Posts
Here's Tricia's last sermon of the liturgical year (her reminder, not mine).
Today is the last Sunday in the season of Pentecost, the longest season of the church year.
At one time the church referred to the season of Pentecost as “ordinary” time. From May through the end of November there are no big festivals or celebrations on the church calendar.
Just the ordinary day in, day out of church life.
There is a temptation to become bored with ordinary time, to quit paying attention to what begins to seem mundane. Of course, even extraordinary events and places, when seen often enough, begin to seem routine, mundane, ordinary.
That was the case for me on a trip to Burma. One of the places we visited was the ancient city of Pagan, considered one of Buddhism’s holiest cities. There are more than 5,000 pagodas – or Buddhist temples – in this small town.
The first day we were there we looked at each pagoda with great fascination, taking in every detail, comparing one to the other. Each seemed wildly exotic, unlike anything we had ever seen before.
By the second day our interest was not so keen. When we contemplated hiking up a steep hill to see what was at the top, my friend said, “We don’t need to hike up that hill. I can already tell you what’s up there.
“It’s just another pagoda.”
Sometimes by this point in the season of Pentecost I begin to feel the way I did on that trip to Burma.
For week after week now we have focused on the stories of Jesus’ daily life – his teachings, his run-ins with the religious authorities, his healings and miracles.
And I must admit that after a while one story begins to sound a lot like another story. One healing blends into another. Haven’t we already heard that one before?
Maybe Jesus’ disciples even felt that way as Jesus began to tell the story we hear in today’s Gospel.
By this time the disciples have been travelling with Jesus for three years. They’ve seen him perform many miracles; they’ve heard him tell many stories. They have been an intimate part of his daily, ordinary life.
“What’s he talking about?” you can imagine one of the disciples asking another. “Oh, it’s just another parable.”
Just another pagoda.
But in this last parable, this last story Jesus tells before he is betrayed, arrested, and crucified – Jesus gives us an extraordinary message about ordinary life.
There will come a time, he says, when I will judge all of you. And the criteria for judgment is this: Not what extraordinary accomplishments you have achieved in your life, not what knowledge you have amassed, not even what faith you have professed.
None of these things are what matters at the day of judgment. What matters that day are the ordinary acts of kindness you have shown to people in need. When you truly see them, then you have seen me.
Surely the main character in Ernest Gaines’ short story, Christ Walked Down Market Street, is familiar with these words of Jesus.
“It is raining, it’s windy and cold,” the nameless character recounts. “Twelve-thirty, maybe one o’clock in the afternoon. Umbrellas all over the place, but doing little good against the wind. Must be 50, 60 people on the block, all in a hurry to get out of the weather.
“I saw him maybe a hundred feet away. But I’m sure he had seen me long before then. There were probably a dozen people between us, so he didn’t have much trouble picking me out.
“And you have never seen a more pathetic figure in your life. Barefoot. Half of his denim shirt inside his black trousers, the other half hanging out. No belt, no zipper – holding up his trousers with one hand. They were much too big for him, much too long, and even holding them up as
high as he could, and as tight as he could, they still dragged in mud on the sidewalk.
“From the moment I saw him, I told myself that I was not going to give him a single dime. I had already given a quarter to one who stood out in the rain in front of the post office.
“As we came closer, I saw him passing the other people like they weren’t even there. And they were doing the same to him, avoiding him like they didn’t even see him. I could see from 25, 30 feet away that he was angling straight toward me.
“Then at a distance of about six feet away he reached out his hand in slow motion. The palm of his hand was black with grime, his fingers were long and skeletal, I went by him without looking into his face.
“I made two more steps, then I jerked around. Because I had seen something in the palm of that hand that looked like an ugly sunken scar.
“But as God be my witness, He was not there.” (At this point in the story, the pronouns referring to the beggar are capitalized.)
“He was not there; He was not there. No one was within 10 or 15 feet of where He should have been.
“I had not made more than two or three steps before I turned around. And I should have seen Him as clearly as I’m seeing you now – but He was not here. Just this empty space between me and all the other people. Just empty space.”
The man goes home, but he is haunted by the Christ he passed in contempt on the street. He returns and walks up and down Market Street a dozen times, looking for the Christ. Each day after work he goes back, searching, searching, searching.
“For a couple of years, day or night, I would walk down Market Street. When I didn’t see Him again, I got the idea that maybe He would not come back in that same form. Maybe He had already returned in a different form and I hadn’t recognized Him. Maybe He was one of my neighbors.
“Now I searched the face of anyone and everyone I passed. I also looked closely at the palm of all hands I came in contact with, whether it was black or white, whether it was the left or right hand of a store clerk, a bus driver when I got my transfer, or the butcher who gave me my change – I looked at all their hands.
“And I have searched thousands of faces. I have been insulted, threatened with violence for looking too closely in the face of man, woman, or child. You have no idea what names you are called for looking people in the face.
“At least half a dozen times in the past 30 years I’ve been arrested for soliciting. And do you know what that means, soliciting? It means looking into someone’s eyes, hoping that He’s Christ.”
The endless, obsessive search for Christ turns the character into a bum himself. The story ends with him telling his saga to a bartender, who responds by throwing him out on the street.
“Just get out of here,” the bartender says.
“I’m on my way, sir,” the character replies. “If I hurry, maybe I’ll see Him again!”
Of course, the irony is that in his searching the man has seen Christ thousands of times and failed to recognize him. And the sad thing is that we have, too.
The homeless person we ignore as we dash into the store for our Christmas shopping, the checkout clerk we treat with impatience and contempt, the co-worker whose problems we cannot bear to listen to one more time, the elderly neighbor or relative we don’t have time to visit – all of these may be missed opportunities to see and serve the Christ.
This week is the end of ordinary time in the liturgical year. But we know that no time is truly ever ordinary, that any time may be the moment when Christ is revealed to us, if we only slow down, look, and respond.
Amen.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
My Devotional Assembly
This is a rather long post, but it is the text of the devotional assembly I delivered to the junior high students at school on Friday. Devotional assemblies are the chance for faculty members to talk to the kids and essentially tell them about something important to the teacher, some lesson they want the students to reflect upon. Think of it as a half-step more informal than a sermon. This one went over pretty well, I think . The teachers liked it at least.
On September 12th, one of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace died. The newspapers and literary websites and journals all commented on what a loss it was for American literature. His novel, Infinite Jest, was listed in Time Magazine as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, which I would agree. In my opinion, it might the greatest novel of the 1990s, but I am biased since I wrote my master’s thesis on it.
After learning of his death, I turned not to his fictions, or his essays, but to his commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. In this speech, Wallace discusses the old chestnut that education’s main goal is to teach us how to think. But Wallace discussed how the truth to that statement does not necessarily apply to only academics. He said in the speech:
Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
To Wallace, only by learning how to control how you think and what you think about do you truly have an open mind and the freedom to control your life completely and truly. He discusses how most people when they aren’t thinking get upset and angry at the thousands of petty irritations and annoyances we experience, but that by choosing how we think, by trying to be empathetic, we might be able to see the world differently and change our lives.
He uses the example being stuck in traffic. Most people get angry that they are stuck in traffic. “How dare you cut me off! Get off the road, you drunk driver! Do you have to be completely stupid to have a driver’s license in this city!” And that’s just me driving to school in the morning! But seriously, Wallace points out that the person who just cut you off could be a father taking their child to the emergency room, or that slow car could be a woman driving slowly because she’s been up all night working the night shift because she lost her prior job and can only support her family this way.
But I could change Wallace’s examples to ways that apply to your life in junior high. Like waiting in line at lunch. You can, like Wallace says, choose to think about how you respond to being stuck in the infamous breakfast for lunch line, and realize that everyone else feels the same way you do, but some of them are probably having a worse day than you: they might have flunked a test, or they’re brother or sister fought with them this morning, or even worse, their parents are getting divorced. And now they, like you, have to wait in line. Suddenly, your life isn’t too bad.
Just like Wallace’s point, if we choose how we think and react, and act to the world around us, we really have gained freedom. We aren’t mindless slaves with no ability to decide how we think and act. As Wallace says,
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, [uninteresting] ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
This applies everywhere in our lives: we must think about what we are doing and thinking because it is just too easy to do what society and culture is telling us to do. Do we really care what celebrities are doing with their lives, what Paris Hilton is buying at the store or what car Will Farrell drives? Is that what we want to spend our time caring about? Do we even want to spend our time caring about these things?
The world is bent upon making you mindless consumers, whether it is the clothes you buy or the shows you watch, or the ideas you swallow from radio or television. And when you become a mindless swallower of culture, you begin to worship the things that popular culture tells you to, that popular culture thinks are important. And Wallace says the danger is that if you do this, you will never be happy. He says
If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship beauty and looks, [the unreal body images society forces on us,] and you will always feel ugly. . . . The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings [of daily life].
Only if you do the hard work about thinking for yourself, you’ll realize that you don’t want to be mindless in your thoughts and actions. We can apply the same ideas to the classroom not only in the everyday events of our lives, as I said earlier, but also in matters of honor. Hard to believe this, but all of us teachers remember (recently like me, or years ago like some of your other teachers) how scary it was as a student to admit to a teacher that you didn’t do your work, you didn’t remember to get a test signed. And out of fear, it is tempting to avoid problems and avoid disappointing or angering a teacher by lying to them. But to do so is, as Wallace says, to lose something valuable.
In this case it is your honor.
So far this year, as honor council sponsor with Ms. Thomas, we have had several such incidents of lost honor. We often think because these are not made public, that they don’t happen, but they do. So far, without naming names, we’ve had 7 lying offenses, 4 cheating offenses, 2 forged signatures, and nearly dozen other hearsays or questionable cases that we didn’t pursue. I bring these up not to embarrass anyone, but to encourage you to become active thinkers, to have the freedom to control your thoughts and actions, and by doing so, do the right thing, keeping your honor and the trust of your classmates and teachers by not cheating.
In the coming weeks, as finals loom and projects get turned in, the temptation to betray our best selves can be overwhelming. In fact, already in the last week, our honor council activities have nearly doubled from the rest of the semester. In the weeks ahead, I encourage all of us to think about how we act and think for ourselves. How can we be the best people we can be, how can we control our thoughts and actions honorably?
The baptism service in the Episcopal church has a wonderful prayer that fits so beautifully with what I’ve been talking about with you. In welcoming a person or baby into a life with Jesus Christ, the priest prays in a way that could serve as a reminder for all of us, regardless of our religion. The priest asks God to give the newly baptized “an inquiring mind and discerning heart, and the courage to will and to persevere” in life; it seems the authors of the baptismal service recognize that to have an inquiring mind and discerning heart is important right from the start, but that it also takes will and perseverance to do it right in big ways (like keeping your honor) or little (like waiting in the line for ice cream when we have it).
Please pray with me.
Dear God please grant us “inquiring minds and discerning hearts, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. May we be thankful for the things we have and the people we are blessed with, and may we seek always and everywhere to be our best selves in our thoughts and our actions.
Amen.
On September 12th, one of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace died. The newspapers and literary websites and journals all commented on what a loss it was for American literature. His novel, Infinite Jest, was listed in Time Magazine as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, which I would agree. In my opinion, it might the greatest novel of the 1990s, but I am biased since I wrote my master’s thesis on it.
After learning of his death, I turned not to his fictions, or his essays, but to his commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. In this speech, Wallace discusses the old chestnut that education’s main goal is to teach us how to think. But Wallace discussed how the truth to that statement does not necessarily apply to only academics. He said in the speech:
Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
To Wallace, only by learning how to control how you think and what you think about do you truly have an open mind and the freedom to control your life completely and truly. He discusses how most people when they aren’t thinking get upset and angry at the thousands of petty irritations and annoyances we experience, but that by choosing how we think, by trying to be empathetic, we might be able to see the world differently and change our lives.
He uses the example being stuck in traffic. Most people get angry that they are stuck in traffic. “How dare you cut me off! Get off the road, you drunk driver! Do you have to be completely stupid to have a driver’s license in this city!” And that’s just me driving to school in the morning! But seriously, Wallace points out that the person who just cut you off could be a father taking their child to the emergency room, or that slow car could be a woman driving slowly because she’s been up all night working the night shift because she lost her prior job and can only support her family this way.
But I could change Wallace’s examples to ways that apply to your life in junior high. Like waiting in line at lunch. You can, like Wallace says, choose to think about how you respond to being stuck in the infamous breakfast for lunch line, and realize that everyone else feels the same way you do, but some of them are probably having a worse day than you: they might have flunked a test, or they’re brother or sister fought with them this morning, or even worse, their parents are getting divorced. And now they, like you, have to wait in line. Suddenly, your life isn’t too bad.
Just like Wallace’s point, if we choose how we think and react, and act to the world around us, we really have gained freedom. We aren’t mindless slaves with no ability to decide how we think and act. As Wallace says,
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, [uninteresting] ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
This applies everywhere in our lives: we must think about what we are doing and thinking because it is just too easy to do what society and culture is telling us to do. Do we really care what celebrities are doing with their lives, what Paris Hilton is buying at the store or what car Will Farrell drives? Is that what we want to spend our time caring about? Do we even want to spend our time caring about these things?
The world is bent upon making you mindless consumers, whether it is the clothes you buy or the shows you watch, or the ideas you swallow from radio or television. And when you become a mindless swallower of culture, you begin to worship the things that popular culture tells you to, that popular culture thinks are important. And Wallace says the danger is that if you do this, you will never be happy. He says
If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship beauty and looks, [the unreal body images society forces on us,] and you will always feel ugly. . . . The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings [of daily life].
Only if you do the hard work about thinking for yourself, you’ll realize that you don’t want to be mindless in your thoughts and actions. We can apply the same ideas to the classroom not only in the everyday events of our lives, as I said earlier, but also in matters of honor. Hard to believe this, but all of us teachers remember (recently like me, or years ago like some of your other teachers) how scary it was as a student to admit to a teacher that you didn’t do your work, you didn’t remember to get a test signed. And out of fear, it is tempting to avoid problems and avoid disappointing or angering a teacher by lying to them. But to do so is, as Wallace says, to lose something valuable.
In this case it is your honor.
So far this year, as honor council sponsor with Ms. Thomas, we have had several such incidents of lost honor. We often think because these are not made public, that they don’t happen, but they do. So far, without naming names, we’ve had 7 lying offenses, 4 cheating offenses, 2 forged signatures, and nearly dozen other hearsays or questionable cases that we didn’t pursue. I bring these up not to embarrass anyone, but to encourage you to become active thinkers, to have the freedom to control your thoughts and actions, and by doing so, do the right thing, keeping your honor and the trust of your classmates and teachers by not cheating.
In the coming weeks, as finals loom and projects get turned in, the temptation to betray our best selves can be overwhelming. In fact, already in the last week, our honor council activities have nearly doubled from the rest of the semester. In the weeks ahead, I encourage all of us to think about how we act and think for ourselves. How can we be the best people we can be, how can we control our thoughts and actions honorably?
The baptism service in the Episcopal church has a wonderful prayer that fits so beautifully with what I’ve been talking about with you. In welcoming a person or baby into a life with Jesus Christ, the priest prays in a way that could serve as a reminder for all of us, regardless of our religion. The priest asks God to give the newly baptized “an inquiring mind and discerning heart, and the courage to will and to persevere” in life; it seems the authors of the baptismal service recognize that to have an inquiring mind and discerning heart is important right from the start, but that it also takes will and perseverance to do it right in big ways (like keeping your honor) or little (like waiting in the line for ice cream when we have it).
Please pray with me.
Dear God please grant us “inquiring minds and discerning hearts, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. May we be thankful for the things we have and the people we are blessed with, and may we seek always and everywhere to be our best selves in our thoughts and our actions.
Amen.
Friday, November 21, 2008
My Favorite Hymn
I remember when I was a kid, my family often went to the 5 pm service at our Catholic church. That meant that there was no choir. Often there was no music until one guy decided to play the electric guitar for the service. Sometimes he got carried away and his responsorial Psalm would turn into a Hendrix imitation, albeit without the flaming guitar.
So I distinctly remember going to the 10 a.m. service one week and hearing the church's choir sing (which they only did once a month). And they sang this hymn, "There is a Balm in Gilead", beautifully. To this day, this remains my favorite hymn, though the other two I posted are up there too.
So I distinctly remember going to the 10 a.m. service one week and hearing the church's choir sing (which they only did once a month). And they sang this hymn, "There is a Balm in Gilead", beautifully. To this day, this remains my favorite hymn, though the other two I posted are up there too.
Advent Conspiracy
Join the advent conspiracy! This video is pretty cool, even if it seems a little preachy, because it makes some good points about Christmas.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Another favorite hymn
Tricia's comment about the last hymn post was coincidentally appropriate. (How's that for the Department of Redundancy Department?) I had intended today's hymn to be "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." So enjoy this.
Anyone else share to care their favorite hymns?
Anyone else share to care their favorite hymns?
Monday, November 17, 2008
My Favorite Hymns (with video!)
Singing the hymn "The Doxology" (also known as ""Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow") I realized how much I love the music at church, especially at St. Dunstan's. Them choir folks sure can sing, that's for sure! And when they sing some of my favorite hymns, I find myself being like my grandfather.
See, every Sunday after going to church, Grandpa would half sing, half mumble whatever hymn was stuck in his head. It was pretty much a standard part of spending time with Grandpa growing up, and one of my fondest memories of him. And I find myself doing the same thing now. Yesterday I raked leaves (lots and lots of leaves) while humming the tune of "The Doxology."
So this week, I hope to embed a video version of some favorite hymns of mine. While the lyrics of "Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow" are nice, it is really the tune, "The Old 100th" is my favorite part. The best version is this one, with different lyrics. (I can't get the video to embed properly, sorry.)
Thanks, Grandpa!
See, every Sunday after going to church, Grandpa would half sing, half mumble whatever hymn was stuck in his head. It was pretty much a standard part of spending time with Grandpa growing up, and one of my fondest memories of him. And I find myself doing the same thing now. Yesterday I raked leaves (lots and lots of leaves) while humming the tune of "The Doxology."
So this week, I hope to embed a video version of some favorite hymns of mine. While the lyrics of "Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow" are nice, it is really the tune, "The Old 100th" is my favorite part. The best version is this one, with different lyrics. (I can't get the video to embed properly, sorry.)
Thanks, Grandpa!
Monday, November 10, 2008
Guest Post by Sibley Fleming
Sibley Fleming wrote this for our blog here. I'm merely posting it for her.
I missed a stewardship meeting Saturday. It promised to be lovely and enlightening, an evening talking about the meaning of giving--attitudes toward money against the backdrop of our current national financial crisis.
I had known about the meeting. Nancy Dillion had called me at the end of the day Friday to remind me and re-extend the invitation. I told her it was unlikely given the amount of extra freelance work that I'’d taken on lately, but I’'d try. Nancy encouraged me to come at a break point and promised a glass of wine and good company if I did.
The next morning at the early service, Nancy slid into a pew behind me somewhere around the reading of Matthew. A sanctuary of deep brown wood, the trees blazing red through the windows. A beautiful Patricia sermon about being the recipient of giving, about expanding. About experiencing the joy of gratitude, about looking around us, and acknowledging our many, many blessings. In the time of circling the wagons around, of people losing their jobs, the need to replace fear with concern.
As we were confessing our sins— -- something I’m particularly fond of doing, mainly because I have so many— -- the sermon rolled around in my head. How did I deal with giving? What had I been taught? No matter how little a person has, he should not be denied the joy of giving, even if it means giving away something received as a gift. Of course that was my grandmother’'s wisdom, formed in the Great Depression. In those same years when my views of the world were being learned, my young hippie mother would get a big smile on her face, dramatically throw back her long hair and recite: "What’'s yours is mine and what’'s mine is mine", as if it were Shakespeare.
The split-even image of my grandmother and mother dissolved into the words that dutifully fell from my lips, a murmuring chant . . . that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the Glory of your name, forever and ever amen."
The altar was dressed with a fall floral arrangement, warm oranges and bright yellows, reds, all that picked up the colors outside, framed by the clear windows as if they were stained glass. As I knelt for communion, I quickly reminded myself— -- courage and strength—, not just forgiveness and comfort. In the end, I prayed for all four. The piece of bread, the sip of wine, and thanks be to God!
I quickly dropped my prayer book into its place underneath the pew in front of my pew, and turned to catch Nancy before she rose. I apologized for missing the stewardship meeting and asked what had happened, what had been said, thought or decided. The conversation quickly turned to the current financial crisis, the state of our culture, the evil empire of credit. An overindulgent period of having so much more than we need.
Nancy is a realtor so she knows what’'s going on at ground zero. These days, she told me, people are mostly moving because of job changes. They’'re getting jobs in other places so far away from home that they have to pull up all their tent stakes, pack the camels and leave. Up goes the for-sale sign, but it’s not that simple—. They must deal with all their stuff, the mounds and mounds of stuff from catalogues, malls and shopping centers. And I imagine in this climate, in that particular situation, there are people out there having a very Come-to-Jesus moment. What do I need with all of this junk?
I am a U.S. citizen and I know firsthand--we are a nation of people who have more than we need. Should I be wasteful with my resources when just by being mindful, I might find I have more than enough to share with others who are in need?
Personally, at my company, it was in the Spring when they told us we were in a hiring and salary freeze. No cost of living increase. Be glad you have a job. As the months have passed I find more and more that I am indeed happy to be employed. When I talk to others who are working for a steady pay check, they seem to feel the same, "thank God" we say in secret code. We prosper or at least survive while others are not so lucky, a number that grows each day by thousands. We hear stories on the radio about food stamps, how much they’'ll buy, what people do when they run out. They’'ll turn to churches and charity organizations.
So what do I have? I have a family and a job and a roof over my head. I have early morning services at St. Dunstan’'s and on this beautiful fall Sunday afternoon, I have a fire in the fireplace. I’ll actually have to get my extra work done at one point, maybe in the next 15 minutes. And truth be told, I should be grateful for that.
I missed a stewardship meeting Saturday. It promised to be lovely and enlightening, an evening talking about the meaning of giving--attitudes toward money against the backdrop of our current national financial crisis.
I had known about the meeting. Nancy Dillion had called me at the end of the day Friday to remind me and re-extend the invitation. I told her it was unlikely given the amount of extra freelance work that I'’d taken on lately, but I’'d try. Nancy encouraged me to come at a break point and promised a glass of wine and good company if I did.
The next morning at the early service, Nancy slid into a pew behind me somewhere around the reading of Matthew. A sanctuary of deep brown wood, the trees blazing red through the windows. A beautiful Patricia sermon about being the recipient of giving, about expanding. About experiencing the joy of gratitude, about looking around us, and acknowledging our many, many blessings. In the time of circling the wagons around, of people losing their jobs, the need to replace fear with concern.
As we were confessing our sins— -- something I’m particularly fond of doing, mainly because I have so many— -- the sermon rolled around in my head. How did I deal with giving? What had I been taught? No matter how little a person has, he should not be denied the joy of giving, even if it means giving away something received as a gift. Of course that was my grandmother’'s wisdom, formed in the Great Depression. In those same years when my views of the world were being learned, my young hippie mother would get a big smile on her face, dramatically throw back her long hair and recite: "What’'s yours is mine and what’'s mine is mine", as if it were Shakespeare.
The split-even image of my grandmother and mother dissolved into the words that dutifully fell from my lips, a murmuring chant . . . that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the Glory of your name, forever and ever amen."
The altar was dressed with a fall floral arrangement, warm oranges and bright yellows, reds, all that picked up the colors outside, framed by the clear windows as if they were stained glass. As I knelt for communion, I quickly reminded myself— -- courage and strength—, not just forgiveness and comfort. In the end, I prayed for all four. The piece of bread, the sip of wine, and thanks be to God!
I quickly dropped my prayer book into its place underneath the pew in front of my pew, and turned to catch Nancy before she rose. I apologized for missing the stewardship meeting and asked what had happened, what had been said, thought or decided. The conversation quickly turned to the current financial crisis, the state of our culture, the evil empire of credit. An overindulgent period of having so much more than we need.
Nancy is a realtor so she knows what’'s going on at ground zero. These days, she told me, people are mostly moving because of job changes. They’'re getting jobs in other places so far away from home that they have to pull up all their tent stakes, pack the camels and leave. Up goes the for-sale sign, but it’s not that simple—. They must deal with all their stuff, the mounds and mounds of stuff from catalogues, malls and shopping centers. And I imagine in this climate, in that particular situation, there are people out there having a very Come-to-Jesus moment. What do I need with all of this junk?
I am a U.S. citizen and I know firsthand--we are a nation of people who have more than we need. Should I be wasteful with my resources when just by being mindful, I might find I have more than enough to share with others who are in need?
Personally, at my company, it was in the Spring when they told us we were in a hiring and salary freeze. No cost of living increase. Be glad you have a job. As the months have passed I find more and more that I am indeed happy to be employed. When I talk to others who are working for a steady pay check, they seem to feel the same, "thank God" we say in secret code. We prosper or at least survive while others are not so lucky, a number that grows each day by thousands. We hear stories on the radio about food stamps, how much they’'ll buy, what people do when they run out. They’'ll turn to churches and charity organizations.
So what do I have? I have a family and a job and a roof over my head. I have early morning services at St. Dunstan’'s and on this beautiful fall Sunday afternoon, I have a fire in the fireplace. I’ll actually have to get my extra work done at one point, maybe in the next 15 minutes. And truth be told, I should be grateful for that.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Henry Louis Gates Jr's' View on Obama's win
Like I said in the previous post, I'll let better writers than me discuss Obama's victory and what it means to them, especially those from the African-American community. Here is another great essay on the subject from TheRoot.com (parts of which appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered" on Wednesday afternoon), this one by the great scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. While Alice Walker's letter was great about Obama's victory and the resulting expectations, Gates discusses what the win means and how it fits into a historical context. And, once again, the writing is terrific. (Because the essay is so long, I've just included the link.)
Alice Walker's Open Letter to Barack Obama
I didn't discuss Obama's historic win here yet; I'll leave that to those more knowledgeable and more talented than I. But this letter by Alice Walker about Obama's emotional win and the expectations that await him is worth reading. To give credit where credit is due, my department chair at school sent this to all the English teachers after her priest sent it to her. It is worth reading not just for the sentiments, but it is also worth seeing how a great writer makes points with wonderful imagery and beautiful language. Enjoy!
From TheRoot.com.
Nov. 5, 2008
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.
I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.
I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.We are the ones we have been waiting for.
In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker
From TheRoot.com.
Nov. 5, 2008
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.
I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.
I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.We are the ones we have been waiting for.
In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
All Saint's Sunday Sermon
All Saints Sunday
November 2, 2008
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton
Of Saints and Parachute Packers
Charlie Plumb was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He returned safely from 75 combat missions. But on his 76th flight, his plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile.
Plumb ejected from the plane just in time, pulled his parachute, and drifted to the ground. He was captured and spent six years as a prisoner of war. He survived that ordeal, and now is a motivational speaker, giving lectures on what he learned from his war experiences.
One day many years after his plane had been shot down, Plumb and his wife were in a restaurant in Kansas City, when a man approached him. “You’re Captain Plumb,” he said.
“Yes, I am,” Plumb replied.
“You flew jet fighters in Vietnam,” the man said. “You were on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down. You parachuted into enemy hands and spent six years as a prisoner of war.”
“How in the world did you know all that?” Plumb asked in amazement.
“Because I packed your parachute,” the man answered.
Plumb was speechless. He staggered to his feet and held out his hand. The man grabbed it, pumped Plumb’s arm and said, “I guess it worked.”
“Yes sir, indeed it did,” Plumb replied.
Plumb didn’t get much sleep that night.
“I kept thinking about that man,” he writes in his autobiography. “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform – a Dixie cup hat, a bib in the back and bell bottom trousers.
“I wondered how many times I might have passed him on board the Kitty Hawk. I wondered how many times I might have seen him and not even said “good morning,” “how are you,” or anything because you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.
“How many hours did he spend on that long wooden table in the bowels of that ship weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of those chutes?
“I could not have cared less…until one day my parachute came along and he packed it for me.”
Plumb now begins his speeches with these important questions: Who is packing your parachute?
Who do you depend on? Who provides what you need to make it through the day?
Do you take them for granted? Do you even know who they are?
Today we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday. It’s a day when we remember all the faithful saints who have gone before us and who live among us. Those who we know – our parents, grandparents, teachers, mentors, godparents.
And those who we don’t – the unknown parachute packers who shape our lives in ways we may never even realize.
In her reflection on this day, our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori asks questions remarkably similar to those Charlie Plumb asks.
“What saints will you remember this year?” she asks. “It’s an occasion to remember all the faithful, whether we know their names or not.
“In your neighborhood, who is the saint who picks up the trash? Who looks out for the children on their way to and from school?
“Who looks after an elderly or frail neighbor, running errands or checking to be sure that person has what is needed? In your community, who labors on behalf of the voiceless?”
These are the people we remember on this day – not the superstars of the faith, those whose names are immortalized in scripture or who have their own day on the church calendar, but the millions of ordinary Christians, ordinary people, who quietly go about their lives in faithful service to God and their neighbors.
The word “saint” comes from the word “sanctus,” meaning holy. A saint is a holy one. Really, all of us are saints because all of us are holy.
One of our scripture readings for today puts it this way: “See what love God has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”
God’s love for each and every one of us makes us holy, makes us numbered among the saints.
On this All Saints’ Day we especially recognize two types of saints – those who are new to the community of faith and those who have joined what St. Paul calls “the great cloud of witnesses.”
In just a few moments we will baptize two babies. We’ll begin by renewing our own baptismal vows, reminding us of the promises of faith that shape the lives of saints.
We’ll promise, with God’s help, to resist evil, to gather together for fellowship, the breaking of the bread and prayers. We’ll promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
And in our role as parachute-packers of the faith, we’ll promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
Then we will baptize Jack and Avery with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and anoint them with oil, making the sign of the cross on their foreheads, marking them as Christ’s own forever.
With their baptisms, we welcome Jack and Avery into the communion of saints, recognizing that they are God’s beloved children, that they will always belong to Christ.
As we welcome new saints into our fold, we also remember the saints who are no longer physically with us, but who still are part of us.
As we come to the altar for the Eucharist, we will remember the names of those saints who we still love, but see no longer. All Saints’ Sunday is one of those times when the veil between this life and the next seems to be momentarily lifted, when we sense the presence of that great cloud of witnesses surrounding us at God’s table.
Scripture tells us something about that great cloud of witnesses. They come from every nation and tribe and people and language. They neither hunger, nor thirst, nor suffer or cry because God has wiped away every tear. They feast at a banquet of rich foods and well-aged wines.
Today, as we gather at the altar to join in the feast of bread and wine, a foretaste of that heavenly banquet, we stand with those whom we love and miss, and remember and name today.
We do so knowing that this Eucharist joins us with all the saints. Those who are famous and those who are unknown. Those whom we remember with love and those of whom there is no memory.
All present with God, and with us in this holy communion.
Amen.
November 2, 2008
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton
Of Saints and Parachute Packers
Charlie Plumb was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He returned safely from 75 combat missions. But on his 76th flight, his plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile.
Plumb ejected from the plane just in time, pulled his parachute, and drifted to the ground. He was captured and spent six years as a prisoner of war. He survived that ordeal, and now is a motivational speaker, giving lectures on what he learned from his war experiences.
One day many years after his plane had been shot down, Plumb and his wife were in a restaurant in Kansas City, when a man approached him. “You’re Captain Plumb,” he said.
“Yes, I am,” Plumb replied.
“You flew jet fighters in Vietnam,” the man said. “You were on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down. You parachuted into enemy hands and spent six years as a prisoner of war.”
“How in the world did you know all that?” Plumb asked in amazement.
“Because I packed your parachute,” the man answered.
Plumb was speechless. He staggered to his feet and held out his hand. The man grabbed it, pumped Plumb’s arm and said, “I guess it worked.”
“Yes sir, indeed it did,” Plumb replied.
Plumb didn’t get much sleep that night.
“I kept thinking about that man,” he writes in his autobiography. “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform – a Dixie cup hat, a bib in the back and bell bottom trousers.
“I wondered how many times I might have passed him on board the Kitty Hawk. I wondered how many times I might have seen him and not even said “good morning,” “how are you,” or anything because you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.
“How many hours did he spend on that long wooden table in the bowels of that ship weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of those chutes?
“I could not have cared less…until one day my parachute came along and he packed it for me.”
Plumb now begins his speeches with these important questions: Who is packing your parachute?
Who do you depend on? Who provides what you need to make it through the day?
Do you take them for granted? Do you even know who they are?
Today we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday. It’s a day when we remember all the faithful saints who have gone before us and who live among us. Those who we know – our parents, grandparents, teachers, mentors, godparents.
And those who we don’t – the unknown parachute packers who shape our lives in ways we may never even realize.
In her reflection on this day, our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori asks questions remarkably similar to those Charlie Plumb asks.
“What saints will you remember this year?” she asks. “It’s an occasion to remember all the faithful, whether we know their names or not.
“In your neighborhood, who is the saint who picks up the trash? Who looks out for the children on their way to and from school?
“Who looks after an elderly or frail neighbor, running errands or checking to be sure that person has what is needed? In your community, who labors on behalf of the voiceless?”
These are the people we remember on this day – not the superstars of the faith, those whose names are immortalized in scripture or who have their own day on the church calendar, but the millions of ordinary Christians, ordinary people, who quietly go about their lives in faithful service to God and their neighbors.
The word “saint” comes from the word “sanctus,” meaning holy. A saint is a holy one. Really, all of us are saints because all of us are holy.
One of our scripture readings for today puts it this way: “See what love God has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”
God’s love for each and every one of us makes us holy, makes us numbered among the saints.
On this All Saints’ Day we especially recognize two types of saints – those who are new to the community of faith and those who have joined what St. Paul calls “the great cloud of witnesses.”
In just a few moments we will baptize two babies. We’ll begin by renewing our own baptismal vows, reminding us of the promises of faith that shape the lives of saints.
We’ll promise, with God’s help, to resist evil, to gather together for fellowship, the breaking of the bread and prayers. We’ll promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
And in our role as parachute-packers of the faith, we’ll promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
Then we will baptize Jack and Avery with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and anoint them with oil, making the sign of the cross on their foreheads, marking them as Christ’s own forever.
With their baptisms, we welcome Jack and Avery into the communion of saints, recognizing that they are God’s beloved children, that they will always belong to Christ.
As we welcome new saints into our fold, we also remember the saints who are no longer physically with us, but who still are part of us.
As we come to the altar for the Eucharist, we will remember the names of those saints who we still love, but see no longer. All Saints’ Sunday is one of those times when the veil between this life and the next seems to be momentarily lifted, when we sense the presence of that great cloud of witnesses surrounding us at God’s table.
Scripture tells us something about that great cloud of witnesses. They come from every nation and tribe and people and language. They neither hunger, nor thirst, nor suffer or cry because God has wiped away every tear. They feast at a banquet of rich foods and well-aged wines.
Today, as we gather at the altar to join in the feast of bread and wine, a foretaste of that heavenly banquet, we stand with those whom we love and miss, and remember and name today.
We do so knowing that this Eucharist joins us with all the saints. Those who are famous and those who are unknown. Those whom we remember with love and those of whom there is no memory.
All present with God, and with us in this holy communion.
Amen.
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