Lately, as I am getting down to the "teens" in my "Journey backwards through the Psalms," I got to thinking how in many of them, the psalmist references "seeing God's face" (usually, he's lamenting his inability to see God's face.)
I have a strange theory about that. I think I often see the face of God in human hands.
Hands have fascinated me since childhood. My family is full of men with tough, calloused "working man's hands" and women with "hands shaped by honest work." No French nail tips or manicures in that crowd. I can remember watching the hands of my family as they chopped and pounded round steak for dinner, or cut wood, or worked on the car, or scrubbed tough stains off of the laundry. I was always intrigued with how these rough, tough, no nonsense hands also could be capable of most delicate moments...diapering babies, comforting crying children, gentle touches to the back of my head in moments of love and pride.
So it is no surprise that I still often observe hands, and my memories of people are often of their hands, not their faces. I think about my old mentor M.J., how his gnarly, fingernail-bitten, osteoarthritic hands could still have such fine muscle control to drive a microscope slide "freehand" and move the slide mere microns while looking at a case under the scope. I think about my college mentor CJM, this hyperactive Scottie dog of a man, whose hands moved surprisingly slowly and gracefully when he talked, like delicate little birds. I think of my friend S., whose small, short-fingered hands move like lightening bolts when she cooks supper and seem to have a mind of their own. I look at my own hands now and then and realize as I age, I am getting "wise-looking hands" like my grandmother had at my age.
I was realizing recently during one of my acolyte stints that I probably occupy my mind 75% of the time I am up there in front by observing and pondering clergy hands. When I go down the aisle with the processional cross as our associate priest reads the Gospel, I stare transfixed at how her hands hold the book firmly yet gently. In the Eucharistic Prayer, I watch our priest's hands as he blesses the wafers and the wine, holds his hands outward at certain parts of the prayer, and gaze a lot at his "Sunday ring".
The story of his "Sunday ring" to me becomes part of the Eucharistic Prayer itself. Some years back, after a very tough time in his life in "the parish from Hell," he had a dream in which a circle figured prominently. A few days later, as he was out for a walk, he happened to look down in the storm sewer. There in the leaves and debris of the storm sewer was a white gold ring with a bluish green oval stone setting. He sort of took it as a sign of sorts, and has worn it in services every Sunday in the various parishes he has served subsequently. For him, it is a symbol of his obedience to God and his acknowledgement of the power God allows to be channeled through his hands. Knowing that story connects what is going on during the Eucharist in a "it's him/it's bigger than him" sort of way.
Pondering his "Sunday ring" has really made me think a lot about what clergy hands really mean on Sunday as they preside over the table and hand out the Sacrament.
I like to think about how for a brief moment, the hands of the person presiding over the altar are the “hands of God.” They symbolize the presence of God among us, just like how Jesus came to be among us. Week after week, God comes down to dwell among us and the human form of it is in the hands that preside over the Eucharist. When I say the Nicene Creed, I think about both of those sets of clergy hands in our parish, how in the service of the Church, they are just like Christ--fully human and fully divine in their power to bless the Sacrament and hold the Gospel.
I enjoy my job of helping with the ablution of those hands. It is my little tiny symbol of serving a living God. It reminds me of how the symbolic water of our baptism is connecting all of us in the parish in those few seconds, how our parish is connected to parishes all over the world, a never ending river of our Baptismal Covenant. It is a “that we all may be one” moment. That simple act I am doing in my regular acolyte stint helps all the mysteries of the Eucharist “happen” in a tiny way. Whoa!
And, as the infomercials say, "But wait...there's more!"
Then I sit and watch the hands that receive the Sacrament. Everyone sort of does it the same, but does it differently. I sit and wonder what blessing will happen to each of those sets of hands each week. I remember when I first started doing a regular acolyte stint. I was really concerned about all the "What do I do's" when I wasn't actually doing anything. "Look reverent" was the only thing I could think of. Of course, Wallace, in his quasi-Buddhist-totally-into-contemplation sort of way, looks at me quizzically, like he's a little puzzled that "contemplation" is not intuitive for me, and goes, "Well...uh...you know...meditate."
I go, "On what?"
"Well, on whatever you want."
"But I don't know what I want! Gimme a jump start, here."
"Ok...well then, pray about the needs of each person in the parish while I go down the line. If you know something in particular about that person's needs think about that, if you don't, just think in general terms. That's kind of what I do, since we're a small parish and I know most everyone."
I found that I could accomplish that if I concentrated on everyone's hands as they got the Sacrament. I could think about all those sets of hands going out and being "sent now into the world in peace," like in the Post-Communion prayer.
In all those moments, I realize I am given a glimpse of the face of God...and his face has ten fingers.
Some of you readers may already remember the "small world" link between me and Lauralew of Episcogranny. She attended Truman a couple years before me. Her roommate was my good friend of 30 years, JML. (Yes, another J. My life is full of the letter J, ok?) We missed crossing paths. Once I entered the blogosphere, and she found out I was from Kirksville, she started doing the "Do you know..." thing, and when I found out our mutual connection, you could have knocked me over.
So, with Lauralew being just 90 miles away over the holiday, she tripped on up to Kirksville this morning. First was church, and she seemed to enjoy my Trinity friends a lot. Then we met up with JML at La Fuente for lunch, and then a long leisurely 3 hour chat at JML's house. It was marvelous fun to share both the secular and the spiritual with two mutual friends, and my first meetup with a piece of my blogosphere.
I am usually hesitant about meeting new people. I rarely make good first impressions. People have a hard time getting a real good feel for me on initial meetings b/c I tend to hide the deeper parts of real me behind the "live wire at the party" veneer I often employ in casual social settings. But such was not the case. Since my blogfriends already know the "deeper parts of me" in some ways, there was nothing to hide, so I could be more of that part of me.
I had to laugh at church to myself at the funny similarities between Lauralew and me in worship. Granted, my voice is an octave lower, but she sings and responds in church with vigor. I dearly love Episcopalians who have vigor! She, like me, does most of the prayer book from heart. She sings like she cares. You can hear her voice ring out in the responses. In other words, she worships like she likes it. I marveled at our worship similarities. She nods at the "Jesus Christ" part of the creed like I do. She prefers kneeling to standing. We even like to cross ourselves at the same time (except she also likes to cross herself at "we look for the resurrection of the dead" and that is the one I never got in the habit of doing.) To have that many worship similarities between two people who never met and became friends in the ether of the intertubes is uncanny. Cue the Twilight Zone music!
Then our visit with JML was fun b/c I got a glimpse of the world of their mutual past. JML is one of my dearest, most loyal friends. We don't get to hang out together as much as we'd like b/c she still has a lot of work obligations and obligations with the last kid in the house. But that has been ok, b/c we have a friendship that will always be there. Some friends are like that.
But as I was driving home, I was thinking a prayer of thanksgiving for all you that are my blogfriends, and was thinking part of this is a testament to the "cyberparish of MadPriest." I have met most of you b/c you hang out on OCIBW. You are my "church friends" as much as my real-time church friends are. I thank God for you. You make my spirituality better, more real, more connected. And God bless us every one!
With Epiphany coming up, I’m going to admit my Epiphany heresy, that makes the fundies run screaming from the room saying I’m going to hell.
Here it is: I don’t think the star had squat to do with the Epiphany, except that it was the catalyst for the Magi to want to go look.
Here are the things that I know I know from a scientific perspective:
1. We know from a lot of secular texts and from Roman coinage of that era that the years 4-7 BC were full of all sorts of phenomena—conjunctions and novas and comets and all kinds of stuff. Any one of those things would be called a “star” in the vernacular of that time. We know that priests and holy men dabbled in astronomy. They were trying to understand the sky b/c they saw more things in the sky than most people do now. Any one of these phenomenon could have been attributed to “the star” and that’s fine. It doesn’t matter, really.
2. We know the Magi already planned to be looking in Bethlehem b/c of the prophecy in Micah. So I don’t have to worry about the fact that celestial bodies “move” as the night sky moves. You can’t really “follow a star” without wandering all over hell’s half acre. I think this is more metaphorical and more linked to archetypes and the symbolism of the Messiah being “light”. People didn’t right history, per se, like they do now, they probably wrote more like “historical hagiography.”
Here is what else I know in a spiritual sense: Non-coincidences are real. The business in Matthew of the star “stopping” does not bother me, b/c in my mind, probably they simply saw it over a dwelling and something in them said, “This is the place”. More than likely, something inside of them made them stop, and the "star" just happened to be in the neighborhood.
So, to me, the star is great schmaltz in Matthew’s account, but it does not really play a major part in the Epiphany, except that some celestial event is what poked the Magi’s interest. This, of course, would cause me to be burned at the stake in several churches in Kirksville.
But then two funny thoughts have always occurred to me....
1. How many other, um, “Not-so-wise men” went chasing after all these other phenomena and came up empty? And how many other magi did Herod send out b/c he was wound up about this, because this rash of celestial phenomena was creating unrest in the area, because of the prophesy in Micah? I kind of imagine Bethlehem being a pretty touristy place from 4-7 BC, what with everyone looking for the Messiah, and all the stuff going on in the sky those few years. It might have been the perfect cover for Jesus’ birth! “Oh, shit, another bunch of foreigners looking for the Messiah. Quick, sell ‘em some khazrei!”
2. The other one is straight out of “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.” How many “wrong houses” did they go to? Again, maybe a lot of people in Bethlehem having boy babies were getting unexpected gifts and prizes. Maybe the locals had quite a racket on this. They’d see some foreign dudes wandering around town with treasure chests, and send them over to their cousin’s house who just had a baby. Or say, “Oh, you want to go to XYZ, over here," and when they got there, conk them in the head and take their camels and stuff!
Of course, the problem is, nobody is going to write down their screwups for posterity. No self respecting magus is going to put to papyrus, “We followed a star and never found squat, and we got hit in the head and had our gold and camels stolen.” But one thing remains the same. No one is going to go back to Herod and admit they screwed up, either, so I am sure there were tons of “not-so-wise” men that were fugitives.
What a movie that would make: “I Was a Fugitive from Messianic-related Justice!”
But again, I am also convinced it is all about "outcome", not whether the account in Matthew is "real", "partially real," or "mostly myth." The fact remains, there was an Epiphany. It is the epiphany itself that matters, not the details of the story of it. That is far more comforting to me and my realizations about my own epiphanies, because the details of my own cannot possibly live up to Matthew's gold standard of "this is what epiphanies are like." Knowing mine can be just as real helps me to accept them better...and isn't that what epiphanies are all about?
One of the things that always gets my mind to wandering during Advent and Christmas is all the emphasis on "visitations, visions, and prophecy." As a liturgical "non-apocalyptic-don't-even-talk-to-me-about-the book of Revelation" Christian, I just simply have a hard time with all the angels, visitations, and prophecy stuff in the texts during this season. It's hard for me to make the jump between, "This stuff happens in the Bible and everyone goes, 'sure, ok,' and when people claim it to happen now, we think, 'what kind of kook are you, and do you need 96 hours observation?'"
I am absolutely convinced that if benzodiazapines and SSRI's were available in the Middle Ages, we would not have half the saints we have. What we now would think of as "pretty hefty mental illness," people of the day saw as touched by God...not touched in the head. It becomes pretty easy to say "this does not happen to me, this does not happen in a reasonable, rational world."
This also is complicated by the fact that the ancients saw the line between these things as much blurrier. I think they were less likely to question their dreams and visions, saw them as more "natural," and did not have to worry about the Jungian interpretation of their dreams. They simply took these phenomena to heart and acted/didn't act upon them.
Yet people are absolutely fascinated by paranormal phenomena (A&E channel makes a good living off of it, in fact), and literature ranging from religious magazines to the National Enquirer carry stories of angels and visions. We do this weird dance between "believe" and "don't believe", and we are far more likely to "believe" when it happens to someone else.
I am always thinking in things like Luke's story of the angel Gabriel in "Yeah, ok, whatever," terms. But what I am slowly coming to realize is that things as simple as human insight can be "visitations" in their own right. I have had very interesting dreams in the past. I have had moments that I could see things in my mind during prayer. But maybe I cheapen them by refusing to think of them as "visitations" in some form. I am too scientific. I can rattle on and on about dopamine and neurotransmitters and endorphins and explain away every one of them. Sure, I can accept the power of a Lakota vision quest. But I would be quick to say the endorphins and neurotransmitters are the "cause."
In my adult life, I have had only three dreams in which ever woke me up wondering if something happened even close to a visitation in a religious sense. In two of them, I was "chatting up God." The funny part is God looked like George Burns. (Yeah, I see you laughing.) In the other, I dreamed that I was "being snuggled in bed by an angel" in which I was not allowed to see the angel's face. It was not sexual, but it was comforting in a "non-sexual, sensual way." The odd part was I could only see the angel's distal forearm and hand, and I remember that body part appeared "trustworthy" to me, so I did not panic in the dream.
I can explain away all of them, and have...multiple times. I can very easily dismiss these as my facile, fertile mind being allowed to romp and play in the arms of Morpheus, where the usual stimuli of the day are absent. Neurotransmitters on holiday.
But here is where the gap between those Biblical visitations and my weird dreams closes a bit.
In all three instances, I did something different as a result of those dreams. I acted upon them. In all three instances, acting upon them brought an unexpected delight in my life.
I won't go into the details; let's just say they are mine and God's, as are the "what I did's" when I acted upon them. But all three dreams caused me to break a pattern, with rewarding results...and maybe THAT is the deal with all of this stuff.
Maybe the real story in Biblical dreams and visions is the backstory that the object of the visitation did something differently. Maybe the true test of this stuff is "Wha'dja do with it afterwards?"
This thought has deepened my notions about these phenomena a bit. I am starting to learn to care less about the hows and whys and the "how true is this" stuff and looking more at outcome.
The phenomena, whatever they are, are catalysts for change and metamorphosis, and if these are good changes, then who cares?
Ok, several of my blogfriends are playing this meme. Basically, it is "Take the first sentence from the first post of each month on your blog for 2008 and put them all together and see what they say."
Some of these have been pretty darn funny...so here's mine. If I started with a a Bible quote, I'm going to cheat and skip down to the first thing I said. It probably isn't fair to make all the characters in the Bible play!
Here goes!
I had to spend a little time telling you about my Jewish friend M.J.'s Bar Mitzvah. Well, now that I know what my Lenten game plan is (see my earlier post, "Lent's coming; look busy") it sounds odd but I am kind of looking forward to starting it. God is basically telling Israel that it is time to pack up and leave Babylon. This week's Gospel, for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, was "The Road to Emmaus" and the big thing I was thinking today in the middle of Wallace's sermon was, “Hmmmm....we all have our own ‘Road to Emmaus.’ Multiple times.”
I posted a story back in January about my friend M.J., who became Bar Mitzvah at age 77, and learning the Hebrew portion of his Torah, despite his dementia. I just discovered this week that my wireless internet router reaches out in the yard a little way from the house, so now I can combine two of my favorite activities...goofing around on the internet, and sitting in "my sacred circle" in the yard. Last Sunday's Gospel (Matthew 10:40-42) had Jesus explaining the true meaning of the word "welcome.".,.Over on Wounded Bird, Mimi posts the following:
Well, gang, I have embarked on a 40 day Ecunet cyber faith group experience called "Journey with Joan Chittister." Many of you have followed the almost year and a half saga of my cousin J. and his wife (also J.--we'll call her JM!) in their attempt to get custody of J.'s two children from a previous relationship. I am told by all my relatives that for a NE Missouri native, I have, um...unusual food tastes. Hola, mi novia Señorita Chompita Wiggletail!
Well, that was humorous enough, that I decided to take this one step further and also do "the first sentence from the LAST post of each month...and here's what I got....
Wallace's sermon today focused on Jesus' question, "What are you looking for?" It appears to me that God is speaking to Israel, reminding them that even in their downtrodden state they come from a godly heritage. MadPriest asked a very interesting and tough question on his blog today. Well, over on MadPriest's blog, he gave his loyal readers a chance to "write your own creed," the emphasis being to write a creed that you can believe 100% without any questions or reservations.
Sigh. Lately, my planet has been full of things that require choices and decisions and the choices/decisions on either side have not been great. Ok, I basically consider Tarot cards hokum but it is still kind of a fun quiz, just like when you go to the French Quarter you have to get your fortune read "just 'cuz". Letting people take up their own crosses is not really all that easy when you care about them.
Today’s readings focus on the value of silence. Finally! Something I can relax and lean back and chat about! Thought I'd share with you a fun picture I took last night. Some days, a person needs a "reminder of the value of mindfulness."
(I think this one came out even funnier!)
Addendum to the last post. K. & T. often ask me to do the blessing and I am terribly lame at "off the cuff impromptu prayer." So I looked at my previous post a bit and came up with a collect that I will use tonight....
O Lord, maker of the beginning of all things, grant us Your nourishment and prosperity during this New Year. Allow the healing broth of your Holy Spirit to soak into the dry parts of our souls and hydrate us with Your goodness, so that we become a source of nourishment to our “families by chance” and our “families by choice.” Help us to learn that the plainest and simplest parts of Your love can become a banquet under your watchful eye. Engender in us the wisdom to accept Your plans for our welfare and live in the knowledge that a future with You is one of hope. In the name of Jesus Christ, who fed the multitude with a meager handful of loaves and fishes, we pray. Amen.
"For surely you know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with a hope." Jeremiah 29:11
Rural northern Missouri is a strange mix of "North n' South". Families have "northern traditions" and "southern traditions" and it may not even matter, for the long time natives, which side your relatives fought in, as Granny Clampett used to say, "The war of Northern Aggression."
We have two New Year's day food traditions here. The "northern" one is eating cabbage on New Year's day, b/c it symbolizes the green leaves of money. The "southern" one is eating black eyed peas, because they roughly resemble coins, and because they swell up (get fat and prosper) when you cook them.
Despite the fact my great-great-grandfather, Henry Brammer, fought for the Union, that side of my family ALWAYS ate black eyed peas (usually in a dish called "Hoppin' John") on New Year's Day for a lucky new year. So as I type, I am cooking up a batch of the little boogers to take to friends K. and T. tonight. They are providing the cornbread. (Naturally, this HAS to be eaten with cornbread!)
Now, my friends know "I'm too freewheeling to use recipes." I like the thrill of no two dishes I ever make tasting exactly alike, and the little unique aspects of them reflecting my mood. So I will tell you how I cook "Hoppin' John", but remember, this is "not a recipe."
I make a mess of black eyed peas and rice by soaking the peas overnight, draining them, and throwing them in a pot with some rice. The peas to rice ratio is skewed to the peas for me. Sometimes I use white rice, sometimes brown rice, sometimes rice medley. But it has to be the long cooking rice. Add broth (either beef or chicken, doesn't matter) till it safely covers the mess and allows for the peas and rice to swell...like an inch over the solid stuff.
Boil the rice and peas together with a ham hock, or salt pork, or bacon, or whatever salty bit of treyf trips your trigger, along with an onion, some green or red bell peppers, and shake in a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika and rosemary till it suits your taste. When I make this for my solo consumption I throw in a sliced jalepeno pepper, too.
Bring it to a rolling boil and cook till the peas are soft. I like mine a little "al dente", not mooshy. Eat with cornbread.
But that is my version of Hoppin' John. My granny's rule on people who did not like black eyed peas was that they had to eat three peas, or else they would screw up the luck for everyone at the table. That was never an issue for me as a kid--I love the stuff--but I can remember a couple of cousins having issues with Hoppin John. If you really do it up right, you put a dime in the pot, and the person who gets the dime in their bowl is the luckiest of all!
So, I am sitting here this morning thinking to myself about our various superstitions about "lucky meals on New Year's Day." They don't have to be "just superstitions". I am thinking of each of those black eyed peas as a bowlful of little tiny prayers for prosperity--not just prosperity for ourselves, but for those in the world who cannot see prosperity because of economic recession, war, poverty, and personal tragedy. Just as these little peas were once dry and now are swelling up to tasty goodness in my cooking pot, may the Lord reach in all of us, hydrate our dry parts, and swell us up with the nourishment from his healing broth, safely incubated in his holy graniteware cooking pot!
