along the way

Where 've been all year...

This has been a strange year. It was unlike any other of my life. I began 2009 in the hospital. In fact, I ended 2008 in the hospital.

I don’t remember Christmas or New Year’s—I was recovering from heart surgery. I missed the inauguration, although I was in Washington, DC—the doctors did a tracheotomy on me and put in a feeding tube that day.

Just before Christmas, I came down with an infection that felt like the flu. I even casually mentioned it on Facebook: “Arlene has the flu—boo hoo.” I thought I would come across like I was feeling sorry for myself. I mean, it’s not the worst thing that can happen to a person. It was barely worth mentioning.

I never imagined it would lead to a stroke or destroy a valve in my heart. I would stay the hospital for 3 months drifting in and out of consciousness and coherency. There was a time when I couldn’t speak, couldn’t write, couldn’t put a sentence together to… well, save my life. I had to learn how to walk again, feed myself, bathe myself.

I went from utter despair to hopefulness to determination, back down to despair again. But mostly, I had a flat affect. I couldn’t—didn’t want to—pray or read or write in my journal. The first time I heard music—on a friend’s iPod—I cried. I had really missed it.

By the time I left the rehab hospital in DC the day after St. Patrick’s Day, I was walking with the assistance of a walker, but I still had to use the wheelchair for long distances. My legs were swollen ad had begun to leak fluids. But I was ready to get out of there and get on with my life.

I moved to Indiana to stay with family. However, within the week I was back in a rehab facility. I spent Palm Sunday and Easter there. It didn’t have a strong rehab program, so when I left the place, my legs were just as swollen, if not more so, than when I went in.

So, I wasn’t surprised that, within two weeks I was back in the hospital—this time in Indiana. I went from the hospital to acute care to another rehab facility. That took me from the end of April through the day before Father’s Day. I l was about 60 pounds lighter, my body no longer swollen and leaking. I’d graduated to a cane for long distances.

So, by my calculations, I have spent all the holidays from Christmas Eve through Memorial Day in a hospital bed. And that doesn’t count Flag Day ad D-Day.

I’ve skipped some details about my odyssey into the world of healthcare, insurance and public benefits. I’ll leave those for the book I’m writing. But let me close with some positive things that came out of my experiences:
I learned I have a big family—some related by biology, most related through friendship. They rallied around me, both physically and spiritually. I felt their prayers from across the country, not to mention Iraq, Canada and the Czech Republic. I could not have made the recovery I have without their care, love and support.
I have a renewed appreciation for life. I learned that I am not content merely to survive. I crave the fullness of life—in all its chaos and order, joy and sorrow, clarity and confusion, abundance and loss.
I have a new energy, if not an exact direction, for my ministry. I want to continue to touch people in a deep ad spiritual place through my writing, preaching and outreach. But at the same time, I am remaining open to the Spirit—listening for where she is calling me to be and what she’s calling me to do for God’s people and planet.

I am now living in Eureka, Illinois, where I went to college in the 80s and spent 7 years as the local newspaper editor in the 90s. I have returned to a very special community that twice before cocooned me in love and care. Armed with the confidence and courage that exudes from their support, I’m ready to begin my life again.

Blessings,
Arlene

Communion Cartel, An Act of Faith

It was about half past midnight, and the chilling rain that had gushed and gusted most of the evening was falling softly, silently, coating the trees that glistened like spider webs against the street lights in the Central West End in St. Louis.

We got out of the car just as a small group of young white men began verbally sparring with a larger group of young black men. “I know you didn’t say that,” said one, turning around to head back toward the others.

As we went to the back of the car to get the bread and juice and the table, other people, white and black, came from buildings toward the young men to stop the fight that was brewing. Words were exchanged, bodies were shoved, voices were lifted as we made our way across the street to set up our little communion table in front of the Coffee Cartel, and all night coffee shop and refuge for college students, homeless people and the urban crowd.

As we set up the table, placing the cups, the juice, the bread, in their places, droplets of water covered everything. I shoved my hands into my pockets to keep them warm. I looked at my fellow seminarians and wondered briefly if this midnight Eucharist on a cold, wet, city street was a good idea after all. Would anyone notice us in this eclectic, boisterous setting, much less stop and join us?

The fight across the street broke up and two of the white men, young, almost boys, really, swept past us. One of them muttered, “f’king a-hole” as he nearly ran into George. Undeterred, George said to them, “Hey, how ya doin’ tonight?” and got a quick, “f’ you!” for his efforts. The other young man apologized for his friend, and they both went into the coffee shop.

No one accepted our invitation to join us, so we communed with one another--Carla, George, Carolyn, Lori and I. We sang softly into the rainy night, “Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” People walked by swearing and laughing and holding each other up as they left a nearby bar that was closing. Most moved on without a glance at us.

Carla prayed and blessed the elements. We recited Psalm 23 as best we could from memory…”you prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies…” The words took on new meaning for me. Perhaps enemies are not always those who would harm us. Maybe they are those we fail to understand.

Perhaps we call them enemies because we don’t want to understand, because in understanding them we could more fully understand ourselves. In understanding ourselves more deeply, we run the risk of exposing ourselves to our deepest fears, our most feared weakness, our own sense of abject helplessness.

We continued through our homemade celebration of the Eucharist, tearing off chunks of bread and dipping them into the juice--serving one another. “There’s a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in This Place,” we sang into the din of voices raised in laughter and shouting, the swearing, racial epithets and singing of popular songs with obscene lyrics. A man double parked his car nearby to get to the ATM behind us without giving us a glance.

We finished the service by sharing what we thought about this experience. I had thought, along with the others around the table, that we were the truly vulnerable here., exposed to the elements, both human and natural. But who is the more vulnerable, really? The five of us in our raincoats, huddled around a wooden table covered with dripping glasses of juice and plates of bread? The few homeless men inside the coffee shop who had found a warm dry place to stay for awhile against the harsh reality of their everyday lives? Or were the young drunk men and women wafting past us in the saturated midnight air the most exposed?

We had decided to pack up the elements and head in for a cup of coffee and a moment to share further this experience that had already impacted our ministries in ways we could not yet fully fathom. Suddenly, a young man, obviously drunk, bounded out of the shop and stood looking at the bread on the table. We offered him some, George saying it would help him feel better when he woke up in the morning. He took a large piece and then asked for more.

His friend soon joined him and took our offer of juice. I immediately recognized him as the man who had been so angry when we first arrived. His name was Eric; he was the one who swore at George’s cordial greeting…his friend, John, eating the bread, turned out to be his cousin. John was the one who had apologized for Eric.

John started singing songs from his Catholic upbringing. I recognized one--“Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?…” It’s the hymn every Protestant Seminarian puts in her ordination service. It’s about being called by God and boldly answering that call. I found myself wondering how this child, this drunken, wayward soul, who would probably remember very little of this early morning encounter with a small band of seminarians outside an all-night coffee shop…how did this child know this song?

Then he sang the words wrong. Instead of, “I will go Lord, if you lead me,” he sang out loudly and confidently, “I will go, Lord, if you feed me.” I will go, he said, if you feed me. Is it really that simple?

We did finally pack up our makeshift communion table and made our way to the coffee shop. George made sure Eric and John were with their friends who could get them home safely. It was about 2:30 a.m. when we pulled back into the parking lot of the seminary, shared hugs and made our way to our individual apartments.

That image of the five of us around the table on a busy sidewalk, the air strong with alcohol, profanity and desperation, stayed with me as my everyday life came back into view. I remembered the chaos whirling around us as we stood in the calm, quiet center, acting as surrogates, consuming the body and blood for those who could not or would not accept the invitation to the table.

Did the atmosphere seem calmer, less violent when we finished, or was that my own wishful thinking? Did we do enough? Did we do too much? Did we really do anything at all? I don’t know. But I do know that in performing this act of faith in the wet chaos of the moment, we were fed.”

Jesus collection grows again...

I'm terribly late in sharing these images of the most recent acquisition to my Jesus Collection. I posted my original article here about my collection of Jesus images.

Up to that point, I had bought all of them myself through various sources. I even said in the article that no one had yet given me something to add to the collection.
Well, was I wrong! Shortly after I posted the article, my dear friend Mel in Illinois sent me this wonderful Celebriduck Jesus! It's part of a line of celebrity rubber ducks.

She had been holding onto it awhile--she and I are members of the same procrastination club...thing is, no one in the group has yet to calendar a meeting. Ha!) Anyway, she read my article and mailed it to me.

What's especially sweet about this is that Mel knows I

also collected ducks when I was in DC. There is this great HRC store where they sold rubber duckies with an American Flag design, say, or the LGBT rainbow, camouflage, flowers, stripes, etc. I have four of them on the back of my toilet right now. Sadly, they don't sell them at the store's new location.

Obviously, when it came to putting Celebriduck Jesus with the Jesuses or the ducks, it was no contest. I couldn't have Jesus living in my bathroom.

"Just a closer walk with thee," doesn't mean that kind of intimacy.

So he's in my office with the others. Come by and see them some time--it is quite impressive. People are actually starting to take notice of them.

Blessings and hope,
Arlene

I received an email this morning that brought me to tears, overcome with the emotion of generations of women who have been foring the trail of eqity. I had already heard the story and even watched the movie mntioned in the story below. But I was reminded of their great sacrfice, and moved to sharethis with a wider audience.

I don't know who wrote the original email and put the photos in as visual reminders. I am greatful to her, whoever she is. Below is my edited version.

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

(Lucy Burns)

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

Much of this is depicted in HBO's movie 'Iron Jawed Angels,' which is now on video and DVD. In the movie, Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. The doctor refused, saying, 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

What a friend we have in Jesus

I have a Jesus Collection--shown here and on this blog’s front page. I keep it in my office as a conversation piece, but people rarely comment on it. I think they’re not sure what to say.

· Should they be offended by all these "toys," these possibly idolatress images of Jesus, not all of which are flattering and some of which are clearly meant to be satirical?
· Should they be concerned they’re in the presence of a "Jesus Freak" who takes all these figures seriously?
· Or should they laugh and smile at the vast array of Jesus products and "get" the joke as it is intended--a gentle poke at the sometimes Jesus-obsessed Christian culture?

I'm hoping most look at my collection and take the third option, even if they never laugh out loud or say a word to me.

I hadn't intended to collect Jesus figures. You know how these collections get started. You buy one, then you find another that's similar, but with a twist. Then you find things that are related, but not exactly the same. Sometimes, people know about your collection and give you something to add. “I saw this in a little store in Suchandsuch, Iowa, and I thought of you!” they say.

So far, no one has bought me anything to add. However, those who do notice and talk about the collection ask me where I found various pieces. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember where they all came from, or which came first.

I think it started with the "Buddy Christ" from the movie Dogma. If you saw the movie, you know exactly what I mean. It’s the figure of Jesus (complete with immaculate heart and nail holes in hands) winking and doing the thumbs up.

In the movie, a priest, played by the late, great George Carlin, introduces it to the crowds. The authorities in the Catholic Church want to create a more welcoming image. So they replace the traditional crucifix—where Jesus is hanging perpetually on the cross dying—with this happier, friendlier Jesus.

I couldn’t resist it when I found it in one of those generic record stores you see in every mall in the US. I’ve even given some away as gifts to my Christian friends with a sardonic sense of humor.

That Jesus statuette was quickly followed by

· Action Figure Jesus, with moving arms and rollers on its base.
· Bobble-headed Jesus, which seems self-explanatory to me.
· Dashboard Jesus, which has a spring base that you can attach to your car’s dashboard so he’s watching over you all the time.

I got them all from various sources, and they’re made by different companies, as far as I know. So I found it intriguing that all four Jesus figures, including Buddy Christ, are dressed in the same outfit, even the same colors. Each is wearing a white robe with a maroon sash and matching sandals.

Later, I found a package of Jesus Pencil Toppers. And guess what? Same colors! This time, he’s wearing a maroon outer garment over a white robe. No feet for sandals, though; the pencil has to go somewhere.

I was in a novelty store when I discovered the Deluxe Miracle Jesus Action Figure. I was salivating when I took it off the shelf. The box comes complete with:

· Jesus, this time dressed in off-white and maroon;
· Five loaves and two fish to feed the 5,000—or 3,000—after the sermon on the mount—or on the level place—depending on which Gospel you’re reading.
· A jug for turning water into wine. It’s designed so you can set it down one way as a water jug and turn it over to be a jug of wine.

His hands glow in the dark, although I’m not sure why. And the back of the box gives a pretty balanced description of who Jesus is in the wider context of believers and non-believers. I haven’t taken him out of the box, because I’m afraid of losing the tiny miracle pieces.

Then there are some Jesus-related items I found online from the same company:

· Jesus Adhesive Bandages
· Jesus Packing Tape
· Jesus “Funky Fresh,” hanging air-fresheners for your car
· Last Supper After Dinner Mints

The bandages, tape, and air freshener are replete with icons of Jesus—glowing halos and all. I think the air-freshener is supposed to smell like frankincense. Of course, the mints have a rendering of DaVinci’s Last Supper on the tin.

I wonder if Leonardo had any idea his mural would be copied, in so many media centuries after his death? I’ve seen it as a latch-hook wall hanging, on throw blankets, purses and now after dinner mints.

Friends of mine received a Christmas gift one year that was a large chocolate bar with the image of the Last Supper on the face of it. Apparently, someone they knew owned a Last Supper chocolate mold. As the family and their guests nibbled away at the chocolate that holiday season, everyone ate around Jesus.

I thought that was humorous because, as Christians, we “eat” the body of Jesus Christ—either literally or symbolically—every time we take communion. So why were we all so squeamish about eating Jesus in chocolate?

I’m not sure if anyone finally ate the rest of it. It may still be preserved somewhere in the house. Hmmm. Maybe I should ask them. I haven’t added anything to my collection for a while, now.

Probably the most recent Jesus item added to my collection is Huggy Jesus, a doll I found online. It was being sold at a cut rate because it had failed as a product for children. It was intended to be used by kids as a comfort, kind of like a divine teddy bear. But when the product came out of the manufacturing plant, it had a wild head of hair, a scraggly beard and scary eyebrows.

Dressed in a red robe with gold trim and a blue sash, this time, he looks angry and frightening, no comfort to children of any age. I actually place it behind the deluxe action figure box on my shelf so he’s hidden a little bit from full view. I don’t want to scare people away, after all.

I have seen a different Jesus plush doll that has been more successful—more attractive and huggable. And, of course, there are plenty of other Jesus items out there. When I add to my collection, though, I look for the unusual item, not the everyday.

As a whole, the collection reminds me that Jesus—and by extension, God—has a sense of humor. It’s in the scriptures, although often subtle. But it’s also in my relationship with Jesus, usually in the form of serendipity. How often have I found myself doing that very thing that I most resisted and experiencing it as an opportunity rather than a challenge?

But, finally, the collection recalls for me what it means to follow Jesus’ path in the first place: To be more Christian in my behavior, but less pious in my attitude toward others.

I am organizing a women’s retreat at Bethany Beach for the weekend of July 18-20. It will be held at the Christian Church Conference Center, where I am the manager.

And we're two blocks from the beach!

With a longing for the wonderful retreats I attended in St. Louis, called Sarah’s Circle, I’ve designed this retreat to be a time of physical relaxation, emotional rejuvenation, and spiritual renewal.

Very little will be planned. Aside from meals and a few optional activities, nothing will be scheduled. You aren’t required to do anything you don’t want to do.

But I have found that just being in the presence of caring women who desire the same thing—time for self-care—can be uplifting and affirming in and of itself. You are welcome and encouraged to bring games, music, musical instruments, worship items, etc. to share. This retreat will be what we make it.

Contact me for more info and registration form.

Rev. Arlene Franks, Manager, Christian Church Conference Center
Website: www.cccadisciples.org/bethanybeach
Email: confcenterbb@verizon.net
Phone: 302 539-7034; or toll free at 866-539-7034

The Handwriting is on the Wall

Here's an interesting article about the handwriting of the three major presidential candidates.

I don't think any one system/process/school of thought can reveal everything about a person. I think, instead, we can learn a lot about ourselves and each other in myriad ways.