Further Up and Further In ...: April 2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Holy Week: a Reflection

A foot washing service puts the attendee in an interesting position - the beauty of serving one another and remembering how Christ served/s us ... while also letting someone touch your feet. And feet are a delicate issue! I sat at the service on Thursday evening, tucked away behind the piano, offering contemplative music while my friends and peers took turns washing each others feet in the way that Jesus did before Passover. In silence (aside from the sound of my keys) an individual would take a seat, their feet next to a bowl, and in silence another individual would rise and come to them, place their feet in the bowl and proceed to wash them. There was no set order, nor forceful coercion to have each persons feet washed. It was an ebb and flow of service. I know many who passed up this opportunity for the very awkwardness of the task - either I am washing - touching - someone else's feet, or they are washing mine. But perhaps it is this awkwardness that helps us today to understand a little more the radical nature of what Jesus did. And we need to let ourselves experience the awkwardness in the same way that Jesus ask us to accept his act of servitude. Man, what a guy.

I can't remember if I've ever been to a Passion play before. I've been to my fair share of Easter Services, but I cannot recall a Passion play. Trinity Episcopal put one on, starring the best and brightest of their youth - I'd say the range in age was about 3-12. I didn't know what I was in for! There was of course the joy in seeing a child memorize their lines, the humor in seeing centurion soldiers wave at their parents in the audience, but I did not anticipate the jarring sensation of experiencing a multitude of children screaming 'Crucify Him!' at the top of their lungs. One moment they are smiling, half paying attention, and the next they are exactly that crowd in front of Pilate, bartering their savior for a murderer. However disturbing it may have been, I think it accurately portrayed what happened that day so many years ago. We all know how a crowd can take on it's own personality, luring it's members into unison, whether or not they understand what it is they are doing - the adrenaline and the movement is just too appetizing. And then it always leaves you with the question, where would I be in that multitude, mouth shut or fist in the air? ...

I have always had an admiration for the Lutherans, so for Good Friday I joined them for a service. I think Good Friday services are simply great. Perhaps it's just a recognition that in church we are never given the opportunity to sit and reflect on a passage. We are read the passage, and then told what it means or how we should try and think about it (at least for that week). But how refreshing, to read the Passion narrative for what it is, and sit in it for a while. I think we should do that more. We are much too uncomfortable in silence. How many times do I experience 'moments' for silent prayer that let me get as far as 'dear Lord' in my mind and are then interrupted by the lay leader giving the communal prayer. Let's sit in silence with our Lord.

What ARE you supposed to do on Holy Saturday?

HE IS RISEN!! What a joy to proclaim that to my peers on Easter. I may be on a seminary campus, but I do not feel the freedom to pronounce God's greatness and faithfulness to friends as I pass them by on a daily basis. Nor do I feel that excitement about Jesus would even be warmly welcomed. But on Easter, the doors are open, and the joy is free flowing. I LOVE being able to proclaim that HE is Risen and be affirmed by those passing by. A different way to share the peace. Oh, and I went to my first Sun-Rise Easter service - 5 in the morning, yet phenomenal. I have to admit though, I think the 3-hour nap afterwords really completed it.

And now it is time for finals. I do believe that Jesus saves, and therefore I cling to the hope that some grace will be extended to these exams ...

I dreamed a dream ...

A place for documenting the strangeness that radiates my imagination while I slumber. Oddly enough it is not due to any medication, go figure ...

18Oct2010
It happened. I've reached a new ... low? I am currently taking a class about the Doctrine of God. We've recently been reading Thomas Aquinas, and discussing the simplicity of God. My dream the other night involved me going for a jog (which I never, ever, do ...) and during said jog I recall a conversation with my jogging buddy, in which I say, "Ah, so the fact that God is good supersedes my ability to comprehend His goodness." That is right. My subconscious is actively processing theology while I sleep.

11March10
In real life, my friend got married in January, but I was unable to attend. HOWEVER, in my subconscious, I dreamed that she redid the entire wedding for us on campus - it was half so we could be there, and half so it would be documented (photography and video) because they didn't do it the first time. WHAT a party.

11/04

Weirdest dream - we are in an alternate universe exactly the same as this one only different. You following? I feel like all the people from seminary here are with me, and we're in some sort of lodge that's out in the woods. It's huge, because it houses like, 400 people comfortably, but this isn't the weird part. We have to be very careful about venturing outside, because there are these evil people out there waiting for us - they want to trick us, manipulate us, and make us one of them. How do we tell who they are? They always come as sets of identical twins. The thing is we somehow all ended up here, and we're trying to get back to our world, so we need to get outside the lodge and search for the path back. But every encounter with these 'people' is SUPER risky, because they are very persuasive - like sirens (the mermaids, not the ambulance noises). It was scary/awesome/crazy.

10/10
IT HAPPENED. I dreamed I was a part of High School Musical live. Along with a couple of my friends here at PTS, we were some sort of dance ensemble extras, but I'll take what I can get. But what I do remember is something more along the lines of not actually being hired to do it, but they felt like they'd let me prance around pretending I'd be in it. In other words, I had no idea what I was doing, but while doing that no one kicked me out ...

22/10
My mom is always paranoid that I'm gonna get that flesh eating bacteria and my whole face will disintegrate. Well, I dreamed that I was checking out a scab that was on my leg, and realized that it had become quite a dent. THEN I saw that I had a scab on my ankle that was really quite deep (although healed, nothing gross, it was all just regular skin) that when I tried to see how deep it was I found out it went ALL THE WAY THROUGH MY FOOT and I could see out the other side. Straight through my ankle. I even caught a glimpse of bone. WEIRD.
I also had a brief dream about this show we were filming that was kind of a contest between nuns and cops - the cops had to run through this kind of supermarket area grabbing the things they would need on doing their rounds or whatever you call it. Since nuns don't really bring a lot of stuff with them on their ... rounds? more like they don't have those ... they had to run around grabbing beads and things for putting together necklaces and rosarys, only they had to attach them together using blue masking tape. The nuns were getting all mad because the cop's task was much easier, and much less tacky.

8/10 (that's october...)
I can't remember all the details, just that it was happening Indiana Jones/National Treasure style. We were doing some sort of ancient biblical treasure hunt (thank you seminary?) and I was traveling alongside this main guy (no idea who) who was dragging along with him two young boys. They had a special title, because they were like, kid geniuses. Innate sense of direction and ridiculously good memory for every kind of fact. The kind of person you want at trivia night. The guy was yelling at them, "Come on! you've got to remember the stuff from Leviticus!" ... ??? I have no clue. We're on some beach somewhere and I'm more or less tagging along for the ride because I think I was initially kidnapped, but now I'm like that girl in National Treasure who's just too curious to leave. I'm sitting on the bank, looking up at this sort of stone wall that runs parallel to the water (not into it) and I end up picking out one of the stones and when I turn it over ... hark a clue! It has a swastika sign on it (hello Indiana influence) with a halo above it ... I don't know how I feel about that, but in any case, I yelled, "I found something!" and then promptly proceeded to wake up ... boooooo.

16/6
Apparently we are family friends with Nelson Mandela. He came to stay at my house, which is a lot larger on the inside than I remember, and the backyard is absolutely enormous. I was also hosting a student group of African American students for a meeting at my house, who were delighted to have Nelson Mandela visit for a little while, and then he went to the kitchen to do some dishes ... I was also called racist by one of the students there because I had used the phrase 'What kind of people' when saying something like 'what kind of people would do such a thing?' which doesn't really sound racist but does ask the question do I categorize people by their actions more than
I should ... anyway, I wish I really did know Nelson Mandela, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let him do the dishes ...

7/6
So I'm working at the INN in Seattle apparently, and Ryan Church asks me to make some sort of interactive deal as a part of his talk. He's preaching about prostitution and the dangers of selling sex or us buying into the current trends that just promote sex, so I decide to make a type of quiz that makes people aware of the way humans function in relation to the reality that 'sex sells' (in case you haven't read it, the book For Women Only has some eye opening facts and figures). He hands me a tape with parts of his talk already prepared, and we're talking VHS, but that doesn't even phase me I just go looking for a VCR. I find on in a common room somewhere, a TV/VCR set hanging from the ceiling and there are people socializing and eating in the room, but I just grab the closest thing to stand on (a miniature trampoline?) and move to put my tape in. I put it in and push play, and realize it isn't rewound as it's playing something taped off the TV, all in German. I rewind some more, and it is a clip from Oliver Twist (I don't think I've ever actually seen Oliver Twist) where Oliver is encouraging another orphan in the orphanage that they aren't stuck here for life, they can be whoever they want to be. This is communicated by the song my subconscious created, which I will entitle, 'You Can Be A Man'. This is what I woke up to - with it stuck in my head ... You can be a man, if you want make a plan, you can be a man ... I can sing it to you sometime if you want. I love that my subconscious is capable of writing songs, it gives me hope for my conscious ...

29/5 (I'm in Europe so I have to write it like that)
There was an ambulence running by outside our hostel this morning, and I think I dreamed that there was an airplane flying overhead that was losing pieces of itself all around us - but in my dream is more frustrating that scary. Like "really? it's losing chunks of airplane over MY street? can't it move one block over?" I am SO proud of my thoughtfulness of other people that may have been on the plane in my subconcious.

27/5
I was climbing a mountain with Bill and Claire and some other WSU students, only the mountain was pretty much a vertical pile of sand for most of the top, and you had to stick your arm in it and twist a little to get a good 'grip' in order to pull yourself up more and more. IT was CRAZy. But I got to the top with the rest of the.