There's a Woman in the Pulpit: Not Really a Book Review

 

 

So, Robin, what did you do today (Saturday)? What does a pastor do with her time?

Well, I started with a long walk, because I wouldn't get another chance today.  And then after I showered and dressed, I spent a little time on plans for our upcoming vacation, because I wasn't going to get another look at those either.  I was going to work on my sermon, but I never got to that.  I'm trying something new tomorrow, and I'm thinking maybe it's not as great an idea as I thought it would be a few weeks ago.  But last Sunday was very intense, and today was about to be equally so, and we all need a breather.  Maybe something a little different will be kind of fun.

And then I went to the church . . .

On a Saturday?

Yeah, I try not to do that.  But this month, three Saturdays in a  row.

And?

At noon, we hosted a community meeting with the police.  We'd like to be more of a presence in our neighborhood, which is a bit of a troubled place -- a few vacant houses, several absentee landlords, and more than several young people who haven't yet found their way into college or work.  Not a good mix.  This will be the third time we've hosted an event for the police to bring folks up-to-date on the current state of the two streets bordering our building.

Most of the rest of the afternoon was consumed with a meeting with the consultant who's helping our church and another consider a possible merger.  He's helped us with two post-worship congregational meetings, and today he debriefed those events with the pastors and congregational leaders and helped us begin to plan next steps.  It was a long (three hours) but ultimately productive meeting.

A long day.

Which concluded with a funeral service for one of our matriarchs and a reception for her family and friends.   She was someone to whom I'd grown close during her many months of medical treatments, and someone with strong opinions about how things should be handled, so I put everything I had into getting her service just right.

And then I came home and opened the mail and took a selfie!  And finished the sermon.

This was a very unusual day, actually.  At least it was for a Saturday.   Three essentially one-time events, all on the same day and all on a weekend.  But they were all the things I do ~ just not usually all on the same day.

I thought we were going to talk about a book?

Right ~ there's a book!  The RevGals have made a book!  A book of short essays depicting the joys and sorrows, the mystifying things and the funny things, about our lives in ministry.  My essays are about how back when I decided to go to seminary I had somehow missed the whole idea that ministry is a form of leadership (and now here I am, leading a church through a major discernment process), and about how I doubted my future as a preacher after catastrophe flattened me during those seminary years (and now here I am, preaching every week).  The book as a whole is about just the sort of things which made up my Saturday.

Do I want to read this book?

If you are a seminary student, Yes!  If you are a new pastor, Yes!  If you are a seasoned pastor, Yes!  If you wonder about the pastoral life, Yes!  (And if your daughter or daughter-in-law or sister or mom or spouse or good friend is a pastor, then for sure: Yes!)

We went to seminary and we studied Greek and Hebrew and scripture and theology and how to make a hospital visit and how to conduct a funeral and how to work with a couple hoping to get married and how to preach a sermon.

And then we became pastors and were asked to host community meetings for struggling neighborhoods and to figure out what to do with diminishing membership rolls and to manage financial crises.   And some of us have done it while raising young families or dealing with personal crises of our own.  And some of us against resistance having to do with our gender or our relationships.  And some of us while wearing clerical collars and red high heels, and others while wearing jeans and sneakers.

Curious?  I think it's a great read, I think you'll feel that you are among friends, and I think you'll see how astonishing and marvelous this call to ministry is.



There's a Woman in the Pulpit is available from the publisher (linked above) as well as from Amazon and B&N, and in Kindle format, of course. Enjoy!

Margaret Blackie's Rooted in Love ~ Blogging Book Tour

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet with a spiritual director?  What sorts of thoughts and ideas might you share?  What might you expect in the form of guidance about your life of prayer?

Have you ever wondered what people are talking about when they enthusiastically mention the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius?  Those folks who tell you that "the Exercises changed my life" ~ we can be somewhat tedious, can't we? What's the big draw?

Or have you, perhaps, longed to have a conversation about your spiritual life with a friend or companion, but had no idea where to start?  What counts as "spiritual?"  Will your friend laugh at you?  You know that you would fumble for the words with which to describe your experience of God, or prayer ~ or your lack of experience.  How does one begin?

Margaret Blackie's book, Rooted in Love, answers these questions in a relaxed, friendly manner.  To read her book is to settle into a deep and wide-ranging spiritual conversation with a companion who is simultaneously a "friend from down the block" and an experienced spiritual guide.

Mags is a long-time spiritual director in the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola, so her book is peppered with Ignatian concepts of prayer, presented in a down-to-earth way.  And she concludes each chapter with a short set of exercises so that her readers might experiment with the concepts, language, and practices she introduces.  Much as she might if she were your "real life" director, Mags sends you off at the end of each reading with questions and ideas to ponder and review in your own periods of silence with God.

Mags is also a woman who has engaged many of life's puzzles with a discerning mind and heart: questions of career and call, issues of relationship, and challenges of the inner life.  She is not afraid to describe her own dilemmas, just as she might to a friend or spiritual director, and thus she models the kind of conversation many spiritual seekers long for. 

When Mags, who blogs here, invited me to review her book, she also offered to answer a few questions.  I immediately asked for her views on the following:

One of the first questions often asked by people seeking spiritual direction is "How can I establish some sort of rhythm or consistency in my prayer life?  I mean well, but I constantly procrastinate and delay."  How do you help people who hope to embark upon a deeper life of prayer get started?

 

I have three comments. I think most people procrastinate in prayer either because they are afraid of something or they are avoiding something. The first addresses the fear or avoidance - don't try and be anything other than you are; honesty in prayer is the most important thing. If you are afraid of something in particular bring it to God; likewise, if you are avoiding something, ask for the desire to deal with it.

 

The second piece of advice is more practical. If you have decided you want to pray for twenty minutes at a day, and you don't have twenty minutes - then do what you can. Praying for 5 or 10 minutes is better than not praying just because you can't spend the time you ideally wanted to.

 

Finally, if neither of the first two issues is a problem, it may be that the way that you are trying to pray isn't working for you. Try something else.

 

As you point out in your book, you encountered Ignatian spirituality at a young age.  In the spiritual direction program in which I trained, there is an increasing number of young students -- men and women in their twenties and thirties.  How do you think Ignatian spirituality speaks to young people in particular?

 

The Spiritual Exercises were designed for a person making a significant life choice (considering joining the Ignatius and his companions). The material on discernment and making decisions is so incredibly helpful to younger people. In your twenties and thirties you are in the midst of choosing career, life companion and what kind of life you are to lead. You also tend to be slightly less encumbered with responsibilities and obligations and therefore you have greater freedom. To have such tools when you are in the midst of making these choices is invaluable. Learning how to be discerning early sets you up better for whatever will come your way in life.  

 

And finally, Mags, who is both a chemist and a spiritual director, gave an unexpected answer to my third question ~ but one which may encourage all who struggle with more than one vocation or call in life.  My question was: In Ignatian spirituality, we often speak of "finding God in all things."  In what "thing" have you found it most difficult to locate God, and how was that challenge resolved (if it was)?

 

Probably in chemistry! I wish I had a different answer to that! I can intellectually see God in chemistry, but there are times when I find it hard to encounter God through the daily minutiae of building an academic career. There is a lot of evidence which supports the choice I have made to balance chemistry and spirituality. Nonetheless, I think I continue to walk the path I do out of an act of faith, rather than felt confirmation. I guess when I stop and pay attention I recognise that I do feel called to this life, but at the same time it can sometimes feel like an awkward fit.

 

Enjoy the book and the blog tour!

(Margaret Blackie asked me to review her book, which I had already purchased.  I have received no compensation for this post.  If you'd like to read another review, take a look at Fran Szpylczyn's at There Will Be Bread.)

(And . . .  I've started a new blog!  So you'll also find this piece cross-posted there! Eventually.)

 

 

Journeys of Simplicity ~ Book Contemplation

 

My friend Michelle sent me this beautiful little book which arrived yesterday afternoon, a delightful compendium of short bios and, on the facing pages, quotes from a range of writers and others about the "things they carried" on their journeys.  Some of them I am familiar with, some not at all.  It reminds me of Tim O'Brien's Vietnam book and essay of the same name, The Things They Carried, which I once used as the jumping off point for a blog post on the things we carry in grief  ~ things being less tangible than not.

You might see the humor in Thoreau's (he of Walden Pond simplicity ~ of sorts) list for a 12-day canoe trip into the Maine woods: 166 pounds of stuff, "enough to nearly swamp the canoe when they launched it."

My favorites so far:

For Basho's Great Walk, Basho being a 17th century Buddhist wanderer and poet, a short list of items, ending with

"discomfort and vexation
all the way"

and also

a list of the contents of Father Zossima's cell (from The Brothers Karamazov),

Bilbo's list of what he takes as he sets out for a walk, including what he forgets,

and the "Baggage for the Arctic Tern's 22,000 Mile Migration."  The facing page is empty.

Quite a wonderful little book.

Walk in a Relaxed Manner

I am in the midst of reading Joyce Rupp's book by the same title as that of this post for a book group. I am a big fan of Joyce Rupp's prayer and retreat writings and have used them in several contexts.  I can't honestly claim the same enthusiasm for her narrative approach to her Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, the subject of this book.  But I love the title - words of advice offered her by a fellow pilgrim; I am often drawn into pilgrimage language by Ignatius of Loyola, who often described himself as a pilgrim; and I am in need of a metaphor for my next venture: new (to me) Small City Church, newly re-unified life in all dimensions, new long-term commitment. I think that "walk in a relaxed manner" will do well.

Open Secrets (Book Review)

 

 

For the last several months, the practice of rural church ministry has been an increasingly problematic challenge for me. So many dimensions to my difficulties:

 

The hour and one-half commute, meaning that I stay overnight in Small Church Town two-to-four nights a week.  I have noticed, as time has progressed, that I am making an effort to limit those overnights to as few as possible.

 

The task of making friends.  In my two years there, I have found one potential good friend among the clergy, a Methodist pastor who left after one year.  Others are cordial, and we often work well together ~ but we are not connected in that ineffable way that makes for deep friendship.

 

Country life.  I expected to enjoy it, but by the time one of my older members told me, only some months into my pastorate, that she and her husband were in the process of a move out from their very small community "because I'm really a country girl at heart," I had realized the opposite about myself.  I was, honestly, surprised; I grew up in a similar locale and my father, at 81, still lives down the road and across the creek from the house in which I grew up.  But the truth is that I went off to boarding school at age 12 and that, even though for many years I studied at institutions located in rural areas, the schools themselves were bustling and diverse communities.  Yes, even my Catholic boarding school, out in the middle of Ohio cornfields: South American and African girls, Baptist and Methodist and agnostic girls, and nuns with advanced degrees, hearts for the poor, and minds for social justice, opening their arms to the changes wrought by Vatican II.  And I have lived in cities ever since I arrived in Providence forty years ago.  I love backcountry hiking and canoeing, but I want to live in the city.  I really, really, really want to live in the city!

 

The ever-widening gap between my own willingness to consider just about anything and everything as possibility, and the inherent conservatism of central Ohio rural life: political, social, economic, and theological.  I could write a book, but someone else has taken care of that:

 

As I have struggled to make sense of life and ministry over the past several months, Seminary Professor Who Preached at My Ordination suggested that I read Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery by Richard Lischer.  And so I put down Nadia Bolz-Weber's Pastrix, which might have spoken  to a reality I'd prefer, but not to the one I've been living, and devoured Open Secrets in less than a day.

 

Every line spoke my reality.  Richard Lischer is a Lutheran pastor, now a professor at Duke Divinity School,  who arrived at his first church filled with the enthusiasm of a newly-minted Ph.D. and discovered that he had been assigned to a small, rural congregation in the Midwest.  His portraits of the geography of the town, his rendition of his conversations with his congregants, his attempts to dispense with certain traditions and his reluctant accommodation to others, his family's efforts to become part of the life of the church, and his discovery of the narrative underlying each interaction ~ every word rings with the clarity of truth lived.

 

The conversation "in which the pastor seeks to remove the flag from the sanctuary" and comes to grasp that the flag is not about misplaced worship, but is about the story of beloved community, is completely, if not exactly, the story of my experiences with Veterans' Day and the men for whom the memory of comrades lost constitutes the proclamation of the good news.

 

The recounting of the story "in which the pastor's wife hires a babysitter so that she can sit out back in a lawn chair and read and work on her dissertation" and the manner in which the church comes to accept her behavior is a very funny rendition of how pastor and congregation circle warily around one another  and finally meet in a place approximating the middle.

 

How much of myself I see in this book!  Insight, denseness, hopefulness, love, arrogance, determination, relinquishment, compassion, frustration, and a simultaneous sense of being in exactly the right place and completely the wrong place.  And perhaps most of all: coming to the realization, as Richard Lischer did, that I have missed a great deal, despite trying so hard to be present and appreciative.

 

I'm getting ready to move to a congregation in the city, or at least in an inner-ring suburb, but I am going to treasure this book as a reminder to be attentive and appreciative to what lies right before me.

 

 

(P.S. Amazon is selling the book under two slightly different titles; hence, the picture above, which differs from my Kindle version.)

 

 

Just Call Me Lopez - Book Available!

Don't forget ~ if you'd like a free copy of the new book, Just Call me Lopez, add your name to the comments here.  I notice that an awful lot of people read that post without leaving a comment.  It's true that an ebook version is available for free at Loyola press this week, and if you are impatient to the degree that I am, you may have already gone that route.  But if you'd like a tangible copy to hold in your hands, this is the place.

On a personal note: it was my year with the  Ignatian Spiritual Exercises that ultimately propelled me into seminary. Yesterday, making the five-hour round trip to Pittsburgh, I was astonished by the recollection that I had done that every week for three years, and twice every other week during my first year, when I was also taking my Wednesday class in spiritual direction back in Cleveland.   If you get involved with Ignatius, you may find yourself responding with considerable intensity to that famous question of Mary Oliver's, "What is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" 

Just Call Me Lopez ~ Book Giveaway!

How is it that we discover and pursue an experience that transforms our lives?  For most of us, an introduction is made by someone we respect or admire, someone who transmits to us a deep passion for something of significance in their own lives.  Certainly in the context of faith, it is often a beloved teacher or pastor or writer who conveys to us a depth of commitment that inspires in us a deep longing for a similar engagement ~ be it with Scripture, or liturgy, or theology, or a form of spirituality.  Ignatian spirituality, for instance.

Perhaps Margaret Silf is about to become such a person for you. In her new book, Just Call Me Lopez, this well-known expert on Ignatian spirituality offers an easily accessible introduction to the 16th-century life of Catholic saint Ignatius of Loyola and to the major themes that dominate his work.  The book is a combination of time-travel fiction and introduction to Ignatian principles.  Ignatius himself, dressed in garb reflective of the various ages and stages of his life, appears sporadically to the narrator, a contemporary woman who, providentially, makes her professional living by helping others narrate and interpret their spiritual stories. Her experience enables her to help Ignatius articulate his.  She is at the same time personally contending with real life dilemmas familiar to many of us, so that she in turn gives Ignatius the opportunity to suggest ways in which she might address her own challenges.

When Ignatius drops in to visit, their conversations range across the many adventures, false starts, and challenges that formed one of the great spiritual masters of Christian history. At the same time, they delve into the multitude of insights which we now think of as distinctly Ignatian.  Imaginative prayer?  We learned it from Ignatius.  Principles of discernment?  Almost everything addressing the topic of discernment today has an Ignatian origin, whether recognized or not.  An understanding of spiritual consolation and desolation?  Ignatius is the man.

For the past several days, Margaret Silf and Paul Campbell, S.J. have been engaged in a blogalogue conversation over at People for Others.  On Friday, Paul asked Margaret, "If you had to identify one crucial insight of Ignatian spirituality, what would it be?"  Margaret suggests a number of possibilities; allow me to share one of my favorites:

I was introduced to Ignatius by someone who conveys the Ignatian narrative and spirituality with deep reverence and great good humor, and I began to make the Spiritual Exercises with that then-professor of mine while I was also taking a graduate course from him on Ignatian spirituality.  

What blew me away, lured me in, and completely altered my direction in life was the discovery that my own life experience was of value, that it was ~ and is ~ the raw material with which God works, and that it is the venue through which Jesus reaches out to me.  

I chuckled when we began to read Ignatius' autobiography in class, observing his many mishaps and missteps, and then, thanks to the care of a spiritual director who listened to mine as though they were of some import, began to understand what Ignatius was saying: experience matters.  We can learn to interpret and understand our experience and our feelings about it as among the ways in which God speaks to us.  We can learn to understand how our desires reflect God's desires for us.  "What do you want?" asks Jesus.  "Important question!" insists Ignatius.

There's a lovely passage fairly early in Just Call Me Lopez in which the narrator reflects upon the bond that she has discovered with Ignatius:

"Its strength and invincibility came from the Spirit of God flowing through it.  Its fragility and its tenderness came from our own humanity.  Together, these can draw the human spirit back from the brink of destruction to the threshold of new understanding" (79).  Indeed: the value of the human experience of friendship in the Lord when understood in light of the activity of the Holy Spirit.

*****

If you'd like to read more about the book, it's being celebrated on various Loyola Press blogs this coming week.  If you'd like to read a personal reflection by another reader, you'll find it at Quantum Theology.  If you'd like to purchase the book, Loyola Press is offering a 30% discount through August 31; use code word LOPEZ.  

And if you'd like a free copy, I've got one to give away!  (Actually, Loyola Press will send it to you, which means that you're a good deal more likely to receive it than you might if you had to depend upon me.) Just leave a comment and, while you're at it, tell us what you like or what makes you curious about Ignatian spirituality. I'll pull a name out of a magic hat on Sunday.  And there's a giveaway at Quantum Theology as well.

*****

Full disclosure: I received a copy of the book and an invitation to give another one away from Loyola Press, with no further obligation on my part.  I also gained an enjoyable read and the re-activiation of some wonderful memories.  The second image above is a photograph (July 2006) of the restored Church of St. Denis in Monmartre (Paris), where Ignatius and his first companions made their first vows to God and to one another, thus initiating the formation of the Society of Jesus.  You can read about it on page 170 of Just Call Me Lopez.

The Book

Some of you know that I've been trying to put the writing I did in the first couple of years after Josh's death into book format.

One of the stumbling blocks has been the difficulty of maintaining a sense of balance in life while delving into that material.  A solution finally occurred to me, one which only summer weather and daylight savings time could provide.  For the past week or so, I've made The Book the first hour's project on most days; then at 7:30 or so I head out for my walk and prayer time.  Thus I'm able to  complete the transition from the darkness of those first years into the realities of everyday life as I experience it today, and to get on with my life without becoming mired in the past.

This morning, a quiet and stiflingly hot Memorial Day, I switched my plans around a bit, knowing that I needed to get some outdoor garden work in as early as possible.  I ended up making a lot of progress with the writing and revising once I had returned to the Great Indoors, and even finished the current draft of the book proposal and sent it off to a couple of friends.

I'm not sure what to make of this Book Project.  My life would be a good deal simpler if I were to shelve it for good.  And it's certainly no la-de-da contribution to the memoir genre. 

But I recall how I nearly inhaled everything that came my way on suicide loss in the first months, how desperate I was for someone to put my anguish into words.  And I remember how much I longed to read that someone else was persisting in prayer despite the evident disappearance of God.  

My situation verged on the extreme, as it was in a seminary dorm that I would awaken in the morning to the certainty that God had vanished, but I am fairly certain these days that other bereaved parents sense the same breaking news, regardless of where they are waking up or what their days hold.

Perhaps The Book has some value.