View From the Hammock brought to you by Purple Frog

 I believe in small churches . Unfortunately,  a local church in United Methodism exists to support a heavy structure and not the other way around. It contradicts  the very essence of the church of Christ as a free movement.

Coming to America, I was not ecstatic about serving a Methodist church. I did not want to serve self-centered and self-loving American Methodists. I related well to Jonah, who did not want to preach repentance to the Northern Kingdom.

     American babies are as cute as any other babies in the world. The difference with the third world countries is in diapers.

Talking to my friend Donna about being nominated for the Bishop of Eurasia position, I reported, "I got a ticket already!" "Oh, I'm so sorry..." "Sorry for what?" - it was not a reaction I expected. "That you got a speeding ticket!" "No, Donna, I didn't speed this time. I waited for this for seventeen years. I got a plane ticket to fly to Europe for my presentation." Laughing, we both concluded that it would be easier to get a speeding ticket than to become a Bishop. On the way home I tried not to speed.

     One cold afternoon, I came back home, and my father, who came to visit from Russia, opened the door of my Overland Park apartment wearing my apron. Proudly, he held a tiny pelmeni – sort of Russian dumplings – that he made himself.      “Wow! Papa! I never saw you wearing an apron! You never cooked!"

     Four hours of driving experience is not sufficient for Kansas City.  My friend Joyce completed my driving school,  placing me behind the wheel of her beaten car during the worst traffic jams.       “Go girl, go! Didn’t you see that  green truck? Ah! Maybe it was in your blind spot…”       Instead of looking forward I drove trying to keep an eye contact with my friend. I felt like I needed to support the conversation and hardly paid attention to the road.  I am polite...       

      Two years ago I started jogging.   To beat the stress, I added walking and jogging, thinking that exercising more would give me a benefit of losing five extra pounds  that I gained in spite of my strict daily regimen.       I downloaded  "lose it" app on my iPhone and began calculating each gram of food that was going into my mouth. My goal was to restore my sleep to be able to look and perform even better.      Thinking that 10 thousand steps and 900 calories a day will do the job, I decided to keep my yoga and pilates practice to maintain flexibility. In an instance, I got addicted to uploading my daily pedometer reading into a fitness software to get digital praises and bonuses from my health insurance company each night. In sixteen weeks,  10 thousand steps a day took me on a virtual journey around the world. I was thrilled. Instead of being fatigued, I felt energized, ecstatic,...

      Gene Lowry 's jazz preaching resonates with me on many levels. One of them is my passion for jazz, as music genre. Trying to sing jazz, I was a little self-conscious about my age: did it make any sense to become a beginner after 40.      What I learned about jazz, to my full surprise, is that age does matter

“My great-great-great-many-times-removed grandfather was on the ‘Mayflower ’.” I’ve heard so many times wonderful stories about many-times-removed great uncles, grandmothers and siblings that came by “Mayflower” from so many people I met here that one day I got curious how many passengers could the Mayflower take aboard?

The first time I heard that America sent troops to Iraq, I looked around with suspicion not hearing any questions and not catching puzzled looks. I was the only one, who noticed the mistake made on the news. A ‘troop’ in Russian is a dead body, corps. Why sending dead people to Iraq? I was completely lost. TROOPS come back from Iraq, just like they come back from Afganistan, I thought, not the other way around.

American women have a tough life. When I look at American pregnant women, I can’t help it. I compare.  The most mind-boggling thing for me in America is to see heavily pregnant women behind the wheel.

To have or not to have a vision for a congregation is not an option. As a pastor, I believe that my calling is to remind people about their mission and empower them to pursue a new vision every three-to-five years. It rarely ends well. People, who do the same thing year after year, get upset.

     I came to see my boss' new office one day and noticed a tea cup and a saucer of an enormous size. I mean gigantic: the cup was bigger than a football! I began staring at the unusual set on a shelf and couldn't help asking,          "What do you use this cup for? You can't possibly serve tea in it, can you?"      "It serves as a conversation topic." I felt manipulated.

    In America, we hurry up more and more every year to celebrate important holidays. This fall, we saw the first Christmas tree bought in August.

    A highly professional pilot in Russia will be referred to as an 'AS' – it has nothing to do with English 'as' but with the old Latin ‘AS’ or old French 'ACE', which means often the highest playing card. In life it is applied to someone of high professional performance and of excellence. ' AS' is someone who is exceptionally talented in a sport or flying the airplanes. In the military  jargon , a fighter ace is a pilot who has successfully shot down five enemy aircrafts.  'AS' refers to victory.      It started with pilots of the highest qualification and then was applied to other professions. In Russia, we say, “you need to become an 'AS' in your field,” while in America we say, “do not be such an ASS.”

   It is a severe storm in Kansas City. We are in Chicago, checking the weather on the computer, telling my mother when she needs to hide in the basement. I don’t even want to think about what might happen if her cell phone dies. My Mom is scared but calm. All we need is connection; all we need is to hear her voice.    A strange annoying sound overpowers the sirens. I hate to scare my Mom but my best guess from a distance of over 500 miles is: smoke alarm!

   My parents used to travel back and forth from Russia to visit my sister and me before moving to America. My mother gradually adjusted to the gener ally high quality of customer service in this country and quickly learned the benefits of being a customer. She couldn’t believe her eyes - people were polite and attentive indeed!  What she liked most was that she had the right to return or exchange items that didn’t meet her expectations - something almost unthinkable for her!

       I was asked to speak about Russia for a large audience. I’d been thinking for several weeks about the theme that would be relevant to my listeners. I didn’t want to talk about the Mafia or poor markets, economic disaster or political corruption, Cold War or Khrushchev , etc. - I was neither a politician nor an economist.        Eureka! It came to me! I remembered how one of our American friends visited my parents’ house in Russia and noticed a horseshoe above the door.

     I got spoiled right from the get-go. The attention thrust on me was frustrat ing: “the very first woman pastor in Russia after seventy years of atheism and  persecution!” “She grew her church up to a thousand members!” “Oh, she knows the wife of the First President of Russia, Mrs. Boris Yeltsin!” The newspaper articles with my interviews became an embarrassment: almost all of them told the story of a young woman who cut off her communist roots. I was never a communist!

       My father was a professional rescuer, taking teams up on the mountains. He watched that not a single girl or boy got killed. Once, he took our team of teenagers up on Konzhakovski Kamen, the highest peak in the Northern Urals. The snow was seven feet high, but you notice it only when taking your skis off: the snow immediately swallows you.

       My grandfather didn’t escape religious persecution in Soviet times; he lost all that he had because of his faith. But not me! This is a different time! Communist gulags were closed. Perestroika changed everything. We live in a civilized world now.        Yet, once in a while, I heard my sister’s whisper in my ears, “Lidka, you will end in prison! Think about your children! Women should not be ministers!” Before coming to America, I thought that exile was something ancient and related to the Jews in Egypt, like in the Bible.

               My iPhone slid in a car with all its well-advertised slippery features: it flew to the right when I made a sharp turn to the left. Trying to be a responsible driver, I just glanced at the flying phone. I could not recover the phone having a cup of latte in my hand. At the first stop, keeping my foot on a break, I leaned over the console, moved my bag away but didn't find the phone on the floor of the passenger's side. I got off the road to check on another side of the car–this time more carefully. Nothing. My phone vanished. I even opened the back door and checked under the passenger's seat again, hoping that the phone would reveal its shiny skinny body from another angle.         Suddenly the phone rang. I reached out toward the sound, but the ring stopped. Guessing that it was probably my mother, I hurried up home to let her know that I was fine.       ...

        When we blame Central Conference delegates (from where the majority of voices against this statement came) for being intolerant toward homosexuality, we need to remember about their context. We are way too quick in blaming others for not sharing our point of view or for not being liberal, for not loving enough or even for not being American enough.         If we want to see our denomination growing on the account of Central Conferences, where the growth happens, then we need to put more efforts into understanding their context and where they are coming from or let them go their separate ways. It’s like we want their members and numbers to look good as the denomination, but we do not like how they think. It’s a dangerous approach, and its not far from colonialism.

       George is my enlightener. He reads Bishop Spong – the most controversial agnostic of our time - and brings me his articles printed out from the Internet. George’s questions remind me of my father. George also reminds me of my father’s practicality and tenderness: he is loving, protective, and never steps away from his line.         “I have two theological questions for you. How do people know about virgin birth? Did they see it? Then, the second question. How do people believe in Resurrection? Did they see it?”         Every time I preach too literally for George’s taste, he looks disappointed. “This is all propaganda! I understand, you have to say what you have to say.” 

        “Frogology” is my invention, my theory of life. The fairy tale of the Russian writer Garshvin comes to mind. It is my favorite story, Ligooshka-Puteshestvennitsa, or “Frog the Traveler,” with a moral lesson.               I was exactly like the frog when I decided to learn to "fly" high. The ambitious little frog bravely approached some geese one day and asked them to teach her to fly. The geese found a simple solution for the little frog’s dream: a stick.