Bring Your Crash Helmet

Sermon preached March 6, 2011, Transfiguration Sunday, Lake Shore Baptist Church, Waco Texas
Meredith Holladay

It was a perfectly lovely spring day. The sky was clear—clear enough for an afternoon hike.  Crisp air, cool and dry enough not to break too much of a sweat.   We don’t know what the rest of the followers were doing on this particular day. They could have been visiting with others in the surrounding towns. Or maybe they went to the market. Perhaps they were taking some time to rest.  What we are told is that Jesus goes for a hike with Peter, James and John, up to a high mountain.  Though we don’t know which mountain it was—likely either Mount Tabor or Mount Hermon, though for what it’s worth, Mount Tabor seems to be the winner, today boasting two monasteries and the Church of the Transfiguration. It stands about 1800 feet above sea level; mountain paths twist and turn. No way around it; this was no leisurely stroll.

They had been told many things.

They had seen Jesus feed thousands with food enough for a young man’s lunch.  They had witnessed the healing of crowds of people afflicted with leprosy, demons, blindness, deafness.

They had seen Jesus walk on water, and heard his parables of faith.

They had heard his warnings against false piety. All these things were still fresh in their minds, crowding their thoughts with more questions than answers.

Their journey brought them to Philippi, where Jesus had foreshadowed the persecution and suffering that would come.  And in the days prior, Peter offered the messianic confession “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

And yet.

Yet they remained puzzled by what all this could mean.

When Jesus invited these three on a walk I imagine them scurrying to their feet, eager for a chance to talk—really talk—with Jesus about everything they had witnessed in the recent days, especially their bewilderment over the morbid shift in Jesus’ tone. And when he told them they were going up to the mountain, they likely expected something.

After all, mountains are where great and marvelous encounters with the divine happen.  Far above the land of houses, and palaces, above the markets and the temples, mountain tops touched the clouds, the very dwelling place of the Most High.

It was on a mountain that Moses spoke with God, where Moses saw God’s face and lived.  Elijah emerged on a mountain to hear God’s voice in the thundering silence.

And to this mountain Peter, James and John followed Jesus, no doubt profoundly curious.

The Gospel doesn’t give us any details between their ascent up the mountain and what happened next.  We don’t know what sorts of conversation happened as they followed the path to the peak.  Maybe the three disciples trailed Jesus asking questions of him the whole way.  Maybe Jesus answered, maybe he didn’t.  Maybe they remained in silence throughout their climb.  I like to imagine them telling jokes, or recounting favorite memories from their journeys.

What we are told is that something profoundly unearthly happened when they had reached the top. The narration we have sounds so thoroughly ordinary: “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”  They had just rested their feet under the olive trees, and Jesus changed before their eyes.  He shone, and dazzled, and was bright white.

WHOA.

Had he become an angel?  Is this who he was all along? How did his feet get so clean? (At least, that’s what I would want to know.)

No sooner had they adjusted their eyes to the bright light, than Jesus was accompanied by both Moses and Elijah.  The passage tells us that they appeared and were talking with Jesus.  Again we do not have a record of this conversation among prophets.

And what does Peter want to do?  He makes a very generous offer, though perhaps somewhat misplaced: “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  He wants to stay here on the mountain, in the moment.

Forget that they likely brought nothing with them.  This is too good to let go of, too good to walk away from.  This is holy.  We should stay.  Imagine all they could learn by staying on the mountain surrounded by Moses, the lawgiver, Elijah, the prophet, and Jesus, the Christ.

It’s really quite understandable: Let’s sit tight. We could even move in. So what if we didn’t bring anything with us—who needs stuff when we have this view, this is a perfectly lovely place to make a home, settle in, raise a family. We don’t need to descend and risk ridicule, reputation or death.

Among all this fearful chatter, God breaks though repeating the baptismal proclamation: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  The things Jesus had said he would do are true. Listen to what he must do—what he will do.  He is here to confront the powers and principalities that deal in fear, injustice, and hate.

And it’s this—the voice of God that does them in.

The disciples, the story says, are “overcome with fear.”  And who could blame them, really? They’ve climbed up this mountain with their teacher, no doubt a grueling feat in itself.

It would have been enough to be alone with him on the mountain…

It would have been enough to see him transformed and aglow before their eyes.  It would have even been enough to stand in the presence of Moses and Elijah.

All these things would have been enough to send any one of us stammering, shuddering, wilting in fear. And then heaven itself descends even closer than it already seemed.

The voice of God sends them cowering. And it is Jesus’ own voice and human touch that rouses them, speaking words of assurance: “Get up and do not be afraid.”  How often we have heard these words throughout scripture.  Fear Not. Be not afraid. The words are not “there is nothing to be afraid of,” but the instruction “do not fear.”  The words again are disturbing in their impossibility: “Fear Not.”

why I vote.

[I wrote this on the plane. Then I got back home and turned on the election results. I'm disheartened to say the least. That negates none of what follows.]

I vote for a lot of reasons. Primarily because it seems like the right thing to do and I feel guilty if I don’t. But mostly that reason says a lot more about me than about the act itself (ENFJ, #1 Enneagram, Oldest Child, etc.).  Just like I feel guilt if I miss church, fail to complete an assignment fully, or don’t finish my leftovers: it’s the right thing to do.  But just like I have much better and deeper reasons for doing the former things, I have some other reasons why Election Day is one of my favorite days of the year:

1. I vote because I can. I remember being allowed to accompany either my mom or dad to their polling place growing up, being so excited for when I would get my own piece of paper, and have my own selections counted up, while watching the numbers tick up at the bottom of the screen later that night.  So sacred did they consider the right—nay, privilege—to secret ballot, that often I was not allowed in the booth with them.  That perspective has certainly carried over to me.  This election day, as I scrolled through dozens of facebook statuses proclaiming each had voted, and reminding others to do the same, I came across one that caused me pause.  My dad’s wife grew up in Liberia. She intimately knows the inability, inaccessibility, and uncertainty of a free electoral process.  Her status read: “I love voting. It always moves me to tears. I am blessed to live in a country where I can freely vote my conscience with no repercussions.”  Yes. I vote because I can. Without fear of violence, threat, or coercion.
2. I vote because I am a citizen, and it is my responsibility.  We are fortunate to live in a society in which the democratic process is a given.  At the core of our country’s political values (at least at their most idealistic) are certain freedoms—freedom to choose, to believe, to speak.  Because we are not a direct democracy, the most important way we ‘speak’ is in electing officials who will govern, initiate change (or block it), create laws or deconstruct unjust laws, and appoint officials who will seek justice for all members of our society. I vote because I have a responsibility to speak my voice.
3. I vote because it is the first step.  My rights and responsibilities as a citizen do not begin and end with voting. Many of us are wont to begrudge the selection come election day.  We say that we’re “given” only a choice between ‘worse’ and ‘worser.’  The truth is that we are the ones who have given us the choice.  The political process is ongoing, and involves advocacy, activism, and involvement.
4. I vote because everything I’ve already said is idealistic bullcrap. And I hate that.  That our political process is often mere formalism, that our politicians are often all full of the same dirty tricks and victim to the same big money, that our own idealism renders us lazy and hopeless, angers me, frustrates me, stirs me into inertia.  But I still believe in our Constitution, which speaks for freedom, equality, justice, the pursuit of happiness.  I believe that I am responsible to and for other people, and my voice as my vote is an important (though often tiny) part of that.  I vote because I want to believe in idealism and I want to believe in progress. I want to believe I’ve done a small something.
5. I vote because others cannot. There are disenfranchised members of our society, and we have many labels for them. I am privileged. I know the system. I know the system so well, sometimes I forget to recognize that I am a participant in all of its rules, regulations, norms, and values. I vote for myself and for them.
6. And I vote because I may one day have a daughter I can take along to the polling place, and I want to tell her about voting. I want to let her wear my “I Voted” sticker, and be proud of democracy. I want to tell her about voting early because I would be out of town. I want to tell her about voting for winning candidates and losing candidates. I want to be an example to her and instill in her the same idealistic, sacred values of speaking for ourselves and for others.

table talk

(Read in church, Sunday, October 17, 2010, Children’s Sabbath)

I am a child of statistics.  They say children who eat dinner at the table, with their families–even one night a week–are less likely to smoke, drink, do drugs, develop eating disorders.  We are more likely to do well in school, eat our vegetables, and learn big words.  Kids who eat with their parents are 40% more likely to earn As and Bs, read for pleasure, and do their homework.  Check, check, and check. Yep, I am a child true to the statistics.

My family ate around a table together every night.  Most nights, we sat around the table in the kitchen, with the news playing quietly in the background.  Wednesdays our family grew–eating church meals with an extended church family–though I had to share my pastor-dad with a host of other faces and needs and wants, though most weeks it was more blessing than burden to literally share my family.

Sunday nights our laps were our tables, and the news was replaced by football or Touched by an Angel (for the record, neither were my first choice)—and the meal replaced by microwave popcorn. (You know I’ve bonded with lots of pastor’s kids over the ubiquitous bags of microwave popcorn that stood in for Sunday night dinner.  Must’ve been one of those classes they taught dad in seminary–but I stopped teaching by the time I got there.)

So I’m a child of statistics.  We gathered around a table for dinner.  We were by no means the stuff of happy-family sitcoms.  We came grumbling, worried, over-worked.  We came crying, sad, and tired.  We even came screaming (okay, maybe that was usually me or my sister).  But more nights than not, all four of us came to the table.  We exchanged the usual conversation–I’m sure you know it well:

–How was your day?
–Fine.
–Did you learn anything?
–No.
–Do you have any homework?
–[shoulder shrug]

So while many nights came and went and it felt like all I was getting out of these family dinners was one more reason to roll my eyes at my parents, the truth is, I can’t imagine family any other way than around a dinner table. Isn’t that the beauty of it?  That family creates the safe place where you can come grouchy, lonely, angry—but yet share a table, share a meal, share the exhaustion of a busy week? All that stops, even for 30 minutes over a plate of spaghetti in the shared space with those who love you.

Now the context has changed.  I come home for special occasions, and my parents are now married to other people.  What hasn’t changed is the table.  We still gather around a table and share meals and conversation (these days I generally offer more than shoulder shrugs). When I am most homesick, I long for a warm meal around a quiet table with the safety and love of my family within arm’s reach.  Now when we gather around the table, we may still come lonely, and even angry, but we gather and we linger: we talk longer, we share deeper, we laugh louder.  We don’t rush off to catch more re-runs on t.v., or to finish calculus homework.  We sit and eat and share.  The table of my childhood became the table of my youth and young adulthood.  Around that table we shared laughter and welcomed the family and friends.  The table witnessed tears over things as trivial as calculus homework (though that might not sound so trivial to some of us!) to the pain of heartbreak and uncertain dreams.  The table witnessed our growing up and our growing together, and it is still the table that gathers us and brings us home.

 

oy vey.

talk about waking up on the wrong side.
it all started with a pounding headache, which should have been my cue to roll over and lay still for another hour.  i stubbornly forced myself to the gym, though did not have the wherewithal to run.  (or much of anything as it turns out.)
I felt all sorts of out of it the following several hours.  I thought I had enough time to get lunch at one of my favorite places with a couple of my favorite people, but didn’t get out of the department on time, so we went somewhere faster (though also good).  I was in such a rush to get to my car and get there (also: hungry), i headed straight to where my car was.  Or so I thought. I could not find my car. (Thank Jesus for clickers.)  The clicker though didn’t seem to be worked because I could not hear the beep-beep.  I resorted to the PANIC! button, because, clearly, I was on the verge of PANIC! (also: hungry)  No honking or flashing lights.  However, there was an empty parking spot right where I began to convince myself I had left my car. Except it was empty.  No way my car got towed, so clearly my car had been stolen. Yep. That had to be the most obvious answer. I go to call Jen, to inform her we would be calling the Police instead of eating sandwiches.  As I continue to roam, and her phone is ringing, she picks up, I look up, and there is my car. In the row behind where I had been aimlessly pointing the PANIC! button. Awesome. Crisis averted.

Headache continued to persist as did general out-of-it-ness.

It wasn’t all bad.  The weather was beautiful. I wrote a paragraph of my dissertation (these days that feels major), and had a delicious dinner and satisfying conversation.

Also, headache gone.

Autumn Mix (candy corn not included)

(For my sporadically-routine seasonal mixtape.)

Reflections on Autumn (in lieu of liner notes)

Autumn comes differently in different places. I talk a big talk about missing the Northeast, waxing nostalgic for days pulled from yearbooks, turning leaves, the glowing orange of sunsets creeping earlier by each passing day, blankets spread across fields, with leaves crunching under the weight of recumbent bodies.  And I do miss all of that.  It’s irreplaceable, really.  Especially if one is lucky enough to experience this picaresque autumnal scene amidst the backdrop of a collegiate campus.  (“There’s just something about…”)  Returning to Texas manifests a whole other level of appreciation for Autumn.  I recently remarked over beers in mason jars that to have lived through–nay, suffered through–a Texas summer is to comprehend despair. To wake up to brutal heat and oppressive humidity, and live with it well past bedtime.  If we could be awake all hours of the day we would know it doesn’t actually leave.  It’s a good thing we sleep, because then we can hang on to a glimmer of hope that maybe the weather changes at night, but just not conveniently to our sleep schedule. And it’s that. Day after day. The lawn dries up. There’s the annual cycle of water emergencies. Summer in Texas is like Winter in the north. No one wants to leave their homes because the sun, the heat, the humidity has piled up outside (like the snow) and it’s just easier to stay inside, turn the air down, and wait till it passes.

When Autumn comes to this latitude, I find myself responding as I do to the impending summer when I’ve lived with Yankees.  The lows are in the fifties–we’re no where near the first frost yet.  The highs are in the eighties–maybe even 90.  And that’s jeans weather down here.  Fall means pants with flip flops and t-shirts down here.  Sweaters and scarves are still a thing of hope (“the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without the words”) and yet, it’s enough.  It’s enough to be able to sit outside; it’s enough to ride with the windows down; it’s enough to pull the pants off the shelf and leave the skirts on their hangers for a while.

random thoughts from the interlude

I’m starting to understand why people stay put.  To stay where one has deepest roots, to remain where one understands and is understood, to continue on where one is content and has no significant qualms has a certain charm.  For reasons—some chance, some well-planned, others perhaps even strategic—all serendipitous, I have left a piece of myself in places far and wide and carry different shades of home with me from each place.  Some are merely specks on my history—where I have visited others but have felt immediately at home, struck blindly, yet comfortably, with the thought ‘yeah, I could live here.’  Others are cities, towns, houses, airports that I’ve worn well—I’ve grown accustomed to their faces, as it were.

Yet, stubbornly, I insist on Louisville as Home.  Which always causes confusion when people try to figure out my trajectory—Kentucky, New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, and probably a handful in between.

With every move comes the excitement of another dot on the map, another place to settle and figure out and explore and discover the wonders and the curiosities that make each place unique.  And then with the goodbyes—always bittersweet.  There’s always something next, but in order to explore the next thing, to move on to the next step, or even to return home (or one of them), something must be left behind.  And with that, part of who I am—part of who I am becoming.  And like all things it’s painful—growing pains maybe?  Or just the familiar, though never assuaged, pang of homesickness.  In this case, though, the home is not a specific place, but a feeling of ease, comfort, knowing and peace.

——

My life as a perpetual student (going on 24 years now) has given me a collection of homes and families that stretches across the map, but has also inured me to the sense of restlessness.  We all sense this restlessness in the search for feeling at home.  When we move away, our new homes will never feel the same as the comfort of the walls or the streets we leave behind.  A sense of feeling like a stranger in a strange land haunts us to varying degrees, at least for a time.

——

Home finds us in surprising ways.  Often in the midst of our restlessness, in the midst of our searching, in the midst of “I-won’t-be-here-long” and “just-for-a-bit” we find ourselves at home.  We find persons and places along our journey that serve, for a time, as a resting place for our weary, questioning, and restless bodies, souls, and spirits.  Out of the sense of already-but-not-yet, often without realizing it, and without planning it, we find ourselves at home.

the first days of spring

The weather in Pennsylvania is bizarre, but in many ways has also proved textbook.  Within days of starting school, as September began, fall gently swept in, with golden sunsets and breezy walks home from campus in the early evening hours.  A bit of snow to kiss us off for Christmas, coaxing us into thinking that Winter might be mild.  Then January.  Bitter, bitter, January.  Very little snow, but “high” temperatures that were anything but, only made worse by a wind that would not let up.  Followed by February, which seemed to make up for its brevity by its unrelenting snow, cold, and treachery.  March snuck up on us around here with some rain and teasings of continued Winter weeks.  Choruses of “oh ye of little faith,” haunted the hanging heads braced for the wind and yet another morning grasping for scarves and gloves.  With Spring Break days away (and ironically as frost still gathered) suddenly a break.  The sun shone a little brighter (or even that it shone at all seemed a miracle), the temperatures courageously broke above freezing, and then continued to climb.  What is that in the air?  Hope?  (And maybe some pollen for good measure.)

I headed to Boston for Spring Break (more precisely, Northampton, then Cambridge), resigning myself to more northeastern grey.  Massachusetts surprised me, however, with perfect spring-like days, ripe for running, wandering, and smiling.  Though I had to drive back through plenty of rain (and thankfully avoided the monsoon that hovered around the East Coast), I only gleefully accept that as further evidence that Spring is, indeed, here. Rain, sun, daylight savings, and March Madness.  I would inject some snarky comment veiling my hurt that Louisville choked, but my inner schadefreude takes comfort in seeing busted brackets everywhere.  That, and Baylor is still in it.  Sic ‘em.

The First Days of Spring — Noah and the Whale

It’s the first day of spring
And my life is starting over again
The trees grow, the river flows
…
There’s a hope in every new seed
And every flower that grows upon the earth

workers need not apply.

Happy National Grammar Day!

Though, honestly, since I’m in the midst of grading exams and essays, National Grammar Day feels a bit like a day of mourning.  For good grammar and proper syntax.  And spelling.  Sigh….

Snow Day

Growing up, I think everyone covets the promise of a snow day.  Any way we got them was good news: when school would be called off the night before and you knew you didn’t have to do the next day’s homework, and stay up late with the promise of sleeping in; when you hoped for a snow day, but went to bed without knowing, and then waking up in the dark, watching “Jefferson County Public Schools: Closed” (if you happened to grow up in Louisville at least) scroll across the screen and scramble back to bed, dreams of afternoon sledding lulling you back to sleep.

The anticipation of snow days and the exhilaration when granted doesn’t quite go away, I’ve found.

(First a disclaimer: while I’ve been in the northeast this winter, and we’ve seen plenty of snow, Bloomsburg must be in a weird spot that hasn’t seen near-the-worst of any of these storms.)

On Friday the University cancelled classes for the second time this semester.  I hope it’s the last time, because we really will be behind in my classes if we miss any more days, but really I just don’t want to see any more snow.  Over it.

The first snow day was a Wednesday and when I woke up at 5:30 to get to the gym by 6:00 still no cancellations.  Everything else from Pennsylvania down to DC was Shut. Down.  Stubborn University administration, I thought.  So I worked out, frustrated that I would have to trudge through the snow to teach to half-empty classes.  When I got home, the words “Classes Cancelled” greeted me on the t.v., email, and website.

Instead of taking advantage of the day off to read, write, plan ahead, and be all-around a productive individual (much like a ‘real’ professional or ‘true’ academic) I reverted back to childhood, starting the day literally jumping up and down at the news.  Then I watched t.v., made bread, read for fun, took a nap, and cooked.

Okay so maybe I didn’t make bread in high school, but still.

Yesterday’s snow day went pretty much the same way–from gym, to bread, to nap, to cooking.

Now that I have fully enjoyed a snow northeastern winter once again, March is two days away and I would like the snow to leave.  I’m ready to run outside and not fear ice patched.

Thanks.