When Dinosaurs Fly (or The Taming of the Shrew)

In celebration of next month’s fifth anniversary of this blog, today and the Wednesdays of February I’ll provide a link to the most visited post of each year. For 2011, that would be: “Faggot”Jesus, with Put Yourself in the Nativity Story a close second.

Just for fun, I thought I’d post this dialogue that I wrote for Midtown Spiritual Community in Atlanta, presented on May 15, 2005. This is for the kid in all of us, a kind of Mardi Gras confection. I haven’t changed a word! You can tell I grew up watching Mr. Peabody’s Improbable History and Fractured Fairy Tales on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

Narrator: Welcome to the primeval forest, inhabited by our evolutionary ancestors that have evolved out of the primordial soup which preceded it. Who woulda thought that such stinking slush could give rise to life? Even primitive forms?

Dinosaur: Hey! Who ya callin’ primitive?

Shrew: Do you have to talk so loud! You woke me up!

Dinosaur: I’m big, so I’m loud, you little shrew.

Shrew: I’m small, but I’m gonna outlive you!

Dinosaur: Who says?

Shrew: Natural selection.

Dinosaur: You mean “survival of the fattest”? Then I’m gonna outlast you and your pointy little snout.

Shrew: That’s survival of the fittest, not the fattest, you Darwinian failure! I’m going to evolve into something wonderful, I just know it.

Dinosaur: If Mother Nature can find you. You’re too small.

Shrew: And you’re too big!

Dinosaur: You’re doomed to eat insects and live in a tree the rest of your life.

Shrew: Maybe my life, but my descendants shall inherit the earth.

Dinosaur: The meek inheriting the earth. I say “ha”! I say “ha-ha”!

Shrew: You’ve gotta have dreams.

Dinosaur: My dreams are of leaving the planet.

Shrew: Becoming extinct?

Dinosaur: No, flying up in the sky. The last syllable of my name is “soar.” I want to soar in the skies.

Shrew: What’s a syllable?

Dinosaur: I don’t know. I don’t write this stuff.

Shrew: So, you’re going to fly?

Dinosaur: That’s my dream and I’m stickin’ to it.

Shrew: Why?

Dinosaur: I’m tired of throwin’ my weight around, that’s why. I’d like to be light as a feather.

Shrew: What’s a feather?

Dinosaur: See these things on my legs? Feathers!

Shrew: How’d you get them? Paste ‘em on?

Dinosaur: No. Born that way. Other dinosaurs made fun of me my whole life. Called me queer ‘cause I was different. But I see it as a step toward divinity.

Shrew: Divinity?

Dinosaur: God-like. To fly would be god-like. I want to be like the gods.

Shrew: What are gods?

Dinosaur: Those lights shining in the heavens at night. Those are gods. I want to reach for the stars!

Shrew: I bet my descendants will get there first.

Dinosaur: Oh what? [MOCKS:] Look, up in the sky! Is it a pterodactyl? A falling star? No, it’s Supershrew! Why would your descendants get there first? I already have feathers.

Shrew: But I already live in trees. And I can jump from branch to branch. It won’t be long before I sprout feathers too!

Dinosaur: What? A sort of “manifest destiny”? You shrews always had a cocky character.

Shrew: Look at you, you big lummox! How ya gonna get that tail off the ground?

Dinosaur: [LOOKS AT HER BEHIND] I’ll need a long runway, that’s for sure. Or a smaller caboose! [DREAMS:] I see myself becoming small and delicate and dainty. I want to sing rather than roar. I want to glide rather than stomp. I want to see far above and beyond this mucky swamp. I want to go south for the winter. [SIGHS]

Shrew: You wanna get smaller, and I wanna get bigger. [DREAMS:] I see myself becoming larger and smarter and powerful. I want to speak rather than squeak. I want to walk rather than crawl. I want to think outside this boxy swamp. And I too want to go south for the winter. [SIGHS] Oh well, I guess that will only happen when dinosaurs fly!

Dinosaur: You say that as if it ain’t gonna happen!

Shrew: I think your dreams are too big. Mine too. It’ll never happen!

Dinosaur: Ya gotta have faith.

Shrew: What’s faith?

Dinosaur: Faith is what I feel when I lay my eggs. I can’t see the next generation, but I know it’s there. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Shrew: That has a nice ring to it. We gotta shoot for the stars, I guess.

Dinosaur: Either that or return to the muck. The sky’s the limit, and maybe not even that.

Narrator: And so Shrew and Dinosaur evolved happily ever after. The tree shrew evolved eventually into human beings, which may or may not be an improvement, and one can still see the mousy shrewishness in human eyes whenever they’re afraid of not surviving and become greedy and controlling. And, despite the megalomania of Shrew, Dinosaur’s descendants flew into the sky first, evolving into the birds of the air, and you can still see Dinosaur’s fierceness in the eyes of the hawk or the eagle or any mother bird protecting her nest. We have yet to see if human beings and birds will live happily ever after. And who knows what they’ll evolve into?

THE END

Here’s an earlier post appropriate for the beginning of presidential primary season in the U.S.: Gerasene Demoniac Announces Presidential Bid

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Copyright © 2005 and 2016 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

When Pastors Have Bad Dreams

Okay, so you may suggest I see a therapist rather than share this with you, but there’s something universal in the bad dream I had last night.

Pastors have all kinds of bad dreams: expected to preach when not prepared, missing your sermon as you walk to the pulpit, finding yourself naked in the pulpit, looking out at the congregation at 11 a.m. Sunday morning and seeing no one there, etc.

One of my preaching professors, Bill Muehl, once realized as he was about to preach in chapel at a girls’ school that the sermon he brought was the one he gave the same group the year before. Only it wasn’t a dream, it actually happened to him, and he had to use another sermon from memory, which he used as a “teaching moment” to advise his students to always have a back-up in memory. (I don’t re-use a sermon myself—I get bored with it!)

My most terrifying and recurring dream came to me when I served as an interim pastor: driving a dangerously slick winding road downhill in a thunderstorm at night with no headlights, no brakes, and/or no steering wheel!

Pastors also have good dreams: having just the right insights to offer in a sermon or talk, enjoying a committee’s embrace of your wisdom, seeing the sanctuary filled for Sunday morning service.

My dream last night was more of a nightmare.

I dreamed that there were a mere dozen in worship that morning, and one regular had brought someone new whom others did not like. There was fussing, even as I privately fussed with getting things ready for service.

It ended in a big squabble and as everyone was exiting before worship began, unhappy and disgusted with one another and with me, I suggested that the new person should be made to feel welcome. A friend in the congregation retaliated, saying that I myself had once said something derogatory about a visitor, which I denied, even if it may have been possible.

I awoke from the dream in the middle of the night feeling like a failure as a pastor. I became depressed, and had difficulties returning to sleep. Maybe I’d been a failure my whole life!

Pastors do make mistakes and pastors do fail. Sometimes it’s just not a good match. Sometimes either the parishioners or the pastor or church staff think they know better how to run the church.

Pastor or not, any of us can either unintentionally internalize a congregation’s dysfunction and/or become part of its dysfunctional family system. A congregation I know broke from another because of a dispute, but, when considering reunification decades later, the resentments of the congregation that had split had been passed on to new members not part of the original disagreement.

I witnessed that on a denominational scale when the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (the “northern stream”) and the Presbyterian Church, U.S. (the “southern stream”) considered reunion a century after Presbyterians had been divided by the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

My dream did have a sort of happy ending, however, even though the first part kept me awake wondering about past failures.

After everyone left, as I was putting everything back in place in the sanctuary, an old, grey-haired, heavy-set black man came in with his young son or grandson, hoping I would talk with him. He was thankfully oblivious to what had just happened with the congregation, but I was haunted by my old fear, “what-would-he-think-if-he-knew-I’m-gay?” Nonetheless, I was ready to help, and they were ready to talk.

This ending came to reassure me, and I hope I’m not just rationalizing. For everyone I may have failed, there were always more opportunities for ministry.

I daresay many a minister—ordained or lay—may take comfort in that realization.

A reading for Advent: Put Yourself in the Nativity Story

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Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Naked in Church

I recently e-mailed the Cathedral of Hope UCC in Dallas about “proper attire” for preaching there this coming Sunday (on Saturday I’ll also be leading a morning retreat on “Seeing as if for the First Time” and an afternoon retreat, “The Wounded Healer vs. Getting Hooked in Our Wounds”). And so I thought of naming this post “Proper Attire.” But “Naked in Church” is more likely to draw you in!

I have many “naked” dreams, easily explained because I sleep in the buff. That may be T.M.I., but it lessens attempts to over-psychologize these dreams, though much could be made of an introvert having such dreams! Of course, I have dreams about being naked in church as well. And it always seems normal and I am unashamed, but sometimes think perhaps I should be, because I am the only one in the nude.

A couple of weeks ago I had a dream in which I was visiting a traditional Lutheran church, sitting naked on the last pew. But it was okay—it was a “Reconciling in Christ” or welcoming congregation, and no one seemed to mind!

Last week, in the early morning hours of All Saints Day, I had two such dreams. In the first, an African American woman pastor had invited me to participate in worship at a praise-style service for her multi-racial congregation. In the second, I was to be the speaker during an interfaith Pride service—at which I was only shirtless, but debating whether to wear a gay rainbow flag stole.  (At least my naked church dreams are ecumenical, interfaith, and multiracial!)

And though any of us may feel either shame or pride in our bodies, given our own expectations and unfortunately that of others, I was feeling proud because I had lost 25 pounds over the summer through vigorous running, swimming, workouts, and careful eating. (This is true, not a dream!)

All this is to say that I think our God-given birthday suits should be considered “proper attire” in church, because this is one of the places we encounter a God who can see right through our facades and modesties to our vulnerabilities and strengths.  After all, confession began as a spiritual discipline that could be described as being naked in God’s presence, honestly confessing virtues as well as sins.

The Rev. Roy Birchard, a friend who served an MCC in Manhattan, once gave a remarkable sermon on Joseph’s coat of many colors, which was really a robe with sleeves, meaning he could do no manual labor, suggesting privilege.

Attired in his preacher’s academic robe and stole, Roy explained how this “uniform” gave him “authority” to preach and do sacraments, as well as to teach. Taking it off in the pulpit, he revealed a suit and tie beneath that he wore in his day-to-day work in the national offices of the Presbyterian church, then in New York City. Stripping further, he removed his tie, coat, and shirt, revealing a simple white t-shirt beneath, over which he pulled a black leather jacket. “And this is how I dress when I go out to the bars,” he said, implying that each layer represented a different kind of drag that gave him access and authority in different venues.

Adam and Eve once strolled naked with their Creator in Eden and were unashamed. King David danced virtually naked parading the Ark of the Covenant, God’s presence, into his new capital, Jerusalem.  Jesus was baptized naked at the hands of John the Baptizer, and Jesus heard God call him Beloved.

So being naked with God is quite traditional!

But I’ll have clothes on this Sunday.

Related post:

“Judas Kiss”

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Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite. Consider using a post or quotes in personal reflection, worship, newsletters, and classes, referencing the blog address when possible: http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com.

The Elusive Text

Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite.

During a six-day immersion course on Christian spirituality offered by the Spiritual Formation Program at Columbia seminary in Decatur, Georgia, last week, I had a significant dream. I found myself in a large and beautiful sanctuary, uplifted by a white vaulted ceiling and warmed by deep brown paneling and pews. I was to read a poem folded in a sheet of paper inserted in a book as the text for a sermon someone else was to preach. When I came to the pulpit, I opened the book and the folded sheet but could not find the poem.

I spent five minutes searching while the congregation grew restless with the silence. The text was familiar to me, I knew, so I tried to remember phrases. Unsuccessful, I gave hints to the congregation, hoping they could help me remember, as it was also familiar to them. But they could not help. As I came out of the dream, I tried in vain to remember the poem’s words or phrases, theme or gist. I knew it was familiar also to my waking self.

Regular readers of my books and blog know that I have such dreams. For a similar one you might check out my post, “A Theory of Everything.” I invite readers to comment on possible interpretations of this particular dream.

The context of the dream might help. On my own all of my life I have carefully read books on spirituality and attended similarly-themed lectures, workshops, retreats, and pilgrimages, not to mention college courses, divinity school, and countless worship services of various kinds. Many of my own books and this very blog are intended to encourage prayer, reflection, and meditation.

But I wanted to see what a course on Christian spirituality might be like. I read the required texts, then listened to various instructors describe Old Testament and New Testament spiritualities, then desert, monastic, post-Reformation, and contemporary spiritualities. We worshiped and journaled, walked a labyrinth, spent time in silence and spiritual practices. We also met in small groups and with a spiritual friend.

It turned out to be a healing experience for me. I felt like I was dipping my toe in baptismal waters again after some discouraging church experiences. Spiritual community does work when ALL are engaged, as were the participants, facilitators, and instructors of this course.

At the closing worship, overcome by emotion, I almost could not sing the final phrase of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”: “lost in wonder, love, and praise.” It reminded me of a United Methodist pastor who, ousted from his denomination, once poignantly confided that it had been a very long time since he had been, in Charles Wesley’s words, “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

Maybe the elusive text does not consist of words, but of feelings.