One Wild and Precious Life

Sermon Time

Wow, it has been such a very long time since I've posted a sermon. I don't write them at all anymore, so we'll see how this goes, just jotting down some random thoughts and notes that I probably said today -- though since I don't even make notes, this will be the first I've written at all about these readings.  For those of you who don't know this, in the Episcopal Church we read (and preach from) readings that are assigned each week; the "assignment list," which rotates the same readings on a 3-year cycle, is called our lectionary.  And this week, the lectionary gave me these:  Exodus 16:2-15 (the Israelites getting manna from heaven) or Jonah 3:10-4:11 (Jonah's final 2 temper tantrums, after God spares Nineveh); Philippians 1:21-30; and for the Gospel, Matthew 20:1-16 (the landowner paying all the workers a full days wage, regardless of whether they worked a full day or only an hour).  I had to address both the Exodus and Jonah from the Old Testament, as I serve 3 different congregations, and one of them used the Exodus, while the other two used Jonah.  But this week that was easier than most, because the theme is the same.  I usually try to incorporate all 3 readings into my preaching; usually there's a theme, and the 3 readings all elaborate that theme on multiple levels.  But today it was mostly Old Testament and Gospel.

I love to preach about Jonah, first of all because the story is so short that I get to tell the whole thing, just to remind people about who Jonah really was.  It's a great chance to show the humor in the story, and let people know that it's okay to laugh at some of these biblical characters.  Jonah is certainly worth a chuckle or two, and I love adding a few dramatic flourishes, like clutching my chest, gazing up to heaven, and saying, "Okay, God, just kill me now!" (Which Jonah actually does say at least a couple of times.) But mostly I love Jonah because God really is patient and gentle and long-suffering in response to Jonah's stubborn self-will and temper tantrums.  Just like I feel like God's really patient and long-suffering with me in my own stubborn willfulness.  And I love Jonah for his whining and complaining and arguing with God; I think God just really wants us to be in relationship with God, and to be honest, even if it's through whining and complaining sometimes.

And for me, the Gospel was also about the laborers who worked all day whining and complaining about their pay, when they got the same as the ones who only worked an hour.  I pointed out the historical context, that Matthew was almost certainly a Jewish Christian, preaching to other Jewish Christians about how it could be that Gentile Christians could be full members of the church, without even being circumcised.  These "newcomers" get the same "pay" (or grace) as the Children of Abraham (who've been in the field all day).

So it's all about whining, and how (we see in Jonah) that it's okay to whine, and that God's response is generally a kindly, patient "It's none of your business" (how God's grace gets dispensed, and it will usually be given abundantly, even in ways that look really unfair to us sometimes).  And for my part, I'm so glad it's okay to whine (because I do so much of it), and that God dispenses mercy and grace abundantly, despite how I can be.

Of course I didn't mention all those times when God also seemed to get fed up and struck people dead.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Today I am lucky enough to be working from home (doing a little work-related stuff, but also procrastinating with Facebook and email and Spider Solitaire - is this what everyone who works from home does?).  I'm listening to a beautiful recording of Advent Lessons & Carols by the choirs of St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, Washington.  As I'm working, procrastinating, messing around, my mind wanders where it will.  Suddenly, on Track 31, I hear, really hear the reading from Luke 1:26-38, the Annunciation.  I hear the angel Gabriel say to Mary, "Greetings, favored one!  The Lord is with you."  And I hear Mary's perplexity, read by a really good lector.  What kind of greeting might this be?  Uh-oh, what does he want?  "Don't be afraid, for you have found favor with God."

Bam!  Suddenly it's 1993, and I'm standing in the office of the Forensic Mental Health Unit in Buffalo, NY, realizing that I will be a priest, and it's not a matter of "...if I'm ordained" (as we aspirants to Holy Orders were all taught to phrase it), but it really is "...when I'm ordained."  I knew it then with such clarity and certainty, and I wasn't afraid (as I probably should have been -- if I knew then what I know now!), and a great sense of joy and peace, the peace that passes all understanding,  settled over me.

You know, I've come a long way in my relationship with Mary.  As a staunch feminist, I had no desire to identify with "Gentle Mary, meek and mild," the one who bowed her head and said, "Let it be with me according to your will."  I've always been, as I've heard it described "strong-willed" (nice description of "stubborn").   Maybe I could identify with Mary Magdalen, even Mary of Bethany ("Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.").  Then I learned I could identify with the black madonna, that walker of the dark paths of life, paths of grief and loss, of illness and birth and death, of the unknown.

But nope, no gentle submission for me.  At some point, though, I realized what courage submission took - maybe it was when I came to terms with (submitted to)  my own addiction to food; maybe it was when I realized what Mary actually said yes to -- an untimely, premarital pregnancy with a child obviously not her fiancee's.  This was an offense punishable by stoning, and she would almost certainly forfeit her approaching marriage.  But she said yes anyway.  And I bet she felt that same peace and joy that I felt that day in 1993 when I knew I had already said yes.  All would be well, and all would be well.

Now I know what untimely, pre-marital pregnancy feels like, and in 1968, when I experienced it,  it wasn't even punishable by death!  I know how hard it is to say yes to that sticky situation.  But now I also have a shiveringly gut-level realization of what it means, for better and for worse, to say yes to a call from God, even though I couldn't possibly know what that would mean for the rest of my life.  There's a fearful stepping off a cliff and then discovering that you've been given wings.  There's the opportunity to develop the kind of trust in the unseen Holy One that was only theoretical before.  But I couldn't always feel the wings.  There were long periods of time when I just felt the stepping off, and the falling.  There were lots and lots of times when I thought I must have been a fool to even try stepping off that particular cliff of saying yes to the priesthood.  But all was well, and all is well.  I bet there were times that Mary wished the whole thing hadn't even got started, too.

My lesson for today:  Listen!  Listen for the angels!  To what are they calling me now?  What sort of courageous "Yes" am I being called to say?  What dream is God trying to implant in my heart?  What of God's dreams for the world will I carry to fruition in the coming months?  Oh, my.  Right now I feel so grateful.

Sunday Sermon: Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

Hmmm.  Superbowl Sunday and a whole inch of melting snow on the Cumberland Plateau.  It will probably be a small group at church today.  It's not about making excuses:  when you're elderly, as most of my folks are, and your driveway freezes, you don't go out till it melts (tomorrow, probably).  In these mountains, driveways often are at about a 45-degree slant, so ice makes it pretty difficult.

Here's today's sermon.  I'm incubating another piece that may or may not get written today, and may or may not get posted.  Except for church, Sundays tend to be not-so-productive for me.  I read on Facebook the other day that clergy, often introverts (as am I), are especially "on" on Sunday morning, like "rock star at a concert" on.  That's kind of how it feels for someone who has to push to get outside herself at all.  So I'm pretty tired by early Sunday afternoon.  I wish I were more extroverted, got more energy out of the Sunday morning crowd -- but it depletes me.

Okay, here it is.

Epiphany 4C, February 3, 2013

Psalm 71:1-6; Jeremiah 1:4-10; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

You know, there are always themes in our readings, and they usually jump right out at me the first time I read them through, most often on Monday morning.  This, I think, is when the Holy Spirit speaks: showing me what themes God wants you to hear from me this week.  And today there are two themes.  When I first saw them, I thought I had to pick, because I didn’t see any connection at all.  When I say what they were, you may catch the connection before I did.  In the Old Testament reading and the Psalm, the theme that stands out today (other themes for other lectionary years – that’s the way scripture works) is fear.  Jeremiah was afraid to be God’s prophet, and God had to spend some time reassuring him that it would be all right, that God would accompany him wherever he went, whatever he did or said.  Maybe it’s not so much fear as God’s reassurance that there is no need to fear.  There is that assurance of safety and comfort in the Psalm, too:  “In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge…be my strong rock…keep me safe….”  There it is – security in God, and asking for that feeling of reassurance.  There is also that recurrent theme of being known and called or consecrated by God before we’re born in both these readings (see it at the beginning of the reading from Jeremiah, and verse 6 of the Psalm).  God knows us so well that he even knew us before we were born, chose us before we were born.  As I said last week – we must start our ministry from a place of safety and security in God’s love – not a place of resentment or fear.

 The second theme I saw was, of course, love.  You can’t read that passage from Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth without thinking of weddings.  Paul emphasizes that ministry must come from a foundation of love, or it’s worth nothing.  Sometimes we get so earnest in our ministry that it begins to feel like a sense of duty or “should” or “must.”  That’s when the joy goes out of it.  And ministry is always received in the spirit with which it’s given.  You know when someone is doing something because they have to, rather than because they love it.  I know which way I prefer it.  If I’m in the hospital and have a choice (I think I’ve used this example before) between a nurse who loves their job, and one who only does it for the paycheck, I know the one I’d prefer.  Same with wait staff in a restaurant:  I much prefer the person who loves their work.  Without love, any gift, any service, is as unpleasant to receive, as the giver feels about giving it.  Don’t even bother, is how I feel.

 Jesus is also talking about love in the Gospel reading.  He’s talking about inclusiveness.  He’s addressing people who are unappreciative enough to expect that if he’s really someone special, he’d better come up with a few miracles.  And he speaks of Elijah and Elisha, two of Israel’s greatest prophets, and how their miracles weren’t done for the people of Israel, but rather for Gentiles.  He’s warning against feeling entitled, against the feeling that we “deserve” certain privileges (like seeing miracles) because we’re somehow special or “chosen” or “deserving.”  He’s saying that God’s favor is given to everyone, that God’s love and abundance don’t know the same boundaries that we humans construct.  We’re so good at making judgments, so good at setting up fences and walls, at deciding who’s deserving and who’s not, who’s in and who’s out, who’s a member of our special, privileged “club,” and who’s not.  God never asks those kinds of questions.  Jesus didn’t, either.  And if we want to imitate Christ, we need to look at our own expectations, our own sense of entitlement, at what we feel we deserve over and above what others might or might not deserve.  We’re called to be a inclusive as God is, as Jesus was.  We’re called to work at transcending our so-human need to include and exclude, to be a tight-knit little “us,” looking out from safety on the not-included “them.”  It’s just not the way God sees things, not the way God loves.

 But now the connection between the two themes: love and fear.  They’re two emotions that can’t exist at the same time.  Back in the day when I studied psychology (can it really be 40 years ago???), we were taught the basic principle that two opposite feelings can’t exist within a person at the same time.  Therefore we could help people with anxiety by introducing a way for them to relax; this was called desensitization, and it’s still used to treat anxiety.  The same is true of love and fear:  We can’t love well if we’re operating out of fear, and perfect love drives out fear.  I don’t know about you, but hard things are easier for me to face and to do when I know I’m loved.  If we are secure in God’s love, the kind of security that God instilled in Jeremiah, the kind of security in which Jesus lived and moved and had his being, then we don’t fear the things that God gives us to do.  We’re able to step out in faith and live in the kingdom, and bring others into the kingdom, as well.  In fact, if we live and walk in love, we don’t even have to be intentional about spreading the good news – it just emanates from us.  Remember that in John’s letter he says that God is love.  So if we’re “delighting in God’s will and walking in God’s way,” as our confession says, we’re loving.  Everyone.  All the time.  It’s a struggle, but we know what God wants, and when we walk in love, we do it without hesitation.  It’s only when fear creeps in that we begin to doubt and question and second-guess ourselves and others.  When we’re doing that, we need to ask ourselves what we’re afraid of, from where is the fear coming, and take the time for prayer, and to re-center ourselves in God’s love.

 Paul says that the things that last are “…faith, hope and love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”  Faith and hope can’t really exist, apart from love.  Love is like trust.  The very same.  It’s what gives us the courage to believe, the courage to persevere, the courage to hope.  Without God’s love, we’ve got nothing.  It’s all, as Paul says elsewhere, rubbish.

 So it seems to me that the very best thing we can do (as usual) is to look to Jesus.  Look to Jesus for an example of the kind of courage that perfect love can give.  Jesus had the courage to speak the truth to power, the courage to love those that others considered unlovable, to take his ministry wherever he felt God called him.  Jesus (and the angels, and Godself) spent a lot of time, a lot of breath saying to us humans, “Fear not,” knowing that where fear existed, the good news couldn’t be truly heard and felt and given away.  It’s resting in that divine love that allowed Jesus to do the things he did, and finding and resting in it ourselves that will allow us to do the work we’re given to do by God.  Amen.

Sermon for Epiphany

Here's my sermon for today.  Day after tomorrow I celebrate 13 years as a priest.  Amazing.  It feels like forever; it feels like no time since I stood before the Bishop at Calvary Episcopal Church in Williamsville, NY, and felt his hands on my head, and those of my colleagues, as well.  The hands felt very heavy; I remember that.

Many days I tie my cincture (the rope "sash" that goes around the waist of my alb, the white liturgical garment I wear), and remember Jesus saying to Peter, "...when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished,  But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." Lots of times I feel I'm being told where I must and must not go, and what I must and must not do.   I'm about ready to start fastening my own belt again.  It feels like another great adventure.

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Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

It’s Epiphany!  We only get to celebrate this day on Sunday once every seven years – or is it eight, because of leap year?  But it’s lovely to celebrate the very day with you – usually we combine our celebration of the coming of the Magi with the first Sunday after Epiphany, the baptism of Christ.  This year we get to celebrate each of those festivals on its own day.

Today, Epiphany, we celebrate the manifestation, the appearance (Epiphany comes from the Greek root for “manifestation”) of Christ to the Gentiles, represented by those wise men, those Magi from the East – who were Gentile, not Jewish.  “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you….Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice….”  The Psalm tells us more specifically what the rule of the King’s Son will bring:  righteous and just rule, prosperity, defense of the needy, rescue and deliverance for the poor and oppressed, abundance of peace.  Read it – it’s all right there; we just chanted it.  Since we’re all aware that the fullness of those things are not present here in our world, we know the fullness of the kingdom is not what we’re living – not yet.

 In the Epistle, Paul describes his commission, his ministry, his call by God to bring good news to the Gentiles.  This Jesus, who was considered a heretic by the Jews, a dangerous revolutionary by the Romans, is the Messiah, the bearer of God’s “mystery,” a Messiah who intended his message for the Jews, who then rejected it.  But the hungry-hearted Gentiles – they were the ones, the ready harvest that Paul found, and to whom he brought the good news, “…the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God….”  Very good news, indeed, the news and promise that we are adopted as full members of God’s family, heir to all the mysteries and promises contained in scripture, co-heirs with this Messiah, Jesus Christ. 

 And the Magi, those wise men from the East – they brought good news, too.  All of their calculations, all their figuring and pondering, probably over months and years, culminated in this news of a king born in Israel.  Did Herod know where he might be?  Of course they expected this new king to be born into the house of the current ruling king.  But no, Herod knew nothing of this newborn king.  The Jewish priests and scribes studied their own texts and found that Bethlehem was where the child would be born – and Herod, on receiving this good news, heard it as a threat, as very bad news, and sent the wise men to find the child, the threat to his rule, whom he, Herod, would then eliminate.

 Of course, we know the end of this little story of Matthew's:  the dream that sent the wise men home by another road, the dream that sent Joseph and his little family into Egypt until Herod died, and the dream that brought them back home.  We know that despite the slaughter of the innocents, that child, that newborn king, survived and thrived and became the anointed of God, the Messiah, Emmanuel, God With Us.

 But the whole point of this sermon is this:  Herod heard the good news, but he couldn’t receive it.  It sounded like bad news to him.  He couldn’t imagine that he might also be heir to mysteries and promises, and to a kingdom greater than any he would ever rule, and that this newborn king had no intention of displacing him, but only saving him, rewarding him, Herod, with riches greater than he could conceive.

 And now, of course, we are the heirs, the recipients of the good news.  And just like Paul, it is our commission, our ministry, our call from God to take that good news out to a world that is hungry to hear it – that part is no different than it was in the First Century.  Unfortunately, we don’t all know just what that good news is.  We can’t hear it as something so truly good that it can transform our lives.  It’s only that kind of good news that’s good enough to share.  And of course, when we do share it, there’s no guarantee that the world can receive it.  Unlike the First Century, there are many, many more distractions to prevent us from knowing just how hungry our hearts are for these mysteries, this good news.  Like Herod, there are those to whom the very good news of God With Us and our inheritance of the mysteries, the wisdom, the kingdom of God sound improbable at best, and like very bad news, at worst.  Yep, there are lots of people out there for whom Christianity’s good news sounds very much like bad news.

 And that may be because of who they are, as it was for Herod.  It may be because they are damaged in some way, as Herod was – and unfortunately, sometimes today they are damaged by Christianity itself.  There are some brands of Christianity that can do some serious damage to the minds and hearts of people who get in the way.  There are kinds of Christianity that judge and accuse and exclude, and that actually are very bad news.  There are Christians that judge and accuse and exclude, and who bring bad news wherever they go.  Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard brain scientist who had a massive, disabling stroke, and recovered to write about it, says that we must take responsibility for what we bring into the world.  That people perceive who we are and how we are at some level that is below words, below consciousness.  And we are responsible for how people perceive us.  Do we bring good news or bad?  What do people perceive, on that subconscious level, about us?

So we all need to think about ourselves.  Have we received the good news?  Have we been able to hear and understand just how good the news we’ve been given really is, just how great the gift we possess really is?  Do we feel the commission from God that we’ve been given (and oh, yes, we have been given it, by our baptism, by our membership in God’s family), to carry this good news to the hungry world, to share the gift, the promises, the inheritance we’ve been given?  Have we given serious thought and prayer to how we might do that, to how we might be while we’re doing that, whether we’re aware of it or not?  And the news we bring into the world – is it good, or not?  The things we say, the things we do, the ways we give or not give, are kind or not – these are all what we bring to the world – and is that good news, or not?

 At the start of every single day it would behoove us to spend a little time meditating on what we’ve been given through Jesus Christ.  And to think and pray on how we personify, embody, incarnate that news in the world.  It wouldn’t hurt to spend just a little time centering and preparing ourselves each morning, and then at the end of the day, praying and reflecting on how we’ve done – for good and for ill.  That’s something, just those few little minutes, twice a day, that can transform our lives.  We invite God in to work with us and work on us, and God With Us will come in.  That’s a promise.  And it’s really good news.  It’s light in what can sometimes be a pretty dark world.  Amen.

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Monsters Among Us?

This is my sermon for today.  I finished it Saturday night, but this morning something wouldn't leave me alone - a conversation with a friend that I had last week.  You'll see if you read it.

Lectionary Readings for Christmas 1, Year C:  Psalm 147; Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7; John 1:1-18

Well, I know I say this a lot, but these are definitely the best lectionary readings we get in the total three-year cycle of readings!  These readings are full of all the best – the love and promises in Isaiah and Galatians, the grandeur of the Gospel, the images from nature in the Psalm:  mountains and grass, birds, horses, snow and frost – and the Psalm’s beautiful promises, as well, of the gathering up, healing, and rebuilding of God’s people, with the refrain that Mary sang to us last week, of lifting up the lowly and casting down the wicked.  Beautiful.  Consoling.  Great cause for ongoing celebration in this ongoing festival season of Christmas (today is the 6^th day).

And yet….and yet.  Probably not many Episcopalians know what day we observed on Friday.  Anybody here?  And if you do know what day Friday was, did you know before you read your Episcopal Calendar?  On Friday, we Christians who observe such things marked the day that commemorates the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents.  It’s that day when Herod, in a paranoid rage about the birth of the “new king,” sent his troops in to slaughter “all the children in or around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.”  You can read about that in Matthew, Chapter 2, verses 16-18.  It’s when an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream (I love the way Matthew includes so many dreams) and told him to take Mary and Jesus into Egypt, to escape the slaughter.  I’m not sure why we celebrate it before Epiphany, before the coming of the Magi, since it was that occasion on which Herod learned of this “new king” and sent the Magi to find him.  The Magi, having also had a dream, “left for their own country by another road,” and that’s when Herod, in his paranoid rage, slaughtered the innocents.  Perhaps we celebrate it now for the very reason of seeing the shadows in the light of Christmas, and the light of the miracle amidst the horror.  Herod, from the distance of 2 millennia, seems pretty much like a monster.  Who would slaughter innocent children?  And this year when we commemorate Holy Innocents, many of us can’t help but think of Newtown Connecticut, two weeks ago.

 On Friday I had a conversation that I can’t get out of my head.  A friend of mine was insisting that Adam Lanza, the shooter of those children, is a monster – a mysteriously malformed, mutant human being who we can never understand.  And I kept insisting that he was a human being, not so terribly different than the rest of us human beings.  I guess I was too steeped in my thoughts of how God would see Adam Lanza – pretty much like God sees the rest of us – a terribly flawed sinner, for sure – but also a soul to be loved and saved, a lost sheep in need of being found, a poor, beaten soul in need of a Good Samaritan – a Samaritan helper that Adam Lanza never was able to find.  I argued that if we insist on classifying the perpetrators of these terrible crimes as “monsters,” and the solution as simply identifying and locking up or killing these monsters, then we never solve the problem.  We never ask the next question:  How has our culture helped for mis-shape and mal-form these monsters?  God’s creation is very good.  God didn’t create a monster.  If he is a monster, then I say that monsters are made, not born.  And we seem to be making more of them, because these crimes keep happening more and more often.  What can we do to stop ourselves from making monsters?  Those are questions worth asking.  And I believe that it takes some empathy, some compassion (some com-passion – some feeling with) in order to solve the problem.  I think if we as individuals and a culture can’t be aware of and in touch with our own darker, shadow side, we have little hope of solving the problem.  You know what I say about our shadow, our dark side – if we don’t face and admit it head-on, it will sneak up behind us and bite us when we least expect it.  I made a list for myself that night – ways in which I am like Adam Lanza, experiences I may have had that are similar to his. Of course I can't possibly know -- I never knew Adam Lanza.  But I can make some pretty good guesses; I’m going to share that list with you.

1.  I know what it’s like to feel like a weird misfit.  I've lived there.
2. I know what it’s like to be made fun of.
3. I know what it’s like to ask for help, to really need help, and not get it.  On the other hand, I also know how it feels when I need help and someone reaches out and helps me.  It's mostly emotional help I'm talking about here.
4. I know what it’s like to be so enraged that I want to hurt and/or kill people.
5. I know what it’s like to feel desperate to escape some crisis or life circumstance, even if it means dying.
6. I know what it feels like to want to fit in and be like everyone else, and not be able to figure out how to do it.
7. I know how it feels to be imprisoned in my own introversion and my own perceptions and misperceptions.

 I made that list in about 5 minutes.  I bet if I took some more time, I could double it.  Now, I don’t want you to worry about me.  I have the psychological strengths not to follow through on any of those shadowy, dark feelings.  And I’ve only felt or experienced most of them for moments at a time, or a few hours -- or even a period of a few bad days -- rather than as a way of life, the way Adam Lanza must have.  All I’m saying is that those dark feelings have all lived inside me – and by the grace of God, I’ve had the strength and sanity to resist them, to wait them out till they passed, to get help with them, to know that things get better.  Adam Lanza didn’t have the strength and wisdom that I do, by the grace of God, or by my upbringing, or good genes, or whatever gives me what he didn't have that lets me survive and thrive.  I do believe that it’s from a place of some understanding, even if it’s partial understanding, and a place of empathy and compassion, that we can begin to love our neighbor, and to help solve our neighbor’s problem – which often has a way of becoming our own problem, too – we’ve learned that, writ large, lately.

 And now, and yet, we’re still in the Christmas fetival.  Even remembering those Holy Innocents long ago, those Holy Innocents more recently, we’re called to rejoice and hear the good news.  We’re called to revel in Isaiah’s words, to hear them as though we are saying them ourselves – not as Isaiah’s words, but as our own – as God’s children, God’s heirs, as Galatians reminds us.  Isaiah says, “…I will rejoice…My whole being will exult…he has clothed me with garments of salvation, as a bridegroom decks himself… as a bride adorns herself….You shall be a crown of beauty…”  I shall be…we shall be, for Isaiah is addressing Israel.  A crown of beauty, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God.”  Wow.  This part of Isaiah that we read today was written when the exile was over, and the people felt that God’s promises to Israel were once again flowering to fulfillment.  It’s a big mistake if we read scripture only as an old, dusty, historical story.  Scripture is talking to us now – and not just in the waning hours of 2012, but in this Christmas season – this season of wonder and miracle and the time when God has come to live with us.  It’s the time when God’s promises are being fulfilled for us, too.  This is the time for us to look at our own lives and see how God’s promises are fulfilled for us.  This is our job as Christians.  This is not an abstract process – just like solving our contemporary societal problems cannot be done in the abstract.  We start, when we study scripture, from the assumption that the promises of scripture, that God’s word is true, and it’s our job to figure out how that takes shape in our lives.  We start from the assumption that it’s our perception that may be faulty or incomplete, and that our life task is to continue to hone and clarify our perception -- to get to see our life and our world through something a little more like God's eyes. It’s up to us to figure out how the promises have been fulfilled in our own life.  Some people can do it alone; most of us need help.  We need to study and read; we need to work in groups; we need a spiritual director.  All of these are tools that can help us see God in our life.

 Paul tells us (I love Galatians -- “foolish Galatians,” he says elsewhere in the letter.  “Who has bewitched you?”) that before Christ, we had the law to tell us how to live.  Now we have a model, a brother.  Now we have been adopted into God’s family.  We are no longer slaves to the law, obeying blindly.  Now we’re children, heirs.  We’re part of God’s family, and we learn by watching our big brother, Jesus, just like most kids learn.

 Then we have this Gospel.  Oh, you’ve gotta know I love this Gospel.  John is the most difficult of the four gospels to understand, but this passage, right at the beginning, is so beautiful.  And we know who the Word is, but do we know what that means?  “The Word” is the shorthand for God’s wisdom.  Jesus is the Wisdom of God.  Much more than that, of course, because God’s words were also things like “Let there be light.”  A Creative Force.  God spoke it, and it came into being.  So Jesus is God’s Creative Force, God’s Wisdom.  We also know that Jesus is a clear or pure reflection of God, the essence of who God is.  You know I tell you, if you want to know what God's like, look at Jesus.

 And here’s the promise – the good news in this Gospel – this is the family we’ve been adopted into!  This is the one with whom we are co-heirs of the kingdom, of all that is God’s!  That’s pretty amazing!  We’ll never figure out what all that means, for sure.  What might it mean to be adopted into the family of the Word?  To be co-heirs with the Word, the Wisdom, the Creative Force of God?  What might God have in mind for us?  What gifts might God just be waiting to give us?  And importantly, how are we called to share those gifts?  How can we use our knowledge and experience of God’s gifts to share good news and love our neighbor, to reach out with compassion and make the world a better place?  It’s part of what God wants us to know this Christmas, part of what God wants us to ponder and dream about.  Amen.

Christmas Sermon

St. Raphael's Episcopal Church, Christmas Eve 2012

Psalm 96; Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20

This hasn’t been a normal Advent-preparing-for-Christmas season for lots of us.  I think it’s Newtown:  Newtown cracked open our hearts and for many of us, myself included, it was like opening something that’s a combination of a great treasure chest and also Pandora’s box.  Wonderful things came up – childhood memories I’d forgotten for years, fierce love for the people in my life, huge, aching compassion, and a vulnerability and imperfection that doesn’t always feel very good, but which seems to have allowed people to love me more, even as they roll their eyes in frustration with me.  But of course, Pandora’s Box didn’t contain much good stuff.  Remember when she opened it, all the demons and ills and evils of the world came flying and slithering out.  And that’s what happened when some of us had our hearts cracked open.  Bad stuff slithered out, too, our depressions and pains, our tempers, all the emotions we try so hard to keep hidden from others, to keep under wraps and maybe, just maybe, we let them loose on the pages of our journals or cried into the coats of our dogs.  Our demons were harder to contain this year, with our hearts cracked open.  Just when we thought we were safe, something else would come slithering out, and surprise us – and the ones who love us.

When Newtown cracked open our emotional “Pandora’s box,” lots of things went unattended:  I forgot to light the Advent wreath for Lessons & Carols.  My tree, though lighted, still isn’t decorated, and I’m okay with that.  I have gifts that are still unwrapped under that simply-lighted tree.  My packages didn’t get mailed out in time for Christmas Day.  But other things did get attended to: my painful heart cried out with other hearts in pain, and I was more aware than ever of how it can sometimes be a “Blue Christmas” for lots of us, me included.  Yep, life cracked itself right open and came to lay right in front of us, in this manger.

 There’s a poem I found this year among my books and papers; I’m sure I read it years ago, when I bought Denise Levertov’s book, The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes.  But I don’t recall it from years past – it shone like brand new when I found it last week.  It seemed just right for this particular year:  some light, some shadow.  I put it on my Christmas card this year, and now I share it with you, my Christmas card to all of you:

It’s when we face for a moment

the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know

the taint in our own selves, that awe

cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:

not to a flower, not to a dolphin,

to no innocent form,

but to this creature vainly sure

it and no other is god-like, God

(out of compassion for our ugly

failure to evolve) entrusts,

as guest, as brother,

the Word.

“When we face for a moment the worst our kind can do…”  That’s part of what Newtown did to us, did for us.  Because we all need to face the shadow side of ourselves, the darker side of our nature.  If we don't face it, the shadow will sneak up behind us and make a mess.  And now we have shadows again this week, in Webster, New York, a small town right outside Rochester.  Four firemen were shot, two killed, when responding to a terrible fire.  What is it about us humans that can do these terrible, ugly things to one other?  We’d like to think it’s monsters that do these things, people who are incredibly different from us, broken beyond redemption – not anyone even vaguely resembling us.  And that’s true, to some extent; these killers are incredibly broken.  But deep in our hearts, we know there are broken parts of us, too – and who’s to say those broken parts of us might not do something terrible and crazy one of these days, if we’re pushed far enough?  We might just “shudder to know the taint in our own selves.”  It’s times like that when some of us pause to wonder why God even bothers with us, when God might just get sick of us, sick enough to leave us to our own devices, our own messes, our own crazy terrors and outrages.

And then comes Christmas.  Then comes awe and wonder.  Then comes the reminder that, despite it all (and God had millennia to think about it all), despite all that is horrible and depraved about us humans; perhaps, as Levertov says in her poem, out of compassion for us, God entrusts the Word into the form of a tiny, vulnerable human being.  Into one of us.  Jesus came, as our Eucharistic prayer says, “To live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to [God]….”  Imagine that.  No wonder we feel wonder at Christmas.  All of this for us.  As the hymn says, “Love came down at Christmas…”

 I’m going to read you one more thing, something written this week by my ex-husband in his blog (that’s a web-log, a kind of public journal), and published on the internet today.  Now, he calls himself an avowed atheist, but he’s talking about the wonder of Christmas; his piece is entitled, “Waiting for Wonder.”  Here’s just a little bit of what he says:

 “With or without God, Christmas is the hope that each new morning heralds the dawn of a new age of peace and goodwill for all.  Christmas is the dream that we can yet be the people we yearn to be, and that we can somehow remake this world according to the whispered counsel of the better angels of our nature.  For me, Christmas combines childlike wonder at the very fact of existence with childlike trust that, against all the evidence of history and our own lives, all will somehow be well.  Christmas is the flickering hope, like a candle in the window or a distant star that we follow, that we can all of us yet be saved from ourselves—even if, from an atheist’s perspective, we can only be saved by ourselvbe he is an atheist; I guess we’ve got to believe what he says about himself.  But this, somehow, smacks of Christianity to me, of our faith that nothing is beyond redemption, that God does look on us with compassion, not as the impossible, headstrong (“stiff-necked,” the Bible often says), destructive creatures, but rather as dear, beloved souls to save, sheep to shepherd, as children in need of more and more love and teaching and living example.  Maybe, like many of you have done with me, God sees us at our worst, rolls his eyes, takes a deep breath, and loves us anyway.  Maybe even loves us because of our imperfections.  Maybe God knows that our imperfections are what keep us working, keep us praying, keep us hoping and trusting in God for the healing and wholeness we know we need, and that we long for.  Maybe it’s our imperfections that make us the creatures that are, in the end, worthy of bearing God’s dreams.

So yes, this Christmas of 2012 is different from some of the “only-merry-bright-and-cheery” ones we’ve all had from time to time (maybe those all-merry ones are rare, and that’s why we cherish them so).  It’s a time of light and shadow, of joy and hope and grief and tangled, confused emotions.  This year Christmas is a hoping for heaven while living squarely on earth, looking toward the light, while still standing partway in the shadow.  This Christmas contains the fullness of what it means to be human: sadness and all, hope and all.  My Christmas prayer for you is that you experience it all as richness and joy, even amidst the mixture, chaos, and confusion of it, and that you can feel gratitude for this mixed-up, Pandora’s box life that sometimes happens to us, even as we continue to dwell in the palm of God’s hand, in the corner of God’s heart, being brothers and sisters, as Levertov has said to us, to the Word incarnate, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Holiday Despair - or Something

Well, just in case you've never known anybody who suffers at the holidays, here I am!  Now, this hasn't happened in a long time, so it's kind of new -- or very old, but not recent -- for me.  The first few Christmases after my daughter died really sucked; but for a lot of years now, I've been pretty fine, whether I spent holidays alone (I work on religious holidays, so I don't get away much for Christmas), or whether I've had friends or family close by -- I tend to be of pretty good cheer, and make my own party or join others for theirs on the holidays.

But this year has been a little different.  Coming back from sabbatical has been hard, I think.  Initially, it felt great to be back: I loved being back at church, loved being with the folks at church, loved preaching and celebrating the Eucharist.  I loved the sermons I preached, and all was well.  Then Advent came, and Christmas, Lessons & Carols, and reading for my book group.  It all kind of snuck up on me and whacked me from behind.  Suddenly I felt like I was dancing as fast as I could, and still not getting nearly enough done.  People were mad at me from every direction because I hadn't attended to their particular project or problem as soon as I got home.  My computer went on the blink, so I didn't do as much work at home, either.  I'm using my little notebook now, but it's not nearly as easy as the big desktop with a fine, flat-screen monitor.  I've also got a lot of documents and pictures on the big computer that I can't access just now.  I think I need a new video card in the desktop computer, but I just don't have the time and/or energy to get someone to check it out.  Tonight I've locked my keys in the church (left them and other people left), so I can't do some of the evening things I thought I might do over there.  I can get them tomorrow morning, but still -- and I'm left feeling really stupid and forgetful, on top of everything else.

Then, with sabbatical letdown and holiday planning and lots of other stuff, right in the middle of it all, Newtown came.  I was feeling rotten already, and then there was that great grief, that great yawning darkness coming at me from the eastern edge of the country (Connecticut, where I went to seminary).  There are the faces of those little angel children -- too young to hate (or, as someone else said, also too young to hate adults!).  Sometime Friday as I lay crying on my sofa, I was hit with the realization that I know that feeling those parents had -- the phone call, the rush to wherever (I went to the Hospital ER), the interminable, helpless wait for news, and the learning that your child wasn't coming home from school that night, or ever.  Oh, it has been nearly 30 years since my daughter died, and it feels like last week just now.  And twenty of those babies -- I can't imagine how that town must feel, not to mention those 20 families.  It breaks my heart.  It breaks everyone's heart, I know -- and it should.

I particularly liked this picture, which I also posted to my facebook page:

I don't know who made this amazing drawing -- so simple, so evocative -- I didn't.  Facebook might have that info.  All I know is that perhaps the red figure was supposed to be a Sandy Hook parent -- but it feels like me.  And I have this communion of saints, living and not living, that I can feel with their hands on my shoulders, and other hands on their shoulders, and on back, and back, and back, clear to God or infinity, or whatever.

This is more black madonna work, in case you were wondering.  Being in this darkness when the rest of the world is in light, or just going on with its own business -- that's dark work, shadow work, black madonna work.  It's not a scary place for me, and it's pretty familiar, but I can't say I like it much.  I've been standing in the light for a long time -- sabbatical, work going well, my big weight loss, everything pretty bright and sunny.  Being back in the shadows isn't much fun at all.

Here's a little madonna that consoles me, though.  I took her picture at the Louvre in September:

She's a lovely little nursing madonna -- I took lots of pictures of sculptures and paintings like this.  They're so human, so homely -- not in the sense of ugly -- but domestic, comforting, cozy, even.  This one will lose a child -- but not yet.  Still, she knows the dark: that unplanned pregnancy, that long trip to Bethlehem, that cold birthing-place, the mystery of the signs and strangers visiting.  She lives with mystery very well -- with great grace.

Several really good things have happened in the last couple of days, however.  My good friend and ex-husband Jack has sent me several wonderful links -- one a beautiful panorama of time-lapse photography on a mountain, another a very thoughtful piece about "the end of the world" and some thoughts by Dietrich Bonhoffer.  Maybe he'll have the links on his blog, which I've linked here.  The pieces themselves, as well as his thoughtfulness, have helped my mood.

I also got an email from a friend who scheduled an Advent Quiet Day about the black madonna in Knoxville for me, and she says people are asking if I have notes or written materials from that presentation, nearly 2 weeks ago.  No, I don't.  I had jotted a few words down on some index cards, which I forgot to take with me.  I did have my figures, photographs which I laminated, and this trusty little notebook computer on which I had selected some photos to show on a bigger screen.  I mostly stood around and talked to them about the black madonna and told stories and made associations to real life -- about darkness and waiting and carrying God's dreams for the world, and being pregnant with something that was about to be born, and living in mystery or darkness or grief or illness.  It was a wonderful day for me, and hearing that others want to see and read and hear more has inspired me again.  The last time I scheduled a time to talk to my parish about the black madonna, after my trip to Italy in 2009, not a single person showed up.  At this big church in Knoxville, over 40 women showed up (including a handful from my parish -- I'm very grateful to them).  It was so wonderful to know that others are interested in this odd thing that has become a passion for me.  I feel inspired to maybe put together a little self-published book or something.  That sounds like a fun winter project, once the holidays are past.

Today at the healing service I had a wonderful experience.  After I anoint and pray for everyone who comes forward, then my usual practice is kneel at the altar rail myself, and they all lay hands on me and say prayers for my requests.  Today I wept -- for Newtown, for myself, for all those that I know are hurting during this happy, shiny season.  And I felt the love and compassion that flowed from and through those people -- it lifted me up and made the load feel lighter.  I came home and had the energy to finish the service leaflet for Lessons & Carols on Sunday, and even design the cover, which has this woodblock on it:

If you're close to Crossville this Sunday at 4, be sure and come.  The choir has been working hard, and it's a beautiful program of Christmas Lessons and Music -- my musician's handbook said Christmas music was OK for 4th Advent, so we're going for it.

So feeling down as I do, I'm a little disappointed to realize that most folks don't really think the world is going to end in 2 days.  I guess I'll have to get those service leaflets and sermons done, gifts wrapped and mailed, bills paid after all, and continue to pay my student loans and taxes, too.  Oh, well.  I was kind of excited about the adventure of it all.

Watch this space.  I've got lots more to say.

Newtown, After a Long Absence

Sermon, Advent 3C, December 16, 2012

 Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6); Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

Well, we surely have evidence this weekend that, even though the kingdom may be at hand, may even be here among us, it’s also “not yet.”  The slaughter of those 28 people in Connecticut, 20 of them first-graders, on Friday surely reminds us that the kingdom, the reign of God, is most certainly “not yet.”  God has not yet removed pain and illness and evil from among us, has not dried every tear and removed grief from among us.  Those things – evil  and illness, pain and grief and death and pointless suffering – are still here, alive and well –not willed by God, by any means, but present, nevertheless.

 I’ve spent a lot of time this weekend lying on my sofa, covers pulled up to my chin, in tears.  Though my circumstances were certainly different than the parents in Newtown, Connecticut, I know that feeling of suddenly, without warning, knowing my daughter wouldn’t be coming home from that school, wouldn’t ever be coming home again.  Of all the feelings that the community of Newtown, Connecticut must be feeling, and those bereaved parents in particular, it’s this sudden sense of loss, of absence, of senseless, enormous pain that I can feel like it was yesterday, even though it was nearly 30 years ago.  And I know I’m not the only one – probably not even the only one in this church this morning, who has had these feelings of great grief stirred up.

 You know how many times I’ve told you how I think John the Baptist “got it wrong” about the nature of God, and of the Messiah he foretold.  I still do think he got it wrong.  But you know what?  For the first time, I understand John the Baptist’s anger.  I’m pretty sure that the human race made John the Baptist sick to his stomach.  And I get that this weekend.  When I see children senselessly slaughtered I think about Herod’s own paranoid rage 2,000 years ago, and I feel sick with anger and incomprehension and sadness.  And there is a numerical study that has been done that shows that the world was a much more violent place in biblical times, than it is now.  No wonder John the Baptist expected God to smite us all with an axe and with fire.  I watch the politicians and the 24-hour-a-day media machine that, lacking facts, just makes stuff up.  I see myself and those just like me, unable to take our eyes off that media machine.  Millions of us are hypnotized by the slaughter, hypnotized by the grief, stare for hours and days on end, as one would at a traffic accident outside our door.  We simply can’t avert our eyes – and that reflects the best of us, the part that feels the suffering so deeply, and also the worst of us – that part that wants to witness the open wounds of the suffering of those others.

 And yet… and yet…  John the Baptist did get it wrong.  God knows the worst of us.  As sickened as we are by one another sometimes, God looks unflinchingly at our badness, and loves us anyway.  God sees sheep without a shepherd, lost coins, flour without yeast, defenseless souls with evil lurking like a wolf outside the door.  God sees lovable souls in need of saving, sees the very best of us, rather than the worst of us.  And every time we look at evil with compassion and see the best, we see through God’s eyes.

 I’ve read a quote over and over on Facebook this weekend, a quote from Mr. Fred Rogers (remember “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”?) who says, “Look for the helpers.  When you find evil and suffering, then look for the helpers.”  That’s where God is.  And as I glued myself to the television this weekend, I saw lots of helpers.  I saw bloodsucking reporters, yes, but with tears in their eyes.  I saw doctors and clergy and police with tears in their eyes.  I heard the stories of heroic teachers who protected their children, teachers who ran toward the gunman, instead of away from him.  I saw our President also wipe tears from his eye as he spoke to us.  I heard compassion for the killer’s family from a bereaved parent.  God was with us, is with us, grieving as we grieve, looking at us with compassionate eyes, holding us in the palm of God’s hand.  Helpers everywhere.  Suffering everywhere.  Compassion everywhere.  God’s in all that.

 I hope you don’t believe that God willed the Newtown tragedy this weekend.  I do not want you to think this was in any way part of God’s plan.  I hope you aren’t struggling too much with the notion that God allowed it.  Certainly God did allow it – but we have a God who very seldom intervenes to prevent tragedy and evil – at least as far as we know, because plenty of tragedy and evil happens, for sure.  I remember my mentor priest, back in Buffalo, saying to me, “But don’t we pretty much have a God who ‘lets things be’?”  And yes, for better or for worse, we’ve got that kind of God.  Not one who wills evil, but who lets it be.  Who rains on the just and the unjust alike.  But also not a God who comes along with axes and fire and winnows us out.  No, we are blessed enough to have a God who sees our worst, the very worst we can do, and who still loves, whose judgment is always compassion and mercy.

 Finally, on this Rose Sunday, I’m reminded of Mary.  I know, we don’t get the “Mary readings” this week – we get them next Sunday: look for them!  But when it’s pink (our vestments and hangings) I still think of Mary, and I remember the great grief she bore, there at the end of Jesus’ life.  She knows what it’s like to lose a child.  She knows what it’s like to have a child who suffers agonizingly, and who is murdered senselessly, because he happened to get in the way of great evil.  Mary is my friend in this suffering, and her presence is a comfort.

 And this Rose Sunday in Advent is formally titled “Gaudete Sunday.”  Gaudete.  It means “rejoice.”  This is Rejoicing Sunday.  A call to rejoice is hard to face, hard to obey, in a time of great grief.  I remember feeling that way in the days after 9/11.  How can we rejoice?  But it was somehow comforting to me to realize that God is still God, still worthy of praise, and God’s grace is still a cause for rejoicing, even amid great loss and sadness.  We can rejoice in the God we see in the helpers, the suffering God we see in the faces of the families, and in the God who is so much greater and more compassionate and loving than anything or anyone we can possibly imagine.  So we must listen to Paul when he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  God is with us, God is in Connecticut, God is suffering with us, watching us all with eyes of love and compassion, not with the anger of John the Baptist – not with my anger, even.  Rejoice, I say.  Yes, even in sadness, rejoice.  “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds….”  Amen.

Sabbatical!

Yes, I'm on sabbatical.  Last night I tried my first blog post of the trip, and got hung up by the length of time it took to post photos.  So maybe I'll try again, but not right now.  I need to work on reducing their size for blog posting, I think.

My first question is, how did I ever get so lucky to have work that gives me 3 months of paid leave for "true sabbath," that is, "rest," every 5-7 years?  I certainly didn't know about this when I was in discernment for the priesthood -- I didn't choose this vocation (well, I didn't really choose it anyway -- it kind of chose me) based on getting a sabbatical.  I think I first heard about this when I was graduating from seminary, but I never really dreamed it could happen for me! I tried to plan a sabbatical 3 years ago, and nothing seemed to work out right.  This time, after nearly 10 years at St. Raphael's, everything just seemed to fall into place in the most wonderful ways.

So now I have embarked on the adventure of a lifetime.  I don't think I've had three months off work since the summer after my freshman year of high school.

My plans are in three parts.  The first two weeks I spent with my family, staying with my sister-in-law in Illinois, and haunting Terre Haute, Indiana, where I grew up.  I took many sentimental journeys there, revisiting places and people that meant (and still mean) lots to me in my growing up years.  As I said, I hope to post pictures:  of the 2 houses where I spent my childhood, schools I attended, etc.  I also had the opportunity to spend time with 2 of my life's best friends -- women I've known since we all were 13 years old.  And I had a lovely visit with my one remaining brother, Paul, who was my childhood companion, and who is the only remaining person alive who has known me since I was born (well, except for my Uncle John, whom I haven't seen in decades).

Things aren't always working out as I'd planned (thanks, John Lennon, for saying that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans), but I feel like a sponge, soaking up every experience, every adventure, and learning from it all.  So far, it's wonderful.  Miraculous, even.  I'm eating well and abstinently (no flour, sugar, or alcohol, weighed and measured quantities, regular calls to my dear, long-suffering sponsor).  I'm feeling such gratitude.  I even heard God in church (where else?) last Sunday -- it's great not to have to be "in charge," and just go and sing and listen.  Life is amazing right now.

Now I'm in Buffalo, NY (well, near there, anyway), camping by the lake in my friend Cheryl's cozy, sweet little trailer, and using a mobile hot-spot that I purchased in order to have the internet while I'm here.  My plan is to be here by the lake during the week, when the campground is nearly empty, and then be in Buffalo on the weekends, doing city things.  I'm also hoping to get a lot of writing done.  I'll be here for the next 4 weeks with my faithful dogs -- and with Cheryl, too, beginning next week.  Today it was beautiful in the morning, and then it rained, which was also nice.  I've experimented with my camera's auto-timer, and taken pictures of myself outside, alone and with the dogs.  It's the kind of day when it's hard to know what to wear -- it's damp, so feels cool, but too warm for jeans and sweaters.  So I keep changing clothes.

I've had time for reading (Cynthia Bourgeault, "The Meaning of Mary Magdalene;" Phil Cousineau, "The Art of Pilgrimage;" Richard Rohr, "Breathing Under Water;" Diane Mott Davidson, "Fatally Flaky," and more and more to come).  I've been catching up on Jack's Blog, which I'm enjoying very much.  I've been catching up on email.  I've been taking naps.  I've even been reading Facebook from time to time! Sunday I got to finally see "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."  I guess it would be hard to go wrong with the cast it has, but I was simply enchanted.  I could have stayed with those people and watched their lives the whole night, and was sad when the 2 hours was over.

I'm also listening to a lot of old music -- revisiting the past, I guess.  Before I left, I downloaded Beach Boys (yes, it feels like 1966), Neil Diamond (yes, it feels like 1973), the BeeGees (yes, it feels like 1982), James Taylor (1971).  Oh, music can take me right back to how it felt back then!  I've also got "Graceland," the Beatles, and "Born in the USA," and I keep thinking of more music I want.

The next leg of my great sabbatical adventure is Europe -- 5 weeks in Belgium, France, Spain, and Italy.  Parishioners have given me a week's time share in southern Italy and a week in southern Spain.  I'll be chasing black madonnas all over the continent!  I'm particularly excited about seeing Paris, about which I've had dreams -- literal, night-dreams, though I've never been there, and about all the madonnas I'll be near in southern France and northern Spain.  It's truly going to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip -- unless my retirement dreams of winters in Sicily and summers in the US really work out.

So I'll be writing and adventuring and posting more here.  Stay tuned!

Sermon for Lent 1 & Thoughts on Lent

Ash Wednesday is over, ashes duly administered and received (2 services) -- next year we'll likely try "Ashes to Go" (Google it -- there are hundreds of articles) -- but not a drive-through, though our church has a lovely circle drive that would be perfect for it!  I'm forming a worship planning committee that might help me decide where would be a good location to distribute early-morning ashes -- I wonder if McDonalds would let me stand at the drive-through?

For those of you not familiar with Lent, it's the 40 days (excluding Sundays -- those are days off!) preceding Easter.  It has traditionally been a time of fasting, penitence, and self-examination in preparation for Holy Week (the week prior to Easter, when the Last Supper, Jesus' trial, and his crucifixion took place).  When I was a kid growing up in the Episcopal Church, my Lenten practices were giving up candy and (when I remembered) stuffing coins into a "mite box" that was placed on a big cross on Easter Sunday morning and the money given to charity.  I've always found that observing Lent makes the glory of Easter and the Resurrection even more -- well, more glorious!  And sometimes some of the Lenten "new habits" actually stick.

Sometimes I've fasted during the day on Fridays, and this was always a pretty amazing experience, spiritually speaking.  Because of my abstinence and eating program, I've not tampered with my diet these last 2 years.

This year my Lent is packed, with a parish study of contemporary Islam as lived out in the US as well as my own study on the Rule of Benedict.  I'm using Jane Tomaine's book called St. Benedict's Toolbox (mine's on Kindle), as well as a couple of others: Esther DeWaal's Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict, and the Rule of Benedict itself.  The study is in conjunction with a religious community for which I am a Companion:  The Worker Sisters & Brothers of the Holy Spirit.  We are actually spending the whole year on this study, and Jane Tomaine will be featured at our retreat in April in St. Louis.

I'm really excited about this study (I know, I know, it won't set everyone's heart on fire), especially since a lot of our Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and our own particular approach to spirituality and spiritual formation are based on Benedictine monasticism.

Here are my sermons for both Ash Wednesday and Sunday:

Download Ash Wednesday B, February 22, 2012

Download Lent 1B, February 26, 2012

I hope you are all thinking about Lenten practices, whether giving something up or taking something on!  I'm avoiding what I should be giving up (television and the computer) by taking on something very virtuous (see above).