That’s me. At one time, my partner Megan worked for Luther Seminary in St. Paul, during which time she began a support blog for the spouses of seminary students in the distance learning program she coordinated. So surely it’s only …
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Solving life’s mysteries one pondering at a time
An inquisitive guy, I often find myself asking questions out loud like, “I wonder why it takes organic milk so much longer to sour than non-organic milk?” Every day or so, I’ll ask another question to Megan or someone around me (I have very patient friends). Well, I finally answered the organic milk mystery a few months ago, and I’ve got a wee list started of similar ponderables I plan to tackle over the next few weeks.
Today’s question: why do bees gather around the front of our car this time of year?
I’ll tackle this one in sections. First off, why this time of year? Well, late summer is the time queens leave the nest and mate (queen bees, that is). So all over Grand Forks you’ll see bees and wasps buzzing this time of year. Indeed, our favorite restaurant Rhombus Guys has a “sit on the roof at your own risk” type sign since there’s so many bees around these days — waiter Tony really enjoys killing them, though. Friends of ours who live downtown have a hole in the brick wall outside their window. The sight is amazing: hundreds of bees buzzing in and out of the hole inches from their window. There must be thousands in the wall. According to this article, they’re looking for mates and will seek out a wintering spot soon.
Ok, but why do bees hang near cars, and specifically, near the front of vehicles? I’ll be honest, this is a tough one. Internet research — usually so reliable — brought up many possibilities and dead ends. I feel most confident, however, that the reason doesn’t have to do with sap or dead bugs or pollen. Instead, I’m convinced by a few who have said the reason bees gather near the front of vehicles this time of year is because they are drawn to the smell of anti-freeze.
The anti-freeze explanation convinces me, because you can walk down a parking lot with cars of various sap or pollen levels, clean cars and dirty, buggy grills and shinny ones, and bees don’t seem to consistently swarm at any one of these factors. However, they certainly are attracted to something about some of the vehicles, and I propose that something is the sweet smell of antifreeze, which comes especially from the cars that are warmer and have been driven more recently.
Do I have any inside info or significant knowledge to backup my assertion? Absolutely not. It’s a semi-educated guess, so if you want to burst my bubble and have a better idea, please let me know. Until then, however, I’ll call this one of life’s mysteries solved. Case closed, bee happy.
image by kd kelly
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Sermon: Approaching Politics
First Presbyterian Church of Hallock, Minn.
Aug. 29, 2010
Approaching Politics
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Yesterday was the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. You may have noticed this anniversary more this year than some, because yesterday the conservative “entertainer educator” Glenn Beck held a rally at the Lincoln Memorial. The liberal Rev. Al Sharpton held a protest rally nearby. Sarah Palin spoke at Beck’s rally. Jim Wallis spoke at Sharpton’s. You can watch the news for the details, but let’s just say the dueling rallies led more to creative finger pointing than friendly hand holding.
To mark the “I Have a Dream” anniversary, National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” hosted a show on King this week. As usual, the show included several guests, scholars and admirers of King’s work. But the experts disagreed. Now this is NPR so they did so respectfully without any yelling, but their disagreements were pretty significant.
An African-American pastor and writer for a conservative/libertarian magazine argued that if Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today he would surely be a social conservative and bemoan the decline of family values. … Continue Reading
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Review: “Putting Away Childish Things” by Marcus Borg
I have never read a novel as didactic and self-conscious as Marcus J. Borg’s Putting Away Childish Things (May 2010, HarperOne), but I thoroughly enjoyed the book and whole-heartedly recommend it. I’ve read many of Marcus Borg’s books, as assignments at St. Olaf College and for fun, and admire his work (even if I don’t always agree with him). Putting Away Childish Things is Borg’s first venture into fiction, and he admits in the preface that the work is a “teaching novel.” Also, quite interestingly, he notes that if he were not already an established author, the novel might not have been published. That would have been a shame, though, because many a book group will enjoy discussing Putting Away Childish Things, and many a questioning Christian’s faith will be sustained by the story.
The novel follows Kate Riley, a youngish popular religion professor and a liberal arts college in a small midwestern town. Kate’s career is coming along swimmingly — she’s published two book and a year away from tenure — when Kate faces unexpected challenges from several angles. From one corner, her recent book on Jesus’ birth narratives in the Gospels makes her a punching bag of the religious right. From the other, those in the secular academy feel her work is becoming too popular. As Kate fends off attacks from the religious right and secular left, she receives a surprise letter asking her to apply for a yearlong teaching appointment at an Episcopal seminary. Her inner struggle deepens — should she apply for the position? Would she enjoy teaching in a Christian setting? Where is God calling her? Are her choices motivated by fear or faith?
That’s the story, but the function of the novel is to teach. Through Kate’s lectures and her encounters with students and professors, the reader engages significant questions about the nature of faith, how to read the Bible, the historical Jesus, the morality of homosexuality, and the study and practice of religion. The reader also enjoys a view of Kate’s own faith, her journey to become a liberal Episcopalian, and the challenge of discerning her vocation.
If you’re looking for a natural novel, this is not it. The book feels even more staged than Brian McLaren’s didactic novels in the A New Kind of Christian trilogy. But even so, I enjoyed Borg’s work more. Borg’s character development is richer, and besides a few loose ends (and some pretty awful dialog), the story is plenty believable. So much so, in fact, that one wise professor character sounds remarkably like Borg himself (he’s a fiction writing rookie so we can cut him some slack). And, ok, I loved the positive mention of midwestern Lutheran college choirs — Borg, himself, is a Concordia College grad but I’ve had lunch with him at St. Olaf, so surely he’s seen the light.
Not too many bestselling authors grew up in North Dakota (purely because of the small population, mind you). But Borg did, so when I received my review copy, I was a bit biased towards giving Putting Away Childish Things a favorable review. But, truly, it’s a good read and a helpful one. If I were teaching an introduction to Christianity class or an adult confirmation course, it might be my primary text. The novel won’t win any awards for literature, but it’s not really trying to either. Instead, Borg uses the novel form to do what religion professors do — teach about religion — and I’m glad he accomplishes this task so well.
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When God goes to school
When I was young, I approached each new school year with a mixture of anxiety and excitement. My love for learning kept me going, but who knew what embarrassments awaited me in the cafeteria. And who would sit by me on the bus?
At some point along the way (in elementary school, I hope) I remember having a breakdown and complaining to my parents in no uncertain terms that I no longer wanted to go to school. I figured I would be just fine sitting at home reading books and researching on the computer. I didn’t want to deal with the challenges of actually going to school. I think my repeated response to my parents’ pleas was the ever-so-popular childish response, “But, why?”
My parents, in their very patient ways, explained the importance of what I would experience at school – the learning, the relationships, the personal growth – and then my dad said something that’s stuck with me. “School is sort of like your job,” he said, “I go to work every day, and you go to school. It’s where you’re supposed to be.” Dad didn’t quite use theological language, but he was getting at the notion of one’s calling, one’s vocation. My elementary-aged calling was to go to school and learn. It’s what society expected I do, but it was also what I could do to serve God best as well.
John Calvin, the father of Presbyterian theology, was a master intellect (and had a profound sense of spirituality). Calvin emphasized the importance of knowledge of the world, but always with the reminder, “that the knowledge of all that is most excellent in human life is said to be communicated to us through the Spirit of God.” Knowledge is a gift from God, just like school. So kids, parents and grandparents, learners everywhere, study away. It’s God’s gift. And as the poem below suggests, keep your eyes open for you might even see God.
Paradise High
by Marcus GoodyearGod slouches at the front of the universe
leaning against his desk, taking roll
with a red pen in his spiral book of life.
He teaches every subject himself,
every grade, every student. He leads
every parent conference appearing
as principal, department head, counselor,
and teacher. At night he walks the halls
alone with a broom and a trash can.
He’s not too grand to pick up
the wad of gum some kid mashed … Continue Reading
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My DOs and DON’Ts of Children’s Sermons
The tricky truth about children’s sermons is that it’s easier to come up with bad ones than good ones.
Yesterday, a Sunday morning Twitter exchange with a few pastors got me thinking about my children’s sermon approach, and how it differs from many of my colleagues. For example, when I saw this site and the idea of teaching about the bentover woman in Luke 13 with a bent spoon, I laughed out lout and closed my browser tab immediately. Later, when I had time to reflect, I found some redeeming qualities to the suggestion, but the bent spoon as an object lesson still puts me off (as if osteoporosis is anything like a bad ice cream scoop — that’s insulting both to our adults with bad backs and to our children’s intelligence!). So, here’s a few of my children’s sermons DOs and Don’ts:
DO:
- My main resource is usually the Bible, usually a story (I say more here ). I don’t tend to tell moralistic stories from life – there’s plenty of time for those outside of worship. Non narrative scripture lessons can work too, but narrative is probably better.
- Teach about worship, liturgy, our worship space, traditions, etc. For example, our congregation often sings the psalm appointed for the day, but rarely did so before I was pastor. So, as we began this practice, the children and I talked about singing psalms, and where we could find them in the Bible.
- One point. One point. One point. I try to make one point and stick to it.
- I’ve found that hand motions and using our bodies together works very well – I thought a very effective children’s sermon took place when the reading was on a version of the Lord’s Prayer, so I taught hand motions to the prayer and everyone – children and older folks – prayed it together with the motions.
DON’T
- I don’t use myself as an example except to connect with the children (and not to connect or get a laugh from the non-children congregants).
- I don’t usually use an object in my children’s sermons. If I do, it’s often a picture and very tied to the point of the children’s sermon rather than a traditional “object lesson.” It’s not that I hate objects (though Calvin did call most of them “idols,”) rather what I understand about children’s learning development is that most of the kids who come up for our children’s sermon can’t yet make the intellectual leap from an object to a point loosely tied to the object — “This chocolate is sweet, just like God is sweet to us” or anything like that. If it doesn’t connect very clearly, I don’t use it.
- I don’t view the children’s sermon as entertainment for the congregation, so I don’t try to get the children to say funny things the congregation will enjoy; I keep open-ended questions to a minimum. Besides missing the point of worship, laughing at the children makes them objects that entertain rather than fellow worshipers. Objectification in worship is never good.
- I don’t feel I must connect the children’s sermon point to the longer sermon later, or even use the same text. Sometimes a children’s sermon is a good way to teach a lectionary text not used otherwise.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’m certainly not a gifted children’s sermonizer, and I’m always looking to learn more. For example, last time I posted on children’s sermons, someone commented about a UMC church she knew where the children’s sermon happened on a special rug unrolled for the occasion, on which the kids and a pastor huddle. But that pastor doesn’t have a microphone, and another pastor with a microphone shares announcements from the pulpit while the children quietly huddle around the other pastor. Everyone worships, but the children aren’t made the center of it. Sounds heavenly to me.
image by Flavio Takemoto
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Barack Obama is not a Muslim (well, it depends who you ask)
A Pew research poll yesterday found that only 34% of Americans can correctly identify President Obama as a Christian. This number is down 17 percentage points from those who identified his Christian faith correctly during the 2008 campaign (apparently folks are forgetful about their leader’s faith?). 24% of Americans incorrectly believe Obama is Muslim. (And the Pew poll was conducted before Obama weighed in on the Park51/Cordoba House project question. Here is a similar TIME poll.)
Before I go further, let me follow Amy Sullivan’s lead (here) and note what must be said at this point. Sullivan writes:
Let me pause for a moment here to say that it is of course not a smear to call someone a Muslim. It is, however, obnoxious to say someone is a member of a religious faith when he’s not–and to insist that he is not a member of the tradition he does claim. It would also be foolish and naive to pretend that conservatives who call Obama a Muslim are doing it in a neutral way and that their intention is not to raise questions about his “otherness.”
By the way, for those who actually want to think deeply on Obama’s faith, pick up a copy of The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield. But here’s what this outrageous poll data causes me to ponder:
First, I’m struck by the fact that though I interact with hundreds of people personally and professionally, I’d be hard-pressed to name more than a handful who might believe President Obama is Muslim. But, according to the poll, 1 in 4 Americans believe so. This reminds me of my sheltered nature, of the cliquishness of American life, and my self-selected friends and relations. Additionally, since Obama’s faith practically never comes up in regular conversation, I wonder if perhaps I’m just way off presuming my friends and relations have accurate understandings of Obama’s faith.
Second, who knows how really to delve into such things via a poll, but I wonder how much the faith poll numbers would correspond to more overt racism if pollsters asked the right question. My guess is that many of those who believe Obama is Muslim might also be very uncomfortable with those of other faiths and those of other skin colors in general. (For example, the TIME poll finds, “Nearly one-third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President.”) Perhaps it’s the case that maligning Islam is somehow culturally okay, while overtly using racial epithets crosses a time-honored line.
Finally, I profoundly disagree with Sullivan’s statement in her analysis that, “In a perfect world, nobody would give a hoot whether the president went to church or said grace before meals or ever uttered one word publicly about his religious beliefs.” Religious belief is hugely important to me, as is any moral underpinnings or claims about the end times, or belief in divine interventionism, or God’s loving nature, or God’s non-existence, etc.. I will happily vote for candidates of many religious faiths (or none), but I will always seek to do so considering a candidate’s faith, thoughtfulness, and positions on the issues. I appreciate Sullivan’s reporting, but I’ll go to my grave professing that faith matters matter. And that’s what’s awesome about the US and the First Amendment — and very scary about this poll data.
Update: Amy Sullivan reflects a bit more on 8/20/10 in “Are One-Quarter of Americans Freakin’ Morons”
Creative Commons image by Alex Johnson
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One Hundred Sermons
A few weeks ago, thankfully without any fanfare, I preached my 100th sermon. I know this number not because I carefully keep track, but because there are 100 files in my computer’s “Sermon” folder. Many of you more seasoned pastors …
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Blogging the PC(USA) General Assembly for The Presbyterian OUTLOOK
Here’s a list of my PC(USA) General Assembly blog posts for The Presbyterian Outlook. – Wrap Up & Pack Up – A Fair Hearing? an explanation of the procedural questions on the definition of marriage at General Assembly. – The Questions Coming Sunday Morning – Contemplate This, …
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