The Tormentor
I’ve been working out with Dawn the Tormentor fairly consistently for the last four years. Look at her, over there on the right. She looks dangerous, powerful, deadly — right? She’s great, of course, despite her having tried to kill me approximately twice a week for four years. I may be the only person who hired a trainer and then gained weight for two years. Dawn never gave up on me, though. Even through those two years, she called upon me to ask things of my body that I thought were long past it. She adjusted when my feet were killing me because of plantar fasciitis or when my hips or back were out or my neck had a pinched nerve. She never let up on me, but she adjusted my workouts, went with the flow, thought of new things. She pressed me to do more than I thought I could without ever making me do more than I should. There were days when I left the gym after half an hour when I thought my legs had turned to … Continue reading
From “If Only” to “What If” — Changing the Dream
Ten people sat around the table in the church’s Fellowship Hall. Together the members of the church council represented about 25% of the church’s total active membership and about 50-75% of its average weekly worship attendance. Their pastor had just moved on, and they had invited me there to talk about options for pastoral leadership. I knew that what I was really there to talk about was change. For nearly nine years, it has been part of my job to sit around these tables and have these conversations in United Church of Christ congregations around Northern Wisconsin. As rural populations decline and cultural paradigms shift, many of our churches are shrinking. Of the fifteen open pulpits I will leave as I wind up my work by the end of June, nearly half will only be able to afford part-time pastors. Most of them perceive the need to move from full-time to part-time as a huge step backwards, as a failure. “If only,” they say. If only we had had the right pastor, if only the plant hadn’t closed, if only … Continue reading
Failure? Or Detour?
I’m trying to become a fan of failure. For the last 19 months, I’ve been on a journey toward improved health and fitness. I’ve lost about 160 pounds with more to go, gained actual hard biceps and some ab muscles I can begin to feel at least a little bit. I can walk for several miles, ride a bike for 20-30 miles, walk up and down stairs with ease, and do all kinds of things I couldn’t do before. Using many measures, I’ve had a lot of success. I also had a tough winter. Stress, grief, and anxiety in many forms took their toll, as did what felt like too many months of cold and snow. I gained back about fifteen pounds, maybe a little more. A couple of days ago, I read a blog over on SparkPeople from someone who had done the same thing. She talked about it as her “failure.” She made a vow not to fail again. I recoiled from this, and I began to wonder why. I had to do a quick check. Was I … Continue reading
Risen Christ vs. Zombie Jesus
May 1, 2011 | Second Sunday of Easter Year A 1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31 I’ll be the first to confess that I have missed a fair number of popular culture memes. I try to stay on top of things, but I’m often pretty much behind the curve. So I was late, for example, on vampires. I read one of Anne Rice’s books, but didn’t really get the appeal. And I never got to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer until after the series was over. I fell in love with it and ended up buying it on DVD. And although some of my online friends were talking about zombies a couple of years ago, and sending pictures of the makeup and costumes they been putting together for zombie parties, I didn’t get it. Apparently, zombies have had a resurgence in popular culture in recent years. I’d seen hints. I’d seen a hint of it in a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, A sort of “Mr. Darcy meets the undead” thing. Now if you are a fan of Jane … Continue reading
