Kirkepiscatoid

(A view from my hammock, Oct. 5, 2011)

Psalm 139:1-12: 

Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
 
In just the few days between now and when I took this picture, most of the leaves on this tree have fallen. My back yard is mostly full of ash and maple trees, and in the leafy season they make a nice canopy of shade for lounging around in my hammock.  But come fall, as the picture shows, the canopy starts to "open up" and more of the sky starts showing through, and at certain times of the day now, the light is getting in my eyes and annoying me a bit.  I become wistful over the waning fall and the impending winter, and the distinct lack of time I will want to lie around in my hammock in the yard.  Before long, I'll be bringing it in the garage for the winter.


In a way, it reminds me of the psalm.  Now, it's clear God knows all about us--but I don't think we think about that much.  Given the fact so much of our ability to perceive our relationship with God seems, at best, a little indirect, and at most, non-existent at times, it's a lot like that canopy of leaves.  We can lie back, stare at the heavens, and feel a little shaded from it all.  We may full well be enjoying the full protection of the "shade," but we also get to carry with us the delusion that we are somehow obscured from God.  We like to be deluded with our notions of self, and that God neither sees nor really cares what we are up to.  Not that most of the time, we're up to anything "bad."  More like "we just want to pretend we are in control of it all."


Probably the most consistent thing that "hooks" me in the Bible are the dark/light images.  From Genesis on, we see there is allegory in dark and light in terms of humans and the world.  But we tend to forget with God, there's no distinction.


So as I was lying in my hammock, I was contemplating the "holes" in the picture above me, where I was seeing more sky peek in at me than usual.  At a certain point in the afternoon, the sun streamed right in and it was--well, frankly--annoying.


People of faith don't always like to admit this, but sometimes God's annoying, too.


It's a real catch 22.  Sometimes, we stretch, we reach, we ache, we yearn to see a glimpse of the intimacy of our union with God.  Sometimes, we have that nice little open patch of sky--those little "gee whiz" moments where it feels really good, and we feel just close enough to God we can sit comfortably in in.


But then there's the time the light streams in so brightly, we squint and find ourselves annoyed...truly irritated, in fact.  Now, I'm not talking about the times when we are anxious and that light is fearful.  That's a different blog post for another time.  But the light makes us squint.  We shield our eyes.  Worst of all, it makes us feel overheated.


I think though, that's part of the deal...often times that overheated feeling is, because a tiny part of us really wanted to change something or do something that we have an inkling we'd like to do differently in our service to God, or make a change in our lives, but we would rather have inched into it.  Instead the sky opens and there it is.


But what my canopy of fall leaves over my head reminds me is that something usually has to die for the new open spot to be revealed.


Fall always fills me with a longing.  I enjoy parts of the beauty of it immensely, but what I do not like about fall is the feeling of impending death and dormancy in the air, followed by cold and wet and gray.  But by the same token, I think it is what causes me to see the beauty in the beautiful days of fall.  The annoyance of the sun, I think, reminds me of how these things are not done on my time, that control is an illusion.


For now, though, I'll enjoy my ever opening piece of sky over my head--and put up with the glare.

(Photo, "Coming out of the Closet" by the Kurt Löwenstein Educational Center International Team, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The Gifts of God for the People of God.
--p. 364, Book of Common Prayer


I have been honored to be the "test drive" for many, many coming out experiences over the years, when people were working up their courage to publicly come out.  (Now, in all fairness, sometimes I think some of them came out to me by accident...as "The butchest straight woman you ever did see," I think sometimes I got mistaken as "one of the tribe."  Well, I'm only kinda one of the tribe.  I pass for one of the tribe.  But what I used to see as a "problem with myself" I now see as a blessing, because it has taught me many things about what the tribe feels, in a smaller way, and I can have empathy and compassion for that in a way I might not have otherwise.)


On this National Coming Out Day, 2011, I want to spend a little time encouraging folks for what I often see as the "hardest hurdle" in the coming out process, based on what people in the coming out process have shared with me.  Sometimes, it's not parents or siblings that are the hardest--it's the business of being okay with "Coming out to God."  In fact, I believe it's why a lot of GLBT folk become atheists--they have received so many misguided, (and I belive, un-Biblical) messages from people that God hates their "sin" of homosexuality, it's just easier to not believe in God rather than come out to God.


Now, I can't even begin to presume to be God's Mouthpiece.  But I can share with you something in my own life that I have discovered is very universal with every single person of faith.  I can also share my experience as a parishioner in an openly GLBT-affirming community of Christian faith.  

Well, let's start with what I see as a major universal truth.

Guess what?  Every single person of faith who desires a closer relationship with God comes out of the closet to God with something.  Being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is just one thing on a list that stretches into infinity.  Every one of us has something about us that we think the world thinks is awful, or we're somehow broken or un-fixable, or so terribly unworthy for some reason, or are carrying some big secret that we think the world will blow to bits if we reveal it.  What we discover is these secrets usually weren't all that secret, and we discover when we really attune the ear of our hearts to God, that God loves us--like the old hymn says, just as we are.

Our sexualities are part of God's good creation.  Sexual sin is when we harm other people with our sexual desires, like being unfaithful to our spouses, or engage in sexual relations with others for the sole sexual gratification of ourselves, and no thought to the intimacy of our relationships, or when our sexual desires directly or indirectly harm children, or when we are addicted to pornography that we treat people like objects and our addiction keeps us from being our full, authentic selves.  Two loving people in a committed same-sex relationship harms no one.  Homosexuals do not have a "lock" on sexual sin.  Far more churches have been harmed by the minister running off with the church secretary, the fried chicken, and the money than they have by the minister coming out of the closet. 


So, surprise, surprise, God already knows more about our sexual desires and proclivities than we want to admit.  This is more about us being authentic with ourselves in a variety of ways, our sexual orientation just being one of them.  The things that burn inside our souls are not usually our "sins" per se, but our inauthenticity as human beings, knowing we are loved by God, and something doesn't feel honest about that.


When people have talked to me about this in their coming out process, what I've learned is that sometimes, when they say they "don't know how God feels about this," what they are really saying is, "I know how people in the faith of my family or friends, or my worship community are going to feel about this, and they are not going to like it."

I am reminded of the movie Yentl, when Yentl's father is closing the curtains as he prepares for her Torah lesson and she asks, "If we don't have to hide my studying from God, then why from the neighbors?"  Her father replies, "Why?  Because I trust that God will understand.  I'm not so sure about the neighbors."


Well, that's possibly true.  I have friends that I love very much, and think are really earnestly trying to live a Christ-centered life, but have this big disconnect when it comes to homosexuality.  They can quote Leviticus and Paul's Epistles chapter and verse and tell me why, in their heart, they think homosexuality is sin--and I simply recite my reasons why I believe those reasons are subject to interpretation.  First, there are many prohibitions in Leviticus we choose to ignore--things like getting tattoos and haircuts and eating pork chops and shellfish and wearing "cloth woven of two fibers." (There goes all the cotton-poly blend!)  Those are all things of the Old Covenant, and I am a person living in the New Covenant.  As for Paul's writings, as best as I understand the times and the translation of the words in the vernacular of those times, Paul was referring to the Roman practice of pederasty--taking young boys for sexual slaves--and various forms of sexual activity where the implication was it was happening outside of marriage.  Even if by some chance Paul meant exactly what it sounds like, what he got, he didn't get from the words or life of Jesus, because Jesus, when it comes to the topic of homosexuality, said absolutely nothing. Zero.  Zip.  Zilch.  Nada.  Maybe folks ought to listen to what he did say about divorce, and loving one's neighbors, and the sick, and the poor, rather than go to all this fuss about same-sex relations.


But the short version is I simply lovingly disagree with them, and continue to try to live my life in a Christ-centered way, best I can--I look to myself and what God tells me in the small still voice, and what I hear is "don't worry about that one."


The good news is there are religious communities of faith who are openly GLBT-affirming and welcoming to both you and your partner.  In fact, in the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, my parish--Trinity-Kirksville--is an OASIS congregation, a congregation who specifically pledges to be intentionally welcoming.


Now that I have belonged to an intentionally welcoming community for several years, I can say I could never go back to any other way to live in a faith community.  I think of a conversation I had with a dear childhood friend of mine who asked me one time what an OASIS church was.  When I told him, he said, "Well...I don't know how I feel about THAT."  I thought that was particularly funny because I know at least three openly gay people who go to HIS church, but I looked at him point blank and said, "Well...I don't really care how YOU feel about it, it's how I feel about it.  All I can tell you is the gay and lesbian people in my church are every bit the light of my life as the straight ones, and the same sex couples we've had in it over the years...well, they're just couples."  End of discussion.


I will be up front--being openly GLBT (or even openly supportive of GLBT equality) in a community of faith is not always easy.  I urge anyone in the coming out process to download the helpful brochure about this from the Human Rights Campaign website.  I think one of the things a person in this situation has to discern is where one's spiritual home in the community ultimately lies.  But I want to reiterate the four talking points on page five of the brochure--"Why be open in a faith community?"--with my own experience as a parishioner in an openly affirming church community.


1.  To affirm the whole of you.  This is why any of us should be coming to church--to learn to be our most authentic selves in the eyes of God within a community of people seeking the same thing, and to spread the light of Christ in the world as a result of that transformation.  It has been my experience that the more I become that authentic person, the more blessings I discover in life, and the more open I become to the blessings other people give us.


2.  To help your congregation grow in love and compassion.  My life as a parishioner in Trinity Church has been enriched by the dialogue that has taken place as the result of being an openly affirming parish.  Open secrets in the church are not pretty.  They are messy, and they hurt people.  Over the years, I've learned a lot of this the hard way.  I like this better.


3.  To change the conversation about GLBT people of faith.  I think the strongest counter-measure to the accusations that homosexuality is a sin, are the faith stories of individuals--whether that person is a GLBT person, a relative of a GLBT person, or a friend of one.  The loving stories of enriched lives are an unmistakable and un-challenge-able testament to God's work in the world.


4.  To build religious institutions that are true to their missions and values.  The institutional church moves slowly.  I don't always like it, but that's just a fact.  But I have come to understand in recent times why that is.  Things that have the potential to touch our deepest selves must be handled with care.  All in all, "too slow" is probably better than "too fast," when we are talking about people's relationship with God, and the fragility that has sometimes.  Change only occurs when both the minority finds a voice, and enough of the majority signs on.  It takes all of us.  But when it happens, it makes the church stronger, and it brings us closer and closer to having the Realm of God in our very midst.


The quote I used at the top of my post today is the invitation in the Eucharistic Prayer just before we come forward and receive the Sacraments.  You know, when my priest says that, and displays the bread and wine, she doesn't say for "the white people of God," or "the straight people of God," or "the men of God."  It's for all the People of God.  If you are a person on this National Coming Out Day considering the possibility of such a thing, I just have one thing to say--you, too, are a Gift of God.  Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise or ever have reason to think otherwise!

(Photo of Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(this post originally appeared at the Speaking to the Soul blog on Sunday, October 9)

Readings for the feast day of Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, October 9:

Psalm 107:23-32
2 Kings 2:19-22
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Mark 6:45-56

"The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not 'to have and to hold' but 'to give and serve.' There can be no other meaning."

"Theology is what one comprehends, religion what one does."

--Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

When one begins to look at the life of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, it becomes clear that he put both his theology and his religion to good use, and probably "paid his rent for his room on Earth" many times over.

Grenfell, a surgeon, qualified for both his MRCS and MRCP medical degrees from the London Hospital Medical College in 1886, graduating in 1888. One of his mentors in surgery was Sir Frederick Treves, most commonly known as the physician who cared for John Merrick, "The Elephant Man." In an era when surgeons literally collected patients as medical oddities and exploited the hospitalized poor as personal guinea pigs for innovative and radical surgical treatments, Grenfell chose a completely different path. He had the credentials and connections that could have landed him a lucrative Harley Street practice or a prestigious spot at one of London's famed teaching hospitals; instead he devoted his life to the care of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Early in his career, he joined the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen, both becoming a master mariner, and outfitting the mission's first hospital ship. He served from Iceland to the Bay of Biscay. In 1892 he traveled to Labrador, where he found the poverty and disease of both the English and native population astounding and troubling. A prolific fund-raiser, he used both his medical collegial connections and his social connections to garner money for the establishment of hospitals, nursing stations, schools, orphanages, and social welfare centers throughout Labrador, as well as a seaman's institute in St. John's, Newfoundland. Grenfell was clear that these facilities were to be available for not only the Caucasian inhabitants, but for the native Inuit and First Nations populations there, a move which often provoked criticism by his peers. In more recent years, however, the criticism has been that Grenfell's centralized services and emphasis on a static community changed the culture of Labrador's First Nations people, who were originally nomadic. Nevertheless, the Grenfell missions were well received by the residents of Labrador at the time.

Grenfell's theology was, to be sure, a practical one. He saw service to the needy as a form of faith that opened us up to greater moral power and freedom, as well as something that transcended dogma. He saw emulating the life of Christ as far more important than debating theological principles.

"Then, if you are 'losing faith in the Gadarene pig story,' you won’t miss that one miracle so much if you have to abandon it," he wrote. "For, if it is not irreverent to say so, you will have a dozen solid facts you could swear to in a court of law from your own personal experience, which will be ten times more helpful to yourself and to other men today than your final decision as to the fate of those unfortunate animals. If you have the evidence of 'that which you have seen and heard' to give, instead of being ruled out of court by the majority of men because they appraise your evidence as unconvincing and inadmissible as mere book knowledge, you will be the most valuable witness for the Christ, and the most dangerous foe to the devil of doubt.... If you are anxious to help others to retain faith, get out and do something for Christ’s sake."

Our readings today reflect Grenfell's connection with the sea in three places--in the 2nd Kings reference to the "wholesomeness" of salt water, in Psalm 107's imagery of the power of the sea invoking us to call out the name of God, and in Mark's Gospel, where Jesus gets in the boat with his terrified disciples and calms both them and the raging wind upon the waters. Our Epistle reminds us of the myriad talents that can be used to exalt the name of God by doing the work of the world to bring about the manifestation of the Holy Spirit for the common good.

We are living in a time where nature bares her teeth throughout the world, through vicious hurricanes and tsunami-producing earthquakes--and can live out Grenfell's vision of spreading the Word of God by spreading human care and kindness to the victims of nature's wrath. God is, indeed, present in human form amidst nature's violence. How will you choose to be a slice of God's presence in the storm today?

(My grandmother, taken in Busch Stadium in the late 1980's.)


Psalm 27:13:  

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

My grandmother used to say that the most important baseball games were best listened to, not watched.

Marshall McLuhan defined radio as a "hot" medium, because it did not involve the complete involvement of the listener.  His theory was often illustrated by using a light bulb as an example; the light radiated from the bulb creates its own environment, thereby enabling people to create spaces during nighttime that otherwise would have been dark and empty.  Radio, he claimed, put the onus on the listener to create meaning, rather than a "cool" medium such as TV, which provided all the input and meaning to the viewer.

I wonder what Granny would have thought about McLuhan, and I wonder what McLuhan would have said about social networking.  What I have recently discovered is that the two of them together have the potential to create a truly thin space.

In case you're not familiar with the concept of "thin spaces," the term comes from Celtic Christianity.  It describes a place where the boundaries between heaven and earth are so thin we can catch a glimpse of the glory of God--a place where the walls are broken and the light of God fleetingly streams through the cracks onto us.  This glimpse is almost never a function of our desire or through our control.  It shows up when it shows up, and disappears as mysteriously as it appears.  That said, the Bible still shows us that sometimes those thin places can also be connected to physical places--mountaintops and wilderness are two places that seem to give humankind a slightly better chance than usual to discover a thin space.


I believe that when Major League Baseball met radio for the first time, on August 5, 1921 (the date of the first game ever broadcast, Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Philadelphia Phillies, on KDKA,) it created a "thin space enhancer" as real as Mt. Sinai.  There's just something about listening to a game on the radio, whether it's while driving, working, eating, or sitting out on the porch at night, that seems far more entrancing than watching one on TV.  When I think back to some of my warmest childhood memories, it's of listening to St. Louis Cardinals baseball, and particularly at night.  I can remember riding through the night in the back seat of the car to the static and crackle of games on AM radio, or falling asleep to the late games during their "West Coast Swing" with the two hour time difference.  It seemed that some of the best conversations I ever had with my grandmother were during ballgames on the radio.


Even in my adult life, I have magical memories of this--particularly during September and October, in both the September pennant drive season, and the playoff season.  It was not uncommon for my grandmother and I to be miles apart physically, but both listening to the game, and phoning each other multiple times during the game to discuss what just happened.  When we did that, we were no longer separated, but literally in the same living room.  Of course, from my vantage point, she was in my living room, and from her point I was in her living room, and it created this thin place where two people, in a very real sense, were two places at once.  Actually, make that three places at once--we were also at the game itself.


One of my more recent ponderings has been how social networking re-creates this in a new way.


When Granny died in 2002, one of the things I mourned was that there'd never be another person in my life that I could just call and interrupt and start chatting about what was happening in a baseball game as it was happening.  I would be mostly listening or watching baseball alone.


Facebook has changed that for me.


Last night, I was listening to the fifth and final game between the Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies in the first round of postseason play.  The winner would be facing the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL championship.  


I knew this was an important enough game that I would prefer listening to watching it.  So I cranked up a fire in my chiminea and put the radio out with me.  I already knew I was in a place that radio takes me where TV does not.  I tend to become more physically active when listening to a game as opposed to watching it, doing things like pacing the yard, looking up and railing at the sky, and then sitting down and hunting up facts and statistics on my laptop.


As I started nosing around on Facebook, I realized four or five of my friends were also tuned to the game (although I'm betting they were watching it on TV.)  I found myself commenting and agonizing along with them, even though we were all several states apart.  The Cardinals took a one run lead in the first inning, and that was the score when it ended.  With each inning, I realized that I was not alone at all.  My yard was truly filled with my friends...and in that thin place, I also strongly felt my grandmother's presence, as well as all those years she and I had spent analyzing and agonizing over baseball.  It was, if you can imagine it, an even richer and fuller community than when it used to be "just Granny and me, talking baseball."


What used to be just the two of us became a piece of the company of Heaven.  Win or lose was not so much the issue (although I'm ecstatic the Cardinals won.)  It was about this community of shared emotions, and in it, my grandmother was alive and well.  I felt a huge peace in the middle of the storm of emotions I often carry around during important ballgames, a place where like-hearted people can share their emotion, in a place where geography normally separates us.  It doesn't replace face-to-face interaction--nor should it--but it creates a level of in-between space where a certain level of personal intimacy never existed until recently.


Last Saturday, I had attended a Diocesan workshop on "social networking and the church" and realized a handful of those attending, I knew first from social media.  We also learned at the workshop that studies show that positive reactions in social media--commenting or "liking" something on Facebook--releases endorphins--the same endorphins that make certain face-to-face interactions like smiling and waving generate.

In retrospect, I see now, despite all the fears people drag along about social networking, another in what has become a long series of reasons why we truly should carefully embrace this medium as a tool in our life as spiritual people in spiritual communities.  If this is what social networking can do with multiple folks watching a baseball game, what can it bring to our prayer and fellowship lives?


Truly, the goodness of the Lord is in the land of the living--and perhaps social media is simply another manifestation of how those thin spaces pop up, shining the light of God onto people hungry for it.

(Stained glass window of Dorcas, St. John's Church, Healy, UK, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Acts 9:36-43:

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner. 


This was the reading in the Daily Office a few days back, and what always strikes me in this story from Acts is something we think more about in Russian novels--keeping all the names straight.  The woman's given name is Tabitha, but in the Greek speaking world of the day, she is known as Dorcas.  We are in the city of Joppa, which we now know as the Israeli city of Jaffa, or Yafo.


We know very little of Tabitha/Dorcas other than she was an early disciple, she did good works, and there is an assumption that she is a widow--the business of her making clothing was considered "widow's work" in those days.  Well, and we know in this story, she's quite dead.


But the thing that always piques my interest is that we are talking about the same person here, yet Dorcas made the robes, and Tabitha is raised from the dead.  It sort of seems that everyone in the room is talking about Dorcas--Dorcas sewed this, Dorcas embroidered that.  Yet Peter does not say "Dorcas, get up;" he says "Tabitha, get up."  


Now, one could make the argument that Peter simply used the name to which she'd most likely to respond, and that makes perfectly good sense, but we also know there are backstories all over the Bible, depending on the writer, and we also know Luke (the author of the Book of Acts) loves a good backstory.


So, my hunch is that Luke does this on purpose, and what calls to me in this name interplay is the possibility that we are seeing the dynamic of our false selves vs. our true selves.


Really, even people close to us never really know us--that inner core of ourselves, anyway.  They know a persona.  The persona certainly is part of us--the part we dare show the world--but it is also mixed with what other people project upon us.  But depending on the situation, and depending on the roles of the other players in our life situations, we have multiple personas.  I do want to make that clear it's not exactly "acting"--that persona has a reality all her/his own--but it's an incomplete self, and it's a self partly defined by others, so ultimately it is a false self.  Yet this false self is not necessarily a "bad" self.  I sort of hedge at using the word "false" because it implies a negative connotation.  These false selves are very useful for getting along in the world, simply because except for a very tiny fraction of people in our lives, well, everyone doesn't need to know everything about us.  They need to know enough to get the job done, complete the transaction, or succeed at a particular task.


So what we see in this story is not just a "Look!  Peter raised this woman from the dead through the power of Christ!" story, but in this interplay of names we are invited to entertain the possibility that this woman was resurrected into her truest self--the self signified by her most longstanding and intimate name.


It begs a question--how many of us wander around through life so much as Dorcas, we basically become Dorcas?  Have we lived our lives in a pattern that we now cater to our most dominant persona rather than us?  We dress, walk, talk like how we think people expect Dorcas to act, and somewhere, we left Tabitha by the roadside for dead.  We gave up on Tabitha because she was not the person who would get us where we needed to go--Tabitha wouldn't help us get the promotion at work, or that new client, or that next special relationship.  Tabitha was too flawed, too raw, too blunt, too shy, or too insecure...but now Dorcas, that's another matter.  Dorcas, the talented one, the charming one, the shrewd one would help us go far in life.


What would it be like to resurrect the Tabitha inside of us?  What would change?


The other thing we need to consider in this story is that Dorcas/Tabitha is not a young woman.  This is a resurrection in the second half of life.  When we think back to the Gospel stories of people raised from the dead, many of them (although not all) involve younger people where their loss greatly affects the family dynamics or the status of the survivors--such as the widow of Nain.  The death of her son puts her into the realm of outcasts and undesirables--regaining her son gives it back.  But in the case of Dorcas/Tabitha, the implication in the story is the room is not full of relatives, but friends and clientele.  Her return from the dead really doesn't change anyone's status.


It's not unusual at all for many of us to find our true selves in the second half of our lives.  Now, I'm not talking about the dude who leaves the wife and five kids at 50something or 60something to run off with the bimbo, claiming he had to "find himself."  I'm talking about something much deeper than that.  I have known many people over the years who, once the last kid left the house, discovered their true passion in life once the financial burden of raising children was lifted.  I have known several people who seemed firmly entrenched in their careers suddenly do a 180 and spend the next 15-20 years of their life doing something entirely different.  I have known people pack up and move to totally unfamiliar surroundings.  They have that one "big thing" they need to discover, somehow.  In fact, I think I may end up being one of these people.


The possibility of being resurrected into a truer form of ourselves can be both exciting and daunting.  But one thing is clear.  When we hear God calling us to do it, we will be called out of our death to false self by our most familiar, most intimate name.

(Painting of Jesus raising the son of the Widow of Nain behind the altar of the Franciscan Chapel at Nain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

(Originally posted at Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, October 2, 2011)

Readings for Sunday, October 2:
Psalm 118 (morning), Psalm 145 (evening)
2 Kings 20:1-21
Acts 12:1-17
Luke 7:11-17

"Getting a do-over" seems to be the theme in today's readings. Hezekiah appears to be on the brink of death; instead, he ends up getting fifteen more years and displays his gratitude through his generosity. Peter gets a surprise jailbreak through the intervention of prayer and an angel. The widow of Nain suddenly goes from being a person of "no status" following the death of her only son, to once again being part of a family, thanks to Jesus' healing touch. In all these stories, someone's fate literally "turned on a dime" in a moment of divine mercy.

Each and every one of us has had moments where "the world as we knew it" came to a screeching halt, and we could not even imagine life beyond the tragedy of it. Perhaps it was the death of a loved one, a divorce, being victimized in a violent crime, a natural disaster, addiction, a sudden estrangement following a heated argument, or a sobering medical diagnosis. We have all been somewhere on that spectrum of tragedy, and when it happens, it's as if a lead-laden black cloak fell upon our head and shoulders. We suddenly find ourselves pinned flat, whether it's denial, depression, or despair. We can scarcely breathe, let alone see--and the thought of anything beyond our frozen, inert, oppressive reality just isn't there.

Healing from tragedy is almost never visualized through the "pro-spectoscope;" rather, we tend to discover it through the lens of the "retro-spectoscope." When I look back at the times in my life where I truly did find healing, I recognize three universal truths. The first is that the healing that occurred almost never came in the form in which I initially visualized how it should happen. The second is that it often came in very unexpected (and sometimes unwanted) packages. The final universal truth in this for me is that if I were to graph it, it would not be a 45 degree straight line starting in the lower left hand corner of the graph and smoothly heading to the upper right hand corner. The graph would be full of annoyingly long plateaus punctuated with sharp peaks. As with our healing stories today, yes, things did "turn on a dime."

As much as we'd prefer our growth as Christians to be in an environment of "shiny and happy," the fact is that our tragedies, and our stories that emerge as we knit our lives back together following them, are probably more important in cultivating depth and wisdom in our faith. As Richard Rohr says in the book Falling Upward, in order for us to emerge into a deeper, wiser, and more faithful relationship with God, “a job, fortune, or reputation has to be lost, a death has to be suffered, a house has to be flooded, or a disease has to be endured.”

I am reminded of a joke that was told countless times during the 1993 floods in the Midwest, one of a man of great faith and a staunch churchgoer, stranded on the roof of his house in the floods. In the joke, two boats come by, and as the water rose higher and higher, even a helicopter came. Each time, the man found some fault with them (boats looked creaky, helicopters scare him) and he waved them off, saying not to worry, that God was going to save him. Of course, in the joke, he is eventually swept away and dies. When he arrives at the Pearly Gates, he expresses his annoyance to God that his faith was not rewarded and his prayers were not answered. "Well, for crying out loud!" God exclaims. "I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more do you want?"

Our readings today reveal the many-sided nature of "faith in the middle of tragedy." We are reminded that many times it will feel like we are praying to a blank wall. We are assured that Jesus doesn't even have to touch "us," he has to only touch the place where we lie dead and shrouded, to be raised up. We may well have no sensation that God is with us or near us, shrouded in the dark lead apron of our depression, or numbed by our searing pain. As is illustrated in our story in Acts, however, Peter's escape from prison was not through any of his own desires or wishes--it was the prayers of the community, while Peter was fast asleep, that led to the angel's appearance in his cell. The only things required of Peter were to have the good sense to wake up, and once awake, to obey.

When we are bound and inert within tragedy, faith invites us to the prospect that our healing, too, may come while we are fast asleep to the prospect of our own salvation, through the prayers of the community. We only need good sense enough to wake up, listen, and obey.

Ever Almighty God, who because of the prayer of your most glorious martyr, St. Sebastian, called back a universal and lethal epidemic of plague, grant those asking you, that those who thus pray and bear this prayer about with them, and seek refuge in you because of their confidence that a wholly similar epidemic would be recalled, that through his prayers and merits, they will be liberated from the plague or disease as well as from every danger and tribulation.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

--Prayer written in Germany around 1350 that was used during the Black Death

It's always with a certain amount of trepidation that I go to movies with a "medical" theme but I did want to see this one.  It's a well-enough done movie that the medical inaccuracies don't hurt it, and the story line is more about the nature of human behavior than the disease itself.  The movie calls the question, "Which is worse--dying in an epidemic, or living in the tension it creates?"


I went into this movie with a bit of a preconceived spiritual notion.  I had read Martin Oliver's post on the blog REELigion, and the discussion about the obvious lack of religion or mention of God in it.


Oliver mentions seeing only two overtly religious images in the film--the empty mosque as the panic erupts, and the cross above the building where the remaining Chinese village children in the story are learning art.  I saw a third one--in a scene where the victims were being cared for in a hockey-rink-turned-contagion-ward, a nun cares for a patient when the nurses have all gone on strike, because of the working conditions.

I think Oliver's observations are valid, at least on the surface appearance of the movie.  When Matt Damon's character, is told that his wife has died, and he has trouble "getting it," the doctor tells him, "There are grief counselors for that sort of thing."  No mention of a chaplain.  As we see the panic erupt, we see no rush to the churches (most disaster movies tend to have the people who show up at the church because they either fear for their own immortal soul or they have no place else to go,) and as we see the bagged, duct taped dead deposited into mass graves, there are no mourners, no clergy.  We are essentially being shown death, panic, and human brokenness in a non-theistic world.  In that sense, the brief glimpse we see of the empty mosque is a reflection of "no sign of God anywhere."


Yet, at a deeper level, I saw two profoundly deep God-messages.


The first was the business of researcher Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) injecting herself with the vaccine that "just might work" because clinical trials in the regular fashion could be months away.  It's a Luke 1 message--the willingness to say "yes" to bear a savior--the Magnificat.  I thought about this possibility--are there places in our lives, places where we normally could think of a hundred good reasons to say no, that when we recognize just how broken the world is, we can find it in us to say "yes?"


I am ashamed to say that the medical field has been less than stellar in their morality in times of plague.  Every biological plague we've had in history--be it the Black Death or the early years of HIV--finds physicians to often be the first to flee, the last to take risks, and highly susceptible to making a buck in times of distress.


I found my mind racing back to 1988, when, as a post-sophomore fellow in pathology, I was the first person in Boone Co., MO other than the county medical examiner to do an autopsy of a known HIV-infected person, in a morgue which now would be deemed "unsuitable" for such a post.  It was my duty.  I did it.  What was interesting was my morgue tech, who swore up and down he'd never do such a case, assisted me, because he felt I should not do it alone--I'd be more prone to breaking my own habits and more likely to stick or poke myself.  I remember some of the residents really being angry at me for doing it.  If I, a lowly post-sophomore fellow did it, it would "show them up."  It would put pressure on them.  I looked at them and said, "I went into medicine to help people and help cure diseases.  I didn't say, "when it's convenient."  Your choices are yours.  This is mine."


The other image was not really played out until the very end scene.  Only then do we see a portion of our salvation history played out.  (Plot spoiler ahead...) In the final scene, we see Beth Imhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) selling bulldozers to developers, bulldozers tear up tropical rain forest, changes affect a bat somehow and it gets a virus, bat drops guano in pig pen, pig eats guano, pig goes to market in Macao, pig becomes dinner in casino in Macao, Imhoff with clients in the casino, becoming one of the people who spread a virus that kills millions of people.


In short, it's a rough parallel to Eve, the serpent, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Fall.  Only then, can we put Dr. Hextall in full frame as Mary, the Theotokos, bearing the Savior.


Yes, on the surface of this movie, God is conspicuously absent.  But beneath it, God is fully present--and isn't that how it goes in real life, as well as reel life?