With a Little Help from my Friends

So I'm working on a sermon and finding more and more that I hate doing this in isolation. Maybe my life has been too bland for me to have enough good sermon fodder. Though I doubt it. More likely, when I have to regularly face the question, "Will this really matter to people?" I often have to say I'm not sure I have any idea.

Mennonites talk of a "communal hermeneutic". It's a tongue-twisting way of saying we believe in reading the bible together, in dealing with scripture as a team and in not trusting too much each other's individualistic tendencies. We test with each other whether or not ideas, beliefs, and interpretations make any sense, hold any water or really matter.

This is going to be a little experiment to try that. This may not float your boat. Some of you are likely completely indifferent to the bible or find it passe. If so, take this with a grain of salt. I have the task of facing it everyday and am finding it full of stories that confound me and keep me asking good questions of myself. I trust some of you find this too, or maybe this will be a place to discover that.

Regardless, here's the story I'm facing this week. If you have any thoughts, questions, bones to pick with it, or stories or feelings it stirs, let me know. Thanks for joining the fray that I tangle with most weeks...

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

The Train

Sometimes I bemoan having moved yet closer to the east coast. Usually I make these complaints during rush hour traffic, which seems to be much busier and more dangerous than in any other place I've lived. Though this could be my prejudice playing with my rational sensibilities too.

Nonetheless, the same crowding that makes for hectic driving also makes for good train travel. There are actually enough people around here and things are close enough together to make it viable.

So, today I was riding the train, as I do once a month, to a meeting in a Philly suburb. The train car was packed completely full on the trip home! I have never seen that before on a train in the US, and I frankly took delight in it. The guy next to me said he had actually been bumped from that route three times in recent weeks because it was already full. Imagine that. I'll actually have to start reserving tickets ahead of time to make sure I get a seat.

I think I'll take high gas prices for the moment if it means more people use commuter trains and Amtrak again becomes a viable way to get around the country.

What a treat.

With Some Trepidation

And with any luck, I am reinvigorating this blog.

It has been over a year since I posted. You can guess at the reasons. I moved to Lancaster from Pittsburgh. I started a new, big (for me) job as a pastor. Which includes all sorts of shifts in my self-identity. While I have no trouble telling folks face to face that I am a pastor, it feels quite strange to me to suddenly be one of those post-modern, artsy Christian types with the blog to prove it.

But the truth is, I still think about and care about mostly the same things. I still think of myself as an artist (though I don't get in the studio much). And I still think of myself as a writer (which I actually do a lot of, just not much for publication). And I still like the idea of communicating with any of you out there who may give a rip what I'm up to (though some part of me still wonders what's up with my generation all thinking that everyone wants to read what used to be the stuff of private journals and letters).

So, I'm gonna give this a try again. My posts will likely have less to do with things like upcoming art exhibits, since I haven't been making a whole lot of art these days. Though I hope it's still a place for me to think about art with you all.

It may mean this space ends up with a more spiritual tone, since I'm now a pastor. But that's not necessarily my intent.

We'll see where it goes...

Knowing me, maybe this'll just be my last post for another year...