Monthly Archives: January 2012

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A Rising Tide Lifts All Books

The cover of Ruth's devotional guide. Don't you want to go to the Holy Land?

My friend Ruth Everhart and I both have Lent Devotional guides coming out this year. You can read about both of them here at RevGalBlogPals.

It is easy to get into competitive mode with one’s creative endeavors, and to feel like if one person does well, then that means less of the pie for you. And let’s be honest—few of us are going to order two Lent devotionals. (Let’s be honest even further and say that for many of my readers, one Lent devotional is a stretch. Ahem.)

But Ruth and I are in a writing group together, and we scheme about creating a writers’ guild that would support, cross-promote, maybe even co-publish our work. If she does well, I’m happy. It’s also good for me. And vice versa. And if either of us does well, it’s good for the RevGals, the grandmama of online communities that I was honored to help form more than six years ago. (Grandmama? Yes. It’s kinda like dog years.) And one hopes that the reign of God is somehow illuminated too.

But what we all want, at the heart of it, is to write and be read. So order one of these books.

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Friday Link Love

The Cult of Collaboration — Fernando Gros

Just jokin'. Sort of.

…We often need to collaborate in order to solve really big problems. And, as humans, we also need to work alongside other people to satisfy more basic emotional desires for community and belonging.

But, the hard slog of creating, innovating and thinking is something we largely do alone.

That’s something I totally agree with. And, it worries me that in many parts of society, including schools, we are not encouraging people to develop the skills required to work alone, for extended periods of time, on complex problems.

Add in the fact that smartphones mean that we need never be alone again, and this is an issue worth thinking about. Alone. Or together.

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Religion for Atheists — Alain de Botton

We are far more desperate than secular modernity recognises. All of us are on the edge of panic and terror pretty much all the time – and religions recognise this. We need to build a similar awareness into secular structures.
Religions are fascinating because they are giant machines for making ideas vivid and real in people’s lives: ideas about goodness, about death, family, community etc. Nowadays, we tend to believe that the people who make ideas vivid are artists and cultural figures, but this is such a small, individual response to a massive set of problems. So I am deeply interested in the way that religions are in the end institutions, giant machines, organisations, directed to managing our inner life. There is nothing like this in the secular world, and this seems a huge pity.

The above link is to an FAQ about Botton’s TED talk on Atheism 2.0, which is outstanding and available here.

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Pomodoro Technique

If you’re not familiar with the pomodoro technique for time management, it’s incredibly simple and very effective. I wrote Sabbath in the Suburbs primarily using techniques like this one.

Poke around the website to learn more about it, though for heaven’s sake, I don’t know why you’d need a $26 book to understand it, let alone the tomato-shaped timer, although it is cute.

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And along the lines of time management:

The Biggest Myth in Time Management — Harvard Business Review

In a nutshell: That we can get it all done. (Comments are interesting, trying to diagnose “Brad’s” problem in the article.)

I think this simple realization has profound spiritual implications, way beyond simple time management. But then again, I would think that, I just wrote a book about Sabbath…

Have a good weekend. It’s a long weekend for us, what with teacher work days on Monday and Tuesday. We have our congregation’s annual meeting on Sunday, after which the kids and I head to Johnstown, Pennsylvania for a short visit with Robert’s grandmother.

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Fellowship of Prayer: Preview

Clergy, DCEs, church education committees… this is for you.

I was grateful for the opportunity to write the Lent Devotional Guide for Chalice Press, available for order here at the low low price of $2.95. (E-PDFs available too!) Some of you have asked me if there is a place to get a preview of the content. For a while there wasn’t, though I see now that they’ve put up a link to the first few entries. But how about a preview here at the Blue Room too? Here are the first few entries to give you a feel for the whole thing…

Introduction

Dear Reader:

As a child, I loved going through my grandparents’ encyclopedias. A favorite section was on the human body, with intricate, full-color diagrams of the circulatory system, muscles, nerves. Each system was illustrated on its own clear plastic page, so you could view it on its own, or you could lay them on top of each other—organs on top of arteries on top of bones. And then there was the skin that covered everything underneath it—an entire universe, encased in human flesh, fearfully and wonderfully made.

Life feels like this—layers upon layers, laid on top of each other. There are carpools and dinners with friends, oil changes and books due at the library. There are friends in the hospital, bills to pay, tensions with a family member, a presidential election looming, a never-ending onslaught of news and punditry. There’s that guy on the park bench, his worldly possessions crammed in a purloined grocery cart. There’s the sweet little girl in your son’s fifth grade class who just arrived in the U.S. and speaks no English. There’s the neighbor who gets on your last nerve. There’s the church committee meeting.

Life goes on as usual during between now and April 8, but with a new layer: the season of Lent. For some of us, Lent means intentional scripture reading, or giving up an indulgence through Easter, or an increased commitment to prayer, or daily reading of the book you now hold in your hands. But our life of faith is not just a set of tasks like any other. It is the circulatory system, our lifeblood, the heart that pumps life into us and keeps us going. Or perhaps it’s the nervous system, the center of feeling and awareness. Or perhaps it’s the skin—the flesh that enfolds everything else we do.

Lent can be all of these things, and more, if we give ourselves fully to the season, its themes, and its practices. Take a deep breath, and let us begin.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana

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Ash Wednesday • Feb 22

We Are Dust

Read Psalm 51. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Tonight, many of us will attend worship services in which we receive ashes on the forehead along with the stark words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In a death-denying culture, it is one of the more radical things we do. Anthony Robinson, a pastor and writer, served a congregation that decided to have an Ash Wednesday service for the first time, followed by a community concert. When Robinson looked out on the crowd that night, his sermon about sin and brokenness clutched in his hands, he realized that many people in the sanctuary were from the greater community. How would they react to an extended time of confession? Would the imposition of ashes feel weird or punitive?

The next day he was walking with his wife in a sketchy neighborhood in town—lots of folks sporting tattoos and piercings. A young woman with both of these, plus wild multi-colored hair, stopped him. “You’re that pastor from last night, aren’t you? What you did, and what you said—it was so meaningful. It was awesome.”

We are dust, and to dust we shall return. We are dust, all of us—the pastor and the wild-haired young woman, and the toddler and the nonagenarian. Our time is short upon this earth. Only God endures forever. In the meantime, what are we living for? What are we willing to give ourselves to? We long to belong to something larger than ourselves. But what is that something? The ashes, marking us with the cross, proclaim the answer. We belong to God. Even in our frailty and finitude, a good and powerful God loves us. That is the gospel message of Lent.

Dear God, help me to live in hope this Lent. I am your child. Amen.

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Thur • Feb 23

From the Ashes

Read Isaiah 43:18-19. Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.

Her name was Isabella Baumfree, but most of us know her by the name she chose for herself, a free woman: Sojourner Truth. A gifted preacher and activist for abolitionism and women’s rights, she aroused controversy whenever she spoke. On one occasion, when she was greeted by hissing and booing, she responded, “You may hiss as much as you please, but women will get their rights anyway. You can’t stop us, neither.”

One day, while preparing to speak in Indiana, word came that someone had threatened to burn down the building if she spoke there. Sojourner said, “Then I will speak upon the ashes.”

The message is clear: nothing would stop Sojourner Truth—not hatred, not intimidation, and certainly not a lit match touching dry wooden beams. If necessary, she would stand tall on the charred remains of that building, a living testimony that oppression and ugliness are not the final word. Liberation, beauty, truth—these things prevail.

Ashes are a reminder of our mortality, to be sure, but they are more than that. They are a reminder that life can erupt from death. God’s creation testifies to this again and again, as forests are decimated by fire, only to burst with green in seasons to come. Lent testifies to this too.

You are about to do a new thing, powerful God. Give me eyes to see it, and the words to testify to what I see.

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Thanks for all of your support and encouragement, friends. If the devotional suits your needs or that of your congregation, I’d be honored if you checked it out.

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Today’s Video: “Human”

I’ve been wanting to write this one down but just haven’t had the time… so here’s a video. Five minutes.

Background: We have Services for Wholeness each quarter. It’s a time for people to come and receive prayer for whatever they’re dealing with. In December the service is called Blue Christmas.

Further Background: I occasionally do dumb things.

Human from MaryAnn McKibben Dana on Vimeo.

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Friday Link Love

Where did the week go? Oh yeah, to Baltimore for a planning meeting for the NEXT Church. Now that’s a group of folks with some big dreams for the church! Stay tuned… and if you are of the Presbyterian flavor, register today for the 2012 conference!

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Nothing is Impossible — YouTube

Beautiful and inspiring:

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Physics, Miracles and Witchcraft: 50 Years of A Wrinkle in Time — Big Think

I recently read A Wrinkle in Time to the girls and was re-astounded at its beauty, complexity and depth:

What [L'Engle] seems to have intended to do is add a new twist (wrinkle?) to C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books. Those, too, combine fantasy with a religious message; The Magician’s Nephew even includes an element of planet-hopping sci-fi. But while the Lewis of Nephew was a veteran children’s author who knew, metaphysically speaking, where he stood, the L’Engle of Wrinkle was a relative newcomer, and there’s something less slick and complacent about her universe. Blend pagan myth with Christian themes and you’re repeating an old formula; stir in large quantities of secular literature and modern science, and you get a more intriguing, more volatile chemistry.

There’s also a discussion of a pivotal scene in the book (one of my favorites), which may be ”the single most outrageous scene in classic children’s fiction.”

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Most Runway Models Meet the BMI Criteria for Anorexia — Daily Mail

A magazine dedicated to plus-size fashion and models has sparked controversy with a feature claiming that most runway models meet the Body Mass Index criteria for anorexia.

Accompanied by a bold shoot that sees a nude plus-size model posing alongside a skinny ‘straight-size’ model, PLUS Model Magazine says it aims to encourage plus-size consumers to pressure retailers to better cater to them, and stop promoting a skinny ideal.

Lots of very arresting photos of a beautiful “plus-size” model.

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Tackling “Wicked” Problems — Faith and Leadership

There are hard problems, and there are wicked problems:

Steve Jobs was a master at dealing with wicked problems, and when he came back to Apple [in 1996], it was in a very bad place. They had the success of the Macintosh, and then they really struggled.

Most CEOs would come back and say, “How do I sell more computers? We’ll have to expand the number of consumers who are interested in my products. We’ll have to hire a chief marketing officer.” It’s a hard problem — “How do I sell more computers?”

Jobs came in and asked different kinds of questions about what could that company even be. He famously said his objective was to make a dent in the universe. He asked, “How do I transform how people interact with each other and the devices that enable them to communicate?” It’s a totally different kind of thing.

I talk about this all the time in the church. We are very good at avoiding the wicked problems by asking the wrong questions: how can we halt membership decline? How do we get young people back to church? Wrong questions.

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Mike Rowe Answers Your Questions — Reddit

This is a couple years old, but couldn’t help but share. We love Mike Rowe and Dirty Jobs in our house:

Oodles of fun anecdotes, commentary, and yes opera singin’. Also, his answer to “Is there any chance you’ll stop having sex with my wife in her dreams? It’s getting pretty old, Mike” is so elegant, it would have made Archimedes jealous.

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May you all have a dreamy weekend.

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In Which I Have My Kids Inoculated

We gave the girls ice skating lessons for Christmas. We have a rec center near our house that offers them pretty inexpensively. It’s also low-key. No future Olympians there, just kids having fun and getting fit.

I chose the time carefully—9:35 on Saturday morning. That’s early enough that it doesn’t break up the day, but late enough that our Saturday can begin without alarm clocks and hurry.

I had some mixed feelings about scheduling something on Saturday, which is more often than not our Sabbath day. But I relented, because a) it’s only six weeks, b) it’s something they really wanted to do, and c) there are times we have Sabbath on Sunday, so often there won’t be a conflict.

Their first Saturday, they had a great time. I watched them fall, and smile, and get up, again and again. It’s hard work, ice skating. But they were bubbly with excitement when it was over, and couldn’t wait to go back the next week.

The next week was this past Saturday. Robert and I got up in our quiet slowness and made our way downstairs, where the girls were already with James, making a boat out of the chairs in our family room. Caroline had cut an anchor out of black construction paper and was tying it to one of the armrests with embroidery floss.

We reminded them of the ice skating, and they cheered at being able to go again. And then… they kept playing. “Can we have breakfast on the boat?” Sure.

We kept reminding them of the lessons: “You do want to go, right?” And they kept saying, “Yeah, we do. Of course we do.”

Back to the boat.

We eventually got them dressed and shod and jacketed and out the door with one rec center membership card but not the other. Which is pretty good for us.

And they were glad to go, but a little reluctant to leave the boat.

I realized: Sabbath has seeped into them. They have grown to need it. Love it.

Excellent.

A friend of mine moved away from here because she was fed up by what she called the “Fairfaxedness.” If you live in Fairfax County, you know what I’m talking about, although the Fairfaxedness is far and wide. There’s so much about living here that is great. But sometimes it feels like we’re experiencing an epidemic, if you will, of schedules and practices and enrichment and your-turn-to-bring-the-snack.

But maybe our year of Sabbath-taking inoculated them against the Fairfaxedness, just a little bit. Not that we won’t all catch a fever every now and then. But that day of rest and play helped build up some antibodies. I do believe it did.

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Friday Link Love

Jo Rowling

First, I love all the responses to the Sunday School post. Let’s keep that conversation going, shall we?

And now…

J.K. Rowling’s Writing Process in Her Own Words — Shelley Souza

This is just a fun read for HP fans, and obviously of interest for writers too:

Her compelling cast of characters came to life in her imagination because she never faltered in her belief that Harry Potter was the story she was meant to write.

It took me five years to work out this very long plot. On that train, I came up with lots of the characters you meet at the school. Loads and loads of detail, but not really the narrative. It’s as though, subconsciously, for years, I had been preparing for writing Harry Potter.

During those five years this mass of material was generated, some of which will never find its way into the books, will never need to be in the books. It’s just stuff I need to know, for my own pleasure—partly for my own pleasure and partly because I like reading a book where I have a sense that the author knows everything. They might not be telling me everything but you have that confidence that the author really knows everything.

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Five Things to Stop Doing in 2012 — Tom Arthur
Good list, geared toward pastors. They all resonate, especially the one about not just reading leadership/administration books. I easily get sucked into those, because they are required for the transformation training I’m doing, they’re easy to read, and yes, they’re useful. Instead I have this weird idea that in this, the first year of my fifth decade, I want to only read literature that was written before I was born. Sort of a way of getting perspective on just how short a time I’ve been on this planet. So much of what I read is of the moment. Not sure I’ll do that but the thought intrigues me.
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The Seven Laws of Leanness — Women’s Health Magazine
Good reminders here. There really is no trick to it, folks.
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Talking to Strangers? Re-writing the Rules of Childhood — Time
So every six months I have an automatic tickler that reminds Robert and me to have the safety reminder discussion with the kids. How do you call 911 and why? What’s the fire plan? What about going with strangers?
I clipped this article several months ago, which talks about how confusing the “don’t talk to strangers” thing is. Because sometimes you have to.

It’s all part of rewriting the rules of stranger danger. “That message is not effective,” says Cirillo. “Stranger danger portrays a man jumping out of a bush with a trenchcoat on, and children are trained to look just for that.”

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children agrees; like Cirillo, the Center focuses on teaching kids to speak up for themselves and never go anywhere with anyone they’re not supposed to be with. But cases like Leiby’s happen and we need to talk to our kids about how to handle them — namely, scream loudly, “You’re not my mom” until someone pays attention and never, no matter what, get into a car or go into someone’s home unless you’ve got parental permission.

But in refining the stranger danger axiom, Cirillo prefers to teach children about “tricky people” rather than zero in on sinister strangers. Who are they? “Anyone who tries to get you to break your safety rules,” she says.

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And on a happier note… if you are a pastor, educator or worship leader with kids in your congregation, you need to be reading Worshiping with Children. It’s just chock full.

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Have a wonderful weekend, folks.

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Does Sunday School Work?

A few years back, I was talking to a parent whose children had been enrolled in her church’s Sunday School and evening children’s program. By all accounts, and from what I could tell as an uninvolved observer, this church has an absolutely exemplary children’s ministry. And yet this mother was looking for another church. “I recently asked my kids some basic questions about the Bible and some of the foundational stories of Christianity,” she told me. “They couldn’t answer the most basic questions. What are they learning in Sunday School? Is all this programming even doing what it’s supposed to do?”

I thought about that mother this week when I saw this article from Associated Baptist Press about a new documentary. It should go without saying that the theology that undergirds the study, and the video (excerpt) at the link are quite foreign to me. But here’s the gist:

In Divided, young filmmaker Philip Leclerc sets out to discover why so many people of his generation are leaving the church. …Leclerc acknowledges grouping kids and age and developmental stages makes sense on the surface. In the Bible, however, parents are given the responsibility for religious instruction of their children.

The modern idea of age-graded Sunday school, youth ministry and children’s church came from somewhere else. When it started in the 1800s, Sunday school was intended for poor children without Christian parents. In most American churches today, Leclerc insists, Christian fathers [sic] relinquish their leadership to programs based on secular educational theories instead of the teaching of Scripture.

The video uses the word “carnal” about eleventy-five times, and I didn’t even watch the whole thing. I don’t resonate with many of the article’s comments either. But I suspect the basic thrust is right. Now I want to go back to that mother and say, “What about your responsibility as a parent? What could the church do to support you as your child’s primary Christian educator?”

Let’s take my church as an example. We are small, with a good number of kids for our size, but the “Sunday School” aged kids range from kindergarten through third grade, with a smattering of middle and high school students.

We have Sunday School twice a month, during the worship hour—it is not practical to have Sunday School at other times—and we have a team of teachers who take turns leading. We went to this model because, well, our old model of having one teacher lead every week until s/he gets burned to a crisp didn’t feel very biblical.

But even if we had a top-notch Sunday School every week, our most dedicated families are here maybe twice or three times a month, due to sports, out of town trips, and other weekend activities.

This is insane.

Churches are smaller, budgets are smaller. Tiny Church is not unusual. I look at this situation and think, This doesn’t make any sense. Why are we trying to have a traditional Sunday School? Why aren’t we offering truly intergenerational worship, and training parents to do religious education at home?

I could easily dismiss this study as so much patriarchal BS. (Why is it only the father who bears primary responsibility for faith formation in the family? That’s rhetorical; don’t answer.) But I can’t dismiss it outright.

It reminds me of the REVEAL study that came out of Willow Creek church some years back. The study found that greater involvement in church activities did not foster deeper commitment to the way of Jesus. (My paraphrase.) Some mainline folks crowed about the study, feeling vindicated that seeker-sensitive megachurches were finally admitting that they were serving up the thin gruel we’d always suspected. But the REVEAL study is not cause for smug rejoicing, but serious self-reflection. We are often no different in our mainline churches.

So what is the answer? I wish I knew. But I’d like to get some people together to talk about this. Let’s start here. What do you say? Has your church figured this out?

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Friday Link Love

NextChurch2012

I still want to know your greatest tech challenge, but here are some other things to ponder:

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“53″ by e.e. cummings

Another great manifesto for 2012:

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
for even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

More at the link.

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Walker Percy Interviews Himself — Andrew Sullivan

This is from Christmas Day and I am still going back to it. There’s an impertinence and a wild sort of reverence here:

Q: Would you exclude, for example, scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative [to faith]?

A: Yes.

Q: Why?

A: It’s not good enough.

Q: Why not?

A: This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer “Scientific humanism.” That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don’t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and would not let go until God identified himself and blessed him.

Q: Grabbed aholt?

A: A Louisiana expression.

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How Music Works in Worship — Troy Bronsink

Another perceptive offering from Troy.

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And now, from the Department of Publicity:

Church folks, don’t forget the Lent Devotional Guide I wrote for Chalice Press. Also available in e-format! Unfortunately, there aren’t samples available online, but if you’d like a free sample of the first few entries, e-mail maryannmcdana at gmail dot com.

Also, the NEXT Church 2012 conference is going to be great. I’m leading a workshop called ”Agile Church: Rethinking Congregational Structures,” but there are a lot of other reasons to come (including the aforementioned Troy). Hope to see you in Dallas.

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The Thinking Life: A Review, and Tech Challenges

A review and a question for you to answer:

Robert’s mother sent us P.M. Forni’s latest book, The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction. It’s a thin but wise little book about the ways that modern life discourages deep reflection and unhurried thought. It’s a quick read, although blasting through the book misses the point. The questions at the end of each chapter help slow one down and let the material sink in.

Forni looks at “the thinking life” in a broad way, encouraging virtues such as curiosity, humility and awareness. It’s less about “taming the tech” than I thought it would be, though the first few chapters hit this hard. He encourages putting boundaries around one’s media use: using one’s commute to think rather than text/read/listen to NPR, stepping away from one’s desk during lunch rather than catching up on Reddit, and so forth.

He also encourages turning off the Internet for three hours a day in order to work on “thinking” tasks. Here is where he lost Robert: “Yeah, but he’s a writer,” he said. “Our company does all of its communicating via Skype,” he said. “Sure, people turn it off if they’re working on something and don’t want to be disturbed, but setting an arbitrary time frame to be offline would be looked upon very strangely.” Forni provides a one-size-fits-all solution. Not helpful.

I think constantly about the spiritual (and practical) implications of our current technological landscape, and ultimately haven’t found any book that really gets it right. Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows was too pessimistic and short on solutions. William Powers’s Hamlet’s Blackberry was ultimately more hopeful, and I agree with his remedy, a tech Sabbath. (I talk about this some in Sabbath in the Suburbs—did I mention that it’s coming this summer? Yes, I’m sure I did.)

But again, the idea of a tech Sabbath is very general. What Powers’s book doesn’t do is talk in-depth about how hard it is to unplug once one has, well, plugged. Tech Sabbaths are hard—I speak from experience. (They’re also SO worth it.)

A good book on this topic should delve into the psychology of breaking habits and establishing new ones. Are there practical strategies, tips? It should be conversant in addiction issues: Internet use triggers physiological responses; we get a “hit” when we check our e-mail, so it’s not enough just to stay “stop using the computer” or “just don’t check your e-mail.” Are there things we can learn from twelve-step methodology as we seek to put boundaries on our use of social media?

Most of all, a book like this should be broad-based in terms of its audience and who is interviewed, because a product manager at a DC-area technology company does not have the same issues as a professor like Forni.

I also think there are strong spiritual implications to all of this. Faith traditions and practices give us some tools. What does the discipline of hospitality have to do with Facebook? What role does contemplation play when perusing one’s Twitter feed? How do we cultivate discernment in what we consume and produce?

This article, called “The Joy of Quiet,” has been making the rounds everywhere I go. People from many walks of life are realizing what has been lost in our buzzing digital world. While few of us want to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but people looking for strategies that really work for their specific situation.

I don’t know if this is my next book project or not. Maybe a series of blog posts, or an e-book. In any case, I want to know the most important issues you, personally, face.

When it comes to technology, what is your greatest challenge?

I hope that’s broad enough yet specific enough to get you thinking. Comment here or on Facebook (mdana), Twitter (revmamd) or e-mail me at maryannmcdana at gmail dot com.

(See my review of Carr’s and Powers’s books here.)