(Hear the story about Chance the Bull, and beyond, on NPR's "This American Life," before reading onward.)
Psalm 144:4:
They are like a breath; their days are like a passing shadow."
I normally am a regular listener to NPR's "This American Life" so I am not sure how I missed this one in 2005...but I did. Luckily, though, Lisa of My Manner of Life, told me of it recently.
Without doing a plot spoiler, the story was basically about a very, VERY tame Brahma bull named Chance, and his owner. The bull lived to be 19 years old, and, as you can see in the picture above, was perfectly happy doing a lot of things very few bulls of any sort would want to do. After Chance died, it turned out that his owner, thinking ahead of Champ's eventual demise, had saved tissue and cloned another bull. You heard me right--cloned.
The owner named the new calf Second Chance, hoping, of course that he would be in all respects, a second Chance. Turns out that genetically, yes, he was--temperament, uh, not so much.
The first thing that popped into my head was, although it is very soft and squooshy evidence, it made me wonder about the existence of souls--even in bulls.
Now, in all fairness, Chance and Second Chance were not raised the same in their formative months. We don't know how Chance was raised. His owner bought him at a livestock sale at age 7. But I'm sure Second Chance was raised in a loving environment. Nothing his owner did would have been construed as mean. But Second Chance was, although in many ways "exactly the same bull," in other ways he definitely was NOT the same bull. The story focused on the owner's reticence to give up thinking Second Chance could also learn to do the things Chance did.
But it makes me think of the possibility of the existence of souls. Something made Second Chance "not Chance." The owner discovered in some very painful ways that what he wanted (literally "another Chance") and this bull was NOT the sweet, loving, trustworthy Chance he had before. It makes me think about how each of us is truly as unique as a snowflake. Genetics, in this story, was taken out of the picture. Environment was still a wild card, but there were so many things that Second Chance did in mannerisms, etc. that made it clear to me that Second Chance seemed ready made to respond to the cues of his owner's love. Obviously, any atheist worth his or her salt would attribute it to this. I attribute some, but not all. I choose to believe it's a very soft window into whatever that stuff we call the soul is.
There's another good lesson in this story--a lesson about expectations. It's a reminder that our second chances are not to be lived in exactly the same way as the first. The owner in this story obviously wanted to literally live this experience with his bull over in exactly the same way. He had exactly the same expectations for Second Chance that he had with Chance. It's a mistake to do that, I think--live our do-overs exactly the same way, good OR bad. We miss out on new opportunities. It's why as much as I love my dogs, I never wish for them twice. I believe I am called to learn to love in a new way with each new dog in my life, and when they are gone, it is their uniqueness that holds me to their memories fondly. I don't think they would hold the same kind of power in my life to change how I love, if they were all the same dog over and over.
I think of all those things in my life which I sorely wish for do-overs, and they almost never involve career choices but relationships. It's a reminder that, should those windows ever open again, for me not to jump through with the same old attitude and the same old expectations of the other person. We can choose to explore new territory in our do-overs, and I do believe that God will show us how if we only stay awake to the possibility.
So the question is: Can we learn to love the breath of life in each person we meet? Can we live our second chances at broken relationships differently? Perhaps, but it appears part of it is to always be mindful that second chances are callings to newness, not sameness.
(Photo of the hatch to the crawl space under my house)
Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together
in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a
holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.
--Collect, Proper 8, Book of Common Prayer, P. 230
We encountered this Sunday in the church year about the same time I was reading William Countryman's take on "The two priesthoods in the church." What I found most interesting is how there's some confusion among all of us about the ordained priesthood and our fundamental priesthood.
I thought the hatch to the crawl space under my house was a perfect metaphor for our fundamental priesthood. It's very nondescript, you might miss it if you walked around the house too quickly, and it does take a little effort to get into the foundation of the house. When you get there, it might seem a little dark and scary. Yet we quietly trust it to support the weight of our entire house!
Our "fundamental priesthood" is rooted in something very simple--our desire to interact with God in an intimate way, and God's desire to interact with us in a similar fashion. But what we discover, when we actually start developing an awareness of that, a need for community grows from that. Our fundamental priesthood does not require religion, but the religious community is the setting in which this desire can be most recognizably expressed in community.
However, to hear these messages and follow them takes us into some dark and scary places. What is ultimately scary is not as much a function of our powerlessness as it is the discovery that the power we have is a shared one--that it is not a function of solely ourselves. It means really taking our Baptismal Covenant seriously.
This, I think, is where the ordained priesthood gets confused with this fundamental one.
Countryman, in his book "Living on the Border of the Holy," spends a lot of time illustrating what the ordained priesthood is not, and unfortunately, it encompasses a lot of what various laity ascribe to priests. Ordained priesthood is an act of being a live sacrament. Yet over the years we have ascribed functions to it such as parental, iconic, and that of the "better" or "more learned" Christian. We tend to want our priests to be walking religious wikis, business managers, and codependent servants. We expect them to behave in a certain way, look a certain way, or act a certain way, even if there's nothing wrong with how they are behaving, looking, or acting, "Because they're priests."
On the other hand, some of the ordained, I believe, also don't get this straight at times. Their separation as a sacramental person sometimes gets misinterpreted as classism or elitism, and they do things at times that treat the laity's fundamental priesthood scornfully. Sometimes I think some priests get confused that their sacramental priesthood means their fundamental priesthood must step aside, and they become so concerned about their identity being defined by their ordained priesthood, they become shadows of the wonderful fundamental priests they always were.
I find that last one particularly sad. It's the one I have most commonly encountered when I am at loggerheads with the ordained. I have thought many times about that in my parallel world of "doctor." A big portion of who I am is because I took an oath to be obedient to something bigger than me. Yet, I cringe when doctors do things like get their oil changed at the garage and insist on everyone in the garage knowing they are "Dr. So-and-so." I never do that--I just give them my name. You see, fundamentally that's who I am, and it's not necessary I put my white coat around their necks and pull. They will discover it when they discover it.
I think that's where it gets confusing for the ordained. In the Episcopal Church, although we are slowly getting away from using the "Father" and "Mother" titles, we do dress them up in shiny stuff on Sundays, and they do wear clericals in various public places as an outward sign of their obedience to the Church. I tend to be an astute observer of how different priests and deacons deal with that. I have met people who hide behind their clericals, chafe beneath them, and ones who have ripped their collar off and beaten me over the head with it, or snuck behind me and shoved it up my butt when I wasn't looking. I have met people who I can see their fundamental priesthood despite their clericals, and ones who wear them like a suit of armor. I have met people who are so comfortable in their clerical skin they glow--scars and all.
Mostly, I've come to realize there's a dynamic tension between the ordained priesthood and the fundamental one, and that's mostly okay. But the health in it is realizing the humanity in all of it. I think the ordained have to accept healthy laity are ok with the ordained's human flaws. I think the laity have to accept that the ordained have an extra struggle living in the skin of their own fundamental priesthood while wearing the outward signs of the ordained one. Otherwise, needy clergy becomed threatened by laity who literally wear their fundamental priesthood like a shiny white alb, and needy laity look to the clergy to do what they can't--or won't--do.
It all starts, however, with all of us in the community being in tune with our fundamental priesthood.
(Photo of yoked oxen courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30:
Jesus said to the crowd, "To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
- `We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
- we wailed, and you did not mourn.'
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon'; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."
At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
I've always wondered why oxen are yoked and horses are harnessed. A little research found my answer.
The force of horses pulling their load is in the hindquarters. The force of cattle pulling is in their neck and shoulders. Cattle put their heads down to pull; horses more or less squat, with heads up, to pull heavy loads. Another important concept is that the most common yoke used in the area in Biblical times was the neck yoke. This works much better for cattle than horses, because horses don't have the same kind of withers cattle do. Although all yokes, under too heavy a load or ill fitted, can push against the windpipe and cut off breathing, the hump on cattle make this less likely than with horses.
The modern horse collar had not been invented yet; harnesses of the time still had the problem of choking the horse, as they were designed with a belly girth and a neck strap. More so for horses, less so for cattle, working improperly or inefficiently "cut their air off."
But let's think a little about what yokes meant to people of the time. It was a symbol of slavery, bondage, and subservience. Human slaves were often yoked together to pull heavy things. (Think about slaves helping build the pyramids.)
Most of them would have been familiar with the concept that you trained a young ox by yoking it to an older one. The older one would not let the younger one work stupidly under the yoke so that it would be choked.
Where is this shaggy dog story going theologically, you might wonder?????
Traditional theological positions with the yoke and in the Bible are of the yoke as a symbol of bondage, slavery, and subservience.
But I think once again, Jesus is turning everything upside down. It's as much as what Jesus DOESN'T say as what he does say.
He doesn't say, "Scoot over, I'm going to take your yoke out from under you and lighten YOUR burden that you chose to carry." We are shown earlier in the passage that some of the human burdens include our ability to judge, and being ungrateful.
The people of the time would have seen the yoke as a symbol of slavery and oppression.
But look what Jesus says. He says for us to take HIS yoke. He says, "Take on my interconnectivity with the Divine. Cast off this burden of being judgmental, and ungrateful, and resentful. In exchange, you will find a lighter burden. You won't be burden-less, but you will find easier burdens."
Look what else he says, "Learn from me." Just like how the older ox will teach the younger ox. Yeah, the younger ox does get his wind cut off some, in this training process--but not fatally.
"Learn from me by being intimately connected to me--so close you can feel me move and hear me breathe. But in exchange, I (Jesus) will hear you breathe and feel you move, too, and I'll do stuff to get you to come around. Count on it."
How many times do we choose the burden of taking the judgment of God upon ourselves, and get to carry the additional burden of ingratitude and resentfulness as a result?
How many times do we back away from this offer of a lighter burden of The Yoke of Jesus, because we will have to give up our rugged individualism and give up control, the tradeoff being intimacy with the Divine and interconnectedness to each other????
The theological richness of this just staggers me.
O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our sister Kirstin. We thank you for giving her to us, her family and friends, to know and to love as a companion on our earthly pilgrimage. In your boundless compassion, console us who mourn. Give us faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence we may continue our course on earth, until, by your call, we are reunited with those who have gone before; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
--Book of Common Prayer, p. 493
Our blogfriend Kirstin left this earth at approximately 8 p.m. Pacific time (10 p.m. here in Missouri.)
Most of you who are regular readers to my blog know that Kirstin valiantly got in the face of metastatic malignant melanoma for as long as she could, before finally succumbing to the disease. She exited this life in the care of Hospice and attended by her roommate Andee, who participated in so many aspects of her care towards the end, including acting as midwife for Kirstin's rebirth into the company of Heaven. She was also attended by her own "company of Heaven on earth"--literally hundreds of people she knew through her blog and on Facebook--dubbed "the flashmob of grace." It is truly a testimony to the power of social networking on the Internet.
It's odd--the pain many of my friends have been experiencing on Facebook and in the blogosphere has been palpable. I've certainly had mine too, but there's a different quality to mine. Not "better" or "worse"--just different. I guess I'd best describe it as a veteran of "I know too well how this story ends."
Once again, my clinical nose detected a prelude to this. When Kirstin made the decision to cease chemotherapy, and made her announcement, her thanks, and yes, her "early goodbyes,"--I sensed this would happen much faster than what folks were cogitating as to the time frame. I have seen this one so many times. Once people semi-officially say their goodbyes, they simply take their leave from this world much more quickly than people expect. It's normal--very normal--for them to do that, and it's just as very normal for those around them to expect their loved one to be there tomorrow, just as they are today.
It's such an odd dance. We know they will be leaving soon...but not too soon, we all wish. The dying person, though, has already set his or her face towards Jerusalem. So, almost, without warning, the bottom drops out, and they fade quickly. They choose to accept more morphine at the trade-off of their cognition. Before you know it, everyone is in the death watch.
I've sat many times at the side of beds where the breathing has changed, first to a more shallow state, then to a more agonal, gasping one, with long pregnant pauses, and one knows death is imminent. I've watched the chests of those people, straining to get a look to see if they're retracting their chest muscles just a little too sharply and a little too upward--a sure sign they need their next dose of morphine. I always wince just a little bit for them. When I have actually administered the dose, I felt relief, too.
I've always been surprised at how few medical students, interns, and residents have actually sat with the dying for any length of time other than little quick checks and popping their heads in. Granted, they are busier in their clinical life than ever before. But I think it should be mandatory to have to sit there for a spell. This sounds strange, but I believe they miss out on something holy if they don't.
I've heard many of my Facebook friends damning cancer these last few weeks.
Oddly, I have not.
Cancer and I have a strange relationship. She makes me a pretty decent living, unfortunately. Somehow, it seems hypocritical for me to damn her. The pathologist in me, that eternal fatalist, knows none of us gets out of this life alive. I can't see the point in damning one way out vs. another. Almost every working day of my life I sign at least one pathology report that slaps a new cancer diagnosis on someone, or a recurrence. Cancer and I glare across the table at each other, like two family members who wish they were related to someone else but there's no mistaking we are related.
Cancer. She's a bitter, cruel, jealous, hardhearted wench--but I have to admit I have a respect for her. I respect her immortality in the glaring light of my mortality. We talk about how cancer cells are "immortal" in cell culture--they can be passed in culture far, far more times than viable, normal cells can--they ignore all the biological things that tell cells to age and die. They only die in human beings when their human host dies, or they are excised surgically. Even then, they cling to their own life with a desperation far beyond our mortal powers. All it takes is for one to escape and find a new home in their host, which is why we poison people with chemotherapy, and sicken them with ionizing radiation. They are the ultimate parasite, with a will to live beyond ours. I can't help but respect a will to live like that.
But I'll tell you one thing she does, that dropping dead of a heart attack, that dwindling to death from congestive heart failure's cruel "let's see how it goes today," way, that being untimely yanked out of this world by a fatal car wreck doesn't do--she gives people the opportunity for a type of closure that can truly be sacred. She gives her hosts the freedom to make choices, like when to stop treatment, when to crank up the morphine. At least in those terms, she's a genteel lady. She's an oh-so-bitterly cruel mistress in other ways, but when people have gotten to stage their exits with her, there's actually a kindness in the way they go.
So, no, I can't bring myself to damn cancer. I can only bring myself to grieve for a broken world and that things like her have the power to take those I love from me, at least in this life and in this plane of existence.
What cancer, does do, though, is remind me to live for today. She reminds me my ability to control only goes so far, and my wants and needs are not always what happens in life.
One of the things I have often told the dying is, "It's okay to go. I'll be sad--so sad for you to go, but I'll be okay. You run along now," and when it's applicable in their faith tradition, "You run along to Jesus."
I told Kirstin a couple of weeks before her death, "Stay as long as you can with us. But when you feel it's time for you to go, we will wait beside you and be faithful."
Kirstin held onto life with a passion. It only stood to reason. She was a passionate life personified. She might have been taken from this earth at roughly half the normal human lifespan, but she lived three full lifetimes, I believe, in those 40 years. I grieve her loss, but I don't grieve a single thing "undone" in her life. Obviously, there were many things undone in her life at the time she died. But there was so much "done," the "undone" becomes inconsequential.
I have thought so much about Andee during this time. I've thought about how, for so many months, she has done so much for Kirstin, and how much her own life has revolved around Kirstin's needs, her doctor appointments, and, as time went on, "Kirstin's condition." Suddenly, Andee's life is her own again. I suspect that "choosing for herself" will seem strange and bewildering. I think about the times I was a caregiver, and suddenly, that person was no longer there to care for. I remember my own emptiness when that hole so shockingly emerged. I suspect Andee will feel something similar to that for some time. My prayers go out to her as she navigates that void.
The strangest things seem "right" when one sits with the dying. For me, it's an old Bob Wills tune. It has popped in my head many times before in this situation.
I sat by my chiminea a lot, these last few days, as her tumors started robbing her of her strength and her mortal self, and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, when that tune popped up again. But it just felt right, in that dance we'd been doing with her:
Stay all night, stay a little longer,
Dance all night, dance a little longer,
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner,
Don't see why you can't stay a little longer.
We, the living, are the ones who never quite get the dance steps right. We pretend at times, the person is not dying. We think the dying will be at a slower tempo. We, God help us, at times, even "wish that dying thing would be over with." We get in a rush for the process to speed up, in order to ease OUR pain. But when the dying begins in earnest, we scream, "NO! Not now. Not yet."
The one dying of cancer? They, more often than not, leave us right on cue.
Kirstin, may you rest in peace, and rise in glory.
(Sunset at Brancoli's crux, 2007, Lucio Torre, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Insight
"Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord..."
that one night
I might sleep
the whole time through.
I came to your sanctuary
seeking solace from the Beloved
and instead received
more pain from your ordained.
I wandered the storms of the
desert trying to reclaim that
which was lost in the presence
of your ministers.
I looked for answers outside
the Faith, but nothing outside
would suffice.
I knew the answer must come from
inside the life of Jesus Christ.
So I returned to bow once more
to the knowing love of Jesus Christ
who is my Lord.
No matter how I needed the Church
to make it right.
I now know it was beyond its insight.
With prayers and words the healing
finally came, not from your ordained
but from the love of family, friends, and
Jesus Christ. Amen.
--The Reverend Canon Margo E. Maris, "Women's Uncommon Prayers," p. 76.
It's been almost two years since I attended a diocesan workshop on clergy sexual exploitation, and there is still a piece of the video that haunts me.
It hadn't haunted me for a while, but it flared up again when I recently attended the "official diocesan training" on the revisions of Title IV in our canons, effective today, July 1.
In the video the national Church made for the workshop on clergy sexual exploitation, my recollection is that all of the victims that were interviewed in the video they showed us, had left the Episcopal church.
The workshop did a wonderful job in explaining the categories of abuse and exploitation, it was professionally and tastefully done, and I learned a lot. But there was only one problem with it.
It never said doodly-squat about all the people who stay, and try to remain a functioning parish. It never really explained the "net" that this stuff casts over a parish. It talked about the denial a little, but mostly denial as it related to parish attitudes about the primary victim. It really didn't talk about the undercurrents of denial as it relates to the secondary victims--the people who "knew," and maybe even were pawns or henchmen in it all, but couldn't really talk to one another. It didn't talk about the folks who were totally broadsided by the situation, and have trouble with the "saint/sinner" paradox years later, who, for whatever reason, still don't "get it." It didn't talk about the tendency for all the secondary victims to blame each other. It didn't talk about the task of the clergy who inherit such a mess.
It was a good workshop, but there was a lot it didn't say.
One of the things the "new" Title IV does is create a "pastoral response team" to these situations, and allows for conciliation and mediation. Here's word for word what Title IV, Canon 8 says about the "pastoral response" part of it:
CANON 8: Of Pastoral Response
Sec. 1. The Bishop Diocesan shall provide for appropriate pastoral response whenever any report is made to the Intake Officer. Such pastoral response shall embody respect, care, and concern for affected persons and Communities. The response shall be designed so as to promote healing, repentance, forgiveness, restitution, justice, amendment of life and reconciliation among all involved or affected.
Sec. 2. In each pastoral response the Bishop Diocesan shall consider offering pastoral care to all those affected by the Offense or allegations thereof. Pastoral care shall be considered for the Complainant, the Complainant's family, the Respondent, the Respondent's family, Injured Persons, Injured Persons' families, any affected Community, witnesses, and the Disciplinary Board.
Sec. 3. In every case, and notwithstanding any other provision of this Title to the contrary, the Bishop Diocesan may disclose such information concerning any Offense or allegations thereof or concerning any Accord or Order as the Bishop Diocesan deems pastorally appropriate.
Sec. 4. The Bishop Diocesan shall give consideration to the respective privacy interests and pastoral needs of all affected persons.
Sec. 5. The Bishop Diocesan may designate a person to be responsible for the implementation of the pastoral response. Such person may be the Intake Officer. The duties of such person may include coordination of pastoral care and coordination of communications between the Bishop Diocesan and Advisors.
Now, I think this all looks reasonable on paper, but it will be interesting to see how dioceses implement this.
I look at these words, and what I have come to realize about the institutional Church is that, much like medical words, the "insiders" have one meaning for certain words and phrases, and the "outsiders" might not assume the same meanings.
I wonder what this "pastoral response" is. Are there going to be lay people as part of this pastoral response team? Or is it just going to be designated collared folk providing this pastoral care? Are the counseling and therapy records for the victims going to be a "no tickee, no shirtee" trade-off in that if victims agree to get therapy on the diocesan nickel, the Bishop's office has access to the records? Will there be transparency and training for incoming clergy who inherit such situations after the interim? Will there be education for lay leaders on how they are to live inside the sticky residue these things cause?
I really don't know, but I suspect these things will be different from diocese to diocese. I'm also no fool in realizing TEC isn't made of money. I know "past performance doesn't always predict future earnings," but my suspicion is, whatever it is, it will be strapped for money in diocesan budgets, and none of this looks cheap if one is planning on doing it right.
Again, there are many things here the canons don't say. They also don't speak to things that might flare up years or decades later, as a result of it. We are talking about a situation that from the get-go, trust has been eroded or exploded--and sadly, that probably includes trust in the institutional church to be a source of healing and reconciliation.
I fear that Canon Margo's words are prophetic. People will be, at the very least, expecting, at the most, begging--for the Church to make it right. The problem, of course, is that people vowed to protect the church and care for the flock did it--so in that sense, it's implausable that "the church" can ever really make it whole. Yet, in all fairness to the church, so much of this is outside of the institutional Church's insight.
The temptation for people involved--even in the second or third tier of such situations--is to leave--and I believe the temptation to leave, among those wounded at even the 2nd or 3rd tier in these situations also will be around for years to decades, and will be masked by other more acute situations in parishes as time goes on. Sometimes, I wonder, when someone leaves because of a nit-picky liturgical reason, or a "don't like the priest," reason, or a snit with the vestry/Altar guild/committee chair reason, "What's really behind that?" But people will leave, new people will (hopefully) come, and it's just the way those things go.
I believe what she says is true--the healing mostly won't come from the church. It only comes from the life of Jesus Christ. It will only come by people being brave enough to worship together, even when it is uneasy and un-reconciled. It will only come from living in the moment for a long, long time. Sadly, I'm afraid less of it will come from the ordained than the ordained would like to believe, and I say that even knowing some truly top-notch ordained folk.
I have read Title IV many times over since attending the training on it, and I do believe it is progress compared to the old Title IV. It's definitely progress, but not perfection. I also believe healing is healing. I'm sad that my gut feeling is most of the healing won't come from the institutional church, nor, from those vowed to care for her, yet at the same time I have faith that the healing can come from worship, in that the members of a community rocked by such things can choose to worship in the center of the tension. Wounded people can choose to embed themselves in the life of the parish rather than run from it. I know it seems one person can't do much in this, especially when the one person was affected by it. But a bucket of water is composed of many, many drops. One can choose to be in the bucket, and to be part of the whole...and isn't that what faith is all about?
(Photo of gait belt from Amazon.com)
John 21:15-19:
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."
June 29 was the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles. Now, never mind both St. Peter and St. Paul get their own days; for some reason we also do them together. I had mentioned on Facebook that it does seem a little odd to put them together since Peter and Paul really didn't like each other that much...nor had much in common. Uneducated, rough fisherman vs. cosmopolitan member of the Jewish community.
There is also something about the Gospel reading on this day that creates a modern, totally unintended image for me, and it's one that over the last couple of years, anyone who's around patients has a tendency to think it. That business of Jesus telling Peter that someone else will fasten a belt around him and take him where he doesn't wish to go, conjures up images of "a gait belt."
Nurses and caregivers are particularly familiar with them. You put the gait belt around the person you wish to transfer. The really nice ones have handles, or a harness to distribute the weight better on the person doing the transferring. They are useful for lifting people up out of a wheelchair, to transfer from bed to wheelchair, etc. The patient helps with his or her legs in the transfer but doesn't have to support his or her whole weight.
Most of the time, the person being hauled around with the gait belt wants to go where they are being taken, but the more elderly, sick, or dementia ridden a person gets...not so much. I have always felt a bit bad in those situations when I have helped transfer an "unwilling transferee."
I thought many times yesterday about the places I've been, emotionally and mentally and spiritually, I've been these last few years. Many of them are places I would not willingly have gone, but in some ways, I, too, have felt "pulled out of my chair" with a celestial gait belt. Some of them are places I would have gone but my "legs" were not strong enough to support me. I was embarrassed to have needed assistance. I wanted to go there, but not so fast, not so rough, and not to have been unceremoniously dumped there and left.
But what I've come to discover is when assistance comes, it comes when it comes, we don't always choose the person by which it comes, and they have their lives too. They can't always stay.
When I moved to Kirksville in 2000, I had this mental picture who I'd be, how I'd spend my days, who my friends would be.
It's nothing even close to my life in 2011.
In 2000, I would not have wanted or liked this life.
Yet, even in a fair bit of change and turmoil, I feel pretty okay with it. Oh, don't get me wrong, I really dislike some days. I really dislike some situations. I mourn some of the changes. I miss people I didn't ever think I'd miss, and I don't miss some people I could not imagine in my day to day.
I am not where I thought I would be financially, and I'm not living the way I thought I would live. Yet I am content beyond my wildest imagination. I would not, however, have been so content had I not had that celestial gait belt slapped on me and dragged a few places.
On Pentecost Sunday, I had the treat of being not just at Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis to worship, but I had the fun of waving one of the big 20 foot long streamers on a pole in the processional and recessional, thanks to one of my friends in the diocese who CCC is her home parish. I also got to listen to the Rev. Dahn Gandell's homily as guest preacher that day.
Now there's a person who probably went a few places she didn't plan on going herself. She grew up Baptist. In a previous life, she did standup comedy. She's a self-proclaimed southerner living in Rochester, NY. Yet somehow, the twists and turns of her life led her to the Episcopal priesthood.
I wrote down some of the more pithy parts of her message:
"Change is inevitable, but growth is optional."
"Transformation not shared is transformation wasted."
"Be now here, or be nowhere."
"It is our scars that tell our stories."
"There are always moments when you can be inviting."
"The question is not, "How does God use sinners," but, "What choice does God have BUT to use sinners?""
But my favorite was, "It is not our deepest fear that we are inadequate, but it is our deepest fear that we have power beyond measure."
That last statement has a lot of carry over to yesterday's reading, as well. Think about this one. Jesus just told Peter, "You are gonna go some places you do NOT want to go...just like I am, too." Then he basically says, "Follow me to those places, anyway."
Those places we don't want to go, when we sit around and fear them, it's not that we can't endure them. It's that we CAN endure them, and there is a reasonable chance we will be transformed by them. We sense that this transformation is beyond us, even despite us or despite our best efforts to resist it.
In that sense, because it's not OUR power, it's a power that is truly beyond measure. What's weird is, if we had sat back and enjoyed the ride, we would not totally "get" its power and our powerlessness.
Could it be that "suffering" is not a personal insult, but an opportunity--and when it's all said and done, if we are led through the pain into new joys, new realities, our painful times simply become threads in a larger story?
So in that sense, yes, Peter and Paul get a feast day together--contrasting threads in a larger tapestry of all the saints and angels and the company of Heaven...and there's a thread in there for us, too.
(Icon and photo by Luiz Coelho; click on the photo to enlarge)
Antiphon
Christ is the icon of the invisible God; all things were created through him and for him.
Priest
The Word became flesh:
People
And dwelt among us.
Priest
Let us pray. (Silence)
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior manifested your glory in his flesh, and sanctified the outward and visible to be a means to perceive realities unseen: Accept, we pray, this representation of Mary and Jesus; and grant that as we look upon it, our hearts may be drawn to things which can be seen only by the eye of faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord(+).
People
Amen.
Here the priest may sprinkle holy water on the holy icon. The priest may then say the collect most appropriate to the icon being blessed.
--Blessing for Pictures and Statues, Book of Occasional Services, p. 207
Ok, I have to show off the newest addition to my "prayer corner."
(Well, when I actually have a prayer corner again. The house project has sort of crowded that corner out, but it's okay, since we are well into my "sitting by the chiminea" season. I probably won't need my prayer corner that much until late fall.)
Many of you know I have a huge fascination for the ancient traditions of Christian faith, and melding the ancient and the modern. The use of icons certainly is one of the older ones. People not from a liturgical tradition don't really "get" icons (or statues) as tools for personal devotion and worship. Notice I said "for," not "of." Well that's the first thing most evangelical Protestant folk don't get.
Now, I'll admit, on a superficial level, I understand where their confusion is. When one sees someone using a relic for personal devotion, at first glance, it may appear that the person using the icon or statue is "worshiping it." I understand why this would evoke unease, because, after all, we're told worshiping graven images is a bad thing. One has to get behind the superficial appearance to understand what is actually happening.
So let's talk a little about icons.
First of all, before we get to icons, we have to talk about "the sacred image."
Our first and foremost problem with understanding God is summed up in John 1:18--No one really knows "what God physically looks like." No living person in all of history has ever really seen God. The closest we get is Moses, who gets a passing glimpse of God's butt.
In some ways, we know God more by what God is not, than by what God is--and we often use sentiment or emotion or metaphor when we do. Yet, I believe, our minds work to needing a human form to understand this relationship. Why else would we talk about things like the hand of God, or wanting to touch the face of God?
In short, our brains carry a reflection of a figure we attribute to God, but there is not a lot with which to hook it. That image is the root of the sacred image of God. Very real things that make up an image that is not a physical body. Since the Genesis story says that humanity is created in God's image, our human bodies carry a reflection of this image.
The purpose of an icon is not to worship the picture of the subject of the icon, but to worship the sacred image of God we see through the icon (like a window) rather than to the subject of the icon as an object of worship. In a way, because the person in the icon has attributes of the sacred image, it gives us a physical "stand-in" for that unseen sacred image.
The history of iconography goes back to St. Luke, who actually did see Jesus and Mary (the two most common subjects of icons) in physical form. The tradition is that icons have certain characteristics and physical appearance, and this has been carried down all this time. So an icon written in, say, 1100, has many characteristics exactly as one written in 2011. Churches who use icons have rubrics for how they are to be written, right down to the materials used.
Obviously, different human artists have different variations in style, but the underlying principle is that an icon is simply not an artistic rendering, but a witness to the truth of Scripture, more like a "scribal copy," rather than a painting. This is why we say icons are "written," not "painted." Probably the Byzantine style of iconography is the one most studied, used, and the one which people are most familar. Different segments of the Eastern and Roman churches have slightly different rules.
For iconographers, the act of writing an icon is an act of prayer itself. There are prayers for beginning and finishing icons. Silence is kept in the process. Iconographers are taught to see the joy in the process, to pray during the process, and to let the subject of the icon reveal truths to them.
Several months ago, I got to reading about the history and theology behind icons. What began to strike me is that many of the icons show a city, rendered more or less at the time the original icon was written, in the backdrop of the subject of the icon. I got to thinking about the time-bending aspect of that. Take, for instance, an icon with the city of Constantinople in it. We see Constantinople frozen in time, in our modern time. I liked the idea of me being hooked to an ancient space in modern time through the image of God, reflected in Jesus, Mary, or a saint of the early Church.
What I came to realize is I wanted an icon with features of Kirksville in it. Many of you realize much of the deepest parts of my spirituality comes from hooking with things that many people would find very mundane, and very local. I desired this "holy window" that connects me to my surroundings and simultaneously, to the Kingdom of God. I wanted to see what that window might look like.
Enter Luiz Coelho.
Luiz has been a blogging and Facebook friend of mine for some time, and is a wonderful iconographer because he can write icons both in rock stock solid ancient tradition and create some wonderful modern renditions, as well. I have long admired how he can take the ancient and the modern, and make it all "fit." I sensed he was the person who could do this best.
So as we talked, I suggested he look around a lot on my Facebook photos. Luiz has never been to Kirksville. He lives in Brazil. He's been to the States, but not in my part of the world. Seeing my world through his eyes has been a fascinating experience in itself. He knew how much I love the night sky, sitting out by my chiminea. He knew how much I love the green fields and pastures and farm critters. He knew how much I love my parish.
As it turned out, he's created a wonderful mixture of ancient and modern in his work. If you click on the larger version of this, you will see power lines, pastures, cattle, and sheep. At Mary's feet is Trinity-Kirksville. Most wonderful of all is the tiny image of The Blessed Red Truck traveling US 63, towards Mary, towards Jesus--me on a journey. I love how the Blessed Red Truck is, in a way, "the sacred image of me." It's how Luiz sees my world, how I see my world, and how I desire to see God's world in symbolic form.
Sure, I paid money for this. But what Luiz has rendered--what he has written as a view of the sacred image of God--has a worth far beyond money. When I had it blessed, my priest blessed both it and me--that I would be able to have a deeper relationship with God through the use of this icon.
Thank you, Luiz. I look forward to seeing what is beyond this window!
