Preaching Peace

Committee Choices

Today I received in the post a mailing from the “head office.” It was a form listing the committees upon which I might serve. I have the option of choosing up to two. There is also a line that reads, “If you do not wish to serve on a committee, please give a reason.”

Oh I have my reasons for not wanting to serve on a presbytery committee. But, “because that would mean attending a committee meeting,” probably does not suffice. The last presbytery committee that I served on met infrequently, as business required. That’s why I opted to be on it. I filled out the form and sent it back and when the list of committees and their members was published, my name wasn’t on it.

Okay, minor oversight. I attended the scheduled committee meeting. We all sat in rows in front of a table at which sat the chairperson of the committee and committee secretary. There was no, “Let’s introduce new members,” let alone welcome them. We went through the business at hand, discussed items and made appropriate decisions. It was fairly cut and dried, mostly dried. Unlike the Psalm, such an evening gone feels more like a thousand years. I wouldn’t call it a waste of time, so much as an activity in which I choose not to spend my time.

I began a process in my current ministry setting that seeks to invest meetings with a sense of spiritual enrichment. Committee meetings have tasks to accomplish and desired outcomes. I began to ponder a set of questions related to committee meetings –

What do people “get out of” a meeting?

How does the structure of the meeting reflect the desired end result? In other words, if the meeting itself is structured in a hierarchical way, with rigid seating plans and an iron-clad agenda, how does that reflect our belief in a spiritual outcome?

If the end result of the meeting relates to the mission and ministry of the church, how is the meeting itself a reflection of that ongoing mission and ministry?

Fortunately in the congregation I am currently serving, committees don’t exist for the sake of committee meetings. If there is a task at hand, a committee will meet to address the task. Sometimes I attend if my opinion is required, but for the most part they run pretty well without me.

The big one, the Kirk Session, meets every other month. Here in the Kirk of Scotland, people are elders for life. Where I came from they would serve three year terms. What I appreciate about a life sentence are two things: the sense of history and the collective wisdom.

Meetings are opened with prayer; not a perfunctory prayer, but a call to worship type of prayer. Then we sing a hymn. The first item of “business” is to appoint a “prayer secretary.” The prayer secretary’s role is to follow the meeting with a sense of spiritual discernment. At the end of the meeting, the prayer secretary offers his or her observations on the meeting, which forms the content of the closing prayer. At the close of the service, er meeting, we recite together the words of a benediction.

In seminary a professor was fond of reminding us, “Preaching the Word, is the Word.” The idea being that the act becomes the substance. Why not with meetings? Attending the committee on mission and ministry is part of the mission and ministry. Spirit informs form. So far it seems to be working out well enough. The straight rows of chairs have moved into semi-circles. It’s a start.

Take Care – John Mann

 

Bumper Music

One of the customs in this part of the world is the use of “Bumper Music” at funerals. Bumper music is a radio term that refers to transitional music, usually short clips of up to 30 seconds that lead out of or into a programming segment.  At funerals it refers to the music played when the casket is brought in at the beginning of the service and that which is played when people are leaving.

In places where I served in the U.S. most funerals were “open casket” at least to the beginning of the service. That required where possible the use of extensive body work to make the deceased look presentable. Extensive and very expensive. Embalming as it’s known. That way people could have a last look at their loved one and not be too repulsed by the sight of a realistic corpse.

Around my part of Glasgow, the funeral companies don’t do much by way of embalming. A body is made as presentable as possible with the understanding that the funeral is happening soon. There’s no need to invest good money into something that is either going in the ground or the furnace. That might seem rather harsh, but I find it gives people a grimly realistic view of death. There is no prettifying it.

I conducted a funeral for the grandmother of one of the girls who attends Sunday School. The girl was around ten years old at the time and she asked me, “Why did they put that new dress on my granny when it was just going to end up burnt?”

One service I conducted was for a thirty year old guy who died from cirrhosis of the liver. When the family viewed his body the day before the service, him having been dead three days already, they commented, “Aye, he looks just like his old self.”

The casket is always carried in at the beginning of the service, usually by friends and loved ones of the deceased, to the accompaniment of the first bumper; a song of some significance. We hear a lot of Arrowsmith – “I Don’t Want to Say Good-bye.” Of course not. Elvis and Sinatra are popular also. Neil Diamond is a frequent bumper. And of course there are the classics, the bagpipes sometimes recorded and occasionally live.

When it’s all said and done, the last bumper is the tune by which people leave the service. The most popular choices are “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” by various artists. Westlife’s rendition of “You Raise Me Up,” and Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings,” will probably be floating around in my head long after any other rational thought has moved on.

Some ministers don’t allow bumper music. Too secular. I understand where they’re coming from, but I find it useful to be tolerant of where people are in their grief. The music that speaks to the heart and soul does not have to be explicitly religious. I am not inclined to tell people who have just lost more than they can comprehend, “No, you can’t have that.”

Our little parish grouping of ministers sponsors an annual memorial service for people who are still in the process of mourning and our theme is Bumper Music. Each of us picks out a song and we say a few words as to how it serves as a transitional movement into and through life and grief. Last year I meditated on Bobby McFerrin’s 23^rd Psalm and the year before on Johnny Cash singing, “We’ll Meet Again.”

This year I’m thinking about the ramifications of a song by Richard Archer called “Help Me Please.” It tends to be the way a lot of people feel around the time of death and dying. One would hope that’s what we’re there for.

Take Care – John Mann

So Boring

Once upon a time someone reported to me, “My children are bored in worship.” There seemed to be multiple implications to the statement. It was delivered as a mild accusation as if, 1: boredom of children is a bad thing; 2: boredom of children in worship was my responsibility both in terms of cause and 3: the implicit need for a solution.

That conversation and others like it were probably the reasons I started shaving my head; so that if I succumbed to the temptation to pull out my hair, there would be nothing to grab hold of.

I must admit that when I am not leading worship, I tend to avoid it. I am selective about how I am bored. On Sundays when I am blessed with a holiday, I tend to engage in what is known as a “lie-in.” Sleep late and read the papers in bed with ample coffee at hand.

On occasions when I choose to be bored by attending worship, I want it to be the proper form of boredom. It is an oxymoron, but I prefer to be engaged with boredom. By that I mean a worship experience that provides just enough leeway for the mind to wander a bit. Not to be so engaging as to try and fill every moment and with programmed expectations about what God is capable of doing through worship.

Which would mean that I avoid worship that seeks to entertain me; I don’t need God explained, which is impossible in any event. Rather, I appreciate worship in which God might be revealed in some way. That can happen in a lot of ways. The way a hymn strikes just the right note; the way a prayer elicits just the right spirit; the way a sermon reveals an interesting pattern of dots that the Spirit connects. Perhaps not as the preacher intends, but as the freedom of spirit is allowed, which is often better anyway. The way questions are left to linger and be pondered.

All of that takes a fair amount of boredom, the clearing of mind and expectation and letting the fields of the heart and soul lay fallow for a season. It is more of an answer than can be given in the exact moment when boredom is flung like a curse.

Those days once upon a time ago were rife with no-win situations. Now a little older and wiser I think back to what I might have said, but even so perhaps to no avail. I might have pointed out the difference between the deadly sin of ennui, in which “there’s nothing to do” and boredom which offers every opportunity. But that was then and the opportunity is for now. Who might respond to an invitation to “come, and be bored?”

A recent visitor shared, “I was looking for a little peace and quiet. I’ll be back.” Maybe he found what he was looking for. I hope I bored his socks off.

Take Care – John Mann

 

Nematodes

Nematodes are amongst the most abundant life forms on earth. They are microscopic worms that live pretty much everywhere, including in us. The average life span of a nematode is around 12 days. Scientists have successfully extended the lifespan of some nematodes up to 30 days. The idea is that what we learn about these tiny creatures may provide benefits to human existence. Specifically, extending the average human life-span.

Life spans have increased and there is speculation that it is possible for a human to live much longer than we currently do. Say, 120 or even 150 years. And for some folks, that’s a conservative estimate.

However, there is speculation in the fields of science that humankind is on course for a different fate, known as the “technological singularity” at which point non-biological intelligence will overtake human intelligence. Singularity is a physics term that refers to the “event horizon” of black holes beyond which it is impossible to see.

The speculation is not so much that we will fall prey to Terminator type killer robots, but more likely that we will be enveloped in a gloopy sludge of exponentially self-reproducing nano-technology.

Avoiding that, we might live a very long time. The question is, however, would we want to?

When you’re young, the prospect of living a long time seems like a good idea. At 20 years of age, life stretches out on a seemingly endless horizon of opportunity. By the time you hit 50, the body starts to get a little creaky. The life that once lay up ahead now appears more in the rear view mirror. We start thinking about retirement.

The problem with living a long time is that the prospects are not for a slowed aging process; rather the prospect is for an extended period of elderliness. Sure, it might be a bit more vital by comparison to typical old age, but at 120 years of age you would have to take pills to accomplish even a hint of what you were capable of doing at 20.

Imagine that sore back you picked up on the racquetball court when you were 40 following you for the next hundred years. Imagine your children themselves being in their 90’s. Who will have the energy to host the Thanksgiving meal this year? The younger generations? Yeah, right.

“Oh that’s great-great-great grandma. Or is she great-great? I forget – they all seem so much alike. Don’t get them started or you’ll never hear the end of it – all that ancient history back in my day nonsense.”

New organs, new joints, probably a host of new relationships. And who’s going to support all that dotage? No sir, you get your old carcass out there and get to work.

Tomorrow I am conducting the funeral for a man who lived a goodly number of years and whose last uttered words in this life were, “I love you.” In dying, he seemed to know something about the meaning of living.

So I think I’ll stick to what God gives me, along with a little healthy living and good luck. The point of life as God offers it is not the quantity of years but the quality of our moments. Not what we accumulate, but how genuinely we love.

Take Care – John Mann