Mindy’s Neighborhood

Dear friends & family,

I hope this email finds you all well!  Although I'm still in denial that we're already half way through the month of November, I wanted to send a quick update with the following news...

20% off THAT HOLY NIGHT (A CHRISTMAS EP)
through November 30th
The Christmas EP I recorded last winter is available now for $7.99 (regularly $9.99) at my website or at CDBaby.  Or, for those who 'go green' & prefer digital downloads ;), the album is now available digitally at CDBaby and iTunes.

Christmas cards for sale!
In my free time (read: unemployment) of late, I've re-explored my artsy side and designed three Christmas cards, inspired by the hope, joy, & peace that we celebrate in the upcoming holiday season, which are also for sale on my website.

Thanks for your continued support!  Patrick & I covet your prayers as we continue to trust GOD's provision for my employment situation.  More news to come soon!

with love,
Amy (Gustafson) Oden

My humble and sincere thanks to all veterans who have served to keep my country and my liberties safe. My heart goes out to all of you, especially to those who have made serious sacrifices. While I go about my daily business and snuggle down safe and sound in my bed, many of you are guarding a wall, battling with the enemy, or rescuing people off rooftops during a natural disaster. Some of you are tipping your last-call glasses of beer down in the halls of the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Your time of service has passed, yet a part of you lives always in the men and women who now serve. Some of you are praying, alone or in groups, that all sons and daughters, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, and parents are home by the next Veterans Day. You know He can grant your prayers, but it's unlikely given the evil in the world.

Many of you will march in parades -- some of you will be escorted in your wheelchairs -- and be either encouraged by the numbers of people who gather and wave flags along the parade route or disappointed by the numbers, which seem to dwindle more each year. But you should know that the intensity of pride and sincerity of gratitude from just a few who gather are much richer, fuller, and sweeter than all the speeches, blog posts,and five-minute clips on the late news hours.

Some of you are homeless. We can argue about whether you are crazy or on drugs or a victim of the recession or whatever it is that makes you chronically without shelter, but I am at a loss as to how this could happen in my country. With the billions of dollars we borrowed from the Chinese to give to banks and companies who turned around and thumbed their noses at us while they got massages and played golf at an exotic resort, we couldn't spare a couple or three to shelter people who, conscientiously or not, went and stood in the way of bullets when others did not? I apologize to you, for both looking the other way and not being sincere enough to promise you I will not do it again. But I know that you sacrifice to this day for what you did for your country and I live in the grace of your sacrifice.

Some of you are recuperating in a hospital, trying to recover physically, mentally, or spiritually. Some of you are being taken care of by people who care about you, and some of you were forced to endure deplorable conditions at a military hospital, where people were supposed to care for you and try to make you whole as possible, in the name of the American people whom you served. I cannot understand this breach of faith and I'm angered by it, as I believe other Americans were, but like other government-run horror shows it appears to have been easy to sweep under the rug.

I am one of those people who get a lump in their throat when they see an American flag backlit by the sun's rays. A sucker for icons, I get it when anyone plays the national anthem, even though I love "America the Beautiful" a thousand times better, or a color guard comes out onto a baseball field, or some jets fly over a memorial. The arresting sight of a string of motorcycle guards heading to a funeral to protect a grieving family from a bunch of evil nutcase protesters from a Topeka church makes me want to pull in line and follow them to their destination.

But I get downright weepy when I walk through the tombstones of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, whether they mark the graves of Civil War soldiers, entire crews of planes shot down in World War II, or soldiers from other conflicts. And, even though some of the graves are for World War II and Vietnam vets from my own family, the the saddest to me are the newer graves of people who have died in recent wars.

I mourn those men and women who kept the wolf at bay.

And thank those who today still keep it from my door.

A one year old boy, who could have a tracheotomy, be taken home from the hospital and live his life, may have his ventilator removed at the wishes of his mother and the HOSPITAL TRUST PAYING FOR HIS CARE, because his severe physical disability has been deemed 'intolerable suffering'. His father disagrees and is fighting for his son's life.

In honor of Reformation Day, the anniversary of when, in 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenberg University’s Castle Church door, boldly declaring where the Church needed reform, I'm writing my own thoughts about the Church and some places where we still need reformation. Of course, this post will lead to inclusion of people with disabilities, because, well, that seems to be what I do.

There are two religions in this world. One is based on works, the other on grace. The religion based on works requires its disciples to work through law, rite, or service to make that disciple in right standing with the god of this religion. The God of the second religion, that based on grace, demands perfection unto His Law; however, when man failed and fails, this God has given mankind His own righteousness through His Son, the Second Person in the Trinity that calls Itself God, a righteousness contingent only on faith in this Holy Son and His atoning work on the Cross.

The disciples of this second God- of this One True God- the adopted sons and heirs, join together according to the Word of this God, as one Body, and we call ourselves the Church, with Christ as our Head. Like the followers of the first religion, the Church has a law, the Law of God, though our Law has been fulfilled by this Christ, and we members of the Body now walk by faith in our Savior, Christ Jesus', work and in the Spirit, Who is the Third Person of this Triune God. We perform rituals in our church gatherings as does the first religion, though our rituals, rituals of baptism and the communion of the saints, focus not on our attempts to gain righteousness but rather on the One Who obtained righteousness for us. 

And, as do followers of the first religion, Christians, those of the Body, of the Church, we perform acts of service. As is the Law, Christians, attempt to love God and love our neighbors by serving our community and serve others. 

However, unlike those following the first religion, Christians are not attempting to earn our place in our God’s Kingdom through this service, though serving God and serving others is part of God’s Kingdom. In fact, daily lawbreakers, we could never serve enough to enter that Kingdom. 

Nor are we serving God through our own power or our own nature. We are serving God because we have a new nature, and a new Power- the Holy Spirit, given to us through the work of the Cross, upon our belief in Christ, this work, and the repentance of our sins. We are serving humanity- offering grace and mercy to one another- in response to how we were shown grace and mercy, in response to how we were invited into that Kingdom based solely on the death and resurrection of our King. We love because we have been loved.

Based upon this motivation for service and community within our own Body, we take seriously our Savior’s teachings on service and community. The fourteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel, verses 7 through 24, includes one such teaching. Through instruction and parable, Jesus shares His Father’s desire that, oh, may His house be full! He teaches us that His Father wants those at His table those who cannot repay His kindness- ‘the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame' (vs 13) (as if people who are not poor or who do not have a disability could pay Him back). In fact, He says to compel them to come, revealing the earnestness of His heart toward the least in this world, those same ‘least’ who will become great in His Kingdom.

How does this teaching apply to Christ’s Church 2,000 years after its original exhortation? It applies the same way. There are still those who are ‘great’ in this world, and those who are poor or who have disabilities are still regarded as ‘the least’. Sadly the world’s view of who is great and who is the least is often paralleled in the Church.

Thankfully, the Spirit of God is working in the same way that He has for 2,000 years. He still convicts the Church, both the individual member and the entire of Body, of sin, and He is convicting me of my exclusionary practices of the ‘least of these’ in my church’s gatherings. 

So, what do inclusionary practices of the ‘least of these’ look like? Inclusionary practices begin by being reminded of how all inclusion to the Body begins. It begins with the Cross and how Christ, forgiving us of our sin, reconciles us with God, making us His child and a member of Christ’s Body. We must be reminded that God never needed our able bodies or cognitive awareness or our large bank accounts to forgive us our sin, to give us faith, and to make us one with Him and His community. In that regard, we become aware that we are no different than our poor and/or disabled brother and sister.

When we become aware of the absolute equality with ‘the least’, community- koinonia- the Greek word used 20 times in Scripture for 'fellowship, sharing in common, communion'- makes sense! We are equally created in the image of God, we are equal in our human depravity, and we are equal in that any grace anyone has received has been from God. We are one Body.

Therefore, as one Body, if one member suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all do. When one holds a banquet, all are invited. 

Whether through formal programming, or just meeting an individual or family where he or they are suffering or struggling, any church can do ‘disability ministry’. The call is for all, for all of the Body, to invite, to compel, ‘the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame’ into the Kingdom of God and sharing a meal- that is, offering them repentance and the forgiveness of sin through Jesus' name, and truly becoming one Body- for the grace of God is for them, too!- in loving response to how the Father first invited us. This is how we reveal the religion of grace to the world.

"'Rational' Suicide Advocates Push Assisted Suicide in Mental Health Journals"- A podcast edition of bioethicist Wesley J. Smith's 'What It Means to be Human'

John Shelby Spong is not my liberator.  

So after my last blog post, I have been trying to be braver about executing my artistic whims by using what is available to me and not getting snuffed out because I don't have something.  I got an idea for a Christmas card design and I needed a picture of a map or a world. 

Well, if you just take a picture off the internet, there might be copyright infringement issues and that whole thought process was quickly draining my artistic motivation.

So I was staring at this photograph of earth...wondering how I could make my own.  I can't go out into space with my own camera.  A snapshot of a globe would be far too cheesy.  But...those colors aren't so hard to recreate, I thought, with a box of chalk...and it could be done on black paper.  I have tons of black paper...but I didn't have any chalk.

"Patrick, you don't happen to have any chalk, do you?" I asked.  You never know...we've only been married 9 months, after all.  I haven't inventoried his every possession.

"Wait a minute..." he said and began to dig around in the closet, in his shoebox of art supplies.  With a smile, he produced a set of pastels.  "Will this do?"

This is what I came up with for the central design...I'm still fidgeting with colors and borders and layout...but it's a step in the right direction, yeah?

WorldCard006

"Are you having a good stare?" Patrick asked.

"Yes," I said.  "I'm sorting through the noises in my head, trying to figure out which ones to listen to."

"Nothing better for that than a good stare," he replied.

I had just been sitting there, staring, for several minutes.  Not that I could entirely help it, having injured my knee a couple of nights ago, I was something of a prisoner to my couch.  This most recent trial which has rendered me unable to walk for the moment is one of a growing list, accumulating over the past several weeks, the whole of which was producing a very great cacophony inside my skull. 

After a bout with frustration, cussing, and tears upon first getting up this morning, after finding my knee not seemingly any better and dealing with a phone call from one of those financial companies that takes advantage of the unemployed by proposing sales positions to them, I crab-crawled to the couch, propped myself up, and proceeded to stare.  To stare and to sort.  There is something here, I told myself.  I've just got to find it.

Then a book caught my eye, the book that we had used as our wedding guest book, called Passage by nature artist Andy Goldsworthy.  Patrick handed me the book upon request and I resolved to look through it until I found some calm, some perspective.  Art is good for that.

And the pages began to speak. 

Goldsworthy is not an artist in the traditional sense of the term--that is, he does not use brushes or paints or pencils.  He uses nature.  He goes out into a forest or a field or onto a beach and he creates sculptures out of what he finds there: leaves, rocks, sticks, dirt.  He creates something unnatural, something special, out of the natural elements and then leaves it in the surroundings as an accent. 

I was first introduced to Goldsworthy by Patrick back when we were first getting acquainted.  He recommended Goldsworthy's documentary Rivers and Tides.  I admit when I was first watching it, I was tempted to think this man was a bit loony.  He was making sculptures out of sticks and rocks. What good was that?  What eternal purpose did that serve?  But as I watched, as he creates and talks about what he's doing, I couldn't help but be drawn in. 

His sculptures are really cool. But what's really striking, and what pulled me in again today and left me with the perspective that I sought, was his confidence and his resourcefulness. 

He would just go out and make these things.  He would take what he had and do something fascinatingly different with it.  Then he'd photograph it, first how he made it, but then he'd let nature take its course and he'd show the effects of the wind, the water, the rain, the snow, the seasons.  He learned about the physical properties of these natural mediums, what they could and couldn't do, and he learned this through trial and error, through failure and success.  He made what he could with what he could find, and not something just thrown together, something carefully and skillfully crafted.  His works demonstrate time, energy, thought, calculation.  In some cases, sacrifice and daring, as you realize where he must've had to stand or to reach or in what kind of weather he was doing this construction.  It was art, but it was careful and hard work. And he made it, he invested all that in it, and then he essentially just let it go. Such whimsy, such freedom. 

He lives in a world of business transactions and financial markets and corporate ladders and stock portfolios, where he's made a life for himself in fields and forests adding his quiet, subtle accents.  This world, if he listened to its voices, would no doubt question his choices, his purpose, his sanity even.  And yet, he creates.  He does not explain or justify or defend; he creates, he adds, he experiments, and he delights in the whole process.  And he persists, and doors have opened, and he has created all over the world.

I have felt stuck lately.  Physically and financially.  I have looked around me and said to myself, "I can't do anything with what I have around me.  I don't have anything to do anything with.  I don't have the money to pursue artistic dreams, to create.  And if I did, the artistic markets are oversaturated with product anyway and there is no room for me.  It would be a waste."

But what if, rather than looking around at what I don't have, I looked around at what I do have and built things out of that?  What if I refused to feel limited by my available resources, but chose to let them inspire me into doing even better work?  What if I wasn't afraid to invest my time, my energy, my soul into something that might blow or wash away?  What if I was content with a gentle ripple rather than a big splash, or a little change rather than a huge revolution?

What if I wrote a blog post for the first time in 9 months? :)

There's, at least, a beginning... 

'Quality of life'.  Brothers and sisters, can we think about that phrase for a moment?  Can we think about what we are saying when we are using it?  Can we, as Christians, really use that phrase?