Today I woke up feeling ...in German, I would say "unrund". Simply out of kilter, unmotivated, blah.
The past few days have been, considering what our usual social life involves (i.e. yawning emptiness!), very full indeed: an overnight guest on Wednesday night, Thursday my fitness time with the girls in the morning and a family birthday celebration here in the evening, Friday night dinner and, as it turns out, rather a lot of drinks at the house of friends. Three late nights in a row; maybe my blahs were due to social exhaustion. Maybe because I'd enjoyed myself and there is no more socializing coming up any time soon. But I am thinking more of it has to do with what happened Friday morning, as a result of which my brain has gone into overload.
I think most people I know here have not quite realized that my divorce plus the financial disaster at VG has meant that I no longer have a job, employment, a regular income, MONEY; and that I am not supported financially by my ex. Since September 1st I have, for the first time in my life, been drawing unemployment benefits. This will pay our rent for 6 months and will then be re-evaluated, always assuming I have not found a job by then, which I am not expecting to do. Part of the agreement to draw unemployment is cooperating with AMS, the organization which evaluates one's situation and is sort of a clearing house for placement.
The first interview I had with AMS back in July, knowing my work relationship with VG would be coming to an official close at the end of August, was not very encouraging. But the second one, with a different woman after I had filled out all the many forms required, was much more pleasant. I still didn't expect any cash but hoped they would see their way clear to at least paying my health insurance. Imagine my glad surprise when I found they will pay enough to cover the rent!
My employment record here is unfortunately not very reflective of reality. As a church-planting missionary mommy, for the first 15 years of my 30 years here I basically worked full-time without pay. That's just what parents do, whether of natural or of spiritual children. The second church P & I had planted (which became VG) began after their first couple of years supporting us to the degree they could afford, but that paycheck was in P's name, not mine. We lived from that (which was never enough for a family of 4) and from what my father gave us each year as a sort of down payment on my inheritance. But I did not appear in Austrian records as being employed. And I have no retirement fund.
Later VG decided it would be good to make me more official, so in order to save the church money they hired me as a freelance worker, which meant I was not actually employed by them but presented invoices for my services each month. Anyway, to make a long story short I was not actually employed until the last few years of my sojourn with them -- years when I did far less within VG than I ever had before and much more outside the church, as "Minister At Large".
Not surprisingly, it now turns out that being a 54-year-old woman with a spotty employment record I fall into the "hard-to-place" category. My second advisor at AMS recommended a program to me with which I am currently engaged. This is called, appallingly, "Stop&Go" and is specially designed for hard-to-place unemployed over-45s. (Sigh. I do wish Europeans without a masterly command of nuance within the English language would stop trying to be chic by randomly choosing English monikers which end up sounding inappropriate and/or ridiculous!)
Stop&Go tries in 6-8 weeks to help people, especially those who have been unemployed for a year or longer, to re-orient their careers and find out what else they might be suited for. I've had an initial orientation class and taken a battery of psychological tests. Much of it was fairly familiar ground to me, having taken such things many times over the years in various contexts. One part of the test, though, seemed to me to be geared toward middle-aged mildly alcoholic men who'd been unemployed a long time and had anger management issues. I'm a freshly unemployed (technically, though I haven't "worked" in the classic sense for some time) woman without the other issues so got a little impatient with that bit! I've also seen Frau M, the psychologist assigned to me, twice now. This second time was on Friday morning, after she got the results of the tests I took on Wednesday.
The first thing I noticed was that Frau M seemed more relaxed with me this time, more as if she were treating me almost like a peer (we are not too far apart in age, I think) than a "case". Our initial chat was warm, and she actually seemed interested. When we got down to the nitty-gritty of the test results, it turns out I tested out far more balanced than I thought I would. It seems clear that, though I have not yet fully recovered from the emotional blows of the past few years and that is reflected, on the whole I am fit, balanced and once I get back up to speed will be a desirable employee. We did a little brainstorming about what, if one left aside such trifling considerations such as who would ever pay me to do it, I would simply love to do. What have I enjoyed before? I waxed eloquent on a few attractive ideas which, as far as I know, are not remunerable.
And then Frau M dropped the bomb. She handed me a paper and said she would like, when my time with Stop&Go is over, to recommend a further program to me. This one goes for 12 weeks with the possibility of extending another 12 (which means my rent and health insurance would be paid the whole time I was attending it) and is in the field of ... management training.
I tried not to look too put off. I had never considered myself organizational management material, and can't imagine myself in such a role, particularly in Austrian business society. But frankly (and mercenarily) I could really use the unemployment money for the remaining months, however many they end up being, that we live in Austria. So I tried to look interested. Frau M acted very matter-of-fact about it and seemed to assume I'd naturally known that I was management material. I thought about this all the way home, and then some.
When I talked to A about what she had recommended, his first reaction was, "Well, DUH." Seeing my blank expression, he proceeded to explain to me that leadership skills and organizational skills were not the same thing, that I clearly have the gift of what he calls "Ruler" which has been inaccurately confused with the ability to organize, but is actually the unction to lead in a way that others want to, and generally do, follow.
And I began reflecting on what I have actually spent the last 30 years doing.
Hmmmm.
Damn... I think Frau M is probably right.
What do I do now?!
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
What I Miss About Ministry
This is what I miss about hands-on ministry: knowing that, in this moment, for this person's life, I am consciously and actively working together with our loving Daddy to make a positive difference. That sense of fulfillment is not easily found anywhere else.
Not the "ministry buzz", not being onstage, not the seemingly inescapable respect shown anyone who is, but rather the quiet knowledge that Holy Spirit and I have a job to do and we love doing it together, right here, right now. The awareness that prayer is efficacious and that the one being ministered to is benefiting; even if I cannot see or feel that in the moment, I have learned that every prayer does something positive. Every prayer.
A and I have a friend who is battling cancer. She goes for chemotherapy every two weeks, and she comes to us for "alternative therapy" (prayer) in the same week. We spend as much time as we need to, just letting her relax and "soaking her" in blessing and healing prayer. Since losing my old life and all its ministerial trappings, I've rarely had the opportunity for this, and I am finding I'm loving every moment of it. Sensitivities that had been somewhat hammered into dormancy by the repeated heavy events of the past few years are stirring, coming to life again: sitting up, sniffing the air, looking about with bright and curious eyes. My spirit is coming back to life. That's what giving out does for me.
I did this sort of private ministry for many, many years in a hidden sense before I ever stood on a stage and taught others to do it. It doesn't matter to me now if I am ever visible again, or not; what matters is this awareness that I am useful for the Kingdom, that because I am partnering with Holy Spirit to get Dad's will done on earth as it is in Heaven, this earth can become, for the few lives I am able to touch in my short lifetime, a marginally improved place.
Isn't that what it's all about, really? Bringing God's Kingdom of peace, health, life, shalom-- all as it should be. Different types of people will do it in differing ways, according to how they are made, according to their particular passion: improving water facilities for poor villages, teaching illiterates to read and write, adopting children-- whatever. It is all Kingdom activity. It is all about bringing the nature and character of the realm where Dad lives and rules into our poor, dark substitutes and watching Light change our surroundings.
My way is not better than your way or vice versa. And when I stand --or rather, stood-- on stages encouraging others into this way of life, it's actually no different than when I casually pray for a neighbor with backache (and also, of course, help her carry her groceries). But I have to say that what feeds and satisfies my own spirit the most is laying my hands on another human being, for a short time having the honor of seeing them through Dad's loving eyes, and along with my friend and partner Holy Spirit speaking life into them spirit, soul and body.
And I don't need a church building or a special healing meeting or a conference to do that; I just need an outlet. Someone in need, who wants what I can offer; someone who can benefit from words of life, from loving touch, from caring.
Can't we all?
Not the "ministry buzz", not being onstage, not the seemingly inescapable respect shown anyone who is, but rather the quiet knowledge that Holy Spirit and I have a job to do and we love doing it together, right here, right now. The awareness that prayer is efficacious and that the one being ministered to is benefiting; even if I cannot see or feel that in the moment, I have learned that every prayer does something positive. Every prayer.
A and I have a friend who is battling cancer. She goes for chemotherapy every two weeks, and she comes to us for "alternative therapy" (prayer) in the same week. We spend as much time as we need to, just letting her relax and "soaking her" in blessing and healing prayer. Since losing my old life and all its ministerial trappings, I've rarely had the opportunity for this, and I am finding I'm loving every moment of it. Sensitivities that had been somewhat hammered into dormancy by the repeated heavy events of the past few years are stirring, coming to life again: sitting up, sniffing the air, looking about with bright and curious eyes. My spirit is coming back to life. That's what giving out does for me.
I did this sort of private ministry for many, many years in a hidden sense before I ever stood on a stage and taught others to do it. It doesn't matter to me now if I am ever visible again, or not; what matters is this awareness that I am useful for the Kingdom, that because I am partnering with Holy Spirit to get Dad's will done on earth as it is in Heaven, this earth can become, for the few lives I am able to touch in my short lifetime, a marginally improved place.
Isn't that what it's all about, really? Bringing God's Kingdom of peace, health, life, shalom-- all as it should be. Different types of people will do it in differing ways, according to how they are made, according to their particular passion: improving water facilities for poor villages, teaching illiterates to read and write, adopting children-- whatever. It is all Kingdom activity. It is all about bringing the nature and character of the realm where Dad lives and rules into our poor, dark substitutes and watching Light change our surroundings.
My way is not better than your way or vice versa. And when I stand --or rather, stood-- on stages encouraging others into this way of life, it's actually no different than when I casually pray for a neighbor with backache (and also, of course, help her carry her groceries). But I have to say that what feeds and satisfies my own spirit the most is laying my hands on another human being, for a short time having the honor of seeing them through Dad's loving eyes, and along with my friend and partner Holy Spirit speaking life into them spirit, soul and body.
And I don't need a church building or a special healing meeting or a conference to do that; I just need an outlet. Someone in need, who wants what I can offer; someone who can benefit from words of life, from loving touch, from caring.
Can't we all?
Saturday, September 29, 2012
A Muffin By Any Other Name...
...would be just as fattening. ;)
I've always been interested in cooking and baking. I remember I baked my first cake at about age 8, took it to a school party, and was very upset when nobody believed I had baked it myself. As a child I fed on my mother's Gourmet magazines, and I still read cookbooks as if they were novels. Finding and sharing recipes on the Internet and indulging in what some call "Food Porn" (trolling beautiful photos of foods) are some of my favorite down-time activities. This often inspires me to try out a new recipe, or it gives me ideas how to creatively use what's moldering away in the fridge.
This hobby has its perks; I am regularly entertained by the names of dishes. I've often wondered over the years how recipes come to be called what they are commonly known by. Germany and Austria are generally not very creative in their choices of "official" recipe names; the name more or less simply describes the contents of the dish, or is named "in the style of --- (town or region)". But what country people and local farmers call their traditional dishes can be very creative indeed: Schäufele (little shovels), Späetzle (little sparrows), Maultaschen (mouth pockets)...
The most intriguing name I have come across for a purely Austrian dish is the local nickname for a sausage officially called a Käsekrainer. A Krainer is a coarse, farmer-style pork sausage and a Käsekrainer is the same recipe with bits of white cheese added. (They're both delicious, by the way.) When grilled, the bits of cheese quite naturally melt, causing the sausage to leak or squirt somewhat alarmingly. You can imagine what it looks like when sliced. So it's not surprising someone came up with the name "der Eitrige" for this, which is what you'll most often hear requested at late-night sausage stands. What does that mean? "The one full of pus".
Sorry (but not very)!
England especially has some rather queer names for what turn out to be quite innocuous dishes: Toad in Hole (sausages baked in batter), Bubble and Squeak (leftover pan-fried cabbage and potato), the unfortunate Spotted Dick (sponge pudding with raisins)... But what really surprised me when I first got to Europe was the fact that no French person I ever met had heard of French toast, no German is familiar with what Americans know as German chocolate cake, and Salisbury steak is unknown in Salisbury. It turns out all these dishes are purely American; their misnomers mislead us to believe they originated in the places after which they are named.
When I did make German chocolate cake (plain chocolate layers with a filling and topping of pecans, shredded coconut and condensed milk) for my German friends, they loved it! But it's still not German in any sense of the word.
Looking toward moving to the UK, I realize I have a lot to learn. What I grew up believing was an English muffin is, in fact, much closer to a crumpet. An American muffin, on the other hand, would be known in the UK as a fairy cake if sweet, a bread if savory. (American sweet muffins have changed from when I was a child; now what is usually sold as a muffin is far closer to cake than the slightly sweet bread it used to be. And they are now 3 times the size!)
In the UK pancakes, flapjacks, and griddle cakes are all vastly differing foods. A sandwich can be known variously as a bap, a butty, a roll or a cob, depending on what bread is used and which part of the country you're in. In the USA and in Austria, if asked would you like some tea and you reply yes, the second question will be: black or herbal? But in the UK tea is always black tea unless stated otherwise; an herbal tea is a tisane.
Both A and I love soups, especially in colder weather. Many dishes I would probably call stew he calls soup. What we each call dumplings are two different dishes. No matter; we enjoy eating it whatever we call it, as long as it tastes good! A name can influence one's desire to taste the dish (or not), true; but it's the flavor that is convincing, not the name. For an example in English, who would ever think that "sweetbreads" meant "innards"?! But in Austria I have eaten and enjoyed some innards I would never have touched while still in the USA-- and all of them have euphemistic names.
That could, in turn, lead me to musing on many other things we-- perhaps wrongly-- assume, because of our misleading cultural appellation for a certain thing. Maybe we unthinkingly accept its origins as authentic and definitive, when perhaps they're not. Maybe we know the same flavor under an entirely different moniker. Maybe we have refused even to taste it because the name has put us off... et cetera.
Some examples:
what is "family"?
what is "evangelism"?
what is, for that matter, "a Christian"??
...but it's a Saturday morning, laundry needs to be done, and I've spent enough time on this already.
Have fun thinking about it yourself!
I've always been interested in cooking and baking. I remember I baked my first cake at about age 8, took it to a school party, and was very upset when nobody believed I had baked it myself. As a child I fed on my mother's Gourmet magazines, and I still read cookbooks as if they were novels. Finding and sharing recipes on the Internet and indulging in what some call "Food Porn" (trolling beautiful photos of foods) are some of my favorite down-time activities. This often inspires me to try out a new recipe, or it gives me ideas how to creatively use what's moldering away in the fridge.
This hobby has its perks; I am regularly entertained by the names of dishes. I've often wondered over the years how recipes come to be called what they are commonly known by. Germany and Austria are generally not very creative in their choices of "official" recipe names; the name more or less simply describes the contents of the dish, or is named "in the style of --- (town or region)". But what country people and local farmers call their traditional dishes can be very creative indeed: Schäufele (little shovels), Späetzle (little sparrows), Maultaschen (mouth pockets)...
The most intriguing name I have come across for a purely Austrian dish is the local nickname for a sausage officially called a Käsekrainer. A Krainer is a coarse, farmer-style pork sausage and a Käsekrainer is the same recipe with bits of white cheese added. (They're both delicious, by the way.) When grilled, the bits of cheese quite naturally melt, causing the sausage to leak or squirt somewhat alarmingly. You can imagine what it looks like when sliced. So it's not surprising someone came up with the name "der Eitrige" for this, which is what you'll most often hear requested at late-night sausage stands. What does that mean? "The one full of pus".
Sorry (but not very)!
England especially has some rather queer names for what turn out to be quite innocuous dishes: Toad in Hole (sausages baked in batter), Bubble and Squeak (leftover pan-fried cabbage and potato), the unfortunate Spotted Dick (sponge pudding with raisins)... But what really surprised me when I first got to Europe was the fact that no French person I ever met had heard of French toast, no German is familiar with what Americans know as German chocolate cake, and Salisbury steak is unknown in Salisbury. It turns out all these dishes are purely American; their misnomers mislead us to believe they originated in the places after which they are named.
When I did make German chocolate cake (plain chocolate layers with a filling and topping of pecans, shredded coconut and condensed milk) for my German friends, they loved it! But it's still not German in any sense of the word.
Looking toward moving to the UK, I realize I have a lot to learn. What I grew up believing was an English muffin is, in fact, much closer to a crumpet. An American muffin, on the other hand, would be known in the UK as a fairy cake if sweet, a bread if savory. (American sweet muffins have changed from when I was a child; now what is usually sold as a muffin is far closer to cake than the slightly sweet bread it used to be. And they are now 3 times the size!)
In the UK pancakes, flapjacks, and griddle cakes are all vastly differing foods. A sandwich can be known variously as a bap, a butty, a roll or a cob, depending on what bread is used and which part of the country you're in. In the USA and in Austria, if asked would you like some tea and you reply yes, the second question will be: black or herbal? But in the UK tea is always black tea unless stated otherwise; an herbal tea is a tisane.
Both A and I love soups, especially in colder weather. Many dishes I would probably call stew he calls soup. What we each call dumplings are two different dishes. No matter; we enjoy eating it whatever we call it, as long as it tastes good! A name can influence one's desire to taste the dish (or not), true; but it's the flavor that is convincing, not the name. For an example in English, who would ever think that "sweetbreads" meant "innards"?! But in Austria I have eaten and enjoyed some innards I would never have touched while still in the USA-- and all of them have euphemistic names.
That could, in turn, lead me to musing on many other things we-- perhaps wrongly-- assume, because of our misleading cultural appellation for a certain thing. Maybe we unthinkingly accept its origins as authentic and definitive, when perhaps they're not. Maybe we know the same flavor under an entirely different moniker. Maybe we have refused even to taste it because the name has put us off... et cetera.
Some examples:
what is "family"?
what is "evangelism"?
what is, for that matter, "a Christian"??
...but it's a Saturday morning, laundry needs to be done, and I've spent enough time on this already.
Have fun thinking about it yourself!
Friday, September 28, 2012
Coming Home
So... A and I have just returned from a spa break in Trentino, Italy. Using the last of our "play money" from wedding gifts, we celebrated our 6-monthaversary (any excuse will do) by taking advantage of a great cheap offer: 3 nights' off-season bed and full board at an exclusive 4-star hotel with its own thermal pool, saunas, workout room, etc. The only catch was, you had to get there under your own steam. No problem, I thought. Google says it'll take about 5 1/2 hours to drive there. It's a school/work day so traffic should be fairly light.
I had forgotten: this is ITALY we would be driving through!
Up to the Austrian border it was relatively straightforward, though the skies had been darkening and we'd driven through a few minor rainsqualls. But once we crossed into Südtirol, the weather, the roads (particularly signage) and most of all the quality of the other drivers rapidly deteriorated.
I have never understood this cultural divide. Italians as a nationality are generally an engaging, familial, friendly and laid-back people. But put a steering wheel in their hands and they suddenly seem to become these slavering, testosterone-driven, irrational creatures who think nothing of endangering everyone's lives for the sake of passing that next truck (which is also already exceeding the speed limit). I even saw mothers with small children in carseats execute insanely risky road manoeuvers. Passing at high speed going uphill on a blind curve or in a no-passing zone seems to be de rigeuer, whilst "yield/give way" or even stop signs are mere suggestions --generally to be ignored.
All this time the weather had steadily degenerated until we were driving, in the middle of an autumn afternoon, in near-darkness and through blinding torrents of rain (which small detail didn't seem to slow traffic down perceptibly). Several times I heard A mutter bitterly "Thank you so VERY MUCH" to the next downpour as it arrived. Somehow, in the driving rain, we had missed our entrance to the Autostrada and passed agonizingly slowly through 30 km of villages on a 2-lane side street from which we could frustratingly look up and see the road we were supposed to be on, but could not for the lives of us find a way to get onto it. It turns out that the Auostrada in Italy is a toll road, with entrances only in major towns, and we must have driven right past the first possible one 30 km back. We finally managed to enter it over halfway further on.
Add to this that most road signs are either poorly placed, written too small to read on the countless roundabouts or missing entirely. When we finally reached "our" exit from the Autostrada, for example, we found it was --surprise!!-- closed, with no diversion in place and no other options offered. There had also been no indication on any of the many signs leading up to it, that this major exit would not be in use. C'mon, guys, how hard could that be?! We had to drive through to the other side of Trento and figure out how to get back through the city to the smaller road which would lead us to our destination 25 kilmometers further on.
Stopping at a gas station to ask directions proved at first very frustrating, but ultimately not entirely fruitless. Somehow we found our way up the correct very winding mountain road in the rainy gloom, and fully 8 hours after leaving home, we arrived at the Grand Hotel Terme de Comano.
Oh my word.
I have very rarely stayed in a proper 4-star hotel in my missionary life, this stay itself only possible through the package deal we snapped up. I have been in hotels in Eastern Europe which claimed to have three or four stars but were actually only shabbily glorified B&Bs. But this Grand Hotel lived up to its name. Although it was off-season and many summer attractions had closed (the outdoor swimming pool was closed, and part of the extensive, beautifully landscaped grounds were being refurbished before the snows set in), clearly no expense had been spared to make sure guests felt they were being pampered. Although end of September, the gardens had been planned so there were still plenty of flowering shrubs, plus fountains, winding paths...
The entrance hall alone, all done in marble flooring, warm woods and inviting-looking, overstuffed furniture, would have been enough to convince me. But when we entered our "standard" room, I was really impressed: it was huge and sparkling clean, the bed was king size, and we had a balcony (though overlooking one end of the car park) directly across from a forested mountainside. Oh yes, I thought, I could far too easily get used to this!
Our plans to arrive early enough in the afternoon to have a nice soak in the thermal waters after our trip and then a leisurely shower before the evening meal had been thwarted. We nevertheless, after a brief lie-down (and munching the chocolate left on our pillows), changed into nicer clothing and made our way down to the dining room-- where we were not disappointed in the quality of the food served. Throughout our stay we ate far too much excellent Italian food, but then burned it off in the swimming pool, workout room, walking (it did clear the next day) and --for me-- the sauna.
I really enjoyed myself, but after 3 nights I was ready to come home, as was A.
The drive back home was uneventful and much faster on the road, since it was much better weather and we knew the tricks by then. We still witnessed, and braked to avoid, several situations which by all rights should have been life-threatening. I have no idea why one doesn't pass fatal accidents every 2 miles or so in Italy, but I suppose Italians drive very defensively (they can certainly be very offensive!). I did insist upon a stop at an Interspar, where we loaded up on extra-virgin olive oil, unusual pastas, Mozzarella and Parmesana Reggiano to take home with us. I think we will be eating Italian for awhile...
Once we move to England it won't be as easy to just bop over to another country (excepting France), so I'm glad we took this opportunity. But I was also so very glad to get back home, and to know that we don't plan on going anywhere else for several months. During the years I traveled a lot in ministry, I discovered I'm not really cut out for living out of a suitcase for very long. I can handle two weeks pretty well, but any longer than that started to feel like a hardship. I love to travel, but I also love having a home to come back to.
And that is not necessarily a physical place. I can make pretty much any place homey; it's who I am with which makes it feel like home to my soul. Next year we will be leaving this flat which was a real God-send for me in my transition time, and I won't miss it as such. I value all I learned here and I have enjoyed being in the newest place I've ever lived-- if something is broken, I did it, not some tenant before me-- but I always knew this was temporary.
Dad is my home. A is my home. And we can live anywhere, so long as we are together.
That's a rather comforting thought.
I had forgotten: this is ITALY we would be driving through!
Up to the Austrian border it was relatively straightforward, though the skies had been darkening and we'd driven through a few minor rainsqualls. But once we crossed into Südtirol, the weather, the roads (particularly signage) and most of all the quality of the other drivers rapidly deteriorated.
I have never understood this cultural divide. Italians as a nationality are generally an engaging, familial, friendly and laid-back people. But put a steering wheel in their hands and they suddenly seem to become these slavering, testosterone-driven, irrational creatures who think nothing of endangering everyone's lives for the sake of passing that next truck (which is also already exceeding the speed limit). I even saw mothers with small children in carseats execute insanely risky road manoeuvers. Passing at high speed going uphill on a blind curve or in a no-passing zone seems to be de rigeuer, whilst "yield/give way" or even stop signs are mere suggestions --generally to be ignored.
All this time the weather had steadily degenerated until we were driving, in the middle of an autumn afternoon, in near-darkness and through blinding torrents of rain (which small detail didn't seem to slow traffic down perceptibly). Several times I heard A mutter bitterly "Thank you so VERY MUCH" to the next downpour as it arrived. Somehow, in the driving rain, we had missed our entrance to the Autostrada and passed agonizingly slowly through 30 km of villages on a 2-lane side street from which we could frustratingly look up and see the road we were supposed to be on, but could not for the lives of us find a way to get onto it. It turns out that the Auostrada in Italy is a toll road, with entrances only in major towns, and we must have driven right past the first possible one 30 km back. We finally managed to enter it over halfway further on.
Add to this that most road signs are either poorly placed, written too small to read on the countless roundabouts or missing entirely. When we finally reached "our" exit from the Autostrada, for example, we found it was --surprise!!-- closed, with no diversion in place and no other options offered. There had also been no indication on any of the many signs leading up to it, that this major exit would not be in use. C'mon, guys, how hard could that be?! We had to drive through to the other side of Trento and figure out how to get back through the city to the smaller road which would lead us to our destination 25 kilmometers further on.
Stopping at a gas station to ask directions proved at first very frustrating, but ultimately not entirely fruitless. Somehow we found our way up the correct very winding mountain road in the rainy gloom, and fully 8 hours after leaving home, we arrived at the Grand Hotel Terme de Comano.
Oh my word.
I have very rarely stayed in a proper 4-star hotel in my missionary life, this stay itself only possible through the package deal we snapped up. I have been in hotels in Eastern Europe which claimed to have three or four stars but were actually only shabbily glorified B&Bs. But this Grand Hotel lived up to its name. Although it was off-season and many summer attractions had closed (the outdoor swimming pool was closed, and part of the extensive, beautifully landscaped grounds were being refurbished before the snows set in), clearly no expense had been spared to make sure guests felt they were being pampered. Although end of September, the gardens had been planned so there were still plenty of flowering shrubs, plus fountains, winding paths...
The entrance hall alone, all done in marble flooring, warm woods and inviting-looking, overstuffed furniture, would have been enough to convince me. But when we entered our "standard" room, I was really impressed: it was huge and sparkling clean, the bed was king size, and we had a balcony (though overlooking one end of the car park) directly across from a forested mountainside. Oh yes, I thought, I could far too easily get used to this!
Our plans to arrive early enough in the afternoon to have a nice soak in the thermal waters after our trip and then a leisurely shower before the evening meal had been thwarted. We nevertheless, after a brief lie-down (and munching the chocolate left on our pillows), changed into nicer clothing and made our way down to the dining room-- where we were not disappointed in the quality of the food served. Throughout our stay we ate far too much excellent Italian food, but then burned it off in the swimming pool, workout room, walking (it did clear the next day) and --for me-- the sauna.
I really enjoyed myself, but after 3 nights I was ready to come home, as was A.
The drive back home was uneventful and much faster on the road, since it was much better weather and we knew the tricks by then. We still witnessed, and braked to avoid, several situations which by all rights should have been life-threatening. I have no idea why one doesn't pass fatal accidents every 2 miles or so in Italy, but I suppose Italians drive very defensively (they can certainly be very offensive!). I did insist upon a stop at an Interspar, where we loaded up on extra-virgin olive oil, unusual pastas, Mozzarella and Parmesana Reggiano to take home with us. I think we will be eating Italian for awhile...
Once we move to England it won't be as easy to just bop over to another country (excepting France), so I'm glad we took this opportunity. But I was also so very glad to get back home, and to know that we don't plan on going anywhere else for several months. During the years I traveled a lot in ministry, I discovered I'm not really cut out for living out of a suitcase for very long. I can handle two weeks pretty well, but any longer than that started to feel like a hardship. I love to travel, but I also love having a home to come back to.
And that is not necessarily a physical place. I can make pretty much any place homey; it's who I am with which makes it feel like home to my soul. Next year we will be leaving this flat which was a real God-send for me in my transition time, and I won't miss it as such. I value all I learned here and I have enjoyed being in the newest place I've ever lived-- if something is broken, I did it, not some tenant before me-- but I always knew this was temporary.
Dad is my home. A is my home. And we can live anywhere, so long as we are together.
That's a rather comforting thought.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
A re: Leadership / Guest Post
This post is taken verbatim from an email my husband A has written to a mutual friend regarding the theme of leadership. It is too good, and too full of what we have discussed in recent months, not to share here, as it reflects a lot of where we have got to in our current spiritual process.
Take it away, Mr A!
***
Here a just a few thoughts from which you could go in any direction you like! The main thing is to find where your heart is at. If none of this registers with you, don't use any of it! It's just me spewing out thoughts.
1) What are you leading?
It depends on what you believe church in general, and XX in particular, is supposed to be about.
If you see XX through the lens of "business" and "organisation" (the models that I think have most shaped how we do church in the Western world) then you will tend to assume leaders of churches should have the same qualities as leaders of companies: charisma, dominance, gregariousness and superstardom... the ability to lead (or at least give the appearance of doing so!) in every situation. Happily, even business nowadays is waking up to the fact that this "extrovert" ideal doesn't necessarily make a good CEO, e.g. the richest man on the planet is Bill Gates who is an introvert. But don't let me get distracted on the extrovert/introvert thing!
The point is that leadership in the last century or so has been very much about "the culture of personality" e.g. "how to make friends and influence people" instead of what it was for centuries before that: "the culture of character", e.g. "character, the grandest thing in the world". It has redefined success to be the result of "performance" rather than "virtue", or perhaps, in Christian language, "gifts" rather than "character". Even business nowadays is tending towards defining successful leadership as much in terms of character as ability, e.g. openness to experience, emotional stability, conscientiousness and agreeability.
When business or Christian leaders fail, it isn't usually due to their lack of ability but their lack of character. It's not that we don't need gifts. Indeed, as Christians, it's not legal to choose between gifts and character. We need both. But that's the point. We need both. For too long the emphasis has been too much on gifting and too little on character. Indeed, again, Bill Johnson would say that leadership is 95% character and 5% gifting. The gift can be trained. But the character has to be grown in real life in order to withstand the pressures greater responsibility places on us.
If you see XX through the lens of "family", then the leaders you are looking for are more like mums and dads and big brothers and big sisters. I'll make a crude and unfair comparison between a business-type leader and a father to show you what I mean.
A leader has a vision that is to be achieved through tasks. A father has a family that is to be grown through relationships. A leader is more task oriented. A father is more relationship oriented. A leader will form relationships in order to get the task done. A father will look for good things to do with the family he actually has. A leader will sacrifice relationships for the sake of a task. A father will sacrifice tasks for the sake of a relationship. A leader will try to reproduce themselves in others so that they can do his tasks in his way to achieve his vision. A father will raise and release his children to be whatever they are made to be. A leader is happy if he remains in control. A father is happy if his children surpass him.
Like I said, the comparison is unfair, but it does show that the values of business and family are very different. A business has a task to do if it is to remain in business. Therefore everything has to be focused on, and sacrificed for, the sake of the task. It's completely understandable. But a family doesn't exist under that kind of pressure, so need not be managed on those kind of principles. So, the question you could ask is: what does a successful family look like? An environment where kids are raised to heathy adults? An environment where we treat adults like adults? An environment that is open to adopting new family members without seeing that as a disruption? That will then determine the kind of leaders you want, or want to become, and how you will behave towards your followers.
Personally, I believe that if the King is Love and the Kingdom runs on loving him and loving people, then love, i.e. relationship, not task, is the most fertile thing in the universe. Yes, love leads us to doing things, of course. But someone needs to be loved, i.e. love doesn't exist without relationship. As an introvert, I dread a commune, or "one big happy family"! But I am also aware that, even as an introvert, I am still nourished, and able to nourish, in communion with (in my case, a few) others. And if we must talk about tasks like "discipleship" and "evangelism" (and we must!) then I believe they can only be done effectively through relationship anyway. The trouble is that our church life often takes so much energy out of us that we don't have time for relationships with each other or those around us. Our focus on the task has taken away our time and energy from the only thing that can actually fulfil that task: relationship. My opinion.
2) What does the Bible say about leadership?
I would say, "Start with Jesus" but I also recognise that all of us look at Jesus through the lenses of our culture, which is worlds apart from his! Nevertheless, rightly interpreted, he is obviously our model. It's often called "servant leadership" or as Bill Johnson likes to say, "He ruled with the heart of a servant and served with the heart of a king." The authority we are given positions us for more effective service: to do more good to more people. That's the only reason authority is given. Jesus washing the disciples' feet in John 13 comes to mind: "This is what 'Teachers' and 'Lords' do". Jesus' response to James and John in Matthew 20 and Mark 10 comes to mind: "The way the Gentiles do leadership is by exercising authority over people. But that's not how I do it and nor should you. I came to serve. If you want authority then become a servant, because only servants are given authority."
Three key passages in the letters are: Titus 1:5-9 and 1 Timothy 3:1-13, where Paul lists what a leader looks like as far as he is concerned, and 1 Peter 5:1-4, where Peter appeals to his fellow elders to be examples to, and carers of, the people entrusted to them. As you can imagine, the two words that leap out of these passages to me are "family" and "character". Paul doesn't see how anyone can manage a church family if they can't manage their own family. And Paul sees proven character and spirituality, grown in real family life, as necessary to sustain someone in greater responsibility and therefore greater exposure. The only "gift" he seems to mention is the ability to teach the truth, but I don't see that necessarily as being "the spiritual gift of teaching" identified in Romans 12. In order to have lived the lives they have so that they have the character that qualifies them for leadership, they must have had some ability to recognise, put into practice and speak about what is true in the context of their family life. Truth always brings freedom (John 8:32).
3) What about the spiritual gift of leadership in Romans 12?
I think this is very important, so long as we understand what we mean by it. A lot of Christian books I have read define this gift like our extrovert CEO above. But that presupposes that church should look like a business... and so on! Here's what I think it is more about.
As the saying goes, "If someone thinks they are leading but no one is following them, that person is just going for a walk!" If people are following us, no matter how surprising that is, then we carry some kind of leadership gift. If they aren't, we don't. Having the job title does not give us the gift. We all know the teachers at school we respected and those we didn't. It wasn't so much about their knowledge of the subject or the techniques with which they delivered it. It was the authority they carried.
A gift can be trained, but its absence cannot be replaced by training. It's a gift, not an achievement. It's not the loudest voice, the most eloquent voice, nor the most frequently heard voice; it's the voice that carries spiritual authority. Look at some of the other 7 gifts in Romans 12. When the true gift of prophecy speaks, the Body recognises God's voice. When the true gift of encouragement speaks, the Body goes on its way rejoicing. When the true gift of mercy speaks, the Body is comforted. Likewise, when the true gift of leadership speaks, the Body follows. It's not about personality. It is about spiritual authority. Some English versions of the Bible actually translate the word as "rule" not "lead", which perhaps captures the sense of it better. We can only rule to the extent we have authority to do so.
Don't think I have any concerns about you as a team when I say this. It's just to make the point clear. I don't think we can lead a spiritual environment without the spiritual gift of leadership somewhere in the mix. We can only occupy the position of leadership, while our people actually follow those among us who do have the gift!
Because of our Western interpretation of "church as organisation" I think we have been too quick to turn the "gifts" into "offices" with names on the door, like "leader" or "pastor". While St Paul was obviously applying what he understood of Jesus' message to the situation of his time, not ours, I think it is important to notice that he did not make the association between "spiritual gift", i.e. an ability of Holy Spirit needed by the Body to function, and "elder", i.e. the office caring for a part of the Body. He deals with each matter separately.
He seems to me to identify 3 kinds of spiritual gift: wiring, tools and jobs. The Romans 12:6-8 gifts seem to be about the way we are wired to function with Holy Spirit in the Body. The 1 Corinthians 12:4-10 gifts seem to be the tools Holy Spirit makes available to the Body to use for the good of all. The Ephesians 4:11 gifts seem to be jobs that Holy Spirit gives people to raise the Body up to the full maturity of Christ. The Body needs all of these gifts, and none of us have all of them. But St Paul treats them all as functions and gifts, not positions and achievements. He deals with positions, i.e elders and helpers, separately, without listing the spiritual gifts they must have.
Why did I say all that? Just to say that I think, biblically, an elder needs to be a mum or a dad, not an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. If they happen to be one of those as well, that's no problem. Just don't confuse, say, the function of pastoring with the office of elder. They are different things. One can be a good pastor and a lousy elder and vice-versa! The job of an elder is primarily to rule, not to pastor...
and in case you hadn't already guessed, I have mischievously singled out "pastor" here precisely because it is the term we commonly use for "church leader", just to get you thinking about what leadership is actually about. While I don't object to the term being used in that way, or have a problem with pastors being leaders, I'm just suggesting they mean separate things in the Bible, which frees us to focus on what we actually mean by leadership.
4) "A house divided against itself cannot stand" (Matthew 12:25)
One final point that may no longer be relevant depending where your team is at in their process. Unity does not mean uniformity. Indeed, unity embraces diversity. That's what it means to be the Body. Every tribe and nation throughout all of history is represented. So, if we make agreement the basis of unity then we are doomed to failure. That's why we have so many different protestant denominations today. Most of them actually do agree on the basics of the creeds, but have divided over relatively minor issues.
However, I really do think there are limits to how far we can disagree with one another and maintain unity. True relationship can only exist to the extent there is a shared view of reality. Indeed, the correct way to understand "repentance" is as a change of mind, a buying into God's version of reality as opposed to our own. Repentance and forgiveness are made available precisely so that relationship can be restored and deepened.
It's not so much about offence. It's just that there are places that God and I cannot go together until I am on the same page as he is. It's exactly the same dynamic between human beings. Our ability to grow, and work, with people depends on how similar our beliefs and values are. Differences in beliefs and values need not be cause for hostility. But they do limit what is possible between us.
Imagine a building with four walls and a window in each wall. Four people, one looking through each window, will see the same reality but from a different perspective. That is healthy. That is why we need each other. As we listen to one another our understanding of the whole increases. But what I'm talking about is when people are not even looking into the same building!
"Agreeing to disagree" is an honest and helpful moment of clarity in a process, but not a position from which we can lead. It's the point at which we recognise we are divided and are therefore incapable of leading until we deal with the division, as I'm sure you now know only too well! Either the two sides need to bless one another and separate, or the two sides need to work together until they can see the same reality. But all the time they are divided, the house is crumbling around them. Unity builds. Division demolishes. By definition. No exceptions. No matter what name you give to it to make it sound better.
To put a positive spin on this, how does growth happen? Cells form and divide. Sometimes two perfectly good visions cannot coexist without competing with one another. Sometimes two valid, but different, cultures cannot coexist without sucking the life out of each other. In the context of all of space and time, no one group of Christians can represent all expressions of the kingdom. It is not an act of disloyalty to part company with blessing in order to free both sides to pursue what is truly in their respective hearts. Loyalty is a virtue, but when its fruit is a crumbling house, then it is misplaced loyalty. It is then loyalty to loyalty rather than loyalty to the Kingdom.
***
Well, I hope some of those thoughts were helpful. If not, you've just read my journal for today! It was useful to me to see where I'm at on my journey, even if it wasn't useful for you!
Take it away, Mr A!
***
Here a just a few thoughts from which you could go in any direction you like! The main thing is to find where your heart is at. If none of this registers with you, don't use any of it! It's just me spewing out thoughts.
1) What are you leading?
It depends on what you believe church in general, and XX in particular, is supposed to be about.
If you see XX through the lens of "business" and "organisation" (the models that I think have most shaped how we do church in the Western world) then you will tend to assume leaders of churches should have the same qualities as leaders of companies: charisma, dominance, gregariousness and superstardom... the ability to lead (or at least give the appearance of doing so!) in every situation. Happily, even business nowadays is waking up to the fact that this "extrovert" ideal doesn't necessarily make a good CEO, e.g. the richest man on the planet is Bill Gates who is an introvert. But don't let me get distracted on the extrovert/introvert thing!
The point is that leadership in the last century or so has been very much about "the culture of personality" e.g. "how to make friends and influence people" instead of what it was for centuries before that: "the culture of character", e.g. "character, the grandest thing in the world". It has redefined success to be the result of "performance" rather than "virtue", or perhaps, in Christian language, "gifts" rather than "character". Even business nowadays is tending towards defining successful leadership as much in terms of character as ability, e.g. openness to experience, emotional stability, conscientiousness and agreeability.
When business or Christian leaders fail, it isn't usually due to their lack of ability but their lack of character. It's not that we don't need gifts. Indeed, as Christians, it's not legal to choose between gifts and character. We need both. But that's the point. We need both. For too long the emphasis has been too much on gifting and too little on character. Indeed, again, Bill Johnson would say that leadership is 95% character and 5% gifting. The gift can be trained. But the character has to be grown in real life in order to withstand the pressures greater responsibility places on us.
If you see XX through the lens of "family", then the leaders you are looking for are more like mums and dads and big brothers and big sisters. I'll make a crude and unfair comparison between a business-type leader and a father to show you what I mean.
A leader has a vision that is to be achieved through tasks. A father has a family that is to be grown through relationships. A leader is more task oriented. A father is more relationship oriented. A leader will form relationships in order to get the task done. A father will look for good things to do with the family he actually has. A leader will sacrifice relationships for the sake of a task. A father will sacrifice tasks for the sake of a relationship. A leader will try to reproduce themselves in others so that they can do his tasks in his way to achieve his vision. A father will raise and release his children to be whatever they are made to be. A leader is happy if he remains in control. A father is happy if his children surpass him.
Like I said, the comparison is unfair, but it does show that the values of business and family are very different. A business has a task to do if it is to remain in business. Therefore everything has to be focused on, and sacrificed for, the sake of the task. It's completely understandable. But a family doesn't exist under that kind of pressure, so need not be managed on those kind of principles. So, the question you could ask is: what does a successful family look like? An environment where kids are raised to heathy adults? An environment where we treat adults like adults? An environment that is open to adopting new family members without seeing that as a disruption? That will then determine the kind of leaders you want, or want to become, and how you will behave towards your followers.
Personally, I believe that if the King is Love and the Kingdom runs on loving him and loving people, then love, i.e. relationship, not task, is the most fertile thing in the universe. Yes, love leads us to doing things, of course. But someone needs to be loved, i.e. love doesn't exist without relationship. As an introvert, I dread a commune, or "one big happy family"! But I am also aware that, even as an introvert, I am still nourished, and able to nourish, in communion with (in my case, a few) others. And if we must talk about tasks like "discipleship" and "evangelism" (and we must!) then I believe they can only be done effectively through relationship anyway. The trouble is that our church life often takes so much energy out of us that we don't have time for relationships with each other or those around us. Our focus on the task has taken away our time and energy from the only thing that can actually fulfil that task: relationship. My opinion.
2) What does the Bible say about leadership?
I would say, "Start with Jesus" but I also recognise that all of us look at Jesus through the lenses of our culture, which is worlds apart from his! Nevertheless, rightly interpreted, he is obviously our model. It's often called "servant leadership" or as Bill Johnson likes to say, "He ruled with the heart of a servant and served with the heart of a king." The authority we are given positions us for more effective service: to do more good to more people. That's the only reason authority is given. Jesus washing the disciples' feet in John 13 comes to mind: "This is what 'Teachers' and 'Lords' do". Jesus' response to James and John in Matthew 20 and Mark 10 comes to mind: "The way the Gentiles do leadership is by exercising authority over people. But that's not how I do it and nor should you. I came to serve. If you want authority then become a servant, because only servants are given authority."
Three key passages in the letters are: Titus 1:5-9 and 1 Timothy 3:1-13, where Paul lists what a leader looks like as far as he is concerned, and 1 Peter 5:1-4, where Peter appeals to his fellow elders to be examples to, and carers of, the people entrusted to them. As you can imagine, the two words that leap out of these passages to me are "family" and "character". Paul doesn't see how anyone can manage a church family if they can't manage their own family. And Paul sees proven character and spirituality, grown in real family life, as necessary to sustain someone in greater responsibility and therefore greater exposure. The only "gift" he seems to mention is the ability to teach the truth, but I don't see that necessarily as being "the spiritual gift of teaching" identified in Romans 12. In order to have lived the lives they have so that they have the character that qualifies them for leadership, they must have had some ability to recognise, put into practice and speak about what is true in the context of their family life. Truth always brings freedom (John 8:32).
3) What about the spiritual gift of leadership in Romans 12?
I think this is very important, so long as we understand what we mean by it. A lot of Christian books I have read define this gift like our extrovert CEO above. But that presupposes that church should look like a business... and so on! Here's what I think it is more about.
As the saying goes, "If someone thinks they are leading but no one is following them, that person is just going for a walk!" If people are following us, no matter how surprising that is, then we carry some kind of leadership gift. If they aren't, we don't. Having the job title does not give us the gift. We all know the teachers at school we respected and those we didn't. It wasn't so much about their knowledge of the subject or the techniques with which they delivered it. It was the authority they carried.
A gift can be trained, but its absence cannot be replaced by training. It's a gift, not an achievement. It's not the loudest voice, the most eloquent voice, nor the most frequently heard voice; it's the voice that carries spiritual authority. Look at some of the other 7 gifts in Romans 12. When the true gift of prophecy speaks, the Body recognises God's voice. When the true gift of encouragement speaks, the Body goes on its way rejoicing. When the true gift of mercy speaks, the Body is comforted. Likewise, when the true gift of leadership speaks, the Body follows. It's not about personality. It is about spiritual authority. Some English versions of the Bible actually translate the word as "rule" not "lead", which perhaps captures the sense of it better. We can only rule to the extent we have authority to do so.
Don't think I have any concerns about you as a team when I say this. It's just to make the point clear. I don't think we can lead a spiritual environment without the spiritual gift of leadership somewhere in the mix. We can only occupy the position of leadership, while our people actually follow those among us who do have the gift!
Because of our Western interpretation of "church as organisation" I think we have been too quick to turn the "gifts" into "offices" with names on the door, like "leader" or "pastor". While St Paul was obviously applying what he understood of Jesus' message to the situation of his time, not ours, I think it is important to notice that he did not make the association between "spiritual gift", i.e. an ability of Holy Spirit needed by the Body to function, and "elder", i.e. the office caring for a part of the Body. He deals with each matter separately.
He seems to me to identify 3 kinds of spiritual gift: wiring, tools and jobs. The Romans 12:6-8 gifts seem to be about the way we are wired to function with Holy Spirit in the Body. The 1 Corinthians 12:4-10 gifts seem to be the tools Holy Spirit makes available to the Body to use for the good of all. The Ephesians 4:11 gifts seem to be jobs that Holy Spirit gives people to raise the Body up to the full maturity of Christ. The Body needs all of these gifts, and none of us have all of them. But St Paul treats them all as functions and gifts, not positions and achievements. He deals with positions, i.e elders and helpers, separately, without listing the spiritual gifts they must have.
Why did I say all that? Just to say that I think, biblically, an elder needs to be a mum or a dad, not an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. If they happen to be one of those as well, that's no problem. Just don't confuse, say, the function of pastoring with the office of elder. They are different things. One can be a good pastor and a lousy elder and vice-versa! The job of an elder is primarily to rule, not to pastor...
and in case you hadn't already guessed, I have mischievously singled out "pastor" here precisely because it is the term we commonly use for "church leader", just to get you thinking about what leadership is actually about. While I don't object to the term being used in that way, or have a problem with pastors being leaders, I'm just suggesting they mean separate things in the Bible, which frees us to focus on what we actually mean by leadership.
4) "A house divided against itself cannot stand" (Matthew 12:25)
One final point that may no longer be relevant depending where your team is at in their process. Unity does not mean uniformity. Indeed, unity embraces diversity. That's what it means to be the Body. Every tribe and nation throughout all of history is represented. So, if we make agreement the basis of unity then we are doomed to failure. That's why we have so many different protestant denominations today. Most of them actually do agree on the basics of the creeds, but have divided over relatively minor issues.
However, I really do think there are limits to how far we can disagree with one another and maintain unity. True relationship can only exist to the extent there is a shared view of reality. Indeed, the correct way to understand "repentance" is as a change of mind, a buying into God's version of reality as opposed to our own. Repentance and forgiveness are made available precisely so that relationship can be restored and deepened.
It's not so much about offence. It's just that there are places that God and I cannot go together until I am on the same page as he is. It's exactly the same dynamic between human beings. Our ability to grow, and work, with people depends on how similar our beliefs and values are. Differences in beliefs and values need not be cause for hostility. But they do limit what is possible between us.
Imagine a building with four walls and a window in each wall. Four people, one looking through each window, will see the same reality but from a different perspective. That is healthy. That is why we need each other. As we listen to one another our understanding of the whole increases. But what I'm talking about is when people are not even looking into the same building!
"Agreeing to disagree" is an honest and helpful moment of clarity in a process, but not a position from which we can lead. It's the point at which we recognise we are divided and are therefore incapable of leading until we deal with the division, as I'm sure you now know only too well! Either the two sides need to bless one another and separate, or the two sides need to work together until they can see the same reality. But all the time they are divided, the house is crumbling around them. Unity builds. Division demolishes. By definition. No exceptions. No matter what name you give to it to make it sound better.
To put a positive spin on this, how does growth happen? Cells form and divide. Sometimes two perfectly good visions cannot coexist without competing with one another. Sometimes two valid, but different, cultures cannot coexist without sucking the life out of each other. In the context of all of space and time, no one group of Christians can represent all expressions of the kingdom. It is not an act of disloyalty to part company with blessing in order to free both sides to pursue what is truly in their respective hearts. Loyalty is a virtue, but when its fruit is a crumbling house, then it is misplaced loyalty. It is then loyalty to loyalty rather than loyalty to the Kingdom.
***
Well, I hope some of those thoughts were helpful. If not, you've just read my journal for today! It was useful to me to see where I'm at on my journey, even if it wasn't useful for you!
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Sorting More Than Clothes
I spent much of last weekend sorting my summer and winter clothing. Having moved from a 7-room house to a 2-room flat does make one realize how much STUFF one possesses. So every fall and every spring, roughly half my clothing takes up seasonal residence in plastic boxes in the basement, while the other half enjoys hanging around in my closet. I am nothing if not fair.
I know I own far too much clothing (and, needless to say, too many shoes). One, I am a woman and that's just what we do. Two, I know that for many years after it finally became financially feasible, clothes shopping was for me a sort of consolation prize, a form of compensation for other lacks I was feeling. Three, much of my clothing, though it still fits and may even look good, is no longer called-for because it is (drumroll, please:) Ministry Clothing.
What do I mean by Ministry Clothing (MC for short)? MC is clothing I wore in my former life as a (at least part-time) public figure. It is, with some exceptions, mostly in muted colors or subtle patterns. My outfit of choice was a longer skirt or slacks, stretchable top and blazer-- dressed up or down with scarves, belts, higher or lower shoes. There are no low necklines, high-ish hemlines or figure-hugging lines in my MC. I even had a score of rather uncomfortably reinforced Ministry Bras, bought for the express purpose of hiding the fact that I am one of those girls created with all-too-evident nipples.
The purpose of this wardrobe was, while well-dressed enough not to give offense, to draw as little attention as possible to myself or to the fact that I am a woman. I think part of that motivation was a good one; ie, especially when in ministry, I want people to be able to look past me and see Christ ministering to them. I consider myself a delivery person of God's blessings, and the packaging should not detract from that. I certainly didn't want to follow the example of a South African woman minister I experienced long ago, who was a beautiful and anointed woman, but seemed clueless to the fact that the way she dressed was a distraction to her goal. Her outfit was in no way indecent, but certainly did not de-emphasize any of her considerable feminine attributes. Each time she bent over a bit (causing her silky blouse to gape) or stretched her legs (causing her skirt to ride up) to pray for somebody, half the men in the room were, er, not exactly worshiping in the beauty of holiness. Add to that she was also a girl with nipples which made themselves known when she was (for any reason, mind you!) excited, clearly did NOT wear a ministry bra, and there you have my Unintentionally Poor Example.
However, I think I went a bit too far in the opposite direction. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a born slob, and like dressing up now and then. I still like the look of a blazer and feel comfortable wearing one (these days usually with jeans). But when I looked at my row of businesslike blazers, matronly trousers and shirts I wouldn't pair with my usual jeans or leggings, I became a bit thoughtful. Why was I being someone else? Whose expectations was I trying to meet, besides my own?
Anyway, I don't need most of this wardrobe any more. Not that I plan to never stand in front of people and speak again; I do think that is in my future as well as in my past. But I think I will do that as the woman I am now, not as the minister I was then. Shedding all titles, though it has also been painful, has been very freeing in a way. All the titles (minister, pastor, missionary, church planter, Christian leader; even some I was given with which I did not identify, such as "revivalist" or even "prophetic evangelist"--!) bring expectations along with them. Early on in my days of traveling ministry, I discovered that people will pretty much receive what they expect to get. If I had been invited to minister in the context of being known for training in healing prayer, people would expect healing to occur (and it did). If I was doing training in prophetic ministry, people would expect me to give public words of prophecy (and I usually did). If people received me primarily as a missionary, they were waiting to hear Heidi Baker-style stories of incredible miracles amidst horrendous poverty (which I couldn't deliver).
All these expectations are legitimate as far as they go. In fact I used to encourage prayer teams I trained for ministry trips to take full advantage of what I call "the Out-Of-Town Anointing": When people seeking ministry see your little Ministry Team badge, they assume you know what you're doing (even if you don't feel that way), so their level of expectation/faith/ability to receive from God is often higher than your confidence/faith/assurance you have something to give. Just give what you have, and watch God bless it and multiply it like loaves and fishes to feed a multitude. All this is still valid.
But what if you are expected to minister prophetically and God turns it into a healing meeting by giving you unexpected words of knowledge for healing while you're trying to preach (as happened to me with the group who, apparently frustrated at my calling myself "just a minister", advertised me as a prophetic evangelist. I don't even know what that is!)? Or it has been billed as a healing meeting and God seems much more interested in healing the inner than the outer man that particular day? These things do occur, and sometimes our titles, and the resulting expectations, get in the way of what Dad has in mind to do.
The title with which I least identify is that of "revivalist". There are differing interpretations of this term, but my experience has shown me that the expectations people have connected with it are things which do not fit with what I know of myself. I am a motivator, true; I can "preach the Word" and apply it to life; and I do know how to stand on a stage and sense where a crowd is at, what Dad has in mind, and take us from here to there. But I am not a revivalist. Though I value the times of refreshing Dad regularly grants his people, and my life has personally been formed by many of these, I do not live for revival (as if that were the answer to everything). I abhor hype and whipping up a crowd into a frenzy. Not to say that all revivalists do this, but there is certainly an expectation within revivalist circles that something of this nature will occur, and I just won't go there.
I do get genuinely excited at what Dad genuinely does. I will be the first to punch the air, grinning widely, and shout "Hallelujah!" when someone walks from their wheelchair for the first time, or has no more debilitating pain after prayer, or reconciles with estranged family members, or whatever.
I don't like it, though, when the person who has just experienced God's touch gets dragged up to a platform, interrogated, usually shoved over, and used as proof of God's favor and blessing on that ministry. I've seen this done many times over the years but particularly in Pentecostal-based circles (currently, a traveling ministry known as The Bay Revival exemplifies this style for me).
I do not agree with using these genuine signs of God's goodness (note: NOT of our correctness) as proof that we are on the edge of imminent "revival"-- however that is defined-- which will somehow solve everything and is our goal.
Hello?! Since when has the concept of revival replaced God's Kingdom coming to Earth as it is on Heaven, as the main goal of his Church? At best, times of renewal in the church leading to a measure of revival in the land are one factor in this much larger and much broader paradigm. Genuine restoration of mankind and the earth is the goal, not just the bursts of revivalist activity on the way.
I do believe in revival. It happens, thank God. I have personally been involved in at least 4 of these moves of God: the Catholic Charismatic renewal of the 70s, the Jesus People revival, a personal revival and healing on the order of Wimber's Vineyard (which in 1990 shoved me suddenly into being a renewed evangelical), and the Toronto revival starting in 1994. Oh yes, I have been in Catholic prayer groups where people were spontaneously healed just during worship. I have sat singing "Come To The Waters" over and over again with my fellow Jesus People around a campfire, modulating into beautiful harmonies of tongues, never wanting it to end. I've been in many situations where the air was so thick with the presence of God that one could hardly breathe. I've "fallen under the power" (from gently to knock-over-rows-of-chairs) countless times since the first time in 1972, when I floated serenely down at the lightest possible touch of a Catholic priest. I've seen and personally experienced miracles of every kind: physical, emotional, supply, impossible coincidence.
Yes, I absolutely believe in the manifest presence and power of God. I'm just not a revivalist. I have neither the conviction nor the energy to keep believing that revival, the revival which will change everything and solve all our problems, is right around the corner if we just pray enough, fast enough, believe enough, are passionate enough... (fill in the blank).
I can't help experiencing that emphasis as misguided effort. I can't help feeling a type of performance pressure that I know does not come from Holy Spirit, whose voice and ways I know and love. I can't help but feel that often, the God we love and serve has been quietly usurped by a thing, a thing we call REVIVAL, which at least a portion of the Church unknowingly worships and ceaselessly strives to serve, though it never-- quite-- fully manifests.
If it ever did, boy would we be in trouble, because are our churches set up to receive thousands of new believers every week? If not, what will we do with all these new followers of Jesus who are not, and probably should not ever become, "church-broken"? Are we prepared to leave our comfortable buildings and safe services (and yes, no matter how wild it may get inside, we go home to our comfortable lives and many times the twain don't meet during the week), to dive into the real lives of real people all around us?
If we are not, if we can't even integrate what we experience on Sundays and in meetings with what we live throughout the rest of the week, then maybe we should stop working so hard for a revival that, should it ever occur, would mess everything up.
Just a thought.
Anyway, if you need some nice blazers, come on by.
I know I own far too much clothing (and, needless to say, too many shoes). One, I am a woman and that's just what we do. Two, I know that for many years after it finally became financially feasible, clothes shopping was for me a sort of consolation prize, a form of compensation for other lacks I was feeling. Three, much of my clothing, though it still fits and may even look good, is no longer called-for because it is (drumroll, please:) Ministry Clothing.
What do I mean by Ministry Clothing (MC for short)? MC is clothing I wore in my former life as a (at least part-time) public figure. It is, with some exceptions, mostly in muted colors or subtle patterns. My outfit of choice was a longer skirt or slacks, stretchable top and blazer-- dressed up or down with scarves, belts, higher or lower shoes. There are no low necklines, high-ish hemlines or figure-hugging lines in my MC. I even had a score of rather uncomfortably reinforced Ministry Bras, bought for the express purpose of hiding the fact that I am one of those girls created with all-too-evident nipples.
The purpose of this wardrobe was, while well-dressed enough not to give offense, to draw as little attention as possible to myself or to the fact that I am a woman. I think part of that motivation was a good one; ie, especially when in ministry, I want people to be able to look past me and see Christ ministering to them. I consider myself a delivery person of God's blessings, and the packaging should not detract from that. I certainly didn't want to follow the example of a South African woman minister I experienced long ago, who was a beautiful and anointed woman, but seemed clueless to the fact that the way she dressed was a distraction to her goal. Her outfit was in no way indecent, but certainly did not de-emphasize any of her considerable feminine attributes. Each time she bent over a bit (causing her silky blouse to gape) or stretched her legs (causing her skirt to ride up) to pray for somebody, half the men in the room were, er, not exactly worshiping in the beauty of holiness. Add to that she was also a girl with nipples which made themselves known when she was (for any reason, mind you!) excited, clearly did NOT wear a ministry bra, and there you have my Unintentionally Poor Example.
However, I think I went a bit too far in the opposite direction. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a born slob, and like dressing up now and then. I still like the look of a blazer and feel comfortable wearing one (these days usually with jeans). But when I looked at my row of businesslike blazers, matronly trousers and shirts I wouldn't pair with my usual jeans or leggings, I became a bit thoughtful. Why was I being someone else? Whose expectations was I trying to meet, besides my own?
Anyway, I don't need most of this wardrobe any more. Not that I plan to never stand in front of people and speak again; I do think that is in my future as well as in my past. But I think I will do that as the woman I am now, not as the minister I was then. Shedding all titles, though it has also been painful, has been very freeing in a way. All the titles (minister, pastor, missionary, church planter, Christian leader; even some I was given with which I did not identify, such as "revivalist" or even "prophetic evangelist"--!) bring expectations along with them. Early on in my days of traveling ministry, I discovered that people will pretty much receive what they expect to get. If I had been invited to minister in the context of being known for training in healing prayer, people would expect healing to occur (and it did). If I was doing training in prophetic ministry, people would expect me to give public words of prophecy (and I usually did). If people received me primarily as a missionary, they were waiting to hear Heidi Baker-style stories of incredible miracles amidst horrendous poverty (which I couldn't deliver).
All these expectations are legitimate as far as they go. In fact I used to encourage prayer teams I trained for ministry trips to take full advantage of what I call "the Out-Of-Town Anointing": When people seeking ministry see your little Ministry Team badge, they assume you know what you're doing (even if you don't feel that way), so their level of expectation/faith/ability to receive from God is often higher than your confidence/faith/assurance you have something to give. Just give what you have, and watch God bless it and multiply it like loaves and fishes to feed a multitude. All this is still valid.
But what if you are expected to minister prophetically and God turns it into a healing meeting by giving you unexpected words of knowledge for healing while you're trying to preach (as happened to me with the group who, apparently frustrated at my calling myself "just a minister", advertised me as a prophetic evangelist. I don't even know what that is!)? Or it has been billed as a healing meeting and God seems much more interested in healing the inner than the outer man that particular day? These things do occur, and sometimes our titles, and the resulting expectations, get in the way of what Dad has in mind to do.
The title with which I least identify is that of "revivalist". There are differing interpretations of this term, but my experience has shown me that the expectations people have connected with it are things which do not fit with what I know of myself. I am a motivator, true; I can "preach the Word" and apply it to life; and I do know how to stand on a stage and sense where a crowd is at, what Dad has in mind, and take us from here to there. But I am not a revivalist. Though I value the times of refreshing Dad regularly grants his people, and my life has personally been formed by many of these, I do not live for revival (as if that were the answer to everything). I abhor hype and whipping up a crowd into a frenzy. Not to say that all revivalists do this, but there is certainly an expectation within revivalist circles that something of this nature will occur, and I just won't go there.
I do get genuinely excited at what Dad genuinely does. I will be the first to punch the air, grinning widely, and shout "Hallelujah!" when someone walks from their wheelchair for the first time, or has no more debilitating pain after prayer, or reconciles with estranged family members, or whatever.
I don't like it, though, when the person who has just experienced God's touch gets dragged up to a platform, interrogated, usually shoved over, and used as proof of God's favor and blessing on that ministry. I've seen this done many times over the years but particularly in Pentecostal-based circles (currently, a traveling ministry known as The Bay Revival exemplifies this style for me).
I do not agree with using these genuine signs of God's goodness (note: NOT of our correctness) as proof that we are on the edge of imminent "revival"-- however that is defined-- which will somehow solve everything and is our goal.
Hello?! Since when has the concept of revival replaced God's Kingdom coming to Earth as it is on Heaven, as the main goal of his Church? At best, times of renewal in the church leading to a measure of revival in the land are one factor in this much larger and much broader paradigm. Genuine restoration of mankind and the earth is the goal, not just the bursts of revivalist activity on the way.
I do believe in revival. It happens, thank God. I have personally been involved in at least 4 of these moves of God: the Catholic Charismatic renewal of the 70s, the Jesus People revival, a personal revival and healing on the order of Wimber's Vineyard (which in 1990 shoved me suddenly into being a renewed evangelical), and the Toronto revival starting in 1994. Oh yes, I have been in Catholic prayer groups where people were spontaneously healed just during worship. I have sat singing "Come To The Waters" over and over again with my fellow Jesus People around a campfire, modulating into beautiful harmonies of tongues, never wanting it to end. I've been in many situations where the air was so thick with the presence of God that one could hardly breathe. I've "fallen under the power" (from gently to knock-over-rows-of-chairs) countless times since the first time in 1972, when I floated serenely down at the lightest possible touch of a Catholic priest. I've seen and personally experienced miracles of every kind: physical, emotional, supply, impossible coincidence.
Yes, I absolutely believe in the manifest presence and power of God. I'm just not a revivalist. I have neither the conviction nor the energy to keep believing that revival, the revival which will change everything and solve all our problems, is right around the corner if we just pray enough, fast enough, believe enough, are passionate enough... (fill in the blank).
I can't help experiencing that emphasis as misguided effort. I can't help feeling a type of performance pressure that I know does not come from Holy Spirit, whose voice and ways I know and love. I can't help but feel that often, the God we love and serve has been quietly usurped by a thing, a thing we call REVIVAL, which at least a portion of the Church unknowingly worships and ceaselessly strives to serve, though it never-- quite-- fully manifests.
If it ever did, boy would we be in trouble, because are our churches set up to receive thousands of new believers every week? If not, what will we do with all these new followers of Jesus who are not, and probably should not ever become, "church-broken"? Are we prepared to leave our comfortable buildings and safe services (and yes, no matter how wild it may get inside, we go home to our comfortable lives and many times the twain don't meet during the week), to dive into the real lives of real people all around us?
If we are not, if we can't even integrate what we experience on Sundays and in meetings with what we live throughout the rest of the week, then maybe we should stop working so hard for a revival that, should it ever occur, would mess everything up.
Just a thought.
Anyway, if you need some nice blazers, come on by.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Jots and Tittles
Matthew 5:18: For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke (KJV: jot or tittle) shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
John 19:30: Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished (accomplished)!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
It is my belief that Jesus Christ was in himself the fulfillment of the Law and did what no human could do: the work of his life, death and resurrection was (as A well puts it) complete, sufficient and includes you and me. That means whatever demands the law placed upon us have been fulfilled by him, making it not only unnecessary but indeed counter-productive for me to futilely try and measure up to a requirement already met on my behalf. I may go into this theme more in another post sometime, but this is the basis from which I work in the musings that follow.
However, the fact that the law has been fulfilled, or completed, or its demands met, does not mean that it has in itself become irrelevant. Wrong has not become right, nor has right become wrong. It's still wrong to murder your neighbor, covet his goods, lie and steal. It's still right to love one another and feed the poor. Life is still better for all human beings and societies where these precepts are followed, than where they are not. In this sense, so long as heaven and earth remain, there remains a moral standard above man's reckoning. This will not be abolished until "heaven and earth pass away", because as long as there are human beings, there is need for a moral standard.
That established, let us move on to the least essential part of this discussion: jots and tittles.
That phrase --like "flotsam and jetsam"-- has always delighted me, though I long had no idea what it could mean. I realize that both written Hebrew and Greek are so very other than any languages I understand, it could mean practically anything, including scribal error, ink blots or a slip of the pen. But when I learned German I finally got a window of understanding on jots and tittles.
One thing about not only learning a new language but actually living in the culture from whence it developed, is that you learn humility very, very quickly. Especially if you're a person who, in their native tongue, is accustomed to being well-read, speaking correctly and having a wide range of vocabulary to express a particular meaning precisely, it's quite a comedown to be reduced to the language level of a 3-year-old (and to not pronounce even THAT very well).
I remember in the first weeks of residence in Austria gathering all my courage to accompany our hostess to the farmer's market down the street. It was quite a sight. 30 years ago farmer's markets were like stepping back into the 1950's; many of the women wore dirndls, men were often in lederhosen and/or blue cotton work shirts; flies alighted upon the fruit, the meat, the people. Cheese was cut from huge wheels. Meat (some very unfamiliar bits indeed) hung from hooks twisting in the breeze. I couldn't speak much German at that time, but I did think I knew my numbers. After all, how hard can it be?
So when I chose my vegetables and hesitantly asked the burly farmer, in my best High German, "Vee-feel kostet das?", I was quite taken aback when his barked reply was "Tsvoh unt tsvotzg!" What on earth was THAT?! I tremblingly held out my hand with a bill and hoped he was honest enough to give me the right change. The dialect farmers spoke was quite different from the city dialect I had heard up until then (not understanding much of that) and both differed dramatically from the High Northern German I had learned in school and in missions training. How was I to know the farmer had said the equivalent of "Tsvai und tsvan-tsig"??? (22)
That was "just" dialect. With time, I felt my way into many differing dialects of German, since in the first years we worked primarily with University students who had come from all over Austria to study in Graz. But there are also (drumroll, please) the dreaded UMLAUTS.
I've had to do with many other Americans in my 30 years here. The biggest problem most of them have had is learning to pronounce words with an Umlaut in them, because an Umlaut changes the sound of a vowel to something that does not exist in the English language. The British have less trouble with it for some reason; perhaps because their accent is much softer in places, and many of them have learned French which has similar sounds in it.
An Umlaut is just two small dots placed on top of certain vowels: ä,ö,ü. The best way to demonstrate how it works is to pronounce the vowel as you always would but then, still speaking the vowel out, move your lips to a different position; this changes the sound of what comes out. Don't ask me why this started in the language. Nobody has been able to tell me anything but guesswork. One common usage is to denote a diminutive; adding -chen or -lein to a word makes it a smaller version thereof, and in that case an Umlaut must be added to the vowel (for example, Blume --flower-- becomes Blümchen --little flower). But that's not all. These two tiny marks can change not only the pronunciation, but the very meaning of a word, entirely.
And that can be tricky!
For years I inadvertently described humid weather as homosexual, because I simply couldn't get it through my head that the word was "schwül" and not "schwul". My dear friends (whose smiles could not always remain hidden) did not correct me because they thought it was so cute. (Grrrrr!) If you order a burger at McDonald's, do not order a Bürger, because you will be asking for a grilled citizen. And so on. Such a small detail, yet with such big consequences!
I was thinking about this one day when the penny dropped: In the above passage, Jesus is not dissing the law. He is not saying it never mattered, now that we live on this side of the Cross. In fact there are probably nuances within it which we will never grasp, never "pronounce correctly". But as the letter to the Romans emphasizes. the law is only actually necessary for children, as a tutor until they are mature. It is never invalid (right is still right, wrong is still wrong), but its job is to establish a standard within us that, as we mature, renders the law outside of us superfluous.
Adults don't need to be told the oven is hot and it is a no-no to touch it. They know the oven is hot and if they do touch it, they have chosen to do so knowing full well it is hot. The oven has not stopped being hot (the law is still in effect), but the adult is not bound by the law not to touch it if he chooses, for his own considered reasons, to do so. The law is there for his protection, but there are times he will override it for a purpose he finds sufficient (perhaps another human being is in more danger of burns than he, or perhaps there is simply no time to grab a potholder before the casserole burns). In any case, as long as the adult has the laws of the Kingdom in his heart (love God, love his neighbor), his actions will be reflected in his choices and he doesn't need a tutor standing over him with a whip.
As we grow into maturity as adults, we will make mistakes in our choices, but that eventuality too has been paid for. No jot or tittle of Dad's original intentions in his moral law (I am not including such things as dietary proscriptions for a desert tribe in this!) can ever be considered unimportant to the heart of God. But as a schoolmaster for the human race, its purpose has been accomplished through Christ. Now we are challenged "no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:14-16) I like the way JB Philiips has translated this passage: "We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the crafty presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love."
I see this as Dad's ideal community: the phrase "in love" occurs twice here, and as John the beloved apostle reminds us: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8) He goes on in vs 16: "God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
Abiding by the only two laws of the Kingdom (love God, love man) fulfills all other law, there being no law against love. Jesus did this perfectly. In our feeble efforts to learn to do this, we will sometimes harm ourselves and others, and will most certainly break a rule or two. But children only grow when they are given room to do so. Adults only become mature when they make choices and learn from them. Dad has constructed the universe in such a way that it runs best on love. When we "slot in" to his way of living, it goes well with us and with those whose lives we touch.
I don't need to worry about the jots and tittles; Jesus took care of that for me.
Now if I could only get a handle on the Umlauts!
John 19:30: Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished (accomplished)!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
It is my belief that Jesus Christ was in himself the fulfillment of the Law and did what no human could do: the work of his life, death and resurrection was (as A well puts it) complete, sufficient and includes you and me. That means whatever demands the law placed upon us have been fulfilled by him, making it not only unnecessary but indeed counter-productive for me to futilely try and measure up to a requirement already met on my behalf. I may go into this theme more in another post sometime, but this is the basis from which I work in the musings that follow.
However, the fact that the law has been fulfilled, or completed, or its demands met, does not mean that it has in itself become irrelevant. Wrong has not become right, nor has right become wrong. It's still wrong to murder your neighbor, covet his goods, lie and steal. It's still right to love one another and feed the poor. Life is still better for all human beings and societies where these precepts are followed, than where they are not. In this sense, so long as heaven and earth remain, there remains a moral standard above man's reckoning. This will not be abolished until "heaven and earth pass away", because as long as there are human beings, there is need for a moral standard.
That established, let us move on to the least essential part of this discussion: jots and tittles.
That phrase --like "flotsam and jetsam"-- has always delighted me, though I long had no idea what it could mean. I realize that both written Hebrew and Greek are so very other than any languages I understand, it could mean practically anything, including scribal error, ink blots or a slip of the pen. But when I learned German I finally got a window of understanding on jots and tittles.
One thing about not only learning a new language but actually living in the culture from whence it developed, is that you learn humility very, very quickly. Especially if you're a person who, in their native tongue, is accustomed to being well-read, speaking correctly and having a wide range of vocabulary to express a particular meaning precisely, it's quite a comedown to be reduced to the language level of a 3-year-old (and to not pronounce even THAT very well).
I remember in the first weeks of residence in Austria gathering all my courage to accompany our hostess to the farmer's market down the street. It was quite a sight. 30 years ago farmer's markets were like stepping back into the 1950's; many of the women wore dirndls, men were often in lederhosen and/or blue cotton work shirts; flies alighted upon the fruit, the meat, the people. Cheese was cut from huge wheels. Meat (some very unfamiliar bits indeed) hung from hooks twisting in the breeze. I couldn't speak much German at that time, but I did think I knew my numbers. After all, how hard can it be?
So when I chose my vegetables and hesitantly asked the burly farmer, in my best High German, "Vee-feel kostet das?", I was quite taken aback when his barked reply was "Tsvoh unt tsvotzg!" What on earth was THAT?! I tremblingly held out my hand with a bill and hoped he was honest enough to give me the right change. The dialect farmers spoke was quite different from the city dialect I had heard up until then (not understanding much of that) and both differed dramatically from the High Northern German I had learned in school and in missions training. How was I to know the farmer had said the equivalent of "Tsvai und tsvan-tsig"??? (22)
That was "just" dialect. With time, I felt my way into many differing dialects of German, since in the first years we worked primarily with University students who had come from all over Austria to study in Graz. But there are also (drumroll, please) the dreaded UMLAUTS.
I've had to do with many other Americans in my 30 years here. The biggest problem most of them have had is learning to pronounce words with an Umlaut in them, because an Umlaut changes the sound of a vowel to something that does not exist in the English language. The British have less trouble with it for some reason; perhaps because their accent is much softer in places, and many of them have learned French which has similar sounds in it.
An Umlaut is just two small dots placed on top of certain vowels: ä,ö,ü. The best way to demonstrate how it works is to pronounce the vowel as you always would but then, still speaking the vowel out, move your lips to a different position; this changes the sound of what comes out. Don't ask me why this started in the language. Nobody has been able to tell me anything but guesswork. One common usage is to denote a diminutive; adding -chen or -lein to a word makes it a smaller version thereof, and in that case an Umlaut must be added to the vowel (for example, Blume --flower-- becomes Blümchen --little flower). But that's not all. These two tiny marks can change not only the pronunciation, but the very meaning of a word, entirely.
And that can be tricky!
For years I inadvertently described humid weather as homosexual, because I simply couldn't get it through my head that the word was "schwül" and not "schwul". My dear friends (whose smiles could not always remain hidden) did not correct me because they thought it was so cute. (Grrrrr!) If you order a burger at McDonald's, do not order a Bürger, because you will be asking for a grilled citizen. And so on. Such a small detail, yet with such big consequences!
I was thinking about this one day when the penny dropped: In the above passage, Jesus is not dissing the law. He is not saying it never mattered, now that we live on this side of the Cross. In fact there are probably nuances within it which we will never grasp, never "pronounce correctly". But as the letter to the Romans emphasizes. the law is only actually necessary for children, as a tutor until they are mature. It is never invalid (right is still right, wrong is still wrong), but its job is to establish a standard within us that, as we mature, renders the law outside of us superfluous.
Adults don't need to be told the oven is hot and it is a no-no to touch it. They know the oven is hot and if they do touch it, they have chosen to do so knowing full well it is hot. The oven has not stopped being hot (the law is still in effect), but the adult is not bound by the law not to touch it if he chooses, for his own considered reasons, to do so. The law is there for his protection, but there are times he will override it for a purpose he finds sufficient (perhaps another human being is in more danger of burns than he, or perhaps there is simply no time to grab a potholder before the casserole burns). In any case, as long as the adult has the laws of the Kingdom in his heart (love God, love his neighbor), his actions will be reflected in his choices and he doesn't need a tutor standing over him with a whip.
As we grow into maturity as adults, we will make mistakes in our choices, but that eventuality too has been paid for. No jot or tittle of Dad's original intentions in his moral law (I am not including such things as dietary proscriptions for a desert tribe in this!) can ever be considered unimportant to the heart of God. But as a schoolmaster for the human race, its purpose has been accomplished through Christ. Now we are challenged "no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:14-16) I like the way JB Philiips has translated this passage: "We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the crafty presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love."
I see this as Dad's ideal community: the phrase "in love" occurs twice here, and as John the beloved apostle reminds us: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8) He goes on in vs 16: "God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
Abiding by the only two laws of the Kingdom (love God, love man) fulfills all other law, there being no law against love. Jesus did this perfectly. In our feeble efforts to learn to do this, we will sometimes harm ourselves and others, and will most certainly break a rule or two. But children only grow when they are given room to do so. Adults only become mature when they make choices and learn from them. Dad has constructed the universe in such a way that it runs best on love. When we "slot in" to his way of living, it goes well with us and with those whose lives we touch.
I don't need to worry about the jots and tittles; Jesus took care of that for me.
Now if I could only get a handle on the Umlauts!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Busted
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~ Anatole France
This quote perfectly describes what I have been experiencing recently. Through much pain and turmoil, huge amounts of impossible "coincidence", and liberal applications of unexpected and quite unmerited grace, I now shakily find myself in a place where I am:
- freed from a long marriage that, though we made it work, never could fulfill me emotionally and had abusive elements to it;
- free from the constraints of CAWKI (Church As We Know It), after serving it full-time in various forms for over 30 years;
- deeply beloved by a man whom I not only deeply love in return, but respect and learn from, genuinely like and delight in;
- free to start over again in any place we can afford to live.
So what am I grousing about? Yes, getting here took a lot of tears and pain that I wasn't expecting. But as Dad once challenged me in a previous period of great upheaval: "Remember that life you didn't want any more, that you gave me in despair? Well, look at your life now. You don't have that old life any more, do you? So what are you complaining about?"
And I remember standing in front of people attending missions training and telling them, "Yes, do count the cost. But then pay it, whatever the amount; because Kingdom life is worth it!"
Busted.
In the past weeks, I've again come to the point where my heart has been revealed to me and I find that underneath all the upheaval, rejection, pain and change of the past few years, I still do burn for one thing: the King and his Kingdom. To be sure, my ideas of what that looks like in daily living are in constant flux. But A and I both that know that before we ever knew one another, each in our own way, we had given up our "old" lives for something more, off the beaten track, to be available for the King and his Kingdom. And we both know it would never be enough for us to just live a quiet life off in a corner of England gazing into each others' eyes until we grow too old to see.
So we are back to the questions: but what? And how? And there are far more questions than answers right now. The only two things that are certain are that we love each other and God, and that A will be taking his degree for the next 5 to 6 years. England appears to be the best place in which to do that, providing the most options for us and requiring the least depletion of our resources. Whether we actually end up there or not still depends on a number of things which have yet to take place, but we are moving in that direction.
I think-- no, I know!-- that I needed to do emotional leave-taking of my children (both spiritual as in VG and physical as in my own) in any case. The inappropriate parts of my attachment were a mental and emotional block keeping me clinging on to a life situation that is no longer in place. Adult children are not like children living at home, a fact I have always championed and which English-speaking nations seem to support with their culture. But my biological children did grow up in a society which expects Mama to be always available down the road; if anything in life should go wrong, Mama will drop everything and step in.
Now, I am perfectly willing, nay eager, to step in when needed; I'm just not willing, nor do I think it's healthy, to wait in the wings until called for, to sacrifice my own life on that altar as I see countless Austrian mothers doing. What may therefore feel like abandonment to an Austrian adult child may actually be healthy detachment, moving on to a more equal stage of adult life in which it becomes possible to be both Mum and friend.
In any case, I'm slowly coming into a wider place where my past no longer fills my thoughts nor determines my actions, where creativity and delight in the simple things of life are returning, where I now actually sometimes choose to spend a whole afternoon listening to worship music or reading something theologically "heavy" (which I for awhile simply could not handle). I still find myself allergic to CAWKI, but not to fellowship. I still dislike hype, but love God-stuff. I'm still not a triumphalistic American revivalist, but I am a minister of the Good News.
And I'm still not finished.
This quote perfectly describes what I have been experiencing recently. Through much pain and turmoil, huge amounts of impossible "coincidence", and liberal applications of unexpected and quite unmerited grace, I now shakily find myself in a place where I am:
- freed from a long marriage that, though we made it work, never could fulfill me emotionally and had abusive elements to it;
- free from the constraints of CAWKI (Church As We Know It), after serving it full-time in various forms for over 30 years;
- deeply beloved by a man whom I not only deeply love in return, but respect and learn from, genuinely like and delight in;
- free to start over again in any place we can afford to live.
So what am I grousing about? Yes, getting here took a lot of tears and pain that I wasn't expecting. But as Dad once challenged me in a previous period of great upheaval: "Remember that life you didn't want any more, that you gave me in despair? Well, look at your life now. You don't have that old life any more, do you? So what are you complaining about?"
And I remember standing in front of people attending missions training and telling them, "Yes, do count the cost. But then pay it, whatever the amount; because Kingdom life is worth it!"
Busted.
In the past weeks, I've again come to the point where my heart has been revealed to me and I find that underneath all the upheaval, rejection, pain and change of the past few years, I still do burn for one thing: the King and his Kingdom. To be sure, my ideas of what that looks like in daily living are in constant flux. But A and I both that know that before we ever knew one another, each in our own way, we had given up our "old" lives for something more, off the beaten track, to be available for the King and his Kingdom. And we both know it would never be enough for us to just live a quiet life off in a corner of England gazing into each others' eyes until we grow too old to see.
So we are back to the questions: but what? And how? And there are far more questions than answers right now. The only two things that are certain are that we love each other and God, and that A will be taking his degree for the next 5 to 6 years. England appears to be the best place in which to do that, providing the most options for us and requiring the least depletion of our resources. Whether we actually end up there or not still depends on a number of things which have yet to take place, but we are moving in that direction.
I think-- no, I know!-- that I needed to do emotional leave-taking of my children (both spiritual as in VG and physical as in my own) in any case. The inappropriate parts of my attachment were a mental and emotional block keeping me clinging on to a life situation that is no longer in place. Adult children are not like children living at home, a fact I have always championed and which English-speaking nations seem to support with their culture. But my biological children did grow up in a society which expects Mama to be always available down the road; if anything in life should go wrong, Mama will drop everything and step in.
Now, I am perfectly willing, nay eager, to step in when needed; I'm just not willing, nor do I think it's healthy, to wait in the wings until called for, to sacrifice my own life on that altar as I see countless Austrian mothers doing. What may therefore feel like abandonment to an Austrian adult child may actually be healthy detachment, moving on to a more equal stage of adult life in which it becomes possible to be both Mum and friend.
In any case, I'm slowly coming into a wider place where my past no longer fills my thoughts nor determines my actions, where creativity and delight in the simple things of life are returning, where I now actually sometimes choose to spend a whole afternoon listening to worship music or reading something theologically "heavy" (which I for awhile simply could not handle). I still find myself allergic to CAWKI, but not to fellowship. I still dislike hype, but love God-stuff. I'm still not a triumphalistic American revivalist, but I am a minister of the Good News.
And I'm still not finished.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Different -- not wrong?!
I have been wanting to write about my trip to South Africa but not wanting to at the same time. That's why, in the end, nothing has yet been written. But I find it's set up sort of a mental block; until I write this and get it out of my head, I seem unable to write about much else. So, here goes.
Now, I preface my remarks by noting that I spent my entire 2 1/2 weeks in that large country in only one region, Cape Town and the surrounding Cape, so I am certainly not the expert on South Africa. And frankly, Cape Town is SA's original settlement of imperialism (first Dutch and later English), so it is likely to have more remnants of that mentality there than perhaps anywhere else. But still, South Africa's culture was an utter surprise to me. I'd been told to expect a warm and generous culture and have a wonderful relaxing holiday. Instead, I found it a strange and deeply disturbing country.
I'd read up a bit on it before leaving Austria, and I'd heard quite a bit from my various friends from there, but my experience didn't fit any of that information. I guess inwardly I was expecting something like the culture of Brazil, where every race and income bracket is represented, but they all intermarry and they all accept each other as Brazilians. Sure, there is still a visible gap between the very rich and the very poor, but the average Brazilian of the ever-growing middle class is aware of this gap, not happy about it and works to change it.
My experience of South Africa was that, although apartheid may now be illegal, what caused and supported apartheid in the first place is still unfortunately far too alive and well for my comfort level. It seems to me that South Africans live in a truce situation, not in peace. My (all white) friends there came from varying backgrounds but all conveyed clearly to me, in one form or another, the following message: "This is just the way we do life here; it's our culture. Everybody knows their place and keeps it, and it works best that way. Like attracts like; birds of a feather flock together. Everyone in SA lives where they do by choice." This in a context where one of my friends had already explained to me, in so many words, the social pecking order:
1) The English-descended whites (comparable to white-collar professionals).
2) The Dutch-descended whites (Boers, comparable to blue-collar workers).
3) "Coloreds" (everything not in the first two categories, but not black: Asians, Indians, Aboriginals, mixed-race).
4) "Our" blacks (those descended from the original tribes living in the country when it was colonized).
5) "The other" blacks (anyone from any other African nation living in SA).
In my time there, I did not see a single white person doing any job that could be considered "grunt work"; that was reserved exclusively for blacks. Coloreds sometimes waited on tables, but whites were always their bosses. There were black men at every crossroads and traffic light, trying to sell fruit or trinkets; I was told their wives actually go out to work (cleaning whites' houses and the like), but the men generally can't or won't find work and try to get by in this way. We went to church twice during my stay and each time the congregation segregated themselves automatically. (We were the only ones who broke the unwritten rules and sat on the "colored" side, which was closest to the toilets.)
Whites of middle to upper-class live in gated communities surrounded by high walls with glass, barbed wire and/or electric deterrents on the top. The common and expressed belief is that anything not nailed down or protected securely will be stolen, and I do believe it to be a justified assumption. The sprawl of ever-present townships (the SA term for slums), sometimes only blocks away, are studiously ignored by most whites, and in fact I heard complaints about how the government provided them with "free" sanitary facilities and partial electricity.
These township dwellings are truly made of whatever people could beg, borrow or steal; some had corrugated iron roofs, but many were of wood or plastic sheets or even of tarp. I was there in winter and though the temperatures do not go down to freezing it can get mighty cold, especially at night; rains are sometimes torrential and the wind can be very cutting. The average South African home does not have central heating; the houses are built of cement, and my feet were cold almost the entire time. But if it was that way in a snug house in a "mixed" neighborhood, where I stayed (this means it is not gated, but every door and window is barred and there are alarms), how must it be in a "home" made of permeable materials, with nothing but perhaps a wood or coal fire for warmth?
I heard the attitude expressed that "those people" should go back to the villages from whence they had come, hoping for a better life, as they would have enough to eat there if they lived as their ancestors had, without having to steal. I was also told that you could find good and honest black women, but you should never, ever trust a black man, not even in church. They were described to me as "animals" in how they treat their wives and their personal habits.
And this all from three otherwise delightful, devout Christian ladies who were hosting me at their expense.
What could I say? Mostly, I held my tongue. I was not there to challenge them.
However, I was, and remain, appalled. SA is the only nation (and it is, I believe, the 33rd I have visited) that I have no desire at all to return to.
Now of course there were many highlights of the visit. I saw some absolutely stunning natural beauty, I had some good times with my lady friends and ate some nice traditional food. I got the closest I have ever been to a real lion (and it was a truly awe-inspiring experience-- especially when he growled!), and God used the time away to do some necessary dealing with my heart. I know I was supposed to be there, especially as I was out of the way when my resignation letter was read out loud at a members' meeting of my old church here in Graz, and I was not present to take any flak. (What utterly perfect timing; this trip was planned 3/4 of a year before I knew that would be happening!)
But even so, my visit to South Africa remains in my mind as a deeply troubling experience. I've tried to deal with it as we learnt many years ago in missions school: "Different, not wrong"-- without much success. It seems wrong to me; it seems dangerous to assume that this truce with how things really are (though there is now a black government, the weight of money and power remains in the hands of the --few in comparison-- whites; race riots no longer occur, but white farmers are regularly slaughtered out in the veldt) can hold. I am now not at all surprised that the South Africans I have met are people I like; they are ex-pats who left that situation, who are not willing (for whatever reason) to cooperate with it.
And I sorrow that my Christian friends there seem unable to grasp how very different their accepted culture is from Kingdom culture, and how (in my opinion) their tacit support of it works against Kingdom being established in their land, although that is something they long for.
It makes me wonder what I am blind to in both my home culture and my adopted one, which has a similar effect.
Well. There it is: out there. It may not have changed anything, but I might now be able to focus on something else when I sit down to write!!
Now, I preface my remarks by noting that I spent my entire 2 1/2 weeks in that large country in only one region, Cape Town and the surrounding Cape, so I am certainly not the expert on South Africa. And frankly, Cape Town is SA's original settlement of imperialism (first Dutch and later English), so it is likely to have more remnants of that mentality there than perhaps anywhere else. But still, South Africa's culture was an utter surprise to me. I'd been told to expect a warm and generous culture and have a wonderful relaxing holiday. Instead, I found it a strange and deeply disturbing country.
I'd read up a bit on it before leaving Austria, and I'd heard quite a bit from my various friends from there, but my experience didn't fit any of that information. I guess inwardly I was expecting something like the culture of Brazil, where every race and income bracket is represented, but they all intermarry and they all accept each other as Brazilians. Sure, there is still a visible gap between the very rich and the very poor, but the average Brazilian of the ever-growing middle class is aware of this gap, not happy about it and works to change it.
My experience of South Africa was that, although apartheid may now be illegal, what caused and supported apartheid in the first place is still unfortunately far too alive and well for my comfort level. It seems to me that South Africans live in a truce situation, not in peace. My (all white) friends there came from varying backgrounds but all conveyed clearly to me, in one form or another, the following message: "This is just the way we do life here; it's our culture. Everybody knows their place and keeps it, and it works best that way. Like attracts like; birds of a feather flock together. Everyone in SA lives where they do by choice." This in a context where one of my friends had already explained to me, in so many words, the social pecking order:
1) The English-descended whites (comparable to white-collar professionals).
2) The Dutch-descended whites (Boers, comparable to blue-collar workers).
3) "Coloreds" (everything not in the first two categories, but not black: Asians, Indians, Aboriginals, mixed-race).
4) "Our" blacks (those descended from the original tribes living in the country when it was colonized).
5) "The other" blacks (anyone from any other African nation living in SA).
In my time there, I did not see a single white person doing any job that could be considered "grunt work"; that was reserved exclusively for blacks. Coloreds sometimes waited on tables, but whites were always their bosses. There were black men at every crossroads and traffic light, trying to sell fruit or trinkets; I was told their wives actually go out to work (cleaning whites' houses and the like), but the men generally can't or won't find work and try to get by in this way. We went to church twice during my stay and each time the congregation segregated themselves automatically. (We were the only ones who broke the unwritten rules and sat on the "colored" side, which was closest to the toilets.)
Whites of middle to upper-class live in gated communities surrounded by high walls with glass, barbed wire and/or electric deterrents on the top. The common and expressed belief is that anything not nailed down or protected securely will be stolen, and I do believe it to be a justified assumption. The sprawl of ever-present townships (the SA term for slums), sometimes only blocks away, are studiously ignored by most whites, and in fact I heard complaints about how the government provided them with "free" sanitary facilities and partial electricity.
These township dwellings are truly made of whatever people could beg, borrow or steal; some had corrugated iron roofs, but many were of wood or plastic sheets or even of tarp. I was there in winter and though the temperatures do not go down to freezing it can get mighty cold, especially at night; rains are sometimes torrential and the wind can be very cutting. The average South African home does not have central heating; the houses are built of cement, and my feet were cold almost the entire time. But if it was that way in a snug house in a "mixed" neighborhood, where I stayed (this means it is not gated, but every door and window is barred and there are alarms), how must it be in a "home" made of permeable materials, with nothing but perhaps a wood or coal fire for warmth?
I heard the attitude expressed that "those people" should go back to the villages from whence they had come, hoping for a better life, as they would have enough to eat there if they lived as their ancestors had, without having to steal. I was also told that you could find good and honest black women, but you should never, ever trust a black man, not even in church. They were described to me as "animals" in how they treat their wives and their personal habits.
And this all from three otherwise delightful, devout Christian ladies who were hosting me at their expense.
What could I say? Mostly, I held my tongue. I was not there to challenge them.
However, I was, and remain, appalled. SA is the only nation (and it is, I believe, the 33rd I have visited) that I have no desire at all to return to.
Now of course there were many highlights of the visit. I saw some absolutely stunning natural beauty, I had some good times with my lady friends and ate some nice traditional food. I got the closest I have ever been to a real lion (and it was a truly awe-inspiring experience-- especially when he growled!), and God used the time away to do some necessary dealing with my heart. I know I was supposed to be there, especially as I was out of the way when my resignation letter was read out loud at a members' meeting of my old church here in Graz, and I was not present to take any flak. (What utterly perfect timing; this trip was planned 3/4 of a year before I knew that would be happening!)
But even so, my visit to South Africa remains in my mind as a deeply troubling experience. I've tried to deal with it as we learnt many years ago in missions school: "Different, not wrong"-- without much success. It seems wrong to me; it seems dangerous to assume that this truce with how things really are (though there is now a black government, the weight of money and power remains in the hands of the --few in comparison-- whites; race riots no longer occur, but white farmers are regularly slaughtered out in the veldt) can hold. I am now not at all surprised that the South Africans I have met are people I like; they are ex-pats who left that situation, who are not willing (for whatever reason) to cooperate with it.
And I sorrow that my Christian friends there seem unable to grasp how very different their accepted culture is from Kingdom culture, and how (in my opinion) their tacit support of it works against Kingdom being established in their land, although that is something they long for.
It makes me wonder what I am blind to in both my home culture and my adopted one, which has a similar effect.
Well. There it is: out there. It may not have changed anything, but I might now be able to focus on something else when I sit down to write!!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Design Driven
Yesterday morning I ate a pink grapefruit for breakfast. It was simply delicious. I hummed as I carved perfect chunks out with my handy little grapefruit knife, taking very little time and effort since it's created precisely for the task and therefore does it beautifully.
As I ate I mused about that principle. There are several little items in my kitchen drawers which simply, each in its own way, make daily life that much smoother and nicer. To be honest, living in a country which doesn't grow citrus fruit, I rarely eat grapefruit; but when I do, it's a delight rather than toil and trouble... all because of that grapefruit knife.
My mother loved kitchen gadgets. She had a whole kitchen full of things like hard-boiled egg slicers, little yellow corn-cob holders, tea cozies and the like. But in amongst the junk there were a few real treasures: things made specifically for one job, which do that job superbly. Mom gave me an unassuming-looking stoneware crock which is precisely the right shape and size to whip 1/2 pint/250ml heavy cream quick as winking. The shape speeds the whole process up immeasurably; so much so that the first few times I used it, I ended up with butter.
When we were last in England, A and I went into a cookware shop where I happily browsed through all the aisles. We ended up buying plastic cling film in a custom container which dispenses it perfectly, so it doesn't tangle or wrinkle or rip (as Austrian brands always do), and a small device for making poached eggs in the microwave.
I don't know about you, but I simply cannot make a poached egg in the classic fashion (a painful admission for someone who considers herself not a bad cook on the whole). I end up with either egg soup or hard lumps. However, I like eating them and so does A. We thought it couldn't hurt, for the few pounds, to give it a try. And now this small device is the crown jewel of our breakfast kitchen. In less than 5 minutes 2 perfect poached eggs smile up at your from your toast. It simply cannot fail!
Have you ever tried to cook in a kitchen not your own and been unable to find a sharp knife? I don't know how people live with dull bits of metal in knife form. Do they just hack away at things until they stop resisting? A dull knife makes cooking a chore, rather than a pleasure.
When I die (which I trust will be no time soon, but you never know), having been a missionary most of my adult life, I won't be leaving much behind for my family to squabble over. But one household item, though unassuming in appearance, has been lusted over since its first use. That item is: THE Bread Knife. Everyone in the family knows which one I mean, because there is only one worthy of the name.
This knife was part of a very forgettable set given to my first husband and me when we married in 1977. That was before wedding registries were common; the only shops that offered them at that time were shops my friends would not be able to afford. It was the era of giving slow cookers (2), fondue pots (3), and stoneware crockery (not as much as we'd hoped for). The wooden-handled set was doubtless made cheaply somewhere in China and consisted of 6 steak knives, 1 (supposed) carving knife and... The Bread Knife.
It didn't look special then, and it certainly doesn't now, after over 30 years of constant use. I don't even remember why I kept it when we gave away the rest, having better steak knives and a carving knife that didn't bend upon contact with meat. I suppose we didn't own another bread knife then, and frankly we didn't need it as American bread usually came sliced.
However, I soon learnt it was fantastic at slicing heat-n-serve rolls, or sourdough loaves, so it stayed. And although I have owned (and given up on) several other bread knives throughout the years, nothing can touch this one for sharpness, staying power and utter indestructibility.
It's not even the classic shape for a bread knife: very long and thin, with a rounded tip and a serrated edge. But its very thinness is a boon: it never sticks to even the soggiest loaf, or the toughest-skinned Austrian Bauernbrot. I have no idea how it has stayed keen all these years, but it has....
And my entire family covets it. It's unlikely ever to wear out; the thing seems to have a life of its own. Maybe I'll have to make certain I "lose it" before I go the way of all flesh, to avoid an internecine war!
As I ate I mused about that principle. There are several little items in my kitchen drawers which simply, each in its own way, make daily life that much smoother and nicer. To be honest, living in a country which doesn't grow citrus fruit, I rarely eat grapefruit; but when I do, it's a delight rather than toil and trouble... all because of that grapefruit knife.
My mother loved kitchen gadgets. She had a whole kitchen full of things like hard-boiled egg slicers, little yellow corn-cob holders, tea cozies and the like. But in amongst the junk there were a few real treasures: things made specifically for one job, which do that job superbly. Mom gave me an unassuming-looking stoneware crock which is precisely the right shape and size to whip 1/2 pint/250ml heavy cream quick as winking. The shape speeds the whole process up immeasurably; so much so that the first few times I used it, I ended up with butter.
When we were last in England, A and I went into a cookware shop where I happily browsed through all the aisles. We ended up buying plastic cling film in a custom container which dispenses it perfectly, so it doesn't tangle or wrinkle or rip (as Austrian brands always do), and a small device for making poached eggs in the microwave.
I don't know about you, but I simply cannot make a poached egg in the classic fashion (a painful admission for someone who considers herself not a bad cook on the whole). I end up with either egg soup or hard lumps. However, I like eating them and so does A. We thought it couldn't hurt, for the few pounds, to give it a try. And now this small device is the crown jewel of our breakfast kitchen. In less than 5 minutes 2 perfect poached eggs smile up at your from your toast. It simply cannot fail!
Have you ever tried to cook in a kitchen not your own and been unable to find a sharp knife? I don't know how people live with dull bits of metal in knife form. Do they just hack away at things until they stop resisting? A dull knife makes cooking a chore, rather than a pleasure.
When I die (which I trust will be no time soon, but you never know), having been a missionary most of my adult life, I won't be leaving much behind for my family to squabble over. But one household item, though unassuming in appearance, has been lusted over since its first use. That item is: THE Bread Knife. Everyone in the family knows which one I mean, because there is only one worthy of the name.
This knife was part of a very forgettable set given to my first husband and me when we married in 1977. That was before wedding registries were common; the only shops that offered them at that time were shops my friends would not be able to afford. It was the era of giving slow cookers (2), fondue pots (3), and stoneware crockery (not as much as we'd hoped for). The wooden-handled set was doubtless made cheaply somewhere in China and consisted of 6 steak knives, 1 (supposed) carving knife and... The Bread Knife.
It didn't look special then, and it certainly doesn't now, after over 30 years of constant use. I don't even remember why I kept it when we gave away the rest, having better steak knives and a carving knife that didn't bend upon contact with meat. I suppose we didn't own another bread knife then, and frankly we didn't need it as American bread usually came sliced.
However, I soon learnt it was fantastic at slicing heat-n-serve rolls, or sourdough loaves, so it stayed. And although I have owned (and given up on) several other bread knives throughout the years, nothing can touch this one for sharpness, staying power and utter indestructibility.
It's not even the classic shape for a bread knife: very long and thin, with a rounded tip and a serrated edge. But its very thinness is a boon: it never sticks to even the soggiest loaf, or the toughest-skinned Austrian Bauernbrot. I have no idea how it has stayed keen all these years, but it has....
And my entire family covets it. It's unlikely ever to wear out; the thing seems to have a life of its own. Maybe I'll have to make certain I "lose it" before I go the way of all flesh, to avoid an internecine war!
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