Category Archives: life

posts about everyday life

What I Learned From Roger Ebert

Posted on by
Reply

Thursdayebert_opt the world bid farewell to one of the greatest and most honored film critics: Roger Ebert. Ebert wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and was on television for 31 years. It was some of those years on television with his on air partner Gene Siskel, that I learned who Roger Ebert was. He watched 100′s of films a year and wrote and talked about them with great passion and purpose.

It was then that I wanted to be Roger Ebert when I grew up.

Of course, God had other plans for my life, and I did not become Roger Ebert. But there was something about the way Ebert would talk about movies that made me want to explore these stories. Because that’s what film is – a form of storytelling. And Ebert knew what was a good story and what was not so good. And he had the courage to tell you so. And in many cases, he could do so with the simple turn of a thumb.

I have read his reviews for years online. And in way, it has taught me how to “read” a film. I learned from Ebert that a great storyteller makes use of everything he or she has at their disposal. From the actors to the cameras, from the lightening to the soundtrack. Everything has a voice in the story. Some films do this well, and others don’t.

The most interesting reviews of Ebert’s were often the ones for films that weren’t very good at storytelling – or simply sucked. Ebert had the courage to be completely honest, not just that the film didn’t work, but why. The plot made no sense. A camera angle was all wrong. The lighting communicated one thing, while the dialogue another. All of these things mattered to Ebert, and they should matter to us – the patrons of the cinema – as well.

For those films that received his coveted 3 1/2 or 4 stars, all the voices come together to give the story meaning. A deep, rich, truth that speaks it our lives. That, Ebert taught us, is what a great film does. It speaks truth into our lives. The film becomes more than just entertainment, to connects to some deep part of ourselves and causes us to think differently about ourselves and the world around us.

But most of all, I learned from Roger Ebert to keep going, no matter what life throws at you. After being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002, Ebert did not give up or stop doing what he did best. He continued to write film reviews, blog, and even wrote a cook book. And even still, when losing portions of his jaw after cancer surgeries, Ebert kept going. He always seemed to have a smile. He lived his life without fear of death. He did not live in fear, but in hope. He did not let something like fear, cancer, or anything else paralyze him from the vocation he was called to.

He wrote this in his memoir, Life Itself:

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

I still want to be Roger Ebert when I grow up.

Christmas decor 2012

Posted on by
1

This year, I had grand visions of decorating my front door for Christmas.  Once you spend a few minutes hours on Pinterest, you tend to get a little ambitious.  Honestly, I was tired of the same old thing and wanted to do something different than the traditional red bows on green garland. I decided to use teal as the primary color with gold, silver, white, and mossy green accent.  I added other elements as I went along.  I made a sheet music (old hymnal pages) tree using a tutorial on Pinterest, so I picked out some music note ribbon for the project as well.  I found teal glittery magnolias, which acted as a nod to my Louisiana roots.

To create the garland for the door, I used:

-three strands of wired garland (while it required extra work to twist the three strands together, I already had this garland on hand)

-mossy green burlap table runner (used for our wedding in April, bought from save-on-crafts)

-4″ gold deco mesh

-2″ music note wired ribbon

-floral wire

I began by measuring my door.  Because we have a screen door, I had to measure far enough outside the screen door so that the door would not hit the garland when opening and closing.  I measured about 25′ and used this as my guide.  The garland ended up laying on the ground about a foot on each side, but I like that look, so it all worked out.

I laid out my supplies running down our hallway.

I first gathered and twisted the three small strands of wired garland together, simply pinching the wiring together.  I measured out the center of the garland and began attaching the burlap so it would make a nice header.  To attach the burlap, I would fold it back and forth and then run a piece of floral wire through the holes, wrap the wire around the garland and twist to secure.  I  made sure to gather the burlap and wire at the corners so it would fall nicely and frame the door.  It is important to leave some poof in the burlap to get desired effect.  I then crisscrossed the deco mesh over the burlap puffs attaching with floral wire.

It looked like this…

photo

The hard part at this point was deciding what and how  much to add.  I tend to stick to simple, so I really had to push myself on the embellishments to get the look I desired (aka, the one in my head).  I decided to add the 2″ music note ribbon which lightened up the green and added some dimension.  After both ribbons were on, Jason and I hung it outside using coat hanger wire.  Because we have a brick house, we hung the wire from the soffit.  We secured the sides with command hooks to give it more stability.

I added glittered teal magnolias, ornament clusters and glittered teal pine cone clusters- attaching them with floral wire and gold ribbon.

2012-12-31 02.16.50

 

 

2012-12-31 02.17.13

Our front porch greyhound also got a fancy magnolia collar with gold ribbon.

2012-12-31 02.16.58

I also made a wreath out of the burlap, 4″ music note ribbon and deco mesh.  I used a wire wreath form as the base and bunched and wired the burlap to the frame.  I made a simple bow and added it.  Only small problem with this wreath- is is so big that it barely fits between our door and screen door.

2012-12-31 02.17.50

I planned to decorate our mantle as well.  The teal went well with our blue heron print above the fireplace as well as my vase from Willow House.  I bought this faux icy garland last year at Michael’s.  I attached it below the mantle this year with command hooks.  In these pictures you can also see my sheet music tree, and filled vases with ornaments.

2012-12-30 21.24.25 2012-12-30 21.24.13 2012-12-30 21.24.00 2012-12-30 21.23.52

Our first Christmas together

This cross with an angel in the center was a wedding gift.  It is paper mache’ and the distressed quality worked perfectly with the look I was going for and it fit our giant new tree.

2012-12-30 21.25.00

I was really happy with how everything turned out in the end.

Merry Christmas!

2012 Top Ten Posts

Posted on by
Reply

toptenawHere are the top ten most read posts of 2012.

10. Guest Post: Park View Community Mission.  Lee Ann Powers, an member of Christ Community United Methodist Church in Lynchburg wrote about the mission of Park View Community Mission, a Lynchburg District mission. Lee Ann writes passionately about this ministry and links this work to the work of the early Christians as evident in Acts. Lee Ann is a student of Eastern Mennonite Seminary and is on the deacon track.

9. Waiting is Hard.  This was my only Advent post for 2011, but it was viewed a bunch of times this year. I write about not passively waiting, but waiting while actively being about kingdom work. The disciples felt asleep, are we falling asleep as well?

8. Sex in Heaven?  The title, I’m sure, is what made this one get so many views. A friend shared a story about what a question raised in a Bible study with older adults. I thought it was worth sharing.

7. Religious Respect? I wrote this after a news story came out that US military personnel burned copies of the Koran. Why do we disrespect one religion by using another? This post also received the most comments in 2012.

6. Wedding Planning: the invitation. I’m actually surprised there weren’t more wedding planning posts in this list. But a lot of them were posted in 2011 and seen then. Megan and I were married in April of 2012, and a lot of people were keeping up with our plans via our blog.

5. Looking through a . . . peephole? This was a quote shared with me by one of my former youth group students. I came across it randomly one day.

4. Team Snoopy.  I have been writing for Hollywood Jesus.com, and one of the perks is I am sent DVDs to review for the site. This was one of those reviews. In the review I draw a connection between Charlie Brown and Habakkuk and the lessons we can learn from both.

3. Faith Fumes. This was a devotion I had written in early 2012. In it, I compare our spiritual life running on fumes, like we tend to do with our gas tanks. In fact, I was doing that this morning. I share the General Rules from John Wesley that help us keep our tank full.

2. Empty Pages. I wrote this post back in May of 2011. I found some old journals I had kept one day and after looking through them, I reflected on the empty (and not so empty) pages in those journals. Journal writing has been an important element of my spirituality.

1. How to Care for Introverts. I stumbled upon this graphic on Facebook. It is so true! As an introvert, I agree with each of these 12 points. Someone has randomly posted this on Pintrist, so I welcome all those who find me through Pintrist.

Joy Conquers Fear: A Sermon

Posted on by
Reply

A sermon preached Sunday, December 16, 2013 at Peakland United Methodist Church.  Scriptures were: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18.

The wilderness.  It was the place where the Hebrews wandered for forty years before reaching the Promised Land.  It was the place where Jesus would go and be tempted for forty days before officially starting his ministry.  And it was the place where John the Baptist lived and preached.

The wilderness is dangerous and inhospitable.  It is barren, rough, and rocky.  It is a place that is unstructured and chaotic.  The wilderness is a place of fear.  We have been in the wilderness this weekend.  We were forced into the reality that the world is not safe and is unpredictable. We have roamed in fear, grief, and horror after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school.

Sometime Friday, a clergy person I know posted on his facebook, “WHY!?!?!”  We have probably all asked the same question at some point.  Why did this happen?  Why does this keep happening?  Will we be safe?

But if we let the words of John echo through our wilderness, we may find the next steps.  John calls for repentance and change.  He calls for the people of God to bear good fruit.  It is not enough, he tells them, to claim your heritage to Abraham, you must act like who you say you are.  To us we hear it is not enough for you to say that you are a Christian, you must act like who you say you are.

In the midst of the barren and inhospitable, John calls for reprioritizing.  In the midst of chaos, John calls the people to focus their lives on God’s love.  And we, like the people in the wilderness of John’s day, ask, “What then should we do?”

John’s answer is preschool worthy.  What then should we do?  We should share.  John gives examples of what to do.  If you have a lot, and your neighbor has nothing, you should share what you have.  It reminds me of the saying, “Live simply, so others may simply live.”  But this sharing goes beyond our material things.  We who claim the Christ Child as our Lord and Savior are to share the love of God with others.  We are to share grace and forgiveness.  We are to share our hugs. We are to share our prayers.

In Philippians 4, Paul tells the church, “do not worry.”  At a time like this, that seems like a tall order.  If anyone knew anything about what it meant to worry, it was Paul.  He had churches that were being bombarded with false theologies and pagan ideas.  The churches were infested with conflict and confusion.  They were looked down upon by the rest of the society.  All of this is tough when you are responsible for one church, but Paul had them scattered all around.  Oh, and Paul was in prison.  Paul knew about worrying.

But Paul goes on to say in Philippians 4, “but handle everything in prayer.”  For Paul, the opposite of worry is prayer.  Instead of worrying and being anxious, Paul says, pray!  Prayer should not be the last resort when we are panic-stricken.  Instead, we should be so tight in our relationship with God, that we open ourselves up to God on a daily basis, so that when we are panic-stricken, we are in a place where we naturally hand things over to God.  We do no worry, we give it God.  Because, at the end of the day, God is in control, not us.

My Dad was an example of this for me.  While he was in the hospital sick with prostate cancer, the meds were leaving him in such disarray that he did not always realize where he was.  So, we took turns staying overnight at the hospital with him.  On the night I stayed, I was a young 20, Dad thankfully was alert to his surroundings. During our conversation that evening, he lifted his hands as high as he could and said, “It’s in God’s hands now.”

It would be easy to say that my Dad was giving up, and to be honest, that’s what I feared was happening.  But the reality was that he was opening himself up to God in such a way that it was natural and easy for him to say, “It’s in God’s hands. I’m not in control. God is in control.”

This experience was a wilderness one for me.  It was a time full of fear and uncertainty. It was a time of sorrow, and a time of hopelessness.  It was difficult to see my Dad, whom I had never seen sick during my childhood, in a hospital bed, barely able to lift up his own hands.

Every year during Advent we come to the wilderness to hear John’s story and his message of repentance and change.  It is a message of transformation and renewal.  There is no getting to Bethlehem and the sweet, little, baby born in the manger without first going through the wilderness.

There is a Native American proverb that goes like this. A grandfather told his grandson about two wolves who were constantly battling inside his heart.  One wolf was greed, hatred, and fear.  The other was love, peace, and kindness.  “Which will win?” asked the grandson.  The grandfather replied, “The one I feed.”  When we open ourselves up to God and live in this tight relationship, we are feeding the wolf of love, peace and kindness.

Paul goes on to say, in Philippians 4, to rejoice!  That too seems like a tall order in moments like these.  We can rejoice, however, because the Lord is near.  One Bible translates as “God lives among you.”  This is a word of comfort, no doubt.  In the midst of our grieving, God is with us.  In the midst of our sorrow, God is with us.  In the midst of loss and tragedy, God is with us.  In the midst of healing, God is with us. These are all causes for rejoicing.  Because God is with us, we discover joy.

This is perhaps why the words from the prophet Zephaniah are so profound.  The Israelites of this generation were surrounded by destruction and exile.  They had failed to listen to God; they had strayed; they had not trusted God.  They were need of renewal and change.

What Zephaniah pronounces is that the crises we face are best addressed in community.  Change and transformation, healing and renewal happen best in community.  Nurturing our relationship with God as well as with others is essential to the Christian faith.    We need each other. The Christian faith is not a solo, rather a choral arrangement.  And at the center of this community is the God who comforts.

Despite the conditions and challenges we face, the pain and disappointment, God is a God who comforts, consoles, and nurtures.  God is a God who hears the cries of God’s children. God has not abandoned God’s people.

The events on Friday showed us that in a moment everything changes.  In a moment 15 first-graders were taken from us.

In a moment a teacher, protecting her students, lost her life.  In a moment the lives of ten individuals in Chicago ended.

In a moment, a father loses his job and a family struggles.  In a moment, an accident leaves a mother in a wheelchair.

In a moment a light begins to shine.  In a moment we discover joy.

And it only took a moment for a baby boy to be born. A baby boy who will change everything.

Go from this place and share. Share the love and grace of God.  Share your prayers.  Share a hug.

 

Amen.

Life of Roux, part 1

Posted on by
Reply

Roux:  I have my big purple ball!  My ball makes me happy!

Jason: Roux, do you need to go outside?

Roux: I like to run around with my big purple ball…

Jason: Roux, do you need to go potty?  Do you need to go potty?

(Jason runs to back door, and opens back door.  Roux goes to her bed.)

Jason:  Roux!!  Ugh.

Roux: I will not obey.

Jason: Megan, she’s your dog!

Megan: She’s a feminist.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign

Posted on by
Reply

Foreign. While foreign (rightly so) often brings up images of things outside of your own nation, it can also apply to things outside of or different from your normal environment, or even something which is out of place in general.

This picture was taken in Costa Rica this past January.  This is inside the Basilica de los Angeles in Cartago.  The Basilica is the largest Roman Catholic Church in Costa Rica, and people come from all over the country and other parts of Central America to this church.  They fall to their needs at the back of the church and shuffle down the aisle, praying.  Some use their rosaries, others just pray. This kind of devotion and expression of faith and spirituality has become foreign.


Remembering Ira

Posted on by
Reply

photo: rmc.edu

On August 17, 2012 we lost a great saint, Ira Andrews, III to a four-year battle with cancer. Ira was the dean of students at Randolph-Macon College for 35 years. In addition he was a graduate of R-MC (class of ’59), a United Methodist minister, and a religious studies professor. Ira was a beloved member of the R-MC community. His memorial service was yesterday in Ashland, and I was unable to attend.

From 2001-2004, he was one of my professors and mentors. Ira taught me in a number of church history and theology courses. Ira’s classes were always popular. Ira had a gift for asking questions without giving answers. I have a clear memory of Ira leaning back in his chair, hand on his chin, listening intently to what was being said, and then he would ask the most unexpected question, yet a question that was guaranteed to make you think. I remember working on a group project for Liberation Theology, where we took the time to think through all the questions Ira might ask. Of course, there was really no way of successfully doing that. Ira would do the same thing in my interviews with the Ashland District Committee on Ordained Ministry.  When I admitted that I was slightly nervous about the theology committee, Ira quickly started shooting rounds of questions at me, which would give me strength for the interviews.

Ira had a gift of getting young people to think. At times it wasn’t so much the answer that mattered, as much as the process in answering the question. This could have easily been the time and place in which I came to love questions. It was easy to feel intimated by his presence and knowledge, but there was no need to be. He asked open-ended questions while being non-judgmental. Ira was a kind, loving, and compassionate person, which is what made him a great teacher. In seminary and beyond, I have found myself endless times commenting, “I learned that in Ira’s class.”

Ira was one of those teachers who was able to bring out the best in his students. You did the work in the class, has heavy loaded as it was at times, not because you HAD to, but because you wanted to. You wanted to be as prepared as you could to be in dialogue with Ira during the next class.  And at the end of the day – at the end of the semester – you were a better person because of it. I think this is one reason why I came to love theological discussions, and engaging young people in them today.

It was during college that I began to first write about theological connections in film and television. I recently pulled out some of my papers that I wrote during college. There was one paper where I put Augustine and Charles Schultz in dialogue with one another. But, my favorite papers were the ones in which I quoted Buffy Summers from the television show Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.  I will be honest, I was a bit nervous the first time I did this. I had written a paper on Paul Tillich’s Theology of Culture, and somehow I had worked in Buffy. Ira was a big supporter of this. After that Tillich paper, he encouraged me countless times to continue to this, including sending me to be in conversation with a professor who was working on a writing project on Buffy.

Ira also encouraged me, as he did so many others, in my call to ordained ministry.  In fact, he was consistent in casually talking to me about it. He was never “in your face” about it, that just was not his style. I can recall conversations he had with me in the halls, in the old chapel, or on the campus grounds about ministry, assessing in his own way where I was in my discernment, and offering words of encouragement that one the roughest days kept me going.

I had the privilege in recent years to serve on the Advisory Board for the R-MC Bailey Scholarship program with Ira. This included a chance to interview high school students for the scholarship. It was an honor to sit at the table with Ira and observe him do what he does best, ask questions, listen passionately to young people, and be the great encourager. He was one of the few people who could gracefully see you as a student, a friend, and a collegue, without any of them getting in the way of the other. In one of these interviews, after the interviewee left the room and we were to discuss the interview, I spent more time picking Ira’s brain about his past experiences. Even after all of these years, Ira was still so fascinating! Even though he had been fighting cancer, Ira was still sharp and still had the ability to get you thinking, even – especially – when you didn’t see it coming.

Ira and his friend Pepper Laughon inside the Andrews Hall.
photo: rmc.edu

A month ago, Megan and I went to R-MC for the SERVE retreat, a retreat for high school students exploring a call to ordained ministry. We stayed in the new Ira Andrews dorms. As a student at R-MC I did not live on campus. In early August I got the chance to stay in an RA room in the Andrews Hall. During the retreat, high schoolers worked an eight hour day on a home in the Ashland area, seconds from R-MC campus. The event was a tribute, in a way, to Ira. Service was an essential piece of who Ira was. The College’s Provost, Dr. William Franz, was quoted in one article as saying, “Ira’s life made manifest the scriptural value that greatness is achieved by becoming the servant of all.”

Ira will be missed, there is no doubt about that. But, in each of us who knew him, learned from him, and worked with him, there is a little bit of him still around.

God bless you, Ira, and the lives you had changed.

For more memories and comments about Ira, visit the college’s web site.

Life in the City of Churches

Posted on by
Reply

As most of you know, I live in the City of Churches now: Lynchburg, Virginia.

The circumstances of my arrival here were all too surreal.  When I arrived to meet with the Staff-Parish Relations Committee, we went through the standard questions and stories.  Afterwards, I got a tour of the church- a massive piece of real estate on a hill, that stretches far back on the property.  And when you stand looking towards the back of the property you can see mountains in the distance- is this real?  Is this happening?

After the tour we slipped into the sanctuary to stand in the back as there was a service going on that evening.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, when i saw it.  A gigantic wooden Jerusalem cross hung from the ceiling right over the altar area.  My heart was filled with joy and I knew I was in the right place.  In college, I was in a very special program called “church careers.”  Now, the program has changed it’s name to the Christian Leadership Center.  One of the main reasons I attended Centenary College of Louisiana was to be a part of this program.  The symbol of this program is the Jerusalem Cross, which at the time, was a little known symbol of faith to me.  At the retreat at the beginning of the year, a senior gives a freshman their cross and hangs it around their neck as a gift and commissioning of service.  After four years as a part of this Christian community, I grew deeper in spirituality and faith.  So when I saw that cross hanging in the sanctuary of Heritage United Methodist Church, I was filled with joy and the knowledge that this was the place I needed to serve.

It was only a couple of weeks later that I was officially appointed to the church by our Bishop.

The city of churches is an interesting place- people drive “nice,” something I have gotten used to not experiencing in the last few years.  People wave, smile, and say hello.  People open doors for one another.  It’s a much more courteous place than some cities.

When you go places, you always see someone you know or who is in direct relationship with one of your parishioners.  You walk into a coffee shop and you sit down with church members for lunch.  You walk into the gym and get a few waves from the people in your congregation.

And it makes you wonder, are there any non-Christians in the city of churches?  Is there anyone who needs me, this church, this Word?  Where is the opportunity in a place with churches on every corner and a Methodist Church every mile or two?  The good thing about these questions is that it causes you to work and think harder about who a Christian really is and how we are sent out to live in the world.  It’s much more than being “nice” and smiling at people.  It goes beyond opening doors and exchanging pleasantries.

In Kenda Creasy Dean’s book, Almost Christian, she explores the idea that we have taught our children the faith of “moralistic therapeutic deism.”  A faith where being nice and generally good gets you into heaven.  A faith where God makes me feel good and gives me self-esteem.  She argues that our children have learned this, because it’s the type of faith we possess.  What do you think?  Are we passing down a faith where we simply do a few good things and that’s enough?  Are we creating a world where the City of Churches is a competition of members?

Passing on our faith to children and to one another requires more than waving at everyone, as lovely as it feels to be waved at.

This was originally written August 15, 2011.

Blog Changes

Posted on by
Reply

You may have noticed that things look different around here. Megan and I have decided to blog together on one site. We will be writing individually and together. In fact, that is what we’re calling the blog: together. It will be filled with our ponderings on life, ministry, faith, and film. We welcome your thoughts, comments, and questions.

Megan and I in San Francisco during our honeymoon