Peace. Love. Basketball.

I hate basketball.

Well, that's what I normally say.  After some reflection, I think it's because since I'm nearly six feet tall, everyone expects me to be good at basketball and I'm just not.  I grew up in an area where you had to start dribbling a ball before you came out of the womb and I wasn't interested in sports until late middle school.  I still laugh because my mom calls me the "jock" of the family, since I swam competitively and played softball in high school.  I play on the flag football team at seminary and I played in a community ultimate frisbee league in Chicago.  All these sports aren't basketball though.

In the last two weeks, I've gone to two local basketball games.  The first was Red Cloud Indian School against St. Thomas More High School.  It was fascinating to watch the game for a couple of reasons.

1.) I realized that basketball is a lot more exciting in person, in a fast-paced game.
     a.) I apologize for my earlier statement about hating basketball.

2.) I am curious about the difference between the students at a private Catholic high school on the Reservation versus students at a private Catholic high school in Rapid City.  Red Cloud has a fantastic reputation as the best school on the Reservation.  Nearly 100% of graduates have a post-graduation plan and 57 students have been awarded the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship, the highest per capita in the country (got this info from their website).  Tuition is $100 a year at Red Cloud and many get scholarships for that $100.  Tuition at St. Thomas More for "active Catholics" is $5,362; tuition for "inactive Catholics and non-Catholics is $6,751.  While this basketball game was known as the "Bishop's Bowl" because of the two Roman Catholic schools playing each other, the students clearly came from different realities.

3.) I realized that my "normal" here when I'm in a large room filled with lots of people, such as a gymnasium, is for a wake or funeral.  I actually looked for the casket when I first walked into the gym.
     a.) I need to get out more.

The second game I attended recently was between Red Cloud Indian School and Pine Ridge High School.  This was another fascinating game, because it was scheduled for February 9th in Rapid City.  Now, why would two schools from the Reservation, only a 10-15 minute drive apart, go all the way to Rapid City, about two hours away, to play a high school basketball game?  This is especially interesting since plenty of people around here don't have the extra money to put gas into their tanks to drive all the way there.

Apparently, the rivalry between these two schools is so great that this game hasn't been playing on the Reservation in 23 years.  The problem isn't in the teams playing on the court, but it's in the fans.

On Saturday the 9th, we were predicted to get eight inches of snow, with another three inches on Sunday.  We didn't get that much, but we got enough to reschedule the game.  This infamous game was rescheduled for Monday, the 11th, at Pine Ridge High School.  My friend Ashley teaches at Red Cloud, so she invited me to come along with her.  We went early, since rumors were that normally these two teams play each other in a place that houses 2,100 people; PRHS gym can seat 800 people.  We showed up for the 6pm girls' game at 5:20pm and the line zig-zagged several times and wound out to the school driveway.

We made the cut to get inside and crammed into our bleacher seats with the rest of the town.  The president of the tribe, Brian Brewer, was asked to speak before the game began.  I'm not sure if this is typical for games here, but it seemed special.  He said he believed that the game had to be rescheduled on the Reservation because it was time to end this fighting.  "Mitakuye oyasin!"--We are all related!  This is so true. Many families split their kids between Red Cloud and Pine Ridge.  After a serious warning to all of us fans to behave and support the teams, Brian Brewer made a few jokes about how he used to have a girlfriend at both Red Cloud and Pine Ridge!  He also ended his speech by saying how much he loves watching Lakota play Lakota in basketball.  "There is nothing like it in the rest of the world!"  He exclaimed.

It was awesome to be a part of this historic event, knowing how important this game was to all involved, but that "mitakuye oyasin" was at the center of it all.

Red Cloud Crusaders wear blue; Pine Ridge Thorpes wear red.  As a true pacifist, I wore green.

GO RED PINE CLOUD RIDGE!


Photograph taken from http://socialismartnature.tumblr.com/post/36289138227/mitakuye-oyasin-all-are-related-a-traditional

Here's the news article about the game.

Ash Wednesday: Part II

Social media is a funny thing.

On Ash Wednesday, my Facebook newsfeed was filled with status updates with some variation on, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return."  Lots of people changed their pictures to depict the freshly pressed cross of ashes on their foreheads.  I didn't really know what to think of it, since I preached on the text from Matthew 6:1-16, 16-21.  It's the one that talks about not bragging like the hypocrites in the streets about how much you pray or don't act dismal because you're fasting.

Here's my Ash Wednesday sermon, if you're curious:

Sermon: Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ash Wednesday

February 13, 2013

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

We’ll each hear these words in a few moments, as we have the opportunity to receive the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads.  The mark of Christ on our brow, visible for the whole world to see, labels us as Christ-followers. 

“But when you give alms, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret.  But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.  But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret.”

Our Gospel lesson on this day specifically cautions us against practicing our piety before others, showing the visible signs of our faith to others, on the very same day that we will paint your faces and send you out the door. 

Does this confuse anyone else?

In this very act of putting these ashes, these charred remains of last year’s palms, we defy what Christ is teaching here according to Matthew.  Right? 

While we gather in this community to mark ourselves with Christ, we have to read verse 21 again: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Where your treasure is, your heart will be there also.  What you value and hold onto is where your heart is.  These ashes on our foreheads are not to show off to others that we went to an Ash Wednesday service, but as a conversation with God about who we are and whose we are.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

Some reflect on these words as degrading or sad, but I find them incredibly inspiring.  Remember that you started out as nothingness and God created you into this living, breathing, loving, caring person, and that your body will return to the earth.  Our holy potter has created us out of clay, naming us and claiming us as the children of the Heavenly Grandfather.  God marks our foreheads with the ashes, not Karen or I, to remind us where our hearts are.  This very act is a way to center ourselves and purify ourselves for God in these coming days.

As a part of the Ash Wednesday service, we will complete Confession and Absolution.  Using words, we’ll acknowledge to God where we’ve fallen short and where we ask for the forgiveness to try again tomorrow.  Acknowledging that we are dust and that we will return to dust, regardless of how well we eat or how much money we put in the offering plate, creates in us a clean heart, ready to receive God into our hearts, despite being unworthy to do so.

In the traditional service at funerals, I’ve witnessed how a person’s face is painted with the sacred color of red.  It was first described to me as a way to make the person recognizable to the Great Spirit once the person entered into the afterlife.  Someone else shared with me that the painting of the sacred color on the face purifies the person who has died, recognizing that the good and bad this person had done was absolved to the Creator.  Similarly, when a warrior returned from battle, the cheeks are painted with black, with ashes even, as a way to get rid of the bad and cleanse the person, inside and out, to be a part of the community again. 

This mark on our foreheads today is like this act of sanctifying and purifying.  These ashes, the charred bits of plants from last year’s Palm Sunday, the time when we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, his final journey into the city as one of us, are rubbed onto our faces to claim us for God.  Our Creator knows us inside and out, up and down, left and right.  This marks us and reminds us of our humble beginning as dust.  Just as God created new life out of the dirt of the earth to form our bodies, God created new life in Jesus Christ, our savior and redeemer, when he came to the world for us, for our plain, dirty selves, completely incapable of creating ourselves and saving ourselves. 

No matter how pretty our prayers are or if we give up chocolate, the time of Lent is to prepare ourselves for Christ in our hearts.  If a life in Christ is what we value, then our hearts will be there also. 

As we enter into the forty days of Lent, I challenge you to think about this cross on your forehead as a way to purify your heart and to discern where your treasure is. 

Who are you?              What do you value?               

What does it mean to have the mark of Christ on your body, but more importantly, what does it mean to have the mark of Christ on your heart? 

Don’t answer these questions to me or to the person next to you.  Answer them for yourself, in secret, where God your loving Creator sees you and can recognize the seal of Christ on your brow long after the ashes have been washed away.

Ash Wednesday: Part I

As a seminarian, blogging about my internship experience, I feel like an Ash Wednesday blog post is rather obligatory.  I'll include my sermon in a different post, but here are some thoughts about my first Ash Wednesday from the other side of things.  

I've grown up in the ELCA at a highly liturgical congregation, which means that I've participated in nearly ALL of the services that we could possibly have at a congregation: all of Holy Week, mid-week Lenten services, pet blessings, Ascension Day, etc.  If there's a reason to have worship, I've been there.

I've always loved Ash Wednesday.  It's one day a year where I am reminded of how big God is.  In high school, I remember my mom saying that some people were critical of parents who brought their child to receive ashes.  I felt this way then, but now that I have the seminarian language for it, I would say that all ages of people are welcome in the sanctuary for any reason and at any time.  If we only give Eucharist to adults who understand it, then none of us will receive communion.  No, seriously.  Yes, as a candidate for ordination in the ELCA, I understand the concepts of it, but how God appears in those elements and what the depth and breadth of God's love looks like is out of my grasp.  I feel the same way about ashes.  Regardless of what kids "know" about the ashes, if they feel like receiving a cross on their forehead to remind them of who they are and whose they are, then I say go for it.  We mark the foreheads of children as a blessing during Eucharist, so why not add ashes to that?

This was the first year that I've been on the other side of placing these ashes on foreheads though.  Prior to the services that I participated in, I knew that the ashes had to be prepared.  When I worked as the Assistant to the Dean of the Chapel last year, I participated in the service to burn last year's palms into ashes.  This year, it was up to my supervisor and I to burn the palms into ashes, with no community around to witness it.  She had never done it and honestly, other than watching the seasoned liturgical professionals do it, I had never done it.  When I don't know how to do something, my first step, as a Generation Yer, was to Google it.

I chuckled to myself as I read this article.  Two and a half years into mastering the divine and I'm on eHow to figure out how to make ashes.  I also emailed my friend Dan, the cantor at LSTC, to ask for a service to burn the ashes; he provided an awesome one!  I also emailed my friend Kevin, a current pastor, to ask his opinion on the proper way to add the olive oil into ashes, since this article didn't explain.  I knew through chapel work that it was easier to burn the ashes if you cut them into smaller pieces, so out came the scissors.

As I cut the dry, dusty palms into a small, metal can, one of the community members asked me what Ash Wednesday meant.  I love these awkward, challenging moments for me here on internship.  In every community, we develop common language and common experience.  I take for granted that I grew up in a congregation that was full of people who either knew what Ash Wednesday meant to them or were too afraid to ask.  Here, in a community where Christianity is still associated with the white Colonizers, I can't assume that people know the traditions or practices of the Church.

After explaining my understanding of Ash Wednesday (check my sermon for more thoughts), I took my materials outside and began to burn the ashes.



There was something humbling about taking the palms and actually turning them into the ashes.  I've only ever been privy to seeing the ashes in their fine, perfect powder, without remember where they came from.  I will admit that my ashes were not the fine, perfect powder that I remember of my childhood, but I was glad for this.  When I got to put my fingers into those ashes, chunky and messy, and smear the cross on the foreheads of toddlers to people in their eighties, I was reminded that we are messy.  We are incapable of being fine and perfect, but God loves us anyway.  That's the essence of Ash Wednesday to me.

I was further reminded of the awesomeness of God's love when we held our children's service that night.  I had preached and led worship at St. John's Episcopal for a noontime service, but Karen led the children's service.  I helped put ashes on the kids who wanted them.  For most of the kids, this was more about the excitement of something different, rather than a somber reflection on their mortality.  Many smudged theirs or rubbed the crosses completely off.  One boy was distressed that he had wiped his cross off by accident.  I didn't want to give him a new cross, since we could end up with 40 kids wanting new crosses.  To be clear, I'm happy that it mattered to them; I didn't want to spend hours playing the wipe-on/wipe-off game.  This boy was upset later in the service and refused to come upstairs to eat dinner.  I went down to check on him and he was crying.  He wouldn't tell me what the matter was, but eventually agreed that he'd like to receive new ashes.  I gave him the privilege of putting ashes on my forehead, since my noon-time ashes had washed off when I was at the gym in the afternoon.  He was thrilled.  There was something sacred in this moment, crouched on the floor, marking the cross on the forehead of a child with tears still streaming down his face.  There was something incredibly humbling about receiving ashes from this child.  I remembered that I was dust in a way that I don't think I've ever felt and it was awesome.

Lots o' Worship!

I'm sure I've mentioned on here before that I'm at a non-parish based internship site.  I think this makes me the only ELCA intern who is not formally attached to a congregation.  When I knew that I was coming to Pine Ridge, I will admit that I was a tad worried that I wouldn't have worship opportunities.

It has been QUITE the opposite.

In addition to all of the daily programming that we do with retreat groups and community members, we host worship for the children two nights a week.  The kids are here every night, but the other nights are only for "safe play."  In addition to this, we lead worship services at St. John's Episcopal Church twice a month and Cohen Home, an assisted living facility, twice a month as well.  Then, we plug in wherever we can assist in other communities.

Tomorrow, I'll be preaching/leading the service at Makasan Presbyterian Church in the morning, St. John's Episcopal Church in the afternoon and Cohen Home in the evening.  As I sat at my desk this morning putting together the three services, I just started to laugh.

Here's the pile of resources that I used and will use for tomorrow's services:

The black binder is the worship binder that I've created to hold all of our various services.  Then, my Harper Collins Study Bible, complete with my scribbled margin notes of profound thoughts by the great Ralph Klein, the Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, the With One Voice hymnal, the Lakota Presbyterian hymnal--Dakota Odowan, the Episcopalian Lakota hymnal--Wakan Cekiye Odowan and the Book of Common Prayer.

Not pictured: my sermon manuscript, past worship plans for the various services, Bible commentaries and the Internet.

All of the items in that picture will go with me to these services tomorrow as I move from congregation to congregation and from denomination to denomination.  While I'm not at a "parish-based internship site," I think I'm getting my share of worship planning and leading, as well as preaching.  And hey, what other ELCA Intern can immediately find the various services in the Book of Common Prayer and sing the Doxology in Lakota?