Category Archives: Uncategorized

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The Rite of Reception

Last night I was able to attend the Rite of Reception for the Most Reverend J. Peter Sartain as the Ninth Bishop and Fifth Archbishop of Seattle. The service began with the Archbishop elect knocking on the great ceremonial bronze doors of St. James Cathedral. These doors are only opened for special occasions and later during the service the retiring Archbishop Burnett mentioned that this is only the ninth time Seattle has welcomed a new bishop. Only other bishops are allowed in the narthex as the incoming Archbishop knocks and makes his entrance. the Rite of Reception and the welcoming him through those great doors is symbolic of his being welcomed by the diocese and by the Cathedral itself, which will be his home church. Once he came into his seat a procession of other faith leaders, bishops from other “ecclesial communities,” and community leaders presenting varied demographics such as the deaf community, the black community, the filipino community, the young adult community and a whole litany of other groups.

The liturgy was rich and the atmosphere vibrant as you could actually feel the excitement in the Cathedral both for the experience of this uncommon event and for the future of the diocese under this new Archbishop. The music of drums and children filled the place before it had even started and then once it began you would have thought the gathered congregation was a mass choir that had rehearsed as everyone sang out each hymn and each response led by four phenomenal psalmists from the Cathedral.

The service took place on the Feast Day of St. Andrew and the celebration mirrored Andrews answer to lay down his nets and follow Jesus just as all are called to do so and Archbishop Sartain reflected on his own calling and journey of servanthood which have brought him to this place. His message was one of his own story and his true desire to be a servant. he said that, “to be for God is vocation…and to live is to be desired and loved by God.” His style was comfortable and relaxed and you felt like he was talking to you not at you as some who attain such high posts often seem to do. When I got to speak to him afterwards and offer greetings from my own bishop he seemed just as genuine and his humility sincere. He laid out his own understanding of his role that, “everything about me is to be for you,” and that he is called to be, “the bearer of the mystery.”
It was a privilege to be included as a guest for this occasion and I was impressed by Archbishop Sartain and am hopeful for his leadership here in Seattle. What everyone says about his is that he is a personable and down-to-earth guy and he has a gift for remembering you once he has met you. He certainly did nothing to dispel this in my own encounter with him.
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Humility

To be made both proud and humble doing the same thing on the same day is a wonderful learning opportunity. Out with my kids and my dad we ventured to the science center where they have all sorts of tests for your ability. They have tests for your balance, your reflexes, your hand-eye coordination, your sense of smell, and your flexibility. It was in this last that I was made both proud and humble. The chart above the test said that the average male of my age could sit and reach 12.5 inches so I sat down and gave it a try. You are supposed to average three attempts and mine came out at 21 inches so I was feeling pretty good about my flexibility. Later that night I tried out a new yoga routine on my DVR feeling very flexible before I started after my science center results. Just minutes into the flow I was asked to stretch in ways I do not stretch and to bend in ways that I do not bend and I wasn’t even close. It was actually an interesting moment of being humbled, challenged, frustrated and thoughtful about whether this was actually something I needed to work towards. I love a challenge so while a part of me feels a satisfaction that I continue to improve and very little desire to repeat that routine, another part of me says, “I guess I have a long way to go.”

Life is fun that way and filled with surprises as we are lifted up in one moment and totally deflated in the next. Sometimes it’s something silly like yoga and others it’s something you have poured yourself into. Every week I listen to far more complaints than praises no matter how well things seem to be going or how good I feel about what I have done. Humility is a balance. In order to be humble you still have to have confidence and be comfortable with yourself otherwise you end up not humbled, but likely depressed. Humility is a gift to those who choose to learn from it or be challenged by it rather than shamed by it.
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Humility

To be made both proud and humble doing the same thing on the same day is a wonderful learning opportunity. Out with my kids and my dad we ventured to the science center where they have all sorts of tests for your ability. They have tests for your balance, your reflexes, your hand-eye coordination, your sense of smell, and your flexibility. It was in this last that I was made both proud and humble. The chart above the test said that the average male of my age could sit and reach 12.5 inches so I sat down and gave it a try. You’re supposed to average three attempts and mine came out at 21 inches so I was feeling pretty good about my nightly yoga and flexibility. Later that night I tried out a new yoga routine on my DVR feeling very flexible before I started. Just minutes in I was asked to do the splits in several different stances and I wasn’t even close. I can do backbends and I can balance and twist in all manner of positions, but this was a simple act of flexibility and I am just not there. It was actually an interesting moment of being humbled, challenged, frustrated and thoughtful about whether this was actually something I needed to work towards. I love a challenge so while a part of me feels satisfaction when I achieve something, another part of me is looking already for what the next challenge will be. I was feeling good that I am nearly twice as flexible as the average male my age, but just hours later I was reminded that I still have a long way to go.

I think it is really easy to rest on our laurels, especially when we have done something better than average or when some goal has been accomplished. The thing is though; we need to be reminded that there is more to be done. They say that true wisdom is knowing that you do not know everything. I guess my lessen in flexibility takes that further to say that no matter how much we have accomplished or how good we might be at something, we can always get better. It should never be about comparing ourselves to others like my reading of a chart that says I did well, it should be about motivating ourselves to do more, to do better. My make is not 9 inches better than average, it’s just 21 so next time I should want it to be more than 21. I choose to set a high bar for myself, but the real point is to set a bar at all and to understand that we must be humble or we risk frustration and giving up. We all need goals and we should never be afraid to set them high. Being reminded is a good thing as we can be both proud of how far we may have come and humble about how long the journey ahead still may be.

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Respond

In Susan Vreeland’s collection of short stories “Life Studies” there is one story entitled, “Respond,” I don’t want to give away the story here because the whole collection is worth reading, but part of the lesson in this particular story has to do with our response or lack of response and how we can get lost in the things that weigh us down to the point that those are the only things we can still respond to. It’s more complicated than that and is focused as much on relationship as anything else, but it came to mind today as it relates to so many other responses we have. It’s easy to point to Pavlov and his dogs as we try to explain our conditioned responses to things, but often there is more to them than salivating to the ring of a bell. There is a case in California where the video game industry is fighting against a law banning the sale of video games with violent or sexually explicit content. I don’t really want to get into the free speech freedom of expression thing. Anyway I was more interested in the studies about how these games desensitize people to violence or go even further and actually make people more violent. I remember about ten years ago a study on violence caused by song lyrics which talked about killing cops and other things. I guess I just have to wonder when we stopped learning to think and became so influenced by even the unrelated that we are conditioned to act out against our better judgement (or I suppose the point is that we no longer have our better judgement). This wasn’t where i was initially going with this, but my overall point is, “what happened to the thoughtful response?” instead of thinking through things we have already had our responses ingrained in us to certain things, so if it is like that thing, we respond accordingly regardless of what’s really going on or the chance that it might be different. To not respond is a response, and can even be the most thoughtful one. I guess I am hoping we can break free from whatever it is that constrains us, what distracts us, what seems like we are supposed to do, and actually respond to the world with deep care and thought. I hope this whether we are responding to the tragedy of war or some global disaster, or the sometimes nearly equal disaster of a child’s skinned knee. I hope we don’t just respond, but rather we make a response.

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Spider webs

Perhaps it’s all the decorative spider webs around or the fact that it is spider season and there are actual spider webs all over right now, but then again maybe it’s just that I ran through one today which has me thinking about them. My first thought was that there was a statistic that came out in the 90’s saying that the average person swallows 8 spiders a year in their sleep. It turned out to be an experiment to demonstrate how gullible people are, and it worked as the statistic spread and is still widely promulgated. The reality is that we don’t swallow in our sleep so it’s not very likely we would swallow anything much less a spider (to answer your question, “no I did not swallow a spider while running today.” Though that does not mean I haven’t before). My next thought however was about how the web is such a great metaphor for so many things. Nets and webs inspired things like the Native American dream catchers and they are a common image that we relate to situations we are stuck in, to the things that bind us together, to the hope that as we cast our net we might catch something, to “the tangled web we weave” which might come apart or get us stuck and any number of other things.

There is something beautiful and fascinating, while at the same time sinister about a web. If you have ever watched the graceful dance of a spider as it spins on a web glistening in the morning dew, the form and function are incredible to behold as the spider launches itself further and further to place it’s anchors then slowly binds the intricate parts (if you don’t have the patience or the fortune to watch it live there plenty you can find a time-lapse of on YouTube). It’s not hard to create an image of Charlotte’s Web building the mystique of Wilbur (aka Zuckerman’s famous pig). There is a spider in my garage however who dispels the beauty a bit and demonstrates the sinister reality of the web’s purpose with the pile of beetle carcasses underneath conjuring more an image of Shelob from The Lord of the Rings than of Charlotte. Maybe that’s part of their metaphor too in the juxtaposition of beauty and fear-inducing function. Spiders themselves run a fine line between graceful and creepy so I guess it all comes together. Whatever emotion they might elicit or metaphor they may conjure for us, there is something special about a spiders web and for me it’s one of the many things in nature with a lesson to teach us.
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Triangles

Rabbi and family therapist Edwin H. Friedman wrote extensively about family systems and even wrote a book called, “Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue.” One of the things he talked about was the idea of triangles. He said that two people have a very hard time maintaining a relationship for an extended period of time by themselves no matter how much they care for each other and often will find a third person to sort of moderate between them (this may actually be a third and forth person as each person in the original pair may seek someone else). As you extend the model further it relates to all kinds of relationships, including ones where you choose to go through someone else because you don’t want to talk to the person directly for any number of reasons. We involve people who are totally unrelated to the situation in things because that makes it easier for us, but we seldom think about what it does to them. Friedman actually says that this is one of the main causes of burnout for pastors and Rabbis. They become that third point in so many triangles it can be overwhelming. Some of it is the whole parking lot conversation thing of talking around people or behind their back that forces a triangle. These come about because people won’t just talk to the person they have a problem with or at least they won’t talk to them about the problem. They also happen for smaller stuff like one person doing a project needs someone else to do something but instead of just asking them to do it they have the pastor or someone else do the asking. For pastors and other leaders the goal is to push people into talking directly to each other even if you have to be there to help them do the talking. Triangles can be healthy, they aren’t a bad thing when you are struggling to work something out it can be very helpful, but they can also be part of an avoidance syndrome that allows you to never deal with whatever the real issue is. This morning I had to help someone not be a triangle for two others. They didn’t even know they were creating a triangle, which can happen really easily because we just don’t see it. It wasn’t their fault and both thought they were doing something good. We don’t think about the fact that someone else might be responsible for something and we think we are helping by doing that thing when we might be taking away something that is important for the person that normally does it. That sentence is a bit confusing perhaps, but the point is to think about who is effected by what we do. In the end it was a miscommunication, and the triangle was being formed that didn’t need to exist at all. We all should be aware of the triangles we create and pay attention to who they are effecting.

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No Sleep

It is a gift that I have never needed much sleep. The thing of it lately and the last couple of nights in particular is that I really do appreciate those four to five hours and I haven’t even been getting those. I might have gotten an hour total last night and maybe two the night before so it’s been a challenge to get going. My mantra has always been that “there are twenty-four usable hours in every day.” My cure is the same as the one I use when I travel to avoid jet lag, which is to simply keep going. I go for a run often in the morning anyway, but when I have had no sleep I always run and most of the time it keeps me from crashing.

I was thinking this morning as I ran (my best thinking time is often while running or walking so many of my blogs come after a good long run) about how using more hours really is freeing. It’s not just that you can get more done, and I am certainly not advocating everyone replace sleep with a morning run, but it’s like you take control of time instead of letting it take control of you. Often it’s easy to feel like there is just too much to do, and maybe there is, so there is a lot to be said for giving ourselves permission not to do things, but when you don’t see time as so confining things can feel a little less overwhelming. We fit our lives into a schedule, whether it’s for school or for work or whatever else we do our calendars are so full we need electronic devises to keep track of what we ourselves are doing. Maybe it would be nice if everyone required less sleep, but really it comes down to attitude and priority. If you want to make time to do something you figure it out. If there are multiple “important” things you may have to decide or you may have to shuffle and sacrifice something else (like sleep), but you are in control even if you don’t feel like you are. Maybe it’s easy to say coming from someone who doesn’t sleep much and who has a job where I set my own hours, but I have plenty of demands on my time and I choose to make work what I feel like I need to make work. I can give a night to my teething one year old and not begrudge her partly because I don’t need as much sleep, but also because I decided that she needed me more than I needed sleep. Plenty of parent’s might have closed doors and let her cry and that may not do her any real harm and I know great parent’s who choose that method, but chose to comfort her because that was my greater priority and I own that. I suppose ultimately that is my point; we have to own our own time. We make choices and we live them. I am all for finding ways to give control away and simply let things happen, but you can’t do that either if you don’t take control of your time and give yourself the freedom to choose.
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Networking

You never know when you might have a chance to make a connection and you never know when that connection might bring you something good. A simple show of appreciation for a restaurant manager who donated his proceeds to the schools turned into a connection that brought free naan (Indian bread) for my church and business to a restaurant that really just needs people to try it. I have written about it before, but it really is as simple as acknowledging every person as a person. I don’t know where people learned to ignore others so completely simply because of a role that they are serving at the time. You never know when one connection might lead to another making the world a little smaller. My family was talking the other night about people who had signed on to my mom’s guestbook on her webpage who ha known each other for years, but didn’t know that they both knew my mom.

When I was in high school I never paid to go to the movies or to rent one. I bowled for free. I got pizza for free, ice cream for free, sub-sandwhiches for free, I even managed to get a few free shirts right of their backs from people I didn’t even know for free and I won some free shoes a couple of times. Several years after high school I went to rent a movie from the place I used to as a kid and I was told, “your money’s no good here.” Apparently my legend persisted though I had no idea who the person behind the counter was or what I had really done to deserve that treatment. I found out that fall when I did a teaching practicum that there was a day named after me at my high school and students in the language arts department got extra credit for dressing up on Thursdays (something I did while a student). I suppose it’s what celebrities must feel, but the thing is it wasn’t so much that I was especially popular, it was that I made good connections. The people who got me free things where they worked did it for the most part because they knew that if I could do the same for them I would and more.
It’s been a while since I was getting all sorts of things for free, but when I was doing youth ministry I managed to get things donated to the group at a prodigious rate for retreats, creating a haunted house, for mission projects and all it took was reaching out and asking (admittedly how you ask does matter). Recently I was reminded of my past connections when for the tenth time or so I received a free nimbu pani (it’s a lime and soda Indian drink) and this time from a new manager that I hadn’t met until that moment, but who I struck up a conversation with. It wasn’t a big deal for him to give me the drink, but the point is that he did it because I spent some time genuinely asking about his day. Connections are huge in life and you never know when a network you create may give you the opportunity to do something for someone else or to receive an act of kindness. I feel very fortunate to have people I call friend all over the world. They may not get me free stuff, but it means something knowing there are people out there you can call on when you are in need.
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Playing buttons

I played, “buttons” for nearly an hour today in an ever evolving game whose rules developed along the way. It all started with a cup filled with white buttons of all sizes and a little girl who thrives on competition (her dad might have something to do with that). We went from stacking them, to tossing them into the bowl, to something kind of like dominoes and even if I couldn’t totally keep up with the evolutions, her imagination was hard at work constantly creating and recreating a game that we could play together and which she could win (This last part was important because it was okay for me to win as long as she won too, but not okay if she didn’t also win. For another parent this might be an issue, but for me I like that she wants to win). Watching her create was a joy. It was as if you could see the creative fire of invention dancing in her eyes, the neuro-synapses igniting as a new thought occurred and a new rule was formed out of the way things were progressing or in response to one of my questions. We even had to start over several times because she saw that it could work better in a different way (or maybe because it seemed she wasn’t winning, we’ll never know).

I often marvel at the creative potential that I believe exists in all of us and I worry sometimes that it can be dampened by life or suppressed by circumstance, but I don’t believe it can ever really be taken away even if sometimes we find it harder to tap into. What we all need are chances to take a cup full of buttons and create. The act creation is made even better when you can share it with someone (like a dad) who will play along without judgment and we have just as much responsibility to offer that room to create to others as we do to create ourselves. I never want to be the reason someone else fails to reach their creative potential. An hour on the floor with my three old inventing a game is a gift to me and I think we all need a mindset that can see that as not a waste of time, but rather perhaps the best use of time we could have. We should play buttons more often. You never know what spark may ignite when you let creativity loose.
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ape house by Sara Gruen

I liked Gruen’s first book “Water for Elephants,” so when I saw that she had written a new book I would have gotten it anyway, but the fact that she was writing about apes gave it a special significance for me. Before I can talk about the book I have to give a background for why this book has a deeper connection for me. The first stuffed animal I can remember having was a bright orange spider monkey named Motor. As it turned out orange has always been my favorite color and monkeys and apes my favorite animals, so I guess Motor left an impression on me. Every year for as long as I can remember my parents gave me a stuffed monkey or gorilla for every birthday, every Christmas and even on other holidays like Valentines I got another one until my collection grew so much that I had to add a net near the ceiling in my room to hold them all. They were more than toys to me, they were a symbol of something deeper that was calling me off to jungles to learn more about the real animals. For a long time my hope was to be like Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey spending my time sitting on some far of mountain communing, studying, learning about the great apes. My senior year in high school I as fortunate to have a biology teacher who had done her doctoral work at the Woodland Park Zoo and who encouraged me to do an independent study there. I spent over 120 hours of observation plus research and writing time and all the hours driving back and forth to the zoo every other day for most of that year studying the zoos two Siamangs, Simon and Sia Buri. Sia Buri had just one arm, but she was amazing the way she could still fly from limb to limb. Simon was and is still the curious one and used to come up the the glass and sit opposite me, sometimes moving around so he could look in my bag and other times just sitting there. Sometimes, now years later, when I take my daughter to the zoo I could swear that Simon recognizes me and just once I sat in my old spot and he came right up and sat opposite me again. It was a behavior that I never saw him do on the days that I would watch from other spots where he couldn’t see me. You could see the intelligence in that interaction and his curiosity and it only strengthened my love for apes. I chose my first college because it was one of only four in the country that advertised specific degrees in both zoology and theater; my two great passions at the time. Though I didn’t end up pursuing zoology the affinity still remains and always visit zoos when I travel seeking out the apes. I have to admit that it was quite a thrill to see the wild monkeys wandering around the temples in Nepal. This is a really long explanation for why the book was meaningful to me, but I think the background is important.

The book does a marvelous job of illustrating the intelligence and the bond that comes from spending time with our closest cousins. I remember sitting and listening to parent’s say, “look at the monkeys!” to their children and muttering every time, “they are not monkeys, they are apes.” It amazed me how people can come to the zoo and not even truly see the animals. They walk through approximating what they know in terms of generalities and they miss the unique differences between species much less the differences between the individuals within the species. I don’t want to be too harsh because at least those parents are exposing their kids to the zoo and many would eventually read the plaques to their kids. What it shows though is exactly what Gruen does in the book, illustrating how people don’t really see the apes, they see the antics or they see an animal and they miss the incredible connections and similarities. She also does a great job illustrating the bond that can form between the researcher and the apes. My hope is that people who read it will get not just a well told story, but that it will make them want to know more so they can feel just a little of what I did in all those hours sitting with Simon. There are still times when I think of at the very least volunteering for some short term research project, but for now I am content to take my daughters to the zoo and read every plaque adding whatever else I might know so they will never see them as just animals to be looked at.