Twas the night before the night before

Twas the night before the night before Christmas and I am sitting on a chair in the bathroom next to the radiator because this is the warmest room in the house. I love to be toasty warm. A cold snap issued a snowstorm of epic proportions last week and I have tried to make time to enjoy it as much as possible. Someone built this snowman near my house and I find him absolutely charming. I thought he might brighten your day as well.

It is Advent, just two days before Christmas and strangely I do not feel deeply connected to the holiday this year. I wonder what that is all about? I put up a glorious Christmas tree downstairs, have helped lead weekly Advent services, lit plenty of candles, listened to lots of Christmas tunes (Baby it's Cold Outside and The River are two of the favorites this year). I have shared short meditations on the nearness of God, and yet, somehow if my heart had a rating it would likely be rated as ummm.... trying to find the right word here... subdued?

Subdued is not a typical "Carmen state of being."

But some seasons are like that.

I paused to notice the shape of the snowdrifts behind the church today. In the midst of the city, beneath the grand buildings, lie small mountains made up entirely of intricate flakes, blown and frozen into blankets of white, sublime and quiet.

Friends, all over the world, wishing you a good yule, a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, Frohe Weihnachten, God Jul, and all the rest. May your holiday be full of good food and good conversation, peace and joy!

Bloggity Blog

Last blog posting = author feeling not-so-cheerful
Current blog posting = author feeling quite-cheerful-indeed

Hey friends. This morning I slept luxuriously late and chose to lie around in my bed (in my Cindy Lou Who striped pajamas) reading mags. Tis the season for subscription renewal and I am looking for some good recommendations.

I love the Economist, but I find a weekly magazine too intense. I would prefer a monthly subscription to something. The Atlantic Monthly is excellent (my friends Peter and Cheryl in Zambia introduced me), but I am open to other ideas. Anyone have any suggestions?

It is Saturday and I am about to go on a long walk. I am thankful for the gift of time today. Time to sleep late. Time to walk. Time to read. Time to be attentive to the world and how good it can be. Life is not without its share of challenge, but it is relentlessly good. Wishing you some goodness today.

A lengthy post

You know you need a proper date when the clerk at the corner store calls you "babe" and you think "that might have been the closest I've come to being an object of desire in a long time." Well, besides the 50 year old divorcee who asked me out at a funeral reception last week (yes, I was wearing my clerical collar at the time). Nothing against this 50 year old divorced man, but the whole thing was suspiciously fetish-tastic.

I just ate a 1/2 pint of chocolate fudge ice cream. It is like déjà vu from last spring. Life is good, but life is also hard these days.

So, why did I come to Philadelphia?

About six months ago I walked into a beautiful, old historic church in Center City, Philadelphia that seats more than 700 people and was told that 9 people attend services each week. It is a church in desperate need of imagination, love and attentiveness. And so I signed on. It felt like a good fit at the time. It gave me room to ask questions about the relevance of church in a world where its message and work has become obsolete in many parts of the world. For a minister, I am strangely suspicious of church. I am the first person to admit that church is often associated with destructive discourses characterized by shame and is known to exploit power, yet I remain curious, and open, to church as being something different, something other, something better. I remain compelled, for better or worse, by the Christian tradition, its Hebrew roots, and the notion of a God that draws near.

I came to Philadelphia to enter into conversation with people who want to reimagine church and how it can be deeply reflective on the spirit, on sacred texts, on God at work in the world and compel people to work toward a life and a world that is more meaningful and compassionate and just. That all sounds very well and good until you attempt to put this into practice. Our church sits next door to the Comcast tower, home to one of the most successful corporations in the United States and every day people line up around the block to bring their children to a 20 minute 3-D holiday show on a massive screen in their lobby. People make time for this kind of entertainment (surprisingly drab), while the building next door remains empty. This gives me pause to think. For the last two mornings I passed out invitations to the neighborhood for a midweek Advent service and today I sat in a pew amongst a dozen people. Not one new person came.

My friend Keelan said to me tonight, "Carmen, the church is a tough sell. You should have gone for knives."

He could be right.

I have not given up hope on God or hope in church, but this job has proven more challenging than I originally imagined. Friends have reminded me to take one day at a time as in all big challenges and of course they are right. But on days like this, a life of teaching and travel and romance sounds a great deal more appealing :-) For now I will crawl into bed, thankful for heat and clean drinking water, a paycheck, good friends and family and the hope that life is full of surprises.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I walked home today at the wrong time and got caught in sleet without an umbrella. My jeans were sopping and my wool coat was thoroughly drenched by the time I got to the haunted manse. I was cold and amused at the whole thing until I realized that most of my comrades on the road were homeless people with no warm home to return to. One woman stooped over a grate, trying to warm a pair of gloves in steam being released from the subway below. Homelessness racks Philadelphia.

Last week I saw a man sitting outside a barber shop surrounded by all he owned, His white head perched above bags of clothes and shoes, looking content as king of his own mountain. On the glass behind him, just above his head, the words "You are beautiful" were printed. A serendipitous place to sit.

The sleet turned into big, fat snowflakes by the time I got to a coffee shop where I met a woman who is a domestic and global AIDS activist who has lived in Philadelphia for a decade (I had trouble not choking when she generously ascribed "friendly" to this city-- I think I might get proven wrong one of these days). She was inspiring and I hope to meet her again someday.

I am off to a "Sinterklaas Party," which should be fun-- a Dutch couple is sharing this festive tradition with us tonight (wikipedia this to see just how strange--even slightly offensive-- this tradition is to our modern sensibilities). Happy Sinterklass to you!!

In honor of weird holiday traditions, I leave you with this picture I took last week on a walk in Princeton. This yard made me smile.

I dwell in poetry, a fairer house than prose…

I have been thinking about Emily Dickinson today. The recluse poet, one of the most famous poets of the English language, has a fascinating connection to the home where I live and the church where I currently serve. She wrote three beautiful letters, if not scandalous, to a man we know as “Master.” As voyeurs tiptoe across the intimate correspondence, a familiar tightness pulls across the chest and lips curl into a knowing smile. The letters are full of longing and desire and Charles Wadsworth, former minister here at Arch Street Presbyterian Church, may have been the intended recipient. This is the portrait of Wadsworth that hangs in the study outside the sanctuary. He is a fairly handsome fellow. But so serious. When looking at characters like this buttoned up minister, I struggle to imagine pure, ecstatic indulgence. Really, Emily? Maybe I need to expand my romantic imagination.

I am likely preoccupied with poetry tonight because I am well-rested after a much needed Thanksgiving vacation in Princeton with good friends. I ate too much, drank enough, played amusing games, and spent time with people who make me wiser and warmer.

This is the thing I like about poets: they notice the small things that most of us pass by without a second thought. Life is too short to live merely in prose, a landscape painted in counterfeit hues. I like the idea of drinking in the poetry of the world as it unfolds around us in magnificent, if not understated, scenes.

I bought a couple of books while I was in Princeton, one of which is a collection of poems by Billy Collins whom I will leave you with here. This is a naughty, excellent, complex little poem about Emily. The reading is a little Dickens-esque, English drippity-drab, but worth a listen.

Taking off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

No Barriers

Facebook is a funny thing. It allows you to creep quietly through people's lives without being noticed. You can give as much or as little information as you like, painting your life into the landscape you want people to see. Some people offer words of advice, admonish those of an opposing political party, or simply plea for love when things are hard. I think I have probably done all of those things. The jury is still out. Not sure how I feel about Facebook. It offers the illusion of intimacy, but web connection is not real connection, is it? Ironic that I am writing this on a BLOG.

On Wednesday night I went to the "No Barriers Dinner" that gathers at our sister church Broad Street Ministry once a month and literally advertises itself as a free dinner party for the city of Philadelphia. Imagine suits and skaters and artists and homeless people all packed together to share a meal. This month we had close to 400 people and were hosted by the Ritz Carlton (the best of the best) and many of the servers who volunteered were from the NYC record label Rough Riders (think hip hop). I sat next to a homeless man named Fred, across from an Italian named Dante who recently moved from Jersey (who was sitting next to a couple of students from the University of Pennsylvania) and had a lovely conversation with a Dutch woman and her partner who met one another while studying in New Zealand. I love this dinner. It is like one big hug or a group exhale. All of us, in all of our diversity and complexity and foolery, all gathered together to share some food and some love with one another. It was pretty nice.

I am working hard in my new position. The building is falling apart, so I cling to memories from Zambia where people did amazing things together with just a little bit of money and a whole lot of ingenuity. My friend Robert Louer shared a story about an afternoon he spent teaching in Lusaka that was interrupted by a panicked visitor who was trying to find a way to pay for a proper burial for a poor woman in the community. The group gathered enough money and donated planks of wood and nails to build her a coffin. They prayed over the offering before they returned to class. Now, that is faith. I hope to muster some of that here.

Living without barriers. Living in freedom. Doesn't that sound nice? Some friends shared their experiences from the months surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall and since then I have been pondering this notion of freedom. I live in a country that talks about it a great deal, but not sure that many of us have a good working definition. Liberation from tyranny is vital to human flourishing. Yes. But liberation from the self, from the prisons we create for ourselves? Imperative.

Curious about Broad Street? Check it out here. Watch the slideshow for awhile-- I love the music.

A typical Manhattan weekend

Imagine this: Jews from Los Angeles meet conservative Christian New York Koreans for a wedding on Friday the 13th, Chelsea Pier, Manhattan. Now that is a fascinating event! I was in New York for the weekend to celebrate the wedding of Max and Millie who hosted an extraordinary party on the Hudson River-- divine food and drink, orchids and roses and an excuse to wear three-inch black heels and eat chocolate-covered everything. Lovely.

This morning, after a slow start, I went to brunch with good friends from Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. It was good to catch up with these women- bright attorneys, writers, business and entertainment-savvy women whose strength and humor inspire me. It rained all day long, so I curled up with a self-help book that proved irritatingly helpful. I am not usually a big fan of this genre (pride, I think), but this was a worthy way to spend the afternoon.

My friend Christy told me a marvelous story this week. She is a minister in New York and a 5 year-old in her church just had successful open-heart surgery. Christy called the family to see if she could stop by and visit the young patient who promptly said to her mother, "I cannot believe one of the President's of the church wants to come see me!" Upon arrival, the little girl greeted Christy with a special picture she had drawn of the two of them and shyly told her all about her time in the hospital. The girl's mother asked, "Would you like to show Reverend Lang your scar?" She sheepishly shook her head no and the visit proceeded with no scars shared. When Christy arrived back at the office she had an email waiting from the mother of the young girl. After Christy left the mother had asked her daughter, "Honey, you show everyone your scar. Why did you not want to show Reverend Lang?" The little girl sighed and said, "Mommy, wouldn't you be a little shy if someone asked you to show Barak Obama your scar?"

I am now back in Philadelphia and despite the fact that I came home to a broken heater AGAIN, I can authentically report that I like my job. Fixing boilers and toilets aside, I love that I get to be imaginative and relational as this church figures out what it means to be relevant in a city/culture/time and place that is appropriately suspicious of church.