Posted by: schlingensiepen | May 12, 2011

Riding with the Man of La Muncha – Part I


Usually, this is Tobias’ blog, but I’ve asked him for an opportunity to share my perspective, for a change (Truthfully, when do you ever get the perspective of the bicycle, the one who, after all, bears the brunt of the burden?). When I first proposed this to him, he was buried in his newspaper. As his kids know, this is the most auspicious time to ask him just about anything, since he’s usually oblivious to the world while reading the paper. In this case, however, I fully expected him to put up at least a little resistance. Nothing! He didn’t even ask to see what I would write but agreeably mumbled his WordPress account info and his password from behind the paper!

I was dumbfounded. ‘Either he’s courageous or terribly naïve,’ I thought to myself. To make sure he had even heard me, I asked him a second time. “It’s fine, go with it,” he said, “You deserve it. What would our adventures be without you, dear Rosinante” ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘what a fair-minded fellow he is – and trusting!’(Fortunately, I’m a loyal bicycle.)

Tobias, as you may have noted, has taken to calling me Rosinante. You see, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote is one of Tobias’s very favorite books. If you ask me, the reason it’s one of his favorites is that Tobias, I think, increasingly sees himself as a kind of Don Quixote, as the kind of fool a Christian must necessarily be who would take Christ’s gospel at its word, and to heck with the consequences. (I’ve heard him mumble as much under his breath on several occasions.) Bicycling, I believe, is his way of ‘tilting at windmills,’ only that the dragons and sorcerers he battles are largely within himself – but not always! Perhaps bicycling is his way of getting up his courage and his strength for the real-world battles of which, alas, there are so many.

[It should be noted that on occasion Tobias also refers to me as “my wire donkey,” which could mean that he sees me as a kind of cross between Don Quixote’s ‘noble’ steed, Rosinante, and Sancho Pansa’s nameless donkey. More likely, however, it is simply the literal translation of the compound noun Drahtesel, not infrequently used by speakers of the German language to refer to their bicycles. Since donkeys bear heavy burdens, I might note at this juncture that Tobias could stand to lose a few pounds. While he may think he is like Don Quixote, bodily he more closely resembles Sancho Pansa. Until he sheds a few pounds, I think I'll refer to him as the Man of La Muncha. (Get it? From English ‘to munch?’ Never mind!)]

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been doing some riding myself lately. That’s right, the bicycle, too, has been riding! Before leaving for a meeting in Cleveland, Tobias bought a bicycle rack for his car, so that I could accompany him on his travels. He took a few days of vacation around the date of his meeting, promising me a ride or two along the way. Since we only had two rides together (one at the beginning and one at the end of our travels), I rode aback his Toyota Corolla for most of the trip, which is better than spending most of my time in a dark, dusty, and dreary garage!

Riding a car on a rack is amazing. The headwind is terrific. Tobias always complains, “No matter what direction you ride in, it seems you always have a headwind.” I loved it! The wind rushed through me. Once, it blew through the spokes so hard I began to hum. The sound vibrated through my whole body. For the first time in my life I was singing – singing! It was like nothing I ever experienced before. It was truly beautiful. Tobias noticed it, too. I could see him giving me the thumbs-up through the rear window.

Tobias’s driving, at times, leaves a lot to be desired! It made me nervous when, looking through the rear window, I spied him fiddling with the buttons on his car radio. “Hey,” I wanted to call out, “pay attention! These semis are big, really big!” We were lucky; I don’t know what would have happened if his brother hadn’t loaned him a Garmin. Can you imagine Tobias fumbling with maps while navigating his way through Chicago on our way to Cleveland? Unthinkable! Often, I think God really does look out for him – and me!

[To be continued…]

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Posted in Bicycling, Don Quixote, Humor, Rosinante, Sancho Pansa | Tags:

Posted by: schlingensiepen | May 11, 2011

RE: Public Forum on Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s Proposal to Close the Kansas Neurological Institute


It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything about bicycling. I will, however, post something about this very soon. My bicycle has promised to write the next one – so look out!

In the meantime, for those who may be interested in viewing and hearing the speeches that were delivered at the public forum on Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s proposal to close the Kansas Neurological Institute (KNI), just copy and paste the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/fcctopeka

The citizens of a truly humane society will measure rivaling political visions by the way these provide for the well being of their most vulnerable fellow citizens. What matters is not the rhetoric such visions regularly deploy with regard to caring for the most vulnerable; what matters are concrete, dependable, and accountable provisions, fully adequate to their need and dignity – and to those of all citizens.

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Posted in Attorney Pedro Irigonegaray, Dr. Kevin Sundbye, Joan Kelley, KNI, Rabbi Mark Levin, Representative Annie Kuether, Representative Lana Gordon, Rev. Tobias Schlingensiepen, Senator Laura Kelly, Senator Roger Reitz, Senator Vicki Schmidt, The Kansas Neurological Institute

Posted by: schlingensiepen | April 15, 2011

A Sermon, For a Change.


[A revised version of a sermon on Matthew 4: 12-23, that I  originally delivered on January 23, 2011 at First Congregational Church in Topeka, Kansas and led to my  involvement in Clergy Concerned for the Welfare of the Residents of the Kansas Neurological Institute (KNI). It was printed in an edited version in the Emporia Gazette on April 15, 2011 (http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/apr/15/follow-me.) This, by the way, is the sermon alluded in the Kansas Public Radio interview that Bryan Thompson conducted with me on the Governor's proposal to cut funding for KNI that aired on March 7, 2011. To listen, go to  http://www.kansaspublicradio.org/newsstory.php?itemID=27668.) For a moving response to the KPR interview from Hays, go to http://coachhays.com/2011/03/23/shame-on-me.]

Follow Me

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to hear this story from the perspective of Zebedee. Some total stranger comes by and calls his two sons (the future of his business and his pension plan) out of the boat, and off they go. It would be interesting to have a photograph of his facial expression at that particular moment.

As I read the lesson again this week, I could not do so without returning again and again in my own mind to the whole question concerning the future of the residents of the Kansas Neurological Institute. I also thought about other places that no longer exist in this city and elsewhere, places like the Topeka State Hospital, places that served people for whose well being we once felt a civic obligation, even pride that new and truly humane forms of treatment had once been pioneered here, by the Menningers, and those who followed them. I thought about those with severe mental and physical challenges, in this case, those who are really the most vulnerable among us. And the question that keeps imposing itself on my reflections is this: Who is responsible?

We can read our lesson to say, ‘Well, Jesus was coming through one day and he called out to some men in a boat to leave everything behind and follow him. The kingdom of heaven was near so he asked them to forget about everything else and join him on his journey. They’d see soon enough where the trip would lead. They left the boat and headed for glory. Churches today often resound with the words of a popular contemporary song, which includes these: from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky, Lord I lift your name on high.  If this were meant as a description of the Christian life, I would have to add that there is a big chunk missing!

Too often, praise is all about praise, about how we feel – and often are in need of feeling – in the act of it. But praise is first and foremost a response to God’s grace and goodness, and that response, if it is from the heart, implies a willingness to be responsible for the things God cares about. For a Christian to offer God praise, is to agree to follow Jesus, and this means first and foremost following his teachings. It means we have to take the journey with him – to the cross!

Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, James and John, “Follow me,” and they leave their boats and follow him. The lesson concludes with what scholars call a summary: “Jesus went through Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people” (4: 23 NRSV; emphasis added).

There is, then, something between our being called and the glory to which we are called. It has something to do with the words Matthew in our lesson quotes, the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” This is more than possibly also a reference to the mission to the Gentiles; it proclaims the dawning fulfillment of God’s promise to put an end to the sufferings of the people who dwelt in that region.

There are many people in our own State who are still sitting in “the region and shadow of death,” people who are still waiting for the light to dawn. As we in our State’s executive branch and legislature discuss budgets and how much money there is – or isn’t – for this, that, and the other thing, we are failing to address what should be asked first: What should our priorities as Kansans be? In other words, what should matter to us, and who?

We say that what we are doing is “balancing the budget.” It’s made to sound like heroic work. But let’s be honest – what we are, in fact, saying is: We place a higher value on this than on that. But who would really want to come out and put it that way, that we want to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable?

Every church member knows that a church’s budget is not just about money – it is THE indicator of what a particular congregation truly believes. With regard to KNI, the question boils down to this: Do we care about our State’s most vulnerable citizens? It’s a discussion we need to have, and not as it is currently taking place, as a debate about the budget, or under the gun of “balancing the budget” by such and such a date! It is a discussion that needs our time, as well as our primary and full attention. It is a question that includes the residents of KNI, but one that is also much larger in scope.

I am not saying that taking care of the vulnerable is necessarily the state’s (i.e. the government’s) responsibility, although I would hope that doing so is an important value to all Kansans and that, if given an opportunity, we would gladly put our hearts and minds and means to work discussing how we might do a better job of it. We might, for example, consider thinking about fair taxation, about what all of us, from the wealthiest on down, including the churches, would be willing to give to make Kansas a more caring, a better place to live for all. What, after all is the state, if it is not an expression of the concerns of its citizens. It is the responsibility of all Kansans to have a debate about the values that should govern the policies we would be governed by. Are the most vulnerable among our fellow citizens of concern to us? This is a discussion for which we should make time.

But, right now, and closer to home, I’m wondering: Where are the churches? Where are those of us who profess to care about these things – who profess to follow Jesus in addressing the needs of “the lame, the halt, and the blind,” of the outcast and the marginalized, of the ‘least of these?’ Whether our Governor or our Legislature is concerned with these things is not the first question – are we? Does following Jesus affect our understanding of what it means to be a citizen of Kansas? Should we bear witness to our discipleship in the public square? With regard to KNI, anyway, the churches have been astonishingly slow to respond! We should be haunted by the voice of the Son of Man, who at the judgment of the nations says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matthew 25: 45 NRSV).

What will happen to the residents of KNI, if that facility is closed? Who will ask these questions – not just today, but tomorrow and the day after? Who will continue to pay attention to the well being of KNI’s residents, should that facility be closed? How will we know? A government that is not given the means to address these questions, will not be of any help here, regardless of how concerned individual Kansans may be in principle about the well being of KNI’s residents and that of the vulnerable in general. I am praying that the Christian community, together with members of other religious communities, will say to each other, ‘Taking care of the vulnerable is the bottom line for measuring the well being of our State. Let’s work together to encourage all Kansans to help make our State a leader in caring once again. Let’s encourage our Governor and our legislators to take some leadership here rather than bowing to the non-existent god of ‘budgetary necessity.’

And let us not fool ourselves either! Many churches bow to this same god, to a religious narcissism that demands nothing of us beyond the conviction of personal salvation. Jesus called Simon and Andrew, James and John, yes! But what did he call them for? The gospel we hear again and again, is “good news for the poor” (“Blessed are the poor…”). Are our concerns, our commitments, as individuals and as members of the Body of Christ, attentive to this good news? Or are we more concerned about protecting our financial prosperity, our “blessings” – as if God made no demands upon us as to how these blessings should be shared to improve the lives of those who have fallen by the wayside (The Good Samaritan)?

The early church was very concerned about the poor. Members of the diaconate, or deacons (one of the first offices established in the early church), were called to go around and make sure that the vulnerable members of the community were cared for fairly (See Acts 6: 1ff.). And in the first centuries of the church, one of the primary things that came to distinguish the Christian communities from many other religious groups were their hands-on commitment to caring for the vulnerable in general. Emperor Constantine was impressed by how the churches took responsibility for the well being of the thousands upon thousands of people flooding to the cities from rural areas in the Roman Empire. To do so, Christians created hospitals and schools.

In our own State, we can point to Christian men and women who, like Charles M. Sheldon (author of “In His Steps”), rallied us around such questions as “What would Jesus do?” It is a popular question again today among many Christians. Sheldon, however, did not see this as a private ‘religious’ question but as one that pertained, and was relevant to, the well being of all people here and now. The churches at their best have always preached the gospel – “when necessary with words.”

I am seriously feeling led to help encourage members of the faith community in Kansas to come together for a conversation about what our commitments should be to the vulnerable in our State, as part of a discussion about what our commitments should be to each other as fellow citizens. How can we help our politicians to come out from behind budgetary debates and lead a discussion about what our priorities as citizens of this State should be? Could that be part of our church’s mission, of any church’s mission, to help foster such a debate, to hold ourselves responsible for its outcome?

Congregationalists have never been very numerous in Kansas (when compared with Methodists, for example), but we have encouraged freedom (helping to prevent the establishment of slavery in Kansas), as well as mutual responsibility expressed through good government (a legacy of the covenant theology of the Reformed tradition, to which we belong; a tradition which, by the way, had an enormous impact on the U.S. and the Kansas Constitutions). Congregationalists have also upheld the importance of education, helping to found many notable universities throughout the nation, including Washburn University here at home.

After years of ecumenical decline, I think the time has come for people of faith – of all faiths – to come together, to put our heads and our hearts and our means together to encourage and participate in a debate about values in our State.  The letters ‘K,’ ‘N,’ and ‘I’ could serve as an apt acronym here, standing for “Kansas and I,” or: What should I, as a citizen of Kansas, care about together with other Kansans? How can we, as individual Kansans, work together to make our State a model of caring once again, beginning with the most vulnerable and including all citizens of our once visionary State.

I ask us all to think this week, indeed every day, about what it means when Jesus says, “Follow me!” Is it just ‘from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky?’ Jesus, remember, also said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?” No, to follow Jesus means being willing to carry our cross, to be just as incarnate in this world as Jesus was, to be just as much alive ‘in the flesh’ as Jesus was to the needs of the vulnerable, to care for them – no matter what the personal or collective cost! We must not spiritualize the vulnerable out of our field of vision and responsibility. Any response to God must include our response to them.

I strongly believe that now, more than ever, how we respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow him will determine not only the well being of our churches but also the well being of our State.

What are we going to do that is worth leaving dad sitting in the boat for?  It is worth our considering.

Praise be to God. Amen.

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Posted in Bryan Thompson, Caring for the most vulnerable, Charles M. Sheldon, Christianity, Covenant and Constitution, Deacons, Diaconate, Discipleship/Discipline, Fair Taxation, Freedom and Good Government, Governor Sam Brownback, In His Steps, Jesus, Kansas, Kansas Public Radio, KNI, Lord I Lift Your Name on High, Political Leadership, Poverty, The Coach Hays, The Emporia Gazette, The Kansas Constitution, The Kansas Neurological Institute, The Menninger Foundation, Topeka State Hospital, Washburn University, What would Jesus do?, WWJD, Zebedee

Posted by: schlingensiepen | February 1, 2011

Boredom. The Gateway to Bliss – II


In the previous blog entry, I stated that “boredom is the gateway to bliss.” In what follows, I would like to clarify a little more what I mean by that. Once it’s clear, you’ll see right through it.

If you explore rather than avoid boredom, you realize that the term, with its ordinary connotation of ‘nothing happening,’ is quite inapt. When you are bored, a great deal is going on!

To be bored is to be exposed to whitewater rapids of mental images that constantly course and crash through the canyons of our brains.

These rapids, as I have observed often enough in myself, are usually accompanied by a keen sense of restlessness.

Therefore, when someone exclaims with a sigh, “I’m bored,” what is it that is really being said?

Isn’t it possible that to express boredom is to articulate a desire to be freed from the rapids, the fear and anxiety these evoke?

This metaphor is useful, for it confronts us with the untamed and wild nature of our minds and, therefore, with our fear of being vulnerability to it.

Ordinarily, we ‘bridge’ this state of affairs by occupying ourselves with something capable of engaging our attention, like reading a book, watching a movie, or going out on the town with our friends.

However these may muffle our anxiety, the whitewater rapids continue to thunder below.

There is an existential quality to this observation in the sense that our external life is very much like the mental rapids within. This is no accident.

Most of life is spent devising all kinds of schemes to protect ourselves against its more threatening aspects – ultimately, of course, in vain. No matter what we do, we will suffer, good things and bad, and one day we will die!

It is not my purpose here to discuss what is meant by ‘life,’ by ‘death,’ or ‘life beyond death,’ except to say that our everyday perception of ourselves and the world around us, our ordinary (self/other)consciousness contributes to our sense of vulnerability, helplessness, and often enough despair.

We make distinctions between ourselves and others, ourselves and the world around us. What if we ascribe more reality to this distinction than it in fact deserves; what if this distinction is a mirage?

Here, I would only suggest that exploring boredom may be a way of approaching this question and therefore of shooting life’s rapids.

Doing this requires some kind of ‘kayak,’ some means of navigating the wildness of the waters, whether in our heads or in our lives.

Such ‘kayaks’ can be many things – relationships, painting, dancing, writing, doing mathematics, singing, praying, meditating, worshiping, engaging in sports, yes, and bicycling.

For what I am talking about, being able ‘to do’ any of them more or less well doesn’t matter; in fact, an awareness that one has achieved something, as opposed to nothing, that one has ‘made it,’ as opposed to ‘bombed’ is a detriment rather than an help. What counts is that one keeps at it, without worrying about results.

These ‘kayaks’, employed regularly and with discipline, help us to explore the nature of the ride, or rather actually help us to dissolve into the rapids being explored.

By cycling, I have discovered that, when I am fully focused on it, things begin to change. Suddenly, there is no ‘kayak,’ no bicycle. Furthermore there is no ‘me’ nor anything other – I and ‘the rapids’ are one. There is for a time no discernible difference.

Giving myself over to the boredom of the routine involved, then, is to surrender my ordinary sense of self so completely to the task and experience at hand that all feelings of helplessness, as well as of control, vanish.

‘Kayaking’ regularly, in whatever way – planting flower bulbs, washing dishes –, gradually transform one’s sense of self. The relationship between one’s self and the people and things around begins to change. The usual sense of distinction and separateness gives way to a much more powerful sense of unity and connectedness.

As my perception of myself in relation to everyone and everything else, to all that is and happens changes, how I think about ‘life,’ ‘death,’ and ‘life beyond death’ is beginning to change, as well.

It is a process in the course of which you realize that there is no place to start from and no place at which to arrive; there’s just pedal stroke after pedal stroke after pedal stroke.

There is no boredom and there is no bliss; really, they are the same.

And the gateway, too, is but a useful fiction, helping me to express what cannot be captured but only experienced as a continual passing through.

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Posted in Bicycling, Bliss, Boredom, Contemplation/Meditation, Cycling, Death, Health, I/Other, Life, Meditation, Transformation, Uncategorized | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: schlingensiepen | January 21, 2011

Boredom. The Gateway to Bliss


Riding through the snow is not as easy as it sounds. By this, I don’t mean riding my bicycle through the white stuff (I have taken my bicycle indoors, where I have converted it into a stationary bike). I mean, rather, riding my bicycle through to a time when the snow will have melted and I will be able to ride outdoors once again. Riding through the snow in this fashion is not easy, primarily because it’s difficult to stay focused.

When riding indoors, there are fewer things to distract you. Logically, then, you would think that this would make it easier rather than harder to focus – I mean, of course, to focus one’s attention on riding.

For example: when riding a bicycle on a street or a road, focus matters. Paying attention to traffic and to the quality of the road or surface on which you are riding is essential, since not doing so can easily lead to an accident.

But let’s say that you know the road well – you’ve traveled it many times; it’s newly paved and therefore smooth; there’s hardly any traffic to speak of – there is not as much need to ‘be on one’s guard.’ Under these circumstances, the mind has some freedom to wander, to explore changes in the character of the landscape, for example.

One’s attention is drawn to variations in topography – how level ground gives way to the ups and downs (in every sense!) of riding through rolling hills; to variations in scenery – how wooded portions give way to open fields. Variations wrought by changing light conditions attract the senses, too. The seasons do their part, making even familiar vistas seem fresh and vibrant, each one with its own kinds of vegetation, its own quality of light and color.

Such variations are distractions, in the sense of ‘things that attract or amuse.’ They are the opposite of things we experience as boring, as a bummer, a downer, or a drag. Distractions in this sense are also called diversions.

Obviously, there are other kinds of distractions and diversions, irritating or even scary ones, like suddenly finding yourself chased by a seemingly vicious dog, ones that can lead you veer off the road suddenly and end up tangled in a thorny hedge – or worse!

Whether they are of a favorable or an unfavorable nature, distractions and diversions are almost completely lacking when you are riding your bicycle in a room of a house. In short: It’s hard not to be bored.

But this is precisely where indoor, stationary bicycling gets interesting. There’s nothing like it as a meditation tool. Boredom, if it is embraced rather than rejected, is an invitation to get to know your own mind, to find out just how wild and unruly it really is, how hungry to be fed with ever new impressions and experiences, how eager to be engaged in almost any way at all – as long as it doesn’t have to be calm!

Stationary bicycling is a way to discover and explore boredom and, in this way, to realize the extent to which our petulant minds are actually taking us for a ride.

‘Riding through the snow,’ however challenging, is really an opportunity for learning how to ride into and through boredom (which, by the way knows no limits, so you have to keep pushing them).

Is there anything beyond boredom?

A calmness of mind that is potentially as expansive and incredible a place as any of the outdoor variety. Why? Because, rather than being distracted or diverted in the negative sense of ‘wanting to be anywhere else,’ you realize that this, wherever you are, is the only, the most wonderful place to be. You realize it because, this is one of the rare moments in which you actually realize where you are, where you are truly present.

If you are interested in how I structure my actual ride, this is how:

First, I warm up for ten to fifteen minutes. Next, for fifteen to twenty minutes, I shift up every every three to five minutes, simulating a gradual uphill climb. When I get ‘to the top,’ I’m winded. Then I shift back down for five to ten minutes of relaxed riding, or until I am breathing comfortably again. Then, I repeat the process. Finally, I ride another five to ten minutes at a pace I can maintain comfortably, a pace that is not too hard and not too easy but just right (What this pace is differs from person to person, depending on your level of training). During this last, relaxing phase, I just count my breaths, specifically the out-breaths, from one to ten and repeat. Whenever thoughts arise that distract me from my counting, I just smile at them and go back to counting, beginning at one again. Pretty boring, huh!

In this way, I just watch my mind do its thing, without making it do this or that. It just spins its tires in the dust, so to speak, going nowhere fast. It seems to have such a difficult time just being here.

Little by little, and over time, learning that it won’t be rewarded for trying to distract or divert me, the mind begins to settle down. This is where things get really interesting and you begin to sense that boredom is the gateway to bliss.

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Posted in Bicycling, Bliss, Boredom, Cycling, Health, Meditation, Taming the Mind | Tags:

Posted by: schlingensiepen | January 11, 2011

Insideout


Outside

Snow is falling

 

In a week at this rate

The house will be buried in whiteness

 

Inside

Snow is falling

 

In darkness one might venture a guess

As to what the difference is

 

How still this mind can rage

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Posted in Poem, Snowfall, Winter

Posted by: schlingensiepen | January 9, 2011

Riding through Grief


For the last several weeks, I’ve ridden once, sometimes twice a week – not enough! This has had nothing to do with the by and large ideal weather we’ve been having (particularly for this time of year) but with sad pastoral duties; we’ve had several deaths in our congregation of late. (This is also the reason I haven’t written for awhile either.)

Being allowed to accompany a person who is dying is a privilege. It is also a very intense experience, and one through which everyone involved, the person dying, family members, friends, professional caretakers, doctors, nurses, chaplains, and pastors, often grow quite close to and often very fond of each other, if this wasn’t already the case.

When a person I have been invited to spend time with over a period of time dies, I always feel sadness. I don’t believe in a professionalism that would seek to hide emotions behind a therapeutic mask. You can’t be present to someone when you’re trying to guard against becoming emotionally invested in them. No matter how professional you are, when someone dies, you care. If you don’t, you’re in the wrong line of work.

This being said, someone’s dying is never about you!

It takes energy to be alert to people’s needs; it’s stressful, which is just to say that it has an impact on you. The loss of a friend, the grief of family members and friends, my grief – all this affects me. Therefore, it is important, necessary even, to take time to acknowledge this and to ‘make room for it.’

But when you are confronted with one to two deaths a week for several weeks running, as has been the case for the members of my congregation and me of late, there’s hardly any time to do this. For awhile, as they say in Germany, you find yourself ‘crawling on your gums.’

For me, riding my bicycle usually helps, not only because physical activity is a great antidote for stress but because, when I am riding, I feel unusually alive; I celebrate my (still) being here. That celebration doesn’t exclude but includes my grief. Therefore, the landscapes through which I pass not infrequently look like impressionistic paintings, this because I see them through my tears, which on such occasions I allow to flow freely. They are tears of grief, but they are also tears of gratitude and joy – it is good to be alive!

But now there’s snow in the forecast for the next couple of days, so I brought my bicycle into the house this afternoon. With the help of my wife and a device called an indoor trainer, I have converted it into a stationary bike. There is, thankfully, no lack of interior landscapes I can travel. And, here and there, I will share a word or two with people I can now communicate with in no other way.

In the meantime, I thank you for letting me communicate with you in this way.

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Posted in Bicycling, Death, Dying, Grief, Self Care, Uncategorized | Tags: , ,

Posted by: schlingensiepen | December 20, 2010

Ode to Joy – A Great Ride!


Kevin, Marilyn, and I went bicycling yesterday afternoon.

I haven’t been able to ride much lately. Not only are businesses and not-for-profit organizations, churches included, frantically trying to close out the books before the start of the New Year, but it seems that heaven, too, is in a rush, trying to receive everyone destined to get there by the December 31st deadline. It’s been a while since I’ve had four memorial services in the lead-up to Christmas, so this outing really tested my mettle – it told me I need to get back to riding regularly.

Kevin picked out the route. I think it is perhaps the best one we have ever ridden together. (For the exact route, see the paragraph in italics at the end of this entry.) I found it more challenging, since it had many more hills than previous rides of similar length. There were a couple of longer ascents and several steeper ones. As always, though, a hill’s far side is usually fair compensation for all the effort it takes to get up it. Who doesn’t like to coast downhill on a bicycle!

Breathtaking was the portion of Croco Rd. that passes over I-70. A high point in the landscape, as well as of the ride, it afforded us a view of beautiful vistas in every direction, especially on this day – the skies were clear! To the northwest lay Topeka’s skyline, featuring the prominent dome of the Capitol Building. Beyond the ribbon of the interstate, the withered grasses of the surrounding prairie shone a beautiful Naples yellow in the afternoon light.

Marilyn, obviously as struck by the beauty of this scene as Kevin and I were, exclaimed that she loved to ride. “It makes me feel so alive,” she said. How many times have I thought or said something similar! Hearing her proclaiming it, though – at that moment, and in that place – was like listening to the Ode to Joy in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Along the way, Kevin and I talked about RAGBRAI, the famed bicycle ride across Iowa, the oldest cross-state bicycling event in the country – with some ten thousand participants annually! Another friend of mine, a pastor named Doug, took part in this event last summer. Together with his wife, they rode the whole thing on a tandem, and had a great time doing it. At this point, I’m hoping to join Kevin and the others for this event. Kevin informs me that our team will have its own t-shirts, sporting our official  name, The Downhill Specialists. That definitely works for me!

For those interested, here’s the route. We rode the Shunga Trail to where it meets up with the Landon Trail, then took the Landon Trail south to 25th Street. We rode 25th East to Indiana Street, then proceeded on Indiana south to 37th, which was newly paved. To ride it was, as Marilyn remarked, “like riding on a black satin ribbon.”  We rode that ribbon east, all the way to Lake Shawnee. We rounded the lake on the south end, following the road that winds around it to where the disc golf course is. There, we got on to Croco Road, which has also been resurfaced and broadened to allow for two-lane traffic in each direction; we rode it north all the way to 2nd Street, which we followed east till we joined up again with the Shunga Trail at its eastern terminus and headed for home. All in all, we rode about twenty five miles.

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Posted in Autumn, Beethoven, Bicycling, Cycling, Kansas, Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy, RAGBRAI

Posted by: schlingensiepen | December 12, 2010

Wouldn’t it Be Wonderful…


It feels unusual to ride the bicycle trail along the Shunganunga Creek on a sunny day, temperatures in the low sixties, with tolerable gusts of wind from the southwest, and that in December! Nevertheless, I dressed warmly.

The other day, I rode my bike out into the countryside to visit members of my congregation. Temperatures were in the mid-fifties when I set out, but on my way back had fallen by over twenty degrees.

It is better to have too much than too little protective clothing, especially this time of year!

On this particular day, however, it was warmer out than I had thought it would be, particularly after I had ridden for awhile. This was fine, though, since I’d rather sweat than shiver any day. I’ve never attempted to cycle through the latter part of fall, not to mention winter – I have a lot to learn!

Many things struck me during this ride. For one thing, while for the most part the creek flowed slowly along, portions of it had frozen over here and there. Why was this length of the creek frozen rather than that one?

What really caught my attention, though, was a certain feeling I got when looking at the frozen portions. It was the lure of water’s icy surface I can remember feeling as a child every time I saw a frozen puddle, pond, or lake, that sudden and irresistible urge to find a rock, a log, or anything I could throw at it, to see if it would crack or, better, break altogether. I discovered that I can resist it now.

As I was thinking about this, I saw all kinds of objects on the ice, evidence that I am not the only one whom winter-glazed bodies of water ever tempted in this way. There were sticks, rocks, and other things, even a couple of rubber car tires someone had rolled down the bank; these had rolled on to the ice, lost momentum, toppled over, and come to rest midstream.

While the ice supported the car tires, the folks who had rolled them out there don’t seem to have felt that it would also support them. Otherwise, I imagine, they would have perhaps retrieved them in order to do the same thing over and over again. But what do I know! Perhaps they did, grew bored after a while, and left.

It is doubtful, though, since, when I rounded the next bend, I spied a shopping cart (one of two I would discover along the way), facing downstream, frozen in the ice, just hanging there, nose-down, its front half beneath the frozen surface.

I named this shopping cart Peter.

How had he gotten there?

Back at the grocery store, perhaps he had grown tired of hauling one load of groceries after another to the cash register for people who seemed seasonally stressed and nearly overwhelmed by all the preparations for the holidays. One woman who pushed him furiously up one aisle and down another exclaimed, “Holiday, h-ll! Where’s the Christ in Christmas?” ‘Why would anyone want to put Christ back into this madness?’ Peter thought to himself.

What if Peter had just had enough of it all and winked at the first homeless person who walked across the parking lot, where he had been left – winked, as if to say, ‘Hey, get me out of here. Please!’ And what if that homeless person, let’s call him Jerry, had looked at Peter in that moment and thought to himself, ‘I could really use a cart to haul my things around in.’

Perhaps that’s what happened. Jerry took Peter down to the creek, down under the bridge, where his stuff was, and where he intended to spend the night. As he crawled up under the bridge, to the place where he had previously hidden his sleeping bag and where he would settle in for the night, Peter remained by the edge of the trail, facing the creek, alone.

By the light of the moon, Peter pondered the meaning of Christmas, what it had to do with all the misery he daily saw around him. He felt heavy, as if he were loaded down with thirty holiday turkeys, bags of potatoes, and cans of corn, beans, cranberry sauce, and what not. He knew it was really filled with the burdening knowledge that there were so many people who lacked so much, in body as well as spirit.

As Peter prayed for them, and for himself, he saw something out on the water. He squinted. ‘It can’t be,’ he thought to himself. There was someone out there, walking on the water, and that someone was bathed in light, not the light of the moon but a light that came from within – and now he was waving to Peter, beckoning him to come out and join him. Peter, stunned, couldn’t believe it, when he heard the person say, “Come on, it’s wonderful out here in the moonlight. There’s nothing like it, nothing like it at all!”

“But I can’t! How is a grocery cart supposed to do that? That’s crazy!”

“O ye of little faith,” said the voice, mildly rebuking and reassuring at once, “Just do it, go ahead!”

And Peter, somehow, began to roll, gaining momentum as he crossed the trail. He clattered over the dirt to the embankment, then charged down it, teetering precariously all the way down, until he hit the water with a – nothing! There was just silence. Peter rolled across the water – no, he was gliding, like a swan!

When he got to the middle, he couldn’t believe it. He felt light and free. It was an unbelievable feeling. Peter smiled, and the luminous one smiled, too.

After a while, Peter came to his senses. He looked around, but found that he was alone. The one who had invited him out on the water was gone.

At this, Peter felt fear well up within him and, as he did, he also became aware that he was sinking. He cried out for help. And just then, the water froze.

Now, Peter just hung there, his red shopping cart handle sticking up in the air, as if waiting for a hand to grab a hold of it and pull him up – him and all those burdens.

That’s where I’ll leave it, since that is where I found it. Somewhere beyond the bridge at 6th and Branner, you can see Peter in the middle of the Shunganunga, hanging in there – Peter, poised between hope and despair, like too many.

I cycled past, heading farther east, but the image of that red handle is still stuck in my head. It seems to be telling me that something has to happen, and it won’t happen by itself.

Homeless shelters are good, as far as they go. There are many generous individuals, but as a society we prefer passing out band-aids to making the kind of investment necessary to help the disadvantaged get beyond the good-will drip.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, the next morning, the cart were gone and Jerry woke up, not under a bridge but in his own place to a hot cup of coffee, looking forward to going to work, and to all kinds of possibilities, including paying taxes?

I believe that there’s light in the darkness. “It’s wonderful out here in the moonlight. There’s nothing like it, nothing like it at all! […] Just do it, go ahead.”

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Posted in Christmas, Holiday Season, Homelessness, Jesus, Poverty, Shunganunga Creek

Posted by: schlingensiepen | December 7, 2010

Fifty Observations off the Beaten Path to Bethlehem


1.     Advent means ‘arrival’ or – depending on your perspective – ‘finally getting there.’ If your sense of orientation is as bad as mine, that’s really saying something!

2.     When your GPS is a wandering star, it’s hard to find the exact address.

3.     It amazes me every time – guys traveling together and, even so, they stop to ask for directions! They’re not called wise men for nothing.

4.     Note: Matthew doesn’t say how many there were. That there were three wise men was claimed much later and is probably inferred from the three gifts they bear.

5.     Actually, Matthew calls them magi, which doesn’t refer to magicians but probably to astrologers who believed that anomalous events in the heavens correspond with extraordinary events on the ground.

6.     Another way of putting this: When God does something big, you’ll know it!

7.     This, by the way, is also the first scriptural mention of the practice of hanging up Christmas lights. (Just thought I’d mention it for those folks who can’t seem to be able to say or do anything without a scriptural reference.)

8.     Since the wise men are in a foreign country, they figure, ‘What better place to ask for guidance than in the capital city.’ After all, isn’t that where all the smart folks hang out?

9.     They don’t stop at a gas station. No, they stop by the royal palace! You have to wonder how much eggnog these guys have had.

10.     You also have to wonder about the palace security guards who let the wise men in – in the middle of the night!

11.     Even Herod gets up! Not only that, he grants the travelers a late-night audience, though secretly. (See 16 & 19)

12.    Why?

13.     A few words are in order here about the effects that lusting for money and power can have on a person, Herod being an extreme example. (Modern examples abound, see Robert Mugabe, for example).

14.     Those lusting after money and power lives in constant fear for their safety – the greater the success the greater the fear. Those who excel are usually tyrants.

15.     Tyrants, by the way, might be defined as leaders with zero tolerance for anyone or anything that threatens to come between them and their aspiration to gain, exercise, and maintain as much control as possible over all the resources in their sphere of influence.

16.     For tyrants, it is difficult, even impossible, to tell friends from enemies.

17.     For this purpose, tyrants have secret service agencies. You can never have enough spies. They help get rid of enemies even before they have a chance to become enemies.

18.     Wait! Did you say secret service agencies, plural? Yes! You need several, just in case one of them cannot be trusted.

19.     As we can easily imagine, tyrants are often paranoid – and with good reason! (See Stalin)

20.     Herod was a man who, like many tyrants before and after him, was suspicious of his closest family members, and even had several of them killed.

21.     Tyrants are surrounded by sycophants. These are not a cross between sycamores and elephants but rather people who ‘suck up’ to tyrants or anyone else who might confer benefits upon them. Sycophants are status seekers. They are the people who, in the fairy tale, are afraid of telling the emperor that he has no clothes on – for good reason! (See 20)

22.     Among the sycophants, there is no small number of religious representatives – those religious representatives the tyrant likes, that is. Thereby they become the officially religious.

23.     Tyrants tend to keep a few of these around because they are supposed to help give the tyrant an air of pious respectability in the eyes of his oppressed subjects.

24.     Whether this really works is hard to determine, since trying to test this hypothesis usually ends in the death of those who attempt it.

25.     In addition, a tyrant can never know for sure. Maybe the officially religious actually do have knowledge of a higher order. (It’s good to feel like you have insurance for those times when the secret service agencies might fail you – see 17& 18.)

26.     If the officially religious prove useless or worse, the tyrant has no qualms about doing to them what he would to even his own family members, namely sending them to prison, exile, or off to be executed.

27.     By the way, an important difference between a prophet and a representative of the officially religious can help shed some light on the significance of the latter:

28.     The prophet stands outside the seat of power and reads it the riot act – the prophet thinks that political leaders have a responsibility before God to contribute to the well being of the people they govern and therefore hold these leaders publicly accountable. Prophets believe that money and power should serve the well being of everyone, not just those smart and ruthless enough to grab up most of it for themselves. In more recent times prophets were referred to as journalists.

29.     For a prophet a tyrant cannot logically remain a tyrant and be faithful to God and the people God loves, therefore repentance and conversion are necessary for the tyrant’s becoming faithful and responsible. Pointing this out is the work of a prophet.

30.      By contrast, the officially religious person seeks to stand as close to the seat of power as possible because he wants the status it confers, and he will say or do whatever is necessary to better his chances of obtaining it. (See 21)

31.      For this reason, prophets often end up dead, while the officially religious almost always end up pets.

32.      This also explains why in any age there are so few prophets, our own being no exception.

33.      The wise men actually do learn something from the officially religious in Mathew’s story, if indirectly, namely in what town the king of the Jews is to be born.

34.      But they don’t know the exact address either (see point 2).

35.      Frankly, it is incomprehensible why the wise men should stop to ask instructions at all, since they have followed a wandering star to get this far and will subsequently continue to follow it, and successfully, to the appointed place.

36.      Clearly, this would seem to contradict 3, but only if we assume the wise men stopped by Herod’s palace to ask for directions voluntarily.

37.      Personally, I think they stop by the palace because Matthew wants them to do so. He can do this because he’s the one who wrote the story.

38.      Really, Matthew does this for our sake, for our own good! But few today are eager to be confronted with his reason for doing so.

39.     Matthew needs the wise men to meet up with Herod. He wanted his readers to know just what the newborn king of the Jews was up against – in his day AND our own?!

40.     Luke, by the way, attempts the same thing, by placing his version of Jesus’ birth in the context of a Roman census. In the scheme of things, Herod is just a minor figure, whose tyranny would be impossible without the blessing of a much larger tyrant, the emperor of Rome.

41.     The gospels have this to say to tyrants: Beware! God is God, and God has other plans!

42.     These plans include putting down the mighty from their thrones and exalting those of low degree; filling the hungry with good things and sending the wealthy away empty (See the Magnificat, Luke 1: 46ff).

43.       Please note: wealth here is NOT measured by the amount of money in the bank! It is measured by greed, and by an unwillingness to attend to those in need. The wealthy, then, are those who assume that their own good IS the public good.

44.       Are Christians tuned in to this politically relevant dimension of the gospel today?

45.       Judging by the number of self-proclaimed Christians in politics these days who are comfortably immune to the needs of the poor, there is, it would appear, considerable room for skepticism.

46.       The word Christian should only be used in the political arena – if at all – with the utmost caution. Jesus, like the Old Testament prophets, challenged the wealthy and the powerful. By the way, so did this nation’s Founding Fathers – who didn’t believe in large concentrations of power. We’ve all heard the saying, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

47.       A truer word was never spoken.

48.       It is important to get off the beaten path to Bethlehem!

49.       Bethlehem, after all, means ‘house of bread.’ It promises nourishment to all, beginning with the hungry.

50.       I pray that this and every Christmas we will not be lulled into the sleep of sentimentality but will remember that ‘swaddling clothes’ are really a diaper that packs a punch – for truth, for justice, for a community in which everyone matters. Amen.

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Posted in Advent, Bethlehem, Christianity, Christmas, Communion, Herod, House of Bread, Hypocrites, Jesus, King of the Jews, Magi, Poverty, Prophets, Religion, Repentance, St. Luke, St. Matthew, Stalin, Swaddling Clothes, The Wise Men, Tyranny, Wandering Star, Wealth

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