Caustically Optimistic

the trouble with concubines

I’ve had a hard time going to church because of all the politics and the ignorant things said by people of all persuasions.  No, Jesus would not vote for Dennis Kucinich (he despises magical dwarves).  I haven’t gone to the adult Sunday school class at all because it is usually the worst there but today was a different story in it’s entirety because when one calls it, “adult Bible school,” one is usually referring to the age group not the content.  

Apparently, the men at my church are really into the concept of concubines.  I counted and pastor fielded more questions about the patriarch’s concubines than any of Bill Clinton’s press secretaries ever had.  I watched in my best impassive teacher face as things spiraled further and further out of control and noted that if I ever have the serious misfortune of teaching at a Lutheran school again I will not take any garbage off any of these substandard Fort Wayne Seminary Pastors about my teaching and certainly not my crowd control.

I could write my own Screwtape Letters because there is an adorable disaster weekly at church.  I can’t believe I let people’s politics cloud my perception of the fumbles and foibles of the Lutherans.  I’m sure every group is as bad as the Lutherans but because we’re right (and you’re wrong – very, very wrong) it’s funnier when there is a gaffe.

The poor, sad man just got more and more uncomfortable and wouldn’t change the subject.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taught about Thomas Jefferson and not brought up Sally Hemmings.  It’s not that I’m afraid of history or telling the full story but is there a point of bringing that up in the context of what I’d teach your twelve-year-old?  No, there really isn’t (but I don’t drop the fact that Thomas Jefferson was a fraud and coward who never had an original thought).  You have to know your audience, have a concise message or goal in your lesson and hang onto it like a dog with a bone. 

The Bible is full of imperfect people whose inadequacies, limitations, and weaknesses elucidate God’s will in our lives and most importantly the idea that no matter how much we suck at life there is hope for us.  There are people in the Good Book who seemed to get things wrong at every opportunity and through it all God still loved them and brought them home when they went astray. 

Apparently, so is the Lutheran Church.  I know I need to learn to look past people’s faults even if they’d never look past mine.  Today we had a woefully inept and insufficient exposition of the Parable of the Prodigal Son and what he meant to say was that the story is about us as the older son, that we get wrapped up in how wonderful we are and how everyone else is so terrible and that we need to be compassionate like the father and the Father.  It is such a dynamic, multifarious story that I am always disappointed when it’s discussed so poorly – but the point is that we need to stop worrying about everyone else and worry about ourselves.  The Gospel of Bono implores us to carry each other, and that’s not so we can drop kick a brother easier (although, that is the best way to do it). 

Come for the message, stay for the laughs.  That’s what I’ll do.  

Hymn of the Lutherans

This post is full of Lutheran humor, if you aren’t able to handle Lutheran humor – or if you’re not really Lutheran (ELCANS, I’m talking to you!) then please stop by again tomorrow.  The title, Hymn of the Lutherans references a hymn written for Emily's forth-coming book, Life Among the Lutherans.

On Sunday, I went to church.  My parents weren’t up when I left and must have gone to a different service (they skipped church) and the people I would usually sit by were also absent from church.  I spied my friend Linda sitting with her family so I went over to talk to her before church knowing that she’d invite me to sit with her.  Linda is sweet and good so you’d never expect that sitting by her in church would be eventful.  It was.  It opened my eyes to the whole church experience.  I have been sitting in the wrong part of the church for far too long. 

The first thing that I notice was when Pastor said, “good morning!”  He is always cheerful and we all say, “good morning,” in response the same cheery way.  Linda uttered it in the manner of someone caught before her coffee.  It reminded me of the one time our Pastor has ever lost his cool and that was when someone told a visitor they were in her seat.  Pastor came unglued the next Sunday.  It was fantastic; he will always be my favorite Pastor.  Lutherans are creatures of habit and we may have started the Reformation of Christendom but after that we’ve looked at change this way: we just want to have Christ and the right to be dumb. 

Linda’s “good morning” opened my eyes: there is a lot of crazy going on at church. 

I noticed our Elder who greets people.  I have never spoken to him personally and I am sure he’s a nice old man.  He looks like a bouncer.  Pastor tells us, “if anyone is visiting for the first time,” and we should be able to tell visitors by who is sitting in unassigned seats, “to please give Jim a hand signal and he’ll give them a welcome packet.”  Yes, I am tempted to give that hand signal but he knows I am not a visitor.  This Sunday it occurred to me that he’s probably on the look out for any lost ELCA who occasionally wander into our sanctuary.  We had to restrain Melissa when she came to visit because even though she’s become LCMS we weren’t confident that anyone had taught her the secret handshake.  We let all kinds of people in: Methodists, Democrats, the homeless, but not those ELCA ruffians.  I am about all the riffraff my church can handle, after me we’d pass the saturation point. 

Sometimes I have to miss church for work and this might have been the Sunday to miss.  It was the fifth Sunday and we do a, “Hymn Sing” where people shout out hymns and then we sign the first verse and move on.  There has to be a better method but to do things differently would be, ‘change’ and we don’t change.  However, Pastor reminded us that it was Lent and we omit the alleluias from our worship.  This prompted two ideas in our heads.  First, I sang the refrain from Emily’s Hymn of the Lutherans for Linda – and all the octogenarians in Belltone Hearing Range – It’s Lent and we’re Lutheran, we won’t sing, “Alleluia!”  We sing thee, “Hosanna!”  It means the same thing.  Linda and I considered looking for all the hymns that had an alleluia in the first verse and shouting out that hymn number but reconsidered when we remembered the watchful eye of Jim and the possibility of being stoned to death by hymnals.  The hymnals are new which would make it a great deal worse than being pelted by the antediluvian Red Hymnals. 

Our fellow parishioners have a bad habit of picking their favorite hymns.  The problem is that Pastor always calls on the old and they always pick songs that have been poorly translated from German and are impossible to sing in English.  It makes me miserable.  I was pleasantly surprised by their choices – they picked mainly Methodist hymns (meaning: written first in English) when they weren’t picking absurd hymns.  The first hymn they picked was Great is Thy Faithfulness which Leah Monster will play on her accordion and sing at my funeral, either that or Our God Our Hope in Ages Past.  The next hymn sung was, Hark the Voice of Jesus Calling, which has the second line of, who will go and work today? This is noteworthy because Linda introduced me to her sister as the person who doesn’t do anything around here to help.  This may or may not be true, but I still have a hangover from being a Lutheran teacher.  Hark the Voice of Jesus Calling is also the hymn I like to change the words to the most of any hymn in the Lutheran arsenal.  Poor Nathan can’t sing that hymn without thinking of my miserable heresies.  After this we sang the Navy Hymn. 

The next hymn would have given away any ELCA in our midst: Onward Christian Soldiers because far from being some GOP jam-fest this song gets my ELCA Grandmother out of her seat and marching in place while she sings.  It’s comical for everyone not related to or sitting with her. We rounded this out with, What a Friend We Have in Jesus.  A hymn I never mock.

After this we had Special Music, which was so special the man in front of us ripped out his hearing aids.  The choir sang four verses of a hymn and then we were supposed to sing the fifth with them.  For this verse we were conducted by the choir director – which was absurd because I don’t know what he’s doing with his hands and I was a band nerd.  If I don’t know I’m guessing he was just confusing everyone else as well – if they were paying attention.  I ignored the conducting because it’s enough for me to just sit, stand, and kneel when told to by the Pastor or the field worker. 

To ask me to sing in some sort of order is too much.  I will admit that I liked to randomly stand up during hymns when I was younger because LCMS people are like trained dogs – they’ll all stand up if someone is standing as well.  Linda did this when there was a part of a prayer that the Pastor (or the field worker) reads and we follow along with.  Linda was reading along so everyone around her started and it spread through the church.  Sure, it was an accident on the field worker’s part to tell us to but it was neat how we’re so afraid of not following along that we can gum up the service.

This was followed, more or less, by the reading of the Scriptures.  This part is always good because I don’t have to disagree with anyone’s interpretation and I can read along and not do a “running record” of reading errors.  Not so today.  Today someone read the scripture dramatically.  It was like watching a college speech tournament – yes, Renea, it was that bad.  Linda said, “you can always tell the newly Lutheran because we don’t get excited about anything, ever.” I'm sure the prophet was all "fire and brimstone" when he went at it with the Hebrews, we are not Hebrews.  We are Lutheran.  Don't get excited and NO SUDDEN MOVEMENTS.

Thankfully, this was the point at which Pastor took control of the service from the field worker and gave his children’s sermon (I tuned in for that, they played follow-the-leader,  and talked about following Jesus when you hit a ‘fork in the road’), I was switching channels through the adult sermon (it’s a longer version of the children’s sermon), we prayed (without incident), confirmed some new members and had our benediction.  There was a social hour after church, which I know didn’t happen without incident but I had to deliver a hatchback and missed the social. 

I learned an important lesson though: sitting in the balcony means you’re missing a great deal and missing church at all is missing 

CE if you’re Hebrew

Today, in 1911, the South Pole was discovered. I feel like I have moved to the South Pole with the temperature in the teens.

I have received many Christmas Cards lately, I have not received any that the blithely wished me, “Happy Holidays.” I always feel like a card that just says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Happy Holiday You Celebrate.” This time of year is full of holiday, but if you were really friends with a person enough to blow the money for a card and stamp, would you not also be close enough to know what the celebrated? When I have the presence of mind to send out cards at the holidays I remember to buy cards for my Jewish friends that mention Hanukah, Christmas for my Christian friends and Kwanza cards for people who make up their own holidays.

However, I am too classless to send out cards this holiday season. I am feigning that graduate School, teaching, a part-time job, and my lame attempt at a personal life are eating my time in such a way that I cannot find the time to write something down in a card and mail it. I love you all, each one of you – but not enough to go to the post office and buy stamps.

I figure that if you have not heard from me for the rest of the year or if we have not seen each other then, to be honest, I could care less if you have a nice holiday or not because I obviously also do not care how the rest of your year went either.

I go to great lengths to keep up with the people who are important in my life and I try to see them each every two years, unless you are my best friend – then I try to squeeze in a visit every eight to ten years. With email, cell phones and other people’s cars and couches, I am able to get around to everyone that I want to and if I did not see you or call you, there is probably a reason.

Conversely, if I have not heard from someone the rest of the year I do not mind if you do not send me a card either and the last thing I want to do is read your letter detailing your year, your mediocre children and lackluster vacation. My father’s Aunt Fern is the worst, she writes poetry – of the most awful sort. Her poems rhyme and very contrived. The worst part of my Grandmother’s funeral was holding my peace during and after the reading of the poem she wrote about my Grandmother.

In that vein, the worst thing I do with Christmas cards is throw them out without opening them if they come from someone I detest and then lie to my mother when she asks if I received a card from (insert a member of her family). My sister likes to open them and see what they wrote, but it usually rude and considering the lengths they went to be nasty to my sister after my father’s heart attack and the two weeks he was in the hospital I can only say that there are not enough candles on my menorah to burn all their correspondence. No, I will never be poor enough to open their cards to see if they sent cash or checks.

On that note, Alex Vance sent the best Christmas Card of the year. Picture it, Palestine, 28 AD (CE if you’re Hebrew), Jesus is standing in the doorway allowing snow to blow into the house and his mother Mary says, “Jesus Christ, shut the door! Were you born in a barn?” Dr. G wins for the best Christmas letter, it was just a list of what she did and where she went during the year without the tedious descriptions that normally accompany such letters. I enjoyed all the cards I have opened this year and thank everyone who sent one, it as an honor just to be thought of by such fine people.

in black and white

Peter, who I am about to starting calling “Radio Free – Vatican” told me that, “Dude, the world isn’t black and white,” and I countered, “It is when you’re color blind.” That is, indeed, the story of my life. Here is the run down on our conversation, and where I am black and white:

Newt Gingrich is thinking of running for President, giving hope to fat, Lutheran kids who had sex with their geometry teacher with an absolute lack of social skills that they too will do something with their lives. However, in defense of this small demographic, please, Newt, do you think that being humiliated in front of the Republic once enough? Do you have to do this, again? You have to ask yourself, “How many times did he touch that hot stove before his mother viciously beat him out of the kitchen and back into his room where he wrote tawdry geometry proofs?”

Newt did something some thing most politicians only talk about: some thing. He did something while he was Speaker of the House and not many can claim that. After forty years, the Democrats had little to show for it and all of Bill Clinton’s accomplishments are rooted in the Contract With America. Newt may be social inept, but his revolution was why I could not vote for John Kerry in 2004 – what did John Kerry do as a legislator? Nothing, he never led and henceforth anyone leaving the Federal Legislature should have something to show for it if they want me to promote him or her to Commander In Chief. Bill Clinton’s legacy as President is putting the Republicans in control of the Congress, the Courts, and practically electing George W. Bush, twice.