Kirkepiscatoid

Andrei Rublev, Monk and Iconographer

2012-01-30T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Andrei Rublev icon of the three angels being hosted by Abraham, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, January 29, 2012)

Readings for the feast day of Andrei Rublev, Monk and Iconographer, January 29:

Psalm 62:6-9
Genesis 28:10-17
2 Corinthians 2:14-17
Matthew 6:19-23

Genesis 28:10-17 (NRSV):

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Just as Jacob saw a window into Heaven and a means to provide a means for a flow of traffic between the realm of God and the realm of humanity via "Jacob's Ladder," Andrei Rublev devoted his life to creating a ladder between those two realms via iconography. His process for writing icons is outlined in Holy Women, Holy Men, page 196:

For Andrei, writing an icon was a spiritual exercise. It involved the ritual of preparing the surface, applying the painted and precious metal background and then creating the image, first outlining it in red. Throughout he would repeatedly say the “Jesus Prayer” (“Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me”). He was creating a window into the Divine which he knew was always before him but which was invisible to the human eye. He knew he was able to create such an image of God because he himself was made in the image of God. His object was to be totally focused on receiving God’s love and loving in return.

In 2010, I decided I needed an icon for my prayer corner in my house, so I turned to a modern iconographer, Luiz Coelho, to make that happen. What I had discovered by pondering many famous icons, including those of Rublev, was that sometimes the iconographer hooked the viewer to the icon via renditions of cities or places at the time the icon would have been written--creating a ladder between antiquity and the present. I was stunned that Luiz was able to do this by means of my Facebook photos, linking Mary as Theotokos, and the image of the young Christ as teacher, with iconic renditions of vast pasture, my church, and my red pickup truck drawing nearer to Mary and Christ on a ribbon of U.S. Highway 63.

What I've come to realize via using this icon as a window into the Divine, is that icons demand of us the same painstaking process Rublev used to create his icons. First, we are asked to strip ourselves to our barest wood and to imagine ourselves in divine terms--to imagine God's view of us as part of God's good creation, and to allow God the Iconographer create that image in the setting of a discipline of regular prayer. The hardest part, however, is to allow that image to be viewed by others, and to trust that they will see what they need to see when they view us. When we are icons of the Body of Christ, we aren't allowed the luxury of projecting what we wish others to see--it requires being comfortable enough to trust that the scratches and misplaced brush strokes are part and parcel of this divine icon. We don't get to force the image we wish, upon the hearts and minds of others. Instead, we are invited to trust that the image is a sufficient window, and allow others to make their own choices about that window.

What is God telling you, when you feel brave enough to pray through the holy icon of you, as God sees you in Divine Creation?

Contrition: Paterno

2012-01-28T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Photo of Penn State's Joe Paterno and Temple coach Wayne Hardin, 1988, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

(Originally written for Daily Episcopalian, January 27, 2012)

O God, the creator and preserver of all mankind, we humbly 
beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of men; that thou
 wouldest be pleased to make they ways known unto them, thy
saving health unto all nations. More especially we pray for 
thy holy Church universal; that it may be so guided and
 governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call
 themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and 
hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in
 righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to thy fatherly
 goodness all those who are in any ways afflicted or distressed, 
in mind, body, or estate; [especially those for whom our prayers
 are desired]; that it may please thee to comfort and relieve
 them according to their several necessities, giving them patience
 under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their 
afflictions. And this we beg for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

--Prayer for All Sorts of Conditions of Men, Book of Common Prayer, pp. 814-815

Truthfully, I've tried to emotionally distance myself from the whole "Penn State thing" as much as possible. Everyone who knows me, knows I am a huge sports fan, especially when it comes to my St. Louis Cardinals and my Mizzou Tigers. But mostly, I suspect the world of Division I college sports is a lot like politics, the institutional church, and sausage--one shouldn't really watch any of them being made if one wants to enjoy them. But the recent illness and death of Penn State Coach Joe Paterno in the past few weeks reminded me of how convoluted and sticky the business of contrition can be.

"Contrition" is one of those words I tend to lump in with words I think of as "Roman Catholic" words. My best friends growing up, who attended Catholic parochial schools, used the word far more than I did. It's a word that isn't so out in the forefront of our Anglican sensibilities, although it's certainly in the Book of Common Prayer, particularly referring to the Reconciliation of a Penitent.

I've really stayed away from having opinions about the Sandusky story at Penn State, and have been content to let the legalities of this story play out, and to simply pray for "healing of all involved." The above prayer, despite its non-gender inclusive old school Prayer Book language, is very rich in that regard--when I know wrongs have been committed, evil has been done, and I can't even begin to imagine what was going on in the minds of everyone involved. It is hard for me to think beyond the pain of victims, and this prayer snaps me back to a fuller understanding of the things that happen in the world that are just plain wicked.

My confession is it was easy for me to throw a rock at Paterno when this broke--so I stayed as emotionally far from it as I could. After all, I usually view legendary powerhouse teams with a certain amount of disdain. To me, the latter part of Paterno's career was more about Paterno the Legend than it was about anything human about him. I probably thought of him more or less as an "auto-icon" of himself, in the vein of Jeremy Bentham--really dead, mounted and stuffed like Trigger, in the museum of Happy Valley. I am normally not a judgmental person--in some ways astoundingly non-judgmental considering I make a living judging things to be "benign" or "malignant"--but I knew to enter too far into this story created emotions in me I did not want to approach.

So I was surprised at how I felt the pathos and the discomfort of Paterno's final interview with the Washington Post. It was clear that this scandal had an effect on him. It was clear that we were viewing a man who knew his last days on earth were imminent, but it was too easy just to brush this off as a person cutting some deals his his last days. The public nature of this last interview, frankly, made me uncomfortable--probably because I got more glimpse than I needed of someone else's private demons. It felt like an over-share of grand proportions, and I found myself wanting to turn the volume down on the audio and look away from my computer screen. I found myself wondering why he chose this public route to find his private contrition, when I knew it would do nothing to assuage the hurt and anger of many, or even change their minds about the complexity of this one iota.

But as I've contemplated this piece of the story, I've come to realize that it is part of why our Prayer Book has "A Prayer for All Sorts of Conditions of Men," and the various prayers that lead our community to pray for those people and situations and conditions that our raw pain and blind anger sever any means for us to see a picture beyond the auto-icons of our own egos. It's also why we have the Reconciliation of a Penitent--to provide a means to humanize what our nature is to dehumanize, to add a sacramental layer to transform attrition (shame and guilt arising from fear of punishment) to contrition (from the Latin conterere, literally "to grind or to rub.")

In short, contrition is a process of being ground down, and the reason we find ourselves averting our eyes at the sight of the discomfort of others, I believe, is the memory of the times we've been ground down, even if the event in question is nothing we've ever personally experienced. In short, when we pray for all sorts of conditions of humanity, we are praying for ourselves, because we feel the chafe, all the same.

Conversion

2012-01-26T05:00:00.000-06:00

("The Conversion of St. Paul,", Michaelangelo Buonarroti, 1542, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, Jan. 25, 2011)

Readings for the Feast Day of the Conversion of St. Paul, January 25:

Psalm 19 (Morning)
Psalm 119:89-112 (Evening)
Isaiah 45:18-25
Philippians 3:4b-11
Ecclesiasticus 39:1-10
Acts 9:1-22

"Saul/Paul and the road to Damascus" is very likely etched indelibly on the brains of most Christians, and honestly, there is very little I can say about this archetype of the Christian conversion experience that hasn't already been said, and by people far more erudite than me. In fact, the story of Saul/Paul's conversion, for many of us, is the polar opposite of our own experience of "encountering Jesus." It's probably the decided minority of us that have ever heard God actually speak to us and lead us to repent and change our attitudes and behaviors towards Jesus.

Really, the only conversion I know very much about at all, has to do with another of my passions--college football. In college football, one of the most exciting things (especially in the fourth quarter of a close game) is that a kicked point after touchdown is worth one point, and one that is run or passed across the goal line is worth two points. In fact, in the NCAA overtime format, once two teams have reached triple overtime, it's mandatory that the two point conversion be employed.

Various sources attribute the success rate of a two point conversion between 40 and 55 percent. The two point conversion, in college football, creates a risk/reward between the win and the tie, or the win and the loss. It has been so extensively statistically studied that in the 1970's, when Dick Vermeil was coach at UCLA, he actually developed a formula of when to "go for two" that is still cited and used in college coaching today.

Perhaps that is really the crux of the Christian conversion experience--when in our lives do we simply take the easy near-sure thing and "kick for one" rather than "run it for two?"

I'm afraid in the world of spreading The Good News In Christ, the institutional church in the past century, has been too complacent to "kick for one"--and the result is declining membership in the mainline denominations. The non-denominational megachurches, however, "run for two" at a rate far more than their mainline counterparts. The result is often increased membership. However, the flip side of that is recent studies show that this "increased membership" is often the result of shifting alliances rather than new converts. Megachurch attendees shop--and when they are no longer entertained, they move on.

Of more concern is the data in recent Gallup polls that show the numbers of people who attend church hovers at 30 percent year after year, but the number of people who never attend church continues to increase.

This is just a guess on my part, but it seems to me that a worthwhile strategy to explore in sharing The Good News In Christ and teaching people to desire that as a lifelong proposition is to first examine our own lives. When are the times in our lives in Christ that we risked "going for two?" What did we learn as a result of both our failures and successes? Did we use our two point conversion attempt wisely or foolishly?

Likewise, when are the times we really needed to kick for the relatively safe point after touchdown? Did we do that, or did we get impatient, risk going for two, and fail?

Perhaps then, we should extrapolate it into the lives of our parishes in terms of outreach and evangelism.

When is the last time your parish took a decided risk in "going for two" in terms of reaching out to the disaffected, the lonely, and the marginalized?

The Song of Abject Disconsolation

2012-01-24T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Illustration from Blake's Book of Job)

The Song of Abject Disconsolation
(with apologies to Job 3)

"Why is light given to one in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,

my hope and anticipation was palpable, but it did not come,
and now I am utterly eviscerated;

I would rejoice exceedingly,
if you would just shoot me now, Lord, and get it over with.

Why is light given to one who cannot see the big picture,
whom God has fenced in with a stubborn mind?

For my sighing comes like my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.

Truly the thing I have hoped for has been snatched from me,
and now emptiness befalls me.

No food, no movie, no liquor makes me at ease or quiet;
I have no rest and no consolation; but disconsolation comes."

Once again, my blogging pal Elizabeth threw down the gauntlet and, of course, I could not resist picking it up. Her large and quite blended family always celebrates Christmas sometime during the season of Epiphany--"Little Christmas" is what I believe she calls it. The plans were for all to meet up in Massachusetts. She had already started making all the delightful dishes her kids and Ms. Conroy's kids love and look forward to eating.

Then Mother Nature had other plans and dumped eight inches of snow on the NE Corridor.

She was grousing a bit on Facebook, and I said I ought to come up with a Song of Abject Disappointment to go with the Song of Impatience I did a while back. Her suggestion was it should be a Song of Abject Disconsolation, because it sounds more Anglican. I had to agree there.

Well, within 20 minutes I had put the above together. (I don't know why, but there's just something that goes, "Whirr...click click click...ding!" in my brain when I get challenged to parody something close to me. I know it irks a few folks when I parody the Bible or the BCP--but I am not worried about my immortal soul on that one. I'm pretty certain God gets a chuckle.) Of course, nothing screams "disconsolation" like the Book of Job.

Really, it was therapeutic. I have both a long relationship and a long non-relationship with "disconsolation." I can go from zero to despair in 30 seconds at times. But I realize for me, it's a sign of my recovery. Somewhere down the line I had learned to be numb to disappointment and disconsolation. There's a place, I think, when people you love continually make promises and continually break them, because of their addictions, or when they say "I'll help you" and they just push you down in the mud because they're psychologically sick, and they choose to pass the sickness down the line rather than allow it to be transformed, that a lot of us simply quit feeling it, because it hurts too damn much and it slows things down.

But when I became numb to that, I also became numb to the power of joy. I became numb to the good will and actions of the people who tried to be supportive of me, and blind to their loving kindness. I became numb to trusting God and trusting others. I became numb to the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, God has something better in mind.

In short, certain kinds of disconsolation rendered me numb to the potential of transformation in a way just as deep, just as piercing, as the hurt was.

So now I understand that I have to feel it. When I began to have deep feelings again on a more regular basis, it was very difficult at first. Sometimes it felt like being attacked with knives. But I have come to understand, that when disconsolation shows up on my doorstep, I have to go through my awful morose-ness, and like Job's friends, I have to put up with my well-meaning friends telling me to stop it. It feels so empty for a spell--not a numb kind of empty, but a probing, deep form of empty.

But then one day, somewhere down the line, when I'm not looking, hope springs up, green and beautiful, like catching a glimpse of the first crocus of spring. Then I look at it and go, "Huh. Well, I'll be damned." Then I laugh long and hard, and rejoice, and say, "Oh, you're such a putz sometimes. You had given up on this happening."

Disconsolation is a crappy houseguest. It eats the last piece of cheesecake in your fridge, leaves crumbs on the coffee table, and doesn't change the TP roll in your bathroom. I'm not even sure it flushes. But it only stays as long as you feed it.

Too much of a good thing is...well...too much

2012-01-23T05:00:00.000-06:00

("Abram and Lot depart out of Haran" from Figures de la Bible, 1728, illustrated by Gerard Hoet, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, January 22, 2012)

Readings for Sunday, January 22:

Psalm 63:1-8, (9-11)
Psalm 98 (Morning)
Psalm 103 (Evening)
Genesis 13:2-18
Galatians 2:1-10
Mark 7:31-37

Genesis 13:2-18 (NRSV):

Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. He journeyed on by stages from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.

Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them living together; for their possessions were so great that they could not live together, and there was strife between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land. Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

Lot looked about him, and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the Lord had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward; thus they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.

In a time that we are hearing a lot of discussion about "the 1%" and "the other 99%," the story of Abram and Lot takes on new dimensions. We are shown right off the bat that too much of a good thing is...well...too much. Both Abram and Lot seem to be doing quite well in the livestock trade--so well, in fact, that it's creating a strain on the area resources, and causing a lot of tension between Abram's herders and Lot's herders, which almost certainly had to create tension between Abram and Lot. This isn't even a case of "The farmer and the cowman should be friends," it's a case of "The cowman and the cowman should be friends." (Or shepherd...or goat roper...take your pick.)

But somehow, the topic of "Maybe we don't need so much livestock, and we should both manage this land more responsibly," never came up. After all, that meant either Abram or Lot might have to have less, and I suspect each one was making book on the other's inventory as much or more than his own. Only until the land is depleted does Abram get around to approaching the problem.

At the time of this story, by rights, Abram should have first pick of where he will choose to take his people. But he gives Lot the choice. To the left are the plains of the Jordan, home of at least five major cities, and it's no coincidence that this is described in Genesis in Eden-like terms. To the right is the hill country of Caanan--a more rugged and secluded territory.

As Lot surveys the scene, we're once again shown what too much of a good thing can do to a person. Lot hastily takes dibs on the "better" territory. Of course, we'll find out later in Genesis that heading towards Sodom might not be the best choice, but we have the advantage of hindsight on that one. It's also important to consider that human nature reveals at times our "magnanimous" behavior isn't always as magnanimous as it seems. I call it "The Mismatched Pieces of Pie Gambit." I admit that there are times I really would like the larger of two pieces of pie with a guest in the house, and that little "greed critter" in my brain gets an idea. "I know," I think to myself. "I'll offer them the choice. If they're a 'good' guest, they'll take the smaller piece and leave me the bigger one." But every now and then, the doggone guest goes and takes the bigger piece, and then I feel a tad put about about that. How dare someone take my generosity at face value and choose accordingly when I was really trying to outfox them a little!

I imagine after Lot made his choice, Abram felt a little like I do after a failed attempt at the Mismatched Pieces of Pie Gambit. I suspect Abram looked over at the dust devils swirling around in the Hill Country of Caanan and felt rather put out about that--a lot more than I do about a slice of pie. One can almost feel the resentment building up as we read the story. But God steps in and essentially tells Abram, "Don't sweat it. It doesn't look like you got a good deal at the moment, but remember--I'm the God who makes all things new, and your people will eventually be better than good with this, when it's all said and done."

There are a lot of places that "too much of a good thing" can take us, and most of them are not good. It can take us to a place where we deplete everything around us and cause strife. It can take us to a place where "reasonably happy" is not good enough, and even pales in the light of our desire for "supremely happy." It can take us to a place where we choose the greedier choice at the other person's expense. It can blind us to our own greedy nature and make us think that playing The Mismatched Pieces of Pie Gambit is really "generosity." Yet, God has a way of working with all that and transforming us just the same, if we let God take control. Ultimately, the facts are that Abram gave Lot the choice and Lot took it. How is God working with both your "offers" and "choices" today?

Re-calc-u-lating

2012-01-22T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Originally written for Jan. 21,2012 Daily Episcopalian)

(Photo: Prostate needle biopsies as they appear stained for routine microscopic examination)

"Silence has become God’s final defense against our idolatry. By limiting our speech, God gets some relief from our descriptive assaults. By hiding inside a veil of glory, God deflects our attempts at control by withdrawing into silence, knowing that nothing gets to us like the failure of our speech. When we run out of words, then and perhaps only then can God be God. When we have eaten our own words until we are sick of them, when nothing we can tell ourselves makes a dent in our hunger, when we are prepared to surrender the very Word that brought us into being in hopes of hearing it spoken again--then, at last, we are ready to worship God."

--Barbara Brown Taylor, from "When God is Silent"

One of the most basic, crucial parts of my job, in terms of what matters to the patient, are the words I speak into our dictating system that create the written record of the surgical pathology report. Until the moment my thoughts and impressions leave me and become words that can be shared, they are useless to the patient. Once spoken, dictated and signed, the patient and I have entered into a covenant. The patient has offered up a bit of flesh and I honor that by creating words that name it.

So you can imagine the office-wide consternation a little while back when my transcriptionist met me at the door with what I call the "Now, don't blow a gasket," look.

She took a deep breath and blurted out, "All your 'grosses' from yesterday are gone. They can't find them in the dictating system anywhere!" She was referring to what's known as the "gross dictation"--where I actually open the various biopsy and specimen containers, describe what's in them, state what is submitted for processing, to be turned into paraffin-embedded tissue blocks and, subsequently, slides for microscopic examination. We had been suffering massive computer woes in the office and the files of what I had dictated had disappeared from the server, beyond retrieval.

Needless to say, it was incredibly frustrating that words I've come to depend on, were suddenly absent.

One of the things we discover after we've grown in our Christian faith for some time, is that there will suddenly be a time that the words we've come to depend upon in the Bible, from the pulpit, and from each other in the gathered community, are also suddenly absent. Perhaps we've encountered a tragedy that has shaken our faith. Perhaps it is the departure of a rector whose homiletic skills hooked us in an authentic way to God. Perhaps our best friend in the parish died or moved away. Perhaps it's simply that little edgy gnawing that our prayers seem to be going nowhere and God is silent. We look up and realize the screen on our spiritual GPS is blank, and the little voice in it is going, "Recalculating...recalculating."

For most of us, our first reaction is panic, and all the subsequent actions that go with it--fight, fright, or flight. "Sit still and work with this" is generally NOT the action we take.

I know what I would probably be doing if that were my GPS. I'd be yelling at the little voice, for one thing. I would project that it was displeased or irritated with me. I would be calling it some rather foul names (I've been known to do that with my GPS)--and I'm pretty sure when it got absolutely intolerable, I'd grab it from its cradle and bang it up and down on the dash. But I also know I'd never have stopped the truck--I'd have kept on going in whatever direction I was headed and possibly be endangering other people with my multitasking. Not exactly the brightest move in the world, is it?

I would have been carrying on at how IT is not talking to ME, yet not hearing what it WAS saying to me..."Re-calculating," as it dug into its memory and got instructions from the satellites.

On the day I lost all my gross dictations, I had to re-create my "grosses," relying on my memory, coupled with what I could perceive from what I had available. Now, with the larger specimens, that's fairly easy--I could always go back to what's left of the actual specimen and do things like re-weigh, re-measure, and re-look. But with the smaller specimens--the small biopsies that were entirely submitted for processing--I could only look at the slides we made, and estimate the number of pieces and the size of them, which isn't entirely accurate. Tissue shrinks about 10-15% during processing. They are no longer the color they were at the time I saw them. I am trying to recall them in three dimensions based on a rather two-dimensional slide. I could only make my best guesses based on that and my memory, and the factual truth is that these re-created dictations are not as accurate, but luckily that level of accuracy is not all that germane to the diagnosis.

In short, once I signed the report, the "truth" about those gross descriptions was no longer their actual physical measurements and appearance of the tissue; it was the memory of them that went into the signed record and became the legal and medical truth.

Recalled truth--a truth forged from memory--has transformational power. In fact, we engage in such an exercise each time we celebrate the Eucharist. We hear in the Words of Institution, "Do this for the remembrance of me." The times we are spiritually dry or blank invite us to enter into an ever-growing collective memory that stems from the memory of the Last Supper and continues to expand each time the Eucharist is celebrated. We are not required to remember anything on our own--only to trust its own power to transform--and accept the revelations that emanate from it. Are we brave enough to sit still and let it re-calculate for us?

It's mine!

2012-01-20T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Illustration of the Maldives Islands folk tale of the heron, by Xavier Romero-Frias, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Psalm 37:1-18:

Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; *
do not be jealous of those who do wrong. 

For they shall soon wither like the grass, *
and like the green grass fade away. 

Put your trust in the LORD and do good; *
 dwell in the land and feed on its riches. 

Take delight in the LORD, *
and he shall give you your heart’s desire. 

Commit your way to the LORD and put your trust in him, *
and he will bring it to pass. 

He will make your righteousness as clear as the light *
and your just dealing as the noonday. 

Be still before the LORD *
 and wait patiently for him. 

Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, *
 the one who succeeds in evil schemes. 

Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; *
 do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil. 

For evildoers shall be cut off, * 
but those who wait upon the LORD shall possess the land.

 In a little while the wicked shall be no more; * 
you shall search out their place, but they will not be there. 

But the lowly shall possess the land; *
 they will delight in abundance of peace. 

The wicked plot against the righteous * 
and gnash at them with their teeth. 

The Lord laughs at the wicked, *
 because he sees that their day will come. 

The wicked draw their sword and bend their bow 
to strike down the poor and needy, *
 to slaughter those who are upright in their ways. 

Their sword shall go through their own heart, * 
and their bow shall be broken. 

The little that the righteous has * 
is better than the great riches of the wicked.

 For the power of the wicked shall be broken, * 
but the LORD upholds the righteous.

I have to admit; I've been in a mood. I have had three or four things brewing in my life that feel like "people plotting against me," or at the very least, "the mean people plotting against the good guys." I particularly find myself becoming more and more that way at election season, particularly at certain candidates. But once in a while, I get that feeling that there are vandals at the gates. There have been some difficulties at work, at church, and in my personal life, and it's easy for me to start thinking that I have a target on my back. It's all I can do, sometimes, to focus on simply changing myself rather than chase down the motives of others.

I wonder sometimes if that is also part and parcel of the mood that often precedes Annual Meeting in Episcopal parishes all over the country. Annual meeting is, frankly a lot of work--especially for clergy, senior wardens, church secretaries, and church treasurers. Among the people I lovingly call "my Episco-geek" friends, I have heard dozens of horror stories about Annual Meeting. They range from carefully scripted clergy attacks (both the kind where the clergy are attacked or the clergy is doing the attacking,) to influential lay folk pushing an agenda, to factions in the church going medieval on each other. At the very least, Annual Meeting is when some difficult truths sometimes are revealed in a more public way--budget cuts, pledge shortfalls, program eliminations, or serious and straight talk about "mission vs. maintenance."

Annual meeting, for me, is this weird mix of good food, hopeful planning, and occasionally painful revelations--and it's always too long. That is no one's fault, that's just me being impatient. I am so used to the carefully scripted hospital committee meeting where everyone understands everyone has to get back to the clinic or the operating room, or in my case, back behind the microscope. We tend to work all our business behind the scenes, one on one and in small groups, via e-mail and hallway conversations, so the goal is at the meeting itself it is very businesslike and fits within the time allotted. I am not accustomed to meetings where things come up I may not have known about or are asked to consider with no advance notice. I am not very good at it, honestly, because I know myself well enough to know my initial reaction is not always my final opinion. Mistakes I have made in the past by displaying my initial reactions have taught me that my poorly thought-out reactions have created a level of polarization that doesn't need to happen.

When emotions fly around the room, it's hard for me to discern "what's real" in a short period of time. I think all of us in parishes hold some things in the life of the church closer than others. To question their value or utility or expense feels a little like those evildoers the Psalm above mentions. Sometimes an honest, but perhaps slightly blunt question feels crass and personal. I think about how maybe all of us who attend an Annual Meeting need to simply accept what might fly out of someone's mouth (or ours) might not be their last word or final thought on something, that we just let those emotions or reactions sit on the table and cool off a little.

I have thought a lot lately about a folk tale that comes from the Maldives about a heron. It goes like this:

On the scenic island of Maakana Fushi in the Maldives, a heron was standing on the beach when suddenly his dropping was washed away by the sea. "Hey sea!" he shouted, "why do you take away my turd, it's mine!"

The sea was surprised, but answered: "Well, bird, it's true I took your dropping, but I will give you a wave instead."

Splash! The bird took on the wave and settled down on the beach. Not far from him a group of fisherman were trying to push their boat into the sea. This upset the heron. "Where is my wave?" he demanded to know. The fishermen replied, "Yes, we used your wave, but instead we shall give you a fish."

Whack! The fisherman slapped the fish on the wet sand, and the heron took it in his beak.

He sat down next to a group of youngsters enjoying themselves while making music. They had been playing drums for hours, and were hungry. "Hey guys, look," said one, "that bird has a fish. Let's take it and make fishcakes."

So they snatched the fish from the heron, and of course, the heron complained again: "That is my fish you took!"

In exchange, the youngsters gave the heron an old drum. The bird was now very keen to hide the object so that nobody would take it away from him.

So he flew onto the highest branch of the tree, and started playing the old drum with his beak. "Dah-dam, dah-dam, dah-dam," went his beak on the drum. He played it harder and harder, faster and faster. He played so enthusiastically that he fell off the tree and broke his neck...and there he lay, dead...the old drum lying next to him.

It reminds me that none of us own anything in a parish.

We so often talk about ministries in "my" and "our" terms. We talk about "our" money in stewardship. If any of the things dear to us are threatened, we act like it's been taken from us personally. We take things like a budget cut cutting a program close to our hearts as a statement that our efforts are not valued. But none of it was ours to begin with. It was God's all along. We don't ask if things build up the Body of Christ as much as we fret about us not getting to do "our" thing. We lose track of the big picture.

Is it worth breaking our necks over?

Anemia

2012-01-17T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Originally written for Daily Episcopalian on Jan. 15, 2011)

My heart is pounding, my strength has failed me,
And the brightness of my eyes is gone from me.

--Psalm 38:10 (from the BCP Psalter)

Psalm 38 seems to be one I hear in my parish's Morning Prayer service each Wednesday more than most. For some reason, as the Daily Office works its way through the Psalter, Psalm 38 often falls on a Wednesday. The main reason I notice is because I'm always on the lookout for verse 6--"I am utterly bowed down and prostrate..."--if I'm the least bit sleepy or distracted, I slip and say prostate instead of prostrate...and when I hear verse 10, I almost invariably think, "Hmmm. Sounds like anemia to me."

One of the constant medical truisms I try to pound into medical student, intern, and resident heads is that even though anemia has a diagnosis code in coding and billing systems, anemia is not a "diagnosis" in the true sense of the word. Anemia is a symptom. When we encounter anemia in patient, it's important to remember that it's a symptom of something else gone wrong, and try to figure out its underlying cause. Is someone anemic from iron, Vitamin B12, or folate deficiency? Is there a gastrointestinal bleed? Is the patient elderly and chronically ill, with an ever-dwindling functional bone marrow, simply because our functional bone marrow is replaced by fat as we age?

The other thing about anemia--particularly the more chronic, insidious forms of it--is when someone is chronically anemic, their body adjusts to some degree to the decreased oxygen-carrying capacity of the red blood cells. Chronically anemic people "get along just fine" if they live a sedentary life, at hemoglobin levels that would leave most of us dead dog tired and feeling terribly run-down. They don't even notice they are becoming more anemic until it is so severe they are short of breath and their heart rate is increased--and then they often thing something more terrible is wrong.

I know there are two particular times in the liturgical year where I am prone to being spiritually anemic. One is in Time After Epiphany, and the other is in that draggy time of what I call "The long green season"--the tail end of Time After Pentecost.

For me, the first one is more of an acute anemia--like that caused by blood loss--where I think all the waiting of Advent, followed by hubbub and hoopla of Christmas and Epiphany, pitches me into a place where I know I'm tired, and need a nap, and I spiritually crash and snooze. A lot of times, I'll drop or get lazy about a spiritual practice. This scared me at first. I was afraid I'd drop a practice and then just push it aside. But over time, and with the work of a good spiritual director, I had this put in perspective. Just as I used to crash and sleep for hours post-call in the days of my clinical training, I have come to realize that's just a "post season" thing. It's a fact humans eat when they're hungry and sleep when they're tired, and relieve themselves when their bladders and colons are full. We probably do these things in our relationship with God, too. Lent becomes a time I "get back in spiritual shape."

The second one--that tail end of the "long green season"--for me is more of a chronic anemia. I have slowly "adjusted" into minimally unhealthy thoughts and occasionally find myself "zoning" through my prayer time and Scripture reading. I don't mean "zoning" like when I am in the deep prayer place--it's more like "I'm sleeping standing up." That is a type of anemia where it's dangerous for me to just think I'll nap and get over it on my own. I have come to learn that is the time I most need the interactions with my faith community, and need others to inspire and buoy me (and occasionally kick me in the shin and yell, "WAKE UP!")

The fact is, every person of faith goes through anemic times. Perhaps they cycle with the church year, as mine seem to do, or they are more insidious dry or plateau-type segments in our lives. It's important to understand that this is part of the cyclic nature of life, and not a failing or a pathology on our part. Anemia is not always a sign of loss or "drainage," or "deficiency." After all, people get anemic when they're pregnant, too.

It's more important to see anemia as an invitation to spiritual self-awareness, and to consider what we need to do (or not do!) when it comes upon us. It also begs the reverse question--when we are feeling spiritually robust, how are we available when someone else feels spiritually anemic? Are you called to be the transfusion someone else needs?

Not Chosen

2012-01-16T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Medieval woodcut of a female physician making a cut for bloodletting and scarification, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally written for Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, January 15, 2012)

Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Then he went home;

--Mark 3:7-19 (NRSV)

Most of the time, when I've read this passage, it's never one that garnered much of my attention, but this time something new shot to the forefront of my mind--there's at least a possibility that more than twelve people went up the mountain, and what we do know is that twelve were chosen as apostles.

It gets one's spiritual imagination going, doesn't it? What transpired from that day in the lives of the ones who "didn't make the cut?" We don't know how many Jesus called to come up the mountain that day. We just know twelve were chosen to follow him. We don't know if others were chosen for different tasks, such as returning to their home towns and telling about the miracles, and this man Jesus. What we know, is, perhaps only a small part of the story.

Thinking about these possibilities can lead each of us back to a time in our own lives when we were not chosen for something we desired. I remember a time towards the end of my residency when I was courted by a department chair with a national reputation as a pathology textbook author, at a prestigious teaching hospital. I began to already imagine myself in that position. It was a time not long after I had returned from three months in Washington DC at the now-defunct Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Living in DC, even temporarily, was enjoyable and exciting (although expensive.) I was ready to try my hand living somewhere else other than Columbia, MO. I was already imagining the move and looking at real estate ads in that city's paper.

As it turned out, the position never materialized.

It was one of my first lessons in how even people with powerful national reputations don't get everything they want, which, in this case, meant I didn't get what I wanted. I was crushed for a spell. I was already assured a job at the University of Missouri, but I also knew this job would come with the baggage that accompanies "staying where one trained," and that there was very little year-to-year job security with it, and very little pay, comparatively, and one where I would never find a real "niche" that is so necessary for advancement in the large academic medical setting. It was a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none position, and non-tenure track, and most likely the first to go in a budget cut.

Yet our Psalms appointed for the morning reading speak to great joy, and unending praise. Where's the joy in seeing our heart's desire disintegrating? Our emotions in such things are closer to our reading in Genesis--a giant flood that seems to kill everything inside of us.

Perhaps the key lies in today's reading from Ephesians. Paul reminds us of the power of gifts of the spirit--that the gifts of some benefit all of us in the building up of the Body of Christ. Sometimes we have no way of knowing whose gift is building us up, and we also have no way of knowing how the things in our lives in the present--even the disappointing things--are slowly, unknowingly equipping us for building up that body in a way we cannot even imagine.

In my own case, the "lesser" job I took because I had nowhere else to go, brought me the gift of a particular senior pathologist who was a patient teacher, a man who often looked the other way at my inexperience, and became my most trusted and beloved colleague. The irony in it was during medical school and residency, I thought he was a fool. He equipped me in many things I use in my present position today, and there's not a week that goes by in my life and work I don't think of him in the frame of something he taught me. That "lesser" job gave me the tools to have the breadth and confidence to feel comfortable and secure in my present position--one where I am solo many days of the week and have to exercise diligent self-awareness of what my strengths and limitations are in my present practice environment.

By swallowing my ego, and becoming the willing pupil of the person I originally brushed off in the job I felt was a losing proposition, I became transformed.

Failures, delays, broken dreams and disappointments often comprise the dough from which transformation arises--if we are willing to trust in the possibilities of a God who continually makes all things new.

The non-compliant patient

2012-01-15T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Picture of pocket lint courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally written for Daily Episcopalian on December --, 2011)

When we demand satisfaction of one another, when we demand any completion to history on our terms, when we demand that our anxiety or any dissatisfaction be taken away, saying, as it were, “Why weren’t you this for me? Why didn’t life do that for me?”, we are refusing to say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” We are refusing to hold out for the full picture that is always given in time by God.

When we set out to seek our private happiness, we often create an idol that is sure to topple. Any attempts to protect any full and private happiness in the midst of so much public suffering have to be based on illusion about the nature of the world in which we live. We can only do that if we block ourselves from a certain degree of reality and refuse solidarity with “the other side” of everything, even the other side of ourselves.

--From "Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr," pages 5, 7

One of the odd roles of the inner office space of the hospital pathologist is best described as "pastoral space for physicians under the guise of coming to get biopsy results." I can't remember the number of times the conversation on the other side of my two-headed microscope started out being about "the biopsy," but by the time the other physician leaves, I've heard way more than what I needed to make the diagnosis about the patient. I've heard a shaggy dog story about the patient's family, the chain of events that brought the patient to this place, and mostly, the physician's own frustrations about it all--particularly when the patient is what we call "The non-compliant patient."

I particularly find myself functioning in this pastoral role with the young interns and residents and clinical medical students--young and eager and full of knowledge, oh, so very sure what the patient needs to do, and incredibly exasperated that the patient is not doing it, or was in such denial that things are a total mess at the time the patient is admitted. Yet it's the rare patient who is even 50% consistent with the instructions the physician gives. My mind often wanders back to bits and pieces of the hundreds of prospective medical student admission interviews I've conducted over the years. I've yet to hear a candidate for admission say, when asked to describe a day in what they think life will be like as a doctor, "I'll go to the office some days and have to deal with patients who don't listen, patients who are late for their appointments, patients who are upset about the bill, and patients who display drug-seeking behavior." Without fail, they always describe a shiny, happy practice, with a waiting room filled with people, who, as my late grandmother used to say, "have sunshine streaming out their butt."

It's interesting that, even though the doctor-patient relationship is really a covenant, we use that term "compliant"--as if the patient's responsibility is the sum total of the relationship.

Although Rohr's quote above is intended for the setting of Advent, and Lent is nipping at our heels, it's very appropriate when we ponder that little demon of "failed expectations." All we see is a sliver of another person's life at the time we encounter them--and in the case of the non-compliant patient, we have little to no clue of the complexities life has dealt that person. Perhaps the patient missed the appointment because she was up all night with a sick child. Perhaps the patient isn't listening because his thoughts are distracted by the worsening health of an elderly parent. Perhaps the drug-seeker is so enmeshed in his addiction that he is becoming violently physically ill. Perhaps the person angry about the bill just lost a job, or cutbacks are coming.

We tend to be pretty quick in judging "the other"--probably because, as with all complexities in this life, there's just enough of a kernel of truth in there to affirm our judgments. The fact is, a certain percentage of the time, the non-compliant patient is, indeed, non-compliant because (s)he hasn't learned a certain core set of life responsibilities, or doesn't want to learn them. The fact is, sometimes people smoke and drink too much because sometimes they simply would rather smoke and drink than change. The fact is, some people are morbidly obese because they like eating too much to stop. The mistake, however, is believing these attitudes are carved in stone for a lifetime, and the worse mistake is claiming any power or authority to fix them. Although being a doctor gives me insight in how to live a healthy life and a call to spread a gospel of the good news of health, it gives me no authority whatsoever in forcing my beliefs and choices on others.

As my spiritual director pointed out to me one day, when I was annoyed at someone not living up to my expectations, "You said yourself this person isn't normal in this regard; so why are you angry when this person doesn't act normal?"

The non-compliant patient, in this view, becomes a mirror--what do I need to consider about my expectations of others in light of a God who probably finds me rather non-compliant?

Dogs in Heaven (and other angels dancing on the head of a pin sort of things)

2012-01-12T15:54:00.000-06:00

(Photo of Will Rogers courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers

I had to chuckle at both this story and the mention of it in The Lead. We recently had a bit of a theological quandary about the prayer list. Without going into the story too deeply (I really don't care to "out" anyone, because I think it was all done with a sincere heart and great earnest-ness) the short version is this: I am the editor of our parish weekly e-news and one of the "keepers of the prayer list." What is a person supposed to do about a dog showing up in the prayer list requests?

Now, bottom line was that the dog was not placed on the prayer list, but the owner was. But there was a staggering amount of discussion I ended up entering into and a discovery that this was a very visceral topic. I found out a lot about who in my parish thinks that dogs and cats at least, have souls. (We did not extend this conversation beyond dogs and cats, so mercifully, we did not get into the eternal ensoulment of white rats, goldfish, and boa constrictors.)

But what this discussion did was really ask me some very basic and unanswerable questions about the nature of the soul, the nature of my relationship with God's creation through my pets, and what it really means to be a keeper of the prayer list and the trust I have been given about the souls of the individuals in our congregation.

Let me start with my own viscerally held belief. I truly believe that my dogs have souls. I believe that all created beings have them. (One of my friends and I can be irritated at the drop of the hat over a line John Spong once used in one of his books about saying dogs didn't have souls. We laugh that out of all the controversial things John Spong has said over the years, that's the one we want to fight with him about.) Unfortunately, the Bible is rather mute on the topic. It's clear that the Bible speaks quite openly about people having them, but it's a little vague about the rest--only a couple of references like in the Psalms with lines about man and beasts being saved, things like that--which tells me whatever we choose to believe on the topic is not a deal-breaker with our own salvation.

However that belief comes with some incongruities, then, on how well I acknowledge the ensoulment of all living beings. It means I believe cows have souls--yet I eat them. It means I believe skunks have souls, yet I shoot them when they are too near my house. It means I believe mice have souls, yet I gleefully set out mouse traps and live to hear the snap of their demise when the little boogers have invaded my house. It means I believe ticks and spiders have souls, and I squash them with no guilt or shame whatsoever.

What it all boils down to, I think, is that we are not simply stewards of creation--we are all part of creation and we interact with the rest of creation in a variety of ways. Some of these interactions are good, some bad, but probably most are rather indifferent, really. Perhaps it's not so much about the brass tacks of that interaction than it is how we change our interaction with humans as a result of these intersections with creation.

My two dogs are a window into what I'm capable of in loving others, and the unconditional love that dogs have for "their" people influence me in how to love unconditionally. Worrying about their ensoulment (or not) should be a lesson in how we cannot control and micromanage others. Are we ready for this kind of radical inclusion?

Amanuensis and community

2012-01-10T05:00:00.000-06:00

(German woodcut of a monk using a scribe, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Daily Episcopalian on January 9, 2011)

“There were times when I was amazed by my own boldness in expressing my views about the novel, and still more amazed by the indulgence with which a brilliant writer used to listen to these almost childish remarks and opinions.”

--Anna Grigorievna, transcriptionist for Dostoevsky's book The Gambler, from her Reminiscences

Not long ago, I began to realize in a new way that "Dictation and transcription" is fast becoming a lost art.

I'm pretty spoiled in my little office. I have a transcriptionist who has been translating spoken ruminations from behind microscopes into surgical pathology reports for over 40 years. Really, she knows what I say, and how I say it on the most common types of specimens, that on occasion she will stick her head in my office and go, "You said such-and-such on that skin lesion you dictated but when I heard the description, didn't you mean this-and-that?" and most often she is right. She and I also both have the skill of starting to read through an old report and, before we get to the signature line, know which pathologist signed out the case--even when it's an old case done by my former associates. We have both worked so long paying attention to what folks say and how they say it, we know things between the lines. I can go back through one of my present associate's reports and tell if she is feeling hesitant or edgy about a diagnosis. She can tell the same with me. There's an odd little intimacy in how we speak words for the world that betray bits and pieces of ourselves.

Modern voice recognition software, and transcriptionist work outsourced to transcription pools in India, is changing this into a less intimate production in some ways. Yet I can see a trend moving back to a few old things in communications in general--the business of speaking our words rather than keying or writing them.

Many of the memoirs penned until the invention of the typewriter were not penned at all--they were spoken to scribes. I even discovered a great term from antiquity for this function--amanuensis--from the Latin servus a manu, literally, "Slave at hand." The slave was literally supposed to write exactly what was said. I suppose, ideally, the slave was supposed to do this with no input, but my guess is it was more what Grigorievna described--or what my own transcriptionist does--stop and go, "Say WHAT?" I am sure a good amanuensis created a layer of community and accountability to the speaker. It might also surprise us that many cultures at the time of the Bible used female slaves as scribes. We tend to think of women of that time as largely unable to read and write, but for slave women, this was a pretty good job, I imagine, and it brings an interesting possibility to light--that some slave women became more educated via osmosis of their job description than the more privileged or "free" ones. The relationship they had with the person doing the dictating would possibly have been a position of influence.

Now, our modern permutation of this, via things like Dragon Dictation for the iPhone, doesn't do this (well, it does excise the curse words...) but it does bring back an old, almost lost distinction in communication--the notion that what communication that springs from our mouths is different than what comes from our hands.

What the modern permutation lacks, however, is what I'm going to call "the amanuensic process." Things like Dragon Dictation only have a twice-removed human layer in which the programmer worked on certain assumptions that may not be true in an individual case.

It dawned on me that when we read or study the Bible, we don't really consider the amanuensic process of how it came to be, very much. We also tend to forget that these stories were told to each other multiple times before anyone bothered to write them down. I think many of us have this notion that these words shot out of God's mouth into the author's ears and they were transcribed verbatim (in King James English, of course.) Even if we don't really believe that, it's a pervasive mindset that these were a series of solitary inspirations.

Thinking about the amanuensic process of how the Bible came to be, really opens up an interesting door in how we understand it. It means that from its very beginnings, this set of books that we come to regard as the heart, soul, and backbone of our faith, were forged in relationship with each other, even if these relationships carried a power differential. It also raises the reality that these relationships weren't perfect--I am almost certain there are probably spots in the Bible that are the equivalent of Celie spitting in Old Mister's lemonade from The Color Purple. But I'm just as certain that there are places where the "good scribe" looked up and said, "Are you SURE you want to say it like THAT?" and a discussion ensued, that made those words more understandable.

Could it be that, as we begin to return to the idea of speaking our words to the electronic scribes in our smartphones, that we are going to become more attuned to the relationships that created the words of the Bible? Could it be that this notion was the part of the Bible we were supposed to understand more fully rather than quibble about the words themselves? It's an interesting proposition, isn't it?

Let there be light

2012-01-09T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Logo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, January 8, 2012)

Readings for Sunday, January 8, 2012:

Psalms 146, 147 (Morning)
Psalms 111, 112, 113 (Evening)
Genesis 1:1-2:3
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:29-34

Evolutionist that I am, I can still never say enough about the story of the Creation in Genesis, and never fail to hear it as a story of absolute beauty. It is still one of the most marvelous set of strings of words in all of written thought, both for its simplicity and complexity.

So my next sentence is going to sound incongruous: I believe in the story of Creation with all my heart.

Oh, not in the sense of days and order and "Poof! There's a horse!" but in the sense of believing in a God who is intimately in the creation business. Every time I read this passage, there's something new to see--not just what is said, but what is not said.

Ever notice the one big "no comment" in this story? It's here:

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

We see that the light is good--but the darkness is "no comment." Now, we are not told the darkness is bad, either. The darkness just is. Two paragraphs in, God separates the two. The illustration is that they are two entities--one good, one neutral. But then a few more paragraphs down the road we see:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

The darkness does not remain entirely separate in this story for long--it is punctuated by light. Oh, there's still an ultimate separation of light and darkness of some sort, but where the Earth is concerned, there is never total darkness, but only periods of greater and lesser light--which, as far as Earth is concerned, insures that light will always prevail. It reminds me of the words of the Taizé song La Ténèbre, "Our darkness is never darkness in his sight, the deepest night is clear as the daylight."

Each of us have a different notion of what we fear about "total darkness," but for me it's this: In total darkness, one cannot even tell if one is alone or not. I could be six inches from someone else, but enmeshed in the delusion that I am alone, deluded in a lie that I am separate from all creation, and from God.

In this story, we are reminded of one of the most simple, yet profound truths about the relationship between God, creation, and us--The Light of God is always with us, even if it's a mere trickle from our vantage point. Believing in the story of creation has far more to do with believing in the constancy of light and the presence of each other in it, than it does worrying about literal days and disappearing dinosaurs.

What changes for us, in our relationship with God, and our relationships with each other, when we accept the truth that there is no darkness, only greater and lesser views of light?

Magi Musings

2012-01-06T05:00:00.000-06:00

("The Three Wise Men Going to Bethlehem," by Franz Xaver Merz, fresco on the ceiling of Windberg Abbey Church, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

For Those Who Have Far to Travel
An Epiphany Blessing

By Jan Richardson

If you could see
the journey whole
you might never
undertake it;
might never dare
the first step
that propels you
from the place
you have known
toward the place
you know not.

Call it
one of the mercies
of the road:
that we see it
only by stages
as it opens
before us,
as it comes into
our keeping
step by
single step.

There is nothing
for it
but to go
and by our going
take the vows
the pilgrim takes:

to be faithful to
the next step;
to rely on more
than the map;
to heed the signposts
of intuition and dream;
to follow the star
that only you
will recognize;

to keep an open eye
for the wonders that
attend the path;
to press on
beyond distractions
beyond fatigue
beyond what would
tempt you
from the way.

There are vows
that only you
will know;
the secret promises
for your particular path
and the new ones
you will need to make
when the road
is revealed
by turns
you could not
have foreseen.

Keep them, break them,
make them again:
each promise becomes
part of the path;
each choice creates
the road
that will take you
to the place
where at last
you will kneel

to offer the gift
most needed—
the gift that only you
can give—
before turning to go
home by
another way.

We've known about the Magi since childhood, if only from singing "We Three Kings." (Or, the version I used to entertain myself with as a kid: "We three kings of Orient are, tryin' to smoke a rubber cigar. It was loaded and it exploded, that's how we got this far!") But do we ever think much about the Magi except for part of the supporting cast of the Christmas story--and what, really, do they have to do with us?

When I sit and ponder the Magi, I often think of how their journey parallels our own journeys "looking for Jesus"--sometimes started off by people we later learned we should not have trusted, sometimes convoluted and slow, sometimes with unexpected results. Their gifts to the Christ Child remind us that we desire to give God our best--the treasure in our hearts. They came from the East and moved westward--it's an American tendency, because of our history of westward expansion, to see "West" as looking towards a vast expanse, filled with potential.

But lately, I've been thinking about how they wise about one thing in a practical sort of way. They knew enough not to return to Herod when they realized the magnitude of what they saw. They returned home by another route.

Gregory the Great probably said it best: "...having come to know Jesus we are forbidden to return by the way we came."

We may return "home" many times in this mortal life of ours, but we never get back by quite the same route. Each time we encounter the living Christ, and experience transformation, we are changed in subtle, yet profound ways. It's impossible to go back with the same heart and mind we had prior to the transformation.

In addition, our desires to seek and find Jesus lead us to recapitulate this journey in other ways--namely by seeking and finding Jesus in each other. As I think back, I have been visited by many Magi in my life--people bearing their gifts of the Spirit, who found me and wanted to give me their best. It seems these people only rarely become a fixture in my life, but, like the Magi, head off into the horizon. Yet I think fondly of them from time to time.

A more difficult concept for me is the possibility I have been one of the wise people for someone else. That one's always a little hard to swallow, because I don't think of myself as overly wise. But it's certainly a very real possibility.

Who have been Magi in your life? More importantly, when have we been the Magi for others?

New and not so new

2012-01-04T05:00:00.001-06:00

("How e-mail works," courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

2 Corinthians 5:17-21:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I read this recent post by my blogging friend Ann in Daily Episcopalian and it certainly made me give pause, the idea that the days of e-mail possibly being numbered. Oh, I don't disbelieve it. I remember the time I first recognized that my wonderful stacks of record albums were going to be useless. Oddly, I kept them long after I no longer had a turntable, then finally parted with them when I felt I had enough of a CD collection that I had the bulk of my album collection I cared to keep. I recently got rid of all my CD's, too--same story. I only felt comfortable going digital with all my music when I had enough of my collection digitally available.

Those of us who fancy ourselves as "techier than most baby boomers" may someday be faced with the real possibility that all we have stored on hard drives, as technology continues to chug along, will not "make the cut." Some day I'll have to make a decision on what I'll keep and what I'll let go...again.

Where we seem to be moving in the electronic communications world is a place where real time rules, via social networking and messaging. "Saving what we said" will not automatically occur. "Instant discussion" will become an expectation, if it hasn't already. I am unusual in that I don't always immediately answer an e-mail. Sometimes I want to think it over before I reply.

I have read reams and reams of things about how all our various new communications technologies intersect with the church--and quite honestly, too much of it is of the "Chicken Little" variety. Oh, oh, the sky is falling. The sky's always falling. But it still seems we have plenty sky left.

I really appreciated Ann's candor in the article, where she speaks of both the enjoyment she gets at being a "techie grandmother" and her unease of her prospects of keeping up. I get parts of that. I am a person who is always slow to embrace the new--I have to go through my obligatory period of scoffing first--but when I do, I run off the dock and cannonball right in, sometimes finding myself over my head very quickly. Like our friend the disciple Peter, I jump out of the boat with a "Hey, y'all, watch this!" and do okay until the winds pick up, then find myself in need of a bit of saving. But I almost always come out of the water wiser and ready for more. I suppose if I have a fear of the rise of the new, it's that one day I will actually drown, but I haven't yet, so I have to trust that.

But here's my testimony to all of this, despite the abundance of "Chicken Little" stories--I truly feel that my involvement in the Digital Age has enhanced my life as a Christian, and made me a better person. Oh, not that I haven't made some whopping mistakes--I have fallen victim to helping things go viral that shouldn't a few times, and I have learned the hard way that e-mail is for disseminating, and only judiciously for seriously discussing, and that face to face is always the gold standard. But I have also learned to truly be more hospitable and social through social networking, and I have been able to provide and receive many kindnesses via these types of media, and I am convinced it's the biggest mission field we've ever seen. In a world where more people are of the "no religion" persuasion than ever, it's a wonderful place to simply live the Gospel rather than tout it. Social media has become a place where I've been unafraid to step into my own priesthood as one of the baptized believers, and allow people to be gathered with me and provide a safe place of hospitality.

Yeah, I get a little afraid of the new same as everyone else--but I also know if I allow it in, I will continue to be made a new creature in Christ. What's not to like?

Dangers of Naming

2012-01-02T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Igbuzo child naming ceremony, Washington DC, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally written for Speaking to the Soul, January 1, 2012)

Readings for the Feast of the Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, January 1:

Psalm 103 (Morning)
Psalm 148 (Evening)
Isaiah 62:1-5, 10-12
Revelation 19:1-16
Matthew 1:18-25

Names are all over the place in our readings today. Our Psalms call to bless and praise the Lord's holy name. No fewer than five names for Israel and her people are mentioned in the verses of Isaiah 62. The rider of the horse in Revelation 19 is named Faithful and True. In Matthew, Joseph hears the name of Mary's unborn child--Jesus--in his dream.

The more we read and study the Bible, the more we recognize that "the business of naming" is an important thread that weaves through both the Old and New Testaments. I've always been especially intrigued how, when one picks Biblical names apart, they have a meaning within the name. Take Jesus' name--Yeshua--"The Lord is salvation." It's as if we are told within the name of Jesus itself, Lesson One in "Understanding Christianity 101."

The mistake, however, is in thinking once we pick the names in the Bible apart, that this knowledge is the be-all and end-all of the message. Human nature has the destructive habit of "Once we know the name of something, once we know how it works, once we have disassembled it and post-mortem'ed it, we're finished, with no further action necessary."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The danger of understanding names is that we tend, once we know the name of something, to use our definition to define the world, rather than letting the world shape and mold us. We tend to use it for the control of things we don't understand. Invariably, this fallacy leads us to placing God in a smaller box than God is capable of occupying. Once we think we fully understand a definition, we fill the air with the aerosol mist of a spray can chock full of of the delusion of control. Instead of letting the names churn our passions, we try to shut our passions down

What would happen, instead, if we let these names shape us instead of us telling them what they are? In Matthew, Joseph's hearing and obedience to his dream saves his new family's lives. What would grow in us if we allow God to speak to our dreams, our hopes, our passions? Our passage in Isaiah gives us a window into restoration and renewal--a journey that begins forsaken and desolate, and becomes formed into a joyful wedding between the holy incarnation of God, and the mundane existence of our lives. We move from a God "out there" to "God with us." We discover salvation when the rest of this cold hard world would rather separate us with a chasm of despair. We move from a state of spiritual insomnia, afraid to dream, to one where we eagerly dare to dream.

On this day proclaiming the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, dare we listen to our own dreams, that, at times, speak the most profound truths to us? Are we ready to accept the new name God has bestowed upon us? It begins with hearing God speak the name of salvation to us in our dreams.

Holy Innocents

2011-12-29T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Massacre of the Innocents, Peter Paul Reubens, 1611 or 1612, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, December 28, 2011)

Readings for Dec. 28, the feast day of the Holy Innocents:

Psalm 2
Psalm 26 (Morning)
Psalm 19
Psalm 126 (Evening)
Isaiah 49:13-23
or Isaiah 54:1-13
Matthew 19:1-14
or Mark 10:13-16

Sometimes, our liturgical calendar relies on myth more than we care to admit. The story of Herod ordering the slaughter of all male children age two and under is probably one of those times. The only account of this story is in Matthew 2, with no secular history to back it up--which, frankly, throws doubt into it being a factual historical event. One theory is that it is a "morphing" of Josephus' account of Herod the Great murdering his own sons. However, the lack of secular history doesn't negate the possibility it happened. It could well have been this was such a minor episode in the reign of Herod at the time--remember, no one would have had the hindsight we do, that this child is the Messiah--no secular historian worth his salt would have cared about infanticide in a little berg like Bethlehem. Infanticide was a common way to deal with one's enemies and to put down uprisings.

All the same, the people at the time the Gospel of Matthew would have been hooked on this story, because they would have been familiar the story of the Exodus, and with prophetic statements in Hosea and Jeremiah. They had heard of "people out to get rid of the offspring of the chosen" before, many times. Regrettably, infanticide still exists in the world, so it still has the power to hook us, too. Killing innocent little ones who have yet to experience the fullness of life is one of the most reprehensible things we can think of, when we think about the evil that still exists in this tired old world.

Yet we psychologically kill "innocence" all the time, more than we care to admit. It's a rare person who has lived his or her life without someone trying to kill something holy and innocent inside of us because of envy or resentment on their part. It's also (unfortunately) a rare person who has never felt the pang of jealousy and wanted to kill it in someone else. Cain is still with us, I'm afraid.

Worse yet, we still, like the historical Herod--implode and order the killing of the innocent offspring of joy and hope within ourselves. There would be no need of therapists, self-help books, and Twelve Step programs if we didn't order all these "killings" of the innocence of self and others.

Our readings today take us on a full tour of the emotional spectrum--joy, rebirth, barrenness, wrath, vindication, and singing. But perhaps the most important message is in either choice of the Gospel when the disciples are told by Jesus to stop chasing away the little children and let them come. It's our tendency, in this busy world, to inflate everything we do into Very Serious Business and push aside innocent things like joy and wonder and the heart tug of the "gee whiz" moment. When we see those things in ourselves, we push them away--and although we may not actively kill them, there might be a place where they simply go off and die of neglect and starvation. When we see them in others, in our own underfed state, it's too painful--so in jealousy we try to kill theirs, too, and often in a more active fashion than the slow starvation of our own.

When we embrace our own holy innocence, we change the playing field from one of scarcity to abundance, and suddenly there's room enough for all the innocent children to sit at the foot of Jesus. Who's the hungry self-marginalized innocent child we should let draw near to us today?

Hitting Bottom

2011-12-28T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Photo of a row of tamarisk and hedge courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally written for Speaking to the Soul, December 27, 2011)

Readings for December 27, the feast day of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist:

Psalm 97
Psalm 98 (Morning)
Psalm 145 (Evening)
Proverbs 8:22-30
or Isaiah 44:1-8
John 13:20-35

But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you in the womb and will help you: Do not fear, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring. They shall spring up like a green tamarisk, like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, “I am the Lord’s,” another will be called by the name of Jacob, yet another will write on the hand, “The Lord’s,” and adopt the name of Israel. Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let them proclaim it, let them declare and set it forth before me. Who has announced from of old the things to come? Let them tell us what is yet to be. Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.

--Isaiah 44:1-8 (NRSV)

To fully hear the depth of our reading in Isaiah, it's important to know a little bit about tamarisk bushes. Tamarisks are pretty amazing, actually. They're not exactly plants that would catch your attention right away--they are rather nondescript, willowy, and shrubby-looking. But they can grow in the most inhospitable places. Tamarisks can be found in the deserts of Albania, the rocky wasteland of the southwestern United States, and along coastlines of all sorts of temperature regions. They can thrive in places too salty for most plants--in fact, they merely slurp up salty, brackish water and spit the salt out, encrusting themselves in it, gaining the nickname "salt cedar." When they are near a good water source, such as near a river, they drink like there's no tomorrow, up to 200 gallons a day, yet they are drought resistant, with aggressive tap roots that can break rock. They can even be burned to a blackened stub and within weeks, green shoots will appear at their charred bases.

In short, they grow in places and situations where nothing should dare survive. Their mention in Isaiah portends new life from the impossible.

As we swing from Advent into Christmas, tamarisks are a reminder of what we heard a few weeks ago--that "nothing is impossible with God"--but that this new birth might well be in a very inhospitable environment. Although the bulk of our readings today are in the "praise and exultation" mode, today's Gospel--the betrayal of Jesus by Judas--stands in sharp contrast. It seems an odd place for our Gospel reading--a betrayal in a season more associated with joy. Perhaps, though, it's not so odd if we think about the tamarisk and its powers of renewal. Tamarisks survive because of their incredibly deep tap root and their ability to find the deepest possible source of water. They survive and thrive because they know just how far the bottom is, and how deep it has to go to get there.

Anyone who is an alcoholic, an addict, or a family member of one knows the full depth of what "hitting bottom" is all about, and that it is only in hitting bottom that the real recovery begins. We don't seem to see that one when we are only heading to the bottom--we are too busy with the delusion we can slow our descent. It's only when we hit that place where the breath is knocked out of us and we are lying flat that we ever really seem to address our addictions and codependencies. Even then, we may find ourselves drinking salt water for a spell.

Yet, there's that crazy tamarisk--growing where it's not supposed to grow, drinking what it's not supposed to drink, and covering itself with a rind of salt, thumbing its figurative nose at the fates. Is it any different from the times we have felt the movement of God within us under the weight of our own encrusted tears? Even more important, when we hit bottom--and discover the flowing waters of our own baptism--are we ready to drink from it like there's no tomorrow?

Christmas Magic

2011-12-27T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Trinity Episcopal Church in winter, Kirksville, MO)

(This post originally written for Daily Episcopalian, December --, 2011)

Almighty God, by your Holy Spirit you have made us one with your saints in heaven and on earth: Grant that in our earthly pilgrimage we may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know ourselves to be surrounded by their witness to your power and mercy. We ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whom all our intercessions are acceptable through the Spirit, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

--Collect at the Prayers of the People, p. 395, Book of Common Prayer

When our parish had services on Christmas Day, 2010, only a handful of folks in the congregation could recall the last time we'd worshiped together on Christmas Day proper. We always had services on Christmas Eve, but the best recollection was it had been "a few priests ago" when we had celebrated both days. (Never mind it being a principal feast day; the excuse we always heard was "Truman's on break, and no one will be there.")

Given that we are located in a college town, and most of our parishioners either work at or attend Truman State University, we have an odd demographic when it comes to Christmas. The campus holiday break assures that a good chunk of our parish will be out of town during that time, and it's also a safe bet that our nicely prepared Servants of Worship schedule will be missing a few lectors, chalice-bearers, acolytes, and folks to do Prayers of the People. We often find ourselves "winging it" a little bit with the various lay roles. Since the bulk of my relatives live nearby, I'm always around at Christmas--so I often become one of the people doing the winging. I have joked that "I've played every position at our church but pitcher."

So those of us who showed up on Christmas Day that year were not entirely sure what to expect. We weren't sure who was in town or not. It was a small intimate bunch, but the coffee hour was magic. There was laughter and fun we never knew we could have at 11:30 a.m. on Christmas Day.

So I started actually looking forward to this year's Christmas Day service, and the subsequent coffee hour. Was last year just a one shot deal, or was it the start of something new? I admit, my "looking forward" was a little apprehensive in spots. Would I be disappointed?

Ha! It was even better! We laughed harder and more loudly than last time.

What I'm realizing is, "something's growing."

As we start to do a few things together in terms of mission, as we have a few new people show up, there's a different kind of relationship we are all developing with each other. It's part of how changing the focus changes people. It's part of how congregational development is not just "numbers." Sure, I'd like our numbers to be bigger--but I think over time, that will come in a modest way. A telltale sign for me is that our coffee hour goes on a LONG time when we have those "small in number" services, compared to our usual Sunday attendance.

It's a season for "birth," and I don't know what will grow from this, but I sense that things are birthing all around in our parish. What will next Christmas be like?

It's in God's hands

2011-12-26T05:00:00.001-06:00

(Photo of newborn infant clutching father's hand courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Daily Episcopalian, December 25, 2011)

Readings for December 25, 2011:

Psalm 2
Psalm 85 (Morning)
Psalm 110:1-5 (6-7)
Psalm 132 (Evening)
Micah 4:1-5, 5:2-4
1 John 4:7-16
John 3:31-36

The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands.--John 3:35 (NRSV)

Our readings for Christmas Day are rich in physical imagery today, with Micah referring to "the mouth of the Lord" and physical acts of peace performed with human hands, such as beating swords into plowshares, and sitting contentedly under fig trees. These acts performed by human hands are the prelude to our Gospel image that the world and everything in it truly exists in God's hands, through Christ, despite all our best human efforts. We've sung it thousands of times, right? "He's got the whole world in his hands."

The metaphor of hands is perhaps one of the most powerful ones we humans have going for us--we've all heard the insurance commercial where we are told we are in good hands (provided we purchased their insurance, of course.) We use phrases like "pass the baton" or "hand it off to you" to describe transference of authority or power. When we are in the midst of an unfolding tragedy, and don't know anything else to say, we often blurt out "Well, it's in God's hands now," in the hope that this image can be a comfort--the image of a God with hands big enough to hold all of what seems to be spilling out from between our own fingers at an alarming rate.

Isn't it interesting, though, that what we do in Advent, that culminates on Christmas, is we have been doing all this preparation with our hands in order to let go?

We make cookies and wrap presents to give away.

We prepare delicious meals to pass them around the table and enjoy others being full and satisfied.

But most importantly, we prepare once again for a wondrous birth and take all that we are and all that we hope us and the world to be--and pass it into the hands of an infant.

What kind of fool takes something that important, and hands it off to a baby?

Baby hands are fascinating little things--and what I've noticed is there are two things where one can count on for a baby to grasp like there's no tomorrow. Babies hold on for dear life to the things that feed them, and the people whom they love. I never fail to be amazed at how tightly a baby can hold onto my shirt (or, unfortunately, my glasses.)

No doubt--the transformations in our lives happen, not from our careful preparation, but from the act of letting go. Oh, the preparation is important--very important--but it's the letting go that changes us. We prepare for the birth of babies to prepare for the day somewhere around their 18th year, to watch them leave for college, the military, or a job. We spend lifetimes with those we love to prepare for them to leave us in death. We make plans for our lives to let go of them in disappointment or tragedy...and on Christmas Day, we place everything in the hands of a baby to take us on a journey to the cross, where those beautiful little hands will be pierced with nails. We will rejoice mightily to see the return of those hands in Easter, but they return with the holes still in them--in solidarity with our own humanity and the wounds life has dealt us.

Today, Christmas Day, is the day that we hand it all off to the seemingly too-tiny hands of a baby. May we feel those hands grasp our own fingers today with a grip that says, "I'll never let you go."

Changed by Holiness

2011-12-25T05:00:00.001-06:00

(This post originally appeared on Daily Episcopalian on December 24, 2011)

"If you wish to become a person of knowledge and moderation, and if you want not to be enslaved to the passion of self-conceit, always search among existent things (i.e., creation) for what is hidden from your knowledge, and finding many and varied things that have escaped your notice, you will be amazed at your ignorance and you will abase your presumption. And, coming to know yourself, you will understand many great and marvelous things, because to think to know does not lead to progress in knowing."

--Maximos the Confessor

One of the things I really took to heart about Maximos' quote is that concept that we are changed in holiness by searching for hidden knowledge among already existing things. It's been my experience that most revelatory things I've discovered have been things that I came to realize, have been in front of my nose all along and simply had failed to notice them. I had an opportunity to experience those things in a new way one recent Sunday.

We have a member of our parish who has been physically unable to attend church for some time, because of her broken hip, and the fact that our building is physically inaccessible to her--so we have been taking turns bringing at least bits and pieces of the church to her. Our priest brings her the Sacraments, and several of us have taken turns accompanying her. On a recent week when it was my turn to go on this visit, I ended up with a rather large hunk of consecrated bread, because our priest was headed out of town, and we had more than enough in the tabernacle in reserve. So I was left with this daunting amount of the Body of Christ to consume, and not enough appetite to do it in one sitting. I ended up carefully wrapping it in Saran wrap and carrying it around in the pocket of my hoodie until I had enough appetite to finish it off. So to make a long story short, this piece of consecrated bread got to accompany me on several of my afternoon errands all around Kirksville and on my Sunday afternoon walk down and back on my dirt road that I usually take.

Even though at the time this was happening, we were still a month and a half before Advent, I found myself thinking some very Advent-y thoughts--because there I was, with the Body of Christ snuggled against my belly, going here and there and everywhere--literally the theotokos of Adair County.

Now, generally speaking, I am already a person who tends to want to be obedient to the rules and the customs of the church, so I did not really expect to be changed by this exercise. But as the afternoon played out, I kept noticing all the little things I was doing differently, simply because I was carrying a large wad of the Sacraments around. I thought about how just looking at me, people would not know what I had in my hoodie pocket. I found myself subconsciously keeping a hand on it, in my pocket, so it would not fall out. I didn't have my usual verbal outburst at the person who cut me off in traffic. Things just seemed unusually calm and peaceful that afternoon, even when I was dealing with the usual irritations of my life--and in a strange way, I felt...well...honored that I was entrusted to give the proper liturgical care to such a large remnant of our home Eucharist. I called a friend of mine and even told her about the experience.

Then, all of a sudden, a giant recognition slammed into my brain without warning. What I was being shown was a teeny-tiny glimpse of what Mary felt like when Gabriel told her the news that she was pregnant! I had even subconsciously recapitulated telling Elizabeth (although I'd called a friend, not my cousin.)

In Advent seasons past, I've frequently thought about how unbelievable Gabriel's visit to Mary must have seemed, and had been puzzled that she was merely "perplexed," according to Luke, as opposed to the outright fear most people in the Bible get when they encounter angels. I never understood why she was not full of disbelief, acting out, or even downright despair.

I sat there in my truck, I pulled out the bread, and stared at it in the Saran wrap, laughing to myself. "I GET it now!" Being told to take care of the bread by my priest was not a fearful thing, because I was pretty sure she trusted me with it and I was happy to honor that trust. I walked around the streets of Kirksville unnoticed, but quietly protecting a treasure inside my hoodie pocket that would not have appeared to be a treasure. I didn't feel the need to show it off because I did not want it to be mishandled or treated irreverently.

Suddenly for the first time I could identify with a Mary who understood somehow that Gabriel, an agent of God, trusted her on sight. I could imagine her, as the Christ Child grew inside of her, being protective of him, and being a little grateful that she was rather inconspicuous. It must have felt comforting to not have to deal with other people's projections of the unlikeliness of such a prospect. The attention of such a thing would have been uncomfortable and would have put both of them at risk. She would have told Elizabeth simply because she felt pretty good about the whole thing, and that's the kind of thing one only admits to folks one feels close enough to reveal such a thing.

When I finally got around to eating that bread, it was with gratitude to God for such a unique, yet ordinary way to come to that knowledge.

Advent is the time that we prepare for new births, new possibilities in our lives. The trouble is, our habit is to tend to imagine those things in grandiose, Cecil B. DeMille terms. The more likely possibility is that they exist in the tiny, mundane things of our existence. Are we open to being awake to that possibility?

The kingdom of interesting times

2011-12-19T05:00:00.000-06:00

("The Prophet Amos" by Gustave Doré, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Readings for Sunday, December 18, 2011:

Psalm 63:1-8 (9-11)
Psalm 98 (Morning)
Psalm 103 (Evening)
Amos 9:11-15
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 13-17
John 5:30-47

Amos 9:11-15 (NRSV):

On that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name, says the Lord who does this. The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord your God.

In our excursion into the Book of Amos today, I'm reminded of the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." These are, indeed, interesting times to be studying the words of the prophet Amos, as they reveal several weighty matters of social justice in his time, and ours.

At the time of Amos, roughly 750 BCE, the northern kingdom of Israel was enjoying relative prosperity, but not without a price. The prosperity was partly due to the ruling classes exploiting and oppressing the poor and needy members of society, and much of Amos' prophecy consists of the condemnation of those in power for their ill treatment of the more defenseless, while the powerful lounge in the lap of excessive luxury. Its message of social justice carries some spooky parallels with the news of today.

Today's reading, the last few sentences of the book, represent the one glimmer of hope in both Amos' "interesting times," and ours (although these last few lines, most scholars admit, were probably not authored by Amos, but rather from someone with perspective of Judah, the southern kingdom, and after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.) If anything, they at least say, "It gets better."

The striking part to me in this passage is the revealing of something we don't always like to think about--restoring the Kingdom of God, is, at times, drudgery. "Mission" is not always pretty nor is it always a feel-good proposition. Mission is often plowing brown earth with no green in sight, dropping in little brown seeds that don't even look edible, and stomping on grapes until we're purple up to the ankles, and not being around to see the finished product.

I think about some of the various forms of mission in which I've been engaged, both as an individual and as a member of my parish. They've been things like cleaning moldy insulation and lying on my back with creepy crawly bugs under a recently flooded house, or helping a man sift through his tornado-leveled house searching for his cat. The man with the cat still haunts my mind now and then. I can still hear the hope in his voice that the cat was still around somewhere ("One of my friends is sure he saw him two days ago, right here at the house") and me looking around at the devastation, thinking, "Dude, I can't even begin to believe your cat is anywhere near this place." Yet I kept looking with him simply because it was the one hopeful thing within a hundred yards worth grasping. I still wonder if he ever found that cat.

I think sometimes about what we want mission to be, and what it is. Our parish participates in a summer program that provides lunches for school-aged children during the summer. In our "happy mind's eye of mission," I think a lot of us envisioned these reasonably well-behaved, polite, grateful little kids--cute little six and seven year olds--enjoying their lunches without complaint. Well, we certainly had several of those, but I don't think all the carrot sticks we picked up at the end of the day, or all the peanut butter blobs we cleaned off the picnic tables were part of that fantasy. We didn't think about the fact some of these "kids" were 15 year old girls with babies. (Yeah, that's "babies"--with an "s"--as in pleural.) What we experienced and saw was a very stark reminder that we Middle America small town types hide our poor very well.

It's so easy, when we're tired, or grouchy, or in the mood to separate "us" from "them", to wish for a big fix to these problems, and think these little things we do are for naught, and even rationalize that we are only doing these things to make ourselves feel better. We can take that line of reasoning and depress ourselves even further by saying all the good in the world we are trying to do is merely a cork in an ocean. We can adopt a "blame the victim" mentality and say, "These people will never change. Why bother?"

Amos' prophecies, however, call us to a different place--a place of restoration. A place where the Kingdom of Interesting Times inches just a little pencil mark closer to the Kingdom of Heaven with every dirty hand and every stained grape-squashing foot. We don't always recognize that the rambunctious child that flung her carrot sticks halfway across the park thirty years ago, might be the person who now delivers our mail, or fills our prescriptions, or teaches our own children. We may not always see the fruits of our own labors, but we are certainly living in the midst of the labors of those before us.

Do we choose to be unaware of that possibility, or do we choose to make the best of the little things we do for others in the hope that something might change? Perhaps when we choose the latter, "living in interesting times" becomes less of a curse and more of a fulfilled modern prophesy.

The view from the table

2011-12-18T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Trinity-Kirksville's newest of the newly baptized, along with Bishop Stephen Dokolo and Bishop Wayne Smith, photo by Julie Seidler from Trinity-Kirksville's photostream.)

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

--Prayer in Times of Conflict, Book of Common Prayer, p. 824

Sunday, December 11 was a magic day in the life of my little parish. Not only was it the day of our annual Bishop's Visit (it's always fun to have our bishop here to preach and preside,) he brought along three special guests--his wife, Debbie; Bishop Stephen Dokolo of the Diocese of Lui, in the Republic of South Sudan; and Bishop Stephen's wife Lillian. The Diocese of Missouri and the Diocese of Lui share a companion relationship. It was especially exciting that our visitors sparked something in us--a desire to connect with our companion diocese in a closer way. There was talk at coffee hour of connecting us with a particular parish in Lui, and even more exciting talk of us asking ourselves if we dare consider the possibility of a group of us going to Lui in the future.

There was one moment I actually felt a little sorry for our bishop. We had two Communion stations so that Bishop Stephen could help distribute Communion. I'm afraid most of us dissed our bishop to get in Bishop Stephen's line. (I did. I'm pretty sure Bishop Wayne likes me anyway.) But it was important to me. Many of you have heard the high stock I place on human hands when it comes to the Sacraments--I've blogged on it in all sorts of contexts. It was important to me to have our visitor's and my hands and the consecrated bread to all have those few nanoseconds together.

Now back up a bit and you'll see why.

Y'all did hear me mention South Sudan, right? As in the Episcopal Church of Sudan? You know, those guys. However, it's important to know that Bishop Stephen has a personal connection with the Diocese of Missouri. As part of our companion relationship, he was brought to Missouri to Eden Seminary for part of his education a few years ago. He lived in our diocese for a spell.

It's also not a state secret that Trinity-Kirksville is an Oasis congregation in the Diocese of Missouri. We are very much an LGBT-affirming parish in every sense of the word.

Yet, there we all were together, in the same worship space, at the same holy table, at the same coffee hour table, and talking of more possibilities of ways to share and learn from each other--because really, when you come right down to it, the things that Lui needs to be more present in God's world are things like water wells, and teachers, and health education regarding childbirth, infectious disease, and HIV, and grinding mills so women don't have to grind grain for hours on end in order for their families to eat. Truthfully, I'm not sure the average Christian in Lui would think much at all about homosexuality except for certain people in their own church keeping it on the radar. There are far bigger fish to fry in Lui, it seems.

I don't know what this most recent development between the Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan and our own Presiding Bishop means, just a mere week after South Sudan met Kirksville; nor can I possibly know what it means in terms of the future of all companion relationships between ECS and TEC. I am sad--incredibly sad--about the news of our Presiding Bishop's "disinvitation" from the ECS--but it does not erase what I saw in my own church one week prior.

It's a complex and convoluted thing, this relationship our two dioceses share. It was an issue at our Diocesan Convention in November--whether we wanted to continue this relationship--not just because of "the Sudan thing" but simply because some asked if the money wasn't better spent at home, or whether it is effective. I wasn't at Convention, I can't speak to it first hand. But what I've learned from someone who has had a dog in this hunt for a long time, my blogging colleague Lisa, is that her trip to Lui in 2006 transformed her--and she would have had every reason in the world not to be transformed. One of the more eloquent explanations I've ever seen of why this relationship is valuable is this post she wrote in 2009. Granted, it's a little dated, but I've yet to hear anyone explain it better.

I'm also going to be up front that "the topic" never came up at our coffee hour forum, because, frankly, people were more interested in the relationship we were having with Lillian and Bishop Stephen. We are who we are at Trinity-Kirksville--if you didn't know it outside the door, you'll know it in the narthex, because our Oasis proclamation is on the south wall of the narthex, right inside the door, in front of God and everyone. On Sunday, December 11, it just didn't matter to the Dokolos and it didn't matter to us.

No doubt--it's downright crushing to see what is going on between these two churches at a level far above me, because what I see from the altar at Trinity-Kirksville is that all things really are possible with God. I can only ask God to hold all these things in his hands--hands big enough to hold the joy of Dec. 11, 2011 and the animosity of this shunning that ECS has inflicted on TEC.

What mattered to me personally was simply for our hands to briefly meet between a little hunk of consecrated bread, on a Sunday in Advent--the season of crazy, unreasonable hope--and what's crazier than thinking something like that has the power to do what all the press-inches online and purple shirt proclamations cannot, in bringing the Reign of God to this weary old planet?

The problem with "larger than life"

2011-12-16T05:00:00.000-06:00

(John the Baptist in the Wilderness, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, 1490, from The Edge of the Enclosure)

John is indeed a forerunner. He precedes without sure and certain knowledge of whom or what he is serving. He may not himself share the immediate experience of the salvation that has become present in Jesus; he longingly foretells it. What he awaits and expects overtakes him without really catching up with him in the sense of his seeing clearly what he was aiming at.

Surely we are all forerunners! We are all pilgrims on the wearisome roads of our life. There is always something ahead of us that we have not yet overtaken. When we do catch up with something, it immediately becomes an injunction to leave it behind us and to go onward. Every end becomes a beginning. There is no resting place or abiding city. Every answer is a new question. Every good fortune is a new longing. Every victory is only the beginning of a defeat.

Aren't we always dispatching messengers from the dungeon of our compulsions and disappointments? We send them to find the real thing, that which is ultimately valid, even though we do not really know where to direct these messengers of our unassuaged longing.

Everywhere, always, we are no more than predecessors. The goal of our journeying seems always to remain far ahead of us, to stay beyond our power and always to fade into new perspectives of distance, even when we think we are approaching it.

-Karl Rahner 1904-1984
Meditations on Hope and Love
Second Sunday in Advent (Year C)
quoted from The Great Church Year

This was the picture we used recently in a Theological Reflection in my online EfM class--a striking one to the ones one usually sees of John the Baptist. I think it captures a lot of things that are part of what connect me to him.

There's no doubt whatsoever I dearly love John the Baptist. He and Peter are my two favorite folks in the Bible. John the Baptist appeals to the side of me that loves inner fearlessness--the part of me that attracts me to the voyageurs, the mountain men, the Jedi knights. These kind of folks have both an earthiness and a connectedness to the world around them that I have admired since childhood. They are larger than life in some ways.

But what I love about this painting is there is no "larger than life" to John here. It's clear this is not exactly a picture of John the Baptist. It's just a picture of John--and it looks a little like he's simply trying to find himself a little bit, away from his legendary status.

I get that, in a very small way. I have taught medical students for two decades. There's a small legendary aspect to that. There's a larger than life side of me than that. My life has intersected with darn near 3000 students and residents in my career, roughly. That's a small town. I imagine many of them think they "know" me. I have heard them tell me I taught them something or told them something, and when I hear what it was, I am pretty sure some of it, I never taught them that particular thing, or said it that way. My clergy friends have told me that happens with preaching, too.

There's a place where if a person doesn't really stay in touch with him or herself, one starts trying to live up to the legend, and will always fail at it eventually. None of us can live up to the larger than life people we make others out to be.

When I was a kid, I was hungry for role models, for various and sundry reasons. I have always hung the moon and stars on those people. Some of them were people I'd never meet--people like Lou Brock and Bob Gibson, and other various St. Louis Cardinals, or Katherine Hepburn. Some of them were dead--like Harry Truman and Amelia Erhart. Some of them were very real--like my grandpa. With all of them, one eventually finds they have feet of clay, because, after all, they were human. It wasn't always easy to deal with that. I think about how kids are feeling now about Albert Pujols signing with the Los Angeles Angels. I get their disappointment. I remember trying to get Stan Musial's autograph once when I was about ten or eleven years old and he was back for an Old Timer's day at Busch Stadium. So much has been made about what a nice guy and a gentleman he is. I think I got him on a grouchy day. I didn't get his autograph. Didn't even try. I saw he was getting fed up with the autograph seekers in front of me, so I thought, "Why bother?" I didn't want to risk the hurt of being groused at by a legend. That kinda hurt--to see he actually could be crabby. To this day, when they were showing him on TV attending the 2011 World Series, I still think of that. Oh, it's no longer a big deal...but I still remember the sadness that realizing one of your favorite baseball legends is really, just a human being...and one who probably gets tired of signing autographs.

I imagine John the Baptist had to deal with some of that, being a charismatic sort of prophet and all. All of us, at one time or another, have enjoyed our few moments of feeling bigger than life now and then...and then we realize it's easy to let our ego get in the way.

But look at what else we see in this picture. Behind and to the left, is the Lamb of God...sitting quietly...waiting patiently. I like to think, "The Lamb waits patiently for us, even when we're being a horse's ass." The Lamb will wait for John to get over his consternation of loss of sense of self. The Lamb will wait for our big egos. The Lamb will wait for our self-abasing beratement when we realize we've been a little too full of ourselves. The Lamb waits when our patience is shot.

What's the Lamb waiting on you for these days?

Advent "Four Directions" Prayer

2011-12-14T05:00:00.000-06:00

(18th century Spanish compass courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

As a lover of the outdoors, I'm fond of "Four Directions" prayers--where I face each of the compass point and utter part of the prayer. I discovered some time after I was doing that, the Shoshone have been doing it for much longer than me.

After returning from an Advent Quiet Afternoon last weekend, I wrote this, and simply want to share it with you for your Advent prayer time.

Advent Prayer in Four Directions

(Note: Although this prayer is designed for a time when one is outdoors, facing each of the directions of the compass with each stanza, it certainly can be said indoors, facing the four directions. For the last stanza, you may face any direction you choose, or all of them!)

Come, Lord Jesus, from the North:
Come to me amidst the cold icy blasts and blizzards;
Come to me in the foggy dark grey cloud of unknowing;
Come to me in the pristine white snowflake;
Come to me in the guiding wink of the North Star.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Come, Lord Jesus, from the East:
Come to me as strangers came to you, bearing gifts;
Come to me with the new days and possibility of the dawn;
Come to me cloaked in the uncertainty of the shifting East wind;
Come to me in the dense habitation of the life I've led;
Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Come, Lord Jesus, from the South:
Come to me in the warm, gentle breezes;
Come to me when I am parched in the baking, dry, desert heat;
Come to me in the drenching, humid stickiness of my existence;
Come to me in the long, lazy evenings of summer that never seem to end.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Come, Lord Jesus, from the West:
Come to me in the prevailing winds, bringing what they may;
Come to me in the thunderstorm, with mighty lightning;
Come to me in the whirlwind's destructive power;
Come to me robed in the expanse of unexplored territory.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Come, Lord Jesus, from the vicinity of your choosing:
Come to me from the place you'd will and not from mine;
Come to me in my joy and in my sorrow;
Come to me in my peaceful serenity and my anxious strife;
Come to me in my shallow self and my deep holy longing.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Stirred, not shaken

2011-12-12T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Pink Advent Candle courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, December 11, 2011)

Readings for Sunday, December 11, 2011:

Psalm 63:1-8 (9-11)
Psalm 98 (morning)
Psalm 103 (evening)
Amos 9:11-15
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 13-17
John 5:30-47

As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.

Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.
But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

--2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 13-17 (NRSV)

The Third Sunday of Advent is sometimes colloquially called "Stir-up Sunday," because of the collect. ("Stir up your power, O Lord...")

Here's my goofy little confession: When I hear that collect, I always think of James Bond, who wanted his martinis "shaken not stirred." I suppose James Bond would have preferred this to be "Shake up Sunday." (Interesting aside: Did you know why James Bond ordered his martinis that way? At the time Ian Fleming was writing the Bond novels, most vodka was made of potatoes rather than grain, and the potato-made vodka left an oily residue on the top of the martini if stirred. Shaking broke up the oily layer. But I digress.)

Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, however, admonishes us as a body of believers to avoid shaking things up. He seems to recognize the fragility of the church in Thessalonica. One of the important aspects to remember about this body was that a significant number of its members were converts from traditions other than Judaism. Its "Gentile-centricity" meant that aspects of Christianity rooted in Judaism could not be assumed in this church, and that significant teaching had to take place. This was definitely a body of believers that needed to be stirred--not shaken. They came from a variety of traditions. Yet Paul shows a great deal of affection for the Thessalonians, addressing them as brothers or sisters fourteen times in 1 Thessalonians, and twelve times in 2 Thessalonians. He uses endearing terms such as "beloved," to them. He displays parental affection, both fatherly and motherly. He describes his relationship to them as being like a "nurse tenderly caring for her own children." It's easy to imagine Paul seeing this body as a sensitive child, one which needed a little more watchful supervision from a quietly safe distance.

Fast forward to 2011. The Episcopal Church is at a place in its own life where most of its members have either come from another faith tradition, or no faith tradition. Many times, our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, talks about the importance of the "non-anxious presence" in our life together as Christians. We are more like the church in Thessalonica than we are different. Too many times in the history of the institutional church, "shaking up" was the modus operandi--but it's clear that as the census numbers of mainline churches decline, people are weary of being shaken up. The various permutations of the Great Awakening traded heavily on shaking up--particularly when it came to making people feel shaky about their salvation, their eternal destination, and their sinfulness. But the more I read about the places we are seeing signs of life and growth in mainline Christianity despite the decline in numbers, it's clear to me that it comes from ministries that stir rather than shake--ones who fold in the flavor of the communities in which they exist, along with the spice provided by empowered laypeople who understand their own fundamental priesthoods outlined in our Baptismal Covenant--along with clergy who are master chefs at mixing the ingredients.

James Bond's martini aside, let's ask the hard questions of ourselves this "Stir-up Sunday:" What needs stirring up in our faith communities? What ingredient are we as brothers and sisters in Christ? How do we plan to take our turn at the handle of the spoon?

Remodeling

2011-12-10T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, December 9, 2011)

Readings for Friday, December 9, 2011:

Psalm 31 (morning)
Psalm 35 (evening)
Haggai 1:1-15
Revelation 2:18-29
Matthew 23:27-39

One of the themes that jumped out for me in our set of readings today was "houses in disarray--" but I have to confess I probably have a personal reason for that. I have been undertaking a major remodeling in my home since April--so it should come as no surprise that I heard the phrase from Haggai, "Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses," in a rather up close and personal way, not to mention the line in Matthew's Gospel, "See, your house is left to you, desolate." As I write this, I have roughly 2.5 rooms in my eight room house that I would even dare to call "liveable." The rest are either filled with boxes that I tried to label and now can no longer reach anyway, or gutted, awaiting my contractor's next move.

Now, most days I've survived this reasonably well--but there are days I've just been weary of it. I'm tired of all the dust and dog hair--there came a place where "cleaning" just became a pointless exercise. I'm tired of eating off of one set of dishes that I wash over and over in the sink, like it's the only dishes I have to my name. (Well, they ARE about the only ones I can find.) I'm tired of coming home to annoying surprises like the breakers flipping off or the furnace not working, and I'm tired of being unable to invite over anyone but my most intimate friends, who would not run screaming from the dirt and clutter and tell the entire town I'm one of those "hoarders" like they show on TV. Those wonderful plans in my head of this rather monastic, but hospitable home I envisioned last winter seem so far away at times, I can barely remember them.

This remodeling project has been a very vivid reminder that "getting my house in order" is really hard emotional work, even when I am not doing the actual physical work of it, and some days the best I can do is simply bear it and start over again tomorrow.

Today's readings also speak of a great deal of the angst involved in misfortune, grief, and loss. In Psalm 31, the Psalmist describes the angst of those times we feel abandoned and scandalized; in Psalm 35, that angst is transmitted into some heavy duty "smite my enemies" stuff that we can all identify with, but feel a little queasy that we can abandon our sense of political correctness so readily. Revelation 2 reminds us of our own codependencies and what we will sometimes tolerate to the point we have lost the navigational frames of reference in our own souls. Matthew's Gospel reminds us of the monuments we erect to self and ego, which in reality are merely whitewashed tombs, while the innermost core of ourselves goes hungry.

As much as the world focuses on the "happy" of the December holiday season, the icky truth is for many people, it is a time of despair and remembering loss--the popularity of "Blue Christmas" services attests to this. I think the hardest thing for me, when I have been in that dark place of loss and despair, has been to resist the pressure of the world for me to simply shut up and act happy, ignoring my own pain and angst. Likewise, when someone I love is in that place, I find it difficult to see them in that place and my mistaken tendency is to try to cheer them up or get them to ignore it, when in reality what they really need is to be in that place and exit it in their own time, and for me to merely sit with them quietly.

Yet, today, it's our Old Testament reading that shows the glimmer of hope, the light shining in the darkness. We seldom venture into the Book of Haggai, but it's an incredibly interesting little gem in the books of the Minor Prophets. Haggai dates from around 520 BCE, at a time the Jews had returned to their Holy Land from Babylonian exile. The temple was in shambles, and various other problems--lack of sense of identity, drought, and a poor local economy--had delayed the rebuilding of the Temple.

Haggai enjoyed an unusual position as a prophet--folks actually listened to him! As they began rebuilding the Temple, at first they only had his prophetic words by which to cling to hope. But as they began to work on the Temple, they began to see their fortunes change. The Twelve Step programs have a saying--"Fake it till you make it." With God's help, the Jewish people really did fake it till they made it. Somehow, they were able to see both their past glories and their dark days with a certain kind of clarity, as well as hope in the progress of rebuilding.

Putting our houses in order can never be an angst-free or despair-free proposition--nor will their rebuilding be perfect--but we can learn to appreciate the special clarity darkness provides as a backdrop for seeing even the tiniest glimmer of light.

The Song of Impatience

2011-12-08T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Lithograph of the 1883 eruption and explosion of Krakatoa (now Krakatau,), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

About a month ago, I had posted about my ongoing relationship with anger. This month, I'm dealing with anger's cousin--impatience. Of course, leave it to Advent--the season of expectant waiting--to have something in me bubble up and bother me. The worst part about it is, when Impatience pays me a visit, she often starts by reminding me--even congratulating me--for how long I have been patient. Then she starts using phrases like, "codependent," "chump," and "doormat."

I have been known to really rail at God after one of my visits from Impatience, "You know, God, I've been doing ok with this thing here, but are you like, really getting that I'm truly impatient about this situation that's been bugging me? I really have been patient--patient for longer than I'm usually able. I've been pretty good with it. But how much more of this can I take? I have not blown a gasket. Not yet, anyway. But you're pushing it, here. You're not answering. This is NOT FAIR."

I was recently expressing my impatience over this situation that is bugging me to my blog friend Elizabeth. What started as a vent ended up with her saying that she saw some form of liturgical parody in me brewing, and I had to laugh, because she had seen right through me.

She's right--one of the things I have started to do with Impatience is turn the tables on her. Make fun of her. Try to simply wave at her, make fun of myself, and move on.

Many of you who read my blog know I often express sentiments by re-writing bits of the Book of Common Prayer, the Psalter, and various canticles. I learned a long time ago that parody is the great equalizer.

So without further ado, I give you...

The Song of Impatience (with apologies to Psalm 13)

How long, O LORD?
will you forget me for ever? *
    how long will you hide your face from me?

How long shall I have impatience in my mind,
and irritation in my heart, day after day? *
    how long shall my impatience triumph over me?

Look upon me and answer me, O LORD my God (right now, if possible;) *
dampen the fire in my eyes, lest I spontaneously combust;

Lest my irritation say, "I have prevailed over you," *
    and my temper rejoices that I have fallen.

But I put my trust in your mercy (reluctantly;) *
    my heart is joyful because of your saving help.

I will sing to the LORD (rather grumpily at first), for he has dealt with me richly; *
    I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High--

But I am singing, "Lord, give me patience*,
and give it to me now. right now, right now, right now."
Amen.

A different kind of legend

2011-12-07T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Icon of St. Nicholas, 1294, Lipnya Church, Novgorod, Russia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, December 6, 2011)

Readings for the feast day of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, December 6:

Psalm 145:8-13
Proverbs 19:17, 20-23
1 John 4:7-14
Mark 10:13-16

In reality, we know next to nothing about Nicholas. We know he was a bishop. We know he was tortured and imprisoned under the emperor Diocletian. We have modest evidence that he could have attended the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325. That's pretty much it.

We do, however have intimate knowledge of the modern permutation of the legendary Nicholas, in the guise of St. Nick, aka Santa Claus.

Most of what we attribute to our modern Santa comes from legend involving Nicholas--things that endeared him to sailors, pawnbrokers, and most importantly, children. Many of the stories involving him are about giving money to those in need. The most spectacular legend about him (and my personal favorite) is the one where he raises from the dead three boys who had been killed and stuffed in a barrel.

We say we know who Nicholas was, but really, we know his larger-than-life, legendary shadow.

Our readings today focus on the disenfranchised--the poor and children--in both our Old Testament reading and from the Gospel.

We certainly know some legends about poor people, don't we?

Poor people are lazy and don't want to work.
Poor women are promiscuous and have lot of babies by different fathers.
Poor men are irresponsible and can't be depended upon.
Poor people by definition, do drugs, and drink a lot. They smoke a lot, too. They are poor because they spend the money they have on drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. They go to the ER and have drug-seeking behavior.
Poor people really aren't THAT poor, because in the U.S. they are often fat. They have cell phones. Some of them have bigger TV sets than mine. Some of them drive nicer cars than mine. They're not poor.
Poor people will always be poor. They don't want to help themselves.

There are two things I know for sure about legends. One is that somewhere in the legend is a kernel of truth. The other is, legends are easier to buy into when I have never met or interacted with the people of the legend.

That's the problem with legends. Sometimes there's a lot of baloney wrapped around that kernel of truth that obscures why the kernel of truth got there in the first place. Unraveling the baloney is tiring, a lot of work, and the amount of work involved is daunting enough to discourage us from ever accepting the possibility that there are other ingredients in this roll, and that there is a possibility that by changing some of the ingredients, the lives of individuals trapped in the legend can change for the better.

Now, as it worked out, the legend of St. Nicholas worked out to be one mostly used for good. It's good to have a legend where generally, it encourages us to be kind and generous to others, and it comes at a time of the year where I always hope the generosity of the season sticks with all of us.

But there's a problem with the St. Nicholas legend. The world of St. Nick's evolved character, Santa Claus, is also a world where all we have to do is make a list of our wants, be nice for a little while, leave out some cookies and milk, and we will get what we want. After all, we were "deserving" because we could manage to be nice for a little spell, right?

Happy legends are comfortable. They make us feel better. We don't have to move much outside ourselves to exist within them.

We can get that way a little bit about Legendary Jesus, too.

Legendary Jesus--rather white and fair for a Middle Eastern kinda guy, in a clean white robe, and with more teeth than a person of that era ought to have. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Loves the little children. All the children of the world. Oddly enough, it's those truck stop gift shop prints of "Jesus and the children" that distress me the worst. Oh, these days those kids come in various colors on that print, but it's what is NOT in the picture that bugs me.

There are no mentally challenged kids. There are no kids with physical deformities. There are no kids scarred by abuse, no kids dirty from neglect, no kids fearful of Jesus because a man who looked a little like him sexually abused them. There are no kids with bruises because the other kids bullied them. There are no kids wondering about their sexual orientation. There are no visibly malnourished kids.

The obscurity of Nicholas reminds us that there was probably much, much more to his life that was real, that would ask us to go deeper to love him the way we love Jolly Old St. Nick. In that, we should be reminded there is much to following Jesus that goes much deeper to feeling good as Christians about Legendary Jesus and calls us to get a little dirty searching for the truth of the message of Real Jesus.

Prepare ye the way

2011-12-06T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Photo of the new US 63 bypass in Kirksville from the dashboard of my truck)

(This post originally appeared in Daily Episcopalian, December 5, 2011)

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

--Isaiah 40:3-5

Not long ago, one of the most exciting things for me in my rather sleepy rural northeast Missouri lifestyle was the opening of the new US Highway 63 bypass near Kirksville. As a child, one of my secret pleasures was getting to ride on a new road the day it was opened. It always seemed futuristic, full of opportunity and promise. New roads almost always cut through a rather sparsely inhabited area, and with no billboards up yet, it always had a rather pristine quality to it. It was like seeing an unlimited future of potential sprawled in front of me.

So it should not surprise anyone I thought about the new bypass a lot. Really, it was overdue for decades. Making a left turn on US 63 had become impossible in Kirksville at certain times of the day, and many stoplights on the road could easily be filled from traffic light to traffic light.

Unfortunately, it only took me about a day to get around how this new road was going to change things that had become my routine for eleven years. Every day, for eleven years, I drove to work by getting on US 63 and driving for about six miles, turned right on Potter St., turned left on Osteopathy St., and taking Osteopathy to the hospital complex. Every afternoon was the reverse--Osteopathy to Potter, to 63. Suddenly my routine was changed to US 63, including the new bypass, turn right at Route P, continuing on Route P (which changes names to Northtown Road,) and then turning left on Osteopathy.

I had no trouble making these changes going TO work--it was coming home FROM work that was the trouble. Every day, for weeks, instead of crossing Potter St. to get to Northtown Road, I would instinctively turn right onto Potter and then left on what is now the "old" 63, and without fail I would forget to turn right at Route P. I would get past the P turnoff, and invariably forget, and be heading north on "old" 63. Unfortunately, the northernmost access point to the bypass is not finished, and the "old" 63 temporarily dead-ends. So day after day I would realize I had gone too far, turned around, and headed back to get on the bypass the way I was supposed to. I was always thinking about some leftover from work, and miss my turn flat. I would then spend the rest of my trip home berating myself over my stupidity.

The Revised Common Lectionary readings for the second week in Advent often have the theme of "repentance." In Biblical Hebrew, the words used for repentance literally mean "to change" and "to feel sorrow"--in Biblical Greek, "to change one's consciousness." My nightly error became a regularly repeating reminder that changing one's consciousness is not as easy as one would expect.

Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly adaptable and flexible person, and quite frankly, a bit smarter than average. My chosen career rewards me for solving puzzles accurately and quickly (although not fast enough by some surgeons' standards, at times.) So this nightly gaffe became my latest exercise in sheer frustration. I would find myself cursing a blue streak at myself the moment I passed the P turnoff. Normally, my fifteen-to-twenty minute drive home is the treat of my day. It's a time I generally unwind and leave my work behind me and switch from the business of being the busy professional to the quirky hermit. Instead, I was ruining my evenings by fuming all the way home.

Then, one day, I remembered a frustration in my residency twenty years ago--learning to cut a frozen section. For the uninitiated, a frozen section is when the surgeon sends out a piece of fresh tissue from a surgical case and asks the pathologist, "What is it?" We freeze the tissue in a device called a cryostat, then cut the tissue in the cryostat on a device called a microtome, stain it, and render a diagnosis. The patient is asleep, and time matters. The answer may change the course of the surgery. In my residency, I remember how for ages I couldn't cut a slide to save my soul. I felt the weight of all the pressure of doing this in a timely fashion. Then one day, miraculously, I walked in and cut a frozen section like I had been doing it for decades. I simply had done it enough times that I could do it without thinking.

So, in like fashion, I quit putting pressure on myself. I decided that I'd simply laugh at my gaffe, turn around, and go home. Within a couple of days, my brain and body had made the switch. I was driving home the "new" way.

The problem with repentance is we have this tendency to think it's a one-time process, and that at the end of that one time we should have it all figured out, and we can move on. That's almost never the case. Our intent and our will is for it to be over and done with, and instead we find ourselves repeating the same misguided act or mentally dredging up what led us to repent in the first place...over and over...and over and over some more. We berate ourselves for our stupidity. We curse the darkness. We begin to place more and more pressure on ourselves to be "good," or tack an insanely short time frame goal for it to happen. Only until we accept our own humanity do we actually begin to repent, and only over time do we begin to take the new way home without thinking.

If only our Gospel accounts of John the Baptist had been written down--just once--with John saying, "Repent!...again...and again...and again some more...and don't plan on getting it right the first time." How much turmoil would we have saved from being schooled in this simple fact of the process of change?

Eucharistic Prayer C tells us that again and again God calls us to return. It only stands to reason that if we generally don't hear it the first time, we should not be surprised if we don't "get" it the first time when we respond to what we've heard--and the first part of "getting" it is being able to forgive ourselves and leave enough room to do it. If we do it enough times, something is bound to change. After all, we humans are creatures of habit.

When we prepare a highway for the Lord, we need to remember it wasn't built in a day--nor will we get used to it in a day.

Knowing the Name

2011-12-05T05:00:00.001-06:00

("Zechariah Writes Down the Name of his Son," by Domenico Ghirlandaio, from the Icons and Imagery blog)

(This post originally appeared in Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, December 4, 2011)

Readings for Sunday, December 4, 2011:

Psalm 148, 149, 150 (Morning)
Psalm 114, 115 (Evening)
Amos 6:1-14
1 Thessalonians 5-11
Luke 1:57-68

Luke 1:57-68 (NRSV):

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.

Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them."

One of the more interesting parts of running a hospital laboratory has to be the variety of names attached to the various specimens and samples. Sometimes I can roughly guess the age of the person by their name. It's a safe bet that someone named Pearl is likely to be Medicare-aged. The name Tab is a dead giveaway that the patient was probably born sometime in the late 50's or early 60's, and a person named Karma is apt to have been born around 1969. There are always exceptions to the rule, of course, but it's a fun work pastime.

Then there are those names that I can't help but think, "You named your kid THAT?" In my career, I've encountered a woman named Velveeta, a whole family where all the boys were named Otis, and enough unusual spellings of common names it sounds like a sci-fi convention.

The Bible, it seems, has an unusually high number of stories where the story revolves around something or someone being named--whether it's the initial naming, or people who get a "new" name once some dramatic thing has happened to them. Our Gospel reading is one of those stories. What strikes me in this story is that it is clear Elizabeth knows what the name of this child will be; yet well-meaning friends and relatives keep telling her otherwise.

It does seem a little odd that they want to name the child Zechariah--generally, modern Ashkenazic Jewish custom disapproves on naming children after living relatives--a long standing superstition suggests it will either invite ill health to the elder relative. At the very least, if the elder relative misbehaves, the child's name is stained by it. However, Sephardic Jews don't follow that custom, so the significance of this is uncertain. (Or is this part of the story signifying that when Zechariah could no longer speak to God in the temple, he was "dead" in some way?)

Once again, we are shown the power that exists in the act of naming. Nothing in life is more disquieting than uncertainty. But when we know the names of things, we begin to deal with them. People go in for biopsies and don't know "what's wrong with them." When I examine tissues and make a diagnosis--give it a name--even if the name is attached to a bad diagnosis, the person with the illness at least "knows what they have," and can begin to move to a place of completion with it.

Imagine Elizabeth's frustration in that she knows what this baby's name should be. She knows the "diagnosis," and everyone is telling her otherwise. How many times have we been stuck in situations where we have a name for what is going on, or we know what our feelings are about it, but everyone else tells us otherwise, or chooses to assign feelings to us, or project their own stuff on us?

The other striking thing in this story is that Zechariah is the only one who believes in what Elizabeth is saying, and even though he cannot speak, he writes "His name is John" in support of her position. One can imagine poor Zechariah, wildly gesticulating for someone to bring something for him to write with and upon, looking like he's having a seizure--even pounding the tablet with his finger for emphasis and glaring at everyone.

When Zechariah does this, a miracle occurs--his muteness is removed from him. It's a reminder that believing--and acting--on another's conviction has the power to free us from our own paralyses of speech.

As we ponder this story during Advent, in the light of our own stories, where are the places that we know the names of things but others keep telling us otherwise? Where are the places we need to believe in the convictions of those we love even if it seems we have been struck mute?

Asking the hard questions

2011-12-01T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Medical text illustration of Constantine the African examining patients' urine specimens, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally appeared in Daily Episcopalian on November 30, 2011)

"The purpose of the Morbidity and Mortality (M and M) Conference is to provide a safe venue for physicians in all levels of training to identify areas of improvement, and promote professionalism, with ethical integrity and transparency by use of a case study. The conference assesses all aspects of the care given to the patient, as well as provides feedback in quality improvement. The M and M Conference also provides a forum to to foster a climate of openness and discussion about medical errors.

"This conference also promotes leadership, research, and scholarly activity, and is a learning opportunity for clinical medical students and residents to assess their own core clinical competencies."

--Sample description of Morbidity and Mortality Conference from a large teaching hospital

One of the most vulnerable--and revealing--experiences I was exposed to in medical school and residency was the Morbidity and Mortality Conference, affectionately called "M and M." In medical schools, these are often held in large lecture halls and are quite well attended. Pathologists and radiologists can never escape them, as it's almost certain there will be radiology images, as well as gross and microscopic pathology, from the various diagnoses the "patient of the month" accumulated. I particularly remember Surgery M and M. It was held in the Surgery conference room, and there was one seat that was solely for the use of the Chief of Surgery--no one sat in that seat if he was absent, reminiscent of the Bishop's Chair on the chancel. Woe betide some unfortunate new medical student or intern who inadvertently plopped his or her behind in that seat!

In this conference, no stone is left unturned, and the physician presenting the case (often a senior resident) is very much on the spot and feeling quite drained at the end. Every lab is scrutinized, every physical finding cogitated upon, and every possible outcome change at every step in the patient's care is analyzed. The cases presented were not stories of modern medical miracles--they were almost certainly cases where the patient eventually died or ended up with some terrible outcome. But each step of the way, everyone involved with the care of that patient asks himself or herself two hard questions--"What would I have done differently if I had it to do over again at this point in the story of this patient?" and "How would it have changed the course of this patient or this patient's quality of life?"

Really, mostly, in M and M, we find that the outcome probably wouldn't have changed much for this patient--only the path to the outcome--but reflecting upon it might change something for the next patient. We do, however, find the humbling truth that we sometimes either delayed a diagnosis and cost the patient some degree of quality of life, or rushed to obtain a diagnosis in a frail patient that created a faster downward spiral in the patient's course. I still remember a very poignant day when I saw the Chief of Surgery (yep, the same one who sat in the special chair) give a big sigh and exhale, "You know, I should never have taken him to surgery that day. I was wrong." In the formative years of my training, M and M conference was a secular form of Ignatian spirituality--the examination of both conscience and of consciousness. Had I followed the norm of best practice for my specialty? Was I even aware what was developing at the time it was evolving? It was also striking to me that this needed to happen in a community setting--only going home and thinking about the cases on my own would not have been as beneficial. Revealing our vulnerability to a group engendered a sense of accountability to the patient.

In short, it's about asking ourselves what we did wrong even when we are pretty sure what ultimately happened was right.

Advent is a good season for doing that, and in a different way than in Lent/Easter. Lent, for me, tends to be with a steeper cycle, with deeper mood swings--much as how the mood of the disciples must have been during the reception of Jesus to Jerusalem, followed by the trial, the passion, and the crucifixion--followed by the most sudden and unexpected emotions that must have accompanied the Resurrection. Advent is gentler for me--steady upward movement from deep darkness, and the birth of new things inside us occurring without much pomp or fanfare. It's a good time to quietly ask the hard questions about our conscience and our consciousness in the dark spots in our lives. It's a time to believe that the things being made new in us are being knit together with all the marvelous detail of the tiny fingernails and toenails on a newborn.

It can also be a time to address the topic of reconciliation. The December holidays are often a time when families can either rise to a new level of understanding of one another, or sink to the depths of their dysfunction. It's a time for looking back at the things that had bad outcomes, and asking those same questions we always asked in M and M--"What would I do differently if I had it to do over again?" "How would I do it differently the next time a similar situation happened?" "How aware was I at the time?" "How can I be more aware next time?"

Advent seems to be a time that it's easier to ask these questions in the light of quiet hope and expectation, without all the tumult of Lent. It's the season for feeling quiet growth in the deep darkness, and understanding just how temporary the things that disquiet us really are--just as pregnant women endure the kicking, the indigestion caused by an active fetus, and the constant trips to the bathroom as their bladders get crowded out. Pregnant women know these things won't last forever.

The beauty of M and M conference is it occurs at a time remote enough from when the events take place, the team can look back at it with more clarity and objectivity, and look forward with hope and anticipation. What things will emerge from our dark spaces this Advent that we can look back at a little more objectively, and then look forward with the same hope and anticipation?

Nakedness

2011-11-30T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Plaster fig leaf commissioned for Queen Victoria to be used for covering statues with genitalia, courtesy of Wikipedia through the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. When the Queen or other female dignitaries visited museums, this leaf was hung with hooks on the genitalia of statues that the Queen would have found offensive.)

( Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, November 29, 2011)

Readings for November 29, 2011:
Psalms 5, 6 (morning)
Psalms 10, 100 (evening)
Amos 3:1-11
2 Peter 1:12-21
Matthew 21:12-22

My Texan friends have a saying that describes people who are showy but without substance--"All hat, no cattle." We are shown two examples of "All hat, no cattle" in our readings today. Matthew's Gospel includes the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree that has plenty of leaves but no figs. Our reading in Amos describes a whole cornucopia of show but no substance--roaring lions with no prey, snares with no birds, blowing trumpets with no fearful citizens. (That last one reminds me of all the times the local tornado siren goes off in a clear blue sky--so much so that, when we really did have a tornado in 2009, we all asked ourselves, "Is this for real?")

The Gospel reading is of particular interest, given the imagery of the fig leaf. The people who would have heard this story in Matthew's day were accustomed to fig trees being used as metaphors of Israel, but they would also have recalled that fig leaves would have been used for covering nakedness in Genesis. The expectation is that there's something worth being covered by the leaves--in this case the fruit of the fig tree--but there's nothing there.

It brings up an interesting possibility. Traditionally, when commentaries discuss this story, the tree is described as being barren. But in that flip-flop way of the Hebrew tradition, is this a story less about the barrenness of the fig tree, and more about it covering absolutely nothing with its showy leaves?

Figs are from the botanical family Ficus, and the leaves can be up to ten inches long and seven inches across. They can display hints of purple and brown, as well as green, when the leaves mature. They are also easy to propagate via vegetative methods (methods other than planting seeds.) When one wants to grow starts from a Ficus, one merely has to bend over a green branch, scratch the bark at the end of the branch to expose the inner green bark, and keep the branch tied down. In a couple of weeks, roots will form. Cut the proximal end of the branch off the trunk and--ta-da!--a new sapling is ready to plant. Fig trees are "fecund" in this manner even when they are not bearing fruit.

In both the Matthew and Mark versions of this story, I've always been a little irritated at Jesus for cursing a tree that was unfortunate enough to not bear fruit. (There's probably a special irritation there for those of us who never had children.) Honestly, a Jesus who would curse something for being barren kind of creeps me out. We all have some form of barrenness in ourselves.

However, when we think about this as an "All hat, no cattle" story, it begins to make more sense. From the time of Genesis on, God has been shown as never being too thrilled with humankind's attempt to cover our various forms of nakedness, as if God didn't know that already. It's precisely when we are in the throes of our vulnerablities--when we are displaying our various forms of psychological nakedness, economic nakedness, and spiritual nakedness that God can most work with us and build a loving relationship with us.

So what if we're barren in some way? Sometimes, I think we're not so much called to bear fruit as we are called to proliferate vegetatively. The trick is, though, that to proliferate vegetatively, we have to allow our branches to be bent over, and, in time, be cut from our stem. It requires sacrificial giving.

All the covering up we do in our lives simply wastes time and obfuscates the root problems in ourselves. We waste time providing ourselves with cover for our fragile egos when we should be using that time more wisely in the act of listening for divine guidance and sharing branches of ourselves to grow roots and be removed to thrive elsewhere. Truly, that's a curse.

Hope in Advent

2011-11-28T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Statue of Hope in the foyer of the Paris Opera House, by Louis-Amile Durandelle, 1875, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally appeared in Episcopal Café's Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, November 27, 2011)

Readings for the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011:
Psalms 146, 147 (Morning)
Psalms 111, 112, 113 (Evening)
Amos 1:1-5, 13-28
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Luke 21:5-19

Historically, the theme of the first week of Advent is "hope," but our readings today present a rather mixed bag of hope and despair. Although our Psalms are lavish with praise for the goodness of God's provisions to the righteous, our reading from Amos describes atrocities committed by Israel's neighbors, including the ripping of unborn children from pregnant women in Gilead. Our Epistle reading in 1 Thessalonians describes a state of being spiritually asleep and unaware, yet birth occurring, along with its requisite labor pains. Finally, today's Gospel is filled with images of war and persecution to the point of death, yet paradoxically concludes with, "But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."

In the Northern Hemisphere, even nature seems to display this paradox of the first week of Advent. We are entering into a season of pregnant expectation, the "New Year" of the liturgical calendar, yet all the signs of Nature feel like we are hurtling headlong into a frigid darkness. Many of us are getting up to go to work in the dark, and driving home in the dark. Some of us are dealing with the irritants of winter again, such as scraping windshields and failing at predicting what clothes to wear for the day. What light we see--the strobe-like blinkings of artificial Christmas decorations luring us to elbow our way through the throngs of people shopping on Black Friday--seems insincere and false.

Frankly, it's the time of year it seems the better plan is to close down, tune out, lie down in our beds, turn out the lights, and languish in the inertia of depression. Yet Paul urges us in today's Epistle to stay awake and reminds us that we are not children of darkness by nature, but children of light.

It's exactly when we need to ponder hope more than ever, because, you see, everything I've come to understand about Advent has taught me that Christianity is all about its upside-down-ness compared to conventional logic. Logic tells us that people can't be raised from the dead. Logic tells us that the universe started all compressed and is constantly moving to a more random state. Logic tells us that the birth of a child of locally uncertain parentage in a dirty stable has no power whatsoever to change the world. Yet how many of us, at one time or another in our lives, have cried so hard and long that suddenly the warmth of true release has overtaken us? How many of us have had some horrible work day where we've failed miserably at something, been demoted or canned, and the smile of a child has given us bravery to start again tomorrow? How many of us have experienced some huge emotional blowout with a loved one and had our pets snuggle next to us, and we feel our anger dissipate? I'm betting if we could all sit together and tell our stories, we have them.

Sometimes I think we miss the boat a little bit on Advent. We tend to think of Advent solely from the Christological perspective and tend to forget its power to illustrate another piece of the Trinity--the Holy Spirit's power of creating hope from the ashes of despair, and its role of guiding us from darkness to light. It sounds odd, but without despair, there would be no need of hope. If we had no need of hope, we would have no need of a Savior--and if we had no need of a Savior, we would have no need of God. It's the darkness and the broken-ness of the world, I believe, that creates the substrate for hope to even exist.

A good image we might want to carry into Advent is the classic image used in statuary for hope as a human allegorical figure. Although sculptors generally depict her a beautiful woman of reproductive age (capable of giving birth,) she often has a rather mournful visage. Yet she points upward. She is often depicted as leaning against an anchor, and that anchor also has a vague cross shape. Sometimes we see her wearing a chain around her neck--a broken chain--having escaped the bonds of sin and death.

Today, the church year begins anew--as do we, in this ever-repeating cycle that is a journey best related in our Eucharistic Prayer B--"out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life." May we lean against the anchor of the Cross and feel the free end of the broken chain around our necks as we begin to embrace the mystery of this Advent season.

All things made new (but not on my time frame)

2011-11-25T11:15:00.000-06:00

(CT scan of bullous emphysema from the American College of Roentgenology's teaching slides)

Isaiah 65:17-25:

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord— and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

I have had an interesting week and a half or so. My mom, who has very severe emphysema, has been hospitalized with pneumonia. Her CT on a good day looks a lot like the one I posted from a teaching file above. Lungs are supposed to look more or less "spongy" on CT; people with the bullous form of this disease look like they have a few Ziploc bags stuffed in their chest. They exist trying to breathe with only a fraction of the lung power most of us have. My mom has existed for roughly a decade with lungs like this that worsen every time she gets pneumonia, lungs that collapse almost every time anyone puts a needle in her chest to drain off the fluid--even the most skilled physician can't help but pop one of those fragile bullous air spaces. Every time I am shown her CT, the rational, thinking physician in me says to myself, "How in the world is she even alive with lungs like that?"

Well, the answer to that, I think, is a combination of 24/7 high flow oxygen, a bunch of steroids, stubbornness, and a lot of prayer.

But there will be a place where this thin tightrope she walks upon collapses, and that's just a fact--but none of us know where and when that place will be.

It's hard to watch someone with emphysema struggle to breathe, but that's just a reminder to me how hard it must be to BE the person struggling to breathe. It's a double whammy--being unable to breathe makes any of us anxious, but being anxious makes the person with emphysema even more hypoxic and scared--then their oxygen saturation plummets further. It's a terrible cycle of fear and hypoxia.

Yes, she was a long-time smoker. But I become more and more irritated at people who get all haughty and judgmental about her smoking history. I am the first to tell you, nagging your loved ones does not work. I really don't care how anyone personally feels about "what she did to herself," because no one--NO ONE--has done anything so awful they "deserve" to live like this. My suggestion is "Go tell someone in whom it might make a difference," to those people.

But her lungs are a very stark reminder to me that, although I truly believe in a God who is constantly making all things new, her CT is one of the things that will NOT be made new in her lifetime or mine.

Our bodies, are, indeed, finite. Every day we live on this planet as adults, even on the best day, we lose a few brain cells. Every day our biological cellular mechanisms age a little more, and those little "clock genes" in our cells change a ribosome or a protein that brings us all just a fraction of an inch closer to the day we simply shut down, provided nothing else gets us first.

All we can do, when it comes to this life, is to do what we can, today, and trust that God makes all things new.

I had a great Thanksgiving Day springing Mom from the hospital to eat turkey dinner with friends, and she did too, and for me, those are glimpses for how even in a disease that constantly puts death before our eyes, there is life. Things ARE being made new--just not always the specific things we want, and on our time frame.

This is another of those places where I don't get the appeal of "the new atheism." Oddly, the fact those folks don't claim to believe in God don't bother me. Their insistence to belittle religion annoys me, but I sort of shrug and figure, "Well, God knows folks of all religions have belittled atheists for millennia, we probably have it coming to us a bit." I think what bugs me about them is that so many of them seem to lack any frame of reference for hope. If they have an "evangelism," it is that they seem dead set on dragging those with hope into this black hole of hopelessness. I don't have a problem with happy atheists; just unhappy ones--just as I have a problem with unhappy judgmental Christians. The happiest atheists I know have this thing that seems to be a "cosmic hope" for lack of a better term--kind of a Star Trek form of hope--that human accomplishment will continue to bring us to a better place. It's easy for me to live in their world of cosmic hope, because it doesn't exclude my theological world.

I always find it interesting that the most common barb thrown by the "unhappy atheists" is always along the lines of trying to distill Christianity or any religion down to "where you end up when you die," when I would tell you that is the part that is rarely on my mind. I'm far more interested in Christianity teaching me how to live.

I don't know what's in store with Mom's illness; nor does she. What she wants to think about how this all ends for her and beyond, is her business. I'm happy to help with linking her to the spiritual support she needs and standing aside. Too much of the distortion in my family hinged on other people's self-esteem in the family being tied to my accomplishments. People deserve their own self-esteem. Meanwhile, I think I'll choose to live this time over the holidays moment by moment, day by day, in the hope that all things are made new, and glad I am not in charge of the itinerary!

Accountability and Authority

2011-11-24T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Icon of Clement of Rome courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, November 23, 2011)

Readings for the feast day of Clement, Bishop of Rome, November 23:

Psalm 78:3-7
1 Chronicles 23:28-32
2 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 6:37-45

"Our Apostles knew also, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife over the dignity of the Bishop's office."

--from Clement of Rome's Epistle to the Corinthians

My bishop likes to joke that bishops are given two rubber stamps to use in the performance of their ecclesiastical duties in forming priests and deacons--one says, "Has a problem with authority," and the other says, "Has a regional accent."

I don't know if Clement of Rome had to use the latter, but he certainly had to use the former in the first century of the church. "Has a problem with authority" probably reared its head a week after the early church was born--I have no doubt it was the one of the oldest problems in the church and continues to be so today.

In Clement's case, a younger group of members of the church in Corinth had deposed the clergy unilaterally, without Clement's authority to do so. Clement had to put on his Big Bishop Boxer Shorts and tell the church in Corinth, "Uh, that's not how we do things around here." His Epistle to the Corinthians affirmed the ecclesiastical hierarchy and was read, not only to the church in Corinth, but to many congregations in the early church. It affirmed a framework of authority that we still use in various denominations, including the Episcopal Church.

"Authority" is a tricky business in the Christian community. There's a fine line between using authority and being authoritarian--a very fine line, and often subject to interpretation. This is a difficult balance, at times, when we are talking about a church full of lay people who see their authority as "from God" and don't always see as clear a set of rules regarding the ecclesiastical church, co-mingled with clergy who carry an additional definition of "obedience." Clergy, by virtue of Holy Orders, vow to obey the Bishop and live in accordance with the canons of the church; all of us, lay and ordained, by virtue of our Baptismal Covenant, enter into a covenant as sacred as marriage that we will engage in relationship with God, Christ, and each other.

In other words, it's too simplistic to see it in dualistic terms--which, unfortunately, is how most people see it. Lay people, in times of congregational strife, pull out the "I only have to answer to God--not you," card, and clergy sometimes hide behind shadows of the Bishop's coat tails or the church's canonical coat tails to push their own agenda, hoping the congregation is not savvy about the rules. I've seen parishioners claim the authority of "Jesus the rule-breaker vs. the Pharisees" in their quest to butt heads with a bishop's decision. I've also seen clergy attempt to play the same card.

It's a tricky dance. Are we, at times, called to question or resist authority? I believe we are. That calling, however doesn't come with a hall pass. The consequences of such a decision may ultimately end up being to figuratively die in a ditch--or literally die on a cross. Sadly, some of us are called to make that kind of a decision with God's help.

Today's readings give insight into our understanding of "informed consent" in such decisions--understanding the obligations of those chosen to attend to the temple, understanding the rules and obligations of right living as Christians, leaving judgment to God, and finally, our duty to tell the stories of these struggles. They bring up another "A" word--accountability.

It's been my experience and observation that mostly, authority steps in when there's been a breach in accountability somewhere--and once authority steps in, we run the risk of human judgment vs. God's judgment. It's safe to say we humans don't do it so well. Humans make mistakes from time to time--sometimes serious ones, which also have their own set of consequences.

All Christians are accountable to all of humanity, and this, I believe, is our highest calling in being accountable to God. Perhaps if each of us spent more time being earnest about our exercising accountability, we'd have less cause to confront authority and less desire to exert it.

Journey of Conversion

2011-11-23T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Photo of C.S. Lewis courtesy of Wikipedia)

(This post originally written for Speaking to the Soul, November 22, 2011)

Readings for the feast day of Clive Staples Lewis, November 22:

Psalm 139:1-9
Proverbs 23:15-18
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 16:7-15:

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

--John 16:7-15 (NRSV)

Here's my confession: Really, I've never cared much for C.S. Lewis' work. I read The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy because I was friends with the geeky fantasy and sci-fi kids, but I thought Tolkien and Ray Bradbury were far better. I never thought his Christian apologetics held much water (and frankly, in that era of the late 70's I got tired of every hippy-dippy evangelical quoting him--Evangelicals quoting Anglicans? Made no sense.) I just kind of wrinkled up my nose at his trilemma as a false dilemma. But there's one thing on which C.S. Lewis and I are two peas in a pod--the notion that conversion to Christianity is the first step in a very long journey, not an end unto itself.

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night," Lewis wrote, in Surprised by Joy, "feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

I totally understand what the feeling of being a "dejected and reluctant convert" is like. I spent 20+ years outside the door of any church, convinced that I was, indeed a Christian, but one incredibly unwelcome in the church because of what I believed at the time to be heretical thoughts. Those thoughts included notions of our own slice of the Incarnation residing within us, inclusivity in a way most churches were not (and many still not) ready to accept, and my own formidable stack of doubts despite asserting I was, indeed, a Christian.

Yet, when I returned in my new incarnation of "Me, as a Christian," it was almost like being a precocious child in a new school. It was clear I had plenty of knowledge and "book learning," but I needed a LOT of formation. I had to reconcile "The way I used to understand God and rejected," with "The way I am now beginning to understand God and can accept." I could totally identify with Lewis' own statement about the beginning of this journey of conversion.

John's words echo this--"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."

When any of us first begin to "get serious about God," that feeling of not understanding, or of doubt, seems wrong somehow. "They're going to think I'm a heretic if I say I think this," was a constant thought for me early on. But it's important to understand it is not the end of the world with our relationship with God if we admit things like, "Ok, I am not so sure what the Resurrection really was or really means," or "I just don't really buy everything about the Nicene Creed." I don't think when we consciously begin life anew as an earnest follower of Christ, we will have all revealed to us as if we were struck by lightning. I think we grow into it, slowly. (Sometimes, so incredibly slow we think we are going backward.)

The totality of how we become part of the kingdom in the "now" is hard to swallow when all we think we are doing in the beginning is hedging our bets for a slot in Heaven. We are not ready for the power revealed in the partaking of the Sacraments. We're not awake to the possibility that prayer is so much more than petitioning God in a dance where hopefully, our wishes are granted--that instead, being called into prayer is to be called into a deep and dangerous proposition. If we start listening to what God's will is for each of us, we will quickly discover we've been sent to do some rather unnerving work, and that we will be gnawed upon to get off our duffs and do something about it. We find that being sent deeply into our prayer places requires being lashed to the deck of a raft sent into the rapids.

At the beginning of this journey, we would not be able to bear these things if we knew they were coming. It takes time. The life of C.S. Lewis reminds us that there is no end point to learning in faith--that it is, indeed, a life-long pilgrimage. Even when we thought we were wandering around outside the church, we could never have borne the thought that our "time away" was not really time away at all--instead, it was ongoing formation.

Prickly Dance of Reconciliation

2011-11-21T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Illuminated manuscript depicting the martyrdom of Edmund, King of Anglia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally appeared in Speaking to the Soul, Nov. 21, 2011)

Readings for the feast day of Edmund, King of East Anglia and Martyr, November 21, 2011:

Psalm 21
2 Samuel 1:17-27
1 Peter 3:14-18
Matthew 10:16-22

O God of ineffable mercy, you gave grace and fortitude to blessed Edmund the king to triumph over the enemy of his people by nobly dying for your Name: Bestow on us your servants the shield of faith with which we can withstand the assaults of our ancient enemy; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Edmund was an early king of East Anglia, which is in what we now know as England. Although most of what we know about him is myth and legend, the one thing we are told in vivid detail is his gruesome death at the hands of the Danes.

The Wikipedia description is what really caught my eye. Granted, some of this is rather legendary, and there's certainly a distinct attempt to connect this story with the Passion of Christ, but the short version goes like this:

The Danes had invaded England in 870, led by the brothers Hinguar and Hubba, and it appears their particular specialty was looting and plundering churches. When they get to East Anglia, they offer to cut a deal with Edmund, which really wasn't much of a deal. They'd give him a chunk of the loot if he'd admit the Danes were superior, forbid the practice of Christianity, and continue on as a figurehead ruler to keep the peace in the area.

Some sources say that Edmund's own bishops bailed on him and told him to accept the terms. But Edmund said no, he would not forsake Christ, which, of course, made the Danes furious. So they proceeded to torture and kill him--first beating him with cudgels, and then tying him to a tree and shooting him so full of arrows, as the account by Abbo of Fleury relates, "until he was all covered with their missiles as with bristles of a hedgehog." Even then he would not renounce Christ, so Hinguar ordered him beheaded. Edmond called to Christ throughout the beheading.

Now, the historical concept is to look at this in terms of his bravery and faith, but I became intrigued at the way Sam Portaro looked at this story in his book, "Brightest and Best." A more modern way to look at this story is to back up and see missed opportunity and a chance at reconciliation. Pig-headedly sticking up for our Christian faith at the point of a lance (or a gun) hasn't really gotten us too far in history--the Crusades being a major case in point--and in societies where church and state were intertwined, the dominant religion becomes an oppressive force, not a healing force.

But it was that image of Edmund being covered with so many arrows he looked like a hedgehog (or, in my mind, a porcupine) that stuck with me--mostly because my own life experience has been that every time I take my ego out on a limb and try to make people see "I'm right," I also end up covered with a slew of metaphorical arrows. Putting my ego on a pedestal usually only results in having a band of folks dead set on knocking me off.

Also, it's been my experience that, once covered with arrows, trying to reconcile with the other party starts looking like two porcupines mating. The two parties walk around each other with a cautious shyness, each afraid of the other's prickly barbs, both desiring to be closer, but not knowing how in the world to accomplish it without being stuck themselves.

So rather than see this tale as an account of Christian bravery, what changes when we see it as a reminder of our own pig-headedness? More importantly, where are the places we need to begin the prickly dance of reconciliation?

The Gift of Anger

2011-11-19T12:20:00.000-06:00

("The Great Day of His Wrath," 1853, by John Martin, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Anger
--by Alden Solovy

G-d of the inner journey, 
Source of strength,
 I’ve been assaulted by an unseen foe 
And comforted by a steadfast friend, 
Cut down in the name of love, 
Lost in confusion and dismay, 
Blinded by a wave of rage 
And soothed by gentle breathing. 
I live between moments of desperate anger 
And days of boundless joy, 
Between a heart of war 
And a soul of peace.

Anger is a defense.
 Anger is power. 
Anger is intensity.

Holy One, 
G-d whose gifts challenge my understanding,
 Open my eyes to injustice 
And let my anger become a source of energy 
Channeled toward building and healing.
 Let anger be a gateway to tikun olam 
So I become a force for holiness and love.

Blessed are You, Source of Wisdom, 
Who created anger to illuminate the path to justice.

I was recently musing on my friend Fran's Facebook page about the topic of "anger." It's a topic with which I have struggled mightily. In text message language, "Anger? I haz it." But it has been only recently I have come to realize I've been dealing with it all wrong. I was reminded recently that wrath is one of the seven deadly sins; anger is not. Wrath is misguided anger; anger gone haywire; anger that destroys the good in its path as well as the bad. Being angry for the right things, the right reasons, is okay, and doing the right things to help heal the world because of it is okay.

I have struggled for years--no, make that decades--about my anger. It came out in weird places--like the time I had to go to Anger Management classes because I had too many traffic tickets. It's really only been in the last year or so that I can say, "You know, I had a right to be angry," with a straight face. "I grew up in an alcoholic household. I was denied things that every child should have--like the right to go to bed every night and feel safe. I had to grow up too fast. I'll never have those things back. That's worth being angry about, and it's worth being sad about, and having the right to grieve them." But finally, I heard other people tell me that--and I heard it and took it to heart. Until only recently, no one looked me in the eye and said, "You have a right to be angry about that." For decades all I heard was a bunch of put downs. "Don't be angry--it's not right to be that angry." "I can't deal with YOUR anger." "What the hell is wrong with you? Get over it. Grow up." People mostly met me with guilt and shame to get me to curb it. In all fairness, I probably didn't listen much in the Anger Management classes. I had to do them to keep my driver's license...and really, the whole class was a bunch a people who had been "put" there. No one was there because they wanted to be. So I think we all just sat quietly and seethed and bided our time till we could say we "did" it.

I had been dealing with my ability to become angry as if it were a character defect, a sin, something to be blotted out. But when I tried to suppress it or push it away, it just got worse. Even more difficult was I began to realize that there were some people in my life who were using me by manipulating my anger. One had me flat out in an abusive, psychologically incestuous situation where on the surface it looked like the roles were reversed as to who was "perp" and "victim." Because of my anger (which really was suppressed resentment for the abuse and no visible "way out" at the time) I always looked like the "perp" because I was the angry one. Meanwhile the real abuser got off scot-free and even, in some ways, got rewarded.

The hardest part was I was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. I was stuffing my anger because I came to think it was a sin, that I wanted to be rid of it so I could be more "Christian."

All that ever happened when I stuffed my anger was I became more resentful. All that ever happened with other people was I would launch on the wrong person for no apparent reason. it was loaded, volcanic, and lava-hot just like the picture I posted in this post. It was wrath. Not anger.

I have come to understand what I needed was not anger management, but wrath management. Anger, really, is neutral. It's not unchristian. In fact, my present priest has been really helpful there, as was our interim. It was pointed out to me that Jesus got angry. He got angry at the money changers in the Temple--angry enough to chase them all out. It wasn't wrong to be that angry. Once I was pointed to some good resources for entering communities where our stories are shared and our goal is to hear them in a vulnerable place and build each other up, I started feeling less and less need to "go volcanic."

Anger's like fire. I can either use it to keep everyone in the room warm and safe, or I can burn the whole house down with me in it. I have found the remedy to my anger has been to do my best to channel it into some form of tikun olan, as the poem says. Tikun olan means "The repair of the world." My extrapolation from this Hebrew phrase, as a Christian, is to build up the body of Christ rather than tear it down--the body of Christ for me, meaning all of the created world. You can't imagine how much peace it has given me to accept that anger is also part of God's good creation--just one that is very flexible in its use for good or evil. I no longer have to feel like a demonic thing lives inside of me. I no longer have to feel shame for it. Guilt only comes when I misuse it. I have literally gone from feeling like an untamed demon lived inside of me to feeling like I've been given a very precious gift--the gift to really care about a broken world. As a result, I've not had a volcanic outburst for over a year. It's not that I am not capable of it, but it's that I am finding more and better things to do with that energy every day. Now, it's up to me, with God's help, to use it to help heal the broken-ness.

Creating sapphires from sewage

2011-11-14T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Photo of Wilmette, Oregon sewage treatment plant courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This piece originally appeared in Episcopal Café's Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, November 13, 2011)

Readings for Sunday, November 13:

Psalms 66, 67 (Morning)
Psalms 19, 46 (Evening)
1 Maccabees 2:29-43, 49-50
Acts 28:14b-23
Luke 16:1-13

Luke 16:1-13:

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager is not on most people's short list of "My Favorite Parables," because, frankly, everyone in the story is a tad on the slimy side. We're well acquainted with the pattern Jesus tends to use when a parable has a rich boss in the story--by and large the rich bosses tend to care about making money and not so much about doing the right thing. Another tip-off on the boss' character is that he shows his admiration for the manager's "shrewdness." We are told from the get-go that the manager is a bit of a scuzzball--he squanders the boss' property--and when he gets canned, he goes about the business of making friends one last time at the boss' expense. Finally, the clients are not entirely on the up-and-up either--it's obvious they're getting a real deal and it's clear they aren't asking any questions about it.

This parable tends to leave a bit of an acrid taste in our mouths. Our tendency is to think, "Whaaaa? Jesus is telling the disciples they need to be more like this manager guy? Wait a minute. That just seems so "not right" here..." We strain for a shred of allegory to glean at least a bite of something virtuous, and it's just not there. It's also a parable unique to Luke, so we don't have anything else in the Gospels for comparison.

One of the things to remember about looking at the parables through the lens of Luke is that unlike Matthew, who loves to turbocharge parables with a heavy dose of allegory on the side, Luke is more into illustrating lessons for the next world with examples from this world. There's nothing new under the sun when it comes to the fine art of "making friends with someone else's money," and our manager in the story does it flawlessly.

Also, the fact of the matter is, none of us are immune to the flaws in the story. When we've been the boss, have we ever looked the other way at an employee who was a bit less than forthright as long as no one gave us grief for it, or we weren't losing money or good will on account of it? How many times have we been a little on the loose side with someone else's money compared to our own, or tried to look good for ourselves on the company's dime? Have we ever had the cashier at the Big Box Store ring up the cheaper item by mistake and not uttered a peep? In the case of the latter, we might even rationalized it by thinking, "Well, I don't like that company anyway--it's not like they aren't making money," or even morphed that one into some sort of Robin Hood fantasy--the little folks putting one over on the big rich corporation.

The hidden nugget in this parable, however, is in the diligence of this dishonest manager, and the reality of our own diligence for the wrong reasons, sometimes. As my late grandmother used to say, "When you go into the cesspool, don't act surprised if you come out smelling like sewage." (Well...she didn't exactly use the word "sewage.") But what we learn from our foray into the sewage is we can have a surprising diligence about dealing with other people's money for our gain, we have an ability to avert our eyes from wrongdoing, and we can keep our mouths shut if we are getting a deal.

But let's flip this upside down and backwards, in the way Jesus tends to do with confusing parables. Jesus asks the disciples, "Well, boys, if you haven't been shrewd in your dishonesty, how in the world can I expect you to be shrewd in acquiring the good things of the Kingdom of Heaven? If you don't know a deal when you see it with the cheap stuff, how will you understand a deal when it comes to the good stuff? You can't have it both ways. You can't just stop the bad behavior and do nothing for the service of God."

So, let's reframe the questions with a different objective in mind--the objective of building up the Body of Christ rather than playing along with the ways of the world. When we are the boss, can we use the same blind eye we used with the shady employee to create forgiving space for the employee who made a mistake because of inexperience or confusion? How might we use the resources available to us to give other people the credit for their good works or open-heartedness? Is it possible to keep our mouths shut about the times we feel slighted by others and trust it was an honest mistake, rather than assume it was a personal dig and take on the mantle of victimization?

Our parable challenges us not to discard the wisdom we learned while wallowing in the cesspool, but to transform it--to create sapphires from sewage--a magnificent alchemy, indeed.

What if I had not believed it?

2011-11-12T05:00:00.000-06:00

"What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?"

--Psalm 27:17 from the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer

One of the things I like about reading the Psalms in different translations is that sometimes I see things in a different way in familiar settings. The NRSV version of Psalm 27:17 says, "I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord..." It's more of a statement than a question. The BCP version, in asking me the question, puts the reflection back on me..."What if?" The St. Helena Psalter says, "What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of my God..." and takes it one step further, personalizing the relationship between me and God.

I've had reason to reflect on this line some lately. There's been a convergence of some things happening in the lives of some people close to me that have caused me to think back of some times I was in similar situations myself. In all these present episodes, there is really not much I can do for any of the other people in the stories, except be a listening ear and and affirming voice. I am sometimes surprised how people approach me, thinking I have something for them, when the unsatisfying truth is I really don't have any "advice," just a memory of my own similar past, and how I might have journeyed from Point A to Point B in a similar, but not always applicable, situation. That memory, frankly, may not be totally accurate--it is always laced with "my analysis" of the situation, and over time, the little details get lost.

In these situations lately, issues of broken trust, betrayal, and out and out having been lied to have bubbled up for these other people. I've noticed that all forms of dysfunction--no matter what the root cause--have some similarities. One is that the universal human tendency, when hurt, is to avoid the "land of the living." All of us, when hurt, shut down in some fashion--physically and emotionally. Early on in this process, even thinking about "the land of the living" is painful. Yet many of us "buck up and carry on"--zombies at work or with our families. We function on the surface, we concentrate on the things we must do to keep our jobs or to keep up appearances. I think part of the reason zombie movies are so popular these days is because far too many people are living their own Night of the Living Dead in the daylight of their lives.

When I think back, at the times I had to move from the pit of despair, with little to no trust in humanity, I think the only thing that ever did keep me going was that little glimpse of God in the confines of humanity. Let me be real here. Trust issues? I have 'em. If I had to trust humans as humans, I'd never leave my house.

I have, however, learned to believe in the Incarnation--and if the Incarnation is real, then it stands to reason there will be glimpses of God in this morass of humanity. I think every time in my life I had to crawl out of the abyss of my own despair, I could only do it by agreeing to accept the glimpses of God that showed up in broken, flawed people. Most of them would start out coming from people I would never have suspected. Over time, those glimpses taught me to slowly begin to trust people closer to me. This has never been without casualties. Every time I crawled from the abyss, some people who used to be close to me were lost. Sometimes it was just too messy to ever repair. But what I would see in the places I could gave me enough hope that maybe, just maybe, all would be made right in the end. I could at least trust enough to let go, to trust that God would heal those people I was no longer close to without my intervention.

The other place in those times I had to accept seeing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living was within myself. I have a terrible tendency to think it's always my fault somehow, and to not forgive myself. Crawling from the abyss for me has always included learning to trust myself again--to trust that I am worthy of God's love and capable enough of hearing God's call for my life.

I only know one thing--accepting what I see of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living is the only thing I know that allows me to move beyond the comfortable confines of the seduction of self. It's the only thing I know that keeps me from propping myself up as my own little shallow version of God that looks more like a ventriloquist dummy than a real, loving, feeling person. If I had not seen it, I would have no hope of ever being free of the chokehold the broken world has on people.

Exploring the Canticle of the Sun

2011-11-09T05:00:00.000-06:00

(A view from Campground #1, Thousand Hills State Park, Kirksville, MO, Oct. 7, 2011)

The Canticle of Brother Sun

Most high, all-powerful, all good, Lord!
All praise is yours, all glory, all honor
And all blessing.
To you alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy
To pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made,
And first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him.
How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon and Stars;
In the heavens you have made them, bright
And precious and fair.
All praise be yours, My Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all the weather's moods,
By which you cherish all that you have made.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,
So useful, lowly, precious and pure.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
Through whom you brighten up the night.
How beautiful is he, how gay! Full of power and strength.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our mother,
Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces
Various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through those who grant pardon
For love of you; through those who endure
Sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,
By you, Most High, they will be crowned.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death,
From whose embrace no mortal can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those She finds doing your will!
The second death can do no harm to them.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks,
And serve him with great humility.

--St. Francis of Asissi, roughly around 1225

That line about "...and fair and stormy, all the weather's moods" really stood out for me today.

What a difference the time change makes.

Last week, I was taking a walk around 5:30 p.m. and distinctly thought, "Well, this is getting on to being the last time I'll be able to take a walk after work for a few months."

In just a couple of short days, we've moved from one of the most perfect, bright, colorful falls we've had in a few years, to the gray, slick, heavy, wet strains of November.

November is one of the "mud months" in northeast Missouri. It's a fickle month when it comes to Mother Nature. We get a couple of unseasonably nice days in November, but most days tend to be on the gray side--gray and with a cold dampness.

It's very easy to get negatively seduced by the bad weather. But in looking at the Canticle of the Sun, I see many good things in nature--and even her fickle-ness is to be praised. After all, it's like the old joke about Missouri weather: "Don't like the weather in Missouri? Wait a couple of hours, it will change."

But it's true. Even if the "good" weather is only a few hours or minutes. The fallback position is to appreciate the "neutral" weather. "Oh, wow, the wind stopped blowing!" "Cool, it's not raining anymore. Okay, it's still gray but it's not gray and raining."

St. Francis even finds a means in this canticle to praise Death--because in new life, Death has no power over us.

I think about Voltaire's line, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

I'm afraid a lot of us are recovering hyper-perfectionists. What's worse, is I think sometimes the church is hyper-perfection's greatest enabler. When we dwell too much on "sinless Jesus; rotten, sinful us," frankly, we set ourselves up.

Now, that's not to say we shouldn't address the problem of sin--particularly our own sins--we should. But we should not give sin so much power that it fosters in us an attitude of hyper-unworthiness because we can never, in this world, achieve perfection. None of us do. From the worst incarcerated criminal to the little old lady who never does much wrong except for a wicked or uncharitable thought now and then, we are all imperfect.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God--and last time I checked, we don't get triaged into first, second, or third class sinners.

Hyper-perfectionism paralyzes us from turning around and doing good for the sake of doing good--if we can't be perfect, we won't do it at all. It ties us down to the bondage of our false selves--the self that acts like we really can achieve perfection. The desire for that constant hyper-perfect, hyper-happy life can become an addiction, so that we never see "good enough" ever again--because we are working too hard to be perfect. We will never have enough. We will see things through the lens of scarcity rather than the magnifier of abundance.

When I read the Canticle of the Sun, I am reminded of the spectrum and changeability of Nature, and how it reminds me there is much in which to rejoice. Even on my bad days I can be reasonably happy--and on a gray November day, reasonably happy is good enough!

I wonder what he'd think about "Occupy Wall Street?"

2011-11-07T05:00:00.000-06:00

(Painting of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This piece originally appeared in Episcopal Café's Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, November 6, 2011)

Readings For the Feast Day of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Sunday, November 6:

Psalm 119: 97-104
Exodus 22:21-27
Ephesians 3:7-12
John 1:9-18

In recent days, as I've been following the "Occupy Wall Street" movement spreading across different cities in the U.S., I keep thinking William Temple would have something to say about it. In fact, were he alive today, he might have been in the midst of them.

William Temple was born in a setting of genteel Victorian privilege--his father served as Bishop of London, and, later, Archbishop of Canterbury--and he seemed destined for a similar kind of life. He was a sickly child, suffering from gout and bad eyesight (he became blind in his right eye by age 40,) and by all accounts, an excellent scholar. His road to ordination, however, was not entirely smooth. His initial application for ordination was turned down by the Archbishop of Canterbury because he had "unconventional" notions about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection.

Turns out that was not the only "unconventional" notion he'd have.

Temple became president of the Worker's Education Association in 1908, while tutoring at Queen's College, Oxford. This organization was highly influenced by the philosophy of Anglican theologist Frederick Denison Maurice, the pioneer of the Christian Socialist movement. Temple also joined the Labour Party around that time. Over the next two decades, despite his privileged upbringing, he would become a champion for worker's rights, as well as social and economic reforms. In his famous book, Christianity and the Social Order, he outlined six propositions for a Christian society:

Every child should find itself a member of a family housed with decency and dignity.
Every child should have an opportunity for education up to maturity.
Every citizen should have sufficient income to make a home and bring up his children properly.
Every worker should have a voice in the conduct of the business or industry in which he works.
Every citizen should have sufficient leisure—two days' rest in seven and an annual holiday with pay.
Every citizen should be guaranteed freedom of worship, speech, assembly and association.

Our readings today focus on several elements that speak to reform as a nidus of spiritual transformation. Our Psalm speaks to the love of the law and the value of wise teachers. Exodus discusses the evils of abusing the more vulnerable elements of society. Paul's letter to the Ephesians reminds us of the virtues of servant leadership, and hearing the call in our Baptismal Covenant to seek and serve Christ in all people. Finally, John's Gospel proclaims the power of phos--the luminous power of the Light of Christ's grace to illuminate the darkness of a hurting, broken world.

The life and personal theology of William Temple calls us to our own self examination as agents of the Light of Christ, changing the world, one act of kindness at a time. How are each of us called to respond to the love of those who teach us about grace and tolerance? How have we personally stood up to the abuse of the powerless? How are we servant leaders in our parishes, our schools, or our communities? How does the life of William Temple influence us in our tasks to be bearers of this true Light?

Perhaps the answer is in one of Temple's more famous quotes: "It is a great mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion."

No strings attached

2011-11-06T05:00:00.000-06:00

(You can also see the video on YouTube here.)

If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember
that your brother has something against you, leave your gift
there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift.

--Offertory sentence, Book of Common Prayer, p. 376

I have to admit, when I was a kid, the "Dollar bill on a piece of fishing line" was one of my favorite pranks. I was always amazed at how many grownups would bite on that one! People will fall for that one again and again. There's just something about a dollar bill that can tempt the most unobservant of us.

I think we also tend to be that way about truly letting go of the things that wound us.

Oh, we really DO desire to leave it on the altar...and maybe we even take it forward and place it there...but it is sooooo human nature to also tie a piece of monofilament line to it, and then give that line a pull and jerk it off the altar. Maybe even more than once. Sometimes we are as bad as Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football like that. We'll take that old hurt, or that old resentment, that we placed on the altar, and yank it back to us, repeatedly...and like that old dollar bill on the string trick, once in a while someone else will grab it, so to speak...and we'll go around and hurt that new person with the same old resentment, even if they had nothing to do with the original one.

I started thinking about this in a different way lately.

That business of intending to leave my resentments on the altar, then having something bubble up and me snatching it back, is an old habit of mine. That old compulsive nature of mine wants to nurse those grudges, or stew with those resentments, rather than truly leave them on the altar. I remember a time that I was trying to give up my resentments about a particular situation by taking the advice of someone I trusted---his advice was to pray for that person for two solid weeks--wish him or her every good thing and every blessing I'd wish for myself--and I'd get part way through and darned if another resentment didn't pop up. When it was all said and done--when I had actually managed to pray for that person two solid weeks and feel no resentment--it had taken nine months. It was not lost on me that this was the same time period as a pregnancy.

I have to admit, the advice worked--but I think it took a little longer than usual.

Something I've come to realize now that I've thought about this process of bringing our gifts--even if our gifts are, on any given day, a resentment or a piece of our woundedness--is that the moment we mentally placed them on that altar, they become consecrated along with the bread and the wine--they are no longer made of the same stuff. They are covered with holy stuff. To take them back and nurse them and hold onto them, is really taking something holy and not treating it with the respect a holy thing is due. I'm generally not a person who wants to mistreat holy things. So by thinking of it in this way, I find myself being able to put it back and leave it be more quickly.

It's better, I think, to leave our resentment there and instead focus on the messy business of reconciliation. When we are spending time toying with our resentments instead of reconciling, we're just sort of spinning our wheels. When we can leave it on the altar, I'm learning something that is just the opposite as the dollar bill on a string occurs. Oh, there's a string all right. But instead of us yanking the string, when we can truly leave something like that on the altar, IT pulls on the string and draws US closer to the altar--and isn't that where we should have been all along?

Now and Forever and the World Series

2011-11-04T05:00:00.000-05:00

(Lance Berkman's 10th inning game-tying single, Game 6, 2011 World Series, October 27, 2011, courtesy of Yahoo Sports)

(This piece originally appeared in Daily Episcopalian on Tuesday, November 3, 2011)

From the opening lines in our Book of Common Prayer's Rite II Holy Eucharist, and in several of the BCP prayers and collects, we affirm that God's kingdom is "now and forever." But the truth be known, I suspect we are usually thinking "forever" more than "now"--well, really, more like "Sometime later that I don't really understand, after I'm dead, and I'll think about that one later."

Most of us know that "living in the now" or "living in the moment" is a highly prized spiritual discipline. For folks in various twelve step programs, "Just for today" is a key facet of their recovery. Many of us have read Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" more than once. I imagine many of us with spiritual leanings like to claim at least novice, and maybe even intermediate, mastery of this discipline. The evidence in our minds is that it allows us some degree of spiritual peace, so it's our tendency to have, or at least fake, passable knowledge in the concept.

Yet the fact remains that it's way easier to think about the Realm of God as being a "later" rather than a "now" proposition. If anything, the world tends to scream its broken-ness at us on TV and in the news, as well as our own personal relationships. How can God's kingdom exist now, when the world is rife with violent crime, abject poverty, personal failure, natural disasters, and constant disappointment?

We find ourselves in a paradox--we can intellectually sign on to the concept of the "now" of holiness, but our heart tells us otherwise too many times It seems to be an acceptance of risk we dare not bear.

I only know one place in my experiential realm where I really, truly understand the "now" of "now and forever"--it is in the final half of the final inning of an important baseball game with two out, and the home team behind. Sporting events with clocks teach us there's a place where the outcome is academic, and our best efforts become for our own self-esteem rather than affect the outcome. The clock-less aspect of baseball, however, reminds us that we truly are building God's kingdom as we speak and it reminds us that it requires living in a tension we'd rather avoid.

I was reminded of this in an almost unfathomable place--the tail end of the sixth game of the 2011 World Series. As a loyal St. Louis Cardinals fan for all of the cognitive aspects of my 51 years, the product of my grandmother's loyalty prior to that, going back to 1926, I can no more fathom "not being a Cardinals fan" any more than I can fathom being any religion than Christian--because I was reared that way. It's who I am. So right from the get-go I have a barrier to the "now," because the past is a tap root to my groundedness. As I watched David Freese at the plate, wearing #23, I could not help but remember that was Ted Simmons' number in another era of my Cardinal-ness.

Additionally, baseball is filled with "tomorrows." Rain delay? We'll play tomorrow. Disappointing series against the Cubs? There will be another. Lousy year? Simply adopt the motto of the old Brooklyn Dodgers--"Wait till next year."

It's easier to live in the glories of the past, or fantasize about the projections of the future, than to simply breathe and be alive during that last out in the last inning. I thought about how stressful it was for me, a mere fan to watch David Freese stand in the batter's box with two down in the 9th and tie it up, and my palpable disappointment in stranding the go-ahead run in that inning. If that wasn't enough, I was not even given the mercy to live it once and be done with it--I had to repeat the same process with Lance Berkman in the 10th, but with a different outcome--Freese's walk-off home run that followed. Every pitch became excruciating. I wanted to turn off the TV and go to bed, to save myself the stress. I wanted to distract myself with junk mail or get a snack and have the possibility of loss not be in my direct vision. But I didn't, because I could not, and remain loyal to myself. Even then, in my faith, I wavered--more than once I thought, "Well, just don't strike out looking. Be swinging if you strike out."

That's also true with our spiritual lives in community. It's just way easier to think about how God interacted with people in Biblical times, or brush aside any of our pains, paradoxes, or puzzlements with a wave of the hand and a curt, "Well, it will be different in Heaven." We don't like to stay too long in the idea of what we are doing right at this moment in the here and now has the ability to help shape and form the Heaven that will be--even in the act of our failures and disappointments. We don't like to do mission and consider the possibility it will fall flat, while we are doing it. We don't like to come to church in difficult or uncomfortable parish times when there's the risk we could actually be snubbed at the Peace. We don't like to throw our heart into a new activity for the Glory of God and find that almost no one came. Those things hurt--brutally so, in fact, and there's just no good way of saying otherwise.

I think that's true from the clergy side, too. I can't imagine the priest or deacon of an angry or dysfunctional parish relishes stepping into the fray every Sunday. The pain of following a call, that ends with the curt vestry meeting and the call to the Bishop to ask to "dissolve the bonds of pastoral affection" can't possibly feel like God's plan is working at that moment.

But when I am sitting in a good place in my spirituality, and look back, I discover that the good parts of who I am at this moment and who our communities are at this moment would not have been the same, had these awful things not occurred. When we open ourselves up to the possibility that these times are merely lessons in formation, rather than things where our control yielded "right" and "wrong" choices, we discover that it wasn't about "us" at all. We just happened to be that batter in the lineup at that time, and what we did simultaneously mattered and didn't matter. It was not an "either/or" proposition, but instead, it was "now and forever" working simultaneously.

I believe we are probably most fully in the now of "now and forever," not when we feel secure and confident about seeing God in everything, but when seeing God in everything is the hardest. The faith to the notion that we are continually loved by God--that our striking out or getting on base does not affect this love, it only affects how we view each other in community--is a fearful proposition. But if we can merely stay in the batter's box, it is when we begin to see our own shape and form within the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Heaven of Forever gets a little closer to the Heaven of Now.

The Kirkepiscatoid School of Film--"Wit" (2001)

2011-11-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

"Live this life and do what ever is done in a spirit of thanksgiving. Abandon attempts to achieve security, they are futile. Give up the search for wealth, it is demeaning. Quit the search for salvation, it is selfish. And come to comfortable rest in the certainty that those who participate in this life with an attitude of thanksgiving will receive its full promise."

-- St. Benedict

Recently, I watched the movie "Wit" again, in a rather paradoxical week centered around "health." It's hard to believe it's been almost ten years since I saw it. The first time I saw it, I had not been relocated to Kirksville for long, and it was before I found my way back to the church, and in some ways, my life was starting over. But it was very easy for me to identify with Emma Thompson's portrayal of English professor Vivian Bearing--an early middle aged, solo woman, tough and acerbic, who paradoxically taught about "love" through the poetry of John Donne with a very analytical, dispassionate surface. In the movie we see that this journey from the world of the healthy living to the world of the terminal cancer patient is more solo than we would like, simply because it's a journey others cannot physically take. But we also see how her personality makes this even more solo--she is involved with a clinical research trial in which very few people can withstand its rigor. Her toughness, I believe, is a part of her ability to endure it.

Yet, we discover she endures it to die anyway. We feel the futility in that, although there are many layers more than simply "futility." It's also what we don't see that is important. We don't see her reaching out to a support group, we see relatively few people in this movie other than the health care team. There is no sudden need to embrace humanity in a different way. This might not seem fulfilling to some watching the movie, but as a person possibly cut a little bit out of this mold myself, I get that. I saw it more as "this is kind of who she was before her ovarian cancer, and this is who she chooses to remain to be in this journey." She stays more or less true to herself. We see a few regrets in the flashbacks she experiences, the times she realizes she was a little less than kind to others, at times she yearns for a little more kindness. Yes, she is transformed in this experience, but it's a transformation that remains true to her deepest essence of self.

This most recent time I watched it, I had just finished my annual run of "health maintenance" with its usual paradoxes. Once again, in some ways, this year, I am the picture of health. It's not typical these days to be over 50 and be on no medications whatsoever. But in other ways, my chronic demons still dog me. I habitually get "run around the barn" over my mammograms, partly because of the problem with small, dense breasts, and partly because of a family history of a mother who had a significantly sized breast cancer with positive nodes at age 48. I had to deal with additional mammos again this year; in years past, this has also included ultrasounds and breast MRI's, and visits to breast cancer specialists. I am no fool--although I've managed to escape biopsy year after year, I realize I have a high chance this will not happen forever.

I had a little fun bragging about not being on any meds at my age on Facebook, but I also was being quite mum about the mammogram run-around. Oddly, I don't have much apprehension about that anymore and am rather fatalistic about it. I have given up worrying about it. It's out of my control. I find myself more irritated about the hassle associated with it than anything.

But this time, I keyed up on something entirely different in the movie. It was the part towards the end of the movie when the decision is made by Vivian's oncologist to put her on a morphine drip rather than patient-controlled analgesia (PCA.) The first time I watched the movie, I felt anger over her doctor not giving her an option to control her pain herself. I felt a sense of betrayal to her on the part of the physicians. It felt like, "Well, she's no good to them now because the chemo failed, so they just don't care how she feels about it."

I'm no stranger to dying people and what "morphine drip" means. Once someone is put on a morphine drip, he or she is basically no longer going to be functioning in our world. It's a time that death is imminent. It's the beginning of being in a very thin place between this world and the next. When I watched it this time, I no longer felt that anger. What I came to realize is all Vivian wanted was for the pain to stop. What I saw was Vivian's nurse's projections about the PCA. Her nurse was wanting the option. I'm not sure, now, seeing this again, that Vivian herself truly cared. I heard her physician say something that I glossed over the first time I watched it--"She's earned her rest." What I came to realize this conflict was as much about the fact her nurse had begun to feel a caregiver's intimacy towards Vivian, and she was not ready to end the relationship.

What I realize has happened in the ten years since I first saw this movie, is that I have changed. Ten years ago, when I projected myself in the place of someone with terminal ovarian cancer, I would have wrestled for every shred of control I could have bargained for in this scenario. I would have wanted the illusion of control of the PCA pump for as long as I could have withstood it. You see, there's some control with PCA, but there is also an illusion. Once you reach the maximum dose per time, you push the button, you hear the "ding," but it doesn't give you any more morphine beyond the programmed limit. It's a placebo. It's an illusion of control. It may or may not control the pain.

Also, ten years ago, I think I would have been more alone in this journey than I believe I would now. I would have kept everyone at arms' length. I would still do that to some extent now, but I believe there would be more people allowed closer now. In the ten years that have elapsed since I first saw this movie, I have entered into community in a different way. I think when I project myself in this scenario now, I would opt for control of my pain only until I had the opportunity to sacramentalize moving to that thin place in the world of the morphine drip. I think I'd get the folks I care about the most to be with me, we'd celebrate the Eucharist together, and then, when we all said our goodbyes, it would be time for the morphine drip.

I used to think that "bravery in the face of terminal illness" meant fighting as long as I could. As the years go by, and I watch people I know move from this world to the next, I have come to realize the true bravery is more about making the best choices--best not just for self, but in the way that creates more lasting meaning for those left to carry on. I have become more willing to accept that the true bravery is knowing when to enter the thin places with an accepting heart.

The other striking thing about this movie is just before her death, the return of her mentor, now quite aged, for one last visit. In the end, it is not the multilayered, complex words of John Donne that give Vivian comfort--in fact, even in her opiated state she makes it clear it is NOT what she desires. Instead, it is the words of the childhood story, "The Runaway Bunny." Yet we see the multiple metaphorical layers just the same.

It is why I am grateful I have many modest-sized chunks of the Book of Common Prayer embedded in my neurons. I think even if I were in a state where my sensorium was clouded, some of those would never leave me. In that sense, I would never be alone in the thin places.

Ten years later, this is still a fascinating and deep enough movie to move me to tears--but in different places now. I feel less of the anger I used to feel about the dance of medicine, terminal illness, and self than I used to--and I am now reminded that as children of God, we should never fear the thin places.

Origami Saints

2011-11-02T05:00:00.000-05:00

(This post originally appeared in Daily Episcopalian, November 1, 2011)

Sometimes the saint is loved not simply for his closeness to God but for his patent humanity. The saint has a temper, flies off the handle, loses his or her cool in pursuit of a great ideal. St. Jerome, the first translator of the Bible into Latin, was famously irascible, once writing that one of his detractors "walked like a tortoise." To take another example, St. Peter is beloved not only because he was a great apostle, but for his many flaws: denying Jesus three times before the crucifixion, among them. Holiness makes its home in humanity. That insight says, “They’re not perfect. Maybe I could aspire to this level of achievement.”

--James Martin

Nothing separates "The people who are good at crafts" from "The people who are ordinary at crafts" quite like an origami bird.

Now, at its most basic level, an origami bird is a rather simple thing. After all, children do origami all the time. But give some origami paper to adults, and it can suddenly morph from a child's fun pastime to a relentless exercise in self-browbeating.

One of the things we decided to do for All Saints Sunday was make strings of origami cranes that folks could write names of the departed "saints" in their lives and string the birds around the sanctuary, as if they were winging their way through the gap between Heaven and Earth.

Easy, right?

Two of my best friends in the parish decided to take on the task of folding the cranes. Now, they are both what we call "crafty women" in these parts. Not crafty like devious or sneaky, but they are really good at those little crafts that lots of women like to do. They take to that stuff like a duck to water (or should I say a crane to water?)

Well, one of them went out of town on vacation and the other one was feeling a little challenged by the number of cranes that needed to be made. Quintessential dummy me, I blurted out, "Oh, I made origami birds in grade school all the time! I know how to do that!" Next thing I knew, I was meeting her at the store to buy paper that met her approval, and was given a sheet of instructions and one made by the person who left town, to use as a model.

I gulped. Hers was perfect.

As I looked at that crane, I started feeling the weight of every flashback I could muster from grade school art class. Nothing I ever made in art class was ever "the best." I think only one time was any of my art ever shown in the display cases in the hall, and I think the art teacher felt sorry for me that time. When we had fundraisers at school using "kid art," no one bid on my creations (the fact my own family never bid on it, either, ought to have told me something.)

I realized I was doing this because of loyalty to my two friends, and possibly so that their slightly imperfect cranes would look "good enough" next to my definitely imperfect cranes. Mine looked fairly okay, but they chronically seemed to have a bill problem. Some of them could have passed for pelicans. Some of them, it looked like a cat had grazed their tails. I had some problems with blowing gently into them to "puff them up." I had to trash a few of them from blowing so hard their spines exploded.

It was another of those times I was reminded there was a reason I went into a medical specialty that the job was to take things apart rather than sew them together.

The other important thing I learned was "Don't make origami cranes when you're watching the Cardinals blow a lead in the fifth game of the World Series." My cranes met with a couple of casualties--a few got tossed at the TV, and hapless, unfortunate member of my paper aviary got his little head ripped off. (Interestingly enough, I decapitated a red one. Coincidence? I think not.)

But after a while, I realized when I looked in my plastic bag of imperfect cranes and feeling a little grumpy that mine "were not as good," they looked back with quite a few colors. In my compulsion to make "perfect" cranes and setting unrealistically high expectations for myself, and over-obsessing about each and every little fold, I had neglected to notice that, subconsciously, I was choosing paper from every shade and hue of the rainbow.

Suddenly, another flashback came to me from those grade school art years. A long buried memory emerged--I used to love to try to use every color that was given to me in an art project.

Historically, on All Saints Day, we focus on the "perfection" of the saints--that they are models of holiness, and we feel we can never attain that kind of perfection. But the more I read about the lives of the saints, the more I recognize they were wildly, crazily IM-perfect. St. Ignatius of Loyola is my favorite case in point--he was on his way to kill a fellow for profaning the Blessed Virgin Mary, and had it not been for his mule taking a particular fork in the road, he would have been a murderer instead of a saint.

When we over-focus on that illusion of perfection in holiness, we miss the bigger and better message--the spectrum of hues and tones and bright and muted colors that make up the Company of Heaven. We forget to see the holiness within irascibility--incredible holiness, actually, because it is when the Light of Christ streams through the cracks and fissures of our caked-on layers of human irascibility that it is most noticeable and intense. We don't always want to believe that the saints, more often than not, are clothed in a robe with grease stains, wear rusty, crooked halos, and have muddy shoes. Those muddy shoes? Feet of clay--exactly like our own.

When we accept that possibility, the saints lose their two-dimensionality. They can no longer remain monochromatic. Much like the citizenry in the movie "Pleasantville," they gain the power of living color and depth, as the revealed truth washes over them. They truly become, as the old hymn proclaims, sacred people that you have met "in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea."

Joints from Marrow

2011-10-31T05:00:00.000-05:00

("John Wyclif reading the Bible at Gannet," by Ford Madox Brown, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally appeared on the Speaking to the Soul blog, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011)

Readings for the feast day of John Wyclif, October 30:
Psalm 33:4-11
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 43:26-33
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 4:13-20

John Wyclif was noted for his belief that believers had a direct relationship with God, with no requirement for the church or the priestly caste to act as intermediary, and this is most manifest in his translating the Latin Vulgate Bible into English. Through this contribution to the Anglicanism, he most personifies the opening words of today's reading from Hebrews--"Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." (NRSV)

I first learned about the business of separating joints from marrow around age 10, when it became one of my household duties to "cut up the chicken." Now, this was one of my favorite tasks, because I was allowed to use large, sharp knives with very little supervision and very little admonishment other than "Don't cut your finger off." My mother, to save money, usually bought a whole chicken at the grocery store rather than pre-cut parts. I learned very quickly there was both a bit of skill and a great deal of satisfaction in learning to cut through the joints of a whole fryer.

One of the tricks I learned was to let the weight of the chicken help me. I quickly learned to hold up the whole chicken by the wing, find the joint space, and "pop" it through the dangling chicken, letting it fall on the cutting board. I also learned to cut the breast in such a way there would be a "wishbone piece" in it. Having the ability to get to make a wish every time we had fried chicken was a real treat.

Having a relationship with God through the living and revealed Word is not much different, really. We can sit in the pews on Sunday and have Scripture served up for us, like a plate of fried chicken, and enjoy a very fine feast, courtesy of the lector, the deacon, and the priest, but it's just not the same as when you are allowed to "cut it up yourself." Nothing opens up Christianity quite like taking up the Bible as a daily spiritual discipline, and it's pleasantly surprising how easy it becomes in a short time. The Episcopal Church's Daily Office allows us to go through the bulk of the Bible in two years' time (and the Psalms every seven weeks!)

Granted, our initial attempts at regular Bible reading may feel clumsy, and our ability to cut into it incisively at first might seem a little tentative, but a good commentary, study Bible, or study group can act as a whetstone for the knife edge of our spiritual imaginations. In fact, there are several sites on the Web that make use of the Daily Office readings. Help is readily available--there's no chance of "cutting our fingers off."

What we discover over time is once we stop worrying that we can't wrap our minds around the Bible in the same way a seminary graduate can, the words start miraculously wrapping around our hearts. Hearing the Psalms over and over causes certain verses and phrases to stand out, and hearing the familiar words of the Gospel begin to knit themselves to our own sinews. Suddenly, the stories are not about ancient people in ancient times, they are about us, in the present moment. There's something spiritually satisfying about popping through the joint of a parable and feeling the relief of the weight of the world drop from us, with a lighter heart. Most importantly, it becomes as much of a daily habit as brushing our teeth, and we will begin to miss it, if circumstances cause us to accidentally omit it.

Then, when we do hear these words on Sunday, they take on new meaning and allow us to become more discerning oracles in our community of faith. We start seeing everyone else's faults a little differently, forgive ourselves a little more easily, and begin to reach out to others in ways we could not imagine. Because we allowed the people of Biblical times into our imaginations, the people we used to think of as "the other" begin to look and feel more like "us."

Thanks to the life and efforts of John Wyclif, we can taste for ourselves the white meat and dark meat of the revealed Word, and live in the hope that there's always a wishbone.

Exactly where we were meant to be

2011-10-29T07:10:00.000-05:00

(Taken on my walk between the lake cabins and Campground #1, Mo. Highway 157, Thousand Hills State Park, Kirksville, MO, October 7, 2011)

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

--Therese Martin (Therese of Liseaux)

One of the most amazing things about my "stay-cation" in the first part of October was deciding--literally on a whim--to spend the night in one of the cabins at Thousand Hills Lake. Turned out I was there literally during the peak foliage week. I could not have planned it.

I'm beginning to be a believer more in the unplanned than in the planned.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I love it when the things I've planned turn out just right. There's a pleasure in that. But there's also an apprehension. All planned things have a dose of the "what if?" in them. In all planned things, we have to at least think ahead on them enough so that if something doesn't go perfectly, we have a fallback option. If, for some reason, imperfections occur, they can overshadow the good, and instead of seeing the good, and instead of a reasonably pleasant experience, we see failure. It really brings home that old saying, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Now, that's not to say I didn't plan this overnight foray at all. I made my list of what to bring on short notice, and decided I would accept the fact that, if I forgot something, well, I just forgot it, and I would live with the consequences. I would use my wits to have an acceptable alternative. I did forget to bring paper towels. But I solved the problem by inviting one of my friends to a dinner that I grilled on the fire, and the "price of admission" for her was a few paper towels.

Years ago, I used to plan my vacation weeks right down to where I'd stay on which nights, and have expected destinations and set itineraries for each day. For the last three years, my vacations have been, "I'll go there and see what I see, and do what strikes me." The only timetables have been tickets for planes and trains. I've discovered I like this better.

It's also not to say some things DO need precise planning. For instance, it would be foolhardy and potentially fatal to start across Death Valley--even in a car--without water, or to set out into the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota with no survival gear, no food, and no compass.

But what we discover when we let ourselves be just a little less planned and a little more vulnerable about it, is that we will undoubtedly see and experience things we did not expect. Whether those things are good or bad is not the point. It's being aware of the experience and being awake throughout it that matters.

This is true for our spiritual lives as well. I've thought about Sundays that I have attended worship in times of strife, or turmoil, or uncertainty with a preconceived notion of "what I need to get out of it" on that particular day. I almost never get it. Yet, even if I have the same kinds of stressors in my life on a different Sunday, and I go with the notion that I will go simply to see what shakes out that is of value to me, and see it and accept it for what it is, I almost always find I got more than I imagined I would from the experience. Sometimes, emotionally overwelmingly so.

That phenomenon is not just about worship. It's about every single thing I've offered of myself in service to God, and about most of the times I've actually felt the presence of God. God doesn't tell us, "I'll meet you at 10:35 by the food court and I'll have a red shirt on."

What I have come to understand is this: In my plans, I generally have one perfect outcome. When I give them up, and accept God's plans--plans that do not require either/or decisions or everyone in the story doing my will or following my desires--the possibility opens up for multiple perfect outcomes.

Changing the culture

2011-10-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

(Icon of St. James of Jerusalem courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(This post originally appeared on the Speaking to the Soul blog, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011)

Readings for the feast day of James of Jerusalem:
Psalm 1
Acts 15:12-22a
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Matthew 13:54-58

Acts 15:12-22a:

The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written, ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other peoples may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.’ Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.”

Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, (NRSV)

The topic in the reading from Acts is whether or not Gentile converts to Christianity should be circumcised. James' statement that we ought not to "trouble" them is quite an understatement, all things considered! But the story brings up those "seven little words" we too often hear in church communities--"But that's how we've always done it"--and its sibling, "We've never done it like that before."

Now, this mindset is not the sole province of churches. Twenty years of teaching medical students and having gone through "the training years" myself have taught me those seven little words are uttered a lot in medicine, too. I learned many things a certain way for no good reason other than "That's how the people who trained me learned it." Yet, if we look at this literally, we would still be having students draw intricate line drawings of cells with colored pencils in their Histology class, we'd have students procure their own teaching material for Gross Anatomy via the "Resurrection men" and late night trips to the cemetery, and interns would be on call every other night--a situation we now know is dangerous to patients.

I remember when the school I worked for first considered using prosected (already professionally dissected) material rather than have students dissect "their" cadaver from stem to stern. The hue and cry was palpable. People gave all sorts of reasons why this was something all medical students "must" do for themselves--but as I heard all the reasons, I wasn't hearing very much "them" I was hearing "I"--"I, an anatomy professor, won't get to work with them in a certain way." "I, a surgeon, had to do that, and even though I don't really believe working on a formalin fixed body is the same as a live one, this was a rite of passage for me." The actual educational basis for the change (the students could be learning something else essential to their learning to become physicians, rather than be doing "grunt" work in the anatomy lab for hours at a time every day) became overshadowed by all these "I's."

At some point in a church's life cycle, change occurs that creates anxiety in a parish. Sometimes it is internal to the local parish (a new priest, the death of a beloved parishioner, or financial trouble, for instance) and sometimes it is external (The consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop, and, prior to that, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and prior to that, the ordination of women.) The tendency is to take three steps back, and say some version of "the seven little words," and make the hurt about us. The problem is that anxious people in anxious parishes tend to react in a way to relieve their own anxiety, rather than act for the good of the parish. Times of change in the shared life of a parish are precisely the times we should be giving up control and allowing God's process to take control rather than reacting through individual control to relieve anxiety.

It is for this reason, I believe, that our BCP has many prayers specific for the life of the parish. It's obvious that "parish anxiety" has been with us in our Christian history since the first days of the early church, from this passage. I'm sure the decision that the Gentiles need not be circumcised was met with great anxiety among part of the church (and great relief among another part of the church!) We historically call St. James "James the Just," but it might, in this day and age, be more valuable to think of him as "James the Non-Anxious Presence."

How often in the day-to-day life of the parish--in vestry meetings, before worship, together as committee members--do you actually sit down and pray about your shared life in the parish, as opposed to reacting to it? How frequently do you use the tools already available to you in our beloved BCP?

Real Sabbath

2011-10-23T08:54:00.001-05:00

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And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day
The heavens and the earth were finished, the whole host of them
And on the seventh day G_d completed his work that he had done
and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done
And G_d blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it
because in it he had rested from all his work that G_d had created to do.

--From the Jewish Kiddush prayer for the eve of Shabbat

It started with my Facebook status yesterday:

(I) had one of those "2x4 to the head" realizations today. I realized I use Tuesday (my scheduled "day off") to do errands, and Sunday I am often doing "church stuff." On Saturdays, whenever possible, I don't like to do a frickin' thing. Oh, I'll go eat a meal and take a walk with someone, or help a friend, but the best Saturdays are like today--be with myself, read, do essentially nothing. Heh. I think they call that "Sabbath."

When I was a kid, I had totally no concept of why the adults in my world didn't want to "do stuff" on the weekend. I thought that business of lounging on porches and people coming over to the house and sitting and talking about nothing was really stupid.

Now, truthfully, this used to be more of a Sunday thing than a Saturday one. In Missouri, we had something called the Blue Laws that saw to it, when I was growing up. I always wondered why they were called the Blue Laws. I was told growing up it was because they were originally printed in New England on blue paper or in blue-backed bound books, but I've since learned that's not the case. They were called the Blue Laws because they simply made people feel blue, having laws on Sunday to restrict other activities so that people would be encouraged to attend church.

When I was growing up, it wasn't until I was a pre-teen that one could buy groceries or liquor on Sunday at all. Then it opened up to where one could only buy groceries, but no liquor or non-food items. (There is a hilarious story in my family where my mom bullied a teenage grocery store clerk on a Sunday over a box of um..."female products." Short version: She walked out of the store with them, saying, "I promise I will come back tomorrow and pay for them. If you want to call the cops on me, be my guest, son.") Nowadays, there are still vestiges of the old Blue Laws in Missouri. One can't buy liquor in Missouri until 9 a.m. on Sunday, and it's still illegal to buy, sell, or trade a car on Sunday.

But even this experience makes me part of a shrinking set of generations--the generations where we at least experienced doing little or nothing on an appointed day.

I look back and realize I was bored to tears as a kid, but now am actually glad I was bored as a kid, because now that I am middle aged, I realize at the top of my "to do" list in life is, make more time to do apparently nothing.

These days, more than ever before, "doing nothing" has become more anathema than ever. For starters, so many people are economically depressed to the point that they are working weekends to make ends meet. For working people, weekends seem to be the only days that things like errands and housework even have a chance of getting done.

But look at what we've been doing to ourselves in America since the old Blue Laws were lifted. Our consumption of goods has skyrocketed--there's the very real possibility that we are working to pay for stuff we think we "need," but...do we? We live in houses (and try to take care of them ourselves with no domestic help) that are of a size that 100 years ago, would have almost certainly required a maid, a cook, and a gardener. Our standard of "cleanliness" in our personal hygiene has moved from a world where there was the "Saturday night bath" and numerous days of washing with a rag in front of the sink, to at least one shower a day, so that the average American uses far more water per household than most places in the developed world. Our children are in more and more structured activities that demand more and more of our weekends. Although I found a wide variety of numbers on this topic, best I can tell, the average American monthly home mortgage payment runs between $1050 and $1300.

The easy availability of credit cards in this country have created a situation that few families can come out from under the looming shadow of debt. The average American has 2.7 credit cards and 80% of Americans have a debit card. Only about 30% of credit card holders pay their balance off every month. Here's the scariest stat of all: Americans with credit cards have an average credit card debt of $15,799.

Now, remember, that's at somethingteen to 20something percent interest.

In short, we don't give ourselves any room to back up and slow down.

In many of our churches, this is stewardship month. The problem is, talking about stewardship is hard. Our tendency is to look at everyone else, take their financial inventory, but not our own. I am betting right now, if I say how my sacrificial giving and my lifelong quest to have more time instead of money have created greater peace within myself, your first thought will be, "Well, yeah, you can afford it. You have no kids. You have a better paying job. You have, you have, you have, and I don't have that. I have this and this and this to pay for."

The truth is none of us know a blessed thing about what anyone else has to pay for in their life, and we are so self-absorbed about our own we can't hear it. If we react from the mindset of scarcity, that is all we see. Everyone else has abundance, and we have scarcity.

I can only say one thing--changing one's attitude from the mindset of scarcity to the mindset of abundance changes lives. It changed mine.

I jokingly refer to Saturday in my life as "sacred space Saturday." Now, I don't get that every Saturday, I admit. But I get a lot of them, and the most I end up doing on most of them is the Liturgy of the Laundry. When I look back on my life, every move I've made from age 39 onward is to create more time for myself. When I moved to Kirksville from Columbia, it was for slightly less money and more time. I have made other choices that were "time over money." Each time, it seemed very scary and counter-culture, but as it played out, it has created more happiness and contentment in me. Striving for more Sabbath time in my life opened up room for me to begin sacrificial giving of my money as a way of life. It opened up room for forgiveness of others. It changed what I viewed as a "necessity of life." It helped me understand better what giving to help "extreme poverty" really was.

It sounds corny, but it's true. It's brought me closer to God. I can't explain it any other way.

This notion, at first, sounds radical, dangerous, and foolhardy. It feels like we are not "living up to what's expected of us." It seems lazy and non-productive to say things like, "I am going to do nothing but read this book, or write in my blog." It requires breaking our codependent bonds to a society that drains us dry and kills our soul as thoroughly as an abusive parent or spouse. Frankly, I think the American way of life is the equivalent of an abusive parent or spouse. It creates impossible expectations that constantly change. The problem is, I don't think most of us are even brave enough to break those bonds until middle age, when we see life truly is a finite proposition, and that each of us has squandered that a bit. Sometimes I fear our present economy will do that for us, but then I wonder if that's not as bad a thing as it looks, in the long run, if we looked at it as an invitation to slow down and consume less.

All I can say is that giving yourself an opportunity to work towards Real Sabbath in your life is worth it. I can't tell you how to do it. That's your path in life, and I can't even begin to propose a road map. All I can say is that the more I do it, the happier I am.

A heartbreaking immortality

2011-10-21T05:00:00.001-05:00

"The largest thing I've learned is the enormous grip that this game has on people, the extent to which it really is very important. It goes way down deep. It really does bind together. It's a cliche and sounds sentimental, but I have now seen it from the inside."

--A. Bartlett Giamatti, former Commissioner of Baseball

Baseball is the closest thing I understand to "immortality."

It's also the vehicle by which I most connect to understanding the meaning of the word "faith."

I grew up a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan. Now, granted, I had no choice. My grandmother willed it. She was born in 1917. She was nine years old when they won their first World Series in 1926. She was in high school during the era of the Gas House Gang, and a junior in high school when they won in 1934. During the season, the Cards were always on--if not on TV, on the radio. I can remember sultry summer nights out in the yard with the game on, and falling asleep with the radio on in my bedroom during the "West Coast Swing"--when they were playing the Dodgers, Giants, and later the Padres--and the two hour time difference was just too much.

I learned no matter how bad things are, there will always be another game. Even when the season was over. There would be that day in late winter that opened it up all over again with the magic words, "Pitchers and catchers report."

It was as much a part of my heritage as my family tree. I grew up knowing all about Enos Slaughter's mad dash in the '46 Series, about Paul Dean pitching a no-hitter in the second game of a doubleheader which called his brother Dizzy to remark, "If I'd a known Paul was gonna pitch a no-hitter, I'd a pitched me one too." (Diz "only" pitched a shutout in the previous game.)

In my lifetime, I had just missed Musial in my own memory banks, but there was Gibson and Brock, Cepeda and Maris, Flood and Shannon. In later years there was Forsch and Ozzie, Tudor and Sutter, Jack Clark, Mark McGwire, Jose Oquendo.

Only the names changed; the drama did not.

There were those awful seasons, too. The early 70's, some pretty lean years in the 90's.

But for all the tension in my family, I knew I could always talk baseball with my grandmother, no matter what. One of the most wonderful days of my life was the day in 1992 when she and I traveled to Dyersburg, IA, to the actual "Field of Dreams." We actually played catch on the field, among other pilgrims there from all over the country.

But my life with my grandmother and baseball taught me more about faith than anything I ever learned in church. Faith that the rain would let up, faith that the the latest trade or change in the lineup would somehow work out, faith that you could go from a goat to a hero in the blink of an eye. Faith that there was always another game tomorrow. Faith that a day of rest or travel could change things. Faith that once in a while, you really could be on the top of the world.

If only our church could consistently send those messages of faith, think of where we might be!

One of the questions we are often asked in our theological reflections in my EfM class is "What is is like in the world of the (fill in the blank?)" The more I study the Bible, the more I ask myself that question. Baseball makes me ponder Heaven sometimes. In the world of my life with baseball, I see a world where the sun is shining or even in the darkness, there is light enough to do what needs to be done. I see a world where no one is counted out of the game even when it's the bottom of the 9th with two out. I see a world where the main objective is to find "home." I think the Bible also points us to a world like that.

In the movie Field of Dreams, the question "Is this Heaven?" posed, and the answer is, "No, this is Iowa." Granted, the native northeast Missourian in me could never quite stomach that, but I can certainly buy that baseball is, for some of us, a window to the Heavenly Feast of the Kingdom of God.