Shawna R. B. Atteberry

I was planning on getting back into a normal blogging routine, but due to an upper respiratory infection that is knocking me on my behind, it may be another week until I’m posting more than twice a week. But it’s not mono: thank goodness!

Providentially, the virus did not knock me flat until after I had officiated my first wedding ceremony on Tuesday. It was a beautiful and simple wedding for a women who attended our church when she was a child. Her sister and two brothers attended as well, and we got to re-establish ourselves with the family. It was a day of grace and love as we shared the couple’s joy, and the fact that God was working among us. I think the family felt that too. A couple of members expressed a desire to visit us. It was a good day.

Now I am going back to lay on the couch and probably sleep (that’s what I do when I don’t feel good).

Here are a couple of short hops to start your week out with.

Savior of Torahs seals deal with God is the story of Rabbi Menachem Youlus who for the last twenty years has traveled all over the world saving Torahs (the first five books of the Bible) that had been left neglected or damaged and restoring them.

Each Torah contains 302,000 Hebrew letters, and every one must be inked by hand with a kosher quill. Perfectly. Restoring an old Torah means matching the ink, the font and the parchment on which it was written—a tricky task when you’re repairing a centuries-old Ugandan Torah in a suburban Maryland workshop.

After months of work, Youlus and his foundation settle the Torahs in schools, synagogues and Jewish community centers around the world, often for considerably less than the minimum $18,000 each takes to restore.

Debbie Blue has another thought provoking Blogging to Sunday at Theolog. She wants to know why we always jump to “prostitute” when we think of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’s feet in Luke 7:36-50. She thinks we need to take Luke calling her a sinner a little more seriously and fleshing out what that could mean—not only for the woman, but for us.

I think we need to take Luke seriously when he says she was a sinner. We probably wouldn’t have liked her or been at all attracted to her. And Simon may have been great and beautiful and kind. When he thinks to himself that Jesus must not know who this woman is, maybe he wasn’t being an obviously horrible judgmental prig. Maybe he knew how she beat her children or poisoned little kittens. Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors weren’t just “good” people that the world ostracized. They worked for the Roman Empire and extorted money from the poor. They did things that hurt people.

Martin Marty is wondering in his current Sightings article why people think the Democratic Party is just now “finding” religion. In Pious Parties, he shows that faith in the Democratic party goes back to the first part of the 20th century.

To review the history: After Woodrow Wilson’s overplaying of the religious hand, Republican presidents Harding (Baptist), Coolidge (Congregationalist), and Hoover (Quaker) added little to public discourse about public religion. But in World War II Roosevelt began to restore such discourse, manifesting and promoting the life of prayer, demonstrating a kind of Episcopal serenity when facing crises.

Then there was Truman, to whom I paid attention while living briefly in his Washington. “I am not a religious man,” he would say, “Mrs. Truman takes care of that.” He despised what he thought was the political use of religion, but evidenced a Baptist Sunday School-boyhood grounding in biblical knowledge and did some public praying, without advertising or fuss. During the interregnum, Eisenhower said, “I am the most religious man I know.” But back to Democrats, our subject today: LBJ, a member of the Disciples of Christ (Christian) Church was at ease with faith, while JFK (Catholic — did you notice?) found his religion a public subject, whatever his personal faith might be. Jimmy Carter? How can mass communicators think and act as if the new candidates are inventing religious language in public life? Bill Clinton—like Carter, a Baptist—was a regular worshiper, and was accused of hypocrisy when he took a Bible to church, as most Baptists do. He was at home with it. And one year we heard of Reverend Jackson; Mondale, from a ministerial family; and ex-seminarians Gore and Hart and who knows who else running.

Why the perception of non-religion among people of that pious party? 1) Maybe things have changed, and there’s been a secular take-over, causing religious amnesia in the party. 2) It could be that in reaction to Nixon-Reagan-Ford-Bush-Bush styles of public piety and the perceived “use” of religion, Democrats backed off. 3) If there were signs of verbal ungainliness in the pious sections of last Monday’s CNN show—Peter Steinfels found them in the three candidates’ words…— it may be because the planners of the program (Jim Wallis and company) wanted to stress how specific religious convictions do or should affect policy (for example, on poverty). Having to be creedal and confessional and pious does make many, including many of us who are not candidates, a bit nervous. Diffidence here is less a matter of faith than style.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other theologians have counseled some restraint in public God-talk. Since both parties’ candidates are Bible folk, maybe some of them are responding to Sermon on the Mount text: Matthew 6:1, 5-8. You could look it up. Baptist scripture memorizers Truman and Carter and Clinton wouldn’t have to. And while the Bible is open, note how Isaiah 58 shrieks out at a “prayerful” nation.

No one policital party has the monoply on the Christian religion in the United States. Both parties are also guilty of sins the Bible condemns. Thank you Dr. Marty for showing that faith in the Democratic party has been there as long as faith in Republican party, and that candidates in both parties have respected religion and abused it.

(Hat tip to Street Prophets)

I spent part of this last week in Kansas City getting my house ready to put on the market. It is now for sale, and I am really hoping it will sell by the end of the summer. I have a much better realtor this time around, so I am hopeful.

The Printers Row Book Fair was this weekend (it’s a whole two blocks from where we live). I finally got to meet some people from the Chicago Writers Association that I knew only through email. I met Lynn and bought her book, Excited Light. I also bought a few other books: a mystery by another Chicago writer J. A. Konrath’s Rusty Nail, along with Chef’s Healthy Desserts, Myths and Motifs in Literature, and Drawing: The Complete Course. One of the things I want to do is draw and paint, so it’s time to get a little instruction on it.

I have decided to start editing Career Women of the Bible into a book format and get a book proposal worked up. If you have any suggestions to make the series more readable, please let me know in the comments or via email (see contact page). I know it is still very much on the scholary side and needs a lot of rewriting. I also want to put more narrative in, so the pieces read more like a story than a term paper.

We snitched a bit of time on an quiet island nearby this week. It was a last minute plan, escaping with a minimal amount of preparation. One must have essentials that make it a relaxing time. Perhaps you have had this opportunity to escape, or maybe it’s only been a thought to get away. However, suppose you were told to pack some essentials for a trip to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Describe your location, in general or specific terms and….

1) What book(s) will you bring?

Some of my absolute favorites: Little Women (Signet Classics), Neverwhere: A Novel, Sunshine, The Mists of Avalon, and a new favorite I just read this last month: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: A Novel.

2) What music accompanies you?

We just saw the musical Wicked, and I immediately had to get the soundtrack: Wicked (2003 Original Broadway Cast). So definitely that. I’d probably have to have some Over the Rhine, Iona, and Deborah Krall as well.

3) What essentials of everyday living must you take (as in the health and beauty aids aisle variety)?

Not much, just the basics: shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lots of sunscreen and lotion.

4) What technological gadgets if any, will you take with you or do you leave it all behind?

I’d leave it all behind. Just a notebook and a pen in addition to the books.

5) What culinary delights will you partake in while there?

Whatever looks good. As long as it doesn’t include internal organs or bugs, I’ll try just about anything once.

As a bonus question, what makes for a perfect day on vacation for you?

Good sites, good food, and good company.

This is a sermon I preached a couple of years ago at the beginning of Ordinary Time. In the Church Year Ordinary Time is the time between Pentecost and the beginning of Advent in December. It is the work time of the church, and there are no major holidays.

Mary and Martha
Luke 10:38-42

If you like to garden or plant flowerbeds then there is a lot to do in the spring. There is getting the soil ready and planting, fertilizing, mulching, and all the watering. For awhile there is a flurry of activity then it all settles down. Aside from some weeding and watering, there is not a lot to do until it’s time to harvest. But if the watering and weeding aren’t done then there will be no harvest. It can be tedious and mundane, but the tedious and mundane must be done in order for all the work in the spring to pay off. The church year is set up the same way. We have just come out of the flurry of activity that began on the first Sunday of Advent. We have been through Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and now Pentecost. We have celebrated the events of Jesus’ life and the birth of the church–all the high holy days have come and gone. And this Sunday begins what the church year calls ordinary time. This time of the year is called ordinary time because the order of services in liturgical churches does not vary from the regular schedule. From the Sunday after Pentecost to the Sunday before Advent, this is the watering and weeding time of the church year. There aren’t any high holy days to celebrate and a lot of activity to be involved in, but just as in our gardening, what we do this time of the year will determine just how well we worship and celebrate during the high activity times in the church.

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