Wondering Presbyterian

On February 23, I went to an all-day spiritual writing workshop at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. We spent some time free writing and going through the process of revising and re-seeing our work. I want to share with you what I wrote about the night before when my husband and I stood at a scenic overlook outside the city. A statue of the Virgin Mary stands across the street in the parking lot of Saint Mary of the Mount Parish, watching us as we stand at a railing overlooking the city. I wonder how many couples she has seen stand in this place. Has she had her fill of heartbreaks and hearts mended, of laughter and selfies? Is she still awed by this view, the sight beyond the railing? Perhaps she is why the street is called "Grand View." To stand there day after day and grandly view the lights of the city -- the blinking warnings on tower tops to airplanes and buildings painted in greens, blues, pinks, and yellows -- to stand and see the lights when they come on ...

        A few snow falls ago, I curled up with Netflix and binge-watched the show “The Good Place.” The premise of the show is this: there’s a woman named Eleanor who dies and goes to the Good Place. The problem is there’s been some kind of mix-up and she’s not supposed to be there. But, she doesn’t want to go to the Bad Place, so she tries to learn to be good: to earn her place there. At some point during her stay in the Good Place, she learns about this point system: each time you do something good, you get points. And when you do something not good, you lose points. Eleanor learns about the point ticker and, hoping that you can still earn points for the Good Place after death, she spends a whole day just doing good things: holding doors for people, saying nice things to people, etc. Later in the day she looks down at the ticker and she’s shocked to see that the number hasn’t changed. She’s still in the red. With the help of her companions, she realizes the prob...