(Photo of Bishop Paul Jones from satucket.com)
(Originally posted on Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, September 2, 2011)
Reading for the feast day of Paul Jones, Sept. 4:
Psalm 76
Malachi 2:17-3:5
I Peter 3:8-14a
John 8:31-32
Bishop Paul Jones, one of the fathers of modern pacifism, is not a universally well known figure in our liturgical calendar, but his story is of interest in light of today's highly polarized political messages in the news and on the Internet.
Bishop Jones was elected Missionary Bishop of Utah in 1914 as the outbreak of World War I ensued. Although the United States did not enter the war until 1917, Jones was publicly outspoken against the war, as well as war in general, stating that war was un-Christian, and that war could not be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus. He clearly opposed Germany and alternatively lobbied for other means by which to show this opposition. However, his views cost him his see. Despite the fact that many laypeople and clergy were on record defending his right to speak his mind on the topic, even if they disagreed, in 1917, vestry members from two large Utah parishes, allied with the District Council of Advice, organized a campaign against Jones. A convoluted investigation ensued, and the commission's recommendation was that he resign. Jones did indeed resign in 1918. This, however did not deter his zeal for the Social Gospel, and he was instrumental in the formation of what is now the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.
Our reading from Malachi describes the refining effects of when we are called to speak the revealed truth. We may well have to endure the consequences of being unpopular, whatever the subject, but we are assured that we will live these consequences as a transformed person if we can only endure, with God's help. Our Epistle calls us to a spirit of non-retaliation in the face of evil--to avoid repaying evil with evil or abuse with abuse. Our Psalm reminds us that no evil is too great to be transformed into peace and reconciliation by God, and finally, our Gospel reading, short tidbit that it is, gives us words of assurance that the truth, no matter how unpopular, no matter how icky or painful, frees us to be unbound in the presence of God.
This message, and the message of the life of Bishop Paul Jones, is just as important today as it was at the time of World War I, and as it was in antiquity. The Internet has given any of us the power to be an instant pundit (and an anonymous one at that) through blogs, Facebook, and the comments section of news sites. How many times have we shied away from what we feel in our bones about the truth God has revealed to us about war, the Federal budget, poverty, or the right to hold unpopular opinions, because the majority voices surrounding us are so vitriolic or strident? How many times do we launch an attack on people who disagree with us that throws the issues in the ditch and goes straight for the throat of our worthy opponent?
In short, how many times, when discussing things of a political nature, have we disregarded our Baptismal Covenant, when we are asked, "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?" and "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?" Each of us can only answer that one for ourselves, with God's help, but on this feast day of Bishop Paul Jones, it's probably worth spending some time asking ourselves the question.
Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.
--The Rev. Lillian Daniel
I actually know people who won't step inside a church, and not for all of the usual reasons, like, "it interferes with my football games." They won't go any more because they have been deeply wounded by people who claimed to be representatives of Jesus. They won't go because they were abused. They won't go because they were driven out. They won't go because they didn't experience much, or any, of the grace we talk about, and that some of us can't live without. They won't go because they've been at a church that everyone said was so "friendly," and no one talked to them. Sometimes, it is true about the church, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
--The Rev. Diane Roth
A few days ago, both Lillian Daniel's reflection about the "spiritual but not religious" crowd, and, subsequently, Diane Roth's post in response to Lillian's post, caught my eye.
I'll be honest--when I read Lillian's post that day--part of a daily devotional series the United Church of Christ does--I have read many other of her contributions to this series and really like her submissions--well, after a little cogitation, I thought she was being a little too harsh and snippy for what is supposed to be a daily reflection on God's word. Oh, I totally get where she's coming from--but I just felt her story was more one for her closest friends in faith at the local pancake house, and not for a devotional, where the reader is trying to reflect on the Bible as a means to change him or herself. My initial response to what she was saying was for me to agree so I could be one of the cool insider kids, too. The post initially just affirmed my own crappy attitude about the "spiritual but not religious."
Then I read Diane's blog post, and again, I was with her all the way on her thoughts about what the church community is, and why some people have no interest in it. But it still left unsaid any thoughts about what to do to invite that "spiritual but not religious" person into a faith community. I would have loved to hear her take on how to attempt that--after all, as a pastor she probably attracts more of those folks to open up in conversation than I do as a lay person.
But...
Neither post gives me a hall pass to blow off an opportunity for a faith conversation with the "spiritual but not religious" person. I've thought for a couple of days or so about what I might say...and here it is...
Dear Mr./Ms. Spiritual but not Religious:
You know, I think it's cool that you find God in the sunsets and the beach. I see, hear, and smell God in nature too. For me, it's sitting under the canopy of the night sky by my chiminea, or it's the sound of my cottonwood trees in the breeze, or it's the awesomeness of watching the Mississippi River carry a full size tree downstream, knowing that thing might go hundreds of miles. But as a church person, and a pretty regular one at that, I have to tell you that for me, it's not in the awesome and happy things where I need to see God. Seeing God in that stuff is a bonus for me. It's in all the broken-ness and catastrophe of the world and in the totally screwed-up nature of some aspects of my life where I need to see God--and that, for me, is where the church comes in.
Now, I wasn't always a church person. I got dumped off at Sunday School and church with nary a family member in sight. It obviously wasn't important to my parents, so it sort of made me doubt that being dumped off at church was all that great of a thing. So when I grew up, I didn't really engage myself much with the church from about age 18 to 22. Then I tried--really tried--to go back to a church, but then I got really, really hurt by the church, and those representing it, and I left for over twenty years. Then I thought I'd give it another try, and it started off really interesting and felt good, and then I got really really hurt again, but in a different way. But somehow I managed to stay this time despite the fact that leaving again would have been a whole lot easier in some ways.
Ya wanna hear how I managed to stay? It's weird, but true. I was able to stay because something had finally registered with me. Going to church wasn't about getting brownie points in the hereafter, or becoming more "good" somehow, or feeling worthy because I'm kind of smart about some things in the Bible and our Prayer Book. It was about getting the bread and wine at communion and really beginning to understand what that means. It means that when I go to the communion rail with everyone else in my church, I am up there in all of my glorious screwed-up-ness, just as everyone else is up there in their screwed-up-ness and all its glory. I'm right in it with everyone else, and they're in it with me. Some Sundays I feel pretty good about myself. Some Sundays, I feel like the world's kicked my butt from hither to yon. Some Sundays, I'm there thinking about what a turd I've been all week...and some Sundays, I'm half-asleep to any awareness I have about anything, good or bad, and just going through the motions.
But all those things I am on any given Sunday? There isn't another person in the sanctuary who hasn't been there just like me at some time or another...and somehow, we're all at the altar together, in the hope that the broken-ness that is illustrated in that broken bread and the bleeding wounds in our souls, like that wine that we say is the Blood of Christ, will change for the good, with God's help. We're there in the hope that it will all be made right in the end, somehow.
I need to be able to see God in the garbage dump, and I need to know that when I can't see God, there's someone else in the room that is doing okay with it all that Sunday, and I need their faith to help carry us all through, when I can't see squat in mine. What's kind of cool about that is even people I've hurt, and people who have hurt me, are all there in this same place hoping that God can do what we can't even do with each other.
Then there's the part about "doing good for others."
My holy moment with that beautiful sunset you mention, really doesn't do anything for anyone but me. But when churches do the things that churches are supposed to do--reach out to the sick, the poor, the hungry, and the marginalized--people's lives change. Oh, sure, I could spend time doing some of that with any secular charity. But the church is this wonderful catch-all. Who but the church can bring something to so many people, in so many different ways? I can accomplish more of that in a group than I can sitting around, thinking great thoughts with myself.
So, Spiritual but not Religious Person, I understand your feelings--I have them myself--and I'm happy for you with where you are with God in those beautiful moments. But I hope some day you get a yearning in the middle of one sometime, and think, "but is this all there is to this?" Perhaps then you might begin to discover something really important for the next phase of your relationship with God, and when you do, I'll be glad to accompany you in worship. I hope someday you ache for a community that helps us see God in each other.
Sincerely,
Me
Yeah, I don't think it's as complicated as we make it out to be.
(Candlelight Vigil from Trinity Episcopal Church, Kirksville, MO to the Kirk Memorial Building of Truman State University, held on August 31, 2011 for the late Marcellus Andrews, 19, who died Aug. 24 in Waterloo, IA from a beating sustained August 19. Witnesses heard his assailants hurl several anti-gay epithets as they beat him and kicked him in the face. Photo by Julie Seidler.)
Below are the two litanies used in the August 31 candlelight vigil:
A Litany for those who have suffered violence as a result of bullying and hatred
by Maria L. Evans
O God of justice and mercy, we pray that no more daughters and sons in this world die as the result of being bullied simply because of who they are; be it race, religion, sexual orientation, or social awkwardness. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
We pray that each of us can begin to scrub the seemingly innocuous roots of the language of hatred from our vocabularies, and for the courage to resist being silently complicit when we hear others using this language. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
We pray that our children can grow up in environments that teach them to transform their personal failures and disappointments into healing lessons of life, rather than desire scapegoats to atone for their inadequacies. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
We pray that parents can put aside what they were sometimes taught, in order to promote tolerance and diversity at home. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
We pray that our communities grow into places that respect and nurture the dignity of every human being, and to constantly seek ways to bind our perceived differences. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
We pray particularly for the vision of a generation of people who can grow up feeling self-empowered and truly loved simply as themselves, free from beatings and psychological abuse at the hands of those whose own lack of self-esteem drives them to hatred—a failed attempt to assuage their own pain. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
O Lord, you understand this above all others, for your only Son lay scourged and beaten among jeering, mocking crowds on the dusty road to Golgotha, just as Marcellus Andrews was scorned and savagely beaten, left for dead on a dark, dirty Waterloo curbside. Be our light in the darkness, Lord; protect our young people and fill them with the love of your Holy Spirit; hold them in your Son’s loving arms in their most fearful hours, and be with them always.
Amen.
_______________________________
A Prayer for Communities
by Cole Woodcox
In peace let us pray.
Lord, who cradled the broken and wounded body of your Son, you are the source of our love.
Lord, who governs the vast reaches of the universe and the innermost recesses of our hearts, you knit us into communities of gratitude for the lives we share with each other.
We commend to your mercy your gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered children who have died in the past few weeks -- those whose names we know, especially Marcellus Andrews, and those whose names we do not. We pray that they, their families and their friends may know comfort and share in your peace.
Risen Lord,
We remember them.
We ask a blessing on your gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered children who are taught by some to despise their whole lives, who are bullied into living numb, who are injured by hate, who are told their hopes are worth nothing. May you surround them, uphold them and pilot them out of cruelty and violence, out of pain and fear.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray that, like Ruth and Naomi, we too may observe how we live between boundaries, that we rethink categories, that we are authentic to ourselves and that we come to live in love.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray that, like Mary Magdalene, Peter and the early Christians, we too may understand the liberating power of differences, that we welcome the whole and not just those parts that please us, that we dance in the cosmos and not just in the comfortable space of our own beliefs and that we nurture the place where peace and justice greet and embrace.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray that, like your saints, we too may see how every form of life fills the measure of its creation and has joy therein, that we show reverence toward ourselves and toward each other and that we show this in our creativity, our morality, our choices, our heart dreams.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray that, like Joseph, those who are reviled, abused and beaten might resist fear and convert it to justice, that we hunger and thirst for compassion and that we find ways to help our town, our state, our nation make new connections between dignity and social responsibility.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Gracious God, help us untie knots of hate in our schools and help us make visible in our communities your delight in all creation -- though we are many, we are one body because each living thing is touched by your divine light.
Amen.
(Originally posted at Daily Episcopalian, Friday, September 2, 2011)
(Page from a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Q. Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God?
A. We call them the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible.
Q. How do we understand the meaning of the Bible?
A. We understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the true interpretation of the Scriptures.
--From the Catechism, Book of Common Prayer, pp.853-854
All during my growing-up years, I never really could figure out why my great-grandmother Louise died in 1939.
The relatives told two drastically different stories. One version was, "She got stomach cancer, and it went everywhere." This was almost always immediately challenged by other relatives, who would interject, "No it wasn't! She had..." (and the speaker would invariably lower his or her head and speak in a hushed tone of voice this last phrase) "...female cancer."
I only knew two things about this growing up--that no one could agree how she died, and that even though I was not exactly sure what female cancer was, it must be worse than other kinds of cancer.
As I became a young adult, I learned a little more, but not much. I knew she had been taken to the then-brand-new Ellis Fischel Cancer Center in Columbia, MO and had "treatments." When I became a resident physician in pathology at the University of Missouri, I did several rotations over at Ellis Fischel, and found myself obsessed with discovering the truth of this story in my family. I am sure in my mind, as the first person to go to college, let alone medical school and become a doctor, I fantasized myself as this grand purveyor of the family truth--a truth that would somehow raise my status in the family and allow me some respect as a full-fledged adult member. I would no longer just be "the strange kid whose nose was always in a book."
Fulfilling this quest was not difficult at all--all of the Ellis Fischel patient records were in storage dating back to 1938--and what I discovered within the yellowed pages filled with Parker-style handwriting confirmed my educated medical guess. She had been opened up in an exploratory surgery and found to have metastatic cancer throughout her abdomen and pelvis. The multiple biopsies were examined and read out under the microscope by the pathologist there at the time, who postulated that the appearance of the tumor was most like that of a primary adenocarcinoma of the stomach. Both her ovaries were extensively involved by metastatic tumor.
I'm sure I swelled up with my own self-brilliance. I had postulated that she had a primary cancer of the stomach, which had metastasized to her ovaries--what we call a Krukenburg tumor.
I suddenly viewed myself as "the person who was going to settle this once and for all."
The next time I was around several of my relatives, and the subject came up, I literally stood up and announced, "Y'all have been arguing this one for years, and I'm just gonna tell you what happened." I made my proclamation with all the authority of someone giving grand rounds at a prestigious teaching hospital, expecting people to look, or at least, behave enlightened.
I was not prepared for the response. They just all looked at me, and muttered, "Oh." One of the relatives who was the most insistent that it was "female cancer," said, "See! I told you she had female cancer!" Despite my careful clarity in stating it originated in the stomach, the fact it was merely on her ovaries was enough for her to stick to her original statement.
But as they started talking, other stories emerged, and I began to see I was the one who was to become enlightened. The story was not about "what kind of cancer my great-grandmother had." The story really was about what happened to everyone else in the family and how they felt about Louise's death, and what carried over as a result of it in the next generation. It was an era when doctors didn't tell the person with cancer that they were going to die. Sometimes they didn't even tell them they had cancer (although her going to a state cancer center pretty much took that one off the table.) I discovered "what the story was about" was different for each older relative in the family. It was about the difficulties they had in knowing Louise was dying and Louise pretty much knowing she was dying and no one addressing it. It was about being sent home for a protracted, painful death that my grandmother had to watch as a 22 year old with a small child. It was about being unable to afford a visitation at the funeral home and "sitting up with the dead" and receiving visitors in her home. It was about my great-grandfather becoming meaner and more difficult in the remaining ten years of his life. I came to learn years later it was why, when my grandmother was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer, she became convinced that I was somehow going to block her from knowing her diagnosis. I still learn things about this story to this very day. What began as my quest to "shut everyone up, once and for all," turned out to open me to a never-ending set of discoveries.
To me, this is the crux of what reading the Bible, not just as an individual spiritual practice, but in a community of worship, is all about--revealing deeper stories within ourselves and to each other.
It's our tendency, I think, in this fact-based modern world, to dissect Biblical text in much the same way as I dissect surgical specimens grossly--cut it to shreds, examine the pieces, select the pieces we want to examine microscopically, and render our diagnosis upon it. Under that light of scrutiny, the Bible will always fail the exam. For those who hinge their faith upon the Bible being literal, as well as inspired, it will always require "one more proof," because there will always be someone out there who finds a new scroll, a new bit of archeological hoo-ha, or a new tomb that reveals an error or discrepancy. When we take the Bible apart with no regard for the history, the culture, or the factual knowledge base of the people for whom these writings are originally intended, it becomes no more than a quaint historical tchotchke--like viewing an iron lung or a rotary telephone. It did a lot of good once--but why would we ever want to use it now?
Yet, our Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer states that "God still speaks to us through the Bible" (p. 853,) and I certainly believe that. It's not to say we shouldn't dissect it--in fact, I think we should, and in fact, I do on a regular basis in my blogging, writing, and preaching. It is only in the process of dissecting it and naming the parts and seeing the parts strung all over that we come to realize what the Bible represents is actually more than the sum of the parts.
The core of the Bible, to me, that defines its synergistic nature is in the telling of the stories.
When one reads the stories individually, and in groups, we hear bits of our stories in its stories, and we can begin to relate the stories in community, and we discover it wasn't about the actual "facts" in the story at all. It's where the story took us, it's where we see our lives within them, and it's about how we proclaim them corporately as the church.
When we read the Bible as part of a daily spiritual practice, it doesn't matter how many times we've heard the story--we always hear something new if we allow ourselves to be open to the possibility. When we hear it proclaimed in the readings during worship, we hear it in another person's voice, in another's inflection and choice of emphasis. When we hear the homiletic response to these words, we hear the benefit of the experience, education and point of view of the person in the pulpit, and the same sermon takes each person in the pews to a different place, a different response.
It's why the mismatches in the four Gospels don't bother me anymore. I am simply hearing four different accounts of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, rendered at four different times, for four different reasons. Spinning my wheels trying to bolster my faith by explaining the Resurrection scientifically would be a pointless exercise. Of course, any atheist worth his or her salt would simply say "that's because it didn't happen," and that's an equally pointless exercise. Frankly, if one doesn't believe in it, and it is not a part of what motivates one's life and behavior, it's a moot point. The assertion is only useful for "dissing" Christianity and Christians.
When I think back to my comparatively less formally educated relatives and the story of my great-grandmother's cancer, I have come to realize (and be grateful) that understanding every detail of a story is not a prerequisite to "understanding the story." If my faith required "proof," I would, indeed, be lost.
(Stone coffins at St. Peter's, Wolferton, Norfolk, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Proverbs 14:6 (KJV:)
A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not; but knowledge is easy to him that understandeth.
It's not often I choose a passage to blog about in King James language, but this one is applicable, because it's the only translation that uses "scorn" for the Hebrew word used for "scorn" in this passage, Luwts.
It's not much of a stretch to realize that one of the ways many of us scorn is by being sarcastic.
Hmmmm. Sarcasm is a hard topic for me.
One of the lessons I learned about "fighting back" in an alcoholic household, where I was not bigger or stronger than a bullying alcoholic family member was that I was smart enough to totally cut someone to ribbons with sarcasm in such a way that they were "too dumb to get it."
I had seen a picture on Facebook a few days ago where some people waited until their friend passed out in a drunken stupor at a party, and then they drew all over this person with Sharpies.
That is what I realized my sarcasm was, in the crudest sense of the word. Growing up, it was my way of taking a Sharpie and drawing on the alcoholic while they were passed out.
Over time, it became one of the ways of dealing with anyone I disapproved of, or feared. It was much easier to verbally cut someone to shreds surgically, with words. Now, what's interesting is the word "sarcasm" comes from the Greek word "sarcazo" (from σαρκασμός)--which literally means to tear flesh. Which, truthfully, is what we do with sarcasm--we cut them--and the end result is we have found a way to scorn someone. When we scorn, we make someone less than fully human. To use Baptismal Covenant language, we are failing to see their dignity.
What I've come to realize is that really, sarcasm is based in fear.
When we're good at sarcasm, it creates the illusion that we are cool and suave and in control of a situation--that we have power--that we are the "insider" in the situation and the "outsider" is to be scorned. It strokes our ego because people laugh and think you're clever.
But truthfully, a person who relies on sarcasm is really a scared two-bit hoodlum backed in a dark corner, stabbing outward with a switchblade at everyone who comes near, without first even bothering to check if the person wants to harm or hug them.
I'm coming to a place in my life where I'm discovering that my reliance on sarcasm needs to be buried. It needs to be put in a stone coffin and have the lid dragged over it. Now, that doesn't mean I need to stop being comedic. I think the part of me that sees comedy is one of my best parts. But the sarcasm needs to die. It comes from a dark place that tears down the body of Christ rather than builds it up.
I was reminded of something very important from one of our youngest parishioners, on Sunday, about the antidote for that.
Little Lilly was baptized in our parish, and even at her baptism she showed a great proclivity to be social. I remember when she was paraded around the aisles as the "newest member of our congregation" she tried to wiggle loose and get in my arms. Now she's a charming, bright, (occasionally noisy, but that's ok) toddler. She's at the age where it's fun to "mug" at her. Sunday I was spending more time than I ought to sticking my head below the pew in front of me and peeking out with one eyeball while she was looking backwards two pews ahead of me.
After church, she literally leaped into my arms. But I could tell she didn't really want to spend time with just me. Her little feet were pushing outward the entire time. She wanted to go see everyone.
So I sort of wandered from group to group chatting with each other after church, and let her pick her next "target." She'd pick out who she wanted and leap into their arms (ready or not!) I was having a great time being Lilly's "chauffeur" for this game. She'd leap into someone else's arms, leap back to me, push her little legs on my side to get me to move to the next group, and leap at her next choice.
Now, I'm sure Lily has done this game with other people, and I am also sure she's bumped her head a couple times or ended up on the floor when she has leaped on someone and they were not quite ready to receive her. But it hasn't seemed to stop her.
I thought to myself, "What would my world be like if I could have the ability again to leap and love, like Lily does? To just leap at the people I care about and love them with no preconceived expectations for their ability to interpret it?" I think Lily somehow innately knows that someone will catch her and that someone will hold her, even though I doubt that happens every time.
It's a good thought to consider the possibility that God holds onto us as we leap. Yeah, we might fall a little. But not as hard as we would when we leap only with the power of self behind us. Self-determination is not a bad thing, but it's not the only thing. But the vulnerability we need to have to do God's work in the world requires us, I believe, to put our sarcasm to rest in a sarcophagus.
(Originally posted on Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, August 28, 2011)
Psalm 148:
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!
Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.
He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike, old and young together!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord!
The words of Psalm 148 might seem familiar to any of us who are familiar with an Episcopalian Morning Prayer service, because some of this rings familiar in the words of Canticle 12, "A Song of Creation." Canticle 12 comes from The Song of the Three Young Men (also known as the Prayer of Azariah) from the apocryphal portions of Daniel; this song is heavily based in several Psalms, borrowing not just from Psalm 148, but also from Psalms 103 and 136.
What always strikes me with this Psalm is it, as does Canticle 12, illustrates things I am normally not in the habit of praising, lifting their praise to God. Imagining the stars and heavens and trees praising God is easy for me--sea monsters, hailstones, and storms...not so much. What particularly comes to mind for me is the difficulty I had in praising God while volunteering in the aftermath of the Joplin, MO tornado. I stood beside my truck in the middle of the debris field, turning and seeing in every direction I turned, nothing but devastation in every direction of the compass. My first thought was, "Huumph. The insurance companies call these "acts of God"--and people are supposed to find God in this."
The irony, and the miracle, of course, in this, was at the end of my short volunteer stint, I had seen God in this--many times over. God was in the faces of the power and light crews from all over the country accepting Gatorade from the back of our truck. God shined like a beacon in the face of a woman who brought her toddler to the distribution center barefooted because he had no shoes. God shattered denominational boundaries by riding shotgun along with the Presbyterian minister and the two Mormon missionaries who were assigned to distribute supplies donated by Catholic Charities with me. God grinned through stained and missing teeth from the man who showed me his splenectomy scar from being pinned in his house, who told me in no uncertain terms that he had been blessed by this tragic event of nature. His words still ring out in the middle of the night--"I never knew the world was such a good place."
The words of this Psalm call us to a strange invitation--an invitation to consider the possibility that the things that we are absolutely certain God cannot possibly exist within them, are, indeed, singing praise to God. How are we called to respond to their song?
(Chastity belt courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Chastity
Awkward.
Only way to begin.
Break free from the old mindsets, the labels,
the conditions in which society expects us to operate.
Be open to the renewing of your mind, the
possibility of new and richer understanding
as the years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds
pass on into eternity.
Not a denial, but an acceptance
of your truest self and your purpose, mission,
vocation on your pilgrimage.
The greatest of these things is love.
Not the love of parent and child, or of friends, or of spouses,
but the love of Fourth and Walnut…
the love that in an instant can change a life, can change the world.
The love that brings with it the realization that
we truly are one body in Christ.
The love that sees each and every being as who and what
God sees it, as it was meant to be on that seventh day in Eden.
A love that embraces this world in all its broken beauty
and refuses to live in silence. A heart afire with zeal
burning brightly on the hilltop, witnessing to the Christ
enthroned within.
- Joseph Madonna (2011)
I bumped into this poem from a link that my blog and Facebook friend Fran posted recently when a friend of hers took solemn vows in a religious order. It really spoke a lot of how I view myself as a deliberately celibate person. But it also illustrates my pet peeve about something.
I think "chastity" and "celibacy" are the two most misunderstood words and mistakenly switched words out there.
Celibacy, as some churches define it, is a vow not to engage in sexual relations. Celibacy, as I understand it, can also simply mean a choice to live a single life with a deliberate choice in that life not to engage in sexual relations. Non-vowed celibacy does not have to be permanent; but what it does mean is any choice to change that state should be viewed as an opportunity for discernment rather than a snap judgment to have sex with someone.
Chastity comes from the latin word castus, or "pure." To be chaste is so much more than our behaviors regarding sex. To be certain, it does include being sexually "pure." For single people, that may not necessarily involve being celibate. It could simply mean to be true to the person with one has a sexual relationship. It includes the concept that married people practice chastity when they have an exclusive sexual relationship with each other.
But chastity involves soooooo much more than sex.
Chastity means that we strive to be pure in who we are as a child of God. It means we take time to examine our conscience on a regular basis to see if we are being "pure" in our dealings with other people. It means being brave enough to take our own moral inventory and contemplating change in the places where we discover impurities.
Now, fact is, none of us can ever truly be 100% pure (Even Ivory soap is only 99 and 44/100ths percent pure!)...but I don't think it's about "how pure we are," it's about the desire and the quest for purity. It's about the willingness to become more authentic to our God-given selves.
I think chastity is a much more positively oriented activity than we have been led to believe, actually.
It also makes me think about what chastity is not. Chastity is not something we can force upon others. All one has to do is search the Internet to find woodcuts and manuscript from the 1400's to the 1700's to find cartoon-like illustrations of all the ways people managed to thwart chastity belts over the years. What we learn in those old jokes is that enforced chastity always has a negotiable price!
I think back to all the times other people (often people in authority figure positions) tried to punish me for my perceived "impurities." (Now, I'm not talking about punishments I deserved, here. I'm talking about things like being scapegoated, or being the "fall guy" for something that went wrong.) But of course, when I think about what others have done to me, I can't help but think about what I've done to others in the same fashion. What I've come to realize is that 99% of the time, when we enforce "purity" on other people, or tear someone down for their impurities, we are all usually chafing from our own. I've hurt people for the sake of my own impurities and others have hurt me for theirs, and when it's all said and done, all that says is "We're all in this together." All it says is that we all fall short of the glory of God, and we all are the recipients of grace. Even the people who have made me so angry I can't see straight are the recipients of as much grace as me.
Sometimes I shake my head at how we all act like grace is a finite commodity. That somehow, if that person that irritates us or angers us or hurts us gets some grace and we don't, that somehow, we got shorted. When I get in a rut about things being "dirty" or "messy" or "not pure," and find myself wanting to assign blame, I need to step back and remind myself that there is no grace shortage in God's realm. When I feel that someone has done me dirty, or made me out to be the bad one, and I know it's not true, I need to ask for God to show that person some grace rather than simply fire back at them.
The most important concept I see in it, and in the poem above, is that chastity is so much more about saying "yes" than "no." I think that is why Mary is a great icon for this; she was all about saying yes to letting the divine not just enter her heart, but in her physical body. It's about saying, "I know as a human being, I am a flawed, imperfect character, but I'm going to say yes to the possibility that every day, something just a tiny bit more pure than I am now, can enter me and change my life."
