It's kind of a lazy Saturday. I'm not preaching tomorrow, so I am feeling footloose on that front. We are going to church tomorrow in a little town about twenty miles down the road and then looking at a townhouse there. If this all sounds like it might be part of yet another transition, yes, it could. There are changes afoot in our lives and they do involve movement of all kinds....including the pack up your stuff and take it to a new place variety. R and I were talking about this morning, and I mentioned that this time next month we would be giving our notice here, and that any time now we could start packing. "Didn't we just do this?" I asked. Well it's been almost a year, but in the larger scheme of things, it does seem like it came around again rather quickly. Considering that I was in my last place seven years and the one before that almost twenty-five, this annual pack and go thing is a little disconcerting. I was not always so stable of house, though. In my earlier days I once had a period of time in which I moved thirteen times in eleven months! As I recall, I could make the entire move in a couple of large cars back then, which made it much easier.
One of my clients was talking about falling shoes the other day. That took me back. I had a few, hopefully useful, things to say to her about that. Like, try to stay in the moment, let your friends support you, and do whatever you can, whenever you can to take the focus off those stupid shoes! Trust, I said, that when they do fall, if they fall, you will have what you need to get through it in that moment. Until then, really, there is nothing you can do about them. And trying to provoke them into falling sooner....not a good plan, no matter how seductive it may seem in the moment. It's a very Lenten thing though, being with those shoes, having them hanging, or suspended, however and where ever they are. You know that at some point, they will be upon you and you will need to deal. It calls to mind the slow journey to the crucifixion that we remember during Lent. We know it's coming, has to come. I'm never really sure just how much Jesus knew exactly, but I'm guessing he was fairly sure he was coming to no good end. And yet, he managed to keep moving through his life, his ministry, intensely present, real, and focused. Did that come from that moment of when he knew himself claimed, loved by God? Or did it evolve...through the desert and beyond, through all those days of healing and teaching, feeding and praying, a sense of coming to know not just how it was coming to be with him, the handwriting on the wall, but also the sure and certain knowledge that the suffering, whatever it might be would be for something, something bigger than anything had ever been? Just thinking, just wondering.....
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Ashes to Ashes, God to God
This is a portion of a post from Ash Wednesday 2008 that I decided to re-post this morning. It's something that has never left me and that I like to think about when I bless people with the gift of ashes as I will this evening at our service.
Post from Ash Wednesday 2008
.....I had the privilege of being the one to "impose" the ashes as the prayer book says. I had to go look the word impose up to see if there was something I was missing here, but all the definitions had the same sense of the word that I am familiar with, that of bringing something on someone with force or at the very least authority, pushing it at them. I did not feel that! I felt instead that I was giving them a splendid gift. The opportunity to remember by word and symbol the fragile and brief nature of this earthly life. How precious it and we are before God. And how God holds us in that life...and that we can indeed trust God to do that.
As I spoke each person's name and said those sacred, sacred words, "remember that you are dust and to dust you will return," I kept thinking about something that was said in our prayer workshop on Sunday, that essentially the "dust" that we are is the stuff of the universe, the same matter as supernovas and stars, glaciers and canyons, the very ground we stand on and air we breathe...the stuff, could it be....of God? "Remember that you are of God, and to God you will return." It was all I could do to hold back the tears as I looked into each face in this wonderful quirky bunch and traced on their heads a cross of ash to carry with them into the night as a reminder of how very much they are loved.
Post from Ash Wednesday 2008
.....I had the privilege of being the one to "impose" the ashes as the prayer book says. I had to go look the word impose up to see if there was something I was missing here, but all the definitions had the same sense of the word that I am familiar with, that of bringing something on someone with force or at the very least authority, pushing it at them. I did not feel that! I felt instead that I was giving them a splendid gift. The opportunity to remember by word and symbol the fragile and brief nature of this earthly life. How precious it and we are before God. And how God holds us in that life...and that we can indeed trust God to do that.
As I spoke each person's name and said those sacred, sacred words, "remember that you are dust and to dust you will return," I kept thinking about something that was said in our prayer workshop on Sunday, that essentially the "dust" that we are is the stuff of the universe, the same matter as supernovas and stars, glaciers and canyons, the very ground we stand on and air we breathe...the stuff, could it be....of God? "Remember that you are of God, and to God you will return." It was all I could do to hold back the tears as I looked into each face in this wonderful quirky bunch and traced on their heads a cross of ash to carry with them into the night as a reminder of how very much they are loved.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Sermon for Maundy Thursday
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Through Holy Week we gather as a community to remember through liturgy and ritual the last hours of Jesus life. On this night in particular we recall the last night he spent together with his friends. Depending on the lectionary, we hear either the story of the first Eucharist or the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples as we did this year.
Jesus and his disciples are gathered at supper. They are tired, dirty, carrying with them all the stuff of the day….literally. When people gathered for a meal, the typical custom was for someone to wash the feet of those gathered. It was a practical thing, it made gathering for dinner much more pleasant. Most often it was a slave who did this, sometimes a peer, but never the rabbi, the teacher. But Jesus takes it upon himself to wash their feet. No one else was doing this necessary act….so during supper Jesus does this act of servanthood, this act of love.
Having loved his own…he loved them to the end….he did indeed….and I think not simply in terms of loving them to the end of his life….but to the end….to the greatest extent they could be loved…..unconditionally. He loved them when he called them as disciples and they dropped everything and came. He loved them when they had faith and seemed to actually get what he was about. He also loved them when they were completely faithless and seemed to lack the most basic understanding of his message even after being with him day by day for three years. He loved them even when he knew that one of them would betray him.
Love. What passes for love for us so often is really a complex stew of so many other things! Want, greed and unmet need. The demands of our undifferentiated egos, the cries of our wounded inner children. The strident calls of the culture that tells us that our needs must be met and that “all we need is love” and that surely it can be purchased in some shiny packaged form of whatever they are hawking at the moment.
We are not talking about “love as a feeling” as we often think about it, but rather love as an action. Writer and theologian CS Lewis talks about this as “gift love.” He says that this is love born of fullness. The goal of gift love is to enrich and enhance the beloved. Gift love, Lewis says, is like a bountiful, artesian well that just overflows, arcing out to bless all it touches. Lewis says that God's love is gift love. And then he says, "We humans are made in the image of such everlasting and unconditional love."
Theologian the Rev. Dr. Brooks Ramsey has said the point of the incarnation was that “God became like us so we could become like God.” In our becoming more Godlike we are called to a love that becomes a particular kind of transformative act that changes and shapes us more and more into the kinds of persons who can love as God loves, who can indeed follow the commandment that Jesus gave his friends that night. Of course this isn’t easy. It means that we must stoop to serve and wash the feet of those who hurt or frustrate or betray us. It means we must continue to act in love and to serve in love. It means that we have to do the countercultural things, the difficult things….the things that require us to remember who and whose we are. John says that Jesus got up during supper to wash the feet of the disciples becasuse he knew that he had come from God and was going to God. Jesus sense of who and whose he was was clear and strong. His sense of his identity and of his mission was sure. Remember Ash Wednesday when we reflected on the idea that the "dust" that we are is the same as that of all the matter of the created universe, the same as that of the supernovas and the stars, the glaciers and the canyons, the earth and the air... and that really it is all really part of God? What I said that Ash Wednesday night was that as I marked the cross on each forehead, it seemed as if what I was really saying was "Remember that you are of God, and to God you will return." Jesus Knows with an unwavering certainly as C said on Sunday morning, that he is of God and it is to God he will return. And while he is still on earth for this short time with his friends, he wants to give this them last message, this last commandment so that there will be no mistake that they indeed are his friends, his followers…..Love one another in this way….as I love you….in this way. We are loved in this way. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that we too could know who we are, beloved of God, the God who loves us beyond belief who longs to grace us and transform us with His love into such lovers. In the ACTION of such loving we change…..become the gift lovers.
Lewis' depiction of gift love really is the foundation of the way Jesus loved. And the great good news for us is not only that we are loved by God, but also that this is our deepest identity as well. If we were not capable of this we would not have been created for it! Theologian Karl Barth once said, "Jesus is the name of our species, in relation to whom we are still subhuman but, nonetheless, called ultimately to become." Jesus would not have given us this new commandment if it had not been possible for us to accomplish it.
While we do not do a traditional foot washing service, the symbols of that act are here before you as a reminder of Jesus’ willingness to do whatever was needed in love, and his command to us to do the same. Over the next three days we will see just how far he was willing to take his love for us. We will see the gift of his willingness to undergo the loss of his earthly life by painful and humiliating crucifixion in order to defeat death for our redemption, giving us his ongoing gift of himself in the presence of his spirit among us forever. And we remember not just the end of his life, but the whole arc of it, as we hear again that final commandment “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Through Holy Week we gather as a community to remember through liturgy and ritual the last hours of Jesus life. On this night in particular we recall the last night he spent together with his friends. Depending on the lectionary, we hear either the story of the first Eucharist or the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples as we did this year.
Jesus and his disciples are gathered at supper. They are tired, dirty, carrying with them all the stuff of the day….literally. When people gathered for a meal, the typical custom was for someone to wash the feet of those gathered. It was a practical thing, it made gathering for dinner much more pleasant. Most often it was a slave who did this, sometimes a peer, but never the rabbi, the teacher. But Jesus takes it upon himself to wash their feet. No one else was doing this necessary act….so during supper Jesus does this act of servanthood, this act of love.
Having loved his own…he loved them to the end….he did indeed….and I think not simply in terms of loving them to the end of his life….but to the end….to the greatest extent they could be loved…..unconditionally. He loved them when he called them as disciples and they dropped everything and came. He loved them when they had faith and seemed to actually get what he was about. He also loved them when they were completely faithless and seemed to lack the most basic understanding of his message even after being with him day by day for three years. He loved them even when he knew that one of them would betray him.
Love. What passes for love for us so often is really a complex stew of so many other things! Want, greed and unmet need. The demands of our undifferentiated egos, the cries of our wounded inner children. The strident calls of the culture that tells us that our needs must be met and that “all we need is love” and that surely it can be purchased in some shiny packaged form of whatever they are hawking at the moment.
We are not talking about “love as a feeling” as we often think about it, but rather love as an action. Writer and theologian CS Lewis talks about this as “gift love.” He says that this is love born of fullness. The goal of gift love is to enrich and enhance the beloved. Gift love, Lewis says, is like a bountiful, artesian well that just overflows, arcing out to bless all it touches. Lewis says that God's love is gift love. And then he says, "We humans are made in the image of such everlasting and unconditional love."
Theologian the Rev. Dr. Brooks Ramsey has said the point of the incarnation was that “God became like us so we could become like God.” In our becoming more Godlike we are called to a love that becomes a particular kind of transformative act that changes and shapes us more and more into the kinds of persons who can love as God loves, who can indeed follow the commandment that Jesus gave his friends that night. Of course this isn’t easy. It means that we must stoop to serve and wash the feet of those who hurt or frustrate or betray us. It means we must continue to act in love and to serve in love. It means that we have to do the countercultural things, the difficult things….the things that require us to remember who and whose we are. John says that Jesus got up during supper to wash the feet of the disciples becasuse he knew that he had come from God and was going to God. Jesus sense of who and whose he was was clear and strong. His sense of his identity and of his mission was sure. Remember Ash Wednesday when we reflected on the idea that the "dust" that we are is the same as that of all the matter of the created universe, the same as that of the supernovas and the stars, the glaciers and the canyons, the earth and the air... and that really it is all really part of God? What I said that Ash Wednesday night was that as I marked the cross on each forehead, it seemed as if what I was really saying was "Remember that you are of God, and to God you will return." Jesus Knows with an unwavering certainly as C said on Sunday morning, that he is of God and it is to God he will return. And while he is still on earth for this short time with his friends, he wants to give this them last message, this last commandment so that there will be no mistake that they indeed are his friends, his followers…..Love one another in this way….as I love you….in this way. We are loved in this way. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that we too could know who we are, beloved of God, the God who loves us beyond belief who longs to grace us and transform us with His love into such lovers. In the ACTION of such loving we change…..become the gift lovers.
Lewis' depiction of gift love really is the foundation of the way Jesus loved. And the great good news for us is not only that we are loved by God, but also that this is our deepest identity as well. If we were not capable of this we would not have been created for it! Theologian Karl Barth once said, "Jesus is the name of our species, in relation to whom we are still subhuman but, nonetheless, called ultimately to become." Jesus would not have given us this new commandment if it had not been possible for us to accomplish it.
While we do not do a traditional foot washing service, the symbols of that act are here before you as a reminder of Jesus’ willingness to do whatever was needed in love, and his command to us to do the same. Over the next three days we will see just how far he was willing to take his love for us. We will see the gift of his willingness to undergo the loss of his earthly life by painful and humiliating crucifixion in order to defeat death for our redemption, giving us his ongoing gift of himself in the presence of his spirit among us forever. And we remember not just the end of his life, but the whole arc of it, as we hear again that final commandment “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
The Middle of It All....
It is Wednesday. It some ways that is the middle of the week and in others it is simply the beginning. As far as the checklist goes, much has been accomplished. Meetings and appointments are completed. The sermon for tomorrow is sitting neatly printed on the table in the hall near my newly washed alb. The article for Friday's paper is off two hours before deadline. And despite the fact that I grouse and complain every year that it comes in the midst of Holy Week....I feel refreshed and renewed for having gone to the Renewal of Vows yesterday. Yes, we do this every year. And no, it's not like being re-ordained, or re-baptized. Once, for either of those is most surely enough. This is renewal. Recharging. Refreshing. What it does for me each time I go is to help me remember why it is again I signed on for this....and do we not all need to be reminded now and again? Yes even (or maybe especially) in Holy Week. The Bishop preached from John 21:15-18....how Peter was hurt that Jesus would question his loyalty and how we too, get hurt by so many things....the slings and arrows that get tossed at us from without by the all too human folks of our little flocks, and the even sharper points of the self-criticisms with which we wound ourselves when we feel we are falling short of being who God calls us to be as priests and deacons. It was powerful. It made me cry. And it made me glad I was there.
Oh, and the Bishop knows I'm engaged now, too. As with other important people in my life, someone else beat me to the punch and told him for me. Ah, well. He seems pleased, if a tad surprised. "We will talk soon," he says. And I'm sure we will.
Tonight we begin the Holy Week services. We will start with Tenebrae. We have not done this before. The liturgy consists of the gradually extinguishing candles while psalms are chanted interspersed with scripture readings, until only the Christ candle remains. Tomorrow we will have our traditional Maundy Thursday service. We will have Eucharist and I will preach. We will chant a penitential psalm that says to me...."Yes it is Holy Thursday" all the way to my bones. We strip the altar and leave the church in empty darkness. Good Friday there will be the Stations, though not with our amazing organ accompaniment this year as he is on sabbatical. Our organist has composed interludes that are so interwoven with each Station....the organ groans, it hisses, it whispers and shrieks....I will miss that this year.
Literally I will miss that....R and I will leave on Friday to be with his family until Saturday evening. This is perhaps how we try to have the clergy/family balance thing? I don't know....it's my first shot at it. I just know I want to have some time with them, even part of them, on this my first Easter in this clan. I have observed the operation of this family net now and have felt its power in my own life and I know with sure certainty I want to be there, within, belonging.
And so the "real" Holy Week begins....may we all be blessed by whatever it brings.
Oh, and the Bishop knows I'm engaged now, too. As with other important people in my life, someone else beat me to the punch and told him for me. Ah, well. He seems pleased, if a tad surprised. "We will talk soon," he says. And I'm sure we will.
Tonight we begin the Holy Week services. We will start with Tenebrae. We have not done this before. The liturgy consists of the gradually extinguishing candles while psalms are chanted interspersed with scripture readings, until only the Christ candle remains. Tomorrow we will have our traditional Maundy Thursday service. We will have Eucharist and I will preach. We will chant a penitential psalm that says to me...."Yes it is Holy Thursday" all the way to my bones. We strip the altar and leave the church in empty darkness. Good Friday there will be the Stations, though not with our amazing organ accompaniment this year as he is on sabbatical. Our organist has composed interludes that are so interwoven with each Station....the organ groans, it hisses, it whispers and shrieks....I will miss that this year.
Literally I will miss that....R and I will leave on Friday to be with his family until Saturday evening. This is perhaps how we try to have the clergy/family balance thing? I don't know....it's my first shot at it. I just know I want to have some time with them, even part of them, on this my first Easter in this clan. I have observed the operation of this family net now and have felt its power in my own life and I know with sure certainty I want to be there, within, belonging.
And so the "real" Holy Week begins....may we all be blessed by whatever it brings.
Monday, April 06, 2009
The Last Week.....
Sermon writing procrastination.....
Two things wrangle for space in my head and heart today....The first is, there is too much in this week and it will never get done. I feel overwhelmed and tense and a little frantic about it all. And the second is that it is Holy Week! And suddenly yesterday at the Palm Sunday service....I just fell in. The reading of the Passion, the anthem we sang, the whole bringing back once again of the whole holy cycle....I'm there. Yes, bring it on.
The second does not, in any practical way change the reality of the first. There are too many things and not enough time. My schedule, like all of yours this week, is frightening. The bullet list:
Two things wrangle for space in my head and heart today....The first is, there is too much in this week and it will never get done. I feel overwhelmed and tense and a little frantic about it all. And the second is that it is Holy Week! And suddenly yesterday at the Palm Sunday service....I just fell in. The reading of the Passion, the anthem we sang, the whole bringing back once again of the whole holy cycle....I'm there. Yes, bring it on.
The second does not, in any practical way change the reality of the first. There are too many things and not enough time. My schedule, like all of yours this week, is frightening. The bullet list:
- Dentist appointment today at noon
- Meeting tonight
- Get the Maundy Thursday Sermon finished
- Trip to the Big City 3 hours away for renewal of Ordination Vows Tuesday which will pretty much cover the day
- My own Bible study Tuesday night
- Article for the Newspaper (Wed noon deadline)
- Holy Week Services and choir practices starting Wednesday
- Wednesday night Bible study at church
- Shopping and prepping for Easter dinner with guests
- And I still don't have my taxes done and am in no way ready to get on a plane in a week and half and go anywhere.
But it will all get done, and by Thursday night I will stand in the pulpit and preach the Good News that God so loved the world that Jesus gave the ultimate gift for our salvation. I might, if I feel like I do this morning, even cry as I preach it. And when I look at it that way, the rest just kind of falls into place.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Two Weeks Until Launch
I just realized that two weeks from today I'll be in Arizona. This is a wonderful thing. However it also involves a whole lot of logistics that somehow up until now I haven't been giving a lot of thought to. On Sunday I did figure out the Park and Fly thing and have a reservation for that set up. But there is the matter of my little menagerie. Last year, even though things were dicey between us, XDO was still "in the house" to cover pet care. Now this is in my court and arrangements must be made for Maggie and the kitties. I will ask Soul Sister S about having Maggie stay, though sometimes I feel like I presume on her hospitality a lot. She has another sitter she uses for her pup, so I don't get the chance to reciprocate, and the people whose dogs I sit don't sit mine....and so it goes. She doesn't want to be paid....so it makes me feel kind of funny sometimes to ask....but perhaps this is my stuff about "receiving" from people. I have been informed by some pretty astute folks in my life that I seem to have some issues in this department. I think I can prevail on R to stop by to visit the kitties now and again. They are pretty self-sufficient and don't need daily calls, just a little top off on the food and water now and again.
And then there is the whole packing thing. I did get a couple pairs of shorts and some tops as I seem to have a little problem with last year's summer wardrobe being a little big for me. Nice problem, but it can complicate things a bit. My intentions are to pack light. I seem to always have those intentions and then end up dragging far too many things to wherever I am going. Someone suggested putting everything out and cutting half....we'll see how that goes!
And somehow between here and there is life. This weekend the Soul Sisters and I are taking a road trip to a bridal shop two hours from here to peruse the end of season clearance sales. Then we slide into Holy Week , and in the midst of the day job, I still have a sermon to write before Thursday. Easter weekend there will be some time with R's family on Saturday and with friends after church on Sunday. And someplace in there the dog needs a rabies shot and I need a dentist!
I know it will all get done. It always does. And what doesn't won't matter. Because it doesn't either. So off we go into Thursday....and the countdown continues.
And then there is the whole packing thing. I did get a couple pairs of shorts and some tops as I seem to have a little problem with last year's summer wardrobe being a little big for me. Nice problem, but it can complicate things a bit. My intentions are to pack light. I seem to always have those intentions and then end up dragging far too many things to wherever I am going. Someone suggested putting everything out and cutting half....we'll see how that goes!
And somehow between here and there is life. This weekend the Soul Sisters and I are taking a road trip to a bridal shop two hours from here to peruse the end of season clearance sales. Then we slide into Holy Week , and in the midst of the day job, I still have a sermon to write before Thursday. Easter weekend there will be some time with R's family on Saturday and with friends after church on Sunday. And someplace in there the dog needs a rabies shot and I need a dentist!
I know it will all get done. It always does. And what doesn't won't matter. Because it doesn't either. So off we go into Thursday....and the countdown continues.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Egads...It's April 1st!
And it's snowing. Not a lot. Just a little powdered sugar dusting. Nuisance snow. April Fool snow. Just enough remind us that even though the calendar says Spring....we are in Minnesota and anything can happen.
Today is Soup and Sermon at noon. I'm up as preacher with Lazarus as my guy. There was just something about recent weeks that called out for a good back to life story. Actually I have to confess to a back to life sermon....this being the last one in the marathon stretch, I did a little resurrecting myself of an Easter 5 sermon from years past. With some tweaking, it fits the need and speaks to where I hope folks are today. The S & S crowd is a mixed bunch, mainly older, mostly Catholic (since we meet at the RC church), but with a good sprinkling of all the other folks as well. I love that we do this ecumenical stuff here....the community Thanksgiving, this series in Lent, our active ministerium. It feels very right to me that we should all gather as believers now and again and pay less attention to the stuff that divides us and more to what unites us.
I found myself volunteering yesterday to preach Maundy Thursday. I was completely off the docket for Holy Week...but with one thing and another, M was going to have two services to preach and me with none....well, it didn't seem equitable....so, there you go. I have had the last two Easters, but I've not had a Holy Week service, so it's time anyway. And there is that vacation right after Easter to look forward to, after all!
It is time for a vacation. Winter has been long. Despite the fact that I have pretty much floated through it, I'm tired and feeling sort of meh right now. My clients are not getting the best of me, I know. Some days my inner dialogue is more critical towards them than I like....always a sign I need a break. My spiritual life feels a little dry and dusty. Lent really never did get off the ground. Physically, I've been dragging from a cold and sinus-y stuff. On the positive side, my personal emotional life is about as wonderful as I can imagine it being. And despite the bits of burn-out, I really do love what I do job-wise and feel very grateful to be employed and secure and doing something that feeds my soul as well. But I am so looking forward to the BE2.
Sixteen and counting......
Today is Soup and Sermon at noon. I'm up as preacher with Lazarus as my guy. There was just something about recent weeks that called out for a good back to life story. Actually I have to confess to a back to life sermon....this being the last one in the marathon stretch, I did a little resurrecting myself of an Easter 5 sermon from years past. With some tweaking, it fits the need and speaks to where I hope folks are today. The S & S crowd is a mixed bunch, mainly older, mostly Catholic (since we meet at the RC church), but with a good sprinkling of all the other folks as well. I love that we do this ecumenical stuff here....the community Thanksgiving, this series in Lent, our active ministerium. It feels very right to me that we should all gather as believers now and again and pay less attention to the stuff that divides us and more to what unites us.
I found myself volunteering yesterday to preach Maundy Thursday. I was completely off the docket for Holy Week...but with one thing and another, M was going to have two services to preach and me with none....well, it didn't seem equitable....so, there you go. I have had the last two Easters, but I've not had a Holy Week service, so it's time anyway. And there is that vacation right after Easter to look forward to, after all!
It is time for a vacation. Winter has been long. Despite the fact that I have pretty much floated through it, I'm tired and feeling sort of meh right now. My clients are not getting the best of me, I know. Some days my inner dialogue is more critical towards them than I like....always a sign I need a break. My spiritual life feels a little dry and dusty. Lent really never did get off the ground. Physically, I've been dragging from a cold and sinus-y stuff. On the positive side, my personal emotional life is about as wonderful as I can imagine it being. And despite the bits of burn-out, I really do love what I do job-wise and feel very grateful to be employed and secure and doing something that feeds my soul as well. But I am so looking forward to the BE2.
Sixteen and counting......
Monday, March 30, 2009
It's All Rather Re-Lentless.....
It's the Monday before Palm Sunday and I'm still wondering what happened to Lent. Not just as in "Oh. Where did it go?" But also as in "How is it that it seems to have gotten away from me so thoroughly without me ever really having had it?" And (rather guiltily)....I don't seem to care as much as I should. And I seem to be in good company. From the sounds of my RevSisters...blogging and other....it does go on...and we are not sure we can....but we know we must, and so we do, though from the sounds of it with more or less enthusiasm.
I will say, I did have a rather lovely weekend full of a great deal of nothing. I am not used to this. Nor am I used to having someone around who encourages self-care and playtime. I did what I was committed to, which was my worship service at the nursing home. Otherwise, R and I basically hung out. We saw Whale Rider on Friday night as part of the movie series my friends the Presbies are doing. A great movie which I had missed along the way. On Saturday we putzed with errands, made cupcakes for the WhY church potluck and made "our" first purchase...a new gas grill. It will live at my house, but we know who will get the best use of it...the one who cooks in this relationship (and let me tell you...it's NOT me!). R made us a lovely meatloaf for dinner Saturday night and I felt very pampered. On Sunday I slept in until 10. I seriously cannot remember the last time I did this. It made a 12 hour night and I think was a turning point in the sinus crud that has been afflicting me for the last week or so. It also meant of course that I was not at "my" church for worship. This afflicts me with some guilt, though not nearly as much as it once would have, back in the days of the Energizer Bunny Overfunctioning Mad Priest. That crazy woman who was running full tilt from herself has slowed down....a lot. I don't think I could whip myself back into that frenzy if I tried. And I have no inclination (or need TBTG) to try.
Sunday was a lovely slow day. We walked Maggie a bit, actually got to sit on the front porch awhile, and did the thing we do best....hang out and talk. We also worked on the SWAG for the BE2 this weekend. That brought back memories of last year (again) of getting ready for "that boat" and all that entailed. C helped me with SWAG last year. On Easter Sunday she and I madly beaded away on the Anglican rosaries after she and D took in this lonely stray for Easter dinner. I was in shell shock as I recall. Not sure of what was happening or where my life was heading. And certainly not sure why on earth I was going off on this cruise...but just as certain that I was supposed to be there! What a difference a year makes.
Despite my lack of "lentishness" I am sailing in calm waters as I look forward to some post-Easter time in the desert with old and new friends. It seems I am looking past Easter a lot....and perhaps that is what we are called to after all. It is not so much about that one set of events...the dying, or even the rising....but the going on beyond...what happens when the risen Christ becomes part of the earthbound ones and the Spirit blazes forth. At least that's where my head and heart are this morning. How about you?
I will say, I did have a rather lovely weekend full of a great deal of nothing. I am not used to this. Nor am I used to having someone around who encourages self-care and playtime. I did what I was committed to, which was my worship service at the nursing home. Otherwise, R and I basically hung out. We saw Whale Rider on Friday night as part of the movie series my friends the Presbies are doing. A great movie which I had missed along the way. On Saturday we putzed with errands, made cupcakes for the WhY church potluck and made "our" first purchase...a new gas grill. It will live at my house, but we know who will get the best use of it...the one who cooks in this relationship (and let me tell you...it's NOT me!). R made us a lovely meatloaf for dinner Saturday night and I felt very pampered. On Sunday I slept in until 10. I seriously cannot remember the last time I did this. It made a 12 hour night and I think was a turning point in the sinus crud that has been afflicting me for the last week or so. It also meant of course that I was not at "my" church for worship. This afflicts me with some guilt, though not nearly as much as it once would have, back in the days of the Energizer Bunny Overfunctioning Mad Priest. That crazy woman who was running full tilt from herself has slowed down....a lot. I don't think I could whip myself back into that frenzy if I tried. And I have no inclination (or need TBTG) to try.
Sunday was a lovely slow day. We walked Maggie a bit, actually got to sit on the front porch awhile, and did the thing we do best....hang out and talk. We also worked on the SWAG for the BE2 this weekend. That brought back memories of last year (again) of getting ready for "that boat" and all that entailed. C helped me with SWAG last year. On Easter Sunday she and I madly beaded away on the Anglican rosaries after she and D took in this lonely stray for Easter dinner. I was in shell shock as I recall. Not sure of what was happening or where my life was heading. And certainly not sure why on earth I was going off on this cruise...but just as certain that I was supposed to be there! What a difference a year makes.
Despite my lack of "lentishness" I am sailing in calm waters as I look forward to some post-Easter time in the desert with old and new friends. It seems I am looking past Easter a lot....and perhaps that is what we are called to after all. It is not so much about that one set of events...the dying, or even the rising....but the going on beyond...what happens when the risen Christ becomes part of the earthbound ones and the Spirit blazes forth. At least that's where my head and heart are this morning. How about you?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lent Moves On...
My mind wants to finish that quote with some variation on Shakespeare's...."in its petty pace from day to day." But it is surely not creeping. Hurtling perhaps? That feels closer to my pace sometimes. And hurtling and Lent are surely not compatible. It seems that most of my solitary reflection time has been of the necessary variety driven by sermon prep, or at the direction of others like at our recent ministry team retreat day. Until I finish my Soup and Sermon offering next Wednesday for our local ministerium, I'm feeling pushed to get things done, rushed by deadlines and, I have to admit, more than a little cranky about it all at times.
I am still having some euphoric recall about last Lent, though I have been reminded more than once that life, in its seasons, changes, and clearly, I am in a different one now. Last year was an interior time, and I needed it to be so. I was learning and facing new truths about myself and my place in the world and I needed space and peace and time away with God as a holding place in which to accomplish that soul work, and to heal from some of the buffeting my spirit and psyche were taking in the outside world as well. The outside world in which I live today is a much warmer, safer place, and I am just as likely to encounter God without as within. But it is for me like learning the beauty of a new landscape. It is just as lovely as the old one, it feeds the soul every bit as much...it simply requires an adjustment of the inner eye to realize this, to acknowledge and remember.
R and I went to his uncle's funeral yesterday in a little Catholic church out in the middle of nowhere. There were probably two hundred people there....most of them related to him in some way or another. As his uncle's family came up from the church basement to process behind the casket it seemed as if the line of them would never end...his children and their children and theirs. The siblings who survive and their spouses...on and on they came, filling half a side of the church. The priest talked about C, how he was authentic, real and true, "What you saw was what you got with C." he said. And that he cared deeply for others, was there for them, stepped up, reached out. There is a strong strain of that here in this family. C was not related by blood to R...but he might as well be, for that priest was describing him as well. It is, I think, the culture of this people I am blessed enough to be joining. It runs deep in them. As we walked to the grave and stood in the drizzle in the small country cemetery to send C to his final rest, I thanked God that I am loved by this fine man and that I have come home at last to family.
I am still having some euphoric recall about last Lent, though I have been reminded more than once that life, in its seasons, changes, and clearly, I am in a different one now. Last year was an interior time, and I needed it to be so. I was learning and facing new truths about myself and my place in the world and I needed space and peace and time away with God as a holding place in which to accomplish that soul work, and to heal from some of the buffeting my spirit and psyche were taking in the outside world as well. The outside world in which I live today is a much warmer, safer place, and I am just as likely to encounter God without as within. But it is for me like learning the beauty of a new landscape. It is just as lovely as the old one, it feeds the soul every bit as much...it simply requires an adjustment of the inner eye to realize this, to acknowledge and remember.
R and I went to his uncle's funeral yesterday in a little Catholic church out in the middle of nowhere. There were probably two hundred people there....most of them related to him in some way or another. As his uncle's family came up from the church basement to process behind the casket it seemed as if the line of them would never end...his children and their children and theirs. The siblings who survive and their spouses...on and on they came, filling half a side of the church. The priest talked about C, how he was authentic, real and true, "What you saw was what you got with C." he said. And that he cared deeply for others, was there for them, stepped up, reached out. There is a strong strain of that here in this family. C was not related by blood to R...but he might as well be, for that priest was describing him as well. It is, I think, the culture of this people I am blessed enough to be joining. It runs deep in them. As we walked to the grave and stood in the drizzle in the small country cemetery to send C to his final rest, I thanked God that I am loved by this fine man and that I have come home at last to family.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Lent...Week...Um.....
I told myself I needed to blog today. But I also needed to pay bills and do laundry and go buy some black pants (preferably at Goodwill) for the funeral R and I are going to across the state tomorrow, and work on the two remaining sermons. I did get the pants. And now it's bedtime. I have one load of laundry in the washer and one in the dryer and the bills are still languishing on my desk. We leave at 5:45 for the other side of the state, and I really do need to go to bed soon, so this is going to be a very quick little blog post, I fear. I am taking the lectionary readings for next Sunday and Wednesday with me. I will, I hope, read and reflect on them in the car. I have some thoughts about the whole "grain of wheat" business for a nursing home audience. I think they may know something about being broken and crushed and bearing crosses. Actually the whole nursing home pastoral care thing has me kind of tender right now. I had been asked to come visit a lady there. She was not "mine" as in "of my congregation," but she was having some mental health issues as well as spiritual ones and the chaplain thought I might be a good fit for her. I've been seeing her every week or two since January. She died last week. Tonight I learned that her husband, who, as of the last time I saw her, was still substitute teaching at the high school, had a heart attack and died the day of her funeral. I had met him a few times at the nursing home when I visited her. He was your typical high school coach and teacher combo....hale and hearty. She was fragile, frail and always afraid. I'd ask her how she was and that was her stock answer..."Afraid, Pastor." Of being sick, of being, alone, of dying. I don't know that I did her any good. I visited, I talked with her of God's love, I prayed with her. And one night I went and she was gone. "Discharged" the staff said. To the hospital and to hospice where she died, I found out later. I hope that sweet M is no longer afraid and that she is happy that her husband is there with her. His visits were the high point of her day.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Monday....the Third Week
Lent moves on and so do I, not necessarily in any kind of synchronicity, or decently or in order (which given that I am only Episcoterian, perhaps is a forgivable offense). Today has been a hard day. I know that I am a Pollyanna about people, tending to believe the good in them, and that most of the time they mean well and to do good. This works for me most of the time, and often people will rise to the challenge and be who I believe they are. Sometimes, however, it backfires, and people are not who I hope or think they are and I get disillusioned and hurt. That is what happened today, and I am heartsore and weary and sad. It is very hard to be friends with a person with whom one has been more. I'm sure that is true on both sides. And when the one moves on....well a chance to give a little jab....perhaps that is understandable, especially when the other is hurting and life on that side is not going so well. And when there is a long history of an inability to "do anger" in a direct way....well perhaps one can be forgiven if one does a little go around, creates a little drama if given half a chance. It will all pass. It is nothing in the larger scheme. It just comes at a time when there is already too much going on. Too many things in not enough time, a Lent that does not feel like one, a steadily growing impatience with an unresponsive distant body that sits still with a chunk of my future in their hands, the reflexive snap-back from another person who I thought was someone she clearly is not....and I missed it....so thoroughly that it stuns me, people whose needs just keep coming, and whose boundaries I do not seem to be able to set strongly enough. I am grateful for the presence of those who get me. Those who make me laugh at unrelated things and forget myself for awhile. Who encourage me to take time doing nothing of importance, go to bed early, indulge myself as necessary. I am grateful for love in times of trial. For the net that now surrounds me. I need that net tonight and intend to fall into it. It is of God and I am grateful.
Monday, March 09, 2009
The Second Sunday in Lent....The Dance Class
I told R last night that I thought it might not be a bad idea to send pre-marital couples to a few dance classes. Oh, not to teach them to dance....but to see how they handle the up close and personal of follow and lead, how they are with rules, what happens when things fall out of step, and how well they play together. Because those are all things I have been learning about me and about us in the last five weeks as we have taken ballroom classes together.
What I have learned about me has been that I am still a lot more uptight than I want to be and that I don't follow well at all, at all! I care more about rules than I ought when the object is fun and I will get growly at my poor partner when he does not do things the way I think he should be doing them! Ouch. What I have learned about R is that he is just as patient as I thought he was, though I do try him at times. Overall, he cares more about having a good time and being playful than "doing it just right" and following the rules. Particularly since as he reminds me, "we are here to have fun, right?" As we waltzed and foxtrotted around the gym, there were moments when it felt like we were actually dancing. Then I of course would have to start to THINK again! And look at our feet (my biggest fault) and get messed up. My "correction style" is to come to a complete halt, feel terrible, say "my bad" and want to start over. Him...not so much...."just keep dancing, hon....it'll work itself out."
Despite the fact that I have been in some pretty long relationships, I have never experienced interdependence with someone before. I have always had to be the "strong one" where the buck stops. So, clearly I know how to lead. And I was taught from little on that you simply must follow the rules, always at all times! And life, as anyone who knows me will tell you, is a pretty serious thing for me. Play is not something I have known much about until rather recently, and I'm still getting used to the idea that doing something that has no outcome other than my own enjoyment is an acceptable use of my time. So dance class brings me head on into a whole bunch of walls, and I am doing so in the arms of someone with whom I am experiencing a whole lot of new ways of being. To say that this is a big learning experience would be to put it mildly.
Last night was the last class. From here on in we are on our own to practice dancing. Speaking strictly for myself, I think I better keep the rug rolled up and the CD's handy.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Lent...the Third Post
I'm not even trying to keep track of what "day" of Lent it is. It's Lent...good enough. Apparently many of us are in this place of trying to launch this thing, and not feeling like our take-off is going particularly well. My friend C sent me this yesterday from d365 and I found it hopeful and comforting:
Lent is about change. We think about what we want to quit doing, or what we want to do more or better, and we make promises, and try really hard. That’s good,and that’s as it should be. But know this: the Spirit of God is always working in you, on you, with you, to transform you. You are swimming with the current,in other words, and God knows where you’re going.
Lent is about change. We think about what we want to quit doing, or what we want to do more or better, and we make promises, and try really hard. That’s good,and that’s as it should be. But know this: the Spirit of God is always working in you, on you, with you, to transform you. You are swimming with the current,in other words, and God knows where you’re going.
R and I have been attending a non-denominational service on Sunday afternoons for the past month or two. It's hard for me to even call it church as it's so far from my experience of that particular thing. I say that in a couple ways. For one thing, it's in a big meeting room at the Y. It's informal, no real "prayers" are said, there is no "liturgy" as such. We do have ritual in that we gather and share a meal and fellowship, then we usually sing together, often some contemporary Christian music. perhaps with new words provided by the Methodist pastor who has been the main impetus behind the group. After that there is something to kick off discussion. Lately we have been using the Nooma series by Rob Bell. This week we watched a video called "Shells," the theme of which was purpose. One of the discussion questions was about "the one thing" in our lives....do we know what that is, do we focus on it? Is that our purpose in life? Basically the folks at my table all just kind of sat and stared at each other. Well, duh, yeah of course we all know what the answer is supposed to be here....most of us somewhere along the way went to church or Sunday school and heard that the one thing was God, Jesus, and that is supposed to be the focus and purpose of our lives But are we doing it, can we do it? Two of us at my table are "professionally religious" types, myself and a woman who is a commissioned lay pastor. Another man whom I did not know clearly has a church life as he was able to quote scripture to chapter and verse. Others I know to be people of faith, but we were all in agreement that "the one thing" can be many things and that it changes sometimes many times, not only in the course of a life, but in the course of a week or even a day.
Perhaps we were not thinking deeply enough....maybe we were thinking more about focus than purpose...I don't know. I do know I can, and do, get awfully distracted from what I really, honesty do know is the One Thing. And not just by shiny things! By every day things, by just the flotsam and jetsam and the grocery list. By the cat box and the gas tank. By the e-mail from a friend whose concerns become mine, by the overheard remark I cannot let go. And by happiness and anticipation. By "what comes next." But I also know that somewhere, down there underneath it all, like a deep spring, like a life giving underground well....God is always there. Do I take God for granted? Perhaps. Is that wrong? Maybe. Or maybe not. There is a permission in loving relationships to rely... so I am learning....to assume that permission is given to look away for a time, to focus on other things with the assumption that if you were to suddenly look back, or fall into....the loved one would still be there. Is it not this way with God? Or am I simply telling myself something I want to hear so I can be distracted with out guilt? As I am working on giving that up for Lent you know. Well, those are the thoughts as I go off into Wednesday as the the first full week of Lent ends and the second one begins.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Lent...the Second Post
While I know that Ash Wednesday officially begins Lent, it seems like it really begins with the first Sunday. There are so many tangible (and deliberate) liturgical signs that, at least at St. J's a person would really have to not be paying attention to know that something is up here. The beautiful brass candlesticks that grace front and back altars are gone, replaced by somber wooden and brass candle holders on the table only. This year we have small purple votives on the back altar that will be extinguished one by one as part of our opening Lenten reflection each week. There are no flowers on the altar and of course, all of the paraments are somber purple. The choir wears red robes with no cottas. We have a ceramic chalice and plate instead of the shiny silver. We use Rite One for liturgy. This is the "old service" and the language reflects a much more penitent sensibility. The alleluias of course are gone from the hymns and, at least this week, even the hymnody was solemn. Our organist even had a bit of a grouse about that, and one of the choir members was heard to quip that "if we are singing like this all through Lent, that should be enough penance, I won't have to give anything else up!" Yes, it is Lent, and we are surrounded by the reminders in a myriad of sensory ways that cause us to pay attention. This is a good thing even if not always comfortable. I have kind of a mixed relationship with the Rite One liturgy. There is part of me that loves the connection to the past, to the sheer oldness of it and the connection to all of the people who have prayed this liturgy through all of the ages of time, and I have to say to the beauty of some of the language. On the other hand, there are parts of it that make me kind of theologically squirmy. But perhaps that is not a bad thing. Thinking about not being worthy to collect the crumbs under God's table (from the communion prayer)....on the one hand, that takes me to a place of weird subservience that trips all kinds of triggers. But on the other hand...well...there is some profound truth here, and it is only by grace, is it not????
My own efforts at Lent bumble on. I will not say that I am necessarily succeeding at worrying any less. I am more aware of how much I do it, so perhaps that's a start. One of my worries continues to be L. I haven't heard back from him yet and he was not in church. I didn't expect to see him, as he's now twenty miles away, and other than contacting me to get the names of the congregants who live in his town for a ride, I don't know how he would get to church. It's very hard not to go charging into the night to try to save him from himself. It's very hard not to feel that I failed to do just that in the first place. But I try to remember what I told myself from the very beginning with L. He is God's and in God's hands, and I need to trust that and trust God with him.
I guess that would not be a bad thought in general...because it all is, we all are...in God's hands. I remember that and then forget it again, or I trust it and then I don't. Perhaps one thing that I might want from this Lent is longer intervals of remembering and trust. That would be a good thing I think. Good for the joy and peace quotient.
So my first full week of Lent begins. How's it going for you?
My own efforts at Lent bumble on. I will not say that I am necessarily succeeding at worrying any less. I am more aware of how much I do it, so perhaps that's a start. One of my worries continues to be L. I haven't heard back from him yet and he was not in church. I didn't expect to see him, as he's now twenty miles away, and other than contacting me to get the names of the congregants who live in his town for a ride, I don't know how he would get to church. It's very hard not to go charging into the night to try to save him from himself. It's very hard not to feel that I failed to do just that in the first place. But I try to remember what I told myself from the very beginning with L. He is God's and in God's hands, and I need to trust that and trust God with him.
I guess that would not be a bad thought in general...because it all is, we all are...in God's hands. I remember that and then forget it again, or I trust it and then I don't. Perhaps one thing that I might want from this Lent is longer intervals of remembering and trust. That would be a good thing I think. Good for the joy and peace quotient.
So my first full week of Lent begins. How's it going for you?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Lent...the First Post
The Best Prayer Julian of Norwich
The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God, knowing that that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need.
Source: Revelations of Divine Love
I'm not sure that I will manage to post every day during Lent. I gave that a go for a January Nablo and it didn't go so well, but let's just say, it's my hope to be more reflective and intentional about posting over the next forty days. Ash Wednesday service was a good beginning for the season. I preached the sermon posted below, and M and I celebrated the Eucharist together. Our choir sang and we had a good attendance of 23, which in our tiny place is a major crowd. I had the strange and wonderful experience of placing ashes on the forehead of my beloved and saying those powerful words that for me hold such depth and meaning. In one millisecond holding the solemn truth that this man I love so much is dust....ephemeral and mortal, easily lost to me by death, and at the same time knowing he, like all of the other beautiful faces at the rail last night, is held in God, part of God and linked to me in a far bigger way than my human mind can ever grasp.
Lent has begun. I have already bumped up against challenges to my plan to give up suffering. I had coffee with XDO on Shrove Tuesday. There is fertile ground for a guilt wallow there should I chose to dive in. I did not personally share the news of my engagement before it got around by way of the grapevine. That was an oops on my part, I think. I did procrastinate some. I wasn't entirely sure of the reception, although to be fair, overall, the response to my developing relationship with R has been pretty positive as XDO and I have tried to negotiate these strange waters of post-relationship friendship. But there is anger about the fact that the news did not come from me. And more, too, I think. About the news itself. That I have moved on this soon...and so many other things. XDO is experiencing health issues at some level of seriousness. How serious I cannot be sure as that is not being shared. I get it. I am no longer the bearer of that privilege. But it frustrates me as well. And from my own pile of issues it is very hard to resist going to guilt. I have joy and blessings, love and abundance. XDO has illness and apparent suffering, loneliness and perhaps an uncertain future. My head knows....my heart mourns....and wants to take it on and must be pulled back from an edge that bodes no good for anyone. Lenten discipline....fasting from the wallow in XDO guilt.
I saw L yesterday. He has been keeping a very low profile. That has been very concerning to me, but for a whole host of reasons I have had to let him do that. We ran into each other and he told me that he has been "kicked out" of his roommate situation here in town. He has moved to his mom's house in the little town down the road, which is far from an optimal thing, for many reasons. He's not working...again, not good. Lot's of free time. I encouraged him to call some congregants who live in his town for a ride to church and to call me to talk. I wish I could do more for him. I worry about him and pray for him constantly. His life makes me so sad. I want to save him from himself....it is out of my power to do so. *sigh* ....fasting from worry? Now there is a tall order!
And so Lent begins....
The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God, knowing that that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need.
Source: Revelations of Divine Love
I'm not sure that I will manage to post every day during Lent. I gave that a go for a January Nablo and it didn't go so well, but let's just say, it's my hope to be more reflective and intentional about posting over the next forty days. Ash Wednesday service was a good beginning for the season. I preached the sermon posted below, and M and I celebrated the Eucharist together. Our choir sang and we had a good attendance of 23, which in our tiny place is a major crowd. I had the strange and wonderful experience of placing ashes on the forehead of my beloved and saying those powerful words that for me hold such depth and meaning. In one millisecond holding the solemn truth that this man I love so much is dust....ephemeral and mortal, easily lost to me by death, and at the same time knowing he, like all of the other beautiful faces at the rail last night, is held in God, part of God and linked to me in a far bigger way than my human mind can ever grasp.
Lent has begun. I have already bumped up against challenges to my plan to give up suffering. I had coffee with XDO on Shrove Tuesday. There is fertile ground for a guilt wallow there should I chose to dive in. I did not personally share the news of my engagement before it got around by way of the grapevine. That was an oops on my part, I think. I did procrastinate some. I wasn't entirely sure of the reception, although to be fair, overall, the response to my developing relationship with R has been pretty positive as XDO and I have tried to negotiate these strange waters of post-relationship friendship. But there is anger about the fact that the news did not come from me. And more, too, I think. About the news itself. That I have moved on this soon...and so many other things. XDO is experiencing health issues at some level of seriousness. How serious I cannot be sure as that is not being shared. I get it. I am no longer the bearer of that privilege. But it frustrates me as well. And from my own pile of issues it is very hard to resist going to guilt. I have joy and blessings, love and abundance. XDO has illness and apparent suffering, loneliness and perhaps an uncertain future. My head knows....my heart mourns....and wants to take it on and must be pulled back from an edge that bodes no good for anyone. Lenten discipline....fasting from the wallow in XDO guilt.
I saw L yesterday. He has been keeping a very low profile. That has been very concerning to me, but for a whole host of reasons I have had to let him do that. We ran into each other and he told me that he has been "kicked out" of his roommate situation here in town. He has moved to his mom's house in the little town down the road, which is far from an optimal thing, for many reasons. He's not working...again, not good. Lot's of free time. I encouraged him to call some congregants who live in his town for a ride to church and to call me to talk. I wish I could do more for him. I worry about him and pray for him constantly. His life makes me so sad. I want to save him from himself....it is out of my power to do so. *sigh* ....fasting from worry? Now there is a tall order!
And so Lent begins....
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
And So It Begins....
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is a unique time for revisiting the work of the soul and taking stock of what God has done and is doing in us. Canon Renee Miller
Ash Wednesday. I woke this morning with a sense of "something's up" before I was completely conscious. That sense of a day that is just not like the others, one that has extra things to do or remember, a day that has import. "What?" my foggy brain asked. "Ah, yes....it's here." That Lent I am not quite prepared for, sure about. But ready or not, here it is. That is the way of liturgical seasons. They come upon you if you are ready or not, and somehow it's been my experience that they have turned out to often be just the thing I needed, even when I didn't know it or...um...want it.
As usual, "coincidentally" (ha!) things have been just appearing that have given me great food for thought as to "what to do about Lent." Comments from Imingrace and Beach Walkin' on my last post and a remark made by Kathryn on the Tuesday Lectionary Leanings as I thought about my sermon for tonight. Something I read on Barbara Crafton's Daily e-mo. Something C said to me last night on the phone. It's all in the mix and it's all brewing in the Lenten stew. I know this must be important because it makes my stomach kind of queasy to think about it. Always a clear sign that a) this is likely to be Big Stuff and b) I probably don't want to deal with it. So what better for Lent! So what is this momentous thing? Well, I am thinking about giving up guilt and suffering for Lent! OK, that's kind of flip, but seriously, I am thinking about working on repenting of feeling guilty about joy and trying to do as some of you have suggested and relax into God's blessings and the joy in my life.
It has been pointed out to me by a few people that I struggle with receiving, with accepting others' care for me. This is true in many contexts. I know it, I accept and I get the reasons for it. It's just plain better, easier and safer to give! I get to be in control, I get to feel good and I get strokes and brownie points besides. I mean, does it GET better than this?!? In essence, maybe I get to play God a little, really. Oh. Well, now....perhaps there is something that could use a little repenting.
I also tend to feel guilty about the blessings and goodness in my life. I've written about this before....I know it's not a good thing. I know I'm projecting here a bit, but I imagine God sometimes giving me all this wonderful stuff and then sort of going "mmmpfh!" as I respond not with simple joy and gratitude, but by going into paroxysms of guilt about not being deserving and feeling upset about those around me who are not getting good things, etc. etc. I imagine how I would feel if I went to the trouble of finding splendid gifts for someone I loved and instead of simply enjoying them, they got all strange and said "Oh, but look, you didn't give her one, or him one. " I mean really! So perhaps I could repent on that front as well.
I mentioned in the Monday post about being more accustomed and comfortable with a spiritual life based in suffering. Now it's not that I have had this horrible life. In fact, overall, my life has been pretty blessed. But like anyone who has made it past the midpoint, there has been some pain and struggle. And the last year has certainly had its share of hard times. I have pretty much always been able to flee to God in such times....to find my "wing," my safety and comfort. When I am sad, God is there, when I am anxious in the night, I know that steady Presence is with me, in times past when I felt that I was alone and abandoned by everyone, God did not desert me. But happiness? Joy? Strangely those are less comfortable for me to settle into in general, and also less easy to "ease into" with God. I truly do believe in my heart that I am God's beloved child and that God truly does delight in me. This would seem to suggest that my joys would be God's joys, too. That, God's dreams for me are those which would bring me the greatest happiness and fulfillment, and that as these dreams come to pass God would be rejoicing greatly. This suggests yet another Lenten discipline....though that seems a funny word in this context....doing as Beach Walkin' suggested, "using this season to rejoice... for all of the quiet ways God has... is... and will continue to work in you... and through you...." by "learning to sit and allow God to love me " as Kathyrn suggests in TLL, because as Imingrace said, "God has been good to you and resting in the joy of this gift is a good thing."
Amen, my sisters, that, I think, will Lent!
Ash Wednesday. I woke this morning with a sense of "something's up" before I was completely conscious. That sense of a day that is just not like the others, one that has extra things to do or remember, a day that has import. "What?" my foggy brain asked. "Ah, yes....it's here." That Lent I am not quite prepared for, sure about. But ready or not, here it is. That is the way of liturgical seasons. They come upon you if you are ready or not, and somehow it's been my experience that they have turned out to often be just the thing I needed, even when I didn't know it or...um...want it.
As usual, "coincidentally" (ha!) things have been just appearing that have given me great food for thought as to "what to do about Lent." Comments from Imingrace and Beach Walkin' on my last post and a remark made by Kathryn on the Tuesday Lectionary Leanings as I thought about my sermon for tonight. Something I read on Barbara Crafton's Daily e-mo. Something C said to me last night on the phone. It's all in the mix and it's all brewing in the Lenten stew. I know this must be important because it makes my stomach kind of queasy to think about it. Always a clear sign that a) this is likely to be Big Stuff and b) I probably don't want to deal with it. So what better for Lent! So what is this momentous thing? Well, I am thinking about giving up guilt and suffering for Lent! OK, that's kind of flip, but seriously, I am thinking about working on repenting of feeling guilty about joy and trying to do as some of you have suggested and relax into God's blessings and the joy in my life.
It has been pointed out to me by a few people that I struggle with receiving, with accepting others' care for me. This is true in many contexts. I know it, I accept and I get the reasons for it. It's just plain better, easier and safer to give! I get to be in control, I get to feel good and I get strokes and brownie points besides. I mean, does it GET better than this?!? In essence, maybe I get to play God a little, really. Oh. Well, now....perhaps there is something that could use a little repenting.
I also tend to feel guilty about the blessings and goodness in my life. I've written about this before....I know it's not a good thing. I know I'm projecting here a bit, but I imagine God sometimes giving me all this wonderful stuff and then sort of going "mmmpfh!" as I respond not with simple joy and gratitude, but by going into paroxysms of guilt about not being deserving and feeling upset about those around me who are not getting good things, etc. etc. I imagine how I would feel if I went to the trouble of finding splendid gifts for someone I loved and instead of simply enjoying them, they got all strange and said "Oh, but look, you didn't give her one, or him one. " I mean really! So perhaps I could repent on that front as well.
I mentioned in the Monday post about being more accustomed and comfortable with a spiritual life based in suffering. Now it's not that I have had this horrible life. In fact, overall, my life has been pretty blessed. But like anyone who has made it past the midpoint, there has been some pain and struggle. And the last year has certainly had its share of hard times. I have pretty much always been able to flee to God in such times....to find my "wing," my safety and comfort. When I am sad, God is there, when I am anxious in the night, I know that steady Presence is with me, in times past when I felt that I was alone and abandoned by everyone, God did not desert me. But happiness? Joy? Strangely those are less comfortable for me to settle into in general, and also less easy to "ease into" with God. I truly do believe in my heart that I am God's beloved child and that God truly does delight in me. This would seem to suggest that my joys would be God's joys, too. That, God's dreams for me are those which would bring me the greatest happiness and fulfillment, and that as these dreams come to pass God would be rejoicing greatly. This suggests yet another Lenten discipline....though that seems a funny word in this context....doing as Beach Walkin' suggested, "using this season to rejoice... for all of the quiet ways God has... is... and will continue to work in you... and through you...." by "learning to sit and allow God to love me " as Kathyrn suggests in TLL, because as Imingrace said, "God has been good to you and resting in the joy of this gift is a good thing."
Amen, my sisters, that, I think, will Lent!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Maundy Thursday
I am aware today of the strange connections in my life...patterns and rhythms, here to there and back again. There was a student in the Fall that I wrote about here that got my semester off to a really shaky start. She set the tone for what I thought was going to be a terrible time, but what actually turned out to be a time of great learning. A turning point really, as I look back. part of what set some of the things in motion that are happening even now. Funny how circumstances become God's vehicles of grace in this way. This student has, by her request become my client. I had to think about it a bit. The history and all. But it has turned out to be a very good thing. She makes a great deal of sense to me. I find I spend most of our sessions simply asking her questions. Questions she says that are very hard and that no one has ever asked her before. I have no doubt that this is true, as they are not the kind of questions you are asked unless you submit yourself to a process like therapy, or spiritual direction. I had a particular sense of the way to start with these questions simply because of our history. It gave us kind of leg up in a way, we got a running start on therapy.
I've also mentioned in a couple places my very interesting Easter last year. I baptized my first baby on Easter Sunday, and a wonderful thing it was. But before I could even get my alb off and join the celebration, I was being paged to the ER. One of my clients was in crisis. I spent much of Easter afternoon with her and coping with the situation. She has spent the last year working hard on her healing and I saw her today. From all her hard work has come a depth of spiritual life that she did not have before. Our sessions are just as likely to include references to Thomas Merton as they are to Prozac, to her yoga and meditation practice as they are to her struggles with her reovery.
Clearly this is all about grace and God working in the midst of life's pain and confusion. It is all pretty much a mystery to me sometimes how it all works out. And I am fine with that. I don't need to know. I am just so incredibly grateful to be able to participate, even as an innocent bystander as these miracles happen in my presence.
I've also mentioned in a couple places my very interesting Easter last year. I baptized my first baby on Easter Sunday, and a wonderful thing it was. But before I could even get my alb off and join the celebration, I was being paged to the ER. One of my clients was in crisis. I spent much of Easter afternoon with her and coping with the situation. She has spent the last year working hard on her healing and I saw her today. From all her hard work has come a depth of spiritual life that she did not have before. Our sessions are just as likely to include references to Thomas Merton as they are to Prozac, to her yoga and meditation practice as they are to her struggles with her reovery.
Clearly this is all about grace and God working in the midst of life's pain and confusion. It is all pretty much a mystery to me sometimes how it all works out. And I am fine with that. I don't need to know. I am just so incredibly grateful to be able to participate, even as an innocent bystander as these miracles happen in my presence.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Lent Day 37
I have been subscribing during Lent to a daily on-line devotion from Signposts. Like many of these daily readings, whether in print or on-line, many times I read them and they pass by, moving through my mind with nary a ripple. Other times, however, they make me stop and take notice. I feel as if God is speaking rather clearly to me through them. Today's reading, by the Rev. Canon Renee Miller got my attention:
But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer.—Matthew 26:12
It's hard enough to keep quiet when we are accused of something we have done, but it seems impossible to be still when false accusations are lobbed our way. We want to lash out at our accuser, assure them that they have wrong information, that they are being unfair, that we don't deserve their questioning or their wrath. It even seems foolhardy to remain silent, because it feels as if the silent response is the tacit confession of our guilt. Imagine your soul as a still pond, and accusations as rocks being thrown into the pond. The rocks certainly cause disturbance to the water, but they have no lasting power to change the stillness that was there. After they have caused their agitation, the water is able to return to its stillness—to its reflection of clear glass. Our insistence on proving our innocence or defending our rightness only keeps our soul agitated. It has little effect on altering the opinion of the ones so sure we are in the wrong. So, when we are not guilty, we would do better to sit in silence for God's grace to move in and through the situation, so that we can return to peace. When we are guilty, we would do better to admit our guilt, apologize, and let go so that we can return to peace. Jesus knew the only way to maintain his peace was through silence. We might find our own souls more settled if we chose the same response.
Gracious God, when words of defense want to scramble unbidden to my lips, let me choose stillness instead.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Lent Day 36
You throw a stone into a pool...the ripples go out and out. And if you are standing too close to the edge you get your feet wet. That's my life lesson for the day. Kind of a "duh." But one of those things I don't always think about. Or should I say one of those things I haven't had to think about much. Until now. Until this new precariousness in which I am residing. This new way of being that requires that I be much more conscious, much more careful, much more aware. There are no givens anymore, no taken for granteds, no assumings. And this is as it should be. For I threw the stone and stirred the waters. And all the still life is now churning. Because that happens too when you throw stones at water. It's not just the surface that gets disturbed. Things beneath begin to shift as well. Things that were sleeping awake and stir. Things that seemed very steady may shift and shudder. So I guess I must learn to expect surprises, to be caught unprepared. I am guessing this will not be last time I will be left standing on the shore alone with cold wet feet.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Palm Sunday
It has been a long and interesting day. The Palm-Passion service was, as always, that sharp shift, that stark reminder that it all is marching ever so quickly and inexorably towards that cross, there's no denying. Here's the story, in all it's starkness. Here people, is what they decided, despite several options and chances to back out, to do to Jesus, this inclusive, healing, sight-making, life-bringing, beloved teacher. And here too is what became of those who purported to be his followers. "Nope, never heard of him." Gone. Fled. He is left to the soldiers, aided only by strangers. Pretty sobering stuff for a Sunday morning.
We read the Passion in four voices, we sang an anthem that is more contemporary than some music we usually do that I found very arresting. I had trouble not tearing up as I sang. Afterwards we ate soup together and I was aware that there is at least one among us who is in great pain. Pain that I cannot touch, cannot heal because the doors of this person's heart are closed to me, closed right now to us all. And yet she chooses still to sit among us. I don't know how long that will even continue. I fear for not much longer though I pray this is not so. She is in God's hands and only God is able to do for her what needs to be done.
After church L and I took a road trip. As always when I am with him, there were moments of great tenderness and sweetness, moments of great hilarity, and moments when I thought my heart would break. It began as we left town. I asked him if he had called him mom to tell her he was coming. "No," he said, "she'll be home, she's always home." "Oh?" "Yeah, she sleeps a lot." I asked him if this was true when he was a kid as well and he said yes. He then went on to tell me that the main thing is to make sure not to say things that upset her as that will make her sick. He told me he knows what those things are, has always known and is careful. Um-hmmm. I can imagine. I asked him what upsets her, and to her credit some are the same things that upset me...him fighting, him talking about his "moving to the Cities" (code for getting in trouble or worse), but there were other things, more innocent, that kids might share with moms without a second thought....that for him are landmines. When we arrived at the trailercourt there was a really scarey moment. He went up to the door and there was no answer. He looked in a window and his face went white....he said "wait here" and literally tore off up the dirt road to another trailer. A few minutes later he was back, looking calmer, and directed me to another trailer. Apparently mom had moved. She hadn't mentioned it. This happens. Once it happened, he told me on the way home, while he was "locked up" as a kid and he lost them for awhile. He had to track down his family. They forgot to tell him where they went, it seems. But today he found her, in her "new trailer" down the road. She is buying this one, not renting like the other one, so she can't get evicted. So I went in with him and was introduced to mom and his two sisters and his brother. They were polite but clearly much more interested in spending time with L than me so I left them to visit. When I picked him up later he said it was a good visit and that his mom thought I was "nice." Good, I passed! His mom is encouraging him to stay in town here, he says. She gets points from me for that. We talked about eagles on the way home, how he has seen them and their nests in tall trees and finds them very spiritual. We talked about places that are special, where the Spirit feels close. And we talked about his brother's limo and his sister's guitar, and low riders and art and making subs and what is going to happen next in his life. I told him I have not given up on trying to find someone to do an appeal and that there is always hope for change. And he said, "sure" but I'm not sure how much he really believes it.
And then I came home and took a nap.
We read the Passion in four voices, we sang an anthem that is more contemporary than some music we usually do that I found very arresting. I had trouble not tearing up as I sang. Afterwards we ate soup together and I was aware that there is at least one among us who is in great pain. Pain that I cannot touch, cannot heal because the doors of this person's heart are closed to me, closed right now to us all. And yet she chooses still to sit among us. I don't know how long that will even continue. I fear for not much longer though I pray this is not so. She is in God's hands and only God is able to do for her what needs to be done.
After church L and I took a road trip. As always when I am with him, there were moments of great tenderness and sweetness, moments of great hilarity, and moments when I thought my heart would break. It began as we left town. I asked him if he had called him mom to tell her he was coming. "No," he said, "she'll be home, she's always home." "Oh?" "Yeah, she sleeps a lot." I asked him if this was true when he was a kid as well and he said yes. He then went on to tell me that the main thing is to make sure not to say things that upset her as that will make her sick. He told me he knows what those things are, has always known and is careful. Um-hmmm. I can imagine. I asked him what upsets her, and to her credit some are the same things that upset me...him fighting, him talking about his "moving to the Cities" (code for getting in trouble or worse), but there were other things, more innocent, that kids might share with moms without a second thought....that for him are landmines. When we arrived at the trailercourt there was a really scarey moment. He went up to the door and there was no answer. He looked in a window and his face went white....he said "wait here" and literally tore off up the dirt road to another trailer. A few minutes later he was back, looking calmer, and directed me to another trailer. Apparently mom had moved. She hadn't mentioned it. This happens. Once it happened, he told me on the way home, while he was "locked up" as a kid and he lost them for awhile. He had to track down his family. They forgot to tell him where they went, it seems. But today he found her, in her "new trailer" down the road. She is buying this one, not renting like the other one, so she can't get evicted. So I went in with him and was introduced to mom and his two sisters and his brother. They were polite but clearly much more interested in spending time with L than me so I left them to visit. When I picked him up later he said it was a good visit and that his mom thought I was "nice." Good, I passed! His mom is encouraging him to stay in town here, he says. She gets points from me for that. We talked about eagles on the way home, how he has seen them and their nests in tall trees and finds them very spiritual. We talked about places that are special, where the Spirit feels close. And we talked about his brother's limo and his sister's guitar, and low riders and art and making subs and what is going to happen next in his life. I told him I have not given up on trying to find someone to do an appeal and that there is always hope for change. And he said, "sure" but I'm not sure how much he really believes it.
And then I came home and took a nap.
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