IMMODEST PROPOSAL

Did you know that Planned Parenthood offers:

General health care services vary by location. They may include:

• anemia testing
• cholesterol screening
• diabetes screening
• physical exams, including for employment and sports
• flu vaccines
• help with quitting smoking
• high blood pressure screening
• tetanus vaccines
• thyroid screening
  
  

Pretty cool.

Did you know that they also provide special health services for women?

• Breast Cancer Screenings

• Procedures to Prevent Cervical Cancer
• Female Infertility
• Menopause
• Menstruation
• Ovarian Cancer
• Pap Tests & HPV Tests
• Pelvic Exam
• Urinary Tract Infection (UTI)
• Yeast Infection & Vaginitis
• 
  

Did you know that they also provide special health services for men?

• checkups for reproductive or sexual health problems
• colon cancer screening
• erectile dysfunction services, including education, exams, treatment, and referral
• jock itch exam and treatment
• male infertility screening and referral
• premature ejaculation services, including education, exams, treatment, and referral
• routine physical exams
• testicular cancer screenings
• prostate cancer screenings
• urinary tract infections testing and treatment
• vasectomy

And...programs that educate around sexual orientation, gender identification, birth control and abortion.

And...they provide Morning After Pills, condoms, and abortions to people who otherwise might not be able to afford these important services.

That’s a lot of important services. That’s a long list of care...most of which is not the least bit controversial.

Did you know that Jesus provided controversial services?

The people in day believed that it was wrong to touch someone with leprosy, or someone who was bleeding, or someone who was mentally ill, or someone who had seizures.

The leaders in his day believed that there were only certain days of the week when healing could occur.

The leaders in his day believed that religious purity trumped compassion.

The state of Texas has created a crisis that denies its most economically challenged citizens these services through Planned Parenthood, (dispute-impacts-womens-health-care-in-texas) based on its disdain for a few programs within the Planned Parenthood pantheon of care. I am blown away by the callous arrogance of the legislators. I am blown away by their disregard for the lives of their constituents. The wealthy and middle class citizens of Texas will buy these services. The poor will get sick, and die. Perhaps Jonathan Swift was not so far off in his imagining of a day when the middle and upper class of society would feast on the prepared remains of the poor who had died from neglect. What a banquet of despair for our humanity.

Please join me in praying  for our sisters and brothers in Texas. Pray for legislation that will support our sisters and brothers in need.  Work for that legislation if you can. Pray that this is not a trend that will embolden other states to posture for purity’s sake on the backs of those with the least power in our communities. Health and stewardship should be available to all our citizens. Jesus thought so. I do too.

It is.

It is the place where my wife learned about God and Jesus and the disciples and which line to get in at coffee hour.

It is where she rolled her eyes with friends that would last her lifetime, at zealous Sunday School teachers, who in recent years she has grown to appreciate.

It is where my sister in law was married by a minister who was willing to go the distance to make a marriage between two faiths as natural as a marshmallow at a campfire.

It is where I climbed into the pulpit using a borrowed key and a false premise, and proposed to my wife.

It is where she said, “yes” with kisses that have burned their love into my soul for lo these past 30 years.

It is where I married my wife with over 200 friends and family gathered around as a little flower girl slowly pulled up her frilly socks.

It is where my ears glowed red as I discovered (when I least expected it) that I could become a minister.

It is where we taught a hot little curriculum called: Let’s Practice Christian Love...and giggled about the title.

It is where I was nurtured through seminary by deacons who didn’t understand my need to wear white sneakers.

It is where I became an ordained minister on a day that brought a blizzard, sleet, and blazing sunshine.

It is the 6th pew from the front, by the windows, stage left, behind the pole, where my in-laws have worshiped for 49 years...including those years when Mom had to bribe the kids with candy so they wouldn't  crawl under the 5th, 4th, and 3rd pews.

It is church suppers, and deacons meetings and pledge drives and fellowship hours and arguments and making up and laughing at it all.

It is the last stop before breakfast at The Plaza restaurant, with it’s eggs over easy, black coffee and burnt toast.


It is where my heart felt heavy and my tears fell to the ground as I looked on its charred remains.


It is where young and old and friends and strangers gathered to hold each other in warm embrace, and cry, and say, "it will be ok".

It is...burnt to the ground...but somehow, still alive.

It is in that “somehow” that faith wins the day after the darkest night.

It is in that “somehow” that God’s love will go on amidst and in spite of the charred remains.

It is in that “somehow” that we will come home, to the place we call our “home church.” today, and in the days to come.

It is burnt to the ground...but somehow, still alive.

It is.

Magoo!

This is a flash blog...so hold on!


I have a member of my church, we'll call her "Kristin,"  who keeps a blog. She is, to my thinking, a writer, a singer, a partner with her boyfriend, a loving pet owner, a good friend, person of faith, a compassionate adventurer.


Recently Kristin went to a conference to have some of her writing assessed by peers. Peer review can be a very stressful and very rewarding process. Folks who have similar passions come together to constructively work on making the "best product possible" out of what you've created. As a local pastor, I am on the receiving end of all kinds of reviews every time I open my mouth or publish a thought. It can be frightening. It can be frustrating. It can be thought provoking. It can also be painful.


I've found that there are two kinds of pain: 1. the kind you grow through; 2. the kind that you grow past. Both require healing. 


The kind of pain you grow through comes from someone who knows a lot of your work, saying to you, "this isn't your finest. I think you can do better. Here's what might help..." That is constructive criticism that takes in a lot of factors and sends me on a journey of discovery. I wonder: was I having a bad day? Did the issue push a button for me that I wasn't aware of...or I was aware of and I just didn't care enough in the moment to be attentive to it? What can I do in the future to make this situation better? Healthier? More authentic to my true voice and nature? The steps I take to address those questions are usually uncomfortable, but because I have been set on a track to something better, I am willing to make the trek...each painful step of the way. Many times I actually make it to the Promised Land...where I usually find some new issues to address. Such is living.


The kind of pain that you grow past comes from someone who myopically judges you or your thoughts based on one moment in time. "You spoke about a political issue today, you must be obsessed with politics. Why don't you ever talk about something else?" "You brought up finances in a sermon, all you ever do is talk about money! I left my last church because that's all they ever talked about." I call it the Magoo Syndrome. 


For you youngsters reading this blog, Mr. Magoo was a nice cartoon character who could only see halfway to the end of his nose. He regularly bumped into things, made false assumptions, and created all kinds of chaos with his shortsightedness He usually had no idea the havoc he had caused as he bumbled merrily along his way in pursuit of some simple task. Without casting people as cartoons, I will say that Magoo Syndrome is something most everyone I know (including myself) has been infected with at one time or another. It's just easier to pigeon hole somebody based on a few haphazardly collected facts, than it is to get to know a person. 


Back to Kristin. Kristin attended a writers workshop and was accosted by Magoo Syndrome. She was reduced to a single issue in a single piece of writing that she had poured her heart and soul into. The fullness of her life was negated by a single sentence which went something like: 

"All I get from this blog is that the author is a pathetic person 

who is completely identified by her illness.

MAGOOOOOOOOOOOO!


All I get from that critique is that the speaker is: 1. not a good peer reviewer; 2. afraid of illness; 3. lacks compassion; 4. craves attention; 5. missed the point; 6. doesn't know Kristin at all; 7. made a judgement of an individual based on one small but passionate piece of evidence; 8. needs to be reigned in by the facilitator of the group so that she doesn't make such a magoo-ish mistake again...but that could be my Magoo speaking.


I remember getting a 0 on my first paper in New Testament studies at seminary. That's not an O as in octopus...that's a zero. I had not understood the assignment and had taken a creative approach to the paper. The professor wrote: "You have no business in the ministry. Pack your bags and save yourself the money you would otherwise waste here."

Quite an assessment. Fortunately for me, I knew I had a calling to ministry, and I marched (Ok, sauntered...) over to the professor's office and demanded an apology. I asked him who he thought he was to crush a first semester student on the first paper of the semester? He said I had incensed him. I explained my process and told him that while he was certainly at liberty to critique my academic accomplishments, he had no business commenting on what God was up to with me. He quietly agreed and apologized. He also kept the paper a zero. I worked my butt off to pass...and I did, with a B...and 3 years later that professor was standing on the platform, shaking his head, smiling, and handing me my diploma.

I hope Kristin will continue to write. I hope she'll be able to grow past this Magoo moment. From what I have seen of her work, and her growth as a human being, it looks to me like she has a calling.

--todd

CIRCLE OF THANKSGIVING

At some point today I’ll sit around a table with my family to give thanks. It’s Thanksgiving...that’s what we’re supposed to do. The idea of it freezes my brain, though. I seize up wracking through the past year to choose the one or two people or experiences that I can say I am grateful for when the ‘circle of thanksgiving’ lands at my plate. That is when we go around the table and say something that we’re thankful for. Everyone usually has something...problem is, I have too much. I can’t narrow it down to a moment in time because thanksgiving is where I live my life. Every moment. Really. I can’t remember when it began, but somewhere in the wiring process of my brain, being thankful got priority. 

“Oh c’mon, Todd. You can’t be thankful for sleepless nights or people who are mean or thoughtless or subversive.” True. I am not thankful for those things...but I am thankful that in the midst of dealing with those things, God directs me to creative ways to respond to those things. Sleeplessness? I write a blog or look at the stars until I can breathe easy again and find my way back to bed. Mean people? I’m grateful that I don’t carry their baggage that makes them such pills. Subversive? I remember times when I have acted like that and I rejoice that I have been observant enough to head it off at the pass so it can do less harm to me or whoever is being sabotaged.

I am thankful for my wife, my kids, my family of choice, my friends, my faith, my church, my community, the folks who aren’t particularly “mine” but who are working hard in similar directions, trying to make the world a wee bit better each and every day, the folks who care, the folks who need caring, God (who sustains me through it all). I am thankful for laughter and thoughtful conversations, and being able to feel more fully than I used to. I am thankful for walking. I am thankful for sitting. I am thankful for football parents who cook hot dogs at high school football games on Thanksgiving Day.  I am thankful in each moment, not necessarily for the particulars of the moment, but for the grace to see beyond the particulars. It makes the “circle of thanksgiving” a challenge, but then, what a delicious dilemma to be met with.


May your plate be so full to overflowing this holiday and every day...it is enough.

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers...this turkey needs to go back to sleep.

-todd

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

I heard this poem at our Veteran’s Day program this year. It was reprinted in our local paper.

It Is The Soldier

It is the Soldier, not the minister

Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter

Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet

Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer

Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer

Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician

Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,

Who serves beneath the flag,

And whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

--Charles Michael Province, U.S. Army

As a minister who prays regularly for our military and who is part of a group that reaches out to military families and their friends, I was saddened by this poem. The author seems so lonely...by which I mean, all alone. He sets himself and his fellow soldiers as islands without support or community. He creates a world of Us vs. Them, in a world that I believe needs a whole lot more WE. 

I wonder if  all our military feel so alone? I hope not. I hope that they realize that there are, scattered all around them, people who care a great deal about who they are, what they are doing, and what they have been through. Sometimes we don’t have the words or means to express that in just the right way...but we really do care. I don’t mean “just ministers” care...I mean that I hear throughout our community a great outpouring of concern for our military and their families. Folks just don’t always know what to do.

We recently held a workshop on that topic at our church. The workshop was called: The Spiritual Journey Home from War. It was sponsored by the Brookfield Institute. We had a nice cross section of people attend. 

One of the big things the veterans who were present told us we could do to be supportive was: to “be sincere in your gratitude.” They were not interested in tossed off cliches or political platitudes. The warriors who joined us said that what they really appreciated was knowing that their service was appreciated. Was acknowledged as being difficult. Was witnessed as something that meant something to those of us who were back here, on the home front. The people we met confessed that they did not fully understand all that they were called to do, but it was somehow reassuring to have it acknowledged as having happened. That it was not forgotten.

I have written a response to the poem that was read at this year’s Veteran’s Day program. I use the same title as the original author, because quite frankly, it IS the soldier who is our focal point. It IS the soldier who we gather around and seek to support and owe so much of our lives to...BUT...those soldiers are not alone. They do not operate in a vacuum. I hope that my poem will let them know, that they operate in a world that loves them; in a nation that does care about their well being; in all of the mixed up ways that we express that, including prayers for peace.

IT IS THE SOLDIER

It is the minister, who offers care to the families of the soldier who is at war; 

 who prays for the soldier’s well being while they are away and welcomes the soldier home and offers hope and healing for the wounds that have been accrued while serving the nation.

It is the reporter who records the perils faced in the field.

Who holds the cause being fought for to the light,

in black and white and gray,

so that we do not forget

the powder and sand smudged faces of those making sacrifices on our behalf.

It is the campus organizer who gathers voices in protest against squandering the lives and talents of our armed forces; who cries out for better services when they come home and who reminds us of the ideals our military are fighting for.

It is the politician who must weigh the cost of each soldier’s life lost...or injured...or otherwise forgotten at war by a public that is easily distracted by personal need.

It is the nation, putting our hands to our hearts as we see a flag and remembering with quiet awe

the sacrifices that have been made by our military to protect and preserve

the freedoms that flag represents.

It is the tears of those who mourn our fallen,

cradled in their coffins,

beneath carefully creased blankets of stars and stripes.

It is the great paradox of those whose passions are great,

living together,

soldier and civilian,

in community, 

supporting one another,

that allows us to be one nation, under God.

--Rev. Todd Farnsworth, minister

STONES

A group of people who I respect a great deal had an online conversation recently about water-boarding. Some of the folks were for it...some were against it. Some drew a political line in the sand proclaiming that one party had the bragging rights on the issue. I was impressed by the respectful way the conversation unfolded. Very few cheap shots were taken.  It was clear that there was a difference of opinion on the topic.

It got me thinking about torture in general...or “enhanced interrogation” as we are calling it these days.

I understand the need for information that will keep us safer. I get that sometimes people possess knowledge that could endanger or save the lives of 100’s maybe 1000’s of people. It is important to get that information. There have been occasions when “enhanced interrogation” has been effective in ascertaining important pieces to a particularly tricky puzzle of intelligence. There have also been occasions when the enemy has resisted the painful experience, and he or she has withheld the wisdom that is being sought.

I’ve heard a few folks argue that the interrogator needs to get “tougher” on their prisoner. I’ve also heard a few folks argue that this is why torture should not be bothered with in the first place. I confess, I don’t have the answer to which is right and which is wrong...and I don’t want to push my reader in any particular direction either.

What I am reminded of in this scenario is the time Jesus was sitting with a woman who was accused of adultery. It was a crime punishable by death. She was, in the eyes of those who had cornered her, an enemy of the faith. I’m guessing you remember Jesus’ response to this situation...he did not preach at the woman or her captors,...he made them an offer:

Whoever among you is without sin, feel free to cast the first stone.

My issue with enhanced interrogation comes out of my wrestling with that offer. I wonder if we are always in the right? I wonder if the enemy’s issue with us is always without virtue or merit? I wonder how we can feel outrage about the torture of our soldiers by the enemy, if we are engaging in torture? To take it a step more personal (and I do believe that war is personal, otherwise we would not have support groups for folks who are worried about their loved ones who are deployed or support groups for folks who have experienced so much trauma in war that they now have Post Traumatic Stress Response) I wonder how we can find it acceptable for the young men and women we pray for each Sunday in worship, to be subjected to “enhanced interrogation” if they were to be captured? Because when we agree as a country that it’s OK here...we imply that it’s OK over there. We’re all God’s creatures...right?

When I think about casting that first stone at one of the young people from Belchertown who are serving our country, I shudder.  It is not OK with me. I do not want to hurt them. I do not want anyone else to hurt them. I love them. I want them to come home to be with their families and friends. I want them to have as little to heal from as is possible in the midst of war. I am not naive. I know that there will be a lot to recover from; seeing people hurt, seeing people die, being on constant alert for the safety of your life. That is tragic enough for me. I also know that when they come home, if they come home, I will be there to help them (and their families) put the broken pieces back together again.

The thought of  adding  another stone to the heaviness of war is enough to sink my heart.

WE HAVE A PROBLEM

We have a problem

This is actually the first blog I ever wrote and I am glad to have had God sitting on my shoulder giving me guidance for it. My hope was and is to let this be a space for wondering about God, Jesus, the Spirit and the seasons of the sacred that we move through as we live our lives.

I'm thinking about our church's financial woes today. I actually think about them every day. Our church's struggle to survive has a bit an of impact on my life...and livelihood.

I recently used an online imaging program called Prezi (PREZI) that allowed me to put pictures of our church's ministries all on one page. I had pictures of: food shelf, relay for life, BUCC's Place, Taco Salad, Prison Ministry, Bring Mickey Home ministry, Sunday School, Worship (with people hugging at the passing of the peace), You Are Not Alone ministry to military families, Theater ministries, facebook ministries, web page ministries, tv ministries, CROP Walk ministry, denominational ministries (NIN and OGHS, plus the clergy group that I am a participant in). It was an exciting collage, especially since I knew in my mind that I was missing pictures for some of the things we do. Visiting the sick. Comforting those who are grieving. Baptisms. Weddings. A domestic abuse support group. A building that houses several agencies for change such as AA, Scouts, NarAnon, and Community Options.

Each one of these ministries fits our understanding of Jesus' open arms and extravagant welcome. Each one of these ministries fits our call to compassion and healing in His name. Each one of these ministries is a witness to who we believe God to be.

It is quite a picture...under which I wrote the words, "We have a problem." Because, we do. Unless something changes in our financial picture, we will soon be out of money.

We have a problem. As I look at the pictures I see people laughing, hugging, working together. I see people who are predominantly youngish (mid 30's) with a smattering of 50 year olds and a very few in their 80's and 90's. I see large groups of people coming together to put their faith into action. I see groups that are living their faith and inviting others to join in the fun.

And maybe that is where the problem lies....

When I look at the collage, I do not see any pictures of us passing the offering plate. I do not see any pictures of us coming together to make our "pledge" to the church. I do not see "fun" when I look for it around our sustained giving to BUCC...which is weird...because we have found a way to make virtually everything a party at this church. We have a culture of celebrating and inviting, and yet we have missed the confetti cannon opportunity on our cash flow!

I wonder what it would look like for us to celebrate the money we offer up in Jesus' name, for the continuation of this holy party we call The Belchertown United Church of Christ (BUCC)?  Would there be conga lines? Congo lines? Limbo sticks? Music? Snacks? Silly hats? A fun gesture that we give to one another to say, "yeah, I pledged today...how 'bout you?"

We have a problem. I have faith that with God's Spirit among us, we can turn this thing around. Congo lines? Maybe.

--todd