Oprah's worst-dressed audience member

You're probably aware that Oprah is broadcasting the final few shows of her program's last season. The ABC affiliate in Chicago rebroadcasts her show at 11:05 p.m. each night, and because of my ongoing midlife sleep battles, I have seen some of the programs of this final season. She's a fascinating personality, and though I can't affirm some of what she preaches, I also can't deny her sister-girlfriend relateability or her epic generosity. 

I am way late to the Oprah party. I had the opportunity to be an audience member at her show about eight or nine years ago, and had never seen the program before I found myself sitting about 4 rows from the stage. The whole experience was an unforgettable lesson in being woefully under-dressed. 

A friend from church had a daughter, M, who'd discovered her breast cancer after watching an Oprah show about the subject. M sent an email to the show's producers to thank them, and told them that the information on the program probably saved her life. When the program's producers decided to do a show following up on some of the stories they'd done, they contacted M and invited her to appear on the show. They flew to her southern home to get some footage of her life and experience with treatment.

When my WI friend found out her daughter was going to be a guest on the show, she contacted the producers and told them she hadn't seen her daughter since the diagnosis. She knew of Oprah's fondness for giving people happy surprises, and told my friend that they'd bring her on stage as a surprise for her chemo-ill daughter. 

My friend called me. "I've never driven in Chicago before! Would you be my chauffeur? I can get you a ticket to be in Oprah's audience that day." 

I didn't watch daytime TV, and really didn't know much Oprah's show at the time. But I was always up for an adventure, so I told her I'd gladly be her limo driver. Because my friend was a guest on the show, we were ushered into a private entrance and whisked to a make-up room so they could do their magic on my friend. After they finished, a production assistant escorted us to one of the studio's green rooms. 

"We have a seat for you in the audience," the staffer said to me. It is important to note what I was wearing that day: grubby jeans, a sweatshire and, most likely, some tired Birkenstocks. I was my friend's roadie, and hadn't thought much about what would happen once I arrived at the studio. I figured I'd watch from backstage. The part about watching from the audience didn't register with me at all. Since I'd never seen the show, I certainly didn't know anything about what it meant to be an Oprah audience member. 

Big mistake. 

When she ushered me to my seat near the front of the studio, I was seated next to a woman wearing some very expensive leopard-print stillettos. I will always remember those shoes, maybe because I saw them as I settled into my seat. I looked up and saw a well-coiffed blonde wearing them; designer-dressed head to toe. A wave of insecurity swept over me similar to the feeling I got when I got paired with a perky, pretty cheerleader as my lab partner in high school. 

And then as I slowly scanned the room, I realized I was sitting in an audience comprised of a couple hundred cheerleaders. Every single woman was dressed to kill - or at least maim. 

I. Had. No. Idea. 

A producer emerged onto the stage and warmed up the audience. "When did you all start getting ready to be here today?" Everyone except me laughed. She began a backwards countdown: Yesterday? Two days ago? The winner of her informal poll had started her prep a week earlier. I slunk lower in my seat and stared at those leopard-print stilettos until they cued the music and Oprah took the stage. 

I'm glad to report that my cleaning-the-garage look didn't negatively impact the show. My friend and her daughter had a happy reunion on camera, and the entire experience was indeed an adventure. 

And a lesson in doing my homework before I leave the house to have an adventure.

Watch and pray

The disciples experienced all kinds of amazing weeks with Jesus, but none of them were anything like the week they headed into Jerusalem just before Passover. The crowds up north, in Galilee, clamored to get near Jesus because they hoping to see a miracle, or they were enthralled by his teachings. The people of Jerusalem greeted Jesus though they were welcoming a king to town. Their hope-filled celebration turned to ice as Jesus publicly and frequently challenged the beliefs and motivations of the city's religious authorities over the next few days. 

But Jesus didn't come to Jerusalem to increase his fan base. He was there for Passover, and gathered with his friends in an upper room of a stranger's house steps from the site of King David's tomb. He feasted with his friends, as they shared the ritual meal recounting the deliverance from slavery to freedom. Woven through the Exodus narrative, Jesus again reminded them of who he was - and who they were and would be as a result of following him. 

It had been an intense few days, and after cups of good wine and the best food and prayer and that troubling exit of Judas and footwashing that had nearly undone them all, it must have been a relief as the group exited into the cool Judean nighttime air. 

Probably a sense of corporate weariness hit them as they quietly walked down from Mount Zion into a low, green valley and then began a gentle ascent toward their lodging on the Mount of Olives. Food, wine and long days leading up to this point must have made for a quiet group as they hiked. A garden grove of olive trees, an oasis, beckoned. Jesus had a simple ask of his friends: "Sit here while I go over there and pray." Wait for me. I won't be long.

He invited three of the group to go with him, and as he walked away from those who'd been his family for the last three years, waves of coal-black sorrow rose and crashed over him. He moved away from the trio in order to let his anguished words flow freely. He pleaded with his Father, and all that he was in that moment became a single sentence of anguished surrender: “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 

They'd shared cups of red wine at the Passover table a short time earlier - drinking as they celebrated God's hallowing presence, his miraculous deliverance, and the certain hope of redemption. It was this cup of redemption he passed to them, telling them he would not drink wine again, a symbol of joy, again until God's kingdom came. It was this cup of redemption, he said, that was his new covenant, made in his own blood, poured out for them. 

For us.

Alone among the olive trees, he wrestled in prayer. Anguish caused him to sweat drops of blood; wine spilled from his soul. 

Lulled by the silence of the night, the first peaceful moments of the week, perhaps, and their full stomachs and depleted emotions, Jesus' friends nodded off only to be awakened by his heartbroken words. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Murmured apologies came, and they all bowed obediently in prayer as Jesus again moved away into the darkness. Their momentary embarrassment ebbed. They'd done far more boneheaded things before, and he loved them anyway. This assurance, and the narcotic of the nighttime once again did its work on them. They slept.

Just steps away, in that moment, became a single sentence of anguished surrender: “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” When he returned again to his friends, only to be met with their slow, steady, silent breathing. Asleep. Again.

It was the last intimate moment he would have alone with them. 

What must have passed through his heart as he looked at their sleeping figures in the moonlight?  

Sunrise, sunset

When I got married, my parents walked me up the aisle to the song Sunrise, Sunset from the movie Fiddler On The Roof. We selected the song as a way to honor my family's heritage.

Since I've become a parent, I have not been able to listen to that song without becoming a weeping mess. Remembering my own parents is a part of it, but the bigger part of it is the way the lyrics capture the stunning speed with which time passes.

Jacob, age 8 (1993) creating something wonderful.

Jacob, age 24 (2011) creating something wonderful.

Swiftly fly the days. 

Sur la table

Last weekend, my dear friend Meg and I facilitated a directed silent retreat. One of the passages of Scripture on which we focused was possibly the most familiar of them all - Psalm 23. Familiarity does not equal true understanding. I am convinced you could spend a lifetime meditating on a few familiar Bible passages and have barely scratched the surface of what is there. These are eternal, transforming, living words, given us by the Living Word.

I was sitting alone in our meeting room when one of the women at the retreat came in from a nighttime walk and asked me, "What do you think it means when David says, 'You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies'?"

I asked her some questions about why that verse struck her so, we chatted and prayed for a moment, and then she returned to her silence. As she walked out of the room, I had a flashback to a moment years earlier in my life when a church leader quoted Proverbs 18:16 ("A gift opens the way and ushers the giver into the presence of the great.") and told me in so many words that I would have to basically use my gifts like a battering ram in order to insinuate myself into a place at the table at this church. The congregation had a very competitive culture, and this individual's terrible, wrong-hearted application of this passage was yanked out of context in order to justify deep corporate immaturity.

The proverb, you'll notice, isn't directive, but descriptive. However, in the hands of this insecure leader, it became a goad. The "table" in this abusive paradigm wasn't a place of nourishment, though it was presented as such. It was a place where you arrived hungry, and left depleted.

Psalm 23:5 is quite a counterpoint to that goad. It tells me I don't have to perform. Amateur judges, bouncers and mockers can't keep me away from the table. Those who want to see me fail or hurt fade into the shadows as I am led to my place by the One who has prepared a feast just for me.

Just for me. 

This is the exact opposite of my experience in the world, and as a result, my head understands the words of the verse, but my soul struggles mightily to live in this unreal reality.

I don't think I'm alone in this. Many see a blockade of enemies in our lives. We experience conditional love, grading on the curve, and the whispered voice of the accuser telling us that there is no place at the table for losers like us.

God is escorting each one of us past those enemies. He is holding the back of the chair, and is graciously inviting you and I to sit down and dine with him.

This is what happens when I search for free books...

So I finally broke down and bought a Kindle. I'd been resisting the purchase because I love the idea of a physical book, and because a lot of my reading comes in the from of free books I read in order to review. With some upcoming travel on the horizon, I realized that one little device would be a lot nicer to carry than 35 pounds of reading material. More than one person told me that I could get all kinds of free or cheap books for the Kindle, so I finally bit the bullet and pulled out the debit card.

Once it arrived, I did a couple of quick searches for freebies, and downloaded a few books I would never consider reading otherwise. One of those books was a work of "Amish fiction" (pulp fiction set in Amish culture) written by a popular Christian author. There has been an explosion of these books over the last several years. It is an entire subcategory of CBA fiction, and the genre continues to grow in popularity. I attended a writer's conference about four years ago, and an acquisition editor said he felt that Amish fiction was probably peaking. Boy, was he ever wrong.

I am the target demographic for these books: middle-aged, Caucasian (well, I'm sort of Caucasian, for the purposes of this discussion), suburban, church attending, conservative (well, I'm sort of conservative, for the purposes of this discussion). However, I rarely read pulp fiction - or much other fiction - for that matter. But hey! It was free! So I gave this horse-and-buggy story by one of the big names in Amish fiction a ride on my Kindle.

I'm not going to review the book because I'm not sure what I could say about it, in all truth. The Amish elements like characters calling their fathers "Daed" (Dad) or using the phone booth located by the road to call an "English" (non-Amish) driver for a ride held mild cultural interest for me. The plot was predictable, though the author did surprise me with one twist near the end of the story. I would have kicked myself to Cleveland if I'd paid actual shekels for the product instead of getting it for free. It just wasn't my cup of herbal tea.

I read while trying to understand what the draw of this genre is for modern readers. I get it that the Amish and Old Older Mennonite characters present an intact, functioning, countercultural subculture in our confusing world. Lots of written and unwritten rules define the way they interact with their larger culture, creating boundaries and a definite separation. They tilt strongly into the "not of" part of "in the world, but not of it". 

The middle-aged women buying armloads of these titles are, perhaps, enjoying the escape into a fantasy subculture that mirrors their own desire for intact families, a deep sense of community and simple expressions of faith without the alienation and mess of our modern world. Lady Gaga, Charlie Sheen, the subprime mortgage mess and churches large enough to required a staff of parking attendants do not exist in these books.

Though I didn't love the book I read, I had a moment of clarity when I realized that the life portrayed in its pages was perhaps just a wee bit closer to the images of the life I imagined when I first began following Christ more than half a lifetime ago. No, I didn't imagine wearing a starched headcovering or hitching up my buggy to my horse to run up to the Jewel, but I did dream of a life shaped by faith, filled with family and tightly woven into spiritual community.

A couple of days after I finished the book in an hour and a half, the most recent issue of Christianity Today arrived with a helpful piece by Eric Miller entitled "Why We Love Amish Romances". (Probably not so coincidentally, there are also a couple of full-page display ads for new releases of Amish romances.) Miller notes, "...I'd look at our own jam-packed, lonely, high-tech life and sigh. Make no mistake, the allure (of the Amish) is real, and it's rooted in a sound intuition: that freedom means order, an order beyond the harum-scarum pace of the freeway, beyond the noise of our little digital jukeboxes." 

The genre's popularity, perhaps, is a subtle indictment of both our lifestyle and our churches. Every time one of my fifty-something sisters plunks down $13.99 for an Amish book, she is saying that she wants something more - and maybe something much, much less - than the life she is living here and now.

Me, too, sister. Me, too.

How do you account for the popularity of this genre? Have you ever read any Amish fiction? If so, what did you enjoy most about it?