Thursday after Second Lent: Love bade me welcome

I do not know what went on in his life before me except there was some period of episodic alcohol abuse.  Did they call it that then? Oh, and he always worked hard, even in the Great Depression. And he was humorous, loving to laugh. But most of all I know my paternal grandfather loved me, but not just me, each of his grandchildren as if we were the only one in his love-scape.   Is that a word? He was so equal handed in his love.  I watched him and learned much.  Perhaps he was not so with my father but by my birth he was. 

I watched him be so with others and he taught me never knowing I was so keen a student.  I watched him set out on his rounds after he retired to help “his ladies” as he called them.  They were the widows of his community who needed this fixed or that fixed.  How they knew of him I do not know.  I watched him lovingly make a play house with a oak floor and shuttered windows and pinks for my little sister and haul it 90 miles to our house. And when he had to walk 3 miles a day for his heart, I would volunteer to be awakened at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. when I was visiting so I might walk with him.  And on these walks this non-attending Presbyterian would talk of the natural things of God and of my life.  He always had space to hear me and I must have prattled on so. Did he know how he healed my young heart and life? Did he know he was the most tangible incarnation of God I could truly know and touch?  Perhaps what he knew was that he was imperfect and yet had these late years left of his life to love better. And he employed them so well for me.

When I read John 5:19-29 and especially these verses below, I remember him.

"Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise…

”Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

“Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out - those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”

Two things I know.  My Grandfather often healed my heart by his model and by his perennial kindness to me especially in my teenage years when my father was doing the opposite.  He was so patient and attentive.  His love was wiser by years and perhaps the chance to redo some things.  If he judged me, it was so tender it felt like love and life.  He was not afraid of my ‘sensitive nature’ which seemed to so disturb Dad. Here I did “not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

The second thing is that he gave God flesh.  He made it clear that all the love in him was not just of his making.  It was connected to the Creator of all the beauty he would point out on our walks, his kindness to God’s kindness.  He did not go to church because he could not hear the sermon he would say, but he knew the things of Jesus.  He was a medium through which both the Creator and the Son passed into my life.

I like my faith and religion touchable, like the closer presence of my grandfather. I prosper by seeing and doing kindness. So I like to pay my tithe, share useful things not needed now, give and receive polite kindness, laugh in good humor, understand and forgive as I can and be forgiven. I love the touchable nature of God in the sacraments, in Holy Communion and holy water.  It aids me to listen to life seeking to understand this or that. It heals my heart and calls me to better things.

I wonder if it is not because Granddad, God and Jesus have done it so well for me.

Some decades ago I heard this George Herbert poem sung, I knew it to be my story of God and it is calligraphed and now hangs on my bathroom wall where I read it every day.  It is my core theology. Thanks Granddad…oh, and Jesus. 

Love Bade Me Welcome - from Love (III)

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back.
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

Wednesday after second Lent: Yes

After reading John 5:1-18,
       (but before saying good bye to a friend.)
In John is the healing pool of Beth-za'tha.

YES

“Do you want to be healed?”

I think the answer is forever: “Yes”

And when it is asked I wonder if I am awake.

Yet I fear I will not be so.

I will too much be in my wound.

Too much lost to malcontent.

And so I ever pray: “Keep me awake,

For Your and my sake.”

I think there is a moment when,

as we sit with those who mourn

or those who have lost their way

to good and hopeful things,

a call comes to us one and all,

“For God’s sake, awake!”

 

I am not sure it is by a pool,

a Beth-za'tha in our heart.

But surely it is by a dream

planted deep before our birth,

a dream  of hope and

longing for our best homing,

our awakening anew to things of eternal worth

But just now pressing homeward.

Where is that home?

 I have trip upon it in a smile,

in the gentle hand that took mine

for but awhile,

in the lingering of a friend.

A little child,

both I and he

who longed for a love,

A love that flourishes above.

“Awake, be stirred, be cured.”

And then there it is in Holy Word;

“Arise, take up, and walk.”

The pool has stirred

me awake

from within yet without.

There is a healing

in hand, and smile and child

willing to stay for awhile.

And all I can say is,

“Yes.”

Tuesday after second Lent: Healing escape some notice.

Tuesday after second Lent: Healing escape some notice.

John 4:43-54

I am struck that both in this miracle of healing and in the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus just speaks and trust follows.

We are only told he instructed one of the servant to take the new wine from water to the chief steward of the feast. No one seems to notice where it came from, or even this servant that it was yet changed. Trust.

The official at this second miracle comes with a request. "Come down before my child dies."

Jesus: "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe."..."Go your son will live." He goes.

What strikes me is he goes home as if it is done.

What did he think on the way home. Did he believe. Was believing more like hoping desperately hard so the heart races or was it belief that fears to trust ...but must. I know both these. Many of us do.

The servant greets the Officially: It happened "yesterday at the seventh hour." Thus we learn he has walked into the night with this fragile or firm hope.

So I wonder, what miracle have I failed to ask for, to hope after, or hold long enough?  Or what one have I not noticed because I forgot the gift of hope?  Who around me lives in Miracle and I do not notice?

Are miracles simple?

Perhaps.

Good Friday, 1993: Heading East by Robert Atwan

                                          (pg.134 of Divine Inspiration)

                                                            Unless you see signs and

                                                           wonders you will not believe.

Low on gas I pulled into Grady's Gulf.

Barney's at the pump, wire-rimmed glasses

taped together, reciting the opening lines

of "The Pardoner's Tale," still preparing

for the exams he missed because of Nam.

It's unsettling to hear.

My stomach is growling. Grady's inside cursing

one of the candy machines. He still wears the coveralls,
though there is no repair business left.
Customers come only to fill up on gas and oil,
smokes & cokes. "It's a full time job," he says,
"keeping this damn vending crap from breaking down,"
He points to a small bag of peanuts dangling
at the end of the coil.

"Half the time they won't goddamn drop."

He kicks the machine, slams it with the heel of his hand.

I hope the nuts will fall -- but they hang there,
stuck in their coil. Barney comes in with advice,
says he learned it from and old drill sergeant,
and leans his head against the machine gently,
the way a school girl at the movies might rest
her head on her boyfriend's shoulder. I can't hear
what Barney whispers but the spell work:
the nuts tumble softly from the coiled wire.

He hands me the bag. "Must've loosened them,"

Grady says taking the credit card.

I savor the nuts as I drive home,

my busted radio miraculously

filling the air.

Monday in the second week of Lent: Come and see again

Monday in the second week of Lent: Come and see again

John 4:(1-26) and 27-42

I have long loved this Samaritan woman who both knows so much and so little. Her life has been complex, her journey perhaps wounding. There have been so many husbands, so many false starts and endings. Beneath must be an inner struggle we will never see. Jesus asks, listens, responds both to the asked questions and something he senses beneath her defensive repartee. And yet when the disciples show up,she vanishes into the Village.

But once there she does something of hidden joy. "Come and see the man who told me all I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" Something happened that made her secure enough to issue this invitation, something to do with his insightful involvement with her personal story. She has touched on her longing in the line, "When the Messiah comes he will show us all things." "I who speak to you am he."  More than the words have convinced her.  Perhaps the authority of listening and listening deeper. If we are blessed we know that feeling, that of our lives heard. Too often people hear over our lives and not into them. Too seldom do we know deep intimacy and perhaps all those husbands amounted to intimacy overlooked, not found. Perhaps.

But what excites here is not only that she invites other to meet this possible Messiah, but that they go out, they listen, he stays two days more. It all ends with a report back to her: "It is no longer because of your words that we believe,for we heard for ourselves, and we know this is indeed the Savior of the world."   What excitement and hope.   And so we learn the point of our encounter with Christ in his "Word."  It is to listen deep, to hear and be heard, to invite others to follow this pattern and thus to know and be known.

And yet I wonder. Was this nameless Samaritan woman remembered because the disciples remembered something of this encounter or was it because some one in Samaria remembered this as a story of personal conversion? Is she without a name because once Jesus moved on she was no longer judged suitable for other's society, a too often married woman whose lifestyle threatened others or displeased them Is there more here to see?  Just the same she is remembered as the one who first heard and invited.

Perhaps today I need just to remember who first invited me to see Jesus. Perhaps I need to recall whose society I judge as unworthy of me. Perhaps I am to forgive this error in my being so I can begin anew and be better in both my invitation to others and my judgement of both self and others.

Her words linger in our bring: "Come and see!" Come and be seen as well.

The Second Sunday in Lent: Bulbs

The Second Sunday in Lent: Bulbs

                                                                 

We moved to Greenacre in January of 2011 after almost eight months of driving once a month from New Jersey to my native North Carolina. We spent that time becoming familiar with the house and land. Each month we moved a load of furnishings and eventually plants I had nurtured for decades in NJ.  I left enough behind for the next occupant of our home.

I was making a parish call once in NJ and Charlie was replanting his house. I notices this great clump of bulbs and found he was tossing them out. “They never bloom anymore. No need to keep them.” “You know they are just root bound. You could separate them.” I followed up. But he did not believe they would ever bloom and gave them to me, if I wanted them.

So I hauled them to Greenacre, and I planted them in the former vegetable garden, as a temporary home. As I separated them I came into the house and told Maxwell, “They must be Grape Hyacinths for the bulbs are so small and that clump must have had 400 bulbs in there.” Do a little math and you know I was in more trouble than I had intended. But I am stubborn so I persisted. The Spring of 2011 saw only faint shoots. Last year I had to burn off the weeds so the bulbs got some space back but only saw green shoots. This year I did not bother to clear the weeds as I have too much land to tend and through the winter the birds perch there and eat seeds. 

This morning as I made coffee and look out the window there they were. No Grape Hyacinths, Daffodils were blooming in the weeds. Mind you there are only thirty or so blooming...but there are thirty and hundreds of shoots! I must tell Charlie.

And Jesus said “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.' And he said, 'Let anyone with ears to hear listen!' ” Mark 4:3-9

The seed here is the Word of God. It is not just any word but a lifetime of words heard and tended. You never know when some wisdom will come and rest on you and guide you. You never know when it will cause you to act in a better way or clearer way or demanding way. All one can know is that God's Word seeks growth in our being. 

 

So often my life can feel like a weedy field with much pressing on me. There are times when my life or being seems very clean and open. Just now it feels a little jammed in on.

A friend in NJ is in poor health and has managed much on his own. I have stayed in touch with him and others to be a support from this long distance. Last night I spoke with a friend and suggested things that might be of help. I think though I am managing my anxiety by putting tasks to others. I sort of knew that even as I spoke.  I woke up this morning and even before seeing the daffodils, I realized it was time to offer myself. I could take time out here and go and help with the tasks ahead. Is that God's Word pressing in on me? Is this a Good Samaritan writ small I am to be? I'll only know when I offer.

We want the kingdom of God to seem large and clear. But so often it is very small, like a bulb too small to be itself but when tended...well you never know.

“Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing...”

 

Friday in the First week of Lent: Remembering forgetfulness

Friday  in the First week of Lent: Remembering forgetfulness

I wonder about forgetfulness. In truth I am a rather forgetful person. Things just slip from time to time so I do well to keep lists...and to remember to refer to them. The only place where this forgetfulness was a positive is when I  heard confessions with some regularity. I was rather good about leaving the content of a confession at the altar. Truth be told confessions are not as extraordinary as some think of media fantasizes. Most are very plain or are made of the universal struggles with boundaries between what is perceived as right or wrong. But this could be its own reflection.  I want to think  about forgetfulness and its complement, remembering

In Deuteronomy 10:12 -22 we read in part today:

"What does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.

...The LORD set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you,

...The LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

This is what I do not want to forget, that God is over all, acts for the love of all. The commandments of scripture help us see the boundaries and open places where we may live inside this love. I also know that those boundaries sometimes find a new openness. We see that sometimes in Jesus' interpretation of law. We see it in how he broke open the Sabbath and how he ministered forgiveness and reinterpretation. We see it too in the gentile mission where God's love is impartial, opening to all nations even beyond the people of Israel.

I do not want to forget that God chooses relationship with us and to know oneself as chosen is to know oneself related broadly in life to others. I do not know who the Lord of life will allow to cross my path today or may ask that I practice awareness of today. I do best to be open and aware.

I do not want to forget that even though I was brought up in the Church to a large extent, there was a time when I was a spiritual nomad, a stranger, when I could not find God easily or be found by God such that I was aware of God's power and presence. Yet in a very hungry moment I found God finding me at an altar, in the Lord's Supper. I do not want to forget that God is ever seeking us and wants my kind aid to reach out beyond myself.

One of the tools that helps me get past forgetfulness is the Daily Office. Today I pray it using the St. Helena Breviary rather then the Book of Common Prayer. There is a set of versicles and responses in the morning office that reminds me of God's values as we have received them. They are slightly sharper then what I find in the BCP. In part they read:

V: Let not the oppressed be shamed and turned away; Psalm 74:21

R: Never forget the lives of your poor Psalm 74:19

V: Continue your loving kindness to those who know you; Psalm 36:10

R: and your favor to those who are true of heart.

In the Book of Common Prayer we find instead:

V: Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;

R: Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.

 

I am challenged to wonder How do I not increase the shame of the poor. How do I not turn them away. How do I aid them in knowing God through my mercy, my true heart. How do I increase their dignity? How do I live well with never forgetting the poor, the lost, for they are God's. How do I execute justice and love? There are personal actions, food pantries, clothing collections. I have chosen to aid in educating a 2/3 world child. These help me/us be attuned.

But I also am part of a society larger than the Church. What is my role there? Whose voice will articulate my concern where my personal power to effect care becomes limited? What are we to do to decrease our national forgetfulness of the stranger and the poor?   We are so far from the great depression where vast numbers of us suffered together. We live in pockets of wealth, middle class and poor separated from each other. How do we remember each other into health? I have some answers but from what I read in scripture it is the daily task of the nation to remember, to remember when we were not so strong, not so well provided for, were sojourners in this our homeland as a immigrant people, or a less educated and skilled people. If this was never true for me (and it was not) then it was for my ancestors who were Scots-Irish.

And so very simply, Lord, let me not forget and show us each the way of memory.  School my thoughts and actions so they are consonant with you.

Thursday in the First week of Lent: Light in Darkness...perhaps

Thursday in the First week of Lent: Light in Darkness...perhaps

It is for me tax time. I have my own delaying habits that make this an intense time of recording pieces of expense and justifying "less income." I can say to myself that loopholes should be closed for the super rich, but not for me please. Thus the poor can be helped and I can be more happy for them.  Hmm, perhaps I need to think about that.

While gathering and recording tax information I like company I can turn on and off. So there I was looking for some sound and I found an old Masterpiece Theater of David Copperfield and let it play. I rose this morning remembering reading Charles Dickens as a child. First the Pickwick Papers and later David Copperfield and of course A Christmas Carol. It dawned on me that while I was always a naturally sympathetic child, a middle child, Dickens might have been my first instruction in how unfair life can be. Here I was schooled not only in how children are subject to the economic rise and fall of their parents, but are also deeply marked by the goodness or forgetfulness of the society around them. Perhaps that fed into my faith growth, my looking for the unconditional love of God and joyfully tripping over it at 11 and refreshing myself in it at 19. Perhaps that is part of what made me sensitive to the racial issues and changes of my youth, the civil rights movement. Perhaps that is why I was attracted to a degree in Sociology, a certification as a social worker with a concentration in services to children. But what does this have to do with spiritual reflection?

In the lessons appointed for daily prayer in the BCP we are now reading Deuteronomy and John. The bit from Deuteronomy is the long rehearsal by Moses of what Israel is to remember of their encounter with God prior to entering the Land of Promise. One is so deeply struck that the individual can only hope for salvation, for a full experience of God's care through the community of faith. It is the task of the whole community to hold onto the voice and teaching of God in order that it may be lived and recalled be this generation and each one to follow. The Promised Land and this luxuriating relationship to God belongs to the whole community. We build it and maintain it for all.

 

So Moses who was infuriated at the quick forgetfulness of the people of God and thus crushed the first copy of the 10 commandments is called to once again ascend the mountain and carve them again and lug a box made of acacia wood to forever protect them, the Ark. It is this notion of community holding the faith together that shaped the notion of a national church that is so primary to the understanding of Anglicanism, the mother of the Episcopal Church. English history is doted by faithful Anglicans who foment social reform by remembering the universal nature of God's care. They prick one another's conscience to better actions.

This brings me to John 3:16-21, which too often is simply left at 3:16 "God so loved the world..." Too often this is left as an introduction to an individual relationship to God, a born again by my own efforts kind of American faith. And our missionaries have carried it off to Africa and elsewhere. Of course we come to faith or lack of faith personally, but seldom simply individually. Such faith can too easily forget its need of the community to clarify our encounters with the holy and the communities need for clarification of basic values of care lived out of God toward one another.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him...the light has come into the world... But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.'

I so need your light, the reflection of the effect of Christ in you. It helps me shape a deeper understanding of God and God's intentions for my life and our life as a whole. I prosper when Dickens or you shine a light into my life that sends me deeper into wondering what now needs growth and change in me, in us. And like it or not, you need my little light. Together we are called, like it or not, to build in our world a society that reflects Christ's light. There is enough darkness around us, enough forgetfulness that every reflective ray of God's care is a tonic and a call upon the core of our beings.

I found this little poem worthy of a thought to end on. I am not sure it is my theology fully but I like its remeinder.  Just remember we are called to hang with the light!!

But Men Loved Darkness rather than Light

By Richard Crashaw

The world’s light shines, shine as it will,

The world will love its darkness still.

I doubt though when the world’s in hell,

It will not love its darkness half so well.

Wednesday in Lent 1: By night

Wednesday in Lent 1

There are personalities in scripture that have forever held my attention and one of them is Nicodemus. It is his coming curious at night that reaches out to me. Perhaps night is the time of dreams and thoughts that often come from beyond our control and sit with us whether we like it or not. I wonder if we would find them more abundant if we did not have so many night entertainments, our computers, TV, music and books. In other words if we were like Nicodemus, would we wonder about deep things more.

He wonders if Jesus is from God early in John's gospel. He knows the outward signs of God in a person's life. He is a teacher, a ruler of the Jews. They look to Nicodemus for guidance and hope. He sees the signs of God in Jesus, in the words spoken, in the actions of temple cleansing, perhaps in the miracle of excess wine at a wedding. But where does it come from, all this depth, all these signs that seem native to Jesus?

Jesus speaks to him of the Spirit moving over and in life, of what he calls being born anew. But Nicodemus who has trusted his learning and position and role must come to terms with the reality that there is a birth not in the mind's control and thus our control, but which moves by God's control over the open heart/mind...the Spirit. Here is the reality beyond us, one never suited to "reality TV." Here is a possible night visit, day visit which comes from the essence of life, from God who has fashioned us before our knowing and will fashion us still and eternally. Nicodemus will go away in time only to come again. It takes awhile to grasp deeper, out of my control things.

There are two notions I have picked up from Richard Rohr that linger with me in light of Nicodemus and night and prayer and changing, ever changing. One is that "we are God's prayer, God's thought, that God is hopelessly lost in thinking us. All we can do is stay naked, self-forgetful, ready for love-making." The tension is we strive to cover our lives with roles and tasks that we perceive are what gives us meaning. We are all but fully addicted to this self meaning making. Yet prayer is different. It is yielding to God's desire, intention just to love us beyond judgement. Prayer is where we just allow Love to run over us and heal us little by little. Prayer is the best wine found late at the wedding feast where the most important guest has marked us.

The second notion is "God comes to forgive our sin, but we are much more concerned with our guilt, which is a bit different. Sin is not just something we do. First, sin is a state of being. It is an incompleteness that we are born into and eventually choose." He suggest we grow accustom to our incompleteness, our insecurities. We make friends with them, rely on them, define our life by them. We do not know how we would be without them. He illustrates one possibility as our anger. Our anger at some injustice, some abuse, some relationship gone wrong. Too often we live and feed on this. Perhaps it shows up in the patterns by which we relate to others, to politics or our work. Perhaps it shows up in our waking dreams (that would be me too often). Yet it is part of my incompleteness and I hold to it.

What then is its antidote? That would be prayer. Not 'give me prayer', but falling into God prayer. Not getting naked before God but just being naked before God. Like Nicodemus, we just show up in the 'night' of our life and say "How can I be born anew just now?" Then waiting for the wind of God's creative, forgiving love just to blow over us/me. Know I will come here again. Let God love me/you and be willing to try this self-forgetting love out again with self and others. Allowing the outward signs of God's love grow in me and in those who compose my world. Perhaps this is being born from above repeatedly, little by little.

I am grateful to Nicodemus who comes by night so I may linger into the Day.

Tuesday in Lent 1: Temples

Tuesday in Lent 1

I am not feeling very superior but a little off kilter. I was fine with the Pope's resignation though I did not envy the nuns he is moving out of the Vatican. The care of a former power broker seems seldom easy. Yesterday I read a posting I do so hope is incorrect about allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor from his past. I grew sad.  I later did discover the post i read was filled with erronious information.

Then I read Deuteronomy 9:4 this morning: "...When the LORD your God thrusts them (those who occupy the Promise Land) out before you, do not say to yourself, "It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to occupy this land"; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you."
It reminded me that where there is little I can do to effect another's past, I do well to pay attention to my past and present. As Moses prepares the people to enter into the land of promise, he does so by having them recall God's ethical guides, retrace their history, collect a correct memory, and adjust their judgement of the future.

My correct memory is that I have never been without sin. Some of my past struggles with moral integrity were an absolute flop. Yet when I look over my shoulder I am ever grateful to God and to those who seek God who have guided me. There were even times I was so close to the new energy of God's love that I could have mistaken a holy person's care who guided me for personal affection and he or she held the boundaries that kept me safe. I have looked back and blessed them largely because in those early raw moments I had no idea I was close to this delicate crossover. I have offered the same safety to others. God's grace was really what helped me be wise and I suspect others to be wise as well in these moments. I suspect we first know God's love, name the care of God which reaches deep into our being because it is designed into us.

In John chapter 2 Jesus clears or cleanses the Temple. No one gets it really. The selling and buying was the ordinary life of the Temple. He draws an illusion to rebuilding the Temple in 3 days if it is torn down. While we are told he is referring to his body, they think building. Only later after his resurrection do his followers remember back and make the connection to his rising from the dead (correct memory?).

Just the same Temples often need cleansing, be they structures, or method of organizing religious life, or our bodies. Maybe this Lent as the issues of Rome play out, God will breath grace into that very protected male club of authority and shake them into more than cover up, into reform and renewal. As their laundry is aired in the world court, perhaps humility and right reflection will over power them and God's ever creative energy will bring repentance and reform. Let us hope so. The sad history of how they and we have dealt with sexual abuse in chuches and in families are often the same. Thank God we are now in a time where we get past shame to action, where we name abuse rather than feel we have the right to hide it.

But truth be told what is most important for me is that I too live in right memory, correct my ego when it thinks I have got me the blessings of my life. Perhaps what I need to remember is that whatever prosperity or blessings I have are not just mine, are not merely of my own creation, but collected gifts meant for some greater good, God's good. It is how I use them to the benefit of self and others that is the arena of my moral life. This is the promise land of hope and prosperity. This is a small temple called my/our lives and the question is how do I want God to choose to dwell here. Oh and also how God wants me to dwell there.

The First Sunday of Lent

The First Sunday of Lent

 

I sing this hymn each day in Lent from Ash Wednesday through the third week of Lent. It may be found in the Saint Helena Breviary on page 6. I enjoy the rhythm and the tune, while I do not know its notation, is very much in my head and heart.

The fast, as taught by sacred lore,
we come to celebrate once more,
as every year in prayer and praise
we keep these holy forty days.

The law and prophets... had foretold
this Lent in many ways of old,
which Christ, who governs all our time,
in blessed observance made sublime.

Then let us keep this holy Lent,
with watchful and devote intent
that, vigilant, we may prepare
our hearts for God's redeeming care.

As by our lapses we offend
O you who love us, truest friend;
Forgive us Jesus our offense
teach us a new obedience.

Let all the world forevermore
you, gracious Trinity, adore;
and may we spend these forty days
in seeking you and singing praise.

Today I discovered this form sung in the Roman monastic breviary. In comparing the two I discovered how differently they work on my soul. The first while faithful and focused gives me a deeper hope at progress and seems to me to celebrate the reality that many travel this road together in a disciplined daily hope. Perhaps this is so because of the use of the word, celebrate, in the second line.

The second and older version feels to me heavy if exacting. Yet both end with hope for renewal. Enjoy.

The fast, as taught by holy lore,
We keep in solemn course once more;
The fast to all men known, and bound
In forty days of yearly round.

The law and seers that were of old
In divers ways this Lent foretold
Which Christ, all seasons’ King and Guide,
In after ages sanctified.

More sparing therefore let us make
The words we speak, the food we take,
Our sleep and mirth, and closer barred
Be every sense in holy guard.

In prayer together let us fall,
And cry for mercy, one and all,
And weep before the Judge’s feet,
And His avenging wrath entreat.

Thy grace have we offended sore,
By sins, O God, which we deplore;
But pour upon us from on high,
O pardoning One, Thy clemency.

Remember Thou, though frail we be,
That yet Thine handiwork are we;
Nor let the honor of Thy Name
Be by another put to shame.

Forgive the sin that we have wrought;
Increase the good that we have sought;
That we at length, our wanderings o’er,
May please Thee here and evermore.

We pray Thee, holy Trinity,
One God, unchanging Unity,
That we from this our abstinence
May reap the fruits of penitence.

Saturday after Ash Wednesday: Reality as I see it

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Knowing tomorrow we will go with Jesus into the wilderness of his temptation and his clarification, I find myself thinking on the contrast of virtue and reality. It seems to me these are often held in contrast. I must admit I do not long watch "reality TV" or angry TV as both seem to me not reality but the proclamation of our lowest selves.

What are the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness but the offering to him of his lower human self and his recall of the depth of God's word and his orientation to virtue. Do I want less for me? Is this not why we each read scripture, to reinvigorate virtue, good daily?

Today we read Titus 3:1-15. Below are verses 3-8 and are a help to me.

 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is sure. I desire that you insist on these things, so that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works; these things are excellent and profitable to everyone.
Reality TV does not devote itself often to good works nor do the angry talking heads. Too often they reach for our lowest nature and show us again how visceral and unkind we can be. And when we are least aware we may yield to this unkindness.

We invigorate the best in self and others when we seek to build kindness, when we recognize the new neighbor, when we stop to be pleasant or give a gift as small as a congratulation. We help self and others when we curb our tongue, make a call, tithe to God's work as we understand it, let the person with one item go before us in the store. Then perhaps when greater wrongs and goods stand in contrast in our lives or others we have the 'authority' to offer a pratice, wisdom and direction.

Kindness looked for and practiced, like forgiveness or hospitality, or the blush of care in our eyes and heart, this is the more true reality if what we want is the blush of God in our daily life.

Let me think on this today. Want to join me?

Friday after Ash Wednesday: Come and see

Friday after Ash Wednesday

 

From John 1:38-39
They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.

 When first I worked at the practice of making confession I used a long list of potential sins from the St. Augustine's Prayer Book. It instructed me well in all the possibilities I had not yet realized or had but took no notice of. My confessions were quite fastidious, so much so that once when I was visiting my parent's home from Seminary and the Episcopal priest was a tight family friend, I went to Rome for the day.

 In the dark of the formal confessional there was only a floor light where I put my list of wrongs so I would be well guided. The priest commented that this was a thorough confession and gave a little penance, but no advise as I was accustomed to. I felt as I left that confession somewhat let down, decieved, not properly helped, another sin perhaps.

As I grew older I looked for simpler aids. The summary of the law became a favorite. Have I loved God, neighbor, self with all my heart mind and soul? How? How not? Which was a mere oversight? Which was intentional? Is there a difference in God's view? How will I amend my life?

When I read John 1 today I realized here is another way to examine our lives. We follow Jesus. We desire to lodge the hours of our days where he lodges, right? He invites us to come and see his lodging, his life. That lodging in truth is not a house, a home in a concrete sense but the heart of God visible in his actions and choices. So if the question is turned and Jesus says, "Where are you staying?" Do I want him to see? Do I want my daughter to see, my partner in life, my brother, my neighbor? Are there choices I make, actions I partake of that I would not want to share? Why? Is there something off here that shames me and is it legitimate shame? Personally, I am still a mixed bag and have things worthy of my little list of missed moments to do Jesus' good.

This section of John carries on and we see that one of John the Baptist's followers who stays with Jesus is Andrew. He runs momentarily off and finds his brother Simon Peter and announces, "We have found the Christ!" Peter will outstrip Andrew in the zeal of following but not in perfection of life. Does my life, do my actions, my choices cause anyone to follow Jesus? Who? How?

 

Maybe this is my penance...to ponder my effect on the world.

"Come and see."

Thursday after Ash Wednesday: "He must increase, I must decrease."

Well I have done my reflection time which I share here. Afterward I need to go face the cleaning of decks and the rebuilding of a set of stairs to the beach. Pray for me a sinner...but a joyful one!!

Thursday after Ash Wednesday:

Today my thoughts are simple and that seems appropriate after Ash Wednesday which has a silent power to create us afresh. The day bids one yield to introspection, to looking inward and measuring ones need of God and grace and repentance(change, turning God-ward). Grace weaves her power in gathered worship under the signs of ashes and body and blood as one offers the inward paths to God and looks outward to our companions who also journey with God.

This morning as I read John 1:29-34, John speaks of Jesus: "After me comes one who ranks before me, for he was before me." Instantly I remember another saying of John the Baptist to his close disciples: "He must increase, I must decrease." (John 3:30). I find this a good watch phrase for Lent. It is not that I will somehow disappear, but that I will discover deeper ways to yield to God's good.

I am forever indebted to the Sister's of St. John Baptist in Mendham, NJ for my love of this quote from John. It is the motto of their community. Over time I would come to love them as brave in God. Brave not because they were more perfect, always likable, ever gentle. I think many desired these qualities, but they also housed stubbornness, strong will, struggles with self worth, ever changing priorities. In short they were each human and on a journey...as we all are.

No, brave because in their human journey they set their lives on a path. They set their lives on a path together. Their numbers shifted, their leadership shifted, their self understanding shifted. Every time they accepted a new member, lost a member, stagnated in membership, their life was impacted for good or ill. But their vocation was to live together, daily pray together, discover God's work for them together...and sometimes separately.

As I said mass for them weekly for almost a decade, had tea and meals with them off and on, I was privilege to observe their life...as an outsider who cares to observe life. I would more and more realize to decrease so that Christ might increase is not to disappear. It is rather to grow deeper. It is to know ones ego, ones desire for strength and more self. It is to safely know ones weaknesses as well. It is to enter into this self discover with great reflection but hopefully not self obsession. There was always I think someone at hand to draw you out of self obsession. There was always some work the Order required of you or offered you. You might say, "Yes, right on!" to the work. Or you might say "Oh my, not this again." At least I might have said those things.

And as each woman grew in her strength, as she knew herself in God, she was better enabled to yield to the communities need of her and God's need. On their best days they would help one another grow deeper, tend to prayer and work and hospitality. The Order would change in its work and daily expression of vocation.

But what helped me was to watch a desperately shy sister, become more comfortable with self, worth and others. Then to watch a seemingly secure sister come to a different vocational expression with clarity and for the sake of the sisters she loved, to hold it back a little until most could embrace it. There was a seemingly secure woman who entered who would learn to quieten more, yield a little to the community's need and grow in new ways. There were those who came and left because this was not the arena where they could yield best to God. The sisters grieved variously these changes. Yet each was yielding however imperfectly to some deeper voice, seeking to discover God's good, converse about this good. Most of those conversations I was not privy to. I would just see the outward fruit.

So I am today reminded, "He must increase, I must decrease." This can be a watch phrase in Lent. I can yield to depth largely by growing strong in ways that grow my abilities and then give them over to God. Community can help me measure them sometimes better than I can alone. But the point is to serve God best in this life in ways that strengthen the whole Church either as it gathers in community or as it is set in the world. Some times I will grieve the change asked of me from within and without. My reward is seeing some good that pleasures God in Christ Jesus and letting that be enough just now. Then perhaps I will see more clearly: "After me comes one who ranks before me, for he was before me."

Ash Wednesday 2013

I both love and hate this day.
I love it because it once woke me up to my life as it was at 19.
“Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.”
Yes I know that feeling, the feeling of dust, of present but not of full worth.
Of so wanting to be of full worth and know my way there.
And I hated that feeling, a feeling cast by my adolescent/manhood,
      by a father... who knew this same confused worth,
     and cast just by trying to find my way,
      and finding God in silent twilight prayer and mornings early blush.
I spent that first true Lent wanting to know my value as dust,
      but not just dust, dust blown by the hope and will of God.

And every year Ash Wednesday comes and I both resent and hope in its visitation,
      its renewing and challenging rhythm.
Already with Jonah I have sat beneath the call to change and see and change again.
I have sat beneath the shading bush of Matins’ prayer and Psalm 142
     “Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning,
            for I put my trust in you; *
      show me the road that I must walk,
           for I lift up my soul to you.”
And here I have felt the bush begin to wither and seen the tracks of the worn.
I have seen a little into my sin and wondered at my road home again, the things I must confess.
I have missed the wise confessor of my first Lent who helped me know the way home
      and yet I know he lives both in me and beyond.
Now there is hope.

As I resent the Pepper steak I will not eat on this fast day and then resent it less,
I have remembered that I do not walk this day alone.
I walk it with God and the host of faithful who throughout time look inward to know the wisdom of God.
And even if I do not see the World use this day well,
I see the beginning of things that can be changed,
      the apologies that are to be tasted
      the silences that must remain and the amends that are within my heart,
I see the hypocrisy of wanting to be part of a community with care for all
      and wanting to pay less a contractor who insures his workers,
      and I wonder at my next decision.

And so I begin to open the closet doors of my existence,
      the places I often choose not to see.
And I see.

But I remember “That thou art dust and to dust…” But Adam was made from dust mingling with Divine hope and vision and intent.
Let me be that dust.
Let me see and return.
Let me remember that the scorching heat of God’s midday is intense with divine Love,
      means to create in me a thirst and show me a font that soothes,
And will again turn into twilight and sunrise.
    “Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning,
         for I put my trust in you; *
     show me the road that I must walk,
         for I lift up my soul to you.”
 Let me resent a little less this day’s journey and dust.