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!

Of Babel, Rabble, and Community

"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' 

"The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said. 'Look, they are one people, and they all have one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech.' So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth."--- Genesis 11:1-9




"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.


Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.


Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 


Amazed and astonished, they asked, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."--- Acts 2:1-11

These are some of the readings some of us heard on Pentecost Sunday. Some of us heard something slightly different. I don't think I have ever seen our priest move so fast without a bicycle beneath him. Ha!

The politics of division

This Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, we will hear the story of the Tower of Babel and the gift of the Holy Spirit to the apostles, resulting in them speaking in a myriad of languages.

We are hearing these readings when the Anglican Communion still struggles to remain unified. We are hearing these passages when our country is more divided than ever-- by race, by class, by gender, by sexual orientation, by religion, by politics. Unity is a great dream, but unity is also at the same time a great challenge.

The problem is, we are often not honest with ourselves when we say we want unity. We want people to be unified with us through agreeing with us and validating our position. We want unity to occur when others move to US, rather than being forced to move to THEM. We want unity on our own terms.

Which is why we never get it at all.

We say we want unity, yet we worship individualism. Note, I said "individualism," not "individuality." "Individuality" is the reservoir of various characteristics which make us unique from others. "Individualism" is the idea that the interests of the individual to act independently are of paramount importance. A companion word in the political cant of the times is the word "liberty."

 Those who currently like to imagine that their liberty is being taken away by nebulous forces are fond of quoting our founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Jefferson famously said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants." What people do not understand is that he said this attempting to justify the most horrifying excesses of the French Revolution. When this quote is used today, it lacks this context. For instance, many people also do not remember that this is the saying that was sprawled across the chest of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, when he was captured after killing and maiming hundreds, all in the name of his own "liberty" which he claimed the federal government was attacking. Patrick Henry, of the famous "Give me liberty, or give me death!" exclamation, was a slaveowner, as was Jefferson, which certainly was understood by those of our founding generation as being the absolute opposite of liberty. And neither Henry nor Jefferson ever actually served militarily during the Revolution, greatly reducing the chances that the blood to be spilled in defense of liberty would be their own. I am not saying that they were not great patriots, but their words did not always match their deeds, as is so often the case for all of us.

In modern society today, we see the same people bemoaning the alleged crisis in "morality" also trumpeting the right of the individual to trump any consideration for one's fellow human beings or citizens. This hypocrisy is generated by a failure to think about what these terms actually mean.  Questions of morality only arise when one lives in the society of others. Further, these questions almost always arise when one is seen to be violating the community standards of morality by expressing one's individuality in a way that is seen as being detrimental in some way to the functioning of the group. You might even say that those accused of immorality are actually living in truth to their individuality.

The handmaidens of unity are compromise, civility, and kindness toward one another. Vitriol and hatred are poison to society. It is time we remembered this, both in the affairs of our Anglican Communion and in our political discourse.

Of Communion and Covenant

With General Convention coming up, the topic of the Anglican Covenant is on everyone's minds, it seems. Even though the Church of England itself has shot the thing down pretty resoundingly, I think that the advice from our Scottish friends cited in the recent Episcopal Cafe article is wise. Kelvin over at What's in Kelvin's Head? writes:

I was surprised though recently to hear from American friends who were saying that they thought that the US based Episcopal Church was likely to affirm the first three sections of the Covenant but not the fourth section. The fourth section is the one that deals with discipline – the ability to throw a naughty Province off the councils, networks and committees and what have you that make up the Anglican Communion’s ways of working.
I was surprised because it meant that there were no apparent fears about the first section, and it is that which I think is the more dangerous. This may be because theological statements are sometimes read differently by different people.
In Scotland we used to get people saying that we should affirm the first three sections but not the fourth section only up until the time when we really got down to talking about it. At last year’s General Synod it became apparent that some of us were very troubled by section one – particularly because affirming it would mean that once again we would have to affirm the Thirty-Nine Articles.
Now there are all kinds of reasons why affirming the Thirty-Nine Articles isn’t a good idea. I was on my feet a year ago saying that coming as I do from a city troubled by Catholic-Protestant sectarian tensions, the last thing we need to be doing is affirming once again the anti-catholic Thirty-Nine Articles. And that isn’t even to begin to deal with the things that those articles condemn which some of us hold dear in our worship still.
Now, the US-based Episcopal Church has the Thirty-Nine Articles in its Book of Common Prayer and we in Scotland don’t. (We did for a bit but we don’t affirm them any more). The Americans cope with them, I think, by thinking of them as Historical Documents – things that show us where we have come from but don’t necessarily regard them as things which should guide our faith for today.
Not so the Church of England. Or at least, not so all of the Church of England.
The release this week of a long denunciation of same-sex marriage from the Church of England Evangelical Council should give the Americans pause for thought before they affirm any part of the Covenant which promotes the Thirty-Nine Articles. Anyone reading it will be in no doubt that the Thirty Nine Articles are no mere historical document in some parts of the Church of England. For some, they are the Thirty-Nine Weapons of the Church of England in this long and tiresome culture war in which all the bullets are theological concepts ad all the collateral damage seems to be in terms of souls lost to the church and wholesome relationships between gay folk traduced by the loud, the ignorant and the shallow.
The US based church should make no assumptions at all about the nature in which the documents listed in the first section of the proposed Anglican Covenant are read in other parts of the world.
I remain convinced that we need to say No to the Covenant and say an unequivocal Yes to the Anglican Communion. And that No needs to be a clear and deliberate rejection of all the sections of the Covenant. Our American friends put themselves at some risk from those who would do them harm if they don’t understand this.

This is so well-stated, and it brings up a point I think many of us overlooked in our anger over what seemed at least to me to be an attempt to punish the Episcopal Church for disagreements about human sexuality and what that means for how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ. Kelvin makes a good point that even removal of the most obviously punitive part of the Anglican Covenant still makes it possible to use any instrument derived from the Covenant as it now is into a punitive weapon of division. 

As Grand Moff Tarkin said to Senator Leia Organa in Star Wars, "You're far too trusting."

Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated

There has been some interesting discussion while I have been away about the demise of Church, especially the flavor known as Episcopal, around the blogosphere. I was challenged, in a good way, by this discussion over at the Episcopal Cafe, in a discussion of a "manifesto by Crusty Old Dean (aka Tom Ferguson, dean of Bexley Hall). Here is a link to the original post.

But one of the points that has been discussed all over the place is restructuring the Episcopal Church. Crusty Old Dean challenges the idea of restructuring in order to preserve the status quo, and challenges us to think outside the box. I am still digesting this.

But for all of the criticism of some Episcopal parishes as being comfy "clubs" (the word "country" just aches to be inserted there, doesn't it?), I also have to notice that those congregations in American Christendom that are showing phenomenal growth have gotten there exactly by functioning as clubs. I am thinking of those loosely- denominational or non-denominational mega- mini malls for Jesus that sport climbing walls for the kiddies and the prosperity gospel behind toothy grins and viciously shellacked hair. It seems those congregations are reeling them in by focusing on the personal relationship with Jesus over engagement in the world at large. All this in a supposedly "post-Christian" era, too.

For me, I am deeply concerned about my place in a society in which the surest path to power is trumpet one's mediocrity as a lure for the votes of everyday folks; in which the politics of jealousy, envy, and division are the easiest ways to rally masses to one's cause; in which self-proclaimed identity is more important than achievement or attitude.

It is obvious that there safe many parts of the Christian message that are out-of-step with the temper of the times. But is that necessarily a bad, or more importantly, permanent, situation?

If I believed that, I would certainly despair.

No, I believe our message is one this world is literally DYING to hear. Is it really so bad to be counter-cultural in times such as these? Yet how can we claim any sort of traction against dwindling membership numbers so that we can get the message of God out into the world that certainly needs it desperately?We just have to find a way to make ourselves heard among the din of the snake-oil salesmen who promise that salvation is to be had through selfishness, that love of self is the path to love of God. We just need to figure out how to do it. But it is obvious that the path to reclaiming the gospel message of love must begin with mission, mission, mission, something with which the Episcopal Church has been historically been quite uncomfortable.

This post is not finished. I put it out there anyway.

I'm baaaaccckk....

For those who have been wondering, I have spent the last month immersed in preparing my students for their advanced placement exam, dealing with some family schtuff with my mom, and being driven insane by other family members. Sorry for the drop-off. Add in that blogging from an iPad, which I have been using most often due to the impending death of my laptop, is not the easiest thing in the world, and it adds up to me being a bad blogger.

I will try to be better now that I can take a breath and the school year is almost over.

Midweek Poem 8: Love and forgetting

Love

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the
perfumes of spring.
   I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;
how did your lips feel on mine?
   Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks,
the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.
   I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten
your eyes.
   Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of
you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will
do me irreparable harm.
   Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
   I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every
window.
   Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because
of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting
stars, falling objects. 

--------------------------------------------------Pablo Neruda

Stone of Witness

"So Joshua made a covenant with the people at Shechem, committing them to follow the decrees and regulations of the LORD. Joshua recorded these things in the Book of God's Instructions. As a reminder of their agreement, he took a large stone and rolled it beneath the terebinth tree beside the Tabernacle of the LORD. Joshua said to all the people, "This stone has heard everything the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness to testify against you if you go back on your word to God."--Joshua 24: 25-27

"See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
the one who relies upon it
will never be stricken with panic.
I will make justice the measuring line
and righteousness the plumb line;
hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie,
and water shall overflow your hiding place."-- Isaiah 28: 16-17


"When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices, so that they might go and annoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?' When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

"But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, this is the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.'"-- Mark 16:1-7

Midweek Poem 7: May she be granted beauty

 For the parents of daughters

A Prayer for My Daughter

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid   

Under this cradle-hood and coverlid   

My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle   

But Gregory's Wood and one bare hill   

Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind,   

Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;   

And for an hour I have walked and prayed   

Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour,

And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,

And under the arches of the bridge, and scream

In the elms above the flooded stream;

Imagining in excited reverie

That the future years had come   

Dancing to a frenzied drum   

Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty, and yet not   

Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,   

Or hers before a looking-glass; for such,   

Being made beautiful overmuch,   

Consider beauty a sufficient end,   

Lose natural kindness, and maybe   

The heart-revealing intimacy   

That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen, being chosen, found life flat and dull,   

And later had much trouble from a fool;   

While that great Queen that rose out of the spray,   

Being fatherless, could have her way,   

Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.   

It's certain that fine women eat   

A crazy salad with their meat   

Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;   

Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned   

By those that are not entirely beautiful.   

Yet many, that have played the fool

For beauty's very self, has charm made wise;   

And many a poor man that has roved,   

Loved and thought himself beloved,   

From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree,   

That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,   

And have no business but dispensing round   

Their magnanimities of sound;   

Nor but in merriment begin a chase,   

Nor but in merriment a quarrel.   

Oh, may she live like some green laurel   

Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,   

The sort of beauty that I have approved,   

Prosper but little, has dried up of late,   

Yet knows that to be choked with hate   

May well be of all evil chances chief.   

If there's no hatred in a mind   

Assault and battery of the wind   

Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,   

So let her think opinions are accursed.   

Have I not seen the loveliest woman born

Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn,   

Because of her opinionated mind   

Barter that horn and every good   

By quiet natures understood   

For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,   

The soul recovers radical innocence   

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,   

And that its own sweet will is heaven's will,   

She can, though every face should scowl   

And every windy quarter howl   

Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house   

Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;   

For arrogance and hatred are the wares   

Peddled in the thoroughfares.   

How but in custom and in ceremony   

Are innocence and beauty born?   

Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,   

And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

---------------------------W. B. Yeats, 1919

Resurrection Faith

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The LORD is risen, indeed! Alleluia!


As we now enter the magnificent season of Easter, I seek to contemplate the miracle of the abiding love-- unmerited, amazing love-- that Christ has for me.

 I want to rededicate myself to a Resurrection Faith-- a faith that responds to that grace by seeking to reflect the love of Christ into the world. A faith that drops the mask of cynicism that I often adopt to protect my fragile, broken heart and instead open myself up to the joy of life that rises like dawn from the deepest darkness that I allow to settle over my soul.

For Jesus endured all-- all for the sake of love. How can I at least not attempt to reach out my hands to those I encounter each day? How can I not attempt to live according to my best impulses rather than my worst?


A Resurrection Faith is one that calls us not to just love God out of fear of the terrible punishment we think we deserve for our manifold sins, but calls us to love God through living out the Great Commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your strength, and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." 

A Resurrection Faith calls me to not just rest upon the saving power of the cross but to always seek to bear my own crosses of pride and vanity and self-centeredness. I then pray to leave them at Golgotha, and tear them down as the hateful banes that they are to walking in the true path of Christ.


A Resurrection Faith calls me to the work of building up rather than tearing down. A Resurrection Faith raises us all from the dead, and calls us to be alive in each moment and in each other. A Resurrection Faith calls us to be, not just profess.


As one of my favorite hymns sings in my heart:


I want to walk as a child of the light;
I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world;
the star of my life is Jesus.

In him there is no darkness at all;
the night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God:
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

I want to see the brightness of God;
I want to look at Jesus.
Clear Sun of righteousness, shine on my path,
and show me the way to the Father.


In him there is no darkness at all;
the night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God:
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.
I’m looking for the coming of Christ;
I want to be with Jesus.
When we have run with patience the race,
we shall know the joy of Jesus.


In him there is no darkness at all;
the night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God:
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.


Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

When bad things happen to good people

One of the biggest, omnipresent questions that linger over our lives as Christians is to try to answer the question of why good people suffer. It's human nature to want to believe that faith in some power-- be it detachment, as the Buddhist believes; or Jesus, as the Christian believes; or karma, as the Hindu believes; or guru, as the Sikh believes-- will then magically lead to all of our suffering being eliminated.

We all want to find that magic bullet that protects us from anything unpleasant in our lives. We want to find some power that raises us above the plane of suffering.

We want to be rewarded for having faith, even though that turns the meaning of faith upside down.

It's human. Childish, but human. The fact that good people still have to deal with bad things is also one of the "proofs" that critics of religion use to mock religious belief and to claim that there is no God.

But no one is immune from tragedy, or pain, or illness. Being a good person doesn't get you a free ticket from God, because the world as created by God does not work that way. We all have to deal with illness, with pain, with sadness, with heartbreak.

This week is the start of Holy Week, and we begin with Palm Sunday. Here is the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to loud shouts of joy from the people of the city! Here at last is the Messiah, who is supposed to kick butts first and ask questions later. Here is the one who is supposed to be a great military and political leader and lift the yoke of oppression once and for all from the neck of the people of Israel.

But...

Our perspective from the 21st century allows us to know that those aspirations the people had for Jesus are not going to be fulfilled. Instead, we know that these shouts of joy will lead to the suffering of Jesus-- the dark events that happen AFTER the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The remembrances of Holy Week emphasize that the triumphal entry into Jerusalem is quickly followed by the betrayal, arrest, and trial of Jesus. He will be handed over for execution after having been judged so dangerous that the only suitable punishment is death.

As Christians, we are reminded of this fact this week as God's own son, Jesus, undergoes betrayal, trials, and suffering. Friends will sell out Jesus for money. He will be charged with blaspheming against God for his criticism of religious authorities. His other friends will abandon him and even deny that they know him. He will be beaten. He will be mocked. He will be tortured to death.

The incarnational aspect of this is that Jesus shares all the joys and sorrows that we do. He loves, and he loses those he loves. He is celebrated, and he is despised. He lives, and he suffers and dies. He has experienced the entire range of human experiences. Even God's son was not spared suffering.

If the story ended there, we would not have much to go on. However, this week begins Holy Week. The story of Jesus does not end at the cross....

Jesus is with us in our pain, sorrow, and suffering. Jesus shares those experiences with us in good times and in bad times, as we are reminded in this Sunday's reading from Philippians 2:5-11:

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who although he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness..."

Jesus is not here among us to take away suffering and pain. Jesus is here among us to help us bear suffering and pain, because he has endured it himself.