Shooting stunning holes in Holy Saturday … with a ray gun

Science fiction helps explain away a lot of perplexing theological questions.

Familiar with “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”? For those of you for whom this is an arcane reference, let me explain. In the episode “The Emissary,” Capt. Benjamin Sisko uses baseball as a metaphor to explain linear time to an alien species known at the Prophets. The Prophets exist in a wormhole, a timeless plain where there are no beginnings, no endings, no befores, no afters.

Sisko: In the end, it comes down to throwing one pitch after another, and seeing what happens. With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape.

Alien Batter: And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed?

Sisko: That’s right. In fact, the game wouldn’t be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen.

Jake Prophet: You value your ignorance of what is to come?

Sisko: That may be the most important thing to understand about humans. It is the unknown that defines our existence. We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions. We are explorers. We explore our lives day by day, and we explore the galaxy, trying to expand the boundaries of our knowledge. And that is why I am here. Not to conquer you with weapons, or with ideas. But to coexist… and learn.

I imagine God to be like those Prophets. He exists in a place without time — every event in all of history occurs at the same time, all the time. This is how He is omniscient — He knows what the future holds because it already occurred and it’s occurring right now and it’s about to occur, all at the same time. It is us humans who experience life in a linear manner, one pitch after another so to speak. God doesn’t intervene in mundane human events, like the Cubs baseball season, because it’s already over.

See? Science fiction solves this deep philosophical quandary.

In any case, I was amused by the story “What did Jesus do on Holy Saturday?” in today’s newspaper. Read it here.

Apparently, theologians for centuries have been arguing about where Jesus was on the Saturday between his crucifixion and resurrection.

Seriously. God is the great I Am (Exodus 3:14). The Truth and the Life (John 14:6). The Alpha and Omega (Revelation 21:6). And we, lowly humans with teeny tiny intellect, think we can explain Jesus’ daily planner on the day between dying for humanity’s sins and rising from the dead.

Sometimes, we can be so arrogant.

Apparently, some people believe that on Holy Saturday Jesus descended into hell (it’s a line in the Apostle’s Creed, recited frequently in the Catholic and Lutheran churches I’ve attended most of my life), and some Christians have found little Biblical evidence to this “hellish detour.”

I don’t know where the son of God was passing his time that Saturday (and frankly, it seems so trifling compared to what happened on Good Friday and Easter morning), but I’m content with my science fiction explanation: God is everywhere at once, all the time — in the grave, in hell, in heaven looking down, in my heart.

I am willing to immerse myself in Capt. Sisko’s humanity. It is the unknown that defines our existence. I have faith the answers will all be revealed in due time.

Bonus arcane reference: Part of the title for today’s post comes from “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”:

Chekov: [picks up his phaser from the table, aiming at the FBI agents] Don’t move!

FBI agent interrogating Chekov: OK, make nice, give us the ray gun.

Chekov: I warn you, if you don’t lie on the floor… I will have to stun you.

Vanity of vanities; all is vanity

“Depart from evil and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.”

~ Psalm 34:14

I’ve put well over 200 miles on my car the past two days drumming up business for the Association of Personal Photo Organizers, my new employer. I’ve seen streets and visited cities and met people I’ve never encountered in the four years I’ve lived here, and it’s been enlightening. This much I’ll say: Chicagoland is a big place. The suburbs go on and on and on.

I’ve been grateful for the ability and courage to drive literally anywhere. Downtown Chicago, with its endless one-way streets and impatient drivers, can scare even the bravest adventurer. But I have navigated well enough to find my way without too much frustration on either my part or my fellow drivers’.

If you frequent Illinois, you can’t help but notice the multitude of vanity plates. They don’t cost much more than standard plates (less than $100), so one sees a lot them, especially in the posh suburbs I’ve been frequenting the past two days. Sometimes, they are completely indecipherable (like, what does

YBKYBKY

mean? You paid extra for that?)

But sometimes, they’re thinkers. Like

PSALM 34

I wondered, as I drove down the road behind this driver, what message he or she was putting out in the world. So I looked it up when I got home, and it made me happy.

And happiness is better than confusion any day of the week.

“I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together!”

~ Psalm 34:1-3

Funeral or FUN-eral?

Funerals can be such unhappy events.  Someone has died and we miss him. Or her. We are sad.

But nothing is certain but death and taxes, so we’ll all have funerals at some point. At book club tonight, someone said she wanted her funeral to be a celebration of her life, emphasis on “celebration” and “life” rather than sorrow and death. Christians believe we’re off to a better place, so a certain amount of celebration is certainly in order. Those of us left behind, however, are permitted some sorrow, I think, because we’ll miss our loved one.

I want my funeral to lift the hearts of my loved ones remembering my fabulousness while holding their hands to soothe their grief. (I hope no one says, “Thank God she’s outta here. Uff-da!” so if there’s a celebration of my death, I’ve done something seriously wrong.)

In the situation of my imperfect and untimely death, I would like my funeral to be held in a church, and I’ll pass on the cake and balloons of a FUN-eral. In a perfect world (hey, this is my dream funeral, I can have anything I want at this point since I am not yet dead),  I would have three officiants who say lovely and meaningful things about me and my faith:

• The Rev. Terry Finnern, who confirmed me. He also buried my brother and married me (the first time).
• The Rev. Steve Binsfeld, who welcomed me into the Catholic Church and understands completely why I am no longer a member.
• The Rev. Howard Gleason, my current pastor, who married me (the second time).

If we’re planning this funeral for me, the one who died, which I’m not sure is entirely appropriate but hey, I’m calling the shots right now, then the fun will come in the music. We would sing “On Eagle’s Wings,” which was sung at my brother’s funeral and I think of him every time I sing it. Though it makes me sad, it is optimistic: “He will raise you up … make you shine like the sun.” And an enormous rockin’ choir (dream funeral, remember?) will sing “I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” which was sung at the funeral of my pastor who died when I was about 12. It is an Easter hymn, but it is the perfect reminder of why Jesus walked this earth, why he died and where he is now: “He lives my mansion to prepare; He lives to bring me safely there.”

After the service, I would like a feast to be served. No ham sandwiches and potato salad, please, though I suppose it would be a waste of money to have it catered and beggars can’t be choosers. Still, a more appropriate menu would include couscous and cheesecake, and possibly mini Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups at every place.

I believe it’s important for people to see the dead person’s body in order to really know and understand that the person is gone, so an open casket is acceptable unless I die a fiery death. If it’s not too inappropriate, there might be a sign that says, “Please do not tell the funeral director how good she looks. She looked much better when she was alive and we all know it. And if she didn’t, now’s not the time to point it out.”

It would be lovely if people write things they’ll miss about me and tuck them into the casket, to be disposed of with my body. Small children shall not be reprimanded for pulling the notes out to read them like little secrets.

Please display my body in the cheapest casket possible — I’m even up for a used one. Then cremate my remains and divide them among those who want them. My loved ones can disperse my ashes wherever they might think of me: A pretty garden, a jaunty little running path, the ashtray at a bar and grill (extra points for humor). Don’t leave me in a cemetery, which is a rather dull place.

That’s all, I think. It’s my vision for a celebration that acknowledges sorrow. Still, I think funerals are for the living, not the dead, so if my loved ones have something else in mind, I won’t come back to haunt them.

I hope I have better things to do at that point (wink, wink!).

Favorite Bible verses that really are in the Bible

Satan didn’t tempt Eve in the Garden of Eden and there is no record of how many wise men paid a visit to the baby Jesus.

Those facts aren’t in the Bible. It was a serpent, not Satan, and the astronomers who visited Jesus gave him three gifts, but we don’t know how many men there were. I learned this in an interesting story on CNN today: “Actually, that’s not in the Bible.” A number of common phrases that sound scriptural are in fact not. One of the reasons people might think they are? Because they don’t read the Bible so like a bad game of telephone, things get confused.

Even people who are not very religious may appreciate the Bible for its description of a moral code that has stood the  test of time and its amazing literary value. But let’s be honest: Even book lovers haven’t read all of the classics.

I have a wise friend who is very good at quoting Bible verses with their location; I admire her excellent memory. This morning’s CNN story got me thinking: What is my favorite Bible verse? And is it really in the Bible?

Here are a few of my favorites:

“God said to Moses, ‘I Am who I Am.’ … this is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” — Exodus 3: 14a, 15b RSV

I love this passage for its use of language. It illustrates how to describe an indescribable God. God is described as the Alpha and Omega several times in Revelation, but that description seems to say God has a beginning and an end, whereas “I Am” with its simple presence tense verb illustrates God’s timelessness. It’s so simple and so perfect.

“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”  – Matthew 7:7 RSV

This was my confirmation verse, and it, like the Exodus verse, helps describe God for me — it shows Him to be so powerful and have dominion over all creation and that if we just ask, he has the power to give it. But this verse also speaks to faith; first, you must take action — you must ask, and by asking you must trust the being you are asking would have the power to give.

There’s another verse that describes the nature of God and also prescribes a way of living, and I love it. I know this verse set to music so it’s another one of these poetic verses that is as beautiful as its sentiment.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” — 1 John 4:7-8 KJV

What is your favorite Bible verse and why?

Exercise a positive attitude: Part II

Choosing joy is more complicated than choosing a peanut butter.

Choosy Moms choose Jif. This is a clear directive. You know who you are, you know where to find the peanut butter. No mystery here.

Choose joy? Joy is an intangible commodity. Where do you find it? How, even, to look for it?

Joy is defined as “great delight or pleasure; elation.” Unfortunately, delight is not stocked on supermarket shelves (although I have been known to find a glimpse of delight in a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup, conveniently stocked near the check-out). If you could buy it, Wal-Mart would be buying it from a Chinese manufacturer and selling it at a low, low price.

If cultivating joy is like exercising regularly, as “Crazy Love” author Francis Chan espouses, here are my Top 10 ways to help me (and you) put our arms around this mystical, abstract stuff.

10 Ways Choosing Joy Is Like Running

1. Set goals and track your progress. My goal is to walk or run 20 miles a week. I write down my distance every day. I add it up at the end of the week. So, too,  with joy. Decide you will be joyful, and you will find opportunities to be joyful. Record them. You could start a gratitude journal. My journal is my blog; I’ll admit not every entry is joy-related, but some are.

2. Begin. Some days I don’t want to run at all. But I put on my running gear anyway and do something. Usually, after the first mile and half, I’m willing to do more. Put your dreary attitude aside. Do something to feel better.

3. Be mindful. Sometimes I do 1-minute intervals when I run. I can do anything for a minute. I don’t have to run 10 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour — only one minute. I don’t think about the next minute — only that minute. A friend of mine shared this story after yesterday’s blog: “I stood in a long line at the grocery store service counter yesterday. I wanted to be frustrated like the others in line but caught myself saying out loud, ‘We spend our whole life waiting, and then we die — why fight it? Do you think those green daisy bunches over there are real?’ We laughed.” She choose to notice the joy in the moment instead of the junk. Most bad situations are not 100% bad. Stop and notice the good that exists in the present moment.

4. Distract yourself. If being mindful doesn’t work, try a distraction. I can have very lively conversations in my mind with people who might be driving me crazy when I’m on a run, and pretty soon, I’ve covered a mile. Or I listen to public radio or a baseball game during a run; while I’m concentrating on the interview or the inning, 20 minutes pass. I try not to focus on how achy or hungry or tired I am. If your situation sucks right now, find a distraction in a funny movie or an engaging book. Do not watch the evening news; it’s depressing to hear about crime and taxes and bad weather. Every time thoughts of your own sorrow invade your mind, banish them — literally or figuratively push them away. Do not dwell.

5. Immerse yourself in your senses. When I run, I feel my heart beat. I inhale deeply and smell the fresh air. I see the blooming tulips in the neighbor’s yard. Concentrate. Find joy by really really hearing the sound of a child’s voice, by truly tasting the sweetness in a single bite of chocolate.

6. Listen to music. Music is a great way to set a pace when you’re running. Uplifting music in all sorts of genres  – classical, hard rock, Christian, jazz — can transport your mood. I like listening to music when I’m cleaning; I hate cleaning, but music helps make it better.

7. Pray. When I have a long list of people for whom to pray, I do it while I run. It’s sort of like a walking meditation. Bonus effect: I am thinking about other people’s problems instead of my own. If you’re the praying sort, ask for joy. Plead for healing. Beseech the Almighty.

8. Be active. Running is the definition of active. Activity can bring you to different places, forces you to pay attention to your body (instead of just your bad mood), makes you tired (so you sleep better rather than lay awake counting your problems). If you’re not joyful, you probably won’t find it by lying in bed or sitting on the couch.

9. Count your blessings. I can get a big thrill from running fast (for me) for a minute or a mile or up a hill. Maybe the run, on the whole, was sort of lame and pathetic, but there’s a success in that single part. Ditto for life. Rather than ruminate on the rubble, ponder on the prosperity.

10. Call your mother. I’ve taken many walks with my mother at my side or in my ear. If your mom brings you down rather than brings you up (or she’s no longer around), find someone else who cheers you. A good support system can bring joy even to a bad situation.

Got some other tips for grasping joy? Please share.

Exercise a positive attitude

A woman I very much admire lives by a philosophy that happiness is a choice. “Choose joy,” she tells people.

Wise instruction or kooky platitude? While I agree in the theory with the philosophy of choosing joy, some days I struggle to practice it.

Author Francis Chan helped me better understand how to live by this attitude in his book “Crazy Love”when he compared maintaining a positive attitude to exercising regularly:

“We tend to think of joy as something that ebbs and flows depending on life’s circumstances. But we don’t just lose joy, as though one day we have it and the next it’s gone, oh darn. Joy is something that we have to choose and then work for. Like the ability to run for an hour, it doesn’t come automatically. It needs cultivation.”

Ah, I can relate to that, I thought as I read that. I know how to run for an hour — I can do that. I’ve even logged five miles on days I start my run by thinking, “Two miles will be good enough today.”

If I can exercise regularly, even on days I have no gas in the tank and my knees hurt, I should be able to choose joy regularly, too, even on days when I have bad hair, I am surrounded by ineptitude and it’s raining outside.

I am learning (oh, so slowly sometimes) that when happiness doesn’t arrive like a nicely packaged FedEx delivery, you must take action to hunt it down and bring it messily home.

Then I saw a video at church yesterday recording a pastor’s last public remarks. He was dying bit by bit of cancer, and it had invaded his brain, affecting his speech and making him blind. He made a joke about maybe not being around for a party the following weekend: He was joking about the possibility of dying within days.

That’s a “choose joy” attitude in practice. He could have been engaging in the pity party of his lifetime, and instead, he was making jokes and lifting the black mood of the people around him.

Choosing joy did not prevent the slow and inevitable march to death for him, but how did he make his final, painful days better? By crabbing about it? Or by laughing?

In the way God teaches, by repeating a message over and over until I really digest it, I heard a complementing message at a different church this morning: When the game’s over, it all goes back in the box (it’s the title of a Christian book, too). We’re all on an inevitable march to death, and in the end, most of what we do is pointless. Putting energy into pouting about losing the game of life is wasted, isn’t it?

My brothers and sisters, when you have many kinds of troubles, you should be full of joy, because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will give you patience. Let your patience show itself perfectly in what you do. Then you will be perfect and complete and will have everything you need.”

– James 1:2-4

Guided by my faithful heart

“My heart is steadfast, O God,
     my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!”

– Psalms 57:7

King David wrote this Psalm to commemorate his escape in the cave of Engedi from Saul, the king who David would succeed, according to Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary. Saul had entered the cave without knowing David was there, and David could have killed him, but didn’t; upon Divine intervention, David only cut off a piece of Saul’s garment, as a trophy of the encounter.

I haven’t been sleeping in a cave, but I’ve had a hell of a week. Evil has been stalking me, chipping away at my ego, my security, my integrity, my comfort.

And yet, in the midst of it all, is my grateful heart. It has been pounding in my chest at times this week, pumping my warm blood during runs, making me heartsick and still beating with dependable regularity as I slept (or tried to).

I survived. No one died. Despite my little encounters with hell here and there (and they’ve been little, I know, compared to some of the big encounters with hell I know others have experienced), God has been as steadfast as my heart, still beating inside me.

So I sing. Thanks for this, Natasha Bedingfield:

Got my dreams, got my life, got my love,
Got my friends, got the sunshine above.
Why am I making this hard on myself
When there’s so many beautiful reasons I have to be happy?

People lie, people hide, people cry, people fight,
And they don’t know why

If fear is all that we should fear
Then what are we so afraid of?
‘Cause fear is only in our heads.

God moves in a mysterious way

The pastor at church today was speaking to me, and perhaps there’s a message in it for you, too. He spoke of “Just Your Luck” and talked about Queen Esther’s courageous choice to confront the king about a plot against the Jews, thereby saving them. God presented Esther with an opportunity, and she took it, making her “luck.”

Rather than waiting for fate to smile on us, we need to do as Esther did and confront our fear, the pastor said.

I have been presented with my confirmation verse a couple of times recently, perhaps a divine coincidence: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

I am reminded of the story of the man who asked God why he never won the lottery. “You have to buy a ticket to win!” God reprimanded.

Perhaps, God is telling to me to be courageous, to ask, to knock, to buy the ticket. The 30,000 words of my book sit safely on a memory stick where they cannot be rejected. Perhaps, I need to put them out there and see what happens.

The closing hymn summed up the message beautifully. From “God Moves a in Mysterious Way”:

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.

To boldly go

“Space: the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds,
to seek out new life and new civilizations,
to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

– “Star Trek” title sequence

I hereby resolve to become an astronaut.

OK, not an astronaut in the orbiting, space-suited, rocket-fueled sense of the word.

Rather, I will “boldly go” in 2011 in the courageous, committed way an astronaut explores the great beyond. I will go places I’ve never been, do things I’ve never done, pray fervently, trust myself and make no excuses for being uniquely me. And I will spend less time on Facebook and more time on my book.

My vehicle won’t be a rocket, but a 1983 Pace Arrow RV and a computer keyboard.

“And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink
but with the Spirit of the living God,
not on tablets of stone
but on tablets of human hearts.
Such is the confidence that we have
through Christ toward God. …
Since we have such a hope, we are very bold,
… and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,
are being changed into his likeness
from one degree of glory to another;
for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

– 2 Corinthians 3: 3-4, 12, 18

P.S. I’ve posted more than 300 times a year in 2009 and 2010, and this year I resolve to post on this blog once a day for all of 2011. If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and “likes” and good will along the way.

Off-off-off Broadway production gets good reviews

“The First Noel” was a success, I think. It was only 30 minutes, and I’m not sure that was good or bad, but it was what it was.

I wrote the Sunday School Christmas program this year after we did the same program two years in a row. Structured around the carol “The First Noel,” it was designed to provide context and background the “greatest story ever told” for an audience whose entire exposure to religion at Christmas might be the children’s program.

It had all the traditional Bible readings from Luke and Matthew, and it also included “We Three Kings of Orient Are” which technically is an after-Christmas carol (theoretically, the wise men visited Jesus when he was a year or two old). I loved the kid dressed as a star — very cute. And, as written, the program didn’t include “Silent Night,” which I do not like. The Sunday School crew, however, added it in. All’s well, though, because the program lasted only 30 minutes including “Silent Night.”

I now know what it’s like being a playwright, after experiencing my words coming out of another’s mouth. It was interesting, and I enjoyed it.