Knock Knock Knockin' On Friday's Door

It's been one of those weeks that feels like a year. The inauguration, MLK Day, the sermon, work, lots of sick people this week, lots of bitchy people this week, Vivian goes into the hospital next week, Annie is drowning in life and I can't save her...get the picture?
My last thing of the day today (it's Thursday which is my Friday) I went to visit a little old lady in hospice. I don't know her, don't know her family, haven't got any of her stories in my mind...it's a little awkward.
I really don't want to go but I dig deep and grab the God-stuff that gives me the edge and even though it takes me 45 minutes to find her house because it's on an odd street and the GPS isn't working, I get there.
Her son-in-law has a bad cold and won't shake my hand because he doesn't want to infect me (great, now I'm going to get his freakin' virus). He shows me to her room and leaves us. I sit down and try to make small talk. I notice there's a baby monitor by the bed and realize someone's probably listening to whatever stumbling/mumbling I'm uttering and giving me an "F" in pastoral care.
And then I look out the window and see the trees and the mountains and the sky and I tell her it is beautiful out there and she sort of "tunes in" and begins to tell it all.
She zeroes in on me with these piercing blue eyes that shine like those of a 16 year-old and she speaks in a language I do not comprehend. She is too old and too worn out and too close to heaven and I can not tell what the words are but I can feel the spirit of them and I know that she is going home and telling me about the journey.
All I do is sit and listen and smile and nod and say "uh-huh" now and then. She carries the conversation until she is spent. Instinctively I pull out my vial of sweet oil and make the sign of the cross on her silky white, rice-paper thin brow and I pray that she has an easy transition to the next place. And she smiles. And the darkness departs. And all is well and I am so glad I am right there. And I think she is glad, too.
On the way out her son-in-law asks me to come again soon. She has been more responsive to me than to anyone in weeks. I tell him to up his vitamin C, rest, and get well. And I wonder if she'll be alive tomorrow.
In my car I breathe a prayer....thank God it's Friday...uhhh Thursday, whatever.

Doubt

Jesus put his hand on the plow and faced Jerusalem. Umm, not exactly. He grinded his teeth together and set his jaw and then plowed. I don’t think that’s it either. He set his face and headed to J-town. Yes!*
Interestingly, at some point in the semester most every male at seminary preached this scripture in preaching class. It’s a testosterone-filled verse that says: a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Even if…okay not if but when it isn’t at all what he wants to do.
And maybe the reason so many men get into this concept of Jesus is that for once, they have a picture of Jesus that looks a lot like they feel but can't articulate.
Grit your teeth, dig in, and do the thing you don’t really want to do whether it be 9-5 at a crap job or mowing the grass on Saturday so the HOA stays off your rear or picking up a gun and heading to a foreign land in the name of duty, honor, and country.
Doubt is not a simple word in the manly vernacular.
Think about it. Men can doubt whipped cream stuff like Oprah, acupuncture, or women’s intuition…
But men are not allowed to express doubt about meat and potatoes stuff like….oh, I know! Duty, honor, and country.
Doubt = feet of clay
Doubt = fear
Doubt = lack of commitment
And those equations all point to a plethora of outcomes, none of which matches a man’s idea of integrity.
Doubt ≠ integrity
Think about it. John Wayne, Clark Kent, and John Glenn did not doubt.
And then there’s Jesus who is setting his face and looking to Jerusalem and the operative phrase here is that part about the face. I never set my face before walking in for a massage unless it's the deep-tissue Swedish varietal offered by a body building champion named Sven.
I never set my face before entering a 747 bound for the Caribbean unless I happen to spot the pilot, co-pilot, and flight attendants through foggy cockpit windows laughing hysterically as they enjoy a pre-flight toke and smoke.
Face setting usually precedes something I really don’t want to do and even though these men never got to it in their various sermons, I’m thinking Jesus really didn’t want to go to Jerusalem.
Yuh think?
Jesus had doubts.
Clearly not of God, but of himself, his ability to do what was required, and most importantly…of those around him:
His disciples sticking power
Rome’s leave no prophet behind policy
The synagogue’s peace movement
The crowd’s anti-capital punishment stance
And rightfully so!
None of them held firm.
Jesus doubted absolutely those things he chose not to control.
Even when it came down to the act of being the sacrificial offering, Jesus faltered.
Remember his anger at Lazarus’ tomb? Death pissed him off. The Bible tells us he snorted like a mule and cried tears of regret. Why? Because the trajectory of the world was so off-kilter from the original plan. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be!
There’s a shadow of doubt in that frustrated cursing of the fig tree event….what does a man have to do to get a decent fig around here anyway?
And there were those shaky moments in the garden….is there any other way to do this???
What’s my point?
Doubt isn’t the problem.
Lot’s wife wasn’t turned into a pillar of salt because of doubt. It happened because she couldn’t go forward. She froze up. She shut down. The world around her was erupting. Sulfur and ash were exploding from the ground and raining down in thick and heavy clumps. She failed to grasp the future and move on in spite of her doubts. That’s what caused her instant and eternal mummification.
Stepping into the abyss of uncertainty, crossing the bridge as it is built, believing that the God to whom one prays is working it all out for a communal vs. a singular good and loving the all more than the me….is what that setting of the face was about.
Ultimately, doubt is an introspective and cleansing precursor to serious action. A pause during which one does or does not choose to cauterize the escape route and embrace the path of great resistance.
Ultimately, doubt is a wise man’s tool for discernment, an honest man’s bridge to wisdom, and a discerning man’s lens into honesty.
A set face comes with the territory.
*Reference: Luke 9:51-62

To Be of Use

A Poem by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.