Having mentioned the book Generous Orthodoxy a while back, my thanks to Scott Anderson of the Wisconsin Conference of Churches for posting this interview with the author, Brian McLaren. I think many of my "wonders" about him stand, but I hear in this interview some good cogient thinking on what we're facing as Mainline churches, and it resonates with some of what I read in things like A Failure of Nerve and The Leadership Trap about how easy it is to mistake a technical challenge for a true moment of change.
http://www.faithandleadership.duke.edu/multimedia/brian-d-mclaren-denominations-do-invaluable-things
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
In-Between Times
In-between times sometimes put you in in-between places. For me, yesterday, it was the service counter at the Piggly Wiggly, mid-afternoon, in search of a copy of their coupon flyer. I was “pardoning their dust” which meant there was not a real, discrete line to stand in. The service counter, it seems, is Lottery Central, and so waiting for a flyer meant waiting for people to make their selections, but one woman probably in her mid seventies stood directly in front of the case, two hands clutched to the top of her purse, the bright red scarf on her head reminding me of every woman who had stood in line beside my mother when I was a child.
When I took my place in the non-line her eyes darted from the plastic wall separating her from rolls of tickets with a flash that hovered somewhere between fear and anger. The clear message I took was, “don’t you DARE step into line before me!” The gentleman before both of us finished his business—half a dozen eggs, a pack of generic cigarettes and four lottery tickets, and it was Red Babushka’s turn.
Her purpose was singular. “One number four, and…”she paused… “number seven…how much?” “”Five six and seven are $3, eight is $2” the clerk replied. Babushka fingered the top of her purse and pulled out a matching red pocketbook, nervously tallying the bills neatly arranged in the last compartment. The eyes in the back of her head cut through me once more. Apparently her assessment of me was of a slightly aged and balding gang-banger ready to snatch her purse. She let me know without words that she was ready for any eventuality, but her warning served as something of an invitation to voyeurism, as it obviously took her longer to assess her options than it would have taken me to do a complete census of the presidents in my slim wallet.
“Two eights and a five,” she said crisply. “$14.” Slowly, but without malice of forethought, a ten and a five were plucked from the pocketbook and handed directly to the clerk. A slightly ragged single and four bright cards were returned. The single slid in at just the right spot among her bills, and the red clasp shut tight, the pocket book returned to the purse.
It was when the four lottery cards were sifted into that bag, and the bag firmly tucked into the shopping cart Babushka was protecting, that I felt a different aura—a lightness of being—as if somehow the slim hope contained in the few moments in which the edge of a coin would scrape those cards to reveal fate’s slight of hand was just enough to lift the burden of years. She might even have smiled.
I picture Babushka home, purse neatly set in the center of a kitchen table with yellow Formica and aluminum legs, the meager groceries put in shelf and freezer, maybe a cup of coffee poured with just a drop of cream. She pulls out the chair, sets the radio to AM 1150, sits, sips, and then reaches for that lucky quarter she has in a small glass candy dish right next to a 4” statue of Mary. There’s no prayer. She knows better than that. But for about 15 seconds, repeated four times, sum total of one minute, her world is boundless possibility.
What would she do if she won? Start another account at the Credit Union? A splurge in her lexicon would probably be a second old fashioned when she went to lunch with the girls. You can only have so many perms. It probably wouldn’t matter! Each grandchild would get a crisp $100 bill, that she knew for sure. But it was not about the winning. It was about 60 seconds of possibility.
For the record, the butter I searched for was on sale at Pick & Save. My purchase was hot dogs and buns (coupon employed!) and one pound of margarine. The pay off, probably Linda, who remembers me from Church and the time the Very Special Arts Choir came to sing, and how I was kind when her uncle fell from the roof of his house, and who edged into my office one December to offer a gift of a candle with a golden angel affixed. She works there now, and was going to go to a dance with one of the boys she met at work, but he got cold feet…. “planned for two month and three days before he gets cold feet!!”
“Go anyway, Linda! Have a ball!” “Yeah, maybe I will.”
Is it all a lottery? Bright tickets and lucky quarters scraping away the metallic crust, not so much because you want to win, but because even 15 seconds of possibility can lift your soul? Yes, I know, the same possibility becomes a trap, and the hapless middle-aged guy in the line behind you becomes a threat to be monitored, instead of a fellow traveler. I have never gotten completely comfortable with the State sponsorship of what amounts to a shell game, in which for the most part those who can least afford it spend money they don’t really have to dig our way out of fiscal irresponsibility. But at least yesterday I wondered what else Babushka really would have done with $14…whether $.25/sec is too much to pay for possibility?
In-between times you find yourself to in-between places, and sometimes, it makes you see sideways.
When I took my place in the non-line her eyes darted from the plastic wall separating her from rolls of tickets with a flash that hovered somewhere between fear and anger. The clear message I took was, “don’t you DARE step into line before me!” The gentleman before both of us finished his business—half a dozen eggs, a pack of generic cigarettes and four lottery tickets, and it was Red Babushka’s turn.
Her purpose was singular. “One number four, and…”she paused… “number seven…how much?” “”Five six and seven are $3, eight is $2” the clerk replied. Babushka fingered the top of her purse and pulled out a matching red pocketbook, nervously tallying the bills neatly arranged in the last compartment. The eyes in the back of her head cut through me once more. Apparently her assessment of me was of a slightly aged and balding gang-banger ready to snatch her purse. She let me know without words that she was ready for any eventuality, but her warning served as something of an invitation to voyeurism, as it obviously took her longer to assess her options than it would have taken me to do a complete census of the presidents in my slim wallet.
“Two eights and a five,” she said crisply. “$14.” Slowly, but without malice of forethought, a ten and a five were plucked from the pocketbook and handed directly to the clerk. A slightly ragged single and four bright cards were returned. The single slid in at just the right spot among her bills, and the red clasp shut tight, the pocket book returned to the purse.
It was when the four lottery cards were sifted into that bag, and the bag firmly tucked into the shopping cart Babushka was protecting, that I felt a different aura—a lightness of being—as if somehow the slim hope contained in the few moments in which the edge of a coin would scrape those cards to reveal fate’s slight of hand was just enough to lift the burden of years. She might even have smiled.
I picture Babushka home, purse neatly set in the center of a kitchen table with yellow Formica and aluminum legs, the meager groceries put in shelf and freezer, maybe a cup of coffee poured with just a drop of cream. She pulls out the chair, sets the radio to AM 1150, sits, sips, and then reaches for that lucky quarter she has in a small glass candy dish right next to a 4” statue of Mary. There’s no prayer. She knows better than that. But for about 15 seconds, repeated four times, sum total of one minute, her world is boundless possibility.
What would she do if she won? Start another account at the Credit Union? A splurge in her lexicon would probably be a second old fashioned when she went to lunch with the girls. You can only have so many perms. It probably wouldn’t matter! Each grandchild would get a crisp $100 bill, that she knew for sure. But it was not about the winning. It was about 60 seconds of possibility.
For the record, the butter I searched for was on sale at Pick & Save. My purchase was hot dogs and buns (coupon employed!) and one pound of margarine. The pay off, probably Linda, who remembers me from Church and the time the Very Special Arts Choir came to sing, and how I was kind when her uncle fell from the roof of his house, and who edged into my office one December to offer a gift of a candle with a golden angel affixed. She works there now, and was going to go to a dance with one of the boys she met at work, but he got cold feet…. “planned for two month and three days before he gets cold feet!!”
“Go anyway, Linda! Have a ball!” “Yeah, maybe I will.”
Is it all a lottery? Bright tickets and lucky quarters scraping away the metallic crust, not so much because you want to win, but because even 15 seconds of possibility can lift your soul? Yes, I know, the same possibility becomes a trap, and the hapless middle-aged guy in the line behind you becomes a threat to be monitored, instead of a fellow traveler. I have never gotten completely comfortable with the State sponsorship of what amounts to a shell game, in which for the most part those who can least afford it spend money they don’t really have to dig our way out of fiscal irresponsibility. But at least yesterday I wondered what else Babushka really would have done with $14…whether $.25/sec is too much to pay for possibility?
In-between times you find yourself to in-between places, and sometimes, it makes you see sideways.
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