family - always a kick in the head

*sigh* so i still want to write something on the sermon experiment this morning of bringing up in pentecostal context both illegal immigration and julia child. that was an interesting sermonating process. in the meantime, however, i will just past the article i just wrote for the june/july newsletter and then i'm going to bed. yup. i have to be up much too early to go drive too far. ah, well. at least it's a 3-day thing about pastoral imagination.

and, oh. if i'm related to you, please just know that i'm quite positive you think i'm weird, i'm totally ok with this, and if i really thought you'd have an issue with this you wouldn't be able to see it. :)

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I don’t know about you, but I have a big family, and they keep wanting to get together and talk - usually over food. It’s crazy. During a memorable brunch, my mother’s cousin Joanie expounded at length on why women should not be ordained. At another meal aunt Sue leaned over and mouthed rather scandalously that aunt Alice had voted for Obama - a Republican/Democrat divide within the family we never thought would be crossed. And just this evening I had a lively discourse via text messaging with my cousin Scott, a retired army man, about gun control and immigration; I think he just fell asleep on me, by the way. I also routinely hear about Roy’s ... internal parts, George’s having given up on organized religion though he’s a retired pastor and I still can’t figure out what Tim’s relationship with his “sorta girlfriend” is. And I can assure you that they all find me just as strange and routinely have to shake their own heads in confusion as to how on earth we could be a part of the same family tree.

Does any of this sound familiar? While I actually do share genetics with the people mentioned above, the interactions are so very similar to church life. We all know each other’s business, everybody has known everybody for years, and we all put up with the oddities of others and even, when we really admit it to ourselves, we often like them - and always love them. It’s part of what we as a community are about.

We are now entering into that time of vacation and family visits and grilling out with a lot of people we may know but who inspire extreme awkwardness. The winter offers afternoons or mornings of together time, but we really grin and bear it with much longer together-time in the summer. With our families of genetic origin as well as within the church, we find ourselves with maybe not the group of best friends we would pick for ourselves, but there is deep understanding and love and compassion and fun that goes along. One of my favorite aspects of Covenant is that I know that many of us do not agree with each other about countless things, but we still come together and commit to relationship with each other. We somehow see Christ in each other, and we are rejuvenated and keep coming back on Sundays like I am an addict to annual family reunions. It is where we are home and know we have a place and are loved.

Often I try to put a challenge or plant a seed of an idea with my newsletter article. For this summer time, however, I’ll just assure that there is nothing wrong with taking a bathroom break when someone is on the verge of insufferable, and the big jugs of lemonade and iced tea always taste better mixed together. Oh, and try to avoid doing anything you know people will be talking about for years to come... like that time Uncle Sam got spanked by Grandpa (the pastor) mid-worship service there in front of God and everybody. Yeah, we still talk about that one.