Make me a bug.

Today is my first day working at the UCC's national office in Cleveland. I'm really excited about being able to work here--I got on the elevator at one point today and had a moment of "Oh my goodness, this is my life."

I'll be working primarily on myucc, which is the UCC's answer to social networking. We're on myspace, facebook, and twitter, of course, but having our own system will give us the opportunity to start really specialized groups, with their own blogs, and make communication that much more effective and cohesive across the denomination.

But if you've visited the website in the past month or so, you've noticed these bugs all over the website. Of course, the bugs are "theological" in the sense of "All things bright and beautiful/All creatures great and small/All things wise and wonderful/The Lord God made us all". But David Runnion-Bareford, of Biblical Witness Fellowship, had a different take on things:

"Non-UCC friends of ours who believe with some reason that the UCC has long been a bacterial infection in the blood stream of the American church have chimed in with the prophecy in Joel about God’s judgment on an unfaithful people, Joel 1:4, “that which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.” Self-revelation is always an amazing phenomenon, and perhaps the UCC website’s infatuation with the bugs as a self-image is more profound than anyone anticipated?"

Immediately after reading that, I had a different thought:

Dear God, make me a bug. Let me chew like a termite at the structures of oppression and injustice. Help me be like a spider and spin a web that catches joy, hope, and love. Make me like an ant, strong and hardworking in Your name. Amen.

Also, I saw a new poster today that plays with the "UCC" acronym (you know how we love our acronyms...OGM, JWM, PAM, COREM, MRSEJ, CYYAM, PFKAPOC, just to name a few). The one I saw was "Unapologetic Church of Crossdressers". After writing a 15 page paper on drag queens, it warmed my heart to see that.

If you are UCC, you should make my life easier and get on over to the website, sign up for myucc, and explore. Also, check out Schatzi's blog. Sure, Schatzi is a cat, but the blog is hilarious.