Kirkepiscatoid

Once in a while, something happens in the news that just kicks me in the pit of my stomach.

Coming home from lunch at my cousins to read today that Dr. George Tiller was murdered while serving at an usher at his church was one of those things.

Dr. Tiller was known to me as the medical director of Women's Health Services in Wichita, KS. To the right wing press, he was known as "The abortionist."

Now, I'm going to be blunt here. What a person wants to believe about "when life begins" is their business. How people feel about contraception, or abortion, or fetal stem cell research, or frozen embryos is their business. It's a free country. But two things come to mind here....

1. I don't care how strongly one feels about abortion in either direction, but the fact remains it is legal in the United States...and you can count me in as one who is grateful it is legal. In my training, on my OB/GYN rotations, I was taught by a few older OB/GYN's from the "pre-Roe" era, who remember the days of septic homemade and badly botched abortions. Desperate women do desperate things, no matter if it is legal or not. I do not want to return to a time when desperate women take matters underground.

2. To shoot this man to death in the sanctuary of the church adds a new level of sick behavior to it.

But wait, as the infomercials say, there's more...

As I read the article, it was the quote by Troy Newman of Operation Rescue that left me cold.
His response to the shooting was, "...I’m a tireless advocate and spokesman for the pre-born children who are dying in clinics everyday. Mr. Tiller was an abortionist. But this wasn’t personal. We are pro life, and this act was antithetical to what we believe.”

This wasn't PERSONAL? Say WHAT? So being "an abortionist" makes you worthy of basically being executed in God's hosue? I just simply have no words for a reply like that.

I've got news for Mr. Newman. We're ALL abortionists.

When we fail to see as a nation that we need health care for all who cannot afford prenatal care, and they miscarry, we are all abortionists.

When we argue about the various biologic factors of hormone-based contraception, of IUD's and barrier methods of contraception, yammering on about "when life begins" and carrying on like we're figuring out how many angels dance on the head of a pin, instead of working harder to PREVENT unwanted pregnancies, we are all abortionists.

Believe me, I would rather prevent a thousand unwanted pregnancies, than abort just one. That doesn't change, however, the fact that the decision to end a preganancy by means of abortion is a decision left to a woman, her doctor, and her God.

I am sure there are those out there who feel some sense of justification for this in the context of their very narrow definition of the beginnings of life, that in their minds this does not come close to "tit for tat" in their worldview. But to do this to this man, in the house of the Lord bespeaks an evil that is beyond anything I can even fathom. I'm just out of words on this one.

I admit I have become quite a fan of LOLSaints lately. So...I knew sooner or later I would have to create one for myself. Hey, I figure this one is not bad for my first attempt!

(Photo by Chris Evans, River to River CWMA, United States)

I had a really nice surprise today. I needed to just step out of the office and stand outside. I get a little cramped up sitting behind my desk. As I stepped out, the most marvelous surprise greeted me. The cottonwood trees in the little patch of "urban woods" behind my parking lot were shedding all their spring "cotton", and the wind was blowing the cotton about. It looked like one of the snowstorms we sometimes get with the big huge wet flakes, creating this wonderful surreal sensation.

As I watched them, my brain was saying, "Oh, look, a big snowstorm!" and I had this sensation that it was SUPPOSED to be cold outside. Yet it was about 70some degrees, and I could feel this wonderful "short circuiting" going on inside of me. I was really having the sensation of standing out in 30some degree weather, my "core" self sensing "cold", yet the wind on my face feeling "warm"! It was kind of a marvelous feeling simply from the "sur-reality" of it all.

I have to confess. I sooooo love cottonwood trees. Yeah, the "cotton" can be a little annoying because it sticks to everything (and as my friend PM pointed out, it as a special affinity for air conditioning units), but they only shed cotton for about a week. But it is the special kind of rustling that their leaves make that fuels my addiction--this loud, yet understated rustle that they make so unlike any other kind of tree.

My gauge for when spring really IS here is to hear the cottonwood outside my house begin to rustle. The onset of "cold dark winter" for me is the night I can no longer hear my cottonwood tree outside, and the silence of that night is always deafening, year after year. The first noise of its rustle rekindles life in me; its first absence in late October/early November carries the silence of death.

But all summer, that noise is the "white noise" of my yard. I love to sit outside at night and hide within its static. When the hot summer night air is muggy and heavy, the rustle is barely perceptible. But just let the least amount of wind pick up and the sound of cottonwoods explodes into the night.

Maybe that is what the voice of God sounds like. There but "not there". Never the same volume. Sometimes as silent as the tomb, and so glaring in its absence, yet so seemingly "there yet imperceptible" at other times. Most of all, nestled in the dark winter of silence, that sense that the noise WILL return and my hope to hear it in a few short months is like the Resurrection to me. Maybe, just maybe, it IS the voice of the Resurrection we all strain to hear.

Here's something that many of you might never have fooled with in your entire life, but they are as ingrained in my soul as car keys--manual coin wrappers.

You have to remember my grandpa, for most of his adult life, ran a route of coin-operated jukeboxes, pinball machines, pool tables, and video games in rural NE Missouri. Everyone knew him as "the jukebox man." He often gave away used records as he swapped them out on the jukebox to the waitresses and bartenders. Little kids were frequently the recipient of free nickels, dimes, and quarters to "play the machines." (He was no fool; he knew they'd spend more money primed with that free coin!)

So growing up, these wrappers were everywhere--out in his shop/office, in the den, and wrapped in rubber bands in bundles in the floor of his station wagon. I didn't realize for a long time EVERYONE didn't have coin wrappers around the house. To add to it, he also collected coins as a hobby...so he was always sorting coins at coin auctions he had bought in bulk, culling out "good" ones, and re-wrapping the rest.

One of my more precious childhood memories of my grandfather (which, at the time was just "how things were" and I never thought much about it until he passed away) was sitting in his shop helping him wrap coins, and riding with him on his route to his various stops and helping him wrap coins. Also, off and on in my young adulthood, I worked for him, and learned to do these things solo.

I had probably started learning to wrap coins at about age six. It was hard for my little hands to get much in them, but I started learning how to catch them off the counter, squeeze my hand to make them all line up in a roll, set the rolls on the table, stuff the wrappers, and fold the ends. In reality, it was probably a really good manual dexterity tutor that has served my hands well.

I can't totally explain "why", but there was something tremendously satisfying about sorting and wrapping coins. First you dumped the bank bag out on the table. Then you made piles for each denomination. To this day, I can still tell you that pennies come in 50 cent rolls, nickels in $2 rolls, dimes in $5 rolls, quarters in $10 rolls, and halves in $10 rolls.

Next was to take a pile of one denomination and count off "half a roll" (well, less than half a roll when my hands were smaller) and line up the half-roll stacks on the table. Finally, you stuffed two stacks in a roll, and folded the ends with three folds. If you had an "odd roll" you folded the bottom with three folds and twisted the opposite end shut, then wrote the amount on the roll.

Sunday was our day at church to collect our money for the Waters of Hope campaign. (Be sure and click on the link in the previous sentence to see what that's all about, and please donate, if you feel inclined.) A few weeks ago, we were given little paper boxes (thanks to the efforts of our Sr. Warden and her husband) to fill with change every time we got a drink of water from the sink or the fridge or whatnot. We got several of these boxes back filled with change. I offered to roll up all the change. A couple of folks looked at me rather strangely; why didn't I just take it all to the bank? I kept going, "NO! (Dammit!) Let me do this! I WANT to do this!" I'm sure it seemed like a lot of work to them, but I could not possibly explain it in a way people could "get it" in a social conversation. Besides, I thought it would be nice to know the tally beforehand so we could have an idea what we've already raised when the bike riders raising money for this project arrived in Kirksville on Tuesday.

So I took the change home, sat at my kitchen table, and took a deep breath, as old memories started flooding back and I started happily making my little piles, then dragging off the flow of change into my hand. "Five, ten, fifteen, twenty," I thought to myself as I raked off the nickels five at a time. (Everything is five at a time except quarters, and those are four at a time and I count them off as dollars: "One, two, three, four, five.")

I thought about how quickly I got into an “old habit.” I like to brag that I am one of the fastest humans going when it comes to rolling up money and putting it in tube wrappers. There are so many simple joys for me in this action. I can still “feel” what $5 of quarters is in my hand, right down to THE quarter! I can still pull off the exact number of wrappers from a wad of them wrapped in a rubber band down to like one or two wrappers! I still rake off money fast, shuffle them into a roll in my hand fast, and stack them and put them in the tubes fast...and I only do this like once a year now.

Had there been a silver quarter or dime in that bunch, I would have "heard" it. You have to remember clad coinage came out in 1965. There were still a lot of silver coins floating around in circulation when I was a child. My grandpa taught me to hear the plaintive ring of a silver coin as it raked into your hand as opposed to the dull one of a clad coin. He taught me to look for "wheat pennies" vs. "Lincoln memorial" pennies. He taught me to find the tiny treasures in the pile of "ordinary." Once in a while, I still find a silver coin in change, and it's usually as I hear the jingle from putting it in my pocket. The ring of that silver coin is like angels singing to me, that I can still find this gentle little treasure without even looking for it.

The other thing that always gives me a mild grin is how dirty one's hands get rolling coins. You don't really think about that in a shiny pile of coins until you're finished rolling them. You have to get a little dirty to put things in order, you know? So I washed my hands and the table top, and enjoyed the new cleanliness of my hands.

My hour of rolling coins me realize something...this is no different than the habits I’m getting from my disciplines of my faith, is it? I am learning to spend time in prayer and not see it as “an intrusion in my day” or “something I have to work in my day.” Simply BEING a person of prayer is becoming a habit! Prayer sorts things. Prayer puts things in order in my life. The wear and tear of life leaves a little dirt on me and I can enjoy the process of washing it off.

I thought about how much I owe my grandpa for my money rolling habits, but it’s also “time I remember spending with my grandpa.” He didn’t do a single thing “deliberate” or “important” and yet it’s precious time in my mind now. He didn't say, "Hmmm. I think this is a good way for her to learn manual dexterity. I think this will be a fine bonding activity for my grandchild." He just did it b/c that was what HE was doing at the time, and frankly, it kept me occupied and out of his hair! Yet I am so incredibly grateful, now that he has passed on, to have just had that time, hanging out and "just being" with the task of his work.

I thought about how maybe I am starting to feel that way about God a little bit! Just a gratitude for being able to hang out with him, and a recognition this is “precious time.” Just "being." Just "hangin' out while he does his work." Just trying to "do what he's doin'." I thought about that six year old me, trying to roll coins in my little short hands, and not doing a terribly good job at it, and how probably to God, the things I do to "try to do what he's doing" are just as feeble, but with just as much intention, and at the very least, God must smile now and then at it, even if my attempts seem kind of puny compared to his.

To think folks wanted me to take those coins to the bank--look what I would have missed!

As you know, I've been winding my way through the book of John. I got to John 6 early this week and realized I needed to spend a week looking at the "Bread of life discourse" as a WHOLE rather than immediately start tearing into it. So, much as I did with John 1, I'm spending two weeks on John 6--one to think about it as an entire unit, and one to take the pieces apart and look at them.

I have to admit something. I had a dream a few nights ago that has to do with this discourse and I didn’t even BEGIN to figure it out until the next morning when I re-read John 6. I dreamed that Jesus was sitting in the hospital lab here, and he was coming to get a transfusion. My lab techs had called and said, “You ain’t gonna believe this, you GOTTA COME OVER right now. JESUS is over here, he’s BACK, and he wants to get TRANSFUSED.”

Of course, my reply was....”WTF?” As my dreams would have it, it was my tech who is sort of known for her ability to bring me all the weird situations...and this one was definitely weird. I said, "Are you sure this isn't just some weirdo who THINKS he's Jesus?" Her reply was, "He's got the nail holes and everything!"

I walked over, expecting to see some nutjob that I’d have to call security over. He was wearing jeans, Birkenstocks (with socks, so the foot nail holes didn't show, LOL), and a t-shirt. Don’t ask me why, but I knew it was Jesus for real, even though he did not look like “Jesus of the crappy truck stop art.” He was darker and more rugged than Jesus of the crappy truck stop art. He said, “I need to be transfused and I came to you to get it.”

Ok, now here is where the dream gets funny. I go, “Ok, well, uh...Jesus, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have all these regulations and I can’t have my lab shut down...soooo...uh....I need a requisition signed by a physician.” I’ll be damned if he didn’t produce one! In my dream, I remember thinking, "Well, gee, if he made it through Admissions, I can't fight much here." (BTW, he has a social security number.)

Then I go....”Uh....well...um....Jesus, I have to have you typed and crossed.” So my blood bank people did the type and cross and Jesus was type AB--the “universal recipient"--but Rh negative (AB positive would be the absolute "universal recipient") but since he was not a woman of childbearing age, the Rh is of less consequence.

Here's another comic moment of my dream. A few of my techs and my supervisor and I start discussing if we're SURE of that Rh because we would have figured Jesus to be AB positive.

So he got his unit of blood, and he’s talking to me. He goes, “I know this sounds strange, but I needed your blood.”

I reply, “Well, uh..you know...this isn’t “my” blood, it comes from volunteer donors. YOU surely know that.”

He answers, “You’re the lab director, aren’t you? You’re in charge of the lab, aren’t you? Therefore, even though the units came from someone else, it’s still YOUR blood. So now I have your blood in me.”

I am feeing a little weird in the dream at this point and he adds, “Hey, it’s ok. I’m the anemic one here. You’re the one who had what I needed. You shouldn’t be afraid of that.” Then he leaves.

Then, in one of those wonderfully non-coincidental moments, Fran of FranIAm posts over on Facebook about the paper she is working on for her class, and the word "perichoresis" came up. From Wikipedia:

"The mutual inter-penetration and indwelling within the threefold nature of the Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Although clear references to full-blown Trinitarian theology in the New Testament are rare, it can be seen between two persons of the Trinity in passages such as the following from John's Gospel:"the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father."

Then I had the big "A-ha!" because that is exactly what we are talking about in the latter part of John 6:

⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.

That's when it hit me. Periclesis is simply like getting a transfusion. When we participate in the Eucharist, we are being transfused with the essence of Christ within the elements of Holy Communion. Conversely, when we do things that honor and glorify God, we are transfusing "our blood" into Christ.

Wow. All this from a dream and a blogfriend's aside. Who knows, maybe it can give Fran some ideas!

I had another of those non-coincidences today. While learning some of my own self-lessons in what "Obedience to God" means, I was also viewing a terrible blowout between two of my dearest blogfriends. Both of them have been instrumental in bringing me to the blogosphere; so to have such an awful fight between them is saddening. I found it rather interesting that this was going on at a time I am learning a new part of my own "secular monasticism"--that learning to listen to God (the root word of the word "obedience" is from the Old French word "to listen") is a type of free choice.

Christopher Jamison's book, "Finding Sanctuary" is a wonderful tool for this. He points out that in this culture, we often brag that "we are free to choose," yet the choices we make, even down to what to wear, are often dictated by hidden and unspoken agendas. To recognize this, to realize what we are actually obeying, in these circumstances, is a form of freedom that is, in many ways, counterculture.

Here are the parts of his chapter on "obedience" that really caught my attention.

“The monastic tradition believes that obedience is potentially the greatest expression of human freedom...obeying something unknowingly is not free choice. So the first criterion for a good obedience is that I must know what I am choosing to obey. Second, I must choose those things that open up future possibilities, not those things that enslave me.”

“In essence, what Benedict is describing (in the Rule of Benedict) is the exercise of conscience. Conscience is not the same as feeling; conscience is the inner process that enables you to listen to voices beyond your own feelings and desires...intense feeling is not the same thing as conscience. The monastic way urges the conscientious exercise of choice leading to obedient freedom.”

He then goes on to talk about several things that we often claim we are being “free to choose” but we are really choosing this hidden or unspoken agenda. He describes our selves as a sanctuary where virtue is the door, silence and meditation as the floor-covering to dampen the noise, obedience as the walls—walls that simultaneously dampen external noise, "restrain our selfish voices, and amplify the voice of God"—and humility as the roof.

He quotes Thomas Merton with “In order to become myself, I must cease what I thought I always wanted to be.”

But that whole chapter really hooked me. We place so much stock in this culture in “ambition.” We place a lot of stock in “self-expression.” But it dawned on me that the more we “self-express” by the world’s definition, whether it’s in relationships or possessions, or ambition, various lusts, or desires that we actually IMPOSE on others. We demand affections that can only be freely given, we seize what does not belong to us, and we measure our worth by what others do not have. Ewwwg. Ouch.

That is also kind of tricky for “mechanical minded me” who wants to grab everything and take it apart and play with all the pieces. It’s not wrong to learn that way, but it’s wrong to do that at the expense of imposing on others, or grabbing what does not belong to you or taking without asking, what you should ask permission.

This is my comment on my own self-revelations regarding a totally unrelated matter. But it strikes me heavily how it applies in so many ways to the blowout between my blogfriends, and the willingness of people to "take sides" and the source of many hurt feelings. Fascinating.

Ok, first question:

Would you be happy to have this Gospel book sitting on the altar from your church, and have the Gospel proclaimed from it, week by week?

I'm betting most of my readers would like it fine.

Second question:

What if I told you this Gospel...um..."book" was a laptop, with a very nice removable decorative plastic cover of an old cover of the book of Kells?

I'm betting we might, at this point, have a lively discussion.

I'm going to hold out on my third question for a minute.

Let me tell you about an interesting discussion that happened on one of my Facebook friends' pages. I am going to respect privacy here and not name names. She posted on her status today, "(Facebook friend) is honored (name of church) will debut today a laptop gospel book. On the altar. Carried in gospel procession. God bless Deacon (XYZ)!"

And then the sparks flew.

Some people thought it was cool. Some were puzzled. The deacon in question posted and said that the bishop of (some state) thought it was a good idea. Some were flat-out offended. Some whipped out the Canons and the BCP to side on the notion that it was not um, "kosher", and that the bishop of (some state) had no authority to change this, that this was a matter for General Convention...

"Page 406 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: Additional Direction (for the celebration of the Eucharist, "It is desirable that the Lessons and Gospel be read from a book or books of appropriate size and dignity."
Canon III, Sec. 5. a) (1) Rectors and Priests-in-Charge and Their Duties. The Rector or Priest-in-Charge shall have full authority and responsibility for the conduct of the worship and the spiritual jurisdiction of the Parish, subject to the Rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, the Constitution and Canons of this Church, and the pastoral direction of the Bishop."

It got downright mean and hot.

I'll tell you what I was thinking, while I was reading this. I realized THIS is what keeps the unchurched away from the doors of the Episcopal Church. Not the female primate, not a gay bishop, not the whole "gay thing", not any of this hot button stuff. It is that we are arguing about laptops vs. books and whether little kids should get blessed wafers. Now, I'll be the first to tell you I hate PowerPoint. I work with it all week long. I would cringe if we had PowerPoint in church. But if everyone else wanted it, I would learn to live with it and I would deal with it somehow.

As for the "Gospel laptop," well, I was far less worried. I could think of a few reasons why this might be desireable, and as it turned out, I was right with my guess. So now for the third and final question...

If I told you that the deacon who used this laptop had been legally blind since birth, and cannot read the text in the Gospel book without holding it very very close her face, and CAN read it on the laptop as a 500% Word document, now what would you say? If I told you it was, in her opinion, the best way in that she could clearly proclaim the Gospel without struggling or distracting her parishioners, now how do you feel about it?

Hmmm...are some of y'all feeling a little sheepish now? I hope you are.

(I did have one big eye roller. One of the most incensed in this discussion continued EVEN AFTER the deacon in question dropped the spoiler, continued to hold his ground, even to the point of telling this person HOW SHE COULD DO IT with a book. I was thinking, "Yeah, you go look through her eyes and get back to me, okay?" Oy vey.)

Now for my .02 worth...

You know what? It's the WORDS of the Gospel I come to hear every Sunday morning. I don't come to admire the cover of the damn book. We start getting all weird about the book, that's biblio-idolatry in my opinion. Yes, the BCP says it's "desireable" to use a "dignified book". I agree. It is desirable. It's reverent. But when we did our Liturgy at the Lake last fall, it was read off a piece of paper. We didn't want to expose our nice Gospel book to the elements and possibly icky weather.

If that laptop helps this deacon proclaim the words of Jesus in a full, clear, joyful way, I'm all for it. I don't care if the Gospel is read off scrawlings off the back of her hand, or a printed roll of Charmin, if it makes her all the minister God wants her to be and people hear the Word, it's good by me.

Would I hear the Gospel if someone had to read it from Braille? Sure.

Would I hear the Gospel if the priest or deacon had throat cancer, and lost his/her larynx, and had to use one of those mechanical talking boxes held to the throat or built into the throat? You bet.

Would I hear the Gospel if the priest or deacon had to sign it and some lay person had to read it? Uh huh, no problem.

Then another thought creeped in, reading the naysayers, reading the implied anger and expectations that things be a certain way...

I came to MY church today in jeans, Henley, and denim shirt. Would these people speak to me at THEIR church? Would they hobnob with me at coffee hour? Or would I have been dismissed as too undignified? That I was not respecting the traditions of the church? Would they include ME? How would they feel the day I wore my Big Dogs Hawaiian shorts and the flip flops?

I started feeling very, very EXcluded.

I think the moral of this story is perhaps we ought to remember the BCP and the canons were written before a lot of modern things we take for granted. Just as the Old Testament and the New Testament were written before a LOT of things in our world came to be. Hmmm....