From the Heritage Campus

From the Heritage Campus Signing Off

2010-06-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

Now that I have mowed the grass at the parsonage in Hewitt, I feel like and am officially here, and no longer in Grapevine, and that it is time for me to close this blog. At some point, when we are further along in the unpacking process, I will start a new blog, a blog from Hewitt, the title of which I have not decided on yet. It has been a pleasure serving in Grapevine; thank you to those of you who have followed this blog, sporadic as it has been during a season of change. I look foward to what awaits FUMC and the Heritage campus under the leadership of Louis Carr, as well as to what lies ahead now at Hewitt, except when it comes time to mow the grass! Peace and Good to everyone! R

LESSONS FROM A CONTORTIONIST

2010-05-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

Several years ago (it was more like 20+ years ago, but saying it that way makes me feel too old!) I was walking with Naomi in the French Quarter, in New Orleans. In the popular Jackson Square were all kinds of artists--musicians, painters, dancers, magicians, etc.--and one very remakable man, a contortionist; I believe he was from Haiti. He was striking the most incredible poses, with ankles laced around his neck, arms twisted behind his back--he could literally fold himself in half. And for his finale he folded himself right up into a clear tiny box, I'm guessing it was no more than two and a half feet square. They shut him in, and there he was! What a strange and fascinating thing. Even the other performers on the square were stopping to watch him.

He was quite thin, but also muscular, his muscles appearing almost translucent. I remember no little envy on my part: 'Gosh, I wish I had a body like that!' I thought. 'And what does he eat anyway? I don't think he does the steak and baked potato thing that often.'

Since that day I have, off and on, been interested in contortionism, not only for the feat itself, but also because of the association of contortionsists with circuses, and the idealized community that I have (naively I'm sure) always imagined the circus to be and which I someimes compare to the church. When we went to see the Circque du Soleil, in Austin, my appreciation of contortionsists (and circuses) was revived a great deal, for here were not only amazing contortionists but acrobatic contortionists who were able to maintain incredible poses while swinging through the air at high rates of speed, or while balancing atop the strong arms of other contorionists. And here I could not even bend over with knees straight and touch my toes!

A few months ago, the contortioinist bug hit me again, and I began to actually look into it more than I had before, to see it there was some how-to information. Was I too old? Wasn't yoga the same thing? etc. Here are some things that I learned:
--just about anyone, with work, can become a contortionist. True, some are more physically gifted in this regard, but even those persons have to work at it if they want to achieve good results.
--contortionists are some of the healthiest and most long-lived persons around.
--plan to put in about three hours of stretching per day if you want to be a contortionist; it does not all have to be at once; one hour three times a day is fine.
--make sure you are warmed up before you begin stretching.
--if you skip a day of stretching, you lose about a week in terms of how long it will take you to get back to your previous flexibility. If you skip a week, you will, similarly, lose about a month. So you need to be ready for a daily commitment.

Well, so I began. I increased my daily stretching a good bit, and got to where I could almost place my palms on the floor while standing with knees straight. I could sit and stretch and grab my heels with my palms, which I thought was pretty good. I was making progress. Alas, that was a month ago. I just stood up to see where I am currently, and can touch the top of my shoe with the tip of my middle finger.

It seems to me that there is in contortionism a lot of application to the spiritual life, especially in the idea that, if we are not stretching daily, we quickly revert back to a more comfortable (but less flexible) set point. Jesus' disciples had his teaching everyday for maybe three years, and yet, even shortly after his resurrection, they quickly lost their kingdom flexibility: "I'm going fishing,' said Peter. 'We'll go with you,' said the other disciples. In this regard, might Jesus' parables be thought of as contortionist stretches for the spirit that are meant, through continual application, to bring us to the new perceptions and abilities of God's children? How willing are we to have Jesus' life stretch us? R

AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

2010-05-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

I was driving south on Hwy 121, listening to the cacophony that is sports radio, when I noticed a blade of grass growing at the side of the road. Amazing; how did I notice her, in all of her singular isness; surrounded by a billion cousins--who was she that I should notice her? And yet her integrity, her striving upwards to God, her simple enjoyment of the gentle breeze and morning sunshine caused me to turn off the radio and roll down the window so that I might take in the beauty of all her people: no longer green, and soon-to-be-mowed, they were tall and stately nonetheless. They stood silent, but perhaps...could it be possible?...they noticed the attention paid them and returned the favor by bowing their graceful wheat-like stalks?

This fellowship, this commraderie between me and all these blades of grass, was (is) a far richer thing than the radio's continual noisy attacks upon my secret self, or than the continual mental chatter of my own mind. Am I not one of them--a blade a grass, here today and tomorrow perhaps not even a memory to those who speed along the world's highway! Have I, I wonder, ever truly been noticed, even by myself, for who I am? Have you? Thanks be to the God who sees, knows, and loves each one of us for who we are, in whom we have a deep-rooted, eternal and joyous fellowship. R.

'TAKE, EAT; THIS IS MY BODY'

2010-03-31T05:46:00.000-07:00

In his commentary Aramaic Light on the Gospel of Matthew Rocco A. Errico says the following about the phrase 'Take, eat: this is my body:

This affectionate expression of Jesus was common among Semites at a fraternal supper. Sometimes the men will declare to each other such sayings as: 'My life and my blood are for you; take the very sight of my eyes, if you will.' They will also use other similar expressions. It was not a strange thing that Jesus, whose entire life was a living sacrafice, should say to his intimate disciples/friends as he handed them the bread and the cup, 'Take, eat; this is my body;' and 'Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood.'

I have always thought that Jesus' words to his disciples about the bread and wine would have been new to their experience, as if Jesus were instituting a new thing that they had never heard of or considered before; but instead of being new, these words were likely very familiar to the disciples, words that they themselves had perhaps said to others at ordinary meals where Jesus was not present, but words that were now all the more intimate and powerful because of when and where Jesus was saying them.

It is comforting to me to consider that, at his last meal, Jesus chose ordinary, intimate expressions to convey his love for his friends, rather than feeling the need to institute a religious program that they would, henceforth, be obligated to perpetuate. 'Do this in remembrance of me, whenever you eat and drink' now (as I am thinking out loud about it) takes on the opposite meaning of what it had for me before: the idea is not to turn our ordinary meals into religous observances but to see them as occasions for intimacy with the risen Christ who is indeed present at every meal. R

SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER?

2010-03-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

So each episode of Star Trek begins. Where is the final frontier, really? Is it in outer space? Is it going the other way, in microscopic space? The familiar saying comes to mind: that 'Wherever you go, there you are!' It seems to me that any frontier to which one travels, and which leaves onebasically intact as himself or herself, cannot really be the final frontier. The final frontier, it seems to me, would be God--the one in whom, when we are in him, we cannot say 'Here I Am' and 'There He Is'. R

THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM!

2010-03-03T06:49:00.001-08:00

I went to a large all-boys public high school, and am one of the relatively few persons in the U.S. to have that distinction. It had its plusses and minuses, as you can imagine; one of the plusses was that, without girls on campus, things were far more laid back--fewer fights, less showing off, easier to concentrate on school, etc. This I see only in retrospect; at the time, no girls on campus was a definite minus!

Anyway, one day the head of the Drama Department, who had connections with all kinds of off-Broadway companies, brought in this great show--it was a revue of the musical Cabaret, and there were all of these provacatively-dressed gorgeous women in it. The all-male student body was roundly impressed to see this, and despite the principal's admonitions beforehand, there was quite a bit of hooting and hollering, wolf-whistling, etc. during various parts of the performance.

At the end of the show, as these hot babes were taking their bows, there was great cheering and applause, until...they, in unison, pulled off their wigs to reveal that they were all guys! This action definitely had a dampening effect, and left us all rather stunned, because, guys though they may have been, they sure put on a good show, and it was still worth a clap--kind of impressive really; and yet we had all just previously been thinking less than pure thoughts about these...guys!

As stunning as the end of this performance was for a bunch of high school guys, I would like to suggest that it was nothing compared to Holy Week drama and God's scandalous ending of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It was not something that Jesus' disciples, or anyone else, was prepared for; and it would be something they would never forget. And yet it seems to me that we are no longer that impressed with it, and have turned it into something tame, acceptable, religous.

It's interesting how things come to mind. I had not thought about this high school show for years, until this morning. Now maybe it will help me see the drama of this season with fresh eyes! R

HAPPY LENT!

2010-02-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

Lent has become my favorite season of the year; but not for the reasons you might think! I am not, for instance, a glutton for punishment, or discipline; and I ain't giving up chocolate for nobody! Often Lent is associated with these kinds of things, and it becomes a season of heaviness, of putting more 'to do's'--be they spiritual or otherwise--on one's plate. And, indeed, I used to look at Lent that way myself--in football terms, Lent was training camp--the brutal time of two-a-days that gets us ready for Easter.

I no longer look at Lent in this way. Lent, now, has become the season of 'laying the burden down' and living more lightly with life. The burden I attempt to lay down (and it is not easy) is not work but my own sense of importance, the self-judgements, the many standards that I have set for myself, and others, but which God has not laid down for me, ot for them. Lent, for me, is the season to enjoy living lightly as God's child rather than as the king of Randy World with all of the responsibility that that entails!

This year, we are encouraging ourselves to think of Lent differently: instead of 'giving something up' we are invited to 'take something on'--to do something to help someone and that will connect us more directly with the poor among us, in keeping with our study of the book A Hole in Our Gospel. At first, as I thought about this, it went against my Lenten grain, and I thought 'Training Camp', and said to myself, 'Well, if I am going to 'take on' something, then that is going to weigh me down, and it means I will need to give an additional something up beyond what I normally give up, so that my plate continues to be appropriately light for Lent.'

But the more I think about it, the more this 'taking on' something is right up the ol' Lenten alley.
For all we are really asked to 'take on', in the end, is our identity as the children of God, and to let all the other ways in which we have come to think about ourselves fall by the wayside. And one of the ways in which we live lightly and joyfully in this world as God's children is to be connected meaninfully with the poor. There will be crosses in the foyers of both campuses this Lent that will have on them opportunities to help others. Consider them as the clothes of the children of God; they are the clothes we were born to live in! I wish us each and all a light and happy Lent!

Randy

The Sphincters!

2010-02-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I was a counsellor at a Junior High Summer Camp, in Minden, Louisiana. The theme of the camp was 'Many Parts, One Body', and each cabin got to decide on a part of the body to call itself; so we had 'The Arms', and 'The Feet,' 'The Ears', etc.--basic body part names; except for my cabin: the little nerds in my cabin thought that it would be cool to call themselves 'The Sphincters, the muscle in the body that helps you poop! Well that's just great--all of the other counsellors get to be arms, ears, and feet, while I am stuck all week with 'The Sphincters'.

I decided to run with this however--(no wait, that's a bad pun, sorry, this article is not working out the way I had forseen!) At some point during the week, when it was my turn to address all the cabins together, I talked about the sphincter muscle. I talked about the 'less honorable parts' as the apostle Paul calls them, getting the most honor, etc.

And one thing that they did not know about the sphincter muscle is that it is one of the most important muscles of all for singing! I told them of a phrase I learned from a voice teacher, who said that as you prepare to sing, think 'SINK, CLUTCH, DANGLE.' SINK--bend youre kness and take a comfortable, not a stiff, stance; CLUTCH--tighten your sphincter muscle, as doing that provides kind of a floor against which the diaphram pushes, giving your voice more power; and DANGLE--let you arms hang loose; let them dangle so that you let all the tension out of your torso. 'So you see,' I said to the fairly interested Jr. Highs, 'some of the most beautiful expressions of human beings are due to the tightening of the sphincter muscle!'

Quite a bit of giggling and hardy-har-harring took place, but I noticed that, from that point on, The Sphincters became the life of the camp--in a good way. They were proud now of being the sphincters; they performed the most service, had the most fun, and went home, I think, having learned something important--that sometimes, doing the less-honorable tasks of service is actually the most fun, most appreciated, and most life-giving thing one can do for another. R.

WHO DAT!

2010-02-03T07:04:00.000-08:00

While I am normally a Peyton Manning fan, this week I am in solidarity with the WHO DAT nation, as the New Orleans Saints seek a victory in their first-ever appearance in the Super Bowl. Many prayers, all in good spoofing fun, are out there on the internet. I, too, in poor broken cajun, offer up one for the the team:

THE SAINTS PRAYER

Our Who Dats, who beat dem Vikings: you made de good times roll!

Dat snap was down; dem kick was up--we're off to de Super Bowl!

Give us one more, we humbly pray: deliver dat big King Cake

(As we cast spells on all dem Colts and Mannings)

And do not lead us to an early Lent, but kick us off to de Mardi Gras!

For thine is de gumbo, de voodoo, dem po' boy, forever and ever. Cayenne!

GOOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOO SAINTS!

Randy

THE YEAR OF JUBILEE

2010-01-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

I had a thought the other day about turning 50, which I turned earlier this month; I don't know what brought it on, but for some reason I remembered the Year of Jubilee (which means a time of shouting) that God commands the Israelites to observe , in Levitcus 25: ...you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all of its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces...

That certainly puts a different spin on turning fifty! The fiftieth year, the Jubilee year, is to be a sabbath year, a time of liberation, of returning to one's family, roots, property. The Jubilee is also a year of forgiving debts, a time of going home to who we truly are in God.

And so I am wondering: how many self-inflicted debts have I taken on over these 50 years? How many times have I said to myself: 'You can't do that.' 'You' no good at that.' 'You're not a handy person.' 'You can't handle money.' 'You never win anything.' 'You're not practical.' 'You are only a haphazard musician.' etc. These kinds of tapes I have been playing all of these years--they are like chains, like debts, are they not? To come to the Year of Jubilee and to hear the divine word calling: 'Time to give those up, Randy Scrivener! Time to go home! Time to shout 'freedom' to all the people! Time to remember who you are!' That has made turning 50 quite an exciting prospect! R

The Seven Deadly Sins

2010-01-20T06:42:00.000-08:00

Gluttony, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Lust, Pride...what was the seventh deadly sin; I could not remember as I kept counting them out on my fingers this morning. When I came in the office I asked Audrey--she couldn't think of it either, so I had to look it up, although you probably know it: it is Anger! I had actually thought about anger and then said, 'Nah, it can't be; anger is such a common emmotion, and besides, even Jesus got angry; God gets angry.' But it is anger, or wrath if you prefer. And when it is indulged, it is deadly, as I am sure many doctors and counsellors would agree.

And isn't that the thing about most of the deadly sins; they often have a stealth element about them, or they are disguised in ways that make it hard for us to see them at work in ourselves, even as we can see them clearly at work in others. For example, busy people (I can tell you from experience) are some of the most slothful people on earth: Naomi was always amazed at how much housework I got done on Saturdays when my sermon was needing to get written!

This Sunday we will be taking a look at the deadly sin of Greed. 'Be on your guard against all kinds of greed,' Jesus says the gospel reading about the man who keeps building storehouses for all of his grain. I think what he means by that is that greed has thousands of subtle disguises, and we need to be vigilent lest we wake up one day and find that our lives have been squeezed almost dry in its vise-like grip. We will be looking at Greed, how it operates, and what we can do about it. We will even sing 'O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing'--an appropriately greedy song title, now that I think about it! R

CHILDREN RUNNING THE RACE

2010-01-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

I received a great present for my birthday--a picture of my 10-year old son, Nathan, crossing the finish-line of the Colleyville Race to Read 5k, his first race. He did a great job, finishing forth, in just over 30 minutes. But it's not where he finished, or how fast he ran--it's the expression on his face that I can see in the picture but could not see at the time (because he was running several yards ahead of me at the finish). There is a bit of tiredness, but showing through all there is this wide-open glad sense of accomplishment from finishing his first race (ahead of his dad). I am also in the picture, about fifteen yards behind; and my memory was that I was sucking wind and more tired than I ought to have been. But my face, too, was lit up with a big smile as I was watching my son cross the finish line ahead of me.

This, it seems to me, is what parents, and congregations, hope for in regards to their children--to help them run the race, and to run it with them for a while, and then to have the joy of watching their little bottoms move on ahead and cross the finish-line in front of them. RS

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

2010-01-05T17:36:00.000-08:00

I am glad that Christmas is a twelve-day season! For one thing, it usually is not until the eleventh or twelfth day of Christmas that I am able to get out of Christmas-preacher mode and into regular person mode with regard to the holiday. Throughout Advent, Christmas Eve and the Sundays of Christmas, pastors (and church staff, and maybe you as well) are generally in 'production-mode', having to produce Christmas messages and concerning themselves with Christmas programming and preparation that helps make the season meaningful for others; but when the last Sunday of Christmas has come and gone, there are usually still a couple of days left of the season, and these are days that I try to observe, even in the midst of all the new beginnings of the New Year.

In fact, it usually makes it easier for me that most have left Christmas behind by New Year's Day. Trees have been taken down, and decorations stowed back up in the attic until next year. This early shut-down provides an empty space, with no production-pressure, in which I can listen to Christmas carols, light candles, enjoy the tree, and ponder the Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke. And tonight, while I did not give 'twelve drummers drumming' to my family, I happily cooked dinner and will take care of the dishes; not a large gift perhaps, but a Christmas gift all the same.

It is not too late! Tomorrow evening we can gather, have some pizza, perhaps sing some Christmas songs, and remember the Christmas story as we put baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the tree and banners, back up for the year. We can give to each other the wonderful Christmas gift of fellowship, and at the same time celebrate the even older Christian festival day of Epiphany, which is Christmas day for many Christians in other parts of the world. Come by tomorrow evening around 7:00 pm. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Randy

Jesus: Gee,He'sUs!

2009-12-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

Isn't this the message and mystery we celebrate at Christmas--not that the very fullness of God showed up in a special super being that looked like a human and talked like a human, but that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell fully as one of us, as fully human? To me this means that, no matter how unfavorably I might seem to compare (even on my good days) to Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, I am, nevertheless, a local expression of this divine Christmas mystery. To know that the very fullness of God is pleased to be dwelling in me is a humbling, astonishing, and, frankly, scary thought; for now the problem is not to 'let Jesus into my heart', as the saying goes, but to let him out of my heart and into my life!

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, in Bethlehem of Judea long ago, may we also know the joy of looking at our brothers and sisters and saying, with astonished wonder: Gee!He'sUs!
RS

Working Toward Retirement!?

2009-12-09T06:49:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been thinking more about retirement, probably because I am rapidly nearing a certain age which I do not even want to mention. But it seems that talk about retirement is everywhere these days, so it is hard not to think about it; and it also seems to me that retirement is the new American God, the new American dream, perhaps not even that new anymore.

I used to think of retirement in two different ways. The first was the traditiional understanding of retirement as rest from work, or rest from having to work, after having saved up enough money to do so--a time, hopefully a lengthy time with good health--of waking up in the morning without a schedule and the opportunity to do whatever, or go wherever, or not, whenever one wanted to. Gosh, that sounds nice just thinking about it! It is the kind of reitement my parents enjoy.

The second way I have thought about retirement is in the sense of getting a-new-set-of-tires--you know, a re-tiring, for the next stage of one's life journey. You wear out one set of tires and it comes time to get another, so that you can go as fast, or faster, than you were going before. I have heard many retired pastors announce at their retirements that they were not really retiring--they were re-tiring: getting a new set of tires so that they could continue to grace, or plague, the church, whatever the case might be.

Lately though, a third way of understanding retirement has occured to me: retirement as getting-tired-all-over-again; and who wants to do that? But that is what both of the above kind of retirememts often seem to end up being. The outer circumstances of life may change, but the inner ways of living that made us tired in life the first time around still seem to be in place, and we re-tire; we get tired all over again. As I think about it, I do not want to work toward retirement; I want to work toward untirement--to be untired, not retired.

The life of faith is a course in untirement. When Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he did not retire from being a Pharisee; he untired, and lived the rest of his life in untirement, no matter the degree to which he spent himself physically, emotionally, spiritually. Perhaps we need to be offering a course in unitrement?

Randy

Who is More Powerful?

2009-11-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

I was having coffee with a couple of members this morning at Buon Giournos Coffee Shop. Many interesting persons pass through those doors for good coffee, tea, conversation, atmosphere. One man coming through engaged us in conversation, and before I knew it he was telling us how the current nuclear strategy of the Iranians is no longer missiles but nuclear suicide bombers with lead-coated backpacks to conceal enriched uranium from detection. This way, instead of blowing up and killing a handful of people a bomber might, theoretically, blow up thousands of people and do far more damage than with a conventional bomb. What a nice happy thought.

But it got me to wondering who was truly more powerful in this world: a person with a nuclear bomb strapped to his or her back, or a person with a heart that is full of gratitude? I would argue that it is the latter--that a heart that is full of gratitude is a very powerful force indeed--more powerful than an arsenal of nuclear weapons. A truly grateful people is a truly powerful people. Amen, and Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. RS

A New Day 2

2009-11-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

As you know, a day can last for more than 24 hours. When older persons say, 'back in my day...' they are not talking about one particular day, but a period of time. Likewise the new day that began officially at FUMC on November 1st is still with us; it is still a new day, at both campuses, and will be for a while. So, what to talk about in the new day?

I read a story last week about some disputed land--both Navaho and Pueblo tribes claimed it--and during the many years the land was in dispute it was basically closed to both tribes. The thing that most interested me was the tradition, practiced by one or both tribes (I can't rembmeber), that when a baby is born, its umbilical cord is buried in the earth where the birth occured, the idea being that that place was one's home, the place one belonged to and could return to and know one was connected with the souce of one's being. Because of the dispute, many could not return to their homeplace, to the place where their connection to their source of life was buried, to build an actual physical home, as they had done for generations.

This story got me to thinking about where home is for me, and for us. In what land are our umbilical cords buried? For me that land is more of a verb than a noun, an event more than a place: the praise and enjoyment of God in the worshipping community. For we are born out of that loving, life-giving, joy-filled community that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; to that community we are bound to return. In the praising congregation our umbilical cords are buried, and in the worship of God we are truly at home. In a new day, worship is the fertile land to return to, and upon which to build our house. RS

A New Day

2009-11-04T07:28:00.000-08:00

It is a new day at Heritage, and a new day for the Heritage pastor who has spent this morning setting up his very first blog! Blogging is new territory for me, although not totally new, thanks to Ken Deihm, who has invited me to do his daily devotional blog--10 + 10--while he is away.

So, I set out today. And we set out. It feels good to be on the road. And I know from experience that, while you can imagine what things might be like on the road, thinking about being on the road is not the same as being on the road; something awakens in us once we finally get going, get moving. A quote from Mark Twain comes to mind: 'A man who grabs a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way!' Somethings you can't learn or experience until you get on the road!

We are now a campus, the Heritage Campus of FUMC Grapevine, and there is much that is good about thinking about ourselves in that way, it seems to me. For one thing, Methodism got its energetic start on a campus--the Oxford campus in John Wesley's England. May being a campus help get us back to our roots; and may we grow in all good ways, but especially in grace and in the knowledge of our friend, brother and Lord, Jesus Christ. RS