One Shovel Full at a Time

Monday afternoon I helped bag up insulation that had been torn out of a house in Pearlington. For a while there, the more we worked the bigger the pile looked. That feeling of working and working and working only to see the pile get bigger is pretty well representative of the overall situation on the Gulf Coast right now.

If you read the Pearlington Recover Center blog, you can see that there are several recent posts that allude to rising frustrations. I'm sure it's not hard to imagine the tension level felt by people who have been displaced all year, living in very diminished conditions on their own properties, and who still see no real end in sight. Add to that organizations facing a situation like nothing they've ever dealt with before, necessitating a kind of make-up-the-rules-as-we-go operating procedure in which nobody really knows what they've been promised or what they can expect. Add to that volunteers suffering from heat exhaustion and raw nerves. Add to that the fact that everyone's story is so traumatic and so heart-wrenching that even small groups of volunteers have trouble agreeing where their resources will best be put to use. Add to that the fact that the harder you work, the bigger the pile gets. I could go on, but I think the point is made.

Life is hard in Pearlington. I worked with some very wonderful people--Mack, Erin, and Caroline--who had driven down from North Carolina to help. Mack is a pastor, and when we started talking about mission trips to other countries and comparing them to Pearlington, he said, "I've been to a lot of places, and this is as rustic as any of them."

I made it two days for my first week of work as a volunteer in Pearlington. I may go back tomorrow, but unless I am called and asked to come to do a specific task, I'll probably wait until Monday. I have responsibilities at home, and I need to pace myself. I need to rest, regroup, soak it all in, and work up the energy to go again.

It's hard. Everything is hard. The living conditions are primitive. It's hot. The bugs are terrible. The work that needs to be done is physically demanding. And the job isn't finished without sitting down to talk to the family, and every family has a story to tell that will just use up every emotion you have to offer.

But I'm going back next week and the week after that and the week after that and as much as I can manage all summer without wearing myself out to the point that I can't take care of the rest of my life.

As hard as everything is in Pearlington, every day is a very unique and rich experience. The people are incredible. The volunteers, the locals, they are all worth getting to know. They are all very special to my heart. And every day in Pearlington there are things that I can do that I know are of real help to people in real need. Every day that we keep raising money and keep working on houses and keep listening to people's stories is another shovel full off the pile. It may take a very long time, but if we just keep going, we'll see that pile get smaller.

God bless the families who've lost their homes and their livelihoods and everything about the world as they knew it. God bless the volunteers who've given so much time and money and energy to help these good people of my home state. God bless Pearlington.

Sharon v. Pearlington

Monday morning, I'm headed for Pearlington, MS where it looks like I will be running Baptist errands most of the summer as various groups come in from around the country to work on the recovery efforts. There is a tiny camper for me to use, putting me very high up on the comfort scale in Pearlington. I won't have to sleep in a tent or on the floor of a gym. I will even have my own tiny refrigerator in my tiny camper. Life will be good.

This is the part where I'm supposed to say something poignant about how enriching mission experiences are and how I'm thankful for the opportunity to be of service. In all honesty, though, I'm equally repulsed and delighted by the idea.

Only 70 miles down the road will be my pillow-top mattress, hot shower, air conditioning, and cable T.V. It will be awfully hard to stay there, given that I have a terrible aversion to port-a-potties. I'll have to really feel like I'm doing some good.

So far all of my trips to Pearlington have been day trips. Each time, I've been hesitant, thinking I wouldn't be able to do any good. Each time, I've left feeling very good about what I was able to accomplish. I imagine this will be the same, except that at some point I'm going to have to face my fear the less than perfect bathroom facilities.

All of this is just to say that if I'm at the blog very often this summer, it means I've either chickened out or I'm cheating and driving home at night. Distinctly possible either way.

I know there are wonderful people living and working in Pearlington, though, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them. I will try to check in from time to time just to tell their stories. They need telling.

Have a great summer, dear readers. Both of you. And if you can spare a day or two, come meet me at the Pearl-Mart. The bug spray is on me.

Things I Wish I'd Heard in Church

You know the saying, "No good deed goes unpunished"? I have a friend who puts it this way, "Try to be Jesus, and they'll nail you to a cross every time."

A common problem among the do-gooders of the world is not knowing our own limitations. It's a nasty cycle. You take on too much. You get overwhelmed and stressed out. You feel guilty that you're overwhelmed and stressed out because you know that you should be happy to do all of the things you've offered to do. You keep feeling guilty and overwhelmed until you finally just reach crash point. You back off a little, tell people you have to get some rest, slowly begin to get a little relaxation and restoration, start feeling refreshed and revived, and then...yes, it starts all over. People have needs. They ask. You say yes because you don't really have it in you to say anything else, and in all honesty you wouldn't have it any other way.

Sound familiar?

Someone recently said something like, "If you try to do everything, you are depriving other people of the chance to take their turn at feeling blessed by helping others."

There you have it.

You're only one person. You have your limits. Do your best. Give what you can. Turn the rest over to God. It's not really your job to save the world.

The Da Vinci Debate

No, I haven't seen the movie. I'm sure I will eventually, but I haven't rushed out to be among the first. I did read the book a couple of years ago, mainly because I heard that a Baptist preacher had spoken out against it from the pulpit. That was actually the first time I'd ever heard of the book, and like my colleague who told me about the sermon, my first reaction was to read the book to find out what he was talking about. :)

I'm not sure I have strong feelings one way or the other about this book. It's fiction. It's fiction for adults who presumably know that it's fiction and can take it for what it's worth.

Or can they?

The preface to the book does suggest that a good bit of background for the story is based on historical fact--which after hours and hours of watching History Channel documentaries on the matter, I am prepared to say are not so factual after all.

What interests me, though, is something I saw in the Clarion Ledger a few weeks ago and bookmarked for later blogging.

According to the Barna Group, a Christian research and polling agency, 53 percent of adults who read The Da Vinci Code report that the book has helped their "personal spiritual growth and understanding."

53%? Holy Book Mobile, Batman!

Could it be true that more than half the people who've read this book believe it has helped their "personal spiritual growth and understanding"?

And if it is true, is this good or bad? My first reaction is to cringe to think that so many people could take a fictional thriller so seriously.

Then I wonder...numbers can prove anything, and what is it exactly these numbers really say?

What if 53% don't really agree with the book, but have been prompted to get more closely in touch with what they do believe as a result of the controversy surrounding it? Can it be all bad to have that many people asking what the real truth of Jesus is?

I just wonder...

Porpoise Diving

Here's an interesting site: The Porpoise Diving Life.

It's of course a play on Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life, but Bill Dahl says in the most respectful way. Dahl says he got a lot out of Warren's book, but that he is writing for people who most sincerely floudering with the whole purpose driven thing.

I like it.

From the site:

Are you confused, curious or perplexed about life, God or postmodern culture? Have you been wounded by Christians or the Church? Do you have a sneaking suspicion that there's more to God than what you've been led to believe? Have you or someone close to you ever been whacked by the inexplicable...something that utterly defies explanation? Do you have fears, uncertainties and doubts about what you've been sold in the name of Christianity? Do you desire a safe place to come and listen or participate in the dialogue that is ongoing about these sorts of issues?

I can relate. I can definitely relate.

Overheard

Last weekend, I overheard a preacher say, "I've been preaching so hard to them I've just about got them all run off." This was said in a bragging tone. I think he really was proud of the whole tough guy, crack the whip from the pulpit routine.

I've been trying to think how to respond to this without sounding bitter.

I give up.

I remember as a teenager telling a friend that I believed there was a special place in Hell for preachers who abused their power and influence over others. This was well before all the sex scandals hit the newspapers. I was talking about what I saw then (and now) as ego-driven mean-spiritedness.

I always understood that people who say and do things like that are sincere. The preacher I heard bragging about running people away from the church because they couldn't take the "hard truth" he was hurling at them really thought he was doing the right thing. He really thought he was delivering the Word.

I also remember that my grandmother once told me she thought it was a shame that kicking people out of church for wrong-doing had fallen out of fashion. She pointed to unwed mothers as an example of people who would have once been voted out of the church.

One of the things I like best about UBC it that it has no provision for how to get rid of members. One of the deacons told me that they consider kicking sinners out of church to be like evicting sick people from a hospital.

He has a good point.

Even as a child I understood that my biggest obstacle toward spiritual purity was my bitterness toward the church itself. Some habits die hard. This is still my biggest struggle, but I am thankful that I have found a church that is different and that I've learned that some Christians really do see the Bible as Good News.

So I haven't figured out yet how to not sound bitter, but I can say with sincerity, "Father forgive them. They know not what they do."

Be Still, and Know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

It's not easy, is it? To be still, to let go of worries, to take time to just be, to appreciate the wonders of life and of God...

This is a pretty tall order for a busy life, but it is a necessary one.

Last semester, I turned in my final grades one day and followed my mother to the hospital the next. Today, I'll go to graduation. Tomorrow, I'll go to a funeral.

If this were about me, I'd think it was awfully rude of anyone to die without giving me a chance to rest first. But instead I'm going to take some time to ponder and appreciate the real rest and peace that has now come to someone who gave his whole life to good work and service to others and to God.

He will be missed. He will be remembered. And I believe we have only to be still and know God to appreciate the beauty of both his life and his passing.

Et Tu, Mary Poppins?

Just Googling around a little bit this morning, I found out that Mary Poppins is Satanic. After the whole scandal with Teletubbies and before them Smurfs, I suppose it should come as no surprise. No one ever knew what supercalifragilisticexpialidocious meant anyway. We can only guess what evil we were bringing into the world by running around singing it as children.

Then there was that whole thing with convincing us that anything could be good if we just put a little sugar in it.

It's so obvious now. Disney, Pamela Travers, and Julie Andrews were all in cahoots in an evil plot to turn a whole generation into overweight subversives who think there is nothing wrong with reading Harry Potter to their children.

What were our parents thinking? I'm sure they meant well, but really. They let us wash our hair with Protor and Gamble shampoo and run around singing Disney songs and believing that our own imaginations were full of true magic that could get us through any hard time that came our way.

Thank God.

Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee!

Time is an Illusion

The thing about time is that the feeling of being tortured by having too much to do drags out forever while the time in which to actually get stuff done whizzes by too fast to keep up.

It's a mystery.

Judas Revisited

The first time I read the "Gospel of Judas" I really just skimmed over it to find the parts that were being touted in the media as so controversial and such a threat to Christianity. Now I’ve looked at it more carefully, and all I can say is, “Yikes.” This is not your Grandpa’s King James.

It’s pretty strange, but of course that just makes me all the more fascinated. Lots of people are going to be fascinated, and any Biblical scholar with a lick of sense ought to be hard at work getting a book written out as fast as humanly possible—before the sensation dies down.

I won’t pretend to actually “get it,” but I will say that after looking at Judas more carefully and listening to people who have studied these things far more than I discuss it, I have a better understanding of why some things that were called Christian gospels in their day were just never real contenders for what was to become The Bible As We Know It.

The big issue of the Gospel of Judas is not that Jesus asks Judas to betray him. It’s that Jesus is not the same person I was ever taught about in Sunday School. In the gospels of my childhood Bible drills, the character and teachings of Jesus are depicted in the tradition of Jewish prophets—as would be expected of the Messiah sent to fulfill the Jewish prophecy. In the Gospel of Judas, the character and teachings of Jesus aren’t Jewish at all. They aren’t monotheistic. This Jesus is a Greek mystic rather than a Jewish prophet. His teachings more closely resemble Greek and Egyptian mythology rather than what we know today as Christian traditions.

It’s all very intriguing, and I hope to keep learning more about it, but what I’m beginning to see about Gnosticism is that it is not so much an alternative sect of Christianity as an attempt to merge Christianity with other belief systems altogether. So instead of seeing it like I did before as being sort of like Baptists and Methodists perpetually unable to agree on Baptism therefore unable to worship together while still basically practicing the same religion, I see Gnostic Christians as being more like Baptist Hindus than Baptist Methodists.

For whatever that is worth…

If I had a secret...

If I had a secret to post to PostSecret, it would be that I’m dreading summer vacation just as much as I’m looking forward to it. This was by far the most stressful year I’ve ever had as a teacher. What the hurricane didn’t disrupt, my mother’s accident did. Then there are the committee duties I’ve had and the conferences I’ve gone to. It all adds up to work, work, work, stress, stress, stress.

There’s got to be a psychological term for that fear of slowing down when you’ve been running as hard as you could for an extended period of time.

If not we should make one up. Suggestions?

Worn out with Motivation and Inspiration?

Try Demotivation.

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Roaches.

I sat in on a graduate seminar at USM last night and listened to the students give presentations on the immediate responses to Katrina by various churches and other organizations around town. It was interesting and informative, and I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about it by the time I'm finished thinking it through. One quote that sticks out in my mind at the moment, though, is "After the storm, people were either roaches or angels." In other words, they were either scurrying around to see what they could get, or they were scurrying around to see what they could do to help. I'd say that's true in the first two weeks. Anybody who wasn't working to clean up and to help others was seen as part of the problem. And we definitely saw people taking advantage of those who came in with supplies and money. Once the power came back on, and people started going back to work, I'd say life sort of normalized to the point that there were still roaches and angels, but there was also a middle ground in which some people were just trying to live their lives, neither helping nor hurting anyone else in the process. At first, there was no normalcy, and there was no middle ground.

It reminds me of the saying, "Disaster doesn't bring out the best in people; it brings out the real." I can't remember who said that, but I wholeheartedly agree. Whatever your core character is will be the thing to come to the surface during times of crisis. You may be able to cover it up at other times, but everyone will know who you really are as soon as the world around you starts to go belly up.

The story they tell is that the day the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship decided they had done all they could for Hattiesburg and would do more good by moving their relief efforts elsewhere was the day a woman came to the church asking for Jello. She said she needed it because her fingernails had just not been the same since the storm.

Mike from UBC says that he knew needs had been met, and he was working for to serve people's greed the day he gave a case of bottled water to someone who asked if he could please make that Dasani. In his best deacon voice, he answered, "You'll take what I give you."

I'm sure we'd all prefer to be remembered as angels rather than roaches in other people's disaster tales, but once disaster strikes, we don't have time to become anything other than what we are already. If we want to be angels when it really counts, we have to practice being angels when we think it doesn't matter. We have to be as a matter of course what we want to be at our best.

Survival Narratives

I've heard a lot of very poignant stories this year of how people survived the hurricane and its aftermath. Tonight I heard one that may not be quite as chilling as those told by people who had to climb trees or pull their grandmothers onto rooftops when the floodwaters came in, but I doubt I'll forget it nonetheless.

In the days after the storm, when there were no city services and rumors of lootings and shootings were rampant, some brave souls ventured out in search of supplies for themselves and their neighbors. They went into a Baptist church where they took baths in the baptistery then hauled the water back to the neighborhood to flush toilets. By that time, no doubt those waters were truly blessed.

Hurricane season is fast approaching (only one month from today), and I'm sure no one around here will forget to fill bathtubs for flushing water if a storm starts heading our way. But this message is especially for pastors and church leaders. If you have any heart at all, you'll remember that the baptistery is also a valuable container for life-saving (or sanity-saving) liquids.