I say a hip hop, a hippy to the hippity hip hop

Last night I had the pleasure of introducing my 4-year old son to Rapper's Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang. Why? During his bath, I start singing from out of nowhere: "hip hop a hippy to the hippity hip hip hop you don't stop rockin' to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogity beat". He started cracking up like nobody's business, so I told him I'd find the song on the internet. Moments later, we're looking at a YouTube performance of a short version of the song, which has some lyrics not 4-year old appropriate, but he was just totally transfixed. I had fun looking at the late-70s disco stylings too.....

running....running...

What a busy month it is turning out to be! Already 2/3 into it, and lots happening. The boy turned 4 a week ago, and is feeling his boyness. A great opportunity to transition into more (age-appropriate) chores and tasks. This is likely to make the mornings longer as the "do it myself" mode takes over. Yesterday the party with grandparents, so many thank yous to write--a fun haul and not too overwhelming.

Busy stuff at work too as we head into big changes a month and a half from now. Much planning, many steps, items to cross of the checklist. Also much coordination of parties involved, and I am the coordinator.... How well this is executed could be significant for me.

God-life: getting more involved in our church's women's ministry, learning how this side of church administration works, and getting to a different kind of teamwork than I see in my work environment, in both a good way and a bad way. Workplaces are in many ways more organized than churches (this church anyway) and to my pastor's credit he is placing appropriate emphasis on having our administrative ducks in a row so that the collective ministries can function the way they should. To my memory this is in keeping with passages in the New Testament that talk about the organization of the early church. Good administration is necessary to allow the spiritual side to work its work.

Still on rice cereal....

I picked up a hitchhiker on the way to work yesterday. This is a college town, and she looked young and wasn't carrying anything. She looked frazzled, smelled of cigarettes, and said that her car broke down last week--"engine totaled"--and had missed the bus. She also reminded me of an earlier version of myself, although I have never hitchhiked. She had that energy of barely keeping it together that 20-somethings can have before they discover strategies for implementing that "responsibility" that all of the older adults want to drum into them. We talked about surface stuff, where we worked (she at a daycare), I told her about my son, not too much else. There was deeper stuff going on that the short ride could not address, so I said and say a prayer for her and know it's just a matter of time before she gets to where she's going.

That meeting with my former self showed me how far I have come, but later in the day I was reminded that I'm still on rice cereal in a lot of other ways. We are planning our women's retreat at church, and met with the speaker last night. She has such a calm presence and way of ministering to women that came across in our hour-long conversation. I did not have much to offer and left that to the more senior leaders of the women's ministry team. Watching all of these women speak of the way God is working and how they interact with that, the patience, the surrendering, made me realize how much I still have to develop and that "I" (ego-I) have no reason to worry about not being there yet. May anyone who reads this feel cradled by Him!

On the library front: an interesting state history article (may require registration).

Not of the world

This recent NY Times article, about a pastor who has taken firm stances on keeping the work of God through the church out of the political fray, has been a topic of discussion in a few places lately. I wanted to post a comment I left on another blog here too, as well as further thoughts captured throughout the day. There are many questions here. Feel free to comment yourself.

The blog-comment: "I was very encouraged by this article, and admire Boyd greatly for taking a risk he felt God was calling him to take, one that cost him on the numbers side in terms of the congregation, and put some services at a disadvantage (children's ministry). Yet his move wasn't about power, it was about love and the mission of Jesus. We are in danger of making the same mistake folks did in Jesus' time, thinking that having him on our side will make a difference in temporal politics, as some of the Jews thought he would rescue them from Rome in a political/military sense. I say 'we' as all folks involved as citizens, conversative, liberal or in between. I think Jesus is above (or below?) this tug-of-war.

'Power under' is an interesting way to put it. If we are not to be of the world yet in it, we cannot help but respond to policies and laws made by our government [I would edit this to make it not conditional: we will respond to policies and laws as humans, but should strive to be not of the world]. But there is a clear way we are supposed to act: caring for and bringing comfort to the poor, sick, aging, lonely, etc. Sometimes it seems like we are supposed to do this within a governmental framework: working for better policies, supporting government agencies who do health and human services, etc. But is this not much more removed that what Jesus is calling us to do? He wants us to get involved, to clean feet, to actually feed people.

Having been involved in a peace activism group in recent past, and slowly becoming disillusioned with it, I have become increasingly convicted that I am supposed to be doing radical things in this regard, not operating on a policy-level. I am wrestling with this as a so-called 'progressive Christian', fan of Jim Wallis, regular voter, etc. It's risking loving people as deeply as Jesus did and calls us to do. Anyone who thinks this is easy with comfortable chairs and good music signed up for the wrong thing.

Politics is divisive, and this article shows it. I like what our church has put on some t-shirts: Love Wins. That should be uniting us."

More thoughts on the article, the pulpit, politics.

Conservative Christians should not be persecuting nor shunning their more liberal brothers and sisters in Christ, nor should Liberal Christians be taking glee in any downfall, unraveling or expose' of the Bushies and the Religious Right.

Thinking about congregations, is it right to leave your church when you disagree with the pastor? I stopped going to my mother-in-law's church partly because the pastor would insinuate right-leaning politics into a sermon every once in a while (without a lot of context around the comments). It seems that we should stick it out when the pastor says something difficult, something convicting, because it will help us grow in Christ, vs. bailing to find a church where there are more "people like us." Do the folks who left Boyd's church feel convicted at all to examine their views on these issues, or are they taking the easy way out? How would they have grown if they had stayed?

Should congregations hold their pastors accountable when values of the political world are espoused in sermons? Would the congregation be self-examining enough to know that they are not reacting from a political point of view themselves, vs. from Christ's point of view?