Being Lutheran - Is it living in the gray areas or on the razor's edge?

My dear friend the Lutheran Zephyr asked a question a while back about being Lutheran. What does it mean? The first thing that came to mind is that being Lutheran means learning to live with the gray areas. And I suppose I should clarify by saying that I think this is part of being an ELCA Lutheran but not necessarily a part of being WELS for example. The ELCA is not always one to give black and white answers and I like that. Some examples...

On the topic of abortion, the social statement of the church states that whatever decision a woman or couple may make, there will be grief and a need for healing. I appreciate the wisdom in all of that. There's more elbow room to struggle with the impact of this choice pastorally and faithfully.

On the topic of Biblical inerrancy, the ELCA constitution says that we believe all scripture to be the inspired word of God. This means that I have had parishioners with a wide variety of beliefs about inerrancy and all of them could be comfortable with the constitution of their church.

Some people don't like when things get fuzzy or gray. But I'm not sure that this is about the gray areas as much as it is about living on the razor's edge.

The Razor's Edge is a 1944 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. In the 1984 film of the novel, the main character, played interestingly enough by Bill Murray, is told "The path to salvation is narrow and is difficult to walk as a razor's edge." What I mean by all of this is that as a Lutheran, I am encouraged even challenged to struggle with what it means to live a life of faith. I am not lead around by the nose. Instead I am called to carefully think and pray and discuss the issues of the day.

Over and under and around all of this are some concrete things. Sola Fide. Sola Scriptura. Sola Gracia. Simul Justus et Pecatur! Faith, Scripture, Grace. I'm a saint and sinner all rolled up into one. I am justified and I am being sanctified.

This I Believe

This is a late addition to the RevGalPal's Friday Five Meme. Five things that I believe...

1. That being a Christian is a lot like making lefse. It's a very simple recipe but it's hard work to get it right. For those unfamiliar with lefse, it's Norwegian flat bread. You make it with leftover mashed potatoes, cream and flour. Very simple recipe. My mother makes great lefse. Mine, not so good. I complained because she had told me it was easy to make. "No," she said. "It's very simple, but it takes a lot of practice and hard work to make good lefse." I believe being a Christian is simple, but the act of living a faithful life takes lots of practice and hard work.

2. Children should go home from church having these things in their pockts: a) God loves them; b) the people at church love them; 3) church is a nice place to be; 4) there are valuable tools for living to be found at church. "Children" should not be limited to those under 21 years of age.

3. Chocolate, bread with real butter and red meat are not bad for you. They are spiritually sustaining.

4. Books should never be thrown away.

5. The Bible is not about how things happen/ed. It's about who and why. Most religious arguments seem to center on the how.

Where did May go?

Okay, it's been a month and I haven't blogged. What are my reaons/excuses/explanations? In no particular order...

The hubby and I have spent a lot of time working on our financial plan, such as it is. We're trying to spend less and save more. And for the first time in our fifteen year marriage we are actually having weekly budget meetings.

Sodachick has had a lot of homework lately. I now know a lot more about genetics, the Civil War, and irregular French verbs. Actually I probably knew it all before, but I forgot.

I spent 18 days in a row at work. This is not unusual for many of us, but it does take up one's time.

And finally, I am addicted to "Fish Tycoon" which is a simulated game that involves hatching, doping, mating and selling imaginary fish. Sodachick and I have five tanks going and at any given time the fish are going belly up or we're making bundles on their prolific mating patterns. Clearly I need to get more of a life.

Pink Shoes and Softly- thanks for checking on me! Zephyr- let's do lunch when you're back in town.

Next time I want scratch n' sniff!

Create your own message at BlingyBlob.com

I guess the gray has to go!

Your Hair Should Be Orange

Expressive, deep, and one of a kind. You pull off "weird" well - hardly anyone notices.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

My Favorite Ring

I was explaining blogging recently and advocating the use of a ring. My favorite ring! And here's why... Any group that has a tshirt like this is the kind of group I want to join.

So if you're looking for a group of very interesting people. Check out RevGalBlogPals. The link is at the bottom of this page or to your right.

Fab Five Favorites

The Rev Gal Pals meme for the week.... On this particular day, these are my favorites:

1. Fruit - Raspberries
2. Song - Can't think of one right now. Sodachick keeps playing, "You've had a bad day" really loudly around the house.
3. Beverage - Diet Coke with a real lime or a Tanqueray Martini on the rocks, dry with four olives.
4. Shoes - Birkenstocks
5. Flower - Tulips

Happy Birthday Sodachick!

It's official! As of 8:27am this morning, I am the mother of a full fledged teenager. How did this happen? (I know, I know! It's a matter of biology.) How did my baby become this mythical creature- the teenage girl!

Five of the girl's friends are coming for a sleepover tonight after having home made pizza and chocolate fondue. (It's a retro, budget oriented party.) Her french class is going on a luncheon field trip today and her friends will certainly decorate her locker before class. Me? I'm going to work and at 8:27am I'm going to sit quietly and remember that little bundle they laid on my chest. Still a little damp and sticky, but oh so beautiful. She snuggled in and my life has never been the same.

Criminal Behavior

Recently, Lutheran Zephyr posted the following:

Sales of Duke University lacrosse team t-shirts and hats have sharply (and disturbingly) increased since the indictment of two white team members on charges for the rape and kidnapping of an African-American woman two weeks ago.

Is this benign support for a troubled university organization, or a new symbol of defiance for over-privledged, rich white kids in the highly stratified Old South? I'm skeptical of the former, but sure as heck hope it is not the latter.

"I have a dream," Martin Luther King, Jr. once proclaimed. Let's keep dreaming, friends, and keep struggling to achieve those dreams.

My question- why does this act of violence get so much more attention than the other 60,000 rapes committed in this country over the last year? Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.

One in six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, and 10% of sexual assault victims are men.

In 2003-2004, there were an average annual 204,370 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.

It's not that this case isn't important. It's just that it isn't the only crime like this that has happened of late. What makes this a national news story for weeks?

No snacks?!?!? Airline travel is not what it used to be!

This past week, I went on a business trip with Lutheran Zephyr. We flew off on a little jet owned by a major airline and were offered NO SNACKS! What is with this? I wasn't expecting salmon with a buerre blanc sauce or anything. But a bag of pretzels would have been nice. Or maybe a couple of cookies. It was a LONG flight. Fortunately for me, LZ never leaves the airport without snacks and water. So we were okay for the next several hours. I know this sounds like whining and it probably is. It's just that I remember when about the only place you ever got honey roasted peanuts was on an airplane. Ah, the good old days.

Ramona the Pest and other friends

A while back, the preacher in "Pink Shoes" made a request for new book titles to add to her reading list. I found myself ignoring all the classy literature on my shelves, so that I could write about children's and adolescent literature.
I am a sucker for anything that was ever nominated for a Newberry medal. Not fluffy teenage girl junk, but the classic good books they made you read in school. I like interesting plots. Well written imagery. Stories that are funny or heart warming or universally smart and educational. So my list went like this...
- Anything by Madeleine L'Engle
- "The Chronicles of Narnia" in their original order.
- "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen, which is coming out as a movie this month. Funny and smart.
- The "Ramona the Pest" books by Beverly Cleary when you need a nostalgic good laugh.
- "Fever 1793" by Laurie Halse Anderson. Haunting story of life during the American Revolution.
- "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
I have read some grown up books in the last six months, but every so often, I need to explore the world of Ramona or Meg or Eustace.
p.s. The picture is of a statue of Ramona that lives in Portland, just like she does!

Mentos Explosion

I love NPR. Not only do they provide you with intelligent news of world happenings, they're willing to do something really stupid on occasion as well. Apparently if you take a two liter bottle of pop and put a package of Mentos candy into the bottle, the chemical reaction is such that the entire bottle of pop will shoot up into the air. Soda explosions have been measured from ten to twelve feet. Warm soda works better than cold. Go figure! Listening to the report on NPR made me want to rush out and buy pop and candy. But so far, I've not ventured into the backyard to create my own little geyser of sugar water. But it's tempting....

Friday's Fab Five from the RevGals has to do with artistic performances that somehow made an impact. So here they are in no particular order.

1. "The Music Man" at my daughter's elementary school. SodaChick played "Woman Number 1" and had two lines in the play. She did a fabulous job of acting out the role of a middle aged mother with attitude.
2. "Les Miserables" in London. I had jet lag from flying in that same day. But the play was wonderful!
3. "The Phantom of the Opera" in London. My sister and I were trolling around the city trying to find something to do during a day long rail/transit strike. We ended up in front of the theater where Phantom was showing. At the time it was only showing in London and New York. We sat on the sidewalk all morning and managed to get seats for the matinee show. Even though our view was partial (we couldn't see the chandelier) it was a memorable day in many, many ways.
4. "Honk" at SodaChick's elementary school. She had no lines this time- just a chorus member. The play is about the ugly duckling. What struck me about the play was a line from one of the songs that the mother sings to her little gosling, "Hold your head up high, like the most happy fella, while down below each thigh, apropos a propeller, must keep paddling, like the clappers. You keel paddling with your flappers, while seeming to be dreaming and calm." The play came about at a time when I felt like I was paddling like a dickens and not getting anywhere with much grace. The gentle music and words of this song were some how an encouragement.
5. "The Sound of Music" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles. On my tenth birthday, the entire family went to see the play. It was my first outing of this kind and I felt so grown up. What I remember the most is that the fellow who played Colonel Klink on "Hogan's Heroes" played the Captain's friend Max.

Why so quiet?

For the past few weeks I have been a non-blogger. I don't know why. Nothing particularly strange has happened. Just the usual stuff. Have I had NOTHING to say? I don't think so, but maybe I've been too tired to say it.

Today I logged on to one of my favorite blogs and found that while I was quietly not listening, the mother of Lutheran Chik had passed away. I felt so sad for her and strangely disappointed in myself for having not paid better attention.

The blogging community is such a strange thing. We're stitched together with bits of wire and electricity. We have great commonalities and wild differences. But somehow, there's a link. So, my apologies to anyone (Lutheran Zephyr in particular) who has wondered where I've been. I'm still here. I just wandered off for a little while.

The Rev Gals Need a Logo

NCAA Tournament - I like to say Villanova!

Truly I am not a big fan of basketball. I think college basketball can be especially hard to watch because I don't know who any of the players are AND their shoes really squeak a lot on those hardwood floors.

I do however enjoy the brackets. I don't bet on the games. I don't need to. I just like to pick my teams and see what happens. I tend to favor teams with fun names like Gonzaga and UConn (which sounds like they're from Alaska, but they're not!)

I vote agains teams like Oral Roberts University purely for religious reasons and if everyone else in the office has picked the local favorite- I go the other way. (This explains why last year, everyone else was stuck with Illinois at the end and I picked the winner. Don't ask me who it was. I just know my guys won.)

My father would be horrified to read this. How could I possibly be so public about my lack of interest in sports? What's next? Choosing the winners based on their team colors?!? (They never include that in the bracket info I get.)

So if you'd like to enter a no-money, no-skill, no-real-interest NCAA pool, here's your invite. You do not need to be a member of AOL to participate in AOL’s Bracket Pool Manager game, but you do need an AOL screen name. If you have a screen name with any of the following you can use the same screen name: AOL or AOL Instant Messenger.

Once you have a screen name, just follow this link to join the league http://fantasySports.aol.com. You'll be asked for your league's ID number and password. They are: LeagueID: 8902 Password: ELCA Post a comment if you decide to play!

No Deal

I am afraid for my family's mental health! Please, please, please, SOMEBODY explain to me why "Deal or No Deal" is a good thing to watch. It's moronic. It's the televised equivalent of scratch off lottery cards. It takes no imagination or wits to play. It's stupid. And yet, my family enjoys it. Blech!

Fab Friday Hair Meme

The RevGals are blogging about their hair this weekend.

1) Do you like your hair? Yes. Except when it makes me HOT.

2) Have you ever colored your hair? After my daughter was born, my hair broke off a bit in front of my face. Not a good thing. The stylist suggested coloring it would help the gray take up more space visually. I colored it then for about ten years. Then I quit. The gray is really white and it tends to be mostly around my face. I periodically highlight the rest to blend things out a bit. Cheaper and less time consuming.

3) What's the longest you've ever worn your hair? Middle of my back when I was in high school. The shortest? Really short as a kid when my mother was in charge. And once after a family vacation in Florida, I came home and cut it to about ear lobe length. See number 1 for explanation.

4) When and what was your worst haircut? The most maddening was three months before my wedding. I had moved and was looking for a new place for a haircut. After checking with friends, I made an appointment. I explained that I wanted waves but not kinky curls. Shorter, but not too short. It took the next three months to make a semi-recovery and I still wish I had avoided that stylist when I look at our wedding photos.

5) Tell us a favorite song or scene from a book or movie dealing with hair. There is more than one movie that shows a woman cutting a man's hair. The sensuality of those scenes always gets to me. But when my husband wants me to just "trim it up a little in the back" I always refuse. It seems more dangerous than pleasant in real life.

Computer Commits Assisted Suicide

Okay, I didn't mean to do it! But I think I've become the Dr. Kevorkian of the computer world. On Friday I was going to replace the graphics card in my computer at work. I know how to do this. It involves taking off the case on the tower, unplugging the old card and plugging in the new card. Unfortunately, the IT people had sent me a card that was much too sophisticated for my machine. The new card was designed for operating systems newer than Windows 95 and my machine, alas, is firmly stuck in the last century. So after using canned air to blow out dust bunnies the size of cotton balls, I blew off the old card and put it back. But now the computer is stuck in "safe mode". There is no coming back! I've tried everything and nothing works. There are other issues with this machine as well. Now it sits on my desk, clean and very, very sick. I am hoping that another will come to replace it, but that could take a little while. So for now, I've pulled the plug and draped the office in black. It is too, too sad.

Parisian Webcams and Weather Pixies

Yesterday a friend came in my office and noticed that I had a picture of the Eiffel Tower for wallpaper on my pc. It's from a webcam in Paris. I told him I change it every so often and then the subject changed. The truth is, I do change the wallpaper, but mostly to another shot of the Eiffel Tower. I didn't realize how odd it might look until I turned on my computer this morning. Why this place? Why this picture? I'm not French. I don't have a love for tall buildings. But I do love Paris. I've been there three times. The last was my honeymoon almost 15 years ago and in my heart I hope that I will visit that city again. I'm not sure why I love Paris, but I think that there are three good reasons. 1) Paris makes me feel smart. I get to use my four years of high school french to order food and make reservations. And people actually know what I'm talking about. This makes me look smart to the rest of my family who can't speak french. 2) Paris still looks like it did in the movies I watched as a kid. The city looks the way I imagine it should look. It's like a dream come true. Not everything turns out that way. So Paris makes me feel like the fantastic things of my imagination are possible. 3) Paris smells good, tastes good, looks good, sounds good, feels good. And I've never met a Parisian who was genuinely rude to me. If you make an effort to say please and thank you in the language of the place, most people will make an effort to understand you as best they can. I love Paris and so my wallpaper remains a Parisian webcam shot and my blog has room for both a Philly Weather Pixie and a chic little number from Paris.