the Tudor dynasty, from fashion to fatalities, then I'll go off in another direction. I've read a number of fiction and non-fiction about Holocaust survivors, pioneer life, and a large number about addiction and its impact on families and society. Then I'll switch gears and read a bunch of books by the same author.

In the past year, I've re-read or read for the first time from "the classics"

• Orwell - 1984 and Animal Farm
• Dickens - A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, and David Copperfield
• Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying
• Fitzgerald - This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Great Gatsby
• Willa Cather - My Antonia
• Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row
• Hemmingway - The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and parts of In Our Time

The influence of reading these authors in rapid succession (I immediately start a new book within minutes of finishing the last book) is apparent in my writing, which is often disjointed and depending on what I most recently read, sometimes incomprehensible. 

I know they say that good writers are good readers, but in my case I feel as though the quality of my writing has decreased in the past couple of years. I don't quite know what to do about that, but I decided maybe I need to simplify things and go back to basics. So I'm picking up the collection of Laura Ingalls Wilder and reading the Little House series for the first time. 

I don't have a problem reading children's lit as an adult. I found re-reading Charlotte's Web this year refreshing. The sentences were clean and the storyline linear. I'm hoping for the same from Wilder. Time will tell. But, even now, as I'm halfway through her first book, I'm itchy to seek out the next title to read, so I ask you, "Whatcha reading?" and is it available on Kindle?

Contentment

 I tried resurrecting my blog last week, but today I'm realizing I did it on the wrong blog platform, so here we are again! The photo I'm posting has nothing to do with my starting back, but it does sort of reflect how I've been doing the past few years since moving to Georgia. Comfortable, but lazy. 

There's noting inherently wrong with what I've been doing (or not doing) but there hasn't been much noteworthy, either. I've just been lounging my way through life. A lot of that has to do with where I'm at mentally. 

Two years ago, I had a major mental health crisis shortly after we moved. No need to go into the details, except to say that I'm now on some pretty strong meds that do their job of keeping me on the right side of the grass, but they've dulled my spark. I go to bed at 7 and would easily sleep more than 12 hours, I find it hard to leave the house, and during the day it sometimes feels like I'm sleepwalking. 

Before moving, I was able to find a job, sell a house, buy a house, move my mom down with us (so managing two separate moving vans), and start a new job, all within a little more than a month. Okay, so that should have been a sign of either extreme motivation or mental illness, but hey, it all shook out.

I'm not thrilled with my lack of energy, but wanting to be alive is pretty friggin' nice. So is living with my supportive spouse, my mama, and a truckload of animals. So, while I can't say I'm completely happy with where things are at right now, I can say I'm content. 

From my perspective, contentment is preferable. Happiness can be fleeting. Happiness is a bolt of lightening on a cloudless day -- it gets your attention, but it's gone the second you see it. Contentment is longer lasting. It's built brick by brick. It's firm. It's sustainable. 

That doesn't mean that I have given up on happiness; it's just not my daily goal. Being a decent human being that left the world a little better each day by encouraging others, loving dogs, or doing something for my job that contributes to the betterment of society, that's worth striving for. Most days I feel like I've moved the needle in the right direction. That's all any of us can really hope for. I wish you all contentment.

In Memoriam - Mango: A girl's best friend

Mango: Approximately 2007-March 18, 2024

What do you say when you say goodbye to a companion who inspired you during some of the most formative moments of the last decade of your life? "Goodbye Mango. You were a good girl, and I will miss you." But that doesn't feel like enough. Let me share just a few of our highlights of the past decade-plus together.

Mango the Seminarian

Mango joined our pack when I was midway through seminary. She was by my side and hovering over me (literally, she was on my shoulder) during the drafting of many papers and sermons. When I had a shoulder surgery that went awry, she was my constant companion while I recuperated and drafted assignments with dictation software.

Pastor Mango

Exactly 10 years ago today, I submitted my ordination paper to the denomination's review committee. Mango escaped with me to a "secret location" where I sequestered myself for several days to crank out the volumes of pages needed to complete my requirements. Following acceptance of my paper, Mango accompanied me to my first call, living in a rooming house with her sister Kiwi, so that I didn't have to start my ministry alone. When I was ordained, Mango was there for the event, sporting a handmade crocheted alb and joining Supportive Spouse while he read a psalm proclaiming the wonder of creation. Mango also attended several worship services over the years, serving as the example of resurrection at Easter services and animal blessings.

Chaplain Mango

During the pandemic, when many of my pastoral visits occurred virtually, Mango took up the challenge and started participating in video visits with patients and their families. Oftentimes, care recipients would tell Mango things they hadn't said to me alone. My spiritual assessment tool I used with my patients was made up of the acronym from her name, a daily reminder of the connectedness of others and being rooted in something other than ourselves.

Mango the Friend

Over the years, Mango made countless visits to my parents, warming up slowly to my dad, a longtime lover of dogs, who's abilities had diminished over time, but he would always perk up and launch into story-telling, while stroking Mango's ear. Mango even won over my mom, who is more discerning. Throughout the past few years, Mango spent many hours snuggled up on mom's lap, while the two of them napped the afternoons away.

Mango the Attitude

I'd be remiss if I didn't get real for a moment and say that while Mango had many wonderful attributes, she was also a supreme pain in the butt with an outsized attitude and a stubborn streak surprisingly large for such a small creature. An accomplished escape artist, she was able to dig a hole under a fence and run more than a mile from home in a matter of a few minutes. For years, Mango sported a GPS collar that was nearly as large as her head. Not that it kept her home, but I was able to better track how far afield she had run. Once, she got as far as a middle school almost 2 miles from our home and back before I could manage more than a few blocks with an empty leash in my hands.

Mango the Inspiration

Probably the greatest gift Mango gave me was as an inspiration. She didn't just have a spiritual

transformation from the time she came to us as an emotionally wounded young dog. She physically changed appearance. In our earliest photos, Mango's ears were slack and her posture was submissive, her shoulders hunched and flinching at the smallest of movements. She would be frozen in obedience classes, too overwhelmed to absorb the lessons (it took her 6 months to feel comfortable enough around us to lay down). Yet after we told her for enough months that she was wonderful, she came to believe it herself - a spark lit in her eyes and her ears became pointed and erect. She carried herself with a confidence that couldn't have been imagined in those early months. The turning point seemed to have been when she had an expanding pellet surgically removed some months after joining our home. After we learned she had been shot, her reactions to loud noises made more sense.  One of the happiest days with her was the afternoon I came home from work and Mango ran to the bed and rolled over for a belly rub. The amount of confidence, combined with vulnerability, in that gesture brought me to tears.

Mango Forever

I cannot begin to capture what Mango meant to me in these words, nor do I expect anyone to get much out of my writing, but I am compelled to memorialize the girl who was so important in my life, as I suspect I was for her. She will forever be a part of my being. I will love Mango forever.

I've Moved!

Hi gang,

In case you check for updates here, rather than Facebook or other sites. I've been migrating my stuff over to a new blog hosting site at wordpress.com. Here's the latest posting: Thy people shall be my people.

I tried to keep my 'handle" mostly the same. You can find me at leftyforjesus.wordpress.com.

See you on the other side!

Lefty

Preparation Part 2

Those of you who "follow" this blog should know I'm considering moving from blogger to wordpress. I'm fiddling around with the software, etc. So it's not a done deal, but it seems to have a little more flexibility for posting on-the-go than Blogger has. Stay tuned.

Preparation

This has been a season of preparation. Earlier this fall, I prepared to meet with the committee who would decide whether I should be accepted by my denomination as a "Student in Discernment," a first step on a path to what I believe could be ordination.

Now I find myself preparing for Thanksgiving by taking time most days to note some small (or not-so-small) thing I am thankful for in my life. I am also preparing for the end of the semester by completing papers and projects. In addition, I decided a couple of weeks ago to apply for a merit scholarship at school, and now I am preparing to take the GREs next week by thinking about math equations that haven't crossed my mind in two decades.

I'm also preparing to go on my first international trip in nearly 25 years. This January, I'll be traveling to the Philippines for a two week "Global Justice" trip -- Global justice is a requirement for graduation. A trip to the Philippines is not. In anticipation of this trek, I've prepared physically by receiving more immunizations and preventive care for a two-week journey than most of the local inhabitants have likely had in a lifetime.

My other preparation is seeing if I can work with new technology to keep you posted once or twice while I'm gone about my journey. This is my fourth attempt at posting this via an old Palm Pilot and portable keyboard. I understand four times is a charm.

The great why

As I move through my seminary coursework, I run across variations of the same question with more and more frequency: Why? Why would a loving God “do” [fill in the blank with whichever injustice is on the questioner’s mind]? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why senseless wars? Why “evil” people? Why?

First, what I can say is that it’s not as if after you’ve paid a certain amount of tuition, you get led into a secret room and are given the answer to this burning question. Nope. No handbook. No secret decoder ring. When it comes to answers to questions like these, there isn’t much that’s dispensed at seminary that we can’t all work through on our own.

So, with that in mind, my response is solely my own. It’s been processed more as an outcome of my own heartache than any textbook. The answer might sound a little flip, and my apologies to anyone who is currently in deep pain and yearns for a different answer, but my response to the “Why would God do this?” is “It’s not God’s job.”

I know there are plenty of folks, some I love greatly, who are under the impression that God is the great dispenser of tangible gifts: money, sudden reversals of incurable diseases, jobs, mates, whatever. In this theological outlook, a person asks, and God gives or doesn’t give based on criteria beyond our understanding. No offense to people who take comfort in this way of living, but if that’s the case, God is a ginormous prick. I don’t care to spend my time in such company. It’s bad for my growth and it’s a bad precedent to set for an impressionable world.

So that leads to the question, what exactly is God’s job. That gets a little trickier. I heard a professor relay a scenario once, I don’t remember the particulars, but the upshot was something along the lines of, do you want a God who is not as powerful as some would lead us to believe, but is able to be present with us in our grief and suffering, or would you prefer an all-powerful God who is responsible for that grief and suffering?

There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, but how you might respond will likely have a great impact on your relationship with God and also with humanity. Why humanity, you might wonder? Well, it’s like this: Say you’re looking to help support the Kingdom of God here on Earth. If your idea of God is one who “allows” for war and suffering, then the Kingdom you are working toward is already here. If your idea of God is one who may not be able to deliver every desire, no matter how important it is for you as an individual, but this God is one who is willing to be present with you in times of trial, to bear witness in times of injustice, to feel with you the strong emotions of love…this is a Kingdom of God that you and I are able to participate in, in partnership with God, and in partnership with humanity.

While it doesn’t make the immediate pain of a particular situation any less, I’ve come to prefer a God of solidarity and compassion in the dark and lonely moments of our lives than to face the other kind of God in the dark alleys of my life.