Commun(e?) ity

Yesterday evening Jason Evans and I laughed as we attempted to flip buffalo burgers on the grill, each of us holding a beer in one hand and a utensil in the other.  Meals at the Hawthorn House are a happy experiment, bringing together family recipes, sustainable ingredients, curiosity, and a desire to share food with friends.  I’m living here this summer, in a house that embodies the experimental spirit:  9 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs, a half dozen gardens, a couple of compost bins, and some renegade skunks all sharing one street address.

Cooking at the Hawthorn House

For me this summer is an experiment.  I spent two happy years after college living in my own apartment, enjoying the solitude having my own space afforded me.  My home became a refuge from the busy life I lived working as the Campus Minister at UCSD, beginning the ordination process, and dealing with life back in America after a year-long stint in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  I loved closing the door at the end of the day and sinking into my couch.  So this summer by intentionally sharing space with others I am actively exploring what it means to hold space in common.

Holding this in common with this group of people so far has been more of a blessing than a hardship.  I stay up too late drinking good beer and talking theology with my fellow nerds Jason and Lars, get hyped up about the politics of Michelle Obama’s organic garden with my housemate Brooke, commiserate about the insanity of the free clinics I’m working in with Bethany, or blow hookah bubbles with the guys upstairs.  I may get labeled a monster, but just by Matty-boy (who is 5) and Paige (who is 7) as we play.  If all else fails Tasha, the family dog, will throw her chew toy at my feet expecting a game of fetch.

The Evans Family

When trying to explain this concept to others I have often been meant with odd stares.  What do you mean you’re going to live with that many people?  Did you join a commune?

Others are familiar with what has been called “new monasticism.”  A number of communities have arisen (and disappeared) over the past decades attempting to pattern their lives toward a shared vision of following Jesus.  Shane Claiborne of “The Simple Way” in Philadelphia made his community famous when he described their life in his book The Irresistible Revolution.  These communities generally understand that their movement to live together and work in economically deprived areas mirrors that of the monks and nuns who came after St. Benedict, St. Francis, and St. Clare.

Hawthorn House avoids the title “new monasticism.”  My guess is that the term indicates  that a community has come to some imagined settled reality.  The Hawthorn House community, like the meals we eat, is an active experiment.  At Hawthorn we bring together the traditions we hold dear, ongoing questions, friendship, and a desire to follow Jesus.  This summer I’m trying not to hold on too tightly to any vision of what my future life with this community could be.  If the experiment continues it will be because this is a community that knows that cultivating tomatoes while cultivating friendships can teach us a great deal about the kingdom of God.

Last Sunday’s sermon

Sermon from Sunday.  The Lessons are actually for a couple of weeks from now…I’m meditating on hope, loss, beheadings, and Guiding Light (yes the TV show). Let me know what you think!

Sermon from June 28, 2009 Good Samaritan. God Has the Last Word.

http://www.goodsamchurch.org/artman2/uploads/1/_20090628_GSA.mp3

Update

It’s been a long time since my last post.  Brief update:  Finished a marathon in Pittsburgh 3:59:42 (right under the 4:00:00 goal mark)  It was a blast to train with my buddy Josiah from seminary and I’ve really learned to love running.  Finished out the first year at the seminary, twas lovely.  I miss Virginia.  Spent a couple of weeks in Colorado with the family.  Ran the Bolder Boulder again.

Now I’m in San Diego.  I just started my Clinical Pastoral Education.  Translation:  CPE is a 400 hour certification.  I am paying the Vitas Hospice Network to allow me to be a “Chaplain in Training” to hospice, clinic, and hospital patients.  I will spend 1 day a week with a group or 7 people doing the same program and refining our skills and discussing our perceptions of pastoral care. I’ll blog more about this later.

I moved into the Hawthorn House, a Christian community of people living together.  I live downstairs with Brooke, Jason, and their two kids Paige and Matty-boy (he’s a bit of a super hero) and Tasha (the dog.)  Upstairs there is an apartment of guys just out of college and in the backyard another house with three people.  I’m viewing summer as a bit of an experiment in discernment around how living can work differently…Sharing meals, resources, and conversation seems like a small thing.  Still it is already making a difference in the quality of my days.

I flew home last weekend for my sister’ wedding.  She looked beautiful, and he grinned the whole time.  I was happy to be able to help the priest navigate a confusing ceremony.  Spending the last night with her friends from San Antonio and some of my friends from High School dancing in lo-Do was great.  I’m still adjusting to having a “brother-in-law.”  I said those words for the first time last night and it was confusing…but I’m super excited to have Corey in the family.

Facebook, Blogging, and Ministry

I’m in debate about expanding upon the use of Facebook, Blogging, and the general social networking phenomenon for ministry in an article.  I thought I’d write up some of my thoughts and see if it is useful to folks at all, go from there.  PLEASE comment or email, let me know if this is helpful.  Depending on how the conversation goes I might expand into more posts.

I’ll describe some specifics about my own use of facebook in ministry and then talk in some detail about the “facespace” and religiosity.

Status Updates

With the advent of the “status update” facebookers are able to share their thoughts/feelings on a moment by moment basis.  Much like the “Twitter” users of Facebook can make changes that represent their current activity, thoughts, and feelings.  My status might say, “In class learning about macro-economics” or “looking forward to hanging out with friends tonight.”

Status Updates are important in facebook because they are the most publicly available piece of information.  The default settings cause whatever a user writes as a status update to instantly appear on the front page of facebook for anyone who lists them as a friend.  In ministry this can be important because it serves as a prime avenue for advertising.  When I have a new blog post, a new religious reflection, a link I want to share I can place that link in my status.  My blog traffic tends to triple when I place a link to my blog in my status.  Another use of the status is to advertise events.  This can be overt “PLEASE COME TO THEOLOGY ON TAP TONIGHT AT PINTS PUB 8PM” or more oblique “Mike is looking forward to worshiping tonight at Good Samaritan and 7:07.”  The recently added feature which allows others to comment or “like” the status can bring a sense of group connectivity to these announcements, a virtual word of mouth.

Blogs and Notes

Blogging can be viewed as a spiritual discipline.  Blogs can be incredibly personal journals, shared with a select community of friends, they can be advertisement, or the opportunity for group processing.  The advent of instantaneous online publishing has given rise to many new genres of expression.  In my own use, my blog is a mix of personal reflection, homily, and a public forum to share thoughts.  My blog has become an important way to continue talking with some of my favorite conversation partners across the globe.  Students at UCSD expressed thankfulness that they could access my reflections at any time, could replay and interact (through comments) with my homilies.  When I published blog posts from Tegucigalpa Honduras, I was amazed at the number of responses I received and to the degree I felt in continual community with people who were supporting me from thousands of miles away.

Some of the most popular blogs are the most controversial.  I hear Fr. Jake of Fr. Jake Stops the World, a popular progressive Episcopalian blog say that he intentionally took controversial positions to generate more traffic to the blog and more conversation.  While this can be useful for generating conversation, I think blogs for folks involved in ministry should reflect their overall arc of preaching and teaching.  If you are extremely radical, so be it, but otherwise posturing may not be helpful for the real people you minister with.

Blog posts can be long or short.  They might be full essays or sermons, or a couple of short words, a poem, a link.  Mixing a variety of material and including art and video helps diversify your online space and gives people with different needs and desires an opportunity to interact.

An important feature of Facebook that many bloggers do not know about is the ability to link a blog.  If you enable the “Notes” application which is a default part of every facebook account to “link” to your blog, each time you post a new entry it will import into facebook and note on your wall that you have made a new post.  (Click on the Notes application and look for the “import settings” on the right side of the screen.)  You may want to advertise your post in your status: “New Blog Post: Maundy Thursday http://christiandifferent.wordpress.com” was my status all day on Maundy Thursday.

Photo and Video Sharing

In addition to sharing words, sharing images and even video from life can be a way for people to connect with their minister.  A word of caution: on Facebook and Myspace friends can tag one another in photos.  You need to be vigilant about the image that others may choose to present of you on social networks.  Keeping aspects of your life private can be important when presenting a professional image in ministry.  Facebook allows you to control which friends can see your pictures, but these settings are not automatic.  You can “untag” yourself in a photo, but if a particularly offensive photo ends up online, it is becoming a common and polite practice to remove a photo if someone in the photo does not want it online.  Don’t hesitate to gently ask someone to remove an offensive photo.

Groups/Fan Pages

Many campus ministries, parishes, whole denominations, and dioceses are beginning to form online groups.  This can be a powerful tool for ministry because you can message all members, post photos, create group specific events (see “Events” below), and otherwise utilize a group or fan page as on online tool for organizing.  The key for effectiveness is to include as many of the people in the ministry as possible in the group and to use it consistently for communication.  Groups/Fan pages are only effective if people check them, and they will only check them if they are updated consistently.  Utilize the group page to drive traffic to your website, and create a badge for the group on the website which links back to the group so that people can join like this:

The UCSD group

The Power of Search for Evangelism

One of the under-used features of Facebook for ministers is the search feature.  I’ll begin by talking about campus specifically, and broaden to parish based ministry.  Campus Ministers MUST make a priority of getting an email address from the campus they work on.  This address allows them to join the campus network.  This is incredibly important because it allows you to access the “profile  search” features of facebook for the campus network.  You can then choose to search campus  for each student who lists their specific religious affiliation.  Simply click “Search,” from the dropdown menu select the appropriate network, and type the name of the denomination as it is most commonly listed on facebook.  For example, facebook lists Christian-Episcopal rather than “Episcopalian” so you want to put in “Episcopal.”

If you are the Episcopalian minister for campus, you can access each and every student who self-identifies as “Episcopalian.”  A student who has self-identified in a denomination on facebook has made a statement.  They do not have to list this identiying factor, so their is a degree of investment in this identity if it is listed.  In a way they are publicly proclaiming, even evangelizing, in a culture where religious faith is not normed: the college campus.  A new campus minister should make an effort to buy coffee for, get in touch with, email EVERY student who identifies as part of their denomination on facebook.

The same can be true, though perhaps to a lesser extent within a geographic region.  You can search profiles of people within certain age group, genders, ethnicities, etc. in a geographic region and perform the same search for people who self-identify within a denomination.  The trick is to be sure they do not already have a congregational home when you invite them to participate in your ministry.

Events

Using Facebook to publicize a ministry event can be a powerful way to quickly organize a large group of people to attend.  We once brought together over 400 people in one day for a Vigil at UCSD simply through facebook invites to attend the event.  It gives a fast online incarnation to a word of mouth style of advertisement, and a place to point people for details.  Make sure your event has a catchy title, an image (even if it is a silly one), and that you publicize the event well in advance.  If the time/place/details change you can update the facebook page and message all attendants.  You can get a sense of how many people will be coming.  If used consistently Events can become a way for your members to invite their friends to participate.

Events also include walls, which means that people can discuss the event, post pictures, even create discussion forums to begin a conversation before an event or continue one afterward.

The Development of Digital Identity

Working with college students, particularly at a highly technologically advanced school like UCSD, I was taken aback by how much communication now happens online.  Particularly through Facebook, students now share a large amount of their identity, their values, their ideas online.  As young adults list the bands they like, their favorite movies, the clubs they belong to, they are making decisions about how to share their story and sense of meaning with others.  In many ways the amount of sharing happening in the “Facespace” (a name for the online realm of facebook/myspace) involves a level of self-disclosure that is new.  People know more about, and have constant access to information about their friends and acquaintances.  At the same time this disclosure is less personal.  Students seemed to feel comfortable sharing a great deal, perhaps because the facespace is a disembodied reality.  While friends, family, and random strangers with access to their page now know a great deal about their lives, they haven’t had to take the risk in an intimate conversation to disclose this information.

The development of boundaries within the Facebook/Myspace world is still in its infancy.  While “privacy settings” allow users to limit who can see what information they display, the social networks are continually developing the amount of control the users are given, and the users themselves are only slowly growing to understand how these settings can be employed.  For many students there seems to be a a sort of social pact about online identity disclosure.  It is somehow socially unnacceptable to say, “I read on facebook that you enjoy____”  Though students disclose large amounts of information about themselves, the preservation of a degree of anonymity is important.  It is hard to move conversation from the facespace to the real world.

At the same time it can alert a minister to important pastoral needs.  Attention to how a person portrays herself online can give us insight into their inner world in important ways.  While not making direct reference to things on facebook, noticing that someone has communicated frustration, loss, anger and making a point to check in can be important.  You can now comment specifically on the post on their wall, but you can also decide that the person needs a real hug rather than an online poke.

Learning to communicate digitally, to interact with digital identities are important, but nothing will substitute for real presence in ministry.

Maundy Thursday…can’t get away

Today is Maundy Thursday.  Maundy, from the latin means Commandment: Commandment Thursday.  What then is the commandment?  What does Jesus tell his disciples to do?

Jesus washes the disciples feet by Grieg Leach

The great commandment of Jesus: Love one another as I have loved you.  Today Jesus gives meat to that prayer.  He bends down as a servant to washes his disciples feet.  In order to do so, he crosses all sorts of cultural boundaries.(I meditated on this last year.)  God bends down and washes humanity’s feet.

Love demands action.  Big action tomorrow on the cross yes, but today as well.  Jesus leaves the disciples with the call to love and the example of humble service.

How do we follow this commandment?  How do we love one another?  How do we bend down to incarnate that love in service?

If you haven’t participated in a Maundy Thursday service, the ritual washing of feet, I encourage you to make this part of your Holy Week this year.  Find a local church and wash someone’s feet…let your feet be washed.  The cross is not the whole story of holy week.

Identities: the ones we construct and the ones that construct us

The past few days have been the commemoration of the martyrdom of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., here at the seminary.  We’ve been talking a lot about race, gender, sexual orientation, and other things that divide us.

We’ve been wondering whether we live in a “post-racial America.”

One of my favorite professors here, Dr. Judy Fentress Williams, said that she hadn’t “gotten the memo” that America had become “post-racial.”  It seems what we want to find is the end of racism, sexism, homophobia, all forms of discrimination, but we are not there.  To pretend otherwise is folly.

I heartily agree.  I’m continually frustrated by the divisions we continue to construct, knowingly and unknowingly.  I’m angered that the construction of the border fence (read “border wall”) continues.

I’m frustrated that I am still caught of guard by my own and others’ attitudes, assumptions, and hesitancies.  It is so hard to move from “us/them” to “I/thou.”

At the same time I hear in “post-racial” and especially “post-gay” an attitude of hope.  While both words could admittedly be used to awful ends, saying that someone has been “cured” of their sexual orientation or that we are “color-blind,” I think there is some value to the conception that we have moved into a new period of identity politics.  Is there more room to talk about the DIVERSE experience of African American people, now that we have Barack Obama for President?  Is there more room to talk about the diversity of experience for those whose sexual orientation or gender expression differ from the norm, now that even Iowa has approved gay marriage?

Where I worked the past two years, at the University of California San Diego, I became a convert to “queer” terminology.  Students at UCSD from the LGBT community often preferred the term “queer” to any label of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or otherwise.  They found an inclusiveness in “queer” that the other labels didn’t satisfy.  Perhaps they were predominantly attracted to people of the same sex, but not exclusively, and thus didn’t feel lesbian or bisexual fit their experience.

Asserting this identity also means that same sex attraction and gender ambiguity must be viewed as natural, normal, even blessed.  Though the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from it’s list of disorders in 1973 (for a fantastic This American Life on that history click here) we still seem to behave in society and the church as if people are deficient.  The attitude of tolerance seems to be just that.  “Because you are, sadly, oriented ONLY to members of your own gender I guess we will accept you.  We’re all sinners.”  Could “Post-gay” or “Queer” mean moving past this “tolerance” toward embrace, toward seeing same gender love as a blessing? (It sure surprised Oprah when Ed Bacon said homosexuality was a blessing.)  Would this allow us to wonder if more people experience same-gender love than are able to claim this natural and blessed part of their identity?  Would this allow more people who are predominantly attracted to members of the same gender to accept that they also experience some attraction to people of the other gender without compromising their sense of identity?

So often our identities are constructed for us.  The other, is defined by those who “other” them:  Sambo and the Poof, Aunt Jemima and drag queens.  At the same time communities can gather to determine and claim their own identity.  Last night the Howard Gospel Choir performed at Virginia Seminary, and we had some church.  There is no doubting the presence of God in the culturally rooted, liberative, expressive, identifying music of Gospel.  The music AFFIRMS the goodness, the createdness, the beauty of the people who sing it and of the culture that birthed such exquisite praise.

All identity is construct.  The trick seems to be learning to develop identies which we value for their distinction and beauty, in which we glimpse the diverse character of the face of God while following the Christ who breaks down the walls that divide us.  Moving to a place where our identities are no longer political, a truly post-racial and post-gay place because racism and homophobia are not the determining factors for the identity of black and queer Americans.  A place where culture and relationship are expressed robustly.  I think this is what Paul had in mind when he said, “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, Slave nor Free, Woman nor Man but all are one in Christ.”  Not that our distinction would disappear, but that we would learn the value of our difference for drawing us more fully together in the diversity of God.

To Believe or not to Believe?

A buddy of mine at seminary and I have been having semi regular bouts of walking and theologizing.  We’ve been discussing belief a lot around here.  Often this takes a very negative, if comical form.  Someone calls someone else a “heretic” because they express doubt about the perpetual virginity of Mary, say, or wonder about the physical resurrection.  Theological debate then begins around what constitutes true Christian faith.  Do you have to believe in the virgin birth, or the physical resurrection?  Is faith the denial of science for the sake of the miraculous?  Does that take us all the way to denying evolution?

In the midst of all of this I keep returning to questions of epistemology, the study of knowledge.  Where does knowledge come from?  What is true?  What is belief?

I think we’ve come to associate belief and truth with a scientific process of proving hypothesis in this period of human history.  We tend to think that knowledge comes from gathering observable data and testing patterns in that data.  Something is true if we can observe and measure it.  For most of human history this wasn’t the way of thought.  Applying the scientific method to stories in the Bible leads us to wonder if a cold front pushed back the Red Sea or if Lazarus was comatose.  We tend to hypothesize about the miraculous.

I think this involves importing a modern view of scientific truth onto a set of stories that weren’t meant to be tested as “data.”  For earlier people, truth was narrative.  People understood that story, poetic meaning, commitment embodied truth.  We were defined through relationship.  Truth wasn’t found by testing data, but by finding resonance in poetry, art, story.

Understanding this definition of truth is important as we approach Christian belief.  I’m not sure the creeds were set up to say “all the physical evidence to the contrary, I believe…”  Believing in the Incarnation may have less to do with wondering how exactly it was that Mary came to be pregnant, and more to do with understanding that God sees humans as worthwhile enough to share life with.  Whatever is scientifically probable, the deep truth being affirmed is that God loves us enough to dwell among us.  However it is that Jesus is resurrected, the deep truth is that he overcame all barriers, even death, to show his redemptive and liberating love to the world.

God is in very nature improbable.

So what does believing in the resurrection look like?  Is it a thought process denying the truth of science, or does it mean we hope against hope for new birth in the lives of the suffering around us?  What does faith in the incarnation look like?  Does it mean we assert that Mary was forever a virgin in our minds, or does it mean that we stand up to the powers of the world that tell us we are worthless because we trust in the God who chose us as neighbors?

If we hold on to tightly to our beliefs, they become blunt instruments useful for bludgeoning and not much else.  If we are able to hold them gently, we might just be surprised that resurrection, incarnation, and miracles, are not stories of old but living truths available in our world.  Faith becomes playful rather than painful.

What do you believe?  How do you believe?

Playful faith...Seminarians dressed up to watch a VTS soccer game.

Archbishop of Canterbury on Lent

For your Lenten Enjoyment!

Pilgrimage

This is the first time in several years that I haven’t spent March preparing to leave for El Salvador, to be a pilgrim on the road to the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero.  I’ve been thinking a great deal about pilgrimage lately.  As part of a course this January we had to write up a “Rule of Life.”  We had to describe the faith practices that give meaning and shape to our life.  I included a section on pilgrimage.

Regular Pilgrimage
In addition to weekly worship, it is important for me at least once a year to seek God more deeply through intentional pilgrimage.  Whether encountering God on a mountaintop, in a monastery, or among the poor, I find refreshment in leaving behind my daily life in pursuit of the living God.

This need for pilgrimage has been fulfilled for me through travel to El Salvador to visit the graves of the Jesuit Martyrs, killed for speaking their thoughts that the poor are beloved by God, and that they deserved a better lot in life.  They were shot in the head to tell the Salvadoran people not to think such radical thoughts.  Most palpably in 2007 a group of students and I marched with 20,000+ people through the streets of San Salvador to the tomb of Bishop Romero, who stood up to the Salvadoran government that was murdering its own people to keep the poor from claiming their voice.  In one of the last sermons before his assassination, Archbishop Romero promised that “if they kill me, I will be resurrected (reborn) in the Salvadoran people.”  Indeed his death caused the movement to foment.  (On March 15 the FMLN party representing the ideals of the those who stood up to the powers that be, will most likely claim the office of the president for the first time.

Normally when one thinks of pilgrims, the destinations they have in mind are Rome, Canterbury, Compostelo, Jerusalem.  Pilgrimage is thought to be travel to a place where God’s spirit has hovered close.  Saints have showed the presence of God in a troubled time.  In the practice of ancient Israel pilgrims came regularly to Jerusalem for great festivals.  Often while they were in the city they brought their case before the high court in the city.  In his article on Psalm 122 in the Interpretation series James Mays writes, “Pilgrimage is a journey in search of justice.”

As pilgrims we walk in the places where God has acted, whether among the poor of El Salvador inspired by the example of martyrs who died on behalf of the oppressed, or on the road to Jerusalem.  We draw close to the God who has drawn close to us.  This lent, we all walk as pilgrims to the foot of the cross.  Let us remember that pilgrimage is a journey in search of justice.

Standing on your head for Lent

Sometimes Jesus doesn’t make a lot of sense.  In today’s Gospel reading he exhorts his followers to fast, but also tells them not to make a big deal of it.  Though the Old Testament reading from Joel tells us to “Blow the Trumpet.  Sanctify a fast.”  Jesus says specifically, “Do not blow a trumpet.”  Confusing.
I grew up thinking of Lent kind of like a Christian version of New Year’s resolutions.  It was a time to start a diet, give up caffeine or chocolate, stop smoking or swearing, or doing something else unproductive.  This understanding existed alongside  the traditional understanding of giving up something we loved as a sacrifice to God.  It saw Lent as an invitation to self-improvement.  God would be our helper.  Both of these images of Lent are important and beautiful.  They help me to understand the places in my life that need work and to invite God into those spaces.
Lately though another image of Lent has become compelling.  A few years ago Trinity Wallstreet, an Episcopal Church in New York, had a series of Lenten audio/visual meditations on their website.  One in particular focused upon a staff member at the Church who had chosen to take a different route to work on his bicycle as his Lenten discipline.  He saw Lent as an invitation to change perspective, to shift his daily commute to work initiated a process of examining his usual assumptions.  Lent became not simply a time of abstinence, but an opportunity to look at life through a new lens, to start each day with a new route.
This is the original meaning of the word “repent.”  The original word (metanoia) translates literally: “a change of mind:” a shift in perspective.  Our world can become flooded with ordinariness.  We can be so caught up in the ways we usually see, our everyday patterns, that we miss the strangeness, the particularity, the holiness present in our daily lives.  In the midst of this, Lent becomes an opportunity to allow God to jar us out of the ruts we run in, the well worn paths we know by heart, so that we might discover newness, fresh perspective, and glimpse the divine in ways we might otherwise miss.
Barbara Brown Taylor talks about it this way.  “In order to to discern the hidden figure, it is often necessary to cross your eyes or stand on your head so that all known relationships are called into question and new ones may be imagined.  When earth and sky are reversed and it seems entirely plausible that lawns may grow down instead of up, then you are in a good position to glimpse the hidden figure, because you are ready to approach it on its own terms instead of your own.”  (from The Preaching Life).
I’ve never been particularly good at standing on my head.  I was always clumsy and awkward, and I have what a friend once described as “sturdy legs,” which draw themselves quickly toward the earth when they are raised in the air.  But the times I have managed to stand on my head, the world has seemed more alive.  Whether due to the blood rushing toward my head, or the disorientation of balance, being upside down is always a thrill.
What Lent asks of us, what I think Jesus is saying through his contradictoriness in the passage for today, is to practice fasting while standing on our heads.  Disorientation can become reorientation, inversion can become a practice for discerning truth, for discovering the God surprisingly present to us.  Out of the wisdom of thousands of years of spiritual practice, the Church invites us into a holy season that is wholly different from the ordinary.  Whatever we decide to do for Lent, whatever we give up or take on, let it be for us an invitation to shift our perspective, to see things upside down.  Because standing on our head we might just catch a glimpse of God.