Faith and doubt

Still Moving

March 16, 2016 — 4 Comments

In spite of everything, I still believe . . .

Here’s my song for week 10 of #songaweek2016.

You’re the wind and

I’m the good girl

trying to keep her skirt in place

You’re the music

I’m the stoic

fighting the urge to dance

you are the light

but I’m trying to hide

You’re the bread and wine but I have to fast

you’re the question I’m afraid to ask

you’re the letting go, I can’t hold you in my grasp

but over, under, and right through everything

your still small voice still calls

You’re the road and I’m the traveler

you lay your body down

you make a way through wilderness

draw me to the next horizon

spread your spirit out

You’re the paper I’m the pen

you give me space to think

let me bleed all over you

and you wear the mess like it means something

You’re the wave and I’m the sand

I’m trying to stand firm

but you keep on changing me

 

Lullaby for Climbers, Elephants and Divers (Shhh)

March 1, 2016 — Leave a comment

It’s already week eight of #songaweek2016! Here’s my song:

Climb up on compassion’s lap and have a good cry

Don’t be afraid to tell her how you’re afraid to die

Everybody feels it

no matter what they know

everybody wonders

where their last thoughts go

Shhh, shhhh

A pile of poached ivory burned in sacrifice

Some things should not be bought or sold at any price

Every year’s a circle

Every day’s a spin

We’re angel demons dancing

On the head of a pin

Shhh, shhhh

Maybe like an aging star you will expand

Grow brighter, hotter, stronger before the end

Shhh, shhhh

Dive down to the deeps of doubt, let the dark surround

Lose yourself where you started out, wait to be found

Let the waves wash over

let the great fish come

be swallowed whole

by this strange new home

 

Frankenchurch is Loose!

January 15, 2016 — 3 Comments

So the poet Rumi, the novelist Mary Shelley, the comedian Bill Maher, and the Apostle Paul all walk into a book . . .

It’s a book for, about, and by members of the Christian church, and it finds some helpful instruction in things each of these people (among others) have said or written.

The book is called Frankenchurch, and I cowrote it with my father Larry Tindall and our friend Matt Bissonette. It’s a unique conversation grown from a reading of Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein and comparisons we three see with the story of the church.

You can buy the book or download samples for iBooks and Kindle; and the book is available in print version at Blurb.

Here’s a little sample quote from the book:

Many new-to-church people are excited about life, like the newly-made Victim [the name we gave to Frankenstein’s nameless monster], and eager to create a strong and healthy church, like the young and brilliant Victor [Frankenstein himself].

And many jaded church people, including former church leaders, cannot stand the sight of the church they had a hand in creating, the church that also had a hand in creating them.

All of us church folks are both Victor and Victim.

It’s been nearly five years since we began working on this book, when I was still living in Owatonna. Matt conceived the idea, and invited my dad and me to help him with the actual writing and publishing of it. The first drafts were drawn up in my parents’ backyard garden and around their kitchen table as we three met to talk through the bones of the book itself.

I have fond memories of reading Frankenstein on my front porch swing and writing much of the content of Frankenchurch in the early morning hours before the rest of my family woke.

My dad, ever the pastor-teacher and life coach, poured his mentoring care of others into the discussion questions and revisions and additions to the text of the book; and his business acumen into learning and entering the world of self-publishing.

It’s been a true team effort, and we’re excited to finally send our monster creation out into the world!

Ready for a Silent Night

December 4, 2015 — 2 Comments

In the news – more mass shootings than calendar days this year. Police brutality, Black Lives Matter protests, Syrian refugees, domestic terrorists, Islamic extremists . . . and my Facebook feed lights up with posturing and politics, fear, reactionism, polarization. So much of it is ugly, irrational, unkind, thoughtless.

I used to have a lot more to say about these things, back when I was smarter and more authoritative on everything, I guess. Now, I just feel softened, tender towards everyone, silent and sorrowful, observing the overwhelming ocean of humans trying to make their way in the world – a few take their pain and anger to destructive extremes, and the Internet ignites over these incidents. Behind our screens, scanning and clicking, we think we know, we’re sure we understand the heart of the matter.

But I for one am safe and comfortable, and it’s possible that until and unless I somehow become otherwise, I simply cannot understand, have very little that’s useful or constructive to tell you from my social media soapbox.

Maybe not every form of silence is violence. Maybe we could all use a silent night or two – shut down the devices and be still. Breathe.

I still identify as a Christian after all these years of living, all the crimes and abuses done in the name of Christ, all my doubts and grievances and downright embarrassment of the church culture I’ve been part of. And the biggest reason I can think of for my tenacity in this faith, is that I have learned I don’t know it all, don’t have it all, can’t get it right – and my faith remains in a God who loves, and loves, and loves us still – all of us, no exceptions – who holds it all together. And I don’t have to be afraid. I too can love unto death, can love my enemy, need not arm myself for battle. God is greater than all. And God is love.

And “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

PS – If you take me up on the suggestion of a silent night, you might also want some cozy-dark holiday music to ease you back out of it. Halo in the Frost fits the bill, and it’s a free download.

Dark and Dawn and Dag Hammarskjold

August 18, 2015 — 1 Comment

In the soundless depths before dawn
you are with me.
You are not only in the lightening of the sky
but also in the embracing dark of this room.
I wait for you
with you
and the morning
like the night
is faithful.

^What I wrote this morning,
and then
what I read:

“To preserve the silence within – amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness, where the rain falls and the grain ripens – no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky.”

And also this:

“Is your disgust at your emptiness to be the only life with which you fill it?”

^Both quotations from Markings by Dag Hammarskjold