You Never Know . . .

A week ago yesterday, I picked up a message from my answering machine after returning home from choir. The caller said he was an elder at a church in the Presbytery Over the Border, and he wanted to talk to me about supplying their pulpit in the near future. He left his number and the directive to call back after 4:00 PM.

Oh, excellent. I haven't preached since mid-September!

Next evening, I called back several times, even though I had an AutoCAD test to study for. No answer. No answering machine, either. I let the phone ring and ring, as if the sound could create a hearing ear was no man was, but it was but vain repetition, a sounding gong and a clanging cymbal.

Next evening, Halloween, I called back earlier, closer to 4:00. Ring-ring-ring-ring-ring! Still no answer. This was frustrating. I really do want to preach wherever I can get the opportunity. But why put someone who's never home and who has no answering machine in charge of arranging pulpit supply at your church?

Still, I tried again later, after the trick-or-treaters were all safely home, the depleted bowls of candy brought inside, and the porch lights (if not the jack o' lanterns) extinguished. Ring-ring-ring-ri--!

Oh! Did someone finally pick up the phone?

Darned if I could tell for sure. For instead of, "Hello, this is So-and-so," I heard sounds of electronic confusion (a TV on loud in the background?) and a man's rough voice shouting something incoherent ending with "fifteen minutes!"

Then the line went dead.

Was that some strange sort of answering machine, that hadn't been turned on before?

So fifteen minutes later I called again. Line opens, again the background noise. And again, the loud and angry man's voice, this time ripping out " . . . won't put up with this bu!!sh1t!!!"

And again the line went dead.

I checked the number I'd been calling on my cellphone against the number on my caller ID. I replayed the message and verified the number the church elder gave. It was all the same.

Huh? Is this elder an ecclesiastical version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Does he have an alcoholic grown son living with him? "Inexplicable" didn't half describe it!

But I want to preach wherever I can. So I looked up the number of the church and left a message on their machine, to have this elder call me.

Which he did, this past Sunday. Everything is lovely: I'm scheduled to preach for them one of the Sundays in Advent.

The elder referred to the call I'd left at the church. "Sorry," he said, "for not picking up when you called. I get so many phone solicitors, that if I don't recognize the number, I don't answer the phone!"

Tentatively I said, "Somebody picked up on Halloween night. It sounded like--" [I determined to put the best construction on it]--"there was a party going on."

"Oh, no," the elder replied. "No parties here! It's just me and my grown daughter, and we never do anything like that!"

"Well," said I, "maybe it was the television I heard." And I left it at that. But I don't believe it for one moment. Not about the rough voice. Not about the irruptions of vulgarity.

"I'm sick of you sales people calling me every fifteen minutes!!! . . . I won't put up with this bu!!sh1t!!!"

I wonder, does this elder even now realize that the person he was swearing at the other evening was not an interruptive phone solicitor, but an ordained clergywoman of the Presbyterian Church (USA), under whom he was proposing to sit to hear the Word of God?

And even if it had been a phone solicitor, does this elder not realize that Christian courtesy should extend even to modern-day publicans/tax gatherers such as they? That his ordination vows constrain him in particular to act in Christian love and courage towards all people he encounters, regardless of who or what they might be? Even if that Christian love and courage mean simply saying, "No thanks, I'm not interested," and hanging up?

And yes, do I realize that I represent Jesus Christ to everyone I come in contact with, whether they know I'm ordained or not? It's scary to think how many times I must've thoughtlessly said unChristlike things to people I encounter, even if they weren't as spectacular as the ejaculations of the pulpit supply arranging elder for the little church in the Presbytery Over the Border.

Really scary.

Lord help us. I mean that literally. Because, you just never know.

Pride Goeth Before Destruction, and a Haughty Spirit Before a Fall

I tried one of those "What Theologian Are You?" quizzes today.

I admit it: I kept coming up as Karl Barth and I could never figure out why. I got through theological college without even reading much if any Karl Barth!

So I tried being more decisive about my answers. And came out as Jonathan Edwards.

Well, that's a fine thing indeed.

Look at the way our quiz-makers describe him (and hence, me) below: "Passionate about preaching," very good. "Accomplished theologian": I can't claim that honor, but it'd be a wonderful commendation to deserve.

But oy vey! "The original fire and brimstone preacher"? Not what you want said about you if you're trying to convince a church or a presbytery of your pastoral abilities!

I know good and well that Jonathan Edwards' reputation as a fire-and-brimstone preacher is vastly overrated. "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God" was preached to an assembly of pastors and theological students, who probably needed to be taken off their high horses and would know how to receive it. Edwards in his pastoral ministry and congregational preaching was more likely to emphasize the "religious affections" and a Scripture-mediated experience of the love of God.

Sounds pretty pastoral to me. But in this world of "perception is reality," again I go, Oy vey!

But I can put up with that. Being compared to Jonathan Edwards! That's really great!

. . . Hey, wait a minute. Where did this 33% worth of Schleiermacher come from? And this 7% share of Charles "Evil Eye" Finney? Yuck!

What a dumb quiz this must be!

Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Jonathan Edwards You're the original hellfire-and brimstone preacher and you take God's justice very seriously. You are passionate about preaching and an accomplished theologian. Jonathan Edwards 80% John Calvin 73% Anselm 73% Martin Luther 53% Friedrich Schleiermacher 33% Karl Barth 33% Charles Finney 7% Paul Tillich 7% Augustine 7% Jürgen Moltmann 0%

Whoops! Spoke Too Soon

Concerning the AutoCAD 2008 class I started yesterday morning:

The "Oh, golly, everybody knows this!" phase ended very quickly. Like right after break.

I perceive that even though this class is considered an introduction to AutoCAD 2008, it's not an introduction to AutoCAD or computer drafting itself. A lot or most of my young fellow students encountered some earlier version of the program in high school or wherever.

Me, I'm thinking, thank God I did those last two projects at the architecture firm last winter by the seat of my pants in AutoCAD 2007. Otherwise, by now I'd be completely washed out to sea.

As it is, I'm barely keeping myself out of the riptide. It doesn't help that my middle-aged eyesight makes it difficult for me to see both what the instructor is doing on the main classroom demo screen and what I've got in front of me on my own classroom computer. Once I asked the teacher, "Where did you get that?" when he swooped up and brought down a menu from some fuzzy and indiscernable icon. He said, "Up here." I can't see what's "up here"!

I'm not asking again. Obviously, it's something we're supposed to know from Before, and for that I can play around with the student version of the program I now have installed on my home computer, or I can look in the great, big, fat textbook.

So far, I'm not sure what we have the textbook for, except for reference. Or maybe because the software came bundled with it. The syllabus seems to bear no relation to it, and the second exercise (which is due Tuesday) is out of the manual for AutoCAD 2002.

This morning the regular teacher couldn't arrive till the beginning of the second hour and we had a sub up until break. I have to say I liked her technique better. She was much better at taking things step by step and having us do them two or three times so we could really get them into our eyes, ears, minds, and hands.

Well, no griping, no moaning. This class cost good money, I need to get good value out of it, regardless.

Keep an Eye on the Road Ahead

Currently in the break period for the new AutoCAD class.

I see it'll be like those math classes in junior high: we start with the "Oh, good grief, everybody knows this" stuff in the first day or the first week-- but if you let that put you to sleep, you'll get left in the dust.

I just completed the first Activity assignment, just now during break. It was only setting up folders. Big deal. But I see that the next one gets serious, using some techniques I didn't use when I was teaching myself CAD at the architectural firm.

So let me be warned.

I'm Going to Learn Remote-Control Drafting!

So far, nothing solid has come of my resume broadcast in August. I have one firm that's very interested-- if and when certain potential clients sign on.

Otherwise, not much of anything.

I have concluded that my lack of AutoCAD expertise puts potential employers off.

So thanks to a general mailing, I became aware of a local two-year tech college that offers architectural CAD training. And thank God, they were able to put me on a Personal Track and let me take AutoCAD 2008 only for a fee I can manage. Otherwise, it would have been the whole two-year associate's degree course with transcripts and trying to get credit for previous work and practically a full time course load and fees of over $40,000.

No, not now. Not at my time of life. Overkill, for sure.

I go in on Monday to pay the fees, then I start at 8:20 AM this coming Thursday. Two hours a day, four days a week, for the next five weeks. I could have taken the 10:30 section, but no. If this one job comes through, coming to work three hours late will be bad enough.

And I do need to relearn some day/night discipline . . . getting to bed at 1:00 AM is not early.

What Have I Done?

You look at this picture, and what do you see?

You see me tackling the long-put-off task to remove the thirty-year-old linoleum from my drafting board so I can lay down the new vinyl cover I bought from Charrette a few weeks ago.

You see me discovering that there's a lot more nasty stuff going on under that vinyl than I ever imagined.

You see me wishing I could have just put the new vinyl over the old linoleum-- if not for the nicks and mars and bumps that'd be sure to telegraph.

And you see me thinking that, even though I have had this board since 1977, even though it was a gift from a friend and colleague I used to know in Philadelphia, even though it's always fun to fiddle with the pull on the edge of this old converted pocket door, I may just give it the chuck. I can get a nice smooth piece of birch plywood cut to size at Lowe's. Do I really want to waste time and energy getting all the lino and crap off of this?

Not particularly.

God! this is frustrating! Is nothing ever simple?

Pro Christo et pro Ecclesia Eius

This evening we had a special called presbytery meeting, and I don't know if I was a champion of the faith and a defender of the interests of the Presbytery, or just a nitpicking pain in the rear.

Well, no, I do know where the truth lies in this, and it's only my ingrained cowardice and reluctance to do anything that might cause anyone not to like me that has me making that serio-comic comment.

In light of the upheavals going on in the Presbyterian Church (USA), my presbytery appointed a task force to draft guideline documents on a number of crucial issues. Such as, what we as a presbytery believe, how we will deal with churches that choose to lodge protests against denominational policy by withholding all or a portion of their per capita assessments, how the presbytery will work with churches who are so fed up with current PC(USA) shenanigans that they want to bolt altogether, and other such matters.

Tonight was the second reading. Amendments were solicited by the presbytery office. I submitted six-- two on matters of content, three on matters of clarity, and one (which I withdrew) on a matter of style.

Three passed; the others failed, one by only one vote. I couldn't help but wonder what people thought about me going to the mike so many times. But if I were convinced the body would be helped or harm to it prevented by the proposed change, did my self-consciousness really matter?

The irony of the evening for me was the comments of one task force member who kept speaking against my rewording suggestions by saying the present text was perfectly clear to the members of the task force.

Yes, and when I do a set of drawings and specs, when I've been working on a particular design for months on end, my intention is perfectly clear to me, too. But then the project goes out to bid, and hey, voici, the bidding contractors don't find every last thing perfectly clear. And out comes the good old Addendum form, to be distributed to one and all.

Tonight was a chance for those outside the process to bring fresh eyes and clarity to the project, in effect before it went to final "bid." I and a handful of others did what we could.

As for the language that remains vague, I suppose as long as we have the framers around, they can give us an interpretation. I suppose there's no point in worrying that looseness and uncertainty in these documents could get us into trouble twenty, thirty miles down the road. The rate my denomination is lurching towards self-destruction, a little vagueness on our part won't make a lot of difference. And if the PC(USA) is still around thirty years from now, that'll be such a miracle that anything we did tonight will be outshone into oblivion.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(There's a postscript to tonight's performance: I woke up this morning with a sloppy, drippy sinus cold and took a couple decongestant tablets before I drove off to the meeting. When I got home-- just after my renewed drippiness had induced me to take two more-- I happened to read on the box that they're 24 hour pills! Oops! You mean I was on twice the recommended dose when I was at presbytery? You mean that's the cause of the slight unreality I felt this evening, the sense of distance that took my craven gut out of the picture and kept me moving to the mike to propose and defend my submissions? Looks like it! [Insert Cowper reference here.]

(As for now with four of those one-per-day pills under my belt, I'd say too much Sudafed makes you jumpy, not drowsy. But I won't go get behind the wheel to find out for sure.)

Well, I Suppose It IS Starting Already

Tonight was the first rehearsal for the 2007-2008 season of the Village Singers, in which I sing soprano.

You can always tell when Linda, our director, has been off to another choral conductors' conference in the vacation. Tonight we practiced making human A-frames, to share tone and resonance, and maybe a few nits while we were at it.

We also began to practice this season's Christmas music. As usual, we have a whole calendar of concerts in December, and we have to start now so by then we'll be able to achieve the sound and ensemble that Linda now hears only in her head.

And as much as I gripe about the culture making us focus on Christmas too early, there's a way in which early preparation is inextricably tied to the season.

God, after all, started preparing for Christmas-- that is, for the Incarnation of His Son-- as far back as the Garden of Eden.

All that process of the call of Abraham: of Israel's slavery in Egypt and their deliverance from it: of kings and prophets and exile and restoration: all that was God getting ready and getting His people ready for Christmas.

And Christmas itself is about the Son of God getting ready to die on the cross for our sins. And the cross was preparation for Christ's resurrection, and the resurrection for His ascension into heaven, and His ascension into heaven was preparation for the sending of the Holy Spirit and the birth and commissioning of the Church.

Preparation after preparation after preparation! From of old to the present and into the future! All this preparation, getting ready for the great eternal feast that God has planned for His people when He makes all things new. That will be the ultimate holiday. That will be when we finally can sit down forever and rest and enjoy.

In the meantime, we're in choir working on music for Advent and Christmas of 2007. And yeah, we do have to start getting ready now.

It's Starting Already

The first Christmas catalogs for the 2007 season arrived in the mail today.

Here they are:

Once I'd scanned the covers, they went straight in the trash. I haven't the time nor the call now even to think about Christmas gift buying, even if I did have the cash.

Of course, come next December 23rd when I'm standing in the interminable queue at the post office, or when yet again I'm staring at the stack of Christmas cards and envelopes I have neither addressed nor sent, I'll think back to today and go, "You improvident twerp! Why didn't you take the hint and get started early for a change?"

I'll risk it.

As If I Had Nothing Better to Do . . .

I has a cat.

I has also compewtr an indernetz.

An grate REFORMED theologie!

Puts thim loltogthur, we can haz ~~~~~~~~~

REFORMED LOLCATZ!!1

(see belw plz)

Moar ltr mybe. Kthxbai.

Homing Pigeons

Back last April when I got put "on contract basis" from the architecture firm (due to, I was told, lack of work matching my skillset), my soon-to-be-former boss said, "I know! We'll say you're going on part time so you can spend more time doing church ministry work!"

I, being the Be Agreeable First, Think Later type, did not gainsay this. I figured, maybe This Is God's Way of Pushing Me Out to Pursue My Ministry Vocation.

But it's four months later and all I'm doing in that line is pulpit supply preaching, which I'd been doing all along. None of the possibilities that were talked up for me here in my presbytery have panned out, and as for my listing on the wider PC(USA) pastor-congregation computer dating website, I've gotten nary a nibble.

So I'm throwing in my lot with the architects again. At least, I've started sending out resumes, like flocks of cream-colored Classic Laid 25-lb. bond pigeons.

Of course these pigeons have to be tracked very mile of the way. I know it'll take a lot of phone calls and follow-up e-mails even to get my foot in the door.

I'm asking for informational interviews, whether firms are looking for a Project Architect of my qualifications or not. I didn't grow up around here: I don't know the architectural firms at all. At my former company, we were kept at it so steadily you didn't have time to get to know the people in your own office, let alone anybody anywhere else. If I can at least see who's doing what, I'll know whom to concentrate on, whom to pester like my cat knocking things off the dresser to get me up in the morning, because I really want to work there.

Till then, I'll see if any of my "pigeons" makes it home.

Physician, Heal Thyself

I'm printing out my sermon for tomorrow. I've chosen more or less the Revised Common Lectionary passages from Luke and Colossians, the former covering Jesus' parable of the Rich Fool and the latter, where we are to consider ourselves dead with our true lives hidden in heaven with Christ.

I'd intended to focus on the theme of True Riches, but the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last Wednesday made it right to deal also with the motif of death.

A very sound sermon the Holy Spirit has given me, I think: All about the wrongheartedness of confusing making a living with having a life, and of confusing the temporary life of this earth with the eternal life in God. With a descant on how our attitudes on that have to be right all the time, since at any moment our lives might be required of us, just as in the parable of the Rich Fool, just as with those poor victims of the bridge disaster the other day.

The Holy Spirit is also reminding me what a wry sense of humor my God has. Why does He always insist I preach my sermons to myself first? Why does He so cleverly arrange it so, no matter what the texts are, they and my sermons always are applicable to me?

It struck me in the Luke passage that, by human estimation, the man in the crowd who asks Jesus to make his brother divide the inheritance with him isn't greedy at all. He only wants what's his according to the law. He only wants his means of livelihood.

But my sinless Lord Jesus implies that he's greedy! He's greedy because he's focussing all effort and hope in life on material sustenance and how he can get it. He's not concentrating on God and His will for His life; no, he's willing to drag his brother's name publicly through the mud and ignore God in the process. The poor can be greedy just as much as the rich. They can be just as impoverished in their relationship with God.

And here I am, without a fulltime job since early April, drawing unemployment compensation that will run out before I know it. And I'm worried. I know I'm good at what I do, whether it's in pastoral work or in architecture. And I'm willing to get additional credentials where I'm lacking.

But I'm afraid. I'm afraid a suitable pastorate will never open up for me. I'm afraid that potential architectural employers will only see my age and the fact that I'm a novice in AutoCAD (I'm an ace at drawing by hand) and refuse to speak with me any further. I worry about losing my house and my possessions and coming on the charity of family or the State or ending up a bum.

Or worse, maybe, I'll starve to death and die!

I'm afraid, I worry, I focus on making a living or my inability to make a living and turn my eyes totally from the power and provision of God! I let that fear and worry depress me so much I'm unable to concentrate on finding the labor and livelihood that God has out there for me!

I don't say writing this sermon has screwed my head back on straight. But preaching it tomorrow should help the process a little. And may grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit move it forward a lot.