Leviticus meditations: Dispensations

So, I nearly made it through the whole month following the dietary laws (aside from the Burrito Incident which gave rise to TWO posts) but yesterday I slipped up. Actually, it wasn't even a slip-up. It was a deliberate decision when I had an acceptable option right in front of me. And yet I don't feel bad about it.

Right after giving blood I moseyed over to Au Bon Pain for lunch and made a beeline for the vegetarian soups like a good girl. But I wasn't feeling so hot and the pot of chicken noodle seemed like a MUCH better idea. So that's what I did.

(It's always tricky to judge your own motivations but I'm reasonably confident here because I really like the carrot-ginger and would usually choose that over the chicken noodle, Leviticus or no. Trying to be as objective as possible, I do think my body was looking to replenish something it had just lost.)

I talked to my Consultant about this. He says I absolutely, without question, needed to go with the carrot-ginger. Just about all rules are waived in order to save a life. But that's it. "Saving a life" gets interpreted very broadly, as it should, but there's no way I was going to keel over from the carrot-ginger soup so that's what I should have done.

I grew up Catholic and am familiar with dietary disciplines, on a lesser scale. But we also had the idea of "dispensations." As a general rule, avoid eating meat on this day ... but not if you're sick, or very young or very old, or there's some overriding event (post-funeral luncheons is one that comes up a lot). A discipline may generally be a good idea, but life is not one-size-fits-all and exceptions should be made.

Now these dispensations can get abused. Anybody remember the hubbub that ensued a few years ago when the then-brand new Archbishop refused to grant a dispensation from Lenten disciplines on Fenway Park opening day, simply because that happened to fall on Good Friday and he thought Good Friday should trump baseball? The nerve! I also remember my high school having a fundraising festival on a Friday evening in Lent and our chaplain (a good guy, who I respected very much) was going around granting dispensations -- they'll sell a lot more pizza if people can get the pepperoni instead of just plain cheese. Really, people.

Still, just because abuses exist does not mean that the underlying idea is baseless. I think this is a pretty legitimate one. So I gave myself a dispensation and am not worrying about it.

What sayeth the tribe? Is this a sensible and reasonable approach or simply opening the door to justify anything and everything?

Leviticus meditations: The blood is the life

I am sore. I am a "hard stick" as they say in the vampire business and the nice people in the bloodmobile outside had to make a couple attempts before I started gushing. Ow.

A bit more than six years ago, the Twin Towers came crashing down to earth and thousands of Americans were desperate to do something so the swarmed the Red Cross to give blood. I sat that one out -- I had given over the summer and was just barely eligible again. Plenty of other people were donating right now (in fact far more was given than could be used so vast quantities ended up getting thrown away) -- I'll wait a few more weeks until the rush has passed and all these folks aren't eligible again yet. It was a perfectly good theory, except that was more than six years ago -- I hadn't had a "donate now!" opportunity staring me in the face, and hadn't bothered to set up an appointment on my own. Six years! How did I let that go on so long? Well, can't change the past. When the Bloodmobile came to the office I signed up.

The blood is the life. Some life has drained out of me. I've had my juice and cookies, and am dutifully sipping a humongo sized herbal tea, but I am definitely not "all there." I'll be fine tomorrow, but I'm definitely feeling the absence today.

Jehovah's Witnesses have tremendous reverence for blood -- and so refuse to donate or accept blood transfusions. I have nothing but respect for their unbelievably costly obedience, but their reasoning is precisely backwards. Blood is holy -- and is there to be shed so that others might live. We gratefully receive life and health from blood that was shed for us, and in joyous response we offer ourselves as the Body of Christ to be broken and poured out for the world.

Rarely do we get to live that out quite so literally.

Leviticus meditations: Burrito Incident Revisited

So, remember The Burrito Incident from a couple weeks back, where I was at a meeting with dinner provided but there was no vegetarian option and I assumed the meat must have been factory farmed and unacceptable leaving me with the question of what to do now?

You may recall I shrugged and grabbed a chicken one only to reflect later that this was a mistake. Spirited Facebook discussion ensued.

And now ... the rest of the story.

That evening, Amazingly Competent Meeting Organizer had ordered from Boloco. As I try to put together a post about Humane/sustainable agriculture as respecting the Creator by respecting Creation, I see something about Boloco using all-natural, humanely raised meats.

OH!!! So it was OK after all! Excellent! Chalk another one up under "God has a sense of humor."

Then I checked out the Boloco website. Turns out they use naturally raised beef, naturally raised pork, but NOT naturally raised chicken.

http://www.boloco.com/

Deflation.

God's sense of humor is somewhat twisted at times.

Leviticus meditations: What about communal virtue?

Last night I was walking to the T and was accosted by very enthusiastic solicitors for a charity that supports poor children around the world. I've never heard of these folks and such high-pressure "you must do something right now" tactics are rarely a good sign, but let's assume they're on the up and up.

I tried to evade them but no dice. A conversation ensued. "If you decided to sponsor a desperately poor child, do you think that later on you would regret that choice?" "WHAT?!?!" "Or would you regret knowing that some child is dying for lack of basic necessities?"

All right, I do think that these things are important, which is why I already give regularly to this other charity focused on children in the developing world. Thank you very much, have a nice day ...

"Oh yes, that's great. They do wonderful things. But why not give to us too."

Well, because I'm one person and there are tons of good causes in the world and I can't do everything.

"But if you're already giving to some good causes, why does that mean you shouldn't support others as well?"

WHAT?!?!

"I do what I can. Good thing there are a lot of us in this world so that everything can get covered. But right now I'm doing as much as I can. Thank you for what you are doing. Goodbye."

Now, maybe I should be giving far more than I do. That's probably true. But nonetheless, the point remains that wherever my appropriate limit is, it does exist somewhere and does not allow me to take care of everything that needs fixing in the world. That doesn't mean I throw up my hands and don't do anything. But I do my part, and other people do their part, and as a whole community all those little parts can add up to something extraordinary. Tossing up my hands and giving up is a mistake -- as is thinking that I'm supposed to be doing everything myself.

I think I've tended to absorb some of this "you have to do it ALL" attitude that our strange soliciting friend was trying to encourage. A few weeks ago Kristi was talking about communal sin. Might there be communal virtue as well? I don't want to take this too far. "Well, my homicidal tendencies don't really matter, because after all Kristi doesn't go around killing people" -- no, that's going nowhere good.

But just maybe, just as my neighbor's sin drags me down, there's a sense in which my neighbor's virtue builds me up, and can at times carry me through my weak points.

This is all pretty hazy in my head, but there just might be something here.

And I desperately need to work on my solicitor-avoiding skills. That one I'm certain of.

Leviticus meditations: Jumbled up thoughts on holiness and authenticity

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. -- Mark Twain

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's write up some of the jumble. Those looking for clarity, structure or a point should refer to the above quotation.

So a couple weeks ago I wrote an impassioned comment about the importance of liturgy, of saying prayers that may not represent what's in your heart, but represent what SHOULD be in your heart, and over time they start to sink in and shape you. I do believe that's true. I also believe it's true that putting up a false front in prayer is a really bad idea and one that I fall into far too often. (Note to self: Trying to pull the wool over the eyes of an omniscient being? Not the all-time brightest of ideas.)

And I recently heard about an English college chaplain in the 1960s who was known for prayers like these:

"Hello, it is me, your old friend and your old enemy, your loving friend who often neglects you, your complicated friend, your utterly perplexed and decidedly resentful friend, partly loving, partly hating, partly not caring. It is me."

"O God, I am hellishly angry; I think so-and-so is a swine; I am tortured by worry about this or that; I am pretty certain that I have missed my chances in life; this or that has left me feeling terribly depressed. But nonetheless here I am like this, feeling both bloody and bloody-minded, and I am going to stay here for ten minutes. You are most unlikely to give me anything. I know that. But I am going to stay for the ten minutes nonetheless."

Something in those seems so amazingly true and right. So how do I reconcile that with the idea that following established prayer -- saying what we should be thinking and feeling even if it's the farthest thing in the world from where we are right now -- shapes us into eventually becoming that person? I have no idea. I want them both, and I don't think they fit.

I had a discussion this weekend with an old friend about the idea of getting dressed up for church. He is deeply opposed to the idea. If there's any place where we should come as we are -- set aside pretense and be naked (figuratively!) -- shouldn't that be church? Absolutely. But also, dress signifies "This is important and I take this seriously." I dress differently to go out on a date than I do to scrub out the bathtub. If I go out to dinner and look like a slob, that's saying "This is not important to me. You are not important to me." Is that what I want to be saying to God? Hmmm ... that's another good point. Which totally contradicts the first very good point. Now what?

Three weeks in, I have found Leviticus to be overwhelmingly on the "pray the right way and eventually you'll mean it/make yourself look all pretty for church" end of things. I seem to be overwhelmed with external details and am finding it far too easy to overlook justice and mercy because I only have so much ethical/religious energy and I'm spending so much on jumping through hoops. (Or reducing justice and mercy to more hoops -- tithing because Section IV (A)(ii)(b) Paragraph 7 says you should tithe can crush out an impulse to share your resources out of compassion, love, and gratitude for God's gifts to you. This hardly seems like a step in the right direction.) Now, to the extent that we're talking about developing habits that in time shape who you become, that process takes a lot longer than a month. If this month leaves me cold, that may not be a reason to discard the whole system. It may be the necessary first step in a process.

Still. It's not feeling like a difficult first step in a long and difficult but ultimately very good process. It feels like moving in the wrong direction. And that's just disturbing on a countless number of levels.

Leviticus Meditations: Thank you Rabbi Hillel!

So, now that we're about halfway through, I'm having a rough time with this Leviticus project. I'm tired and drained and it seems like every time I turn around there's some other hoop that I'm not jumping through correctly and God is glaring disapprovingly. Meanwhile, my attention is so focused on the hoops that I seem to lose focus on justice and mercy. This does not seem good.

I've been close to enough Jews to know that this is a profoundly un-Jewish attitude. Nobody follows the law perfectly -- and there's no expectation that you ever will. That's just not part of the human condition. When you screw up -- and you will -- you dust yourself off and try again. And you're a little closer today than you were yesterday, and with God's help you'll be a little closer tomorrow.

Several years ago, my Consultants were telling me about this series of debates between Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel. Rabbi Shammai took the Torah very seriously and was very strict. This is not something to play games with. This is the LAW of GOD. This MATTERS. One does not cut corners! Rabbi Hillel was much more gentle. Unfailingly patient, he would always take people where they are and if they were generally pointing in the right direction then that is to be celebrated.

There's quite a bit to be said for both. The story goes, God rendered a verdict. Shammai understands the law correctly -- but live like Hillel.

Recently, I was talking to my Consultants about this story again. You cut yourself some slack -- individually and collectively -- because that's what it is to be human. Humans are fragile -- this includes both "everybody else" and me. That often means you say "I know I'm supposed to be doing Y, but really, X is all I can handle right now." For most of us, that's an uncomfortable position to be in. And so we tend to redefine the standard. Really, X is all we're really supposed to do. The Law doesn't really demand Y.

No. We don't get to do that. The Law is Y. If X is all you can handle right now, that can be OK. Nobody does this perfectly, and nobody ever will. That's OK. You keep trying, you're a little closer than you were yesterday and tomorrow, with God's help, you'll be a little closer than you are today. But don't redefine the Law down to what you can handle -- keep the ideal intact.

I think I might have made quite a jumble of trying to explain all this. But it helped me understand this whole undertaking a lot better.

In memoriam

So, a few years ago I found myself on a panel about faith and work for a class of doctor of ministry students who were focusing on faith in the workplace.

After too many horrifying conversations along the lines of "Gosh wouldn't it be great to have a Bible study group meeting at the office" (ummm ... no ... that would in fact suck rocks. Sorry.) I broke in with a story about my parents taking a class on family life while they were dating, taught by a sweet, gentle, grace-filled man, Rabbi Folkman. And every now and then he'd mention his son who was off doing medical research.

About a decade ago, all the news outlets were hopping about a potential imminent cure for cancer within the next few years. The reporters' jobs were made more difficult by the fact that the researcher had no interest in talking to them. Yes, they'd had some hopeful looking results but this was at way too early a stage for all the hype. "Mouse studies do not belong on the front page of the New York Times." (And ten years later cancer is still around, although some very helpful new treatments are now on the market as a result of that research.) They couldn't even scrounge up a recent photo, because he doesn't do that sort of thing. But the reporters had to do SOMETHING when everybody was all excited. And a portrait started to emerge of a brilliant, brilliant man who was very interested in curing cancer but not at all interested in building up his own ego. In a lot of labs, it is just routine that the head guy gets senior authorship credit on every article that comes out of the lab. He didn't do that. He took authorship credit on the articles he actually contributed to and had other people get the credit when that was appropriate. He was always very careful to make sure that his assistants got credit for everything they had worked on. This is not normal behavior in academic research.

That was Judah Folkman, Rabbi Folkman's son. And, my parents said, that made sense. Knowing Rabbi Folkman, of course that's the way his son would be.

THAT, said I, is how a Christian should be known in the workplace. People should see us and say "Of course. It makes sense that she'd act that way. That is how a child of God would be."

(Of course, unless Judah also grew up to break his father's heart, I'm guessing that Rabbi Folkman's son wasn't Christian. And he was my paradigm example for how a Christian should act in the workplace. That's OK. Let's shake up the Gordon-Conwellites a little.)

Judah Folkman died this week from a sudden heart attack. He had absolutely no reason to know I exist, but in some strange way I considered him a friend. I almost feel like I should go to the memorial service this weekend. Rest in peace.

Leviticus Meditations: The Reverse Sabbath Weekend

So I've been using sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday as my Sabbath. (Anybody who wishes to argue that only sundown Friday to sundown Saturday is acceptable is free to do so, but I will not respond.)

One of the regular fixtures in my week is a community dinner on Saturday evenings. So I was treating that as my Shabbat dinner and it all fit together just beautifully. For the first week at least.

However, every now and again, instead of meeting for dinner we'll get together for brunch on Saturday morning. Uh oh. You can't have half my Saturday -- not when I don't get a Sunday. And then I was long overdue for catching up with a friend. Thanks to Sabbath observance I have all kinds of availability on Sundays -- would that be a good time to hang out? Well, no, she's a freelance photographer and was working all day Saturday and most of Sunday -- up until right about sundown, but Sunday evening was just perfect!

Aack. Laundry needs to get done, groceries need to be shopped, food needs to be made, dishwashers need to be loaded and run, trash needs to be taken out, life generally needs to happen. So, if I want to preserve this valuable relationship time, I have from noon to about 4:30 on Saturday to do all this. That's it. I got home at noon, tried to figure out what to prioritize and how to make this happen.

And then I decided, somewhat petulantly, screw it. Nuts to this. I. did. not. want. to. A lot of laundry and housekeeping were done on Sunday during the day -- Saturday day and Sunday night were all about worship, rest and relationships.

I suppose I could have been really on the ball and gotten all that "general life" stuff done during the last week but I'm not that on top of things. That's not going to change, so my options seemed to be prioritizing relationships or prioritizing my own schedule. And prioritizing that schedule would have left me me doing laundry when I could be building relationships and sitting home alone on Sunday. So I chose people.

I'm in trouble. Torah doesn't allow this. I can't switch things around to make things work. Rest on the Sabbath day, not some day that works best for you. If you life doesn't fit with the Law, change your life or get stoned.

Last week, Brandy, Kristi and Lisa didn't have that dilemma as they spent a lovely Sabbath together. Among our fellow Levites, these same restrictions can bind us together -- but it sure does complicate matters when we're dealing with anyone else.That is, of course, largely the point. And I continually keep butting up against the same issue in different ways. You are all wonderful folks -- but I don't want my social circle to be limited to my fellow Levites. I suppose I could do that for a month, but my heart sinks at the thought of doing that forever. I like the world. There are nice people there.

Leviticus meditations: Burritos, holiness, and really long meetings

So, I'm at a meeting last night and dinner is provided. Unsurprisingly, it did not occur to our amazingly organized meeting coordinator to provide a Levitically sanctioned meal, much less my "meat is only acceptable if it comes from tree hugger hippie chickens (or cows or sheep) who spent their animal lives holding hands and skipping around a pasture" approach to Torah, which leaves me going vegetarian except occasionally for meat I prepare myself. Usually at these things, there's some sort of vegetarian something so I didn't think to give her a heads-up, but not this time. Uh oh. Now what? These meetings are LONG -- I didn't particularly want to wait until I got home.

When I adopt dietary Lenten disciplines, my rule is always "this is what I do when I'm making my own food choices." So if I'm abstaining from meat, which I do sometimes, that applies if food is coming from my own kitchen, or if I'm out at a restaurant and can choose from a menu. But if I'm someone else's guest I do what I can do gracefully, but otherwise eat what's put in front of me and don't worry about it. So I took the same approach here and grabbed a chicken burrito. Chicken is a clean animal, there's no blood, it'll have to do.

Upon further reflection, with a full tummy, this was a mistake. Torah makes no provisions for "do this unless it's awkward or uncomfortable or seems somehow rude." If these prohibitions just don't work with the way you live your life, change the way you live your life. Come out and be ye separate. So, if waiting until I got home wasn't a good option, I should have run across the street and gotten something meatless to eat -- even though that would have left our amazingly competent meeting organizer, who did absolutely nothing wrong here, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. That should not be my concern.

Now, here's my problem. I really don't want to do that. And while my tree-hugger hippie approach to eating meat does have a moral dimension, a lot of these prohibitions do not -- they're being separate largely for the sake of being separate. As my Consultant told me the other day, being a "holy nation" is not the same as being a "righteous nation." Israel is supposed to be both, but they're not the same concept, and most of Leviticus is far more about holiness. I have no trouble standing out from the pack when it comes to righteousness (theoretically -- I make no bold claims about my actual track record on the subject). I want my lifestyle to look different. I want to handle money differently. I want to treat people as ends rather than means. I want to recognize myself as God's beloved creation, and when I know that, then chasing after status and acclaim seems pretty ridiculous. If I live that way, I'll look plenty different. But all of that is about righteousness, which is a different question. Separation for separation's sake continues to grate.

Leviticus Meditations: On the Outside, Looking In

Never let it be said that God does not have a sense of humor. I almost never miss church on a Sunday, but here we are on the first Sunday of a month when I'm supposed to be especially pious and I'm not going to church. I can't go, because it's that time of the month and I'm so unclean that anyone who touches me can't go. Fortunately, no one else cares about such silliness so I haven't cut myself off from human contact, but I am sitting around alone at home while everyone else is worshipping and celebrating the Lord's Supper. Oh, did I mention that I really don't miss church on Communion Sundays? I am not happy about this.

I try to remember that the ancient world thought of blood as the life force, endowed with deep spiritual significance. But I'm not totally sure that applies here. This is coming in a public health code about minimizing the spread of infection. I can understand how quarantines were necessary in a world before antibiotics. But menstruation is not a dangerous illness. This is not advanced science.

There's a point that ritual impurity is different from moral contamination. That might help a little, but only a little. And elsewhere in the Bible, there certainly seems to be a moral connotation. Ezekiel 36:17.

Brandy is a good person and points out that we humans are awfully good at twisting God's word for our own sinful purposes. That's certainly true. And it's also true that there are many many misogynistic cultures in the world and the spread of Christianity tends to improve women's status.

But still. Sometimes a misogynistic reading doesn't take much twisting. Sometimes it seems hard to read it any other way. And so I sit around, unable to participate in public worship because my body is functioning the way God made it to function.

But maybe I depend on our weekly worship gatherings too much. Maybe I need to better develop my individual spiritual life. As I was grouchily praying about this situation a few days ago, I sensed "Don't worry, I'll meet you another way." And God did -- today I had one of the most fruitful prayer times I've had in quite a while. I needed that.

So, is this a story about me kicking against the goads only to find that God's way is the best after all? Sorry, no. If periodic exclusion from worship is actually a good idea for women, it should be a good idea for everyone.

Although we believe that Jesus followed the law perfectly, he seemed to violate ritual purity laws with abandon. He touches a bleeding woman, touches lepers. He implicitly condemns a priest who passed by a wounded man, and does not seem to care that the priest had to do precisely that in order to keep himself pure. How do we understand this and also uphold the purity laws as the inspired Word of God? I have no idea.

Fortunately, today, I saw a God who can work through lousy structures -- but that doesn't make the structures any less lousy.

Living Leviticus: My Plan

So here's my plan for our month:

1. Dietary. Separate between clean and unclean animals -- no pork, shellfish, ospreys (that last one probably won't be so tough). No boiling a kid in the milk of its mother, although I don't interpret that to require hours of separation between any dairy and any meat. Also, the prohibition on blood seems to be a very big deal, aside from the distinctions between clean and unclean animals. I'll salt any meat before cooking it to draw the blood out. If I were buying kosher certified meats the salting would already have been done, but I'm not so that's another step for me.

Also, I see the agricultural laws generally as about respecting Creation and therefore the Creator. In my mind, factory farming does not mesh with respecting Creation. So no more supermarket meat counter products for me. Only eat meats from animals that were humanely and naturally raised (e.g. cows are made to eat grass, not corn). Kristi and I will be heading over to Lionette's Market in South End to see what we find there. (We can video the experience if you want to see the excitement of grocery shopping.) I expect this will mean I'm eating a lot less meat. The nutritionists tell me that's probably all to the good.

A kosher certification guarantees how the animal was slaughtered but says nothing about how it was treated prior to slaughter. So although I was originally planning to buy kosher meats, instead I'll buy what meat I end up consuming from these tree-hugger sources and salt it myself.

2. Sabbath. I turn into a pumpkin at sundown on Saturday and re-emerge with sundown on Sunday. This time is for rest and restoring the soul, which includes but is not necessarily limited to worship and prayer. Tossing around a Frisbee can be tremendously soul-restoring as well (well, maybe not in Boston in January but you get the idea). I won't get as extreme about this as some. For instance, I just cannot wrap my mind around thinking of tying shoelaces as work. Shoelaces are acceptable. And I'll probably use the Crock Pot a lot for Sunday meals, so I can have it all ready ahead of time. But if everything is chopped and ready to go on Saturday and sitting in the crock in the refrigerator, I will have no qualms whatsoever about plugging the Crock Pot in on Sunday and pressing the "on" button.

By the way, let me strongly recommend the Sabbath essay in "Mudhouse Sabbath" to everyone. (The whole book is good but the Sabbath one is the best.) 3. Particular attention to honesty and integrity. Nothing new here, just more attention to what I should be doing anyway.

4. Keep reading, over and over again. Back in my college days, one of my philosophy professors talked about how the Greeks approached Homer. It's OK to question, it's OK to challenge -- and then you go back and read The Iliad again. In our day, when we poke a hole in a book or an author we then put it on the shelf and don't worry about it anymore. It has been disposed of. The Greeks didn't do that with Homer. They kept a dialogue going. They challenged, they questioned, they poked holes -- and then they sat down and read again.

This is how I try to approach Scripture. A lot of people won't question or challenge the Bible. They may question their own understanding, but if the Bible certainly seems to be clear, that ends the conversation. I can't do that. Maybe I should, maybe I will someday, but at least right now I just can't. But I can keep coming back. I can have an attitude that I have more to learn here. I can wrestle with G-d -- and then come back and read again.