seduced

I can feel my brain being spun into goo in these last few days before Thanksgiving break. Fortunately, school has slowed down somewhat. Professors are smart people and realize that we are not at all present when a break is this close. Besides the molasses brain, this week has been pretty great. Peter and I have been talking a lot about experience and how our noses stuck inside books all the time is important but it does not make us very engaging people. Experience was the name of the game this week, and I have had quite a few meaningful ones. I made a connection with a progressive pastor last Sunday during phonathon. We'll hopefully be getting together to gush about Borg and revel in inclusivity and wide and deep grace and liberation against the grain of ultra rigid confessionalism and cheap grace when he comes for a kairos conference in December (plus he donated $50 which is a plus. ) I've spent long hours in conversation with LSS about our partnership and have been working hard on the giving tree program. Pip and I had a date, and I spent more time than ever getting to know other students during dinner. And wouldn't you know it, I have actually stayed up to date with school work. I am finally beginning to be able to balance school and still live like a real person.

Perhaps the most amazing experience I had all week was at church today. At the FTE conference on economic justice in June, my Episcopal friend told me the story of a friend of his who had recently become Episcopal. He spoke of how his friend originally hated saying the creed and the other parts of the liturgy during church because he didn't whole heartedly believe it. He felt as though he was lying. But in following months he came to find the liturgy to be very moving and even central to his faith. In a conversation over coffee he told my friend from the conference that he had been "seduced" by the liturgy. Though, he still did not believe factually in everything that the creed and liturgy said, the words became a part of his faith-a part of his being. Participation in the practices where we meet God propels us into God's activity in the world. God, that tricky coyote (read Asphalt Jesus by Eric Elnes), seduces us, causes us to fall in love with God and with meeting God through participation. This was made so clear to me at church today. The actual service at Jacob's Well was fine and dandy, a surprisingly normal stewardship service, but after the worship time we stuck around. Our conversations with people after the service made us feel more a part of that community than we ever have before. God began to seduce us into God's fold at JW. Then I went to Swahili church where my close friend Pastor Herb Hafferman was delivering the maneno. Hearing the service in Swahili and taking communion in the name of Baba yetu, na Bwana Yesu, na Roho Mtakatifu drew me into a place where I haven't been for a year. I experienced church and God so profoundly though that experience, and so did Peter and Steve. We hope to make it back to Swahili church once every month now. God is one fine seductress.

dawning activism.

Some updates on the happenings here at Luther: Part of my involvement in student council here is to commit to forming and being active in a committee. The committee are essentially campus groups engaged in specific work aimed at benefiting the campus and the community. So a few of us students decided to start the Community Connection Team, committed to service and justice in the Twin Cities. There is a really great core of people involved and we already have drawn up plans for campus wide engagement in issues of poverty. We are coordinating a "mitten tree" with Lutheran Social Services. So, if you are reading this and you are in the area, please stop by and pick up a couple requests for items to donate to LSS! My hope for this group is that we become more and more deeply involved in working against poverty. You know, perhaps the most disappointing thing for me in coming to seminary was what I perceived to be a lack of concern for social justice. There is a rich tradition of justice in Lutheranism (see Bonhoeffer) but I fear that we grace ourselves into complacency and acceptance of our roles in oppressive systems. Grace is important but we must remember that we are freed to be slaves to each other (see Luther's Freedom of a Christian and the uses of the Law). Great, we are saved by grace through faith, now what. Do we only believe because we get to go to heaven or are we captivated by the invitation to live differently than the world, to say no to oppression and fear and certainty and yes to justice and love and faith. The central question here is one that I struggle with on a daily basis: Why Christian? So I am very excited about this new development on campus.

Outside of this, the semester is winding down and that means work. Glorious, glorious work. Fortunately, my job at the phonathon is going to end next week, just in time to focus on the finals. Woo!

all souls day

Today, the day after all saints day, is the Roman Catholic holy day called all souls day. What an appropriate week in my own life. Wednesday saw the passing of the father of my best friend and the loss has rested deep in our community. This day takes on special significance right now in light of this recent tragedy.

The experiential emphasis in our religious experience is especially pertinent for me right now. The experience of the presence of the oppression of death is the one final common human factor. We all die. Unfortunately, we are united in death. Fortunately, in our frailty we meet Christ who has had his share of death.

The unity with Christ and the Christian community has been made especially clear in the last week. The support that Luther extends speaks greatly of the seminary as a Christian community. As a church goer recently said when I interviewed him for a class, "We do death well."

I am about to leave for my friend's father's funeral, thus the short and jumbled entry. I will write again soon.

Tim