Reflectionary

Circle Game

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
~Joni Mitchell, "The Circle Game"

I love a Merry-Go-Round.

I've been on some very pretty ones. This morning I went searching for this picture of a toddler #1 Son riding an oversized jackrabbit on the Pullen Park Carousel, looking utterly delighted, sometime in October, 1988. The day stands out for the lion and the giraffe and, yes, The Bunny.

I remember my painted pony going up and down, on the merry-go-round at Virginia Beach, my father standing next to me, my safety assured no matter how fast we seemed to be going.

All our lives have these ups and downs, these spiral natures, these views to the right or left that look so familiar but that change as we change. We chase around and around the circle, because it is our nature, and we are like the rabbit with a simple goal in mind, whether it's survival or a carrot or a soft place to lie in the grass.

And we go around and around, in our families and in our churches or our jobs, and in our heads. I go around the same territory over and over, though the carousel may be moved, as the one in the picture was, thought it may grow shabbier and will certainly grow older, though it may need repairs along the way, I go around and around.

Your circle may vary.

Mine consists of a quest to be valuable, to prove that I exist for a reason, to do as much as I can to make myself believe it. Sometimes I forget that the carousel slows down and takes a rest, too.

I'm not preaching on Sunday, but I looked at the portion of Romans on the calendar for this week, and it reminded me of the circle game. We put our own gloss on the faith and works debate. We go up and down and around and around. If we have a taste for atonement theology, we like these words, and if we don't, well, we stick with the gospel this week.

As hard a time as I have sorting myself out, I know what I think about faith and works. I believe they both matter. I believe one informs the other. I believe certain practices do not guarantee anything, but that a lively faith calls us, or me anyway, to particular practices.

Which may vary.

And the very people who will tell you that "works righteousness" is somehow inadequate, that you run the risk of claiming that simply living a "good life" is enough when they are sure it is not, likely have their own set of practices and habits that they hold as dear as the first century believers held theirs when they began to bring strangers into their fold.

We do things just because we've done them that way before, because we've "always" done them that way.

As an Interim Minister, it's my job to ask "why?" And "Since when?" And to help people figure out whether they even know the answers to those questions, to ponder where God is in certain practices now, or what theology informed them in the first place.

And it feels a bit like a merry-go-round, because the answers can be confusing. We don't always know them, or we don't agree on what they are, or when this started or when that changed. Some questions cannot be answered at all, but that doesn't stop us from arguing about them, does it?

It's hard to get off the carousel. But the first step? Is to want to do it.

A Quandary

Thursday Morning, 10:15 a.m.

My Grande Nonfat, No Whip Mocha has cooled.

I want to microwave it.

Between my office and the kitchen a large 12-step group is meeting.

There is a way around, and they are screened off for privacy.

But the kitchen end is not screened off.

And this group is Food Addicts Anonymous.

...

I contemplate the scone crumbs on my desk.

I decide to wait.

Bare Toes and Pink Dress

Two brides awaited me in the church parlor while snow flew past the windows and began to coat the parking lot. Alike in their straight black hair and warm brown skin, they differ in their dress for a special day. Polly, born in America, dresses nicely in white skirt and blue top, bare toes in high-heeled sandals. Polly goes to college, and has a cellphone and e-mail. She will marry a young man who wears a suit and carries a briefcase, a young man who keeps charge of all the paperwork and gives her a ring half-hooped with diamonds.

Sokhoun just arrived here. She wears a long pink dress, meant for a prom of many years ago, chosen by an aunt or a future mother-in-law. She does not speak our language; I had Polly read the ceremony to her and explain the promises she would be making to Polly's brother, Sam.

18 months ago the family traveled to Cambodia to arrange two marriages. A large crowd of friends and relatives attended an engagement ceremony. Finally Sokhoun and Polly's future husband, Sokuntha, have been able to come to this country. In the chancel we gather, nine of us, to solemnize their marriages.

The shy girl in a pink dress stands next to me, holding flowers from the grocery store. I wonder what she thinks of Sam, who looks as American as his younger sister. Many years ago their parents married at this church, and they think of it as some extension of their family. When Sam answers "I will," she says it, too, before I have asked her, and then she smiles, her mouth a sliver of joy becoming palpable, and suddenly I no longer worry about whether this wedding, these weddings, ought to happen today.

I don't like weddings much. Too often the bride and groom concern themselves more with reception plans than vows.

But on this snowy morning we seal a compact between families and between souls.

I think about my father and wonder who he would have picked for me if he could have arranged my marriage? What old-fashioned lady would have been the Yente of Jane Austen's Village, what hat-and-glove-wearing doyenne with chemically arranged curls? What sort of man would have been matched with me? Eccentric and interior? Grounded and reliable? Well-groomed and successful?

A tiny bride in a pink dress seems incredibly brave to me as I ponder the words we read from Ruth. Yes, their people are the same, I suppose, but their countries are not; their worlds are not. Who did she trust so much that she would make this journey to a place where she must depend on others to speak for her?
Her American groom slides a plain gold band onto her slender finger, and she responds in kind.

It is time for the kiss, the kisses, and I watch the two couples realize what they have done. Polly says, "In front of everyone?" (I wonder what married life will be like for her polite and neatly dressed husband.) But her new sister-in-law smiles joyfully again as Sam leans over and kisses her cheek, the tiny bride in a pink dress.

Hen and Chicks

At 9:30, my office fills with children. The fairly large room feels full, really, and they move about and interweave, and I wonder which older sister belongs to which younger brother. Five cousins, a set of twins, a little brother and one singleton all wait to learn their parts in our communion liturgy.

I do not know these children, with one exception. One chick belongs to me, really, and I watch her sitting removed but not remote, elegant in wool skirt and sparkly scarf and long-sleeved black skinny tee. Contained, she seems contained, to her own satisfaction.

I try to learn their names, but they swarm about, and they look alike, most of them. I distribute their parts, and we rehearse. Now I begin to see their differences, their distinctiveness, although they insist on moving around the room even as we read.

They follow me across the breezeway into the sanctuary, and I guide them to the pews where they will sit during church. We wait for the choir to finish, wait for our turn to practice our parts in leading worship. Two little boys sit three rows back. I join them. I know they are cousins. I know one has an older sister, and the other has two older sisters, and I search their faces for the resemblances that will solve this brain-teaser.

We move to the Communion table and try the hand-held microphone. They circle the table, stand too close to me and to each other, pass the microphone around, talk too fast or too slowly, and then we try it again. They suggest lining up in order and they learn who comes next by watching, and they get it right.

Most run off to choir practice, then return just as worship begins. They fill two pews, happily, moms and grandparents close behind or far away, beaming.

We sing "Jesus Loves Me," and as the third verse begins, they flock to me, arranging themselves just so, within my wingspread, my beautiful chicks.

Reading Music

The choir drifts in from the frigid night. Soprano and alto exchange warm greetings while tenor and bass discussed the weather forecast with the Choir Director. We settle into seats by section, and I glance at the music handed to me. It has been five years or more since I sang with a choir in any serious way, and tonight I  just "sitting in," singing along with them as an introduction to the choir members and an opportunity to see the Choir Director at work. Four years ago, almost, a virus damaged one of my vocal cords, and only in the past six months have I begun to hear some improvement in my voice. I wonder, can I sing? Will my sight-reading be up to par?

I know I cannot match the skills I had when singing in the choir at Large Church.

When I joined that choir in 1992, rust covered my reading. I knew what the notes stood for, very well, and could play the piano, but to read a note and to have it come out of my mouth sounding the right way seemed to be entirely different things. I remember feeling lost and frustrated and embarrassed when I could not grasp my part easily.

A year went by, and sometime in the second year, the flushing of face and racing of adrenaline stopped. I knew how to process the lines and shapes on the paper into a particular sound. I stopped over-thinking and simply sang. Soon I became the reliable alto, the one who knew where and when we needed help and how to ask for it without embarrassing anyone.

Last night I risked all, singing despite the voice that has been Peter Brady voice-change froggy for several years now.  I knew I would not have the old sound. But would I have the old sight? And would I forgive myself if I did not?

I open the first score and look for the alto part. I hear the intervals in my mind, reading the measures of introduction. And then I open my mouth, and I form the right note in mind and breathe it into voice.

Ministers

I hear the din as I pass through the narrow hallway. Choir members fill the robing room and spill out toward me. Some wear street clothes, but most are putting on their robes. Black and silky, they exude reverence and authority. My linen blend robe seems homespun by comparison. I think of the possibilities for new vestments but turn my mind to the faces in front of me. I know the face above that robe, but not the one next to her. Our eyes connect and her mouth broadens into a smile. We embrace. The white stole on her robe bears a cross in some gothic style, not the new goth but the old. The hubbub widens as we cross the room and she introduces me to more black-robed singers. Their young director raises a more elaborate stole over his head. Worship beckons. We ministers of word and sound, costumed for our work, enter the Sanctuary.