Love and Understanding: A meditation upon 1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, 

but do not have love, 

I am a noisy gong 

or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, 

and understand all mysteries 

and all knowledge, 

and if I have all faith, 

so as to remove mountains, 

but do not have love, 

I am nothing. 

If I give away all my possessions, 

and if I hand over my body 

so that I may boast, 

but do not have love, 

I gain nothing.

Love is patient; 

love is kind; 

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; 

it is not irritable or resentful; 

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, 

but rejoices in the truth. 

It bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things.

Love never ends. 

But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; 

as for tongues, they will cease; 

as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 

For we know only in part, 

and we prophesy only in part; 

but when the complete comes, 

the partial will come to an end. 

When I was a child, 

I spoke like a child, 

I thought like a child, 

I reasoned like a child; 

when I became an adult, 

I put an end to childish ways. 

For now we see in a mirror, dimly,

but then we will see face to face. 

Now I know only in part; 

then I will know fully, 

even as I have been fully known. 

And now faith, hope, and love abide, 

these three; 

and the greatest of these 

is love.

Seven years ago today, my father passed away. I was holding his hand and urging him to let go. It had not been an easy transition, and he had ceased calling out to long-dead friends and relatives that my mother believed were visiting Dad and urging him to cross over. I want to believe that. But at the time it was like listening in to a one-sided phone conversation into eternity.

I prayed for him to go. And yet I was not prepared for the shock when his pulse fluttered beneath my fingers. My world shifted on its axis so perceptibly that I felt dizzy. I suddenly realized that I was almost the age he was when I was born and had a brief self-centered thought that he had known me for half his life. And yet, we certainly knew each other imperfectly. Especially, when I was a child, there were things he did that were absolutely incomprehensible to me. It was only later, when I was an adult with children of my own, that I realized the same was certainly true about me to him and to my own children. We are often not transparent to those we love due to their own wounds and trigger points, but also because we WANT to be opaque, thinking that that may protect us from being hurt by those same ones before whom we are vulnerable because we love them.

And yet do we ever know those we love? Author Norman Maclean commented on this in his beautiful story, A River Runs Through It, which was made into a lovely film by Robert Redford. One of the most perfect scenes in the film is at the end. Norman's father, a Presbyterian minister, is preaching a sermon right before he retires, and is referencing the loss of his wilder, troubled, younger son and on the mystery of family relationships:

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.” 

My father was not a perfect man, but I certainly wasn't a perfect daughter, and it's funny how, in the end, the many ways that our loved ones may have failed us begin to pale as we consider all the small ways they gifted us and blessed us and strengthened us and enveloped us. We all do the best we can-- or at least try to, and hope we don't irreparably hurt each other along the way. The river of our life runs over the rocks and under the rocks that make up all that has happened to us or that we have done. That river looks like it is being redirected by the rocks, but eventually with time the rocks themselves are carved and smoothed and reshaped by the rocks. Love can do that too.

Hopefully, if that happens, we get the chance to try to make amends to those we love-- and we then seize that chance and act upon it, which is often an entirely different source of potential failure and regret.

I once watched some Tibetan Buddhist monks crafting a sand mandala. I was lucky enough to observe it just as they were completing this intense, intricate piece of artwork. After they finished it, they paused, and then they swiped across it, destroying the beautiful image they had just spent so long deliberately creating and then just as deliberately destroying. The entire process had taken days, and it was finished for only a few moments, and then it was gone.

Too often we spend too many hours creating a mandala out of our resentments instead of the love with which we have been blessed. But instead of examining the mandala of collected wrongs that we paint in sand, we need to smear our palms across our handiwork of anger and let the wind carry the grains of sand away.  Hopefully, if we have been hurt, we allow the person who has hurt us to return to us as well. We certainly cannot truly live while we clasp the iron weight of resentment to our hearts and cram it into the space in our hearts where love belongs, instead. A work like this takes time, and oh, if we could have that time back! What if we spent that time trying to build a true labor of love, focusing on the beauty of a conversation with a parent, and reminding ourselves of the good others try to do for us and that we do for them?

We have to remember and embrace the unblunted wisdom in the lines of one of my favorite songwriter/ poets, Mary Chapin Carpenter: "Forgiveness doesn't come with a debt." 

No matter what, my father's presence in my life was and will always remain an absolute force in my life. Love is that. It molds us and shapes us. We long for it, yet we don't give away enough of it ourselves.

And yet, love is what we are called to do. Both the messy, intimate, personal love between lovers, between parents and children, between friends, between siblings, and the love we are called to bear toward each other in our churches, our communities, our world. Our love for each other moves us toward the hope of who we are really supposed to be, of who we are intended to be.

Unlike God, we are imperfect lovers. We are faltering friends. We are capricious children. Our hesitant attempts at love lead to imperfect knowledge. This is because our attempts at love are imperfect as well. But there is perfect love. And it is the greatest of all gifts given to us.

Intercessory Prayer 14

Almighty God, our trust is in you, whose abiding love soothes all fear and worry. We cry out to you and you envelop us in your love as we pass through the cares and concerns of this life. We thank you for your goodness and mercy which follows us all the days of our lives. Guard, strengthen, and comfort, we pray, your children whom we now name, and uphold them in their need. Amen.

Seeing what is there

The readings for yesterday in the lectionary have as a common theme community and God's abundance. Isaiah 62:1-5 calls out for a nation to be restored through God's abundant love and mercy. Psalm 36: 5-10 also reminds us that God's love is limitless and prepares a feast for us. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 urges a community to come together in the face of the urge to divide ourselves according to honor rather than understand that unity is vital to live as the body of Christ.

The reading from John details the miracle at the wedding at Cana. As I was reminded in the wonderful sermon I heard yesterday in church, Jesus' mother notices there is no wine, and her initially hesitant son restores abundance to the feast in the face of disaster, with the help of a lot of servants who had to carry a lot of water. Jesus performs this miracle with the help of the community.

These are the readings we heard yesterday. Today, we remember the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin LUther King, Jr. And then, an even further blessing, we witness the demonstration of the blessing of living in a stable democratic republic. Today, we witnessed the second inauguration of President Obama. In his speech, he quoted the Declaration of Independence as well as referencing the Gettysburg Address, he reminded my generation's task to make these words real for every American: that we are endowed  by our Creator with Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. These are inalienable rights, and they belong to all. God's limitless love provides abundance for us through unmerited grace.

We have once again been reminded by several people during the ceremony, beginning with Senator Lamar Alexander, with the inaugural address from the president, with the poem by Richard Blanco, and with the closing invocation by the Rev. Luis Leon, that we are ONE people, and that we must overcome our divisions. And then, we heard this further echo from yesterday's readings in the prayer given by the Rev. Leon: 

"We pray for your blessing because without it, we will only see scarcity in the midst of abundance..." 

A few years ago, we were driving through Yosemite, and we saw this tree growing out of the living rock, right before a sheer drop. In the background was a magnificent waterfall. I thought about that seed that years ago was blown across the rock until it found a crevice, and  perhaps a little rain fell that encouraged it to sprout. It spread out its embrace into the rock, took root, and thrived.

Instead of bemoaning what is not there, let us understand that we therefore have an opportunity to act, to be the agents of change that make the miracle of abundance for all possible. Even if we may feel that "our time is not yet come." Instead of thinking that we do not have enough, that we are clinging to a precipice, instead of conflating difficulty with impossibility, let us take hold and determine to flourish by each taking responsibility for what we can do.

May Almighty God preserve us from the tendency to close our eyes to the blessings all around us. May we see what is there, and make sure that abundance is available for all. May we see God's abundant love for us even in the midst of our trials and understand that the work of all of us is required to bring about the miracle. Amen. 

Mutual Prayer Circle, Day 2: Loving, Almighty God

Loving, Almighty God, you have called us to be your children and you embrace us every moment. You set the stars in their courses yet keep your eye on the sparrow, and we know that joy in you is our strength as we abide forever in the shadow of the Most High. We thank and praise you for your faithful love for us even when we despair. Watch over and strengthen and comfort, we pray, these your beloved children.


Amen.

Crusty Old Dean and the 2013 General Ordination Exams

One of my favorite things to do as I get a little more involved in twitter (now doing my own feed and the one for my church, because, you know, as a mom, daughter, teacher, and church-junkie I don't have enough in my life) is reading some of the hilarious things that trend.

Sometimes, I just shake my head at some of the strange topics that bloom  from the collective need twitteristas have to get some attention (hey, not pointing the finger except at myself).

Right now one of the trending topics among we of the Episcopalian variety has been about General Ordination Exams. So far, Crusty Old Dean (already someone whom I find wildly entertaining and informative) has the best post that has been tweeted.

So, if there's anyone out there, I am asking you to consider reading this post: http://crustyoldean.blogspot.com/2013/01/blogging-goes-question-1-wtf-out-of-gate.html. It had me laughing to myself with a nice soupcon of "there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I." As someone who has seen AP US history exam questions that simply defy all reason, I could certainly relate to this post on a variety of levels.

Thanks, Crusty Old Dean.

Redribbon Foxes

Waiting, Watching, Hoping

Christmas fatigue.

This is a special form of chronic illness that strikes me earlier, every year it seems.

This year, it began when I saw Halloween decorations in the stores in August. That then made me realize that it would only be about a month until Christmas decorations started going up.

I was wrong. It was only two weeks.

Yes, friends, I saw chocolate Christmas candy shaped like nutcrackers on the counters of my local 7-11 in September. That means that if you consider solving your Christmas candy jones actually nearer the Christmas season, you will be eating chocolate candy that's probably five months old after sitting out at room temperature that entire time.

But that, of course, is just trivia.

I welcome anyone to celebrate Christmas starting whenever they want. I personally do like observing Advent, though. It is nice to make ourselves wait, and watch, and hope in a time when I can get almost any book I want in ten seconds on my iPad, when we get impatient if a webpage loads less-than-instantaneously. This stepping-back-and-waiting is made all the more precious since I am singing in our church choir, so we have been singing Christmas music since October, I think. I am already beginning to loathe some of these songs, man, and it is not the songs' fault.

It is even more important to hope at this time of year. I personally go into a funk over the fact that it is dark at 5 pm, and so the candles on the Advent Wreath remind me that light can give hope to the darkest corners of our life, just as that Christ child is going to bring light to the world. This is something we can cling to in the cold winter months. This is something we can be grateful for at a time when gratitude gets drowned out.

Maybe I'll ease into it with a little "Vassourinhas" by Yo-Yo Ma.

Of C. S. Lewis, Heaven and Hell

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. ” -- C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Today is the 114th birthday of C. S. Lewis. Therefore, I have included one of my favorite theological quotes of his. It is a thought-provoking reflection on the implications of free will on salvation, and it is a quote I think of every time I hear someone talking about how Gandhi is roasting in Hell. Oh, and by the way? Stop that. Thanks!

Happy birthday, Mr. Lewis!

Prayer for Election Day, and Every Day

Almighty, Loving God: We thank you for the blessings you have given this nation. Help us, we pray, to live out the words of the motto of our Great Seal--E Pluribus Unum. Help us to truly become from many people, one people, united by love and concern for this country, but more importantly, love and care for each other, animated by charity and wisdom in all we do. Grant us, we pray, a sense of caritas and discernment on this day, and the willingness to exercise these gifts for the sake of our government and our leaders. Make them a blessing unto us, and more importantly to our world, which is a part of your glorious creation. We humbly ask this in Your Holy Name. Amen.

Camera Obscura

 Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. 

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ 

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ (Gospel for Proper 19, September 16)

Who do I say that Jesus is? Notice that Jesus asks who we SAY that he is, not who we THINK he is. Who do we proclaim Jesus to be, and how do we act upon that proclamation which we make with our words as well as our actions, we who identify as Christians?

If I was a member of the Jesus Seminar, I might talk about the historical Jesus-- a peasant at the edge of empire who may or may not have actually existed, a demythologized God--- which to me, takes away exactly what Jesus means. If I was a fundamentalist, I might say the future judge of my soul, the warrior Lamb whose return will sweep the righteous up to glory while leaving the unsaved to suffer through an age of plague and pestilence followed by eternal torment, or I might talk about him as my buddy, my co-pilot, my help, my rock, someone with whom I have a "personal relationship."

Jesus is many of these things, yes, all at once. But if I was going to use a metaphor to describe the indescribable, I would probably describe Jesus as the aperture between the kingdom of heaven and the life we live.

When I was younger, I once saw a pinhole camera, otherwise known as a camera obscura. There was a lightproof, small room. We seated ourselves on the floor facing a wall, and in the wall behind us there was a tiny hole. The activity outside the room was projected upside down onto the wall in front of us. The tiny hole, or aperture, reflected that scene beyond our room quite clearly. But because the image was upside down, it was still hard to fully comprehend the images. Our orientation was wrong, and it took a while to adjust to the different perspective and make sense of what we were being shown.

I had wanted to see one of these pinhole cameras since I had read a description of one in a book, maybe Cannery Row or Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck, and he describes one of the main characters dancing across the wall upside down of the protagonist's laboratory. So here I was with the chance to see a camera obscura and experience this for myself.

At first, when we sat down, we were just in the dark in a small room. But once the aperture was revealed, and our eyes adjusted to the dark so that we could see, we could see something new, something outside and beyond us, a new truth, dancing just as Steinbeck described, upside down, Stare at the images long enough, and eventually I was the one who felt like I was upside down. I almost felt like I was about to fall on my head, like I was a bat hanging from the roof of a cave, like when my elementary gym teacher had us compete with each other to see who could hold a headstand the longest.

Perhaps Jesus is like the aperture in a  camera obscura. He is the opening between two worlds and two truths. He shows us things that are outside our perception, things which we have walled ourselves off from. He is the means through which we can see that which is eternal. But what he describes, what he projects, makes us feel disoriented, since it literally turns the world and the world's workings upside down. He is God incarnate (a paradox to our cynical minds), the Son of Man who moves between heaven and Earth and tries to translate to our limited understanding what we are called to be and how we are called to live.

Look how he sets us on our heads: "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?"

 This is a very hard teaching to most of us. We are attached to the two lives most of us have, to the lives we have built and to the lives we plan for ourselves. We have PLANS, Jesus! Can we get back to you later about that taking up our cross stuff? And yet Jesus asks us to give these up to follow him, to be his true disciples rather than merely his fans or friends or hangers-on. Of course we want what Dietrich Bonhoeffer derisively called "cheap grace"-- Jesus has saved me, the gift is freely given, so let's just go about our business with that nifty little "get out of jail" card in our wallets, keeping our hearts and minds and souls and actions safely insulated from any sacrifice of WHAT WE WANT and WHAT WE HAVE PLANNED. Like Peter, we want Jesus to be who WE want. We want our life in Christ to be able to be fit easily into our schedule.

Then some of us interpret this teaching as an "either-or" proposition. Are we walled into that little room forever? Or can we supposed to DO something with this knowledge right here where we are? Could it be that Jesus is calling us to live our lives, yes, but grounded in something more eternal, more true than either a monastic denial of the world or a callous embrace of the world's principles while claiming that lifeline of salvation. The image of salvation that Jesus projects before us is of course rooted in this world but focused on bringing the eternal Love into a world that sometimes we have made so broken? Calling us to reorient ourselves on the compass of what is good and what is true and what is beautiful, to see that we live in the midst of God's kingdom? 

We see through Jesus what is real and what is eternal. There is a reason why he refers to himself as "the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." Yes, he shows us how to live partly though his death-- a further paradox. If we spend enough time changing contemplation into action, we can open the door of that camera obscura that we usually spend most of our lives in and carry our new, reoriented understanding of what the place we are called to inhabit in the kingdom of heaven right here where we are.

Aperture

Open the window and you want to fly out,

though you never actually do—

I think I see you, still there on the ledge,

where I've left you.

How pulled-awake and flung

can one life be?

Again I thought, It will end.

Again I promised and clung.

I learned there that   

to cling was in my nature.

I think I see you, though you flash

quickly through the shutter.

I think I hear you, though I sleep.

Remember this as a bolero,

a finite flaring—

both the tulip tree   

burning in full bloom

and the weeping silver birch.

---Jennifer Tonge, 2005

Heaven beneath our feet

Buddhists have a practice they call "mindfulness." It is based upon the idea of being fully present and aware of each action one takes. Each step becomes a meditation. Each step becomes an awakening to the connectedness of all things, and to the blessing of all things in our lives. Further, considering each action makes us aware of the impact we have on others.

We Christians have much to learn from this. Our time is not ours to do with as we will. It is lent to us to be used for good- to recognize and celebrate the holy in the most mundane things and the most fleeting of acquaintances. Christ walks among us if only we are willing to see him. Christ asks us to walk in love with him and each other, especially here in this world.

Perhaps so many of us search for meaning and purpose simply because we forget the grace that infuses every moment. We live in the world, but the world is not to be despised. This is where the kingdom of heaven begins, where its foundation is laid, where its doors open to welcome all inside. But we have to be there to open the doors, with a heart filled with gratitude for the good things and a smile of welcome on our lips.

Unexpected gift

We have been experiencing a pretty severe drought here in the Land Between the Coasts. I can actually count the three times it has rained since the summer began. This had made me feel somewhat in touch with my Okie forebears, although we have only had two years of below-average rainfall, not ten. However, the weather service has now confirmed that here in Missouri, at least, we have just experienced the hottest summer on record. You know it's pretty bad when 94 degrees feels cool.

But it rained last night. First came the lightning off in the distance, then came the thunder and wind, and then rain. It was so welcome. Even though of course it was not enough, it was still a blessing.

I was sitting in my car this morning while reading. In between pages I would watch my daughter's field hockey practice. They play in a desiccated brown field full of crispy grass and weeds. Yesterday, a man perfunctorily mowed this field, even though the grass had remained in a state of stasis due to the extreme conditions. Instead of Sleeping Beauty, it was Sleeping Ugly.

There were tiny oases of green visible here and there across the sienna expanse, but those were weeds. It's always that way. When the shit goes down, it's the weeds that thrive. It often seems like that with people, too. I don't know about you, but sometimes that just drives me crazy.

Then my eyes scanned and saw one small shocking flash of color jump out from the landscape. There was a tiny yelp of purple hanging low among the clumps of fescue and thatch. A fluted flower-- belonging, yes, to some weed.

What could be more unlikely than beauty in such sere surroundings? What could be more stubborn than this small flower determined to bloom just here regardless of its improbability? What else could remind me that even in the most drab and dingy places there is grace and beauty if only we open our eyes?

And suddenly the weed was transformed into a miracle.

Complete Love Without Complete Understanding

I love the book (and the movie version) of Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It. The story of a family of two sons, love of nature, and our longing to understand those we love is just so beautiful and true. One of my favorite lines is this one below. In the story, a grown Norman listens with his family to one of his father's last sermons. His father says this:

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”-- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It 

So many of us have someone in our lives whom we love but cannot help. All of our natural inclinations and ethical impulses demand that we step in, but this person is as unreachable as a distant star. For a long time, I have been confronted with the misery of such a one. Madness, sadness, resentment, delusion, anger and denial create a magnetic field of misery that pervades this one's waking life, and I cannot even imagine what dreams they may have. I do know that they need love most of all, and yet they cannot accept love when offered.  When we hate ourselves, we cannot love anyone nor accept love from anyone. It is like trying to grow an orchid in the desert.

Our loved ones often cannot understand us, and we cannot understand them. When we speak of love, they think of that which they can gain and from which they can profit. They are drowning, dragged down by the sorrows of the past. They are confused between what they want, and what they need. They demand more things, when what they need is more love. They try to feed their stomach, but they need to feed their heart.

Last week we heard about the feeding of the multitude. They had gone to hear the Word of God, and then received bread to feed their bodies as well. Jesus fed them out of love for them, but the real miracle was the Word. I've always imagined that most of those who were fed by the bread were unaware of the miraculous nature of the feeding, or more would have been made of it. Many of them were unaware of the even bigger miracle of being physically in the presence of God. They walked away knowing only that their temporary appetite had been satiated.

It was the same thing with the crowd in this Sunday's gospel reading. They were busy taking about filling their stomachs, when Jesus was talking about feeding their hearts and their souls. 

John 6:24-35:

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 

Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 

Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 

So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 

Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 

They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

The bread of life begins in love. I hope we all are willing to open ourselves to that bread, which will feed us forever. Amen.

Dog eat dog

There is a gospel of the Good Old Days that runs as an undertow in American economics and politics, rolling silently and deadly, seeking to drag under the unsuspecting. It is based on a truth-- that America is certainly not as great as it once was. We know this. Here we sit in an alleged recovery that has skipped by most of us like a stone. We are struggling to get back to where we once were. The latest blow was the analysis published recently that showed that the median household has lost nearly 40% of its net worth since the start of the recession in 2007. But the reasons for our decline lie in the very gospel we are told to believe.

It is a gospel that looks back on the past with a rosy eye and seeks to restore a business climate based on unequal distribution of income that this country has not seen since the Gilded Age of the late-nineteenth century or the "Roaring" 1920s. And in each instance, the inequality was unsustainable and actually diminished us as a people, much less as an allegedly Christian nation, as so many are wont to proclaim us, then and now. And yet the gospel of wealth that was propounded then and now actually was a gospel of poverty for the vast majority of the American people.

First, let's consider the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century. This was a time when the average workers lived in squalor in tenements no matter how hard they worked, a world in which public high schools were rare luxuries, and most Americans were lucky to get five or six years of rudimentary schooling (my own grandmother, born in 1890, had perhaps a third grade education, because she had to help take care of her brothers and sisters). It was a world in which there was no such thing as illegal immigration-- any who could come were welcome, most of whom to be shunted into the mills to be ground to grist in the machinery of the rising American industrial machine, and who were also conveniently used to prevent unions from gaining traction to challenge the political power of those same industries.  It was a world in which there were often recessions and panics caused by speculation in land. Death came early for most-- the average life expectancy was under 50 years of age. The average worker earned less than $1.75 a day, and only 45% of American workers earned more than the poverty line of $500 annually. 92% of the 12 million families in the US made less than $1200 a year. This was the situation that spawned the middle-class supported Progressive movement, that introduced political reforms including the direct election of senators, woman suffrage, income tax, consumer protections such as the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, the initiative and referendum process, and the secret ballot, to name a few. And it was lucky for the wealthy that these economic and social reforms were enacted. Yes, lucky. Because in other countries, when the poor have felt that they had no voice, revolution has inevitably been the result. This is one of the reasons why people on both sides of the political divide supported Progressivism. Its reforms probably prevented a much bigger and more violent reorganization of the social order from occurring.

But by the 1920s, in the shock against the brutality of World War II and the failed Treaty of Versailles, conservative isolationists once again took control of US government, and their business philosophy sought a return to the 1890s. Wealth once again was concentrated in the hands of the very few while America developed into a consumer society-- two situations that can not logically coexist. Add in unrest in a Europe beset by economic devastation as a result of the First World War, and the worldwide Great Depression was the result. We are more familiar with the economic situation that occurred during this time, so I won't elucidate in the depth I used in the previous paragraph. However, here is one sobering fact: during the 1930s, for the first time in decades, life expectancy DECREASED in the US. And once again, recovery required Americans to work together to resolve the crisis. The New Deal programs laid the groundwork for recovery, and the collective action required by all citizens upon American entry into the Second World War sealed the deal, although it certainly wasn't simple. Nonetheless, we recovered and contributed to the defeat of Fascism only by working together. Everyone's sons-- rich and poor-- were subject to the draft; everyone was subject to rationing and urged to recycle and conserve for the war effort. By the end of the war, America was at the apogee of her power and influence in the world. We used the Marshall Plan to rebuild western Europe, which benefitted us greatly both economically and politically. We used the GI Bill to expand levels of education to heights never before even dreamt of, which furthered the growth of the American economy for the next forty years. We expanded the roles of those receiving social security even under Republican presidents because people could still remember how horrible the conditions were without such programs mitigating the excesses of an unrestrained capitalism. The biggest public works program ever-- the Interstate Highway Act-- connected the country and physically unified the scattered population centers. Our country began to finally, fitfully, tentatively, even reluctantly fulfill the promises that the Civil War was supposed to deliver to our African American citizens. The postwar world was a conservative world-- and yet we used government as it was supposed to be: by, of, and for the people, as Abraham Lincoln so cogently reminded us in a plea to encourage Americans not to turn on each other.

And that is the situation we are in now. So many of us feel insecure economically, and rather than attempt to diagnose and ameliorate the situation, some of our leaders encourage a fearful bunker mentality which turns American against American. As the number of the poor multiply, we are told to fear them, to hate them, to despise them as parasites-- even as ever larger numbers of us edge toward poverty ourselves. We are told that only tax breaks create jobs, and yet thirty-five years of tax breaks have left us at record levels of unemployment not seen since the end of World War II not to mention at record levels of debt. At a time when more Americans than ever are losing jobs or are chronically underemployed, we are cutting state Medicaid programs, food stamp programs, and cutting funding for education and infrastructure. We tell workers to blame other workers for their economic insecurity rather than the government and business policies of the last forty years. We tell parents that their only hope is the demise of public schools without pointing out the fine print-- that once public schools are imploded, and vouchers are instituted, the only thing that will happen is that private schools will be able to raise tuition --thanks to that flood of tax dollars-- to still keep out the undesirables. And the collapsed public school systems will become warehouses for those who have disabilities in earning as well as learning.

Here's a sobering fact: from 1983 to 2004, from the midpoint of Reagan's presidency through the midpoint of George W. Bush's presidency, 94% of all the wealth created went into the hands of the top 20% of the American population (and 42% of the new wealth went to the top 1%!). That means that during that same time period, eighty percent of the US population only earned 6% of the wealth  created. Is this an indictment of the work ethic of the 80% of the US population? Can we really believe that most Americans are lazy deadbeats who want a handout? And furthermore, given our consumption-based economy, this disparity has suppressed the ability of Americans to purchase goods, even with relatively easy access to credit up until the last few years, which in turn suppresses the growth of the economy (which was supposed to be a founding promise of supply-side economics).

We should just vote the rascals out, right? But we are told that we should be suspicious of democracy by people who claim to be patriots, when that sounds like the most un-American claim possible. But it makes sense: If you create a tiny oligarchy of the wealthy, you have to undo democracy to prevent the majority from using their sheer numbers to protect themselves. If the wealthy are legally enabled to devote sizable chunks of their wealth to buying themselves a colossally disproportionate voice in the political process, the job is more than half done.

Worse, this oppressive situation is the opposite of the gospel that many of us claim to guide us as Christians. It is time for us to come out of the trance we have been under by the beautiful lie that wealth can be concentrated in the hands of the few not through the hidden hand of the marketplace but only through the co-option of our political processes, only through being able to use excess wealth to create political committees who then purchase the voted of our representatives who themselves are hardly representative of the average American in terms of income. This situation is inimical to our own self-interest, much less to the gospel call to attend to the interests of the least in society.

Midweek Poem 9: The Ache of Marriage

I once was blessed to hear Denise Levertov read this poem and others in Tulsa as a student at TU....

The Ache of Marriage

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,   

are heavy with it,   

it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion

and are turned away, beloved,   

each and each

It is leviathan and we   

in its belly

looking for joy, some joy   

not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of   

the ache of it.

--------Denise Levertov, 1966

Body, hands, feet, eyes, heart

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, 
no hands but yours, 
no feet but yours, 


Yours are the eyes through which 
is to look out Christ's compassion to the world; 
Yours are the feet with which 
he is to go about doing good; 


Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now. 
 -- St. Teresa of Avila

I rediscovered this wonderful statement a few days ago, and it has blessed me richly as I have pondered it in my heart since then. To me, this encompasses what our mission is if we wish to declare ourselves followers of Christ.

Sadly, in American pubic religion today, there is a big difference between being "Christian" and being a disciple, especially for those in leadership or positions of power. There is no religious test for public office, we claim (although I would be tempted to disagree about the reality of that statement), but I wish there was a reminder to many of us that we may be saved through grace, but we are known as Christians by our works. It is amazing the contempt with which "the least of these" are treated by so many institutions and parties, while these same groups profess allegiance to the teachings of our Savior.

I try to ask myself each day, "How have I tried to do good?" I would like to ask some of these people, who seek to profit from their declarations to be Christians, "How have you tried to do good today?"

I remember when I was in junior high. It was fashionable for kids who went to a certain church to carry their Bibles with them throughout the school day (they called them their "swords"- I kid you not). Anyone who wasn't lugging around the KJV along with their algebra books would often get cornered. "Are you saved?" they would ask. "Have you been born again?"

But what good did this all do? How did this help advance the message of Christ about what we are supposed to do as Christians? Was the point loving others, or judging others?

And, just for the record, yes--I realize that Jesus saves me over and over, every day, every hour, with every breath that I am granted. He saves me every time I fail to live up to his call to me as one of his sheep, when he forgives me and bids me to set my feet on the path once more even when it looks like a high-wire over Niagara Falls.

And that path is one of service. It is the way of love and peace. It is the way of care and concern for others-- and not just those in my family, my town, my parish, my Church, my tribe, my ethnicity, my gender, my generation, my class, my neighborhood, my sexual orientation, my state, my country. Jesus doesn't want us to crush those who are weaker or different. Jesus calls us to love others as we love ourselves-- which means to love them a LOT, in this narcissistic era.

We are really great at jealously guarding our turf, which means viewing others as threats. Too much of our public life is based on the fear that if we allow others to have something, it will diminish US somehow. This is an idea diametrically opposed to the message of God's unmerited and unbounded love that Christ brought into the world. And that we, as Christians, as called to give to each other. When our hands are closed into fists, they can hold nothing. It is only when we open our hands as we do our hearts that we can actually receive and hold that love that passes understanding.

To everything there is a season

 This morning, one of the readings in the daily office was one of my favorite passages in the Bible:

There is a time for everything,
     and a season for every activity under the heavens:
  a time to be born and a time to die,
     a time to plant and a time to uproot,
 a time to kill and a time to heal,
     a time to tear down and a time to build,
  a time to weep and a time to laugh,
     a time to mourn and a time to dance,
  a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
     a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
 a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
 a time to tear and a time to mend,
     a time to be silent and a time to speak,
 a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

When I was in college I had one of these rectangular posters of these verses in calligraphy. It moved with me to three dorm rooms and one apartment, and somewhere after I moved to St. Louis, it disappeared.

In these last few weeks, I have experienced all of these different times, it seems. A friend who just had a long-anticipated baby lost someone close to her just a few days later. The love for her child is taking root here in the midst of spring. I thought about this as I worked in my garden uprooting dead stumps of plants and some strange weed to which I am apparently allergic. I worked at killing this weed as well as the Chinese honeysuckle and this huge crop of cottonwood and pecan tree shoots and milkweed vines that overwhelm my yard with the least relaxation of vigilance.

It is the same way with my heart. Just as with many other people, I carry so many scars and weaknesses from my childhood, from the times I have been hurt, by my tendency to anger, by my impatience, by my arrogance and hubris-- there is so much from which I still need to heal, and so much that I have done that I need to endeavor to heal in penance and regret for losing sight of how I SHOULD think and act. I am particularly prone to being afraid of taking really big risks for fear of being rejected. And yet, I am called to do these. The one who loves me most of all calls me to be the very best me I can be, and when I fail in that, who knows how that affects those who see me stumble?

I need to tear down the walls I erect around my heart, especially those walls I place between myself and God. I need to build up my trust in the goodness of those around me as a reflection of God's love. There are times when I have wept, when instead I could have been laughing-- my mother recently gave me a very sentimental possession which had belonged to my father, who has been gone now for over 6 years, and at first, I wanted to put it as far away from me as possible, since touching it reminded me of the day I lost my dad all over again. Another of my dear friends lost her mother this winter, and she is sorting through the accumulated treasures of a life that lasted nearly 100 years. Imagine the things that had happened during that time!

One of the things her mother had kept was my wedding invitation that I had sent her nearly 24 years ago. It was so well-preserved, and the fact that she actually went to my wedding and stood up for me is still a memory that I will always treasure, especially since my only grandmother-like figure, my step-grandmother, was unable to be supportive of me on that day. But my friend's mother, mother-in-law, and step-grandmother were there for me. What a blessing! What treasured memories of their love do I still have, and if people like that love you, nothing can really be as dreadful as all that. We all move from mourning what we have lost to celebrating what we have at least had. And I have had the love of all these wonderful people in my life.

There is a season for everything. Everything but love, which endures every moment, and is the purest sign of God's amazing, uplifting presence with all of us.

Waiting. Not abiding.

I am not by nature a patient person. I am not very patient even when I try to be. This is something I constantly try to work on, because I am a teacher and a mother and a human being, and in all three of these categories one should treat others with love and forbearance.

I am also an impulsive person. If I want coffee, I don't want it in two weeks. I want it now (I know that sounds like that Violet girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but oh, well). I just read on facebook that Shawn Colvin's new album is out, and bang! there I go to iTunes because it has been oh, so long since Shawn has put out an album of new material (I am listening to it right now as I write this). I first test-drove my current car on Tuesday, and on Thursday, we bought it. Now, we had been planning for the purchase of a car for months and months, but the actual decision to pull the trigger was quick.

I do not wait well. But in my spiritual life, the boundaries of which I am seeking ever to expand further and further into all of the compartments of my life, I am especially working on a very important attitude: abiding. I think of abiding as being present in the moment, still and attentive. It's related to something our Buddhist friends do when they practice mindfulness.

We fill our lives so full with activities, and so many of these activities detract from our quality of life, especially that part that could be spent in contemplation and adoration of the Holy One. If I pay attention to the presence of the Holy Spirit, I will not need to be aware of the fact that I am waiting. Instead, I am abiding with She who brings comfort and wisdom. Alleluia!