Best Laid Plans

Stressed is not the right word for how I have been feeling the last few weeks.  It's more accurately "squeezed".  Deadlines are looming.  Endings are coming.  The pressures are coming from outside, and finding fortitude and perseverance enough to meet these are seemingly lacking.

I find in times where I am squeezed, I escape in lists.  Making lists helps to make it all seem more organized and having a plan makes what is squeezing seem less constricting.  These days I have been making lists and then forgetting where I put them.  They find their way to scratch pieces of paper before disappearing into oblivion.

Today I was making a packing list with my husband for our upcoming honeymoon.  It will be a delightful camping road trip with stops for frivolity and playfulness.  We had made our first honeymoon list some weeks before, when we didn't even know the destination yet, including all the things we would hope for.  Things like: buying matching t-shirts, camping on a beach, eating pie in sunny cafes, roasting marshmallows.  Through that list, I could breath into the dreams, escaping into the borrowed sunshine of a trip yet to be.

Today's list was more technical.  Our camping gear is spread out to three different locations: somewhere in our apartment, heaped in Michael's childhood bedroom, and mounded in my parent's basement.  Where are our tents (yes, plural.  We might have 6 total)?  How many stakes do we have? Do we need to buy extra fuel tanks/a different sleeping bag/more wool hiking socks?  What kind of groceries do you buy for a month long camping extravaganza?

Not surprising, I spilled coffee on the scratch paper list.  And I didn't even clean it up for a good two minutes, just letting the small puddle be on the coffee shop table.  I have an inkling that it was my way of letting be the squeeze.  It exists, and it is temporary.  In the meantime, the only way is through.  A little coffee stain in the corner doesn't hurt to content.  Though maybe I'll type out this list as well...

Happy Travels and spring blessings, dear friends.

Knit and what not

This winter has been filled with yarn.

While taking a slightly lighter load and little student employment, I have gotten more serious about being a knitter for hire.  Having opened an etsy site https://www.etsy.com/shop/SelbuRose and networked friends for holiday purchases for family and friends with cold fingers, I am more in business than I have been previously.

I am even selling a few mittens at the Luther bookstore.  But after Christmas, my stock being quite decimated, I needed to make more (and quick) for stocking before their big winter conference.  And when knitting for church folks, or just to entertain myself, I decided to knit them in liturgically correct colors. Understanding, of course, that there will be only a small sliver of the population which might notice or pick up on my cleverness.

The whole liturgical set: Ordinary Time, Pentecost, Advent, Good Friday, and Lent

In Ordinary Time

Advent

And Pentecost.

Book Ravings

When I started this blog, it began as a way for me to measure and chronicle my life in simple things: in coffee stains.  In the idea that I could track what I was thinking about, wondering, and noticing in the world.  Coffee spills became the opportunity for me to reflect on grace-- for myself and for others, in the way in which I could mark time and milestones.  To stop and think about how this small incident, small mistake, can be about something in the greater whole of my life.  It became a place for mindfulness, to slow down and think and make connections: how does this small moment matter to my greater being and becoming.


Every once in a while, you find the very right book; or rather, it finds you.  There is magic in hearing someone else's voice, thoughts, dreams and wonderings echo into yours.  For me, right now, that book is Barbara Brown Taylor's Altars in the World: A Geography of Faith.

And this is a small taste of a greater feast:

"To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger-- these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology.

All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir.

Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy.  

And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone.In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life."

See.  I told you. 

Work Clothes

I spilled coffee on my alb.  For those I have confused all ready: an alb is the white robe which pastors sometimes wear when leading worship.  And generally, there is no good way to wear an alb if you are also female, best to just accept that it'll look goofy.  Initially when I started internship this year, I was really hesitant about the fashion of my alb.  I have since embraced its function, that it's a symbol and also a way for worship to not be about me.  I take enough grief about what I wear as a pastor-type, sometimes the alb is a reminder that it's not what I wear or what I look like which matters.  

Sunday morning and I am doing pulpit supply for an area church while their pastor is on vacation.  (pulpit: the podium a pastor uses to preach from.  pulpit supply: well, that the pastor who usually there is absent, so someone needs to fill in.  It's like substitute teaching for preachers.)  Because it's not my church I had to bring my extra stuff. In my hands I had internet driving directions (which were of course, not accurate), sermon, alb on a wire hanger with cross and rope belt (which also has a church-y name, but I won't bore you with it), keys, purse, mittens; and because it's morning, my coffee.  Holding all these things and keeping my composure was... trying.

As I walk into the church, blown by the prairie wind across the snowy landscape.  My rope belt is dragging, I am nearly tripping over it and my coffee is sloshing around.  The sermon is between my teeth, which makes it difficult to smile at the nervous looking church go-ers. 

Things were looking up when I met my acolyte, a bubbly seventh grader who was not shy in telling me what's what.  After I shared with her the horror stories of acolytes lighting their hair on fire, it was time to dress for the service.  She took the white acolyte robe off her hanger. 

"I've never understood why these have to be white."  Thinking of the spot of spilled coffee on the sleeve of my alb, I concurred.  She went on, "They look so goofy and you can see through them so you can see your not white underneath."  And they also clashed with her neon green shoes.

As I buttoned my own alb at the shoulders, "They are supposed to remind us of our baptismal gowns."

She grabbed her acolyte candle stick, "When my sister was baptized, I spilled formula all down her front.  BEFORE the service.  My mom had to clean her up before they could take pictures."

I nodded, while I remembered the day my niece was baptized.  My mom was holding her during the sermon (post-baptism) when she whispered to me in the pew behind her. "Do you have your Tide bleach pen?"  Apparently heritage baptismal gowns and blown out diapers don't mix well.  My niece, meanwhile, was sleeping on her belly on top of her grandma's lap-- while grandma furiously applied the stain remover to her bum, while being discreet, of course.

Minutes later, I was standing in front of people I didn't know, as they were waiting for me to say something of profound worth.  Taking a deep breath, I was glad suddenly that I had dressed for the occasion in a garment which reminded me that it's not about me.  And I have a coffee stain to prove it.

When Coffee is free, and Tow Trucks are not

Remember all those lovely things I said about Minnesota snowstorms last week?  I take some of them back and add this caveat: travelling in wintry weather, stinks.

Also, I found a friendly gas station outside Elbow Lake, when I brought up a just-filled up coffee cup the kindly high school kid behind the counter told me, "we don't charge for coffee here".  Could have hugged him.  Who would have guessed the unexpected blessing of a free cup of coffee with a side order of small talk.

I was still sipping that free coffee and hanging unto its good feelings as I was waiting for the tow truck in the ditch on the banks of Flekkefjord Lake.  Snow was pouring unto my windshield, making the road more impassable every minute.  I was berating myself for my poor winter driving skills, grace for myself came in every free coffee sip.  These things happen, after all.  Begrudgingly I (sip) was reminded that this is the second tow truck I needed in the last two days.  If only tow trucks were as gracious as free gas station coffee.  Tow trucks should have punch cards.  After four tows, the fifth one is free.  And these should be recognized by all tow trucks everywhere.  I should design a business plan (sip) for more gracious towing.  Then again, the guy with the fifth tow, I would be robbing him of part of his livelihood and the way in which he supports his family.  And I can't imagine its an easy job, (sip) meeting up with people who have met with misfortune, adrenaline and  frustration coursing through their veins making mostly nice people into insensitive jerks.  They should get paid for that.  

I sighed.  Waved at the kindly police officer parked on the side of the road.  Soon, my tow truck deliverer arrived.  Leaving my Grace Coffee in its cup holder; I donned my red stocking cap, pulled on blue mittens and stepped into wet snow drift up to my hip.  Tow Man #2 smiled at me and asked, "You got 50 bucks?"  Sighing again, I wrote out my check, and dreamed of tow truck punch cards while looking for other signs of lived-out graciousness in this wet-snowy landscape.    

Gifts of a Minnesota Snowstorm

"Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed." -- Mary Oliver 

I have been thinking lately of the significance of a Minnesota snow storm.  For a little while, it's all we can talk about, the moisture falling from the sky coming to nourish the earth (eventually), consumes our conversation, our attention and my Facebook news feed.  The flurries of conversation echo the flurries of flakes.  Both have a hunger for mystery.  Snow comes and disguises the ground.  Is that a snowbank or a sleeping giant?  Why could be hiding in the covered evergreen?  It also makes all the hard edges of the landscape soft, and looking at the snow, the whiteness might for a moment be considered warm.

I miss terribly my dear friend, Mandy, who delights in a snowstorm.  Having a low tolerance for cold, I borrow some enthusiasm from her.  She loves the snow in the same manner as a large dog would; her personality in all its gregarious graciousness is very like these creatures.  She is many things I am not, which makes our friendship a beautiful give and take.  I wish today, as if the falling snowflakes were falling stars, for a coffee date with conversation to borrow some of her snowy spirit.  They glisten almost the same, perhaps it'll work.

It is March, and the snow is starting to wear on me.  As a native Minnesotan still living in state, I need to remind myself of an old creed of mine: "You may not be upset with snow when it comes between Halloween and Easter.  After or before, be mad.  In between, embrace what is." Snow drives people like Mandy, bless her, out into the whiteness filled with wonder.  Her laughter fills me with delight.  Snow drives people inside, to cozy fires, sweats and socks, to old movies, popcorn and quality time with each other.  Winter warmth might not be in the sunshine, but it is in the company of one another.  And in each others' shelter, the people live, grow, and are nourished by the snow.

Good Guesting

I work in a church, and often when we talk about hospitality, it's about giving it; not accepting.  What I mean is, as a church we have fashioned ourselves as permanent host-- forgetting that we are also called to be guest.  As a theological thinker in training, this makes all kinds of connections to me about ecclesiology and missiology (translation of super church-y words: how we are "church" together, and how we practice being church in the world).  But this blog was made for telling stories, making connections, everyday revelations and small epiphanies.  I digress.

Once upon three weeks ago, I had the privilege of "getting away" to somewhere I still consider home.  I went back to the City, to the company of familiars, and stayed.  I relied on people I love to care for me.  I ate with them, read books, had conversation, drank wine, shared music and stories, laughed and cried.  The people I love are home to me, and I needed to lean into the gift of that homing as I relied on them for shelter, and their gift of hospitality: a warm bed, a cat to snuggle which wasn't mine (sorry Cloe), and conversation both cathartic and vulnerable.  And in the meantime, stunningly beautiful.

I would like to consider that good guesting is in itself a spiritual practice.  There is a vulnerable opening up to bring myself out of my carefully constructed idea about "home" and inhabit alongside someone else's.  The openness to be gifted, instead of the more powerful position of doing the gifting-- it's a humbling experience.  Through these days spent in different company, I learned valuable lessons about what "home" means.  I was home in a place where I do not live.  I was home in the company of those I love, who willingly made space for me to be.

The practice of good guesting need not involve going away.  I think about conversations over coffee where I do most of the listening, and let the other "host" the conversation.  I think about making the space for a rant to happen, or space where you allow someone to cry and mourn.  Good guesting is a practice of space for the other; and being willing to receive as well as give.  

And then there's this idea circulating in my head about "home".  Throughout my twenties "home" was a nebulous idea, connected somehow to another nebulous idea: Love.  In my very wise thirty years (ha), I can deduce that love is about people, and home is where love is found.  "Home" is so often tied to a building, a dwelling, a house.  I am beginning to think this definition too narrow.  A dwelling can be the centering, it can shelter people, but it is in the living, and in the living the acceptance of love in between.  This is home.  People could live in a building for years with those they are related to and never feel at home.  The same idea makes a college dorm, a church, a hostel, a person, or a passing-through-place all expressions of home.  Even though I live alone with my cat on the prairie, I can still be at home with love and acceptance of myself, the neediness of my cat (which I experience as affection), and the love I share with the community just outside my door.

Since I know love, I can make a home in this world, a home within myself, and a home between those I meet.

All of this springing from my musings about being a guest.  My friends gave me shelter, their house keys,  good food, permission to come and go, and overall a sense of ease.  Though I had not ventured far, I could rest with the space they made for me, as their guest.  And the being away to my home was a balm and warmed my soul.