Rest

Today the world stopped. At least my corner of the world stopped. At 11:45am the power went out and and for 1.5 hours the world stopped spinning, at least that's how it seemed to me.

And it felt like heaven. 

For the first 1/2 hour I went through the usual routine of trying to discover why the power was out. Was it a breaker, was it just our house? I talked to a neighbor, using our landlord's phone since ours is cordless. She hadn't noticed, but when I told her she realized she had no power either. I called the hydro company and got the recorded message that unleashed my hour of bliss. "There is a broad scope power outage for the South western portion of Winnipeg. Crews have been dispatched and we have no estimated time for the completion of repairs", they said.  Or something like that, anyway.

Hmmm...

What to do? During that first 1/2 hour I had realized that I could not use the internet, I could not use my phone, I could not use my microwave, I could not work on the broth that I was cooking or the chili I had just started, I could not mark papers (had to access the internet for that), and I could not even drive my car since the garage door requires electricity. And I had no idea when I would be able to do any of those things again. I was completely alone and I had nothing to do. 

So I curled up in my bed and picked up a book and I read. And I read. And I read. That's it. 

For one hour I thought of absolutely nothing but the story. I heard no noise beyond the settling of the house. I felt no pull beyond the scope of the narrative in my hands, which was fascinating, by the way.

For one hour I was a child again. Even better, since there was no possibility of anyone calling me to come for lunch or clean out the dishwasher, or do my homework. I was free. 

Absolutely free.

And it felt great. 

But I didn't realize what had really happened until the power came back on. For the first while it was okay. I allowed myself the space to finish reading my book, but after that I set it down and returned to the tasks I had been doing prior to the 11:45 power down. 

And it was awful. It still feels awful.  

I didn't realize that for an hour I actually slipped into the precious space called "rest". Not the kind of rest where I flop in front of the tv too exhausted to actually do all the things on the to-do list. Not the kind of rest where I engage in another activity, placing other commitments on the back-burner. Not even the kind of rest that comes from a Sabbath-keeping commitment. It was the kind of rest where one slips into holy space. It was the kind of rest that the core of my being longs for, that is part of my very DNA and that I have not experienced in a very long time. So long, I can't even remember.

And I didn't realize how sacred it was until it was gone. Until the phone started to ring with 1-800 numbers. Till the broth was boiling while the meat was browning, and the marking of papers loomed, and deadlines again sprung into my consciousness. 

I didn't realize how long it had been since I experienced total silence inside and out. How long it had been since my brain focused entirely on one thing; laying aside the clamoring voices of this noisy demanding world and all its tasks. 

And honestly, all I feel now is disoriented. 

What does it mean when something as central to life as rest puts me into a complete tailspin? What does it mean when silence, and focus, and attentiveness is actually disorienting, rather than re-orienting? 

My body knows which state of being it prefers. It knows instinctively where it wants to reside. I do not feel at home in meaningless chaos. I do not feel at home in the world of multi-tasking and frantic unconscious movement from one task to another. My body has spoken to me loudly and clearly today.

I know that it isn't possible to live one's entire life in the state of rest that I experienced for one precious hour. But I wonder what it means to carry that rest with me into my everyday life. I wonder what it might look like to live in a space where full and complete rest is familiar and rejuvenating, rather than foreign and disorienting. 

Sometimes I'm frustrated by my current state of unemployment. There are days it feels like a curse. Alicia and I have talked about our first 6 months in Winnipeg being a self-supported sabbatical. A time to re-orient ourselves to our new surroundings. A time to settle. A time to pay attention. Perhaps it is also a time to discover what it really means to rest. 

Theology Matters!

Here I am, ranting again. And this is a rant that's been festering for a REALLY long time. Although for people who know me well they would say that this is a rant that they've heard for years. But it's a new rant for my blog and I'm feeling ticked, so here I go (again). 

Theology matters! It really does. And when I say this a lot of people would say, yeah, of course theology matters. It matters what we believe, how we interpret scripture, how we preach, how we explain our beliefs to other people, how we worship, how we live. These things matter. I don't know a lot of regular church-going people who would disagree with this statement. Theology matters, but does it matter all the time? Do we seriously pay attention to our words and practice consistently? By consistently I mean does our theology matter in various places, times, and with various groups of people? Well of course it does, right? Of course theology matters all the time. We can't just turn it on and off whenever we feel like it. Or can we?

I work a lot with children. I've read a lot of curriculum. I've heard a lot of children's times. I've led a lot of children's times. And one of the things I have noticed repeatedly is that theology doesn't matter for kids. Or at least adults seem to think it doesn't. Kids just need to be entertained. They don't really understand anyway. This stuff is really above their heads. We need to be age-appropriate. And even though a lot of people I meet wouldn't actually say these things, I've heard the stories, I've listened to the children's times, I've read the curriculum, and I've read between the lines and what I hear is that theology does not matter for kids.

Here I need to note that what I've noticed is not true across all times and places. I have read GREAT curriculum where the authors and editors have paid an incredible amount of attention to their theology (hear Gather 'Round here). I have read great children's Bibles such as those by Ralph Milton and Eugene Peterson and Desmond Tutu. And I have listened to fabulous children's times (I won't name all the people here because I'd forget someone). But generally I find that theology just doesn't matter when adults present things for children. 

I know, this sounds harsh. But when I hear a children's time that presents exactly the opposite theology as the sermon (in the same service) I just shake my head. When I read a children's Bible that moves straight from Jesus' ascension to Revelation I just shake my head (what happened to the rest of the NT?). When I listen to adults talk about how they have wrestled throughout their lives to reconcile some piece of their faith because of what they were taught when they were 5, I just shake my head. When I hear a theology of atonement taught to little ones that their parents would absolutely reject if it was preached from the pulpit, I just shake my head. And when churches require a master's degree for their lead pastor, and at the very least an undergrad degree for their associate or youth pastor, but have just anybody doing the work of leading the ministry to their children, including researching curriculum, I just shake my head. 

And I'm not saying that every single church needs to hire a person with a master's degree to work with Sunday school, but we do need to pay attention. The theology taught in our Sunday schools is the theology that our churches will follow in 20 years, I can almost guarantee it. A church that embraces a peace position but uses a generic "non-denomination" curriculum mass-produced in the U.S. will eventually have no peace position. What we teach our children, how we nurture our children's faith matter. A LOT! Our images of God and our understanding of our relationship to God is formed really really early on. This was only too evident in the atonement class I took in seminary where students struggled to hear various atonement theories, not able to release or augment whatever they had learned as young children, even if intellectually they knew that understanding to be deficient or in some cases simply wrong.

Theology matters for everyone. With every ounce of my energy with every cell in my body I know this. My heart aches when I hear children taught carelessly because I know that down the road those children will struggle and in some cases suffer greatly because of the lack of thought that went into their nurture. I will never forget the video we saw in our Human Sexuality and Christian Ethics class where a woman shared about her experience of being sexually abused; an experience exacerbated by the ill chosen words and detrimental theology presented to her in her Sunday school classes. My heart ached as I heard her story knowing that, while her church likely could not have prevented the abuse she experienced, they could have provided her with an understanding of God, of love, and of community that would have greatly impacted her healing. And though I can't remember exactly what her Sunday school teachers said to her, I remember thinking that I had heard those words from countless other mouths. They were not intentionally hurtful words, they were simply careless. 

And I know it is difficult to take theological concepts and complex biblical stories and present them to young children. I know this very well. However, I also know that it is possible to do so without compromising the message. I most often think of it as progressive revelation. Whatever we teach our children now must be consistent with what we hope they will know and grow into throughout their faith journey. It may be somewhat incomplete, but it cannot be in opposition. It cannot be in opposition! I cannot say this loudly or emphatically enough!

Right now I am marking papers for an undergrad class and sometimes I am shocked. These kids are struggling. Their theological world is being shattered in many cases, and not because they come from churches that embrace a different theological position than their professor or the school, though this is the case for a few individuals. Primarily their faith is being shattered because they have been entrusted with a simplistic and theologically compromised Gospel that in many cases is no Gospel at all. It is a list of dos and don'ts. It is a vending machine God. It is simplistic and individualistic. It is moral therapeutic deism. It is not a firm foundation on which to stand. It is not a foundation on which to grow. It is a shaky foundation that at best leads them to semi-regular church attendance and guilt-laden prayers and at worst leaves them feeling morally superior to non-Christians or those who share different understandings of morality. 

It is not okay to read a story to children in church about how we should be nice to people. It is not okay, even implicitly, to teach children that God is like a cosmic vending machine who is there to solve all our problems. It is not okay to teach our children that if we behave ourselves and are "good" little boys and girls then we will have everything we want. It is not okay to allow children's time or Sunday school to become less than a genuine proclamation of the Gospel message. And by genuine I mean full, deep, whole, biblically-based, theologically sound, and consistent with the teachings of our congregations. This is what we strive to offer our adults, what we strive to offer our youth, and what we have the responsibility to offer every child in our midst.

My heart aches.

Still Here, Still Passionate

Yes, I'm still here, no I've not given up on blogging. 

I find people blog for various reasons. One is to keep family and friends far away (or in the immediate vicinity, which I find odd) updated on their lives. Some people blog as a way of scrapbooking their children's lives. Some people blog as a way of processing their own personal work, like having an online therapist. Some people blog as a way to tell their story, to be heard. Some people blog in order to network with others. And then there are people like me who blog when they get upset or, as I prefer to think, righteously indignant about something. It's cathartic and I guess lately I just haven't been that ticked off. Or when I have been, I haven't been near my computer!

So if I'm not upset, why am I blogging you might ask. Well, today I'm choosing to use my blog for another, no less passionate purpose; advocacy! Winnipeg has two very important and valuable resources that I think need a plug (whether they're looking for one or not!). 

First, Mediation Services. This is a great organization that I think is being totally underused by churches. If Alicia didn't work there in the front office, I would never have known the extent of what they do. They are busy, they are successful and they are providing awesome services to a lot of people. A large part of what they do is actually provide mediation services for groups and individuals. They work closely with the court system, but they also work a lot with large and small businesses and more personal matters. Apparently they are the place to go when you and your neighbor just can't get along. But what I think is tremendous is the amount of classes and certificates that they offer and this is where I think churches need to get on board. 

This last week I took a one-day class called "Managing Unresolvable Problems." Where was this class when I was in seminary!? It was fabulous.Churches and schools, especially those that welcome hearing from people with varying opinions are constantly confronted by issues that cannot be resolved (worship wars, theological differences, tradition vs. change, planning vs. action etc.) The instructor was engaging and taught the material as one who has lived with it for a long time (thought he's not that old, probably about 40). And one of my favourite aspects of the class was its practicality. I learned theory interwoven with story, interwoven with practical application. We were up and moving in the room, we were working together, we were all actively engaged the whole time. Did my mind wander occasionally? Yes. But the reason it wandered was because I was actively imagining how I could use the material in various settings. And this was possible because he wasn't trying to cram TONS of material into one day. The amount of material was manageable! Quite a difference from seminary where I felt like I could never really internalize anything and figure out how to apply it because there was always more theory to learn. 

As I sat in this class all I kept thinking was where are the pastors? All those pastors who struggle with presenting a vision, with managing conflicting opinions, with living up to bizarre expectations because their predecessor did something that worked initially, but in the end led the church right back into their old rut. 

And Mediation Services offers so many more classes. Next week I'm taking "Dealing with Change", and I can't wait to take "High Stakes Conversations", "Culture and Conflict", "Dealing with Difficult People", "Transforming the Argument", and "Generations at Work". These are short one or two day seminars that give you a small amount of theory and practical tools that can really be applied anywhere (home, work, church etc.). Because the groups they work with are so diverse, they really present things in a way that can be helpful to everyone there. At least that was my experience. 

And taking that class reminded me that I really am a practical concrete learner, something that I struggled with a lot in my undergrad and grad work where abstraction is valued. For once I felt in my comfort zone!

This is really a great resource. So pastors out there who have continuing education budgets, this might be the place for you! It would be money well-spent. Here is the link to the Resolution Skills Centre which is the training wing of Mediation Services. http://www.resolutionskills.ca/

Second, the Mennonite Church Canada Resource Centre. This is another fabulous resource for Canadian churches. They carry books dealing with peace, theology, spirituality, music, children's ministry, youth ministry, pastoral care, children's books, curriculum, cd's, dvd's etc. The staff there do an amazing job at looking at what's out there and choosing good quality material that support an Anabaptist Christian understanding of the Gospel and what it means to be the church. Again, they have high quality material. It never ceases to amaze me what I can find when I go there. They also have a large database of downloadable material. Is your church looking at different ways to do parent/child dedication? Just go to their site and download material from various churches. Are you wondering what books you might like to put in your church library? Visit the site, or the centre and see what's new.

The material is not all Mennonite, though certainly anything published by Mennomedia can be found there. The staff make an effort to draw from many sources in order to offer the best material to their constituents. If you are part of an MC Canada church, this resource is FREE. And when I say FREE, I really mean it. If you live in B.C. and you see a book you'd like to check out, just call up the centre, or email and they will send it to you for FREE. And you can send it back for FREE. If you belong to a different denomination, you too can benefit from all the FREE-ness just by paying a small yearly fee (it really is small, like $20 or something). 

Right now the Centre's website takes a bit of practice to navigate, but coming soon is a brand new website that will be really user friendly, at least from what I've seen. 

This really is a great resource. I know, I know. You can just order it on Amazon. It's so much easier. It is easier, but it also costs money. And if you don't know what you're looking for, Amazon can be an nightmare to navigate. You can find anything on Amazon, and that includes a whole lot of crap. The resource centre does so much of the work for you and their staff are knowledgeable.They also give you the opportunity to practice creation care and good stewardship by checking out a book before you buy it or using it without having to buy your own copy. Church libraries should be all over this place!

Check it out!

http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/resourcecentre/Home 

All this is to say that I strongly support Mediation Services, and I strongly support the Mennonite Church Canada Resource Centre.

I'm not sure if you noticed.