The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

A Tear and a Poem on the Last Day of School

I traced a tear down my cheek this morning and walked my baby Kathryn to the corner on the last day of school, just as I had done on the first and last days of school for the past 12 years.

She was up all night finishing an ACP (Advanced Chemistry and Physics) project - building a guitar from scratch and measuring sign waves or some such thing - and disappearing from midnight til two for some mysterious senior prank.

"Don't get picked up."

"Uh... okay. I'll try not to."

A litany which I wrote and recited to her nightly rolled back into my head as she drove away into a glorious morning. It was a little ditty, spoken as fast as I could speak it back when she was bucket-sized (above) and on nightly in the hallway until she was in late-elementary school :

I'm so glad to be your dad
It don't bother to be your father
Makes me happy to be your pappy
Drives me wild that you're my child
I'm elated that we're related
And daddy will always love you
No matter what!
Mommy will always love you
No matter what!
Jesus will always love you
No matter WHAT!

I don't know why I quit reciting it.

Maybe I'll have to start again tonight.

Okay, this is funny

There are some things that you should simply not try to do yourself.

I've been in and out of the clinic for the last week, taking care of some "50 something" things that I've been putting off. Among them is an inevitable pain-in-the-butt .

Monday night before my routine physical, Arlyce remarked.

"Be sure and have the doctor schedule a colonoscopy for you, since that is something you can't do yourself."

Amen.

Yes. That is not something I'd like to do myself.

Two Observations and a Question

OBSERVATION I: My small group of eighth grade boys does "Highs and Lows" every week with us at confirmation. With rare exception, every boy's Iow every week is "school sucks".

OBSERVATION 2: I attended my daughter's Senior Awards night last night. Stillwater High School has the largest senior class in its history. 750 kids graduating. Of those 750, nine kids made the 4.0 honor roll.

Nine girls. No boys.

100 kids received medals for maintaining a 3.75 or higher throughout high school. (My precious Kathryn got a 3.89... brag, brag, brag...)

80 girls. 15 boys.

It used to be 50/50.

QUESTION: Are our schools, our teaching methods, our rewards, our expectations, and our cultural mores* set up to motivate girls and warehouse boys? Have sports, video games, iPods and "bling" become the focus and goal, the be-all and end-all at such a young age for young males that by the time our boys hit high school, school itself is irrelevant for the vast majority?

This is a significant creeping cultural shift. I am wondering what this means.   

mo·res     /ˈmɔreɪz, -iz, ˈmoʊr-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[mawr-eyz, -eez, mohr-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–plural noun Sociology.

folkways of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group.

What's He Qi Up To This Summer?

Our good friend Dr. He Qi has a busy schedule during the next few months. China for a month with his family. Hartford to speak at the UCC's Triennial Convention. New York City's Museum of Bible Art (MOBIA) and St. John the Divine Cathedral to show. Oxford for an artist-in-residency and a mural for the Archbishop of Cantebury. The ELCA's new hymnal and the ELCA Global Mission Department's new logo/banner. And, of course, a lot of new works in the works for Faith Inkubators kids to help them learn faith through the arts.

Here's a quick audio interview on what he's up to, plus a rough sketch of what became the beautiful new piece commissioned by the ELCA's Global Mission department. Care to see it in all it's vibrant glory?

Not so fast. You'll have to wait until the good folks at Global Mission officially unveil it next summer!

Showing it now would be cheating.

Work Smarter Not Martyr

The other word for "martyr" is "dead". If you don't like that word, maybe you need a different way of doing ministry.

Way back in the last millennium - I think it was around 1984 - I was three years into youth ministry and I was burning out.

90 hour weeks. Trips, camps, classes, parties, turf time... I was trying to do too much to often with too many people and always feeling like I couldn't do enough, so I decided to use a week of my continuing ed to attend a Youth Specialties conference in El Cajon. One of the workshop leaders, I think it was Les Christi, suggested that "to do more ministry more often more effectively with more kids, you need more help."

Then he talked about budgeting, and said something brilliant: "You should be spending 1/3 of your youth budget on adults."

I took that advice home, and took it to mean both money AND time. (Your only non-renewable currency).

Kidnap them in a Winnebago at midnight in their pajamas and take them out for pizza. Bring them to concerts, coffee and Colorado camping. Treat your adults like a "big kids youth group" and build the kind of fun, fellowship, and (in those days) 'brotherhood' that builds a real team. Then you can spread the ministry out and reach more kids.

One person can only do so much.

It's the end of the school year. Summer schedules are about to kick in. What could you do this week that will build your team for next fall? What memories can you create with the adults you have - and the ones you'll be targeting for your team next fall - that will start building the kind of team that you want and grow them into a tight group of committed friends?

Do something spectacular this summer with the volunteers you value. I don't think the book of Acts would have ended the same way if Jesus hadn't gone fishing with his friends. You need to perk your peeps, feed the fold, nurture the nurturers, guide the guides, care for the caregivers, foster the friendships and let them see your heart, your passion, your care. Then invite them to join you in reaching kids for Jesus.

Work smarter, not martyr.

Bring 'Em On

To say "goodbye" to ralph, I am pulling two of the three songs we wrote and recorded that first night from the FINK vault.

Ralph's "late night after a bottle of wine" voice can be heard on "Even Though I Must Die With You" with me singing background vocals. And, after that, Ralph's hot basement trumpet on "Take Up Their Cross."

By 2 AM that morning we realized our voices had no business being on tape, so we pulled in Jenny Ramseth, the Bishop's daughter, to sing later that week.

The last conversation I had with Ralph was last week. I had a dozen new Bible verse songs to score, and he simply emailed the words:

"Bring 'em on!"

He was 55.

Borrowed Time

We're all living on borrowed time.

I first met Ralph Sappington one fine Lent at a church in Billings. I was at American Lutheran doing one of my maniacle 50 city "Conformation (sic!) is Dead" tour stops back in the 90s. Ralph showed up looking like a goateed beatnik who never made it out of the 60s, grinning ear to ear and nearly shouting "Amen!" to everything I said that day about art, music, small group care for teens and making confirmation look more like theater than class.

"Do this (faithink stuff) right and you'll be known as the church with no class!" was one of my one-liners back then.

"You gotta open the kid before you open the book."

"If any company in the country had a three-year training program and, after three years, 90% of the trainees quit, that company would cancel the program, fire the managers and try something else or go out of business!" (I was talking about Lutheran confirmation and the 90% attrition rate on the graduation/confirmation day when most of the kids danced out the door singing "Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye!")

Ralph and I clicked that day. He invited me to his favorite Italian restaurant for dinner (back then I was eating $1.99 GrandSlam Meals at Dennys every night after conferences to stay alive physically and financially.) On the way out, he walked me past the church pipe organ, which was sitting in 1000 pieces on long tables in the fellowship hall for its "annual 100 year cleaning". We had a marvelous meal, a bottle of decent wine and a memorable conversation about the arts and the church and kids.

Then Ralph mentioned he had a "little studio" in his basement. That was a big, wonderful mistake. Rather than going to sleep, we walked down into his magical space lined with guitars, mandolins, and trumpets on the walls.

That was about 8:30 pm. We emerged seven hours later with three Bible verse songs for Lent written and recorded. A dozen years later, Ralph and his musical accomplise Kathy Honaker had created piano scores and lead sheets for 240 songs - what would become our library of Bible verses put to music.

We're going to miss Ralph.  

We're all living on borrowed time.

See what you can do today to say "thanks" to the lender.

Ralph's memorial service is today, Wednesday, at precisely 1:17 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 2800 Fourth Ave. N.Because the Sappingtons do not have medical insurance, Ralph's friends have requested that in lieu of flowers, anyone wishing to make a memorial contribution do so to:

Ralph Sappington Memorial Fund
c/o First Interstate Bank
401 N. 31st St
Billings MT 59101

Party on Manhattan?

I'd like to invite you all to a little reception I've arranged for my good friend, Dr. He Qi.

EVENT: Reception for Dr. He Qi

TIME: June 24, 2 - 4 pm

PLACE: Museum of Biblical Art. 1865 West Broadway, New York, NY

If you happen to be on Manhattan any time between June 8 and September 16, come see the work.

It's part of a show titled "The Christian Story: Five Asian Artists Today".

Along with this show of He Qi's originals at MOBIA, his 27 piece "Look Toward the Heavens" show of giclee prints will be at St. John the Divine Cathedral from June 24 - August 31. I am waiting to see when they wish to schedule a reception for He Qi. It may be the evening of June 24. I'll keep you posted.

My next step as He Qi's "Free Agent" is to try to get some folks from the Chinese Embassy, international Church organizations, publishing world (for his future art books) and finally the Vatican Museum over to see the show and meet him on the 24th.
Maybe by next summer we can begin work on the He Qi World Art Bible, and invite you all to a show of his works in Rome?
Ah, this is fun.

Schwartzrock Rides Again

"All them lions, they can eat my body, but they can't swallow my soul."
- Lost and Found

Feel like the lions are on the prowl? Here's a little something from my buddy Sherwin Schwartzrock at http://schwartzrock.blogspot.com/.

Sherwin is the guy who did our Luther comic art a few years ago. Check the art out and tell him Rich sent you.

Sappington

Ralph Sappington, our wonderful genius musician friend who has arranged and scored over 240 Bible verse songs for us at Faith Inkubators over the last decade has suffered a massive stroke on Monday.  The damage was extensive, irreversible, and heartbreaking. As of the sending of this message, Ralph is in room 353 at St. Vincent's hospital in Billings.  Every measure has been taken to make him comfortable and his family tells me they are making sure only the best Miles Davis, Hugh Masekela, and Bruce Cockburn tunes are playing.

Please keep Rhonda, Will, Becky, Jody, and Kathy in your prayers.

E-mail    Rhonda   Will