Chocolate, coffee and community

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I was working yesterday afternoon at the Canady’s Le Chocolatier, which is in our building. In addition to the wonderful chocolates Michael makes, he also has gelato, paninis, and the best capuccino at the best price (I haven’t had coffee this good since I lived in Barcelona). When I went in yesterday, there was a woman and her son wanting to get candy and gelato for dad’s birthday. The little boy was an exuberant chocoholic. His mom promised that she would get a piece just for him to eat now. But Michael had some special chocolate he had been making: chocolate pieces with cars on them. He gave the boy two pieces. Then before they left, he wrapped up two more pieces and gave them for later. Michael really cares about the people who come in his shop, and he’s not only there for business, but he wants to serve the community. I loved the little boy, and how he was so free in expressing his love for chocolate and his appreciation for the gifts. He reminded me to be open with my own desire and wants, and to be thankful and take joy in receiving the gifts I get.

I have decided the Chocolatier will be my working spot outside of home and the library. Because it’s part of the community of my building and block. It doesn’t have the traffic and noise that the other coffeeshops have (and he plays much better music–where else can I work to opera?), and Michael knows everyone who walks through his door by name. And if he doesn’t, he does before you leave, and you feel as if you’ve been visiting a friend’s home. I like being in a place where I can be part of my community, and with a man to whom community is so important to.

Book Review: Coming Up for Air

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Coming Up for Air: Simple Acts to Redefine Your Life by Margaret Becker, NavPress, paperback, $13.99, paperback, 232 pages.

In 1995 Grammy Nominee and Dove Award winner, Margaret Becker, was in another hotel room and couldn’t remember where the bathroom was. She had been feeling disconnected from her life, like it was running her instead she being in control of it. When she couldn’t remember the last vacation she took, and her search on the computer didn’t help, she decided to get away. She would take a month-long vacation in Florida. There would be no cell phone, no checking in at the office, no taking projects to complete. It was going to be a month for her to rest, to watch sunsets and sunrises, and relax. In her third book, Coming Up for Air, Becker shares that month by the ocean, and how that month of discoveries was still playing out in her life 15 years later.

In the first part of the book, “Breathing In,” Becker describes her decompression period. She discovered how hard it was to be in the present, to slow down and actually rest or just sit still. In “Breathing Deep” Becker recounts how she began to evaluate her life and start dreaming about what she wanted for the rest of her life. After a shopping trip where she stocked up on paper, pencils, crayons, and other art supplies, Becker started to write down her dreams and figuring out the direction she wanted to go. Through writing, drawing, and dreaming, Becker determines how she wants to live her life, and how she wants to spend her time. At the end she comes to the conclusion that she wants to be at home more (so she can have a golden retriever), she wants to encourage people and help them fulfill their dreams, and she wants to write. As she goes through this process, she also remembers events from her past, the family that shaped her, and critical points that made her the person she is. The third section, “Breathing Free,” begins ten years after Becker’s first retreat. One of the decisions she made was that she would continue to have a yearly retreat where she stepped back, evaluated and rested. She has done that. She has also continued a practice she began on her first retreat: watching the sun rise and set. She talks about how her life has changed, and how she feels in control of her schedule and not the other way. She does have a golden retriever, and she has made the center of her life friends and family. She has learned how to say no to things that are not important to her and the goals she wants to accomplish.

Coming Up for Air is a well-written memoir of coming to grips with a life that has gotten out of control due to busyness and making the decision not to let “busyness” control your life. Becker’s honesty and candor shines through, especially as she recounts trying to come to terms with her own self image, or the fact that she has not been mindful of putting money away for retirement. She does a good job of describing how hard it can be to slow down, and how hard the evaluating and dreaming process can be. It made me want to sit down and dream about my life and write the necessary steps it would take to get from here to there.

Two very good book reviews

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I did not write these reviews however. Ben Witherington, the professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary, recently posted reviews on John Updike’s Terrorist and David L. Holmes The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. I’ve always liked Dr. Witherington’s work on the New Testament. He’s one of the few scholars who can make a point, make his case, then move on, and not beat a dead horse. I was very happy when I discovered he had a blog. His review of both books, not only gives a good view of each book, but he asks very practical and pertinent questions about the United States, Islam, and Christianity.

Book Review: The Faiths of the Founding Fathers
Book Review: Terrorist

Needless to say, both of these books are now on my to-read list.

The sacrament of lunch

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Food should be treated with respect, since Our Lord left himself to us in the guise of food. His disciples knew Him in the breaking of bread. Dorothy Day, Selected Writings

If you are a Christian then food and eating are sacramental acts. Christ himself is the bread of heaven and the water of life. After the resurrection he was recognized in the breaking of bread, and in cooking fish on the beach. Before the resurrection, he turned water into wine at a wedding, and he was always in the middle of meals–normally meals with outcasts from society: prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners. Food is sacred, and meals are sacramental.

I think this is the reason why the way our society treats food bothers me so much. It’s on the go, in a hurry, isolated, and soul-numbing. I ate at McDonalds earlier this week. But it wasn’t the typical ignore everyone around you, wolf your food down, and hurry onto your next appointment. The woman who sat down next to me struck up a conversation, and we had a very enjoyable meal. We both slowed down, took time to eat, took time to fellowship, and lunch was as it should be: a sacramental meal. I noticed the two people on the other side of me were talking as well. Introductions were made–one was from out-of-town, here to see Wicked. May be even amongst the impersonal busyness of our society, when we sit down to eat a meal, we instinctually know. We know this is a time to slow down, to enjoy our food, and to enjoy each other’s company. Sacrament is only a “hello” away.

What is beauty?

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On ChristianityToday.com, Agnieszka Tennant reviews John and Stasi Eldredge’s Captivating in What (Not All) Women Want. The book deals with a woman’s desires, and how she can attain them biblically instead of according to culture. On the front cover is a picture of a woman in white dress walking toward the castle. Tennant says that she is worried that the Edredges’ view is a “finicky feminity.” There is the usual women should not be “domineering” schtick. These are women who love their careers and earn promotions. They will even travel alone. What they say women want bugs me almost as much as their definition of beauty. What women want: romance, to be swept away in an adventure, and to be the beauty in the story. And beauty? “We wear perfume, paint our toenails, color our hair, and pierce our ears, all in an effort to be ever more beautiful.” Can this possibly be more superficial?

We live in a society that idolatrizes its version of beauty to the extent that girls and women suffer from various eating disorders in order to try to be “beautiful.” I do not believe this is the advice Christian authors should be giving to their readers. I agree with Tennant that this is a finicky feminity. I also think it is a dangerous one. The church should be giving a different view of beauty, and what makes a woman beautiful. Although they encourage women not to listen to the culture, it sound like in the end the Eldredges buy into culture’s definition of “beauty.”

I like how Tennant went on to broaden the definition of beauty into the aesthetical realm–literature, poetry, and paintings. Her expansion reminds us that beauty is all around us, and is not the sole domain of how women look. Beauty can quicken our hearts and make us catch our breath. It can make us see the world as it should be, and help us to work harder to make the world the way it should be. It reminds us that all that God created is good. May be the Eldredges should have been encouraging their readers to pursue their gifts in writing, painting, sculpting, and the other arts in order to show their own inner beauty with a culture desperately in need of true beauty.

The marginalization of the Spirit

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Spirit-Sophia is the source of transforming energy among all creatures. She initiates novelty, instigates change, transforms what is dead into new stretches of life. Fertility is intimately related to her recreative power, as is the attractiveness of sex. It is she who is ultimately playful, fascinating, pure and wise, luring human beings into the depths of love. As mover and encourager of what tends toward stasis, Spirit-Sophia inspires human creativity and joy in the struggle. Wherever the gift of healing and liberation in however partial a manner reaches the winterized or damaged earth, or people crushed by war and injustice, or individual persons weary, harmed, sick, or lost on life’s journey, there the new creation in the Spirit is happening (Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, 135).

In Johnson’s book she points out that the Holy Spirit is normally glossed over in regular theological tomes. She finds this interesting since it is God the Spirit who works in this world to reconcile creation to God and to build God’s kingdom. She also finds this lack of scholarship interesting since most of the feminine names for divinity revolve around the Spirit. Johnson begins her theological reflection about God with God the Spirit.

I wonder if this lack of reflection on and talking about the Spirit is one of the reasons why the Church appears to be ineffective in combatting the powers and principalities of the world: racism, sexism, genocide, war, economic injustice, and the battles going on between different Christian organizations. Johnson goes on to say that it is Sophia-Spirit who gives us hope when there is no reason hope. She is the one who inspires us to new creative and prophetic endeavors to stand against the evil in our world and bring into life the loving and redeeming kingdom of God. I have always been a visionary–a prophetic visionary. I see the way things are, but I also see the way things should be. But very often I forget about Sophia-Spirit’s presence and power in our world. I forget that it is She who has given me the insight and calling that I have. I need to remember this God who tirelessly and mercifully continues to work and move and love this world back to herself.

My chapel in the kitchen

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I will be making dinner in a few minutes. Today in the prayer group I meet with we were talking about space and place and prayer. How place can make a difference in both corporate and private prayer, as well as, talking about the spaces in our life where we pray. The kitchen has always been one of those spaces for me. I remember my Mom in the kitchen, cooking and humming hymns. I knew she was praying while she was preparing to feed us. Spiritual and physical food have always gone hand-in-hand for me. When I moved out and established my own household, I noticed I did the same thing as Mom. I would hum songs and pray as I cooked. It seemed such a natural time to talk to God–the Creator of all–while I was creating a meal.

When Tracy and I decided to get married, I was ecstatic about having someone to cook for. I joke that I’m Italian–we cook for those we love; it’s in the blood. But to a large extent that is true. For me nothing says love like a home-cooked meal. I love deciding what I’m going to make and how I’m going to combine different flavors for each meal. I love the whole process of cutting, searing, slicing, boiling, and cooking. There is something very healing in the whole process. Being able to feed another person is sublime. Honestly, my husband is one of the least finicky eaters on the planet. I could cook the same thing every night, and he would be fine with that (that’s what he did before we married). But I cannot cook that way, much less eat that way.

Feeding the soul and feeding the body should always be two sides of the same coin. We need the reminder that people do not live by bread alone. But we also need the reminder that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That means we take care of ourselves and give our bodies what they need to be healthy. And if you’re Italian, nothing says “love your neighbor” like a good meal made with love and prayers.

Book Review: God of the Fairy Tale

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God of the Fairy Tale: Finding Truth in the Land of Make-Believe by Jim Ware, WaterBrook Press, 2003 (184 pages).

In Jim Ware’s God of the Fairytale: Finding Truth in the Land of Make-Believe, Ware reminds us why we are never too old for fairy tales. Beginning with a scene between J. R. R. Tolkein and C. S. Lewis, Ware goes on to illustrate chapter-by-chapter why Tolkein’s statement that the story of Christ fulfills all other stories, myths, and fairy tales is true. In fairy tales such as “Cinderella,” “The Bremen Town Musicians,” and “The Little Match-Girl,” Ware shows how each story illustrates how life is then goes on to show an important biblical truth.

Fairy tales do not deal in rose colored glasses and blissful utopia. In tales such as “Hansel and Gretel,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Snow White,” we see how cruel and brutal the world can be. Abandonment, kidnapping, murder, jealousy, and cannibalism are some of the gruesome themes the fairy tales explore. But just as God does not leave humanity in it’s own sin and consequences, so the fairy tales do not leave Hansel and Gretel in the witch’s clutches, or Cinderella in the ashes. Ware does a good job of seeing grace in the tales, and then goes on to show how that grace can work in our lives.

This book reminds us of the power of story through all cultures, and reminds us that we, too, need to tell our stories, not white-wash them, and point out the places where our lives have been graced. Most often those moments of grace happen in the dark and fear-filled places of our lives.

Reflections on Africa

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One thing [Jeffrey] Sachs cannot abide is a peculiarly American notion that the plight of the poor stems from their own moral failures. “One of the things I fight against is the strong view in our society that has its own religious and cultural roots that says the poor have themselves to blame,” he says, gaining momentum. “That basic statement is, scientifically, incorrect. . . . Africa’s plight has been variously viewed as a function of being black or being heathen, being pagan, being corrupt, being immoral, being libertine, being savage, being subhuman. Our wonderful civilization has attributed all of these reckless notions to Africa and used those also to condone, excuse, and justify every kind of barbarism on the side of the West imaginable over the last five hundred years. Mass slaughter. Mass slavery. Imperial rule. Colonial domination. Neglect of the AIDS pandemic. It’s all been part of a set of beliefs that have their own basis in deep misunderstandings” (Cathleen Falsani, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, 189).

As I read the chapter on economist Jeffrey Sachs, I remembered some theological reflection I had done on Africa last year.

Zephaniah is one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. His book is three chapters and is the usual gloom and doom for sin and promise of restoration afterward. Needless to say, Zephaniah is not a much read book. In doing research on Zephaniah, I came across some interesting reading in The New Interpreter’s Bible. The first interesting thing begins with Zephaniah’s genealogy. Zephaniah is the son of Cushi. In Hebrew Cushi means “African.” Cush is believed to be modern day Ethiopia. So Zephaniah could very likely have been from Africa, which might mean that’s why the end of his book has such a message of universal restoration and reconciliation: “From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, my scattered ones, shall bring my offering” (Zeph. 3:11, NRSV). Then NIB goes on to point out a little something in the Bible that white, Western types easily overlook:

The conversion of nations begins with the conversion of Cush: beyond the rivers of Ethiopia (v. 10, cf. Isaiah 18:1, 7). This ancient African superpower exercised a profound influence on the Israelite imagination through the eighth- and seventh-century BCE prophets, who reflected upon its role during the declining years of the Davidic monarchy. The experience of exile and growing diaspora communities, such as at Alexandria in the Nile Delta, also contributed to sustained interest Egypt and Cush of the Nile. The nascent Christian movement saw its pentecost experience as the occasion for expansion, and it, too, looked south into Cush for early conversions. Early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, for example, saw the conversion of the Cushite official in Acts 8:26-39, which preceded the conversion of the Roman soldier Cornelius (Acts 10), as symbolizing the beginning of the spread of Christianity.

This interpretation of Zephaniah ben Cushi’s identity and the subsequent impact of 3:10 on the conversion account in Acts 8:26-39 help to correct Eurocentric readings of history that exclude Africa’s formative role in the development and spread of Jewish and Christian religious traditions. The acknowledgment and acceptance of Nubia/Cush (the NRSV uses the Greek equivalent, Ethiopia), along with its near neighbor and racial relative, Egypt, as being in and of Africa correct misinformed and often politically motivated views of African inferiority. The biblical witness holds an entirely different view of Egypt and Cush–namely, that they were important African players in the then international political and cultural scene.

Unfortunately, the effects of pseudo-scientific racial theories from the nineteenth century CE, supposedly proving the inherent inferiority of blacks, are still among us. These racial theories are comparable to the lies and deceit that marked the enmity Zephaniah ben Cushi predicted would cease in the coming reign of God. The oracle in Zeph. 3:9-13 should give heart to reformers today who work for local and international peace, because it is a clarion call for removing racist, sexist, and nationalistic ideologies based on lies and deceit and the fear they engender. (The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 7 [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996], 700-1.)

One thing that has always infuriated me regarding some branches of Christianity is the belief that Africa is in turmoil because they are paying for their sins of idolatry and being pagan–they are “reaping what they sowed” (Galatians 6:7-8). First that is just bad theology. Paul was not writing to pagans–he was writing to Christians. He was telling Christians that they would reap what they sow, so I’m not sure that verse can even be applied to Africa–the Christians in Africa, yes, but the whole continent? Second I believe that Jesus said God sends rain and sun both on the just and unjust because He loves everyone and everything He created. Then we are commanded to be perfect as our Father is perfect–love everyone as he does, which also means forgiving our enemies, since that is the original context of the verse (see Matthew 5:43-47).

Here’s the kicker I really like: Christians cannot say “Well the Old Testament says!” Yes, there is the eye for an eye and holy war in the Bible, but that is just one voice. Zephaniah gives another voice; actually Zephaniah gives us both voices, but I want to focus on the grace, since that’s what gets overlooked in the Old Testament. Zephaniah 3:9-20 is sheer grace. After holding both Judah (God’s people), and the countries around them accountable for their sins and the atrocities they have committed against one another, God just doesn’t offer forgiveness and grace to Judah–He extends it to all the world–heathen included. Grace and salvation for all is not just a New Testament concept–that has been God’s plan all along. He has always wanted to be reconciled to His creation, period. Zephaniah shows us that. It’s also backed up by passages in Isaiah, and then there is this great little phrase in Exodus that often gets overlooked as well. The Passover has just happened and the Hebrews are leaving Egypt–“The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children. A mixed crowd also went up with them!” One of my Old Testament professors said that literally “mixed crowd” means “mongrel.” The mixed crowd was any and every ethnicity and race that wanted to join the Hebrews and follow their God. The Prince of Egypt got that part right! When the Hebrews are leaving Egypt you see Egyptians and others joining them. It wasn’t just the Israelites (i.e. “God’s” people) who were redeemed and brought out of Egypt–it was whoever wanted to come–whoever wanted to have a relationship with God and be a part of his people. From the beginning of the Old Testament to the end there is a voice that says God wants everyone to come to him and be in a relationship with him. The only reason he selected Israel, and then the church, is so that we could show people what a relationship with God looks like. Unfortunately throughout history we have failed at that again and again. And I see grace in that too. We have repeatedly screwed up and misrepresented God in horrific ways, and yet God still chooses to work through us. God could have called it quits and said, “Okay enough is enough, it ends here and now!” But He hasn’t. He still wants to work through us and use us to build His kingdom. Am I only one who wonders if God is really brave or really stupid? And although there are times that I wish Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and company would just be swallowed by a big hole in the ground, I have admit that God extends his grace to them too; just as he does to me. I wonder if they will ever get past their petty, preconceived ideas and see how big God and his grace really are? I wonder if any of us will ever really see how big God and his grace are? I will spend the rest of my life trying.

Mahoney's Prayer

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I’m reading Cathleen Falsani’s The God Factor, and there is one commonality that has run through most of the profiles I have read (I’m about halfway through the book). This one commonality is love and forgiveness. Regardless of belief or religion (or “spirituality”) most of the people Falsani interviewed says that God or their view/perception of God is love and forgiveness. Out of the the ones I’ve read so far, I like what John Mahoney has to say about love and forgiveness the best. Mahoney is one of my favorite actors, and few other shows have made me roll with laughter the way that Frasier did. It wasn’t what he said about God’s love and forgiveness that caught my eye. It was his response to that love and obedience in this prayer he says throughout the day: “Dear God, please help me to treat everybody–including myself–with love, respect, and dignity” (p. 134). What a wonderful way to pray “Love your neighbor as yourself.”