Kirkepiscatoid

(Icon of Clement of Rome courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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




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

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

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


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

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


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

--John 16:7-15 (NRSV)


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

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



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

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

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

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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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

Anger
--by Alden Solovy


G-d of the inner journey,

Source of strength,

I’ve been assaulted by an unseen foe

And comforted by a steadfast friend,

Cut down in the name of love,

Lost in confusion and dismay,

Blinded by a wave of rage

And soothed by gentle breathing.

I live between moments of desperate anger

And days of boundless joy,

Between a heart of war

And a soul of peace.

Anger is a defense.

Anger is power.

Anger is intensity.

Holy One,

G-d whose gifts challenge my understanding,

Open my eyes to injustice

And let my anger become a source of energy

Channeled toward building and healing.

Let anger be a gateway to tikun olam

So I become a force for holiness and love.

Blessed are You, Source of Wisdom,

Who created anger to illuminate the path to justice.




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


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


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

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


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


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


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

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

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

Readings for Sunday, November 13:


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


Luke 16:1-13:

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





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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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


The Canticle of Brother Sun

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


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




--St. Francis of Asissi, roughly around 1225

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


What a difference the time change makes.


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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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