Recycle!

I am just back from the clergy conference of the diocese of California. The theme was on Ecological Stewardship and Justice. In that spirit, here is a link to a list of things you can recycle and where-- it includes some things you might not know!

A very long story

I have been engrossed in this book Before the Dawn, which is about the evolution of human beings-- it's fascinating, because it's primarily about genetics, but uses data from linguistics and archeology. I have always been interested in the relationship between human languages and cultures in the distant past.

I believe in the amazing story science is uncovering through all these disciplines, about how we are all descendants of a small ancestral population from Africa, and due to genetic drift, we share common ancestors scientists have cutely named Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. And I also believe that human beings are the people of God, that God has been present in this very long history of evolution.

In Godly Play, the Sunday School curriculum we use at Epiphany, we refer to humans as the people of God, and the bible as the story of the people of God. As I read Before the Dawn, I have been musing what a long story the story of the people of God is. I hope that how we understand ourselves and God will also evolve, and take into account the new parts of the story we are learning, because I think that story is perhaps as sacred as some of the ones we know better.

Hooray for Confession

I have a little prayer book I keep in my computer bag called Hour by Hour, it was written by Alan Jones up at Grace Cathedral, SF. And when I have a minute or the mood strikes me, I pray the mini prayers services in them. There is one for every day of the week, and the morning, noon, evening and night hours. For some reason, I have said the Wed AM service more than most in the book. It must be that I often feel the need for prayer at the mid-point of the week.

The opening sentence says “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves…but if we confess our sins, God…will forgive our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness.” It’s from one of Paul’s epistles, but I don’t know which off the top of my head. A lot of times when I read that sentence, I think hard about what sins I have to confess. My definition of personal sin is pretty nuanced — I have learned to be gentle with myself since I have perfectionist tendencies. It’s not that I think I have no sin. But I tend to focus more on corporate sin—the way I participate in the sins of the world—rather than personal sins, which I think of as the psychological struggles most of us are working on everyday: anger, defensiveness, attachment, watching funny movies (for more on the sin of watching funny movies, you can listen to this sermon).

Today when I read that sentence, however, I had knew immediately what personal sin I had to confess, which had to do with being irritable with my husband when I left the house. And suddenly the power of CONFESSING came over me, because I could gently accept my own fault and feel God’s forgiveness. No more lingering guilt or anger, and best of all for perfectionists like me: no shame. Hooray!

The Tests of War

If you're feeling overwhlmed by what is going on in your life then read this. It comes from my daughter who is in Iraq covering the war for the Washington Post:

Finals week
Students at Baghdad University are taking end-of-term exams this week, which brings a whole host of problems unique to students in war zones. Many of them haven't been to class in weeks, so they are essentially taking exams based on independent study. Yesterday my colleague's 23-year-old daughter, S, came to our office, and I talked to her a bit about her experience in school.S's father (my coworker) moved his whole family -- S, her mom, and her brother and two sisters -- to Jordan last year because he feared for their safety in Baghdad (he stayed behind because he earns a good salary here). They became illegal residents in Amman, doing everything they could to get their residency permits but essentially running from the law. Making it worse for S, who was a second-year college student at the time, she couldn't attend a university in Jordan because she was not a citizen (additionally, Jordanian universities refuse to accept Iraqi college credits, meaning she would have had to start over). She and her family decided that she would study on her own in Jordan and fly back to Baghdad for exams.S said that it's incredibly isolating to attempt to replicate a college experience on her own. She doesn't know anyone in Amman and rarely goes out, studying all day in the room she shares with her sister and helping her mother around the house. As exam time came near this summer, she wasn't even sure that her hard work would pay off -- she still hadn't gotten a residency permit in Jordan, and if she traveled back to Baghdad she might not be able to reenter Amman. With just a week to go before the exams began, she finally got a permit. She flew back to Baghdad, worrying her father terribly, and is sitting for exams this weekend. Then she'll go back to Amman, continue her studies on her own, and make plans to come back at the end of the next term.S was nearly crying as she told me what her college experience used to be: sitting with friends at coffee shops helping each other review for tests, staying out too late, developing crushes on classmates. Now she steps on campus for exams only, then beelines back to Jordan. Many of her classmates' families cannot afford to move them out of the country, so they still have a community here, and S is crazy with jealousy. She's begged her father to allow her to move back to Baghdad, but he says absolutely not. As much as he loves having S here, my coworker is counting down the hours until she is safely out of Iraq again. We're at 48 and counting...

Flowchart

I think this is funny, but I can't be certain.
WARNING: there is a 4 letter word in this flowchart.