I got a toothache five days ago. Unclear, sneaky signals made their ways to my brain as I chewed through chicken and sweet potatoes Friday night at our friends Mike and Karin's house. The next day, the tooth that I'd just gotten a filling in began to feel bumpy and strange when I chewed. By Sunday, a sip of lukewarm water made the nerve inside my tooth feel as if it were throbbing on the end of live jumper cables.
"Is this what happens?" I'd asked my husband, who claims his teeth are "sensitive" where he's gotten fillings. "Does it hurt so bad you don't want to take a drink?"
"Sometimes," he said.
Oh, great. So what I was experiencing was now apparently in the realm of someone else's normal. There is no hope for me, I thought. This is what happens when your mouth falls apart, and even medical science can't make life any easier? Still, I tried to sound as desperate as possible on my dentist's answering machine. I even called his home number, given for "emergencies."
The relatively "good" news (I found out today) is that my filling is not cracked, and I do not have an abscess. Also, my nerve is not dying. However, as I sat in the brightly lit dental chair and looked up at my giant of a dentist as he described nerve death and trauma, my eyes (seriously) began to well up with tears. Even though he was clearly saying I am not experiencing nerve death, the very description, the very personification he employed to describe a nerve getting so traumatized it just curls up and dies, filled me with such a profound sense of grief, loss and insecurity. My nerve could just up and die on me? A little piece of myself--die?
If my husband were here right now I'm sure he'd remind me that by the time I'm my age, my brain cells are dying off right and left. Science has already indicated I've lost most of the digestive enzymes that came with me out of my mother's womb. Last week I found a white-ish gray hair on my head (which I'm still not sure wasn't just paint from a project two months ago...although evidence points to the contrary). And I come from a family of well-aged natural brunettes. What does it all mean?
The dentist said the cause of my pain was that my "bite got off" and he shaved down the filling he put in six weeks ago in hopes that will relieve some of the stress of my bite. And he put me on therapeutic doses of Ibuprofen for two days (that's 2400 mg a day. Ack.) to relieve the inflammation. Apparently, this happens.
Still, my thirtieth birthday is just around the corner. I look to it with celebration mixed with longing that good health will continue with me into middle and then older age. In spite of all the failing health in our country, I find myself compelled to cling to the hope that proper care of our bodies, souls, spirits, relationships, and environment will yield the sort of health that keeps us going longer than the energizer bunny.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
The Power of Story
The staff at church will soon be hashing out ideas for sermon series for the next six months or so. Most of the sermon series at our church are theme- or topic-based. In other words, we don't dedicate a month to studying Galatians or the book of James, but we'd spend a month on a series called "Losing My Religion" or "The Office."
The opportunity to create new sermon series ideas has got me thinking about how the conventional format for sermons fails miserably for me and for many. Often these sermons are made up of "points"--three steps to a better prayer life, better marriage, avoiding sexual sin. The problem with sermons in general is that if you're talking to a diverse audience, made up of seekers, growing Christians and what some term "mature" believers (is there such a thing??), a sermon that consists entirely of pointers and guidelines is bound to be insulting to some. That's because some in the congregation will already have internalized those "points"--they may already be living that stuff out. So what's the point of sitting through a sermon if you're being given an instruction manual on something you already know how to do? Often, when I am a listener to sermon formats like this, I leave grating. I may feel insulted, annoyed, or like I wasted my time.
Another thing our staff has talked about is how we want our language from the "pulpit" (in our case, it's a music stand), to be inclusive, to avoid an us-pastors-who-have-the-answers v. Joe-Church-Goer-who-needs-them mentality. But in order to change our language, we've had to struggle through paradigm shifts. Out with the old mentality that the leaders or pastors are the ones to "bring it", the ones with the day's saving answers, the solutions to all of life's problems that Joe-Church-Goer has been stewing over all week and is hungrily asking for on Sunday morning. In are the speakers and pastors who will embrace the problems right along with Joe or Josephine Church-Goer, the pastors who will admit to the mysteries in the Christian walk, and share out of their best understanding.
I've been asking myself how the best teachers do this, and for me, it all goes back to Jesus' teaching style. Not that I"m suggesting we speak in parables, but I am thinking about the power of story in sermons to illustrate truths we've learned in our own lives. The cool thing about story-as-teaching-tool is that it leaves room for people at all stages of their spiritual walk to connect to a particular sermon. The mature believer can think, "yeah, I've been through that and it's nice to hear someone else has, too," or maybe even, "Bless his heart, that pastor's got a bit to learn about life still!" The seeker's interest can be piqued; the growing Christian can be inspired.
So, as we think through sermon topics and ideas, I've been rooting around inside my God-history, asking myself and God, "What are the most powerful stories of my life? What stories have illustrated for me God's character and the ways of his kingdom?"
As a funny side-note and testament to the power of story, our senior pastor last night said he got feedback on his teaching last Sunday. In his teaching, he'd referenced the story of the Velveteen Rabbit as a metaphor for us Christians learning how to be "real." A visitor, possibly on the fringes of a relationship with Christ, came up to him at the end, with tears in his eyes, and said somethign tantamount to, "Hey, man, you know, I don't dig the Bible all that much, but that Velveteen Rabbit story really got to me."
The opportunity to create new sermon series ideas has got me thinking about how the conventional format for sermons fails miserably for me and for many. Often these sermons are made up of "points"--three steps to a better prayer life, better marriage, avoiding sexual sin. The problem with sermons in general is that if you're talking to a diverse audience, made up of seekers, growing Christians and what some term "mature" believers (is there such a thing??), a sermon that consists entirely of pointers and guidelines is bound to be insulting to some. That's because some in the congregation will already have internalized those "points"--they may already be living that stuff out. So what's the point of sitting through a sermon if you're being given an instruction manual on something you already know how to do? Often, when I am a listener to sermon formats like this, I leave grating. I may feel insulted, annoyed, or like I wasted my time.
Another thing our staff has talked about is how we want our language from the "pulpit" (in our case, it's a music stand), to be inclusive, to avoid an us-pastors-who-have-the-answers v. Joe-Church-Goer-who-needs-them mentality. But in order to change our language, we've had to struggle through paradigm shifts. Out with the old mentality that the leaders or pastors are the ones to "bring it", the ones with the day's saving answers, the solutions to all of life's problems that Joe-Church-Goer has been stewing over all week and is hungrily asking for on Sunday morning. In are the speakers and pastors who will embrace the problems right along with Joe or Josephine Church-Goer, the pastors who will admit to the mysteries in the Christian walk, and share out of their best understanding.
I've been asking myself how the best teachers do this, and for me, it all goes back to Jesus' teaching style. Not that I"m suggesting we speak in parables, but I am thinking about the power of story in sermons to illustrate truths we've learned in our own lives. The cool thing about story-as-teaching-tool is that it leaves room for people at all stages of their spiritual walk to connect to a particular sermon. The mature believer can think, "yeah, I've been through that and it's nice to hear someone else has, too," or maybe even, "Bless his heart, that pastor's got a bit to learn about life still!" The seeker's interest can be piqued; the growing Christian can be inspired.
So, as we think through sermon topics and ideas, I've been rooting around inside my God-history, asking myself and God, "What are the most powerful stories of my life? What stories have illustrated for me God's character and the ways of his kingdom?"
As a funny side-note and testament to the power of story, our senior pastor last night said he got feedback on his teaching last Sunday. In his teaching, he'd referenced the story of the Velveteen Rabbit as a metaphor for us Christians learning how to be "real." A visitor, possibly on the fringes of a relationship with Christ, came up to him at the end, with tears in his eyes, and said somethign tantamount to, "Hey, man, you know, I don't dig the Bible all that much, but that Velveteen Rabbit story really got to me."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
