Posts
By Molly Herman Gallow
I was very excited to hear from my mom that the middle school Sunday School class at St. Dunstan’s would be traveling to a Greek Orthodox Church, the same church that my best friend attends . We met up with Meg Withers and her father, Peyton Ruhmkorff and her parents, Will Vesey, Michele Smither, and Elizabeth Wong-Mark, along with my friend Mirina and her mom and sister at the entrance. It was so fascinating to experience what it was like to attend an orthodox church. There were many similarities and differences that really struck me.
The biggest thing was that there were absolutely no women or young girls present by the altar. There were only altar boys carrying crosses and candles, along with two priests. I was shocked to see this-I guess because I’m so used to seeing Tricia and Maggie lead great services at St. Dunstan’s- and assumed that every other church would be the same as ours. Also, what impressed me were all the mosaics on the walls of the church. I was startled to look up and see the face of Jesus looking down at me. In addition, the mosaics told the stories of the Resurrection and Ascension, The Last Supper, The Baptism of Jesus, and plenty more. I loved seeing all of the details within the mosaics. It was truly an incredible sight.
One similarity that I caught was the communion. The congregation does take communion, but instead of kneeling like we do, each member takes some bread already dipped in wine from a spoon. Meg and I both thought how awkward and unsanitary it must be to take communion from the same spoon that every other person takes communion from, but then it occurred to me that this was their church and their ways of doing things. Everything isn’t always the same as St. Dunstan’s.
What made this visit very special for me was that Mirina and two other teen members of the congregation read essays that they had written for a competition at their church. The papers were all on peace and what makes a peace maker. Listening to the papers gave me the idea that St. Dunstan’s should let congregation members write papers and present them in church. I loved hearing all of their different ideas about the topic. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting this church so I could get a feel of what other Christians do at their services of worship and how the Orthodox Church differs so much from ours. It was a great experience, and I hope we visit more churches in the future. Thanks to my mom and Mirina and her family for organizing this!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Immigration
I got to Sunday School late, about halfway through. On the dry erase board, Patricia had already jotted down a quote from the BCP: “God you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth.” Also on the board were the words: widows, orphans and aliens. While I was there, she added the phrase: legal does not equal moral. The topic: immigration.
The handout was entitled “A Pastoral Letter from the House of Bishops”, written from Phoenix in September last year. The salutation: Dear People of God. The content is basically the church’s position on immigration, as a reflection on the immigration crisis in Arizona, the US and everywhere.
As a class, we know we were charged with contemplating what our duty or response as Christians should be to the issue. What does God say? As the Evangelicals so eloquently put it, WWJD? (What would Jesus do?)
It is a very tough topic though to get your mind around. It has to do with legal issues, economic issues, border issues. It has to do with political issues. Are the illegal workers treated humanely? Are they getting healthcare for free? Should they be rounded up and deported? Or granted amnesty and allowed to become tax-paying citizens? And what about the ranchers on the border in Arizona? What’s our Christian duty to them? What about guest worker programs where we bus them in and get the cheap labor, then bus them back? And why don’t they do something about their own economies?
I guess being from the South, I don’t think about racism in terms of Hispanic people, though I know that is real. But one thing I do know from personal experience is that racism is not just about fear of the unknown, fear of not having enough, fear of that which is different. It’s also about letting those things bubble up into hatred, where all of a sudden it’s ok to do to other people (or allow to be done to others) what would be unthinkable if it were a person’s own sister, daughter, wife, brother, son, husband.
The House of Bishops’ letter made nine points (and I’m abbreviating:
1) People cross borders to escape poverty, hunger, injustice and violence. “We categorically reject efforts to criminalize undocumented migrants and immigrants, and deplore the separation of families and the unnecessary incarceration of undocumented workers.”
2) Deplore inhuman policies like raids, separation of families, denial of health services.
3) Calls on the US government and all governments to create fair and humane immigration policies.
4) Respects that governments have to protect their people, including securing borders.
5) The Episcopal Church is committed to getting rid of racism, and recognizes how it impacts debates on immigration.
6) “We confess our own complicit sinfulness as people who benefit from the labor of undocumented workers without recognizing our responsibility to them.”
7) Don’t discount concerns about the danger of uncontrolled immigration to our safety and economic well-being. But says concerns should be “approached within the broader context of a national commitment and covenant to inclusion and fellowship across all lines for the sake of the common good.”
8) Citizens should remember the good of a nation lies beyond its own self-interest.
9) It offers a resource for further theological study, “The Nation and the Common Good: Reflections on Immigration Reform.”
So that’s what the House of Bishops thinks. Now I wonder WWJD?
The handout was entitled “A Pastoral Letter from the House of Bishops”, written from Phoenix in September last year. The salutation: Dear People of God. The content is basically the church’s position on immigration, as a reflection on the immigration crisis in Arizona, the US and everywhere.
As a class, we know we were charged with contemplating what our duty or response as Christians should be to the issue. What does God say? As the Evangelicals so eloquently put it, WWJD? (What would Jesus do?)
It is a very tough topic though to get your mind around. It has to do with legal issues, economic issues, border issues. It has to do with political issues. Are the illegal workers treated humanely? Are they getting healthcare for free? Should they be rounded up and deported? Or granted amnesty and allowed to become tax-paying citizens? And what about the ranchers on the border in Arizona? What’s our Christian duty to them? What about guest worker programs where we bus them in and get the cheap labor, then bus them back? And why don’t they do something about their own economies?
I guess being from the South, I don’t think about racism in terms of Hispanic people, though I know that is real. But one thing I do know from personal experience is that racism is not just about fear of the unknown, fear of not having enough, fear of that which is different. It’s also about letting those things bubble up into hatred, where all of a sudden it’s ok to do to other people (or allow to be done to others) what would be unthinkable if it were a person’s own sister, daughter, wife, brother, son, husband.
The House of Bishops’ letter made nine points (and I’m abbreviating:
1) People cross borders to escape poverty, hunger, injustice and violence. “We categorically reject efforts to criminalize undocumented migrants and immigrants, and deplore the separation of families and the unnecessary incarceration of undocumented workers.”
2) Deplore inhuman policies like raids, separation of families, denial of health services.
3) Calls on the US government and all governments to create fair and humane immigration policies.
4) Respects that governments have to protect their people, including securing borders.
5) The Episcopal Church is committed to getting rid of racism, and recognizes how it impacts debates on immigration.
6) “We confess our own complicit sinfulness as people who benefit from the labor of undocumented workers without recognizing our responsibility to them.”
7) Don’t discount concerns about the danger of uncontrolled immigration to our safety and economic well-being. But says concerns should be “approached within the broader context of a national commitment and covenant to inclusion and fellowship across all lines for the sake of the common good.”
8) Citizens should remember the good of a nation lies beyond its own self-interest.
9) It offers a resource for further theological study, “The Nation and the Common Good: Reflections on Immigration Reform.”
So that’s what the House of Bishops thinks. Now I wonder WWJD?
Monday, March 21, 2011
1,000 Cranes
The idea started with Michelle Mundth at Village Supper last week. Why don’t we have the kids make origami cranes in Sunday School as a response to the crisis in Japan? The next day Ellen and Tricia took the idea a few steps further, deciding to hang the cranes in church from the beautiful Asian-looking branches that are our Lenten arrangement. And, they wondered, could some of the kids make cranes at home before Sunday so that we could have enough to distribute to everyone in the congregation as a symbol of our prayers for Japan?
The answer to that question was yes. Molly Herman Gallow, Michelle Mundth, and Joseph Henry Monti went to work and by Sunday morning the three of them had made almost 70 cranes. They then taught the rest of the Sunday School kids how to make the beautiful symbols of healing and peace.
The cranes were a wonderful addition to our already planned service of prayer for Japan yesterday. It was one of those Sundays when the music, the art on the bulletin cover, the special prayers, the sermon, and the cranes all came together as true worship and prayer.
The response to the cranes was so positive that we now have another idea. Wouldn’t it be great if the people of St. Dunstan’s could make 1,000 origami cranes during Lent? Then we could bless them on Easter morning and send them to a church in Sendai.
To pull this off our Sunday School kids will need help from willing adults. We will set up a “crane making station” in the parish hall with paper, instructions, and a prayer for Japan. We’ll also have a “crane nest” in which to put the completed birds. We’ll make cranes on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings – and at home. Please help!
The answer to that question was yes. Molly Herman Gallow, Michelle Mundth, and Joseph Henry Monti went to work and by Sunday morning the three of them had made almost 70 cranes. They then taught the rest of the Sunday School kids how to make the beautiful symbols of healing and peace.
The cranes were a wonderful addition to our already planned service of prayer for Japan yesterday. It was one of those Sundays when the music, the art on the bulletin cover, the special prayers, the sermon, and the cranes all came together as true worship and prayer.
The response to the cranes was so positive that we now have another idea. Wouldn’t it be great if the people of St. Dunstan’s could make 1,000 origami cranes during Lent? Then we could bless them on Easter morning and send them to a church in Sendai.
To pull this off our Sunday School kids will need help from willing adults. We will set up a “crane making station” in the parish hall with paper, instructions, and a prayer for Japan. We’ll also have a “crane nest” in which to put the completed birds. We’ll make cranes on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings – and at home. Please help!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Come and See
It’s a terrible thing to admit, but our Lenten speaker author and food pantry guru Sara Miles made me feel somehow inadequate in the realm of doing God’s work. Don’t get me wrong—I was a fan before she came, have read both books (Take This Bread and Jesus Freak) and was thrilled when Patricia asked me to write a preview Q&A, which required a phone interview with Sara.
Anybody who has read her books or heard Sara Miles speak can’t help but be in awe of her physical work running a food pantry that feeds 600 people each Friday out of her home church, St. Gregory’s of Nyssa in San Francisco. It is a place where those in need of groceries, without exception, can go and “shop” for mostly whole foods piled up on tables covered in beautiful cloths and situated in the sanctuary around the altar. It is a quite literal example of God’s feast, of God’s Word made flesh.
And it all began—the story she told to the 85 of us who showed up for her Lenten lectures, Friday at St. Dunstan’s and Saturday morning at St. Bede’s—when she in mid-life wandered into a church (St. Gregory’s), took communion for the first time and had what she calls a “radical conversion,” she actually tasted God in her mouth. And she kept coming back because she was hungry for more. She was baptized. She took what she experienced and set out to take God’s word to heart: Feed my people.
St. Gregory’s, of course, may have lent itself to this expression of faith, this calling. It’s located in an urban area, where poor, homeless, disenfranchised folk tend to congregate, a place where there are public services and transportation.
As Sara spoke Friday night at St. Dunstan’s, I imagined our sanctuary filled with nourishing food for the hungry. Our altar was overflowing with carrots and onions and potatoes. I could see Gilda and Pricilla and Elizabeth, and Rick and Steve, everyone, happily manning “battle stations” working alongside the guests, also volunteers who had become a whole second congregation. I even saw Peachy and Helen outside in the sunny spot by the parking lot, directing workers in a lush, bountiful organic vegetable garden.
That’s such a great image. But we have one problem, which Keith Latimore pointed out in the Q&A part of the lecture, we have no bus service. We are politely located in what some might call a “residential” area. But I think the more accurate impression was one I heard the next morning at St. Bede’s from one of the ladies from the Cathedral bookstore: “You’re from St. Dunstan’s? It’s very . . . affluent, isn’t it?”
Well, yes, and no. Our rector’s office was called the most beautiful in Christendom by her predecessor. She looks out to nature, hawks, foxes, trees, ponds, birds. We are affluent in that we care for each other and affluent in our desire to share what we have with others. We’d love all of our neighbors in the big mansions with the rolling lawns and $13 million for sale signs to worship with us and fill our adult and children's Sunday School classes, to clutter up our sign-up sheets to bring food to Holy Comforter, to fill the Beech Grove with children’s laughter, to walk the Stations of the Cross, now set up and ready for the Lenten season, up the long path through the woods. But truth is, a good portion of St. Dunstan’s congregation commutes, from places like Avondale and Decatur and Duluth. Many of us choose to make a 30-minute drive on Sunday mornings to get to St. Dunstan's, even though there are other Episcopal churches much closer to where we live.
For example, a group of us St. D’s folks were sitting around a table in St. Bede’s parish hall Saturday morning before Sara's talk, eating the beautiful breakfast they put together, partaking of their generous hospitality (fresh fruit, egg casseroles, bagels, thick bread, butter, cream cheese) when I noted to Patricia, it actually only took only seven or eight minutes for me to drive from my home in Avondale to St. Bede’s. “No, it doesn’t,” she said definitively. “You just went the wrong way.”
I wouldn’t dare think of going any place else. I am nourished. I am comforted by our intimate community of faith. It’s unlikely because of our location (no bus line, buried deep in an expensive residential neighborhood) that we’ll ever be home to a food pantry teeming with hundreds upon hundreds of people, strangers that we can welcome en masse as our honored guests.
But I know that we do look for ways to welcome the stranger and we do have affluence to offer (not in our treasury unfortunately) but in that we are in a unique location where we can see the absolute beauty of God’s hand in the world. Now, I think part of Sara’s speaking serves to shake people up, to question themselves: Am I living as God would have me live? Am I following in the footsteps of Christ? Am I loving my neighbor unconditionally?
But like Sara, who’s calling was so obvious, so in the moment, such a clear need, I think we can’t try to find our great love. Lovers show themselves, they are seldom sought out. And I don’t know what that one thing is for us. We had a vestry meeting last night and Patricia mentioned she was attending a meeting next Monday in which a bunch of area churches are looking at providing shelters for homeless families and the organization actually has a van. Could that be our calling? Our way to live out God’s plan for us? I don’t know.
Meanwhile, I think there’s another Sara line that could benefit us greatly as we go about our daily work during the week, as we meet people and talk to friends and family—to put out the invitation to come and see.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Lent Begins
I step forward as the greatest offender of missed deadlines, one who has said too many “thank yous” to others for picking up my slack in preparation for Lent. I was the wayward “chair” of a Lenten committee, started last year in May, the idea of which was to make plans that would lead to mass attendance during this most holy season of the year. We had planned a calendar (with all of the relevant dates and explanations of special services), daily prayers, Stations of the Cross (as in keeping them after our seminarian who started them had graduated on to ordination and a job), and other big ideas. While I was remiss in my duties, many others like Vicki Ledet, have not been.
I’d like to share here just a few pictures that Vicki took, with many more to come as the holy season unfolds.
Here’s a close up of the pancakes served at our Shrove Tuesday supper.
This year, Steve and Connor Mark and Joseph Henry Monti did the honors, flipping the mouthwatering pancakes and decorating the parish hall with Mardi Gras beads.
Note the colors—gold, purple and green. (Purple represents justice; Green represents faith; Gold represents power.)
The Ash Wednesday service was solemn and intimate.
From the BCP, I’ll just write out this short bit here (part of the liturgy), “Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.”
Then we received the blessing from Patricia, the mark of the cross in ashes on our forehead: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
The choir sang a haunting piece, “View me, Lord, a work of thine” with music by Charles Wood and words by Thomas Campion.
On Friday night, we had a crowd of 85 for a simple dinner of soup (made by Pricilla, I had the leek and potato) and salad, with cheese and capers and little red cherry tomatoes. Hearty whole grain bread with slabs of butter. Madelines, coffee, and fruit for dessert. Many others helped in the kitchen Friday evening, including Pat Berman, Nancy Jean Young, Claudia Gimson, and Nancy Dillon. We all came to hear Sara Miles, our special Lenten lecturer. She spoke at St. D’s Friday night and St. Bede’s Saturday morning. We’ll have more on the lectures here, in both images and words. Stay tuned.
Grace and peace to you all!
I’d like to share here just a few pictures that Vicki took, with many more to come as the holy season unfolds.
Here’s a close up of the pancakes served at our Shrove Tuesday supper.
This year, Steve and Connor Mark and Joseph Henry Monti did the honors, flipping the mouthwatering pancakes and decorating the parish hall with Mardi Gras beads.
Note the colors—gold, purple and green. (Purple represents justice; Green represents faith; Gold represents power.)
The Ash Wednesday service was solemn and intimate.
From the BCP, I’ll just write out this short bit here (part of the liturgy), “Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.”
Then we received the blessing from Patricia, the mark of the cross in ashes on our forehead: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
The choir sang a haunting piece, “View me, Lord, a work of thine” with music by Charles Wood and words by Thomas Campion.
On Friday night, we had a crowd of 85 for a simple dinner of soup (made by Pricilla, I had the leek and potato) and salad, with cheese and capers and little red cherry tomatoes. Hearty whole grain bread with slabs of butter. Madelines, coffee, and fruit for dessert. Many others helped in the kitchen Friday evening, including Pat Berman, Nancy Jean Young, Claudia Gimson, and Nancy Dillon. We all came to hear Sara Miles, our special Lenten lecturer. She spoke at St. D’s Friday night and St. Bede’s Saturday morning. We’ll have more on the lectures here, in both images and words. Stay tuned.
Grace and peace to you all!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Not Necessarily Holy
I can honestly say I didn’t feel like going to church this morning. I didn’t feel like not going per se, I just didn’t feel the usual driving urge to get there. I didn’t sleep well last night -- again. There have been too many moving parts in my life lately, none of which I’ve had a moment to stop and consider – all seem to wash over me, as if I were floating in the surf, holding my breath, waiting for the next chance to inhale. Exhale.
So truth? The only reason I got to church was out of habit. The only reason I was a half hour early for the early service was some latent desire for punctuality (I’m often enough late). I got there first, beating Patricia into the empty parking lot and the dark building by a nose. I turned on lights in the parish hall and around, cranked up the coffee and unlocked the back door. I had just sat down with a cup, looking out over the little garden with the St. Francis and the copper water buckets that catch the rain from the roof when Patricia walked in.
“Why so early?” she said.
“Accident. I got here early so I wouldn’t be late,” I told her, and then as an afterthought, “I sure hope I’m not VOD today.” Of course, Susan, our church secretary always sends us reminders during the week when we’re the vestry on duty (VOD isn’t an incurable disease). “I would of heard,” I said.
“Not necessarily. Susan was sick all last week,” Patricia informed me. I followed her to the sanctuary and sure enough, printed on the back of a two-week old bulletin, there was my name. I would have seen the bulletin last week of course, if I hadn’t been out of town on a work trip. Being VOD, means opening and closing the church. It means making sure the scheduled acolytes and layreaders are acolyting and layreading. It means reminding folks it’s their turn to do coffee.
So I settled into the early service, resolved in my duty. But other than the reading about if your eye offends you, gouge it out (which never fails to irritate me) and the Eucharist (which never fails to remind me of some tangible connection to God), I have to say, I sat there, going through the motions, hearing the sermon but not being engaged with it, saying the confession of sins (given my long list, this is usually one of my best opportunities of the week to get it all out—at least mentally, during the “Most merciful father, we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed . . .”) but not feeling all that sorry or contrite. Even the prayer after communion, one of my very favorites, “Eternal God, heavenly father, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food in the sacrament of the most precious body and blood of your son, our savior Jesus Christ . . .” didn’t move me any more than a Hallmark card. It was all lost on me, all wasted.
I sat through Sunday School, the series on Saving Jesus. Today was the meaning of the parables like the leavened bread and the mustard seed. We always stray from the original topic anyway. Someone said the problem with the church was Paul, who didn’t quote a single Jesus parable. The church as an institution, we all agreed, as we always do, has its issues—like the gouge out your eye thing or like the Catholic church where you can’t take communion if you’re divorced unless the marriage is annulled (a few of us were standing around the kitchen before Sunday School actually contemplating that one)—and you can annul a marriage even if you have children, a strange practice for a house of God, I have to say.
Now normally, I would probably enjoy spending a little time hashing over the wherefores and whys of all that imperfection that comes with the institution we call our church. But I didn’t.
After the regular service, when all the choir robes were hung, I’d counted the collection and watched Betty Whittier crumble up the leftover communion bread and put it out the back door for the birds, after everyone had gone but Rick and Christine Beard (who did have coffee duty marked on their calendar), I headed to the kitchen to help with the remaining coffee cups.
The Beards make me smile. Rick told an off-color joke about Easter, which made Patricia grimace while I laughed out loud (ask Rick, when Patricia’s not around). Christine put forth a very fun question: Who all at St. Dunstan’s is “naturally holy”? Well none of us nominated ourselves or each other for that matter, and in the end agreed that even sinners like us had a chance to be holy once in a while.
But for me, this morning wasn’t my morning to be holy. I wasn’t particularly moved to be at church. It’s just that’s where my economy-sized car is trained to go Sunday morning—it really just didn’t occur to me not to go. What did come into my mind though, was the fact that I am so grateful for our imperfect institution, our church, our parish, the habit that brought me to our modest but close-knit community, to spend those unwanted—too tired and too confused hours—among people I love and whom I think love me back.
And maybe that’s all that Jesus would have cared about—that we get together in the first place and find the Kingdom of God is not a small self-contained space in front of our computer screen and it isn’t always earth-shaking revelations or earnest attempts to become better than we are. Sometimes maybe the Kingdom of God is just about showing up. Or, as Patricia said in the sermon, about choosing life. Maybe I did hear something after all.
So truth? The only reason I got to church was out of habit. The only reason I was a half hour early for the early service was some latent desire for punctuality (I’m often enough late). I got there first, beating Patricia into the empty parking lot and the dark building by a nose. I turned on lights in the parish hall and around, cranked up the coffee and unlocked the back door. I had just sat down with a cup, looking out over the little garden with the St. Francis and the copper water buckets that catch the rain from the roof when Patricia walked in.
“Why so early?” she said.
“Accident. I got here early so I wouldn’t be late,” I told her, and then as an afterthought, “I sure hope I’m not VOD today.” Of course, Susan, our church secretary always sends us reminders during the week when we’re the vestry on duty (VOD isn’t an incurable disease). “I would of heard,” I said.
“Not necessarily. Susan was sick all last week,” Patricia informed me. I followed her to the sanctuary and sure enough, printed on the back of a two-week old bulletin, there was my name. I would have seen the bulletin last week of course, if I hadn’t been out of town on a work trip. Being VOD, means opening and closing the church. It means making sure the scheduled acolytes and layreaders are acolyting and layreading. It means reminding folks it’s their turn to do coffee.
So I settled into the early service, resolved in my duty. But other than the reading about if your eye offends you, gouge it out (which never fails to irritate me) and the Eucharist (which never fails to remind me of some tangible connection to God), I have to say, I sat there, going through the motions, hearing the sermon but not being engaged with it, saying the confession of sins (given my long list, this is usually one of my best opportunities of the week to get it all out—at least mentally, during the “Most merciful father, we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed . . .”) but not feeling all that sorry or contrite. Even the prayer after communion, one of my very favorites, “Eternal God, heavenly father, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food in the sacrament of the most precious body and blood of your son, our savior Jesus Christ . . .” didn’t move me any more than a Hallmark card. It was all lost on me, all wasted.
I sat through Sunday School, the series on Saving Jesus. Today was the meaning of the parables like the leavened bread and the mustard seed. We always stray from the original topic anyway. Someone said the problem with the church was Paul, who didn’t quote a single Jesus parable. The church as an institution, we all agreed, as we always do, has its issues—like the gouge out your eye thing or like the Catholic church where you can’t take communion if you’re divorced unless the marriage is annulled (a few of us were standing around the kitchen before Sunday School actually contemplating that one)—and you can annul a marriage even if you have children, a strange practice for a house of God, I have to say.
Now normally, I would probably enjoy spending a little time hashing over the wherefores and whys of all that imperfection that comes with the institution we call our church. But I didn’t.
After the regular service, when all the choir robes were hung, I’d counted the collection and watched Betty Whittier crumble up the leftover communion bread and put it out the back door for the birds, after everyone had gone but Rick and Christine Beard (who did have coffee duty marked on their calendar), I headed to the kitchen to help with the remaining coffee cups.
The Beards make me smile. Rick told an off-color joke about Easter, which made Patricia grimace while I laughed out loud (ask Rick, when Patricia’s not around). Christine put forth a very fun question: Who all at St. Dunstan’s is “naturally holy”? Well none of us nominated ourselves or each other for that matter, and in the end agreed that even sinners like us had a chance to be holy once in a while.
But for me, this morning wasn’t my morning to be holy. I wasn’t particularly moved to be at church. It’s just that’s where my economy-sized car is trained to go Sunday morning—it really just didn’t occur to me not to go. What did come into my mind though, was the fact that I am so grateful for our imperfect institution, our church, our parish, the habit that brought me to our modest but close-knit community, to spend those unwanted—too tired and too confused hours—among people I love and whom I think love me back.
And maybe that’s all that Jesus would have cared about—that we get together in the first place and find the Kingdom of God is not a small self-contained space in front of our computer screen and it isn’t always earth-shaking revelations or earnest attempts to become better than we are. Sometimes maybe the Kingdom of God is just about showing up. Or, as Patricia said in the sermon, about choosing life. Maybe I did hear something after all.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Q&A with Sara Miles
St. Dunstan's: Where did you grow up?
Sara: New York
St. Dunstan's: Can you tell us something about your background as a journalist?
Sara: I've done a lot of different kinds of reporting. I worked as a military reporter during the 1980s, covering wars, mostly in Central America. I did a little bit of reporting from South Africa and the Philippines as well. When I moved back to the United States, I did political reporting. I wrote a book about the Democratic Party in the Silicon Valley and magazine journalism about politics. Writing is my way of understanding the world.
St. Dunstan's: In “Take This Bread”, the subtitle is "a radical conversion." Can you talk a little bit about what happened to change you?
Sara: You know, there's this thing about reporters, they're nosy. I see an open door and people going in and I'm like, oh, what's going on in there? I didn't think of myself as being in a seeking mode, I was certainly not interested in going to church or becoming a Christian. I just thought, I'm taking a walk, let me go in and see what's going on there. And a great deal of it was pleasant and pretty, sort of interesting and boring at the same time.
But what happened at communion was completely, viscerally, shocking and upsetting to me. It was receiving a piece of bread and drinking a sip of wine and understanding that those were actual bread and actual wine -- they weren't magic potions -- but understanding at the same moment that God was alive and in my mouth. And that was not something I wanted to believe in any way. That moment just completely destabilized me: what the hell happened? What have I done?
It isn't as if you have an experience of God and then you're "converted" and everything's fine. There's an ongoing process of conversion, which can sometimes feel more difficult as you go along because you're continually being called to change. It's a continual unfolding.
St. Dunstan's: So you had this conversion that had a food part to it. What was the food part of it to you?
Sara: Because I'm such a slow learner and came so late to Christianity, I took it quite literally. So Jesus saying, "my flesh is real food" seemed literally true to me. And that part when you're baptized and promise to continue in the breaking of bread-- I took that quite literally. And I began to sense that what had happened to me wasn't simply so that I could have an uplifting experience, it was because I needed to continue to feed people the same way that I had been fed.
St. Dunstan's: So that became the food pantry.
Sara: The food pantry is not a social service program. It's not a good deed. It's not a way to help the "less fortunate." It is a Eucharistic community, and it's modeled on the way that we do Eucharist. So the food pantry is run by the people who use it. It offers food to everyone without exception. And it is a place where people come not only to be fed with food, but to participate in having their lives transformed. At this point, the food pantry is 10 years old and we've started 18 others. We're open one day a week, on Fridays,and we serve about 600 families there. The pantry is run entirely by volunteers, and the volunteers are the people who use it.
St. Dunstan's: How is it funded?
Sara: It's funded by small donations. We don't get money from the church. We don't get money from grants. We get money from people.
St. Dunstan's: Can you describe how it's set up? You don't have chairs at St. Gregory's, right?
Sara: We do have chairs. We don't have pews. We have a seating area with about 180 chairs facing each other in choir style. We sit for the Liturgy of the Word, and then we move to the rotunda of the building, which has a round altar in the center. The people gather around it for communion, and then ministers move among the crowd carrying bread and wine; people pass the chalices to each other. So for the first half of the service, people are sitting and the second half, we're standing.
The food pantry takes place around the altar in the rotunda. We set up tables around the altar, in the middle of the sanctuary, so it looks like a farmer's market in heaven. We give away as much as nine tons of food on a Friday: big heaps of carrots and potatoes and onions and bread, and people walk around and choose the food that they need.
St. Dunstan's: Do you have any anecdotes about working in the pantry that you'd like to share? Anybody you met in the course of that work that maybe was just sort of surprising?
Sara: I think everybody's got a story. The food pantry is without a doubt the most diverse church community I've ever seen. It includes Filipino evangelicals and gay skateboarders and black church ladies and head-injured veterans and homeless guys and Japanese students and Latino families and Chinese grandmothers and old Russian men. It's just an incredible mix of people who come, and who volunteer and work together.
What we discover is that people are changed by the experience of giving something delicious away, and giving of themselves. There's a guy who comes here and he says "It's the weirdest thing"--he's in a court-mandated anger management program, he's a tough guy who lived on the streets for a long time--"It's the weirdest thing, Sara. I come here and I don't even want to be mad. I don't even want to fight with anybody. It saves my life to be here." And he just runs around doing as much as he can, lifting things and fixing the dishwasher and giving me hugs. People want to give something: and when they do it changes them.
St. Dunstan's: Do you have a message to the unchurched about Christianity, why Christianity?
Sara: "Come and see." The invitation to experience is always worth making. It's the great gospel invitation--a very different thing from saying "Come and let me tell you what you should believe."
St. Dunstan's: Any thoughts on the Episcopal Church or where it's headed?
Sara: I have deep gratitude that the church was there for me when I came in as a stranger. I see in the church what I see in myself and in the people around me -that we all have a desire to change, and at the same time a desire to have nothing at all change, to stay the same. I think the Episcopal Church has a profound hunger to change, to be made new by God. And it has a profound desire to dig in its heels and stay exactly the way it is. We live in that tension. But the reality is that God is always at work making all things new, and it's our privilege to join in that work.
St. Dunstan's: Can you say something about the title of your latest book, "Jesus Freak" and what it means?
Sara: "Jesus Freak" is a title that can be very embarrassing to Episcopalians. You're not actually supposed to talk about Jesus. It's just sort of a trashy thing to do-- but there you go. I think it's a wonderful thing for people in church to act as if what they do on Sundays is real, that it actually means something. That Jesus isn't an idea or metaphor.
St. Dunstan's: How do you think people find their calling?
Sara: That's a really complicated question. Most of us, if we're lucky, don't get struck by great visions when we're out by ourselves in the desert. We work out a call in community, right? Because usually our call is about relationship with other people and with God-- very few of us are called to be solitary mystics.
So I think about a man I know who is essentially a priest to the people he works with, their shepherd. He's a manager in a kind of boring company, not an ordained priest, but his calling is to care for these people and help them become a people and to care for each other. I know teachers who have that same sense of vocation. One of them told me, "As jobs go, it's a pretty crappy job, to work in a failing city school system. But as a vocation, it's a blessing." Someone else I know, a woman who has four kids, says, "You know, my vocation is my marriage. This is what I'm called to do, which is to make my relationship with my husband into an icon of God's love for others."
St. Dunstan's: Not many people think that way.
Sara: No, but I think people can be helped to think that way. It means taking your life seriously enough.
St. Dunstan's: What does the future hold for you?
Sara: I'm going away in a couple of days to work on another book. I'm very happy to have many, many, many different things that I get to do in a single day.
For more information on Sara, St. Gregory of Nissa, and the food pantry, check out these websites: www.saramiles.net, www.saintgregorys.org, and www.thefootpantry.org.
Sara: New York
St. Dunstan's: Can you tell us something about your background as a journalist?
Sara: I've done a lot of different kinds of reporting. I worked as a military reporter during the 1980s, covering wars, mostly in Central America. I did a little bit of reporting from South Africa and the Philippines as well. When I moved back to the United States, I did political reporting. I wrote a book about the Democratic Party in the Silicon Valley and magazine journalism about politics. Writing is my way of understanding the world.
St. Dunstan's: In “Take This Bread”, the subtitle is "a radical conversion." Can you talk a little bit about what happened to change you?
Sara: You know, there's this thing about reporters, they're nosy. I see an open door and people going in and I'm like, oh, what's going on in there? I didn't think of myself as being in a seeking mode, I was certainly not interested in going to church or becoming a Christian. I just thought, I'm taking a walk, let me go in and see what's going on there. And a great deal of it was pleasant and pretty, sort of interesting and boring at the same time.
But what happened at communion was completely, viscerally, shocking and upsetting to me. It was receiving a piece of bread and drinking a sip of wine and understanding that those were actual bread and actual wine -- they weren't magic potions -- but understanding at the same moment that God was alive and in my mouth. And that was not something I wanted to believe in any way. That moment just completely destabilized me: what the hell happened? What have I done?
It isn't as if you have an experience of God and then you're "converted" and everything's fine. There's an ongoing process of conversion, which can sometimes feel more difficult as you go along because you're continually being called to change. It's a continual unfolding.
St. Dunstan's: So you had this conversion that had a food part to it. What was the food part of it to you?
Sara: Because I'm such a slow learner and came so late to Christianity, I took it quite literally. So Jesus saying, "my flesh is real food" seemed literally true to me. And that part when you're baptized and promise to continue in the breaking of bread-- I took that quite literally. And I began to sense that what had happened to me wasn't simply so that I could have an uplifting experience, it was because I needed to continue to feed people the same way that I had been fed.
St. Dunstan's: So that became the food pantry.
Sara: The food pantry is not a social service program. It's not a good deed. It's not a way to help the "less fortunate." It is a Eucharistic community, and it's modeled on the way that we do Eucharist. So the food pantry is run by the people who use it. It offers food to everyone without exception. And it is a place where people come not only to be fed with food, but to participate in having their lives transformed. At this point, the food pantry is 10 years old and we've started 18 others. We're open one day a week, on Fridays,and we serve about 600 families there. The pantry is run entirely by volunteers, and the volunteers are the people who use it.
St. Dunstan's: How is it funded?
Sara: It's funded by small donations. We don't get money from the church. We don't get money from grants. We get money from people.
St. Dunstan's: Can you describe how it's set up? You don't have chairs at St. Gregory's, right?
Sara: We do have chairs. We don't have pews. We have a seating area with about 180 chairs facing each other in choir style. We sit for the Liturgy of the Word, and then we move to the rotunda of the building, which has a round altar in the center. The people gather around it for communion, and then ministers move among the crowd carrying bread and wine; people pass the chalices to each other. So for the first half of the service, people are sitting and the second half, we're standing.
The food pantry takes place around the altar in the rotunda. We set up tables around the altar, in the middle of the sanctuary, so it looks like a farmer's market in heaven. We give away as much as nine tons of food on a Friday: big heaps of carrots and potatoes and onions and bread, and people walk around and choose the food that they need.
St. Dunstan's: Do you have any anecdotes about working in the pantry that you'd like to share? Anybody you met in the course of that work that maybe was just sort of surprising?
Sara: I think everybody's got a story. The food pantry is without a doubt the most diverse church community I've ever seen. It includes Filipino evangelicals and gay skateboarders and black church ladies and head-injured veterans and homeless guys and Japanese students and Latino families and Chinese grandmothers and old Russian men. It's just an incredible mix of people who come, and who volunteer and work together.
What we discover is that people are changed by the experience of giving something delicious away, and giving of themselves. There's a guy who comes here and he says "It's the weirdest thing"--he's in a court-mandated anger management program, he's a tough guy who lived on the streets for a long time--"It's the weirdest thing, Sara. I come here and I don't even want to be mad. I don't even want to fight with anybody. It saves my life to be here." And he just runs around doing as much as he can, lifting things and fixing the dishwasher and giving me hugs. People want to give something: and when they do it changes them.
St. Dunstan's: Do you have a message to the unchurched about Christianity, why Christianity?
Sara: "Come and see." The invitation to experience is always worth making. It's the great gospel invitation--a very different thing from saying "Come and let me tell you what you should believe."
St. Dunstan's: Any thoughts on the Episcopal Church or where it's headed?
Sara: I have deep gratitude that the church was there for me when I came in as a stranger. I see in the church what I see in myself and in the people around me -that we all have a desire to change, and at the same time a desire to have nothing at all change, to stay the same. I think the Episcopal Church has a profound hunger to change, to be made new by God. And it has a profound desire to dig in its heels and stay exactly the way it is. We live in that tension. But the reality is that God is always at work making all things new, and it's our privilege to join in that work.
St. Dunstan's: Can you say something about the title of your latest book, "Jesus Freak" and what it means?
Sara: "Jesus Freak" is a title that can be very embarrassing to Episcopalians. You're not actually supposed to talk about Jesus. It's just sort of a trashy thing to do-- but there you go. I think it's a wonderful thing for people in church to act as if what they do on Sundays is real, that it actually means something. That Jesus isn't an idea or metaphor.
St. Dunstan's: How do you think people find their calling?
Sara: That's a really complicated question. Most of us, if we're lucky, don't get struck by great visions when we're out by ourselves in the desert. We work out a call in community, right? Because usually our call is about relationship with other people and with God-- very few of us are called to be solitary mystics.
So I think about a man I know who is essentially a priest to the people he works with, their shepherd. He's a manager in a kind of boring company, not an ordained priest, but his calling is to care for these people and help them become a people and to care for each other. I know teachers who have that same sense of vocation. One of them told me, "As jobs go, it's a pretty crappy job, to work in a failing city school system. But as a vocation, it's a blessing." Someone else I know, a woman who has four kids, says, "You know, my vocation is my marriage. This is what I'm called to do, which is to make my relationship with my husband into an icon of God's love for others."
St. Dunstan's: Not many people think that way.
Sara: No, but I think people can be helped to think that way. It means taking your life seriously enough.
St. Dunstan's: What does the future hold for you?
Sara: I'm going away in a couple of days to work on another book. I'm very happy to have many, many, many different things that I get to do in a single day.
For more information on Sara, St. Gregory of Nissa, and the food pantry, check out these websites: www.saramiles.net, www.saintgregorys.org, and www.thefootpantry.org.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
This is the Day
By Lynn Hood
As I lay in bed, drifting out of sleep and into the day, I began thinking of all the things I needed to do. The worries of the day, the week, the year, began to pile up. It felt overwhelming, as though I was lying underneath so many blankets that I couldn’t move or even breathe.
And then a phrase from the Sunday service popped into my head: “Today is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.”
I started saying this phrase a few months ago, and it’s not too hard to remember when you are watching a gorgeous sunrise or looking at your family. But it had slipped from my mind until this morning.
I lay there in bed, looking out of the window as that phrase went through my head. A black-headed nuthatch – one of my favorite birds – landed on the tree a few feet away. Then a host of birds arose from the feeder below the window and landed in the trees.
That was the word that instantly occurred to me: a host. A red-bellied woodpecker arrived, his head resplendently red even on a gray day. And indeed, they were holy.
And so the day began, a day the Lord had made. Regardless of the problems trying to weigh me down, I will rejoice and be glad in it.
As I lay in bed, drifting out of sleep and into the day, I began thinking of all the things I needed to do. The worries of the day, the week, the year, began to pile up. It felt overwhelming, as though I was lying underneath so many blankets that I couldn’t move or even breathe.
And then a phrase from the Sunday service popped into my head: “Today is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.”
I started saying this phrase a few months ago, and it’s not too hard to remember when you are watching a gorgeous sunrise or looking at your family. But it had slipped from my mind until this morning.
I lay there in bed, looking out of the window as that phrase went through my head. A black-headed nuthatch – one of my favorite birds – landed on the tree a few feet away. Then a host of birds arose from the feeder below the window and landed in the trees.
That was the word that instantly occurred to me: a host. A red-bellied woodpecker arrived, his head resplendently red even on a gray day. And indeed, they were holy.
And so the day began, a day the Lord had made. Regardless of the problems trying to weigh me down, I will rejoice and be glad in it.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Saving Jesus
In Sunday school this morning, we started a new series called “Saving Jesus.” The idea is that the way we now perceive Jesus has come a long way from where he started, to the point that he would not be able to recognize himself today. We watched a film in which bunches of experts commented on His metamorphosis into so many things. One theologian said Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God to earth and what he got what the Church.
It was the formalization of the church under the Emperor Constantine that led to the Nicene Creed, our statement of beliefs, a shift from early Christianity, which was more about what we practiced than what we believe or think. The discussion got into certitude (politically left and right), original sin, then homosexuality in the church and the church versus science. In fact, a good bit of the discussion in class after the film was about science and religion, ending with an episode of Krista Tipett’s show on NPR (formerly Speaking of Faith) in which a renouned scientist likened quarks to God. (We cannot see quarks and we can’t see God but it’s an explaination.)
Then Josh Taylor made a comment about all of the “underbrush” that had grown up around Christianity. These distractions, unrelated side discussions that keep us from the true example set for us by Jesus.
I’d been thinking something similar. As a group of people, we had commented and prodded almost every expert/priest/theologian, except for this one woman, who turned out to be Sister Helen Prejean, the real life nun in the film “Dead Man Walking.” Her message, lost in the sex appeal of the above hot-button topics, was simply love and compassion.
I raised my hand and said so, adding that I wasn’t certain, but it seems like on the worship front, all I recall Jesus saying was that we practice the Eucharist. Take, eat, this is my body, do this in remembrance of me. This wine is my blood, whenever you drink it, remember me. Obviously not the exact words.
So when he said “remember me”, did he mean when you’re thinking about me, pick and choose who you love? Was that the message? Did he say love those who agree with you and omit the others? Or love the righteous but hate people who are greedy or judgmental or self-centered?
I don’t know because I wasn’t there. But I cannot believe if Christ came to earth to bring us the Kingdom of God (not a political kingdom, but God’s Kingdom), I can’t believe that he meant for that love to have any boundaries, that our compassion be limited and that we fallible humans pick what kind of suffering deserves our prayers and attention.
If indeed Jesus broke down social barriers and saw the whole world as sacred, saw that each of us, no matter how flawed, imperfect or even downright bad, is created in the image of God, if he died a painful horrible death as a sacrifice for us, that we might be forgiven our sins (however small and insidious or extreme and magnified), then nothing is nearly as complicated as our petty arguments.
I think if we all spent more time working to increase our love and compassion, if we paused a moment to understand and digest the hope that comes with redemption and forgiveness, if we each personally walked around every each day seeing and treating each person we come into contact as being created in the image of God, there’s no telling what might happen next, none at all.
It was the formalization of the church under the Emperor Constantine that led to the Nicene Creed, our statement of beliefs, a shift from early Christianity, which was more about what we practiced than what we believe or think. The discussion got into certitude (politically left and right), original sin, then homosexuality in the church and the church versus science. In fact, a good bit of the discussion in class after the film was about science and religion, ending with an episode of Krista Tipett’s show on NPR (formerly Speaking of Faith) in which a renouned scientist likened quarks to God. (We cannot see quarks and we can’t see God but it’s an explaination.)
Then Josh Taylor made a comment about all of the “underbrush” that had grown up around Christianity. These distractions, unrelated side discussions that keep us from the true example set for us by Jesus.
I’d been thinking something similar. As a group of people, we had commented and prodded almost every expert/priest/theologian, except for this one woman, who turned out to be Sister Helen Prejean, the real life nun in the film “Dead Man Walking.” Her message, lost in the sex appeal of the above hot-button topics, was simply love and compassion.
I raised my hand and said so, adding that I wasn’t certain, but it seems like on the worship front, all I recall Jesus saying was that we practice the Eucharist. Take, eat, this is my body, do this in remembrance of me. This wine is my blood, whenever you drink it, remember me. Obviously not the exact words.
So when he said “remember me”, did he mean when you’re thinking about me, pick and choose who you love? Was that the message? Did he say love those who agree with you and omit the others? Or love the righteous but hate people who are greedy or judgmental or self-centered?
I don’t know because I wasn’t there. But I cannot believe if Christ came to earth to bring us the Kingdom of God (not a political kingdom, but God’s Kingdom), I can’t believe that he meant for that love to have any boundaries, that our compassion be limited and that we fallible humans pick what kind of suffering deserves our prayers and attention.
If indeed Jesus broke down social barriers and saw the whole world as sacred, saw that each of us, no matter how flawed, imperfect or even downright bad, is created in the image of God, if he died a painful horrible death as a sacrifice for us, that we might be forgiven our sins (however small and insidious or extreme and magnified), then nothing is nearly as complicated as our petty arguments.
I think if we all spent more time working to increase our love and compassion, if we paused a moment to understand and digest the hope that comes with redemption and forgiveness, if we each personally walked around every each day seeing and treating each person we come into contact as being created in the image of God, there’s no telling what might happen next, none at all.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Symbols and Threads
We were talking about the symbols and threads of meaning for Advent in Sunday School this morning, how we are in a season of anticipation or expectation —awaiting the birth of Christ. And when that birth does come then, that is our signal to go forth out into the world and love, welcome, forgive, help—whatever those qualities we use to identify ourselves as Christians. (The fact that we think about it could also mark us as Episcopalians).
Being a bad shopper on my best day (too much time in cramped and airless ladies’ changing room as a little girl), massive crowds of Christmas shoppers don’t hold much appeal.
I find other ways to get in the spirit that involve things like stopping by the hardware store for a pot of paperwhites in bloom, a Christmastime favorite of my grandmother's. I stuck them under Wolfie’s nose for a whiff and his eyes registered immediate recognition. I would add that the smell of paperwhites was mixed with that of wood smoke, wax, and sometimes a good soup or stew simmering on the stove.
My other Christmas purchase: Well, I’ve been driving past this store with Christmas stars on display, the paper kind that light from inside? I saw them around Christmastime in Berlin, these white stars hung under eves and in windows, beaming out into the cold, in the snow, in the night. It’s one of very few material things I’ve really wanted that isn’t a book.
Anyway, the shop with the Christmas stars in the window turned out to be a Buddhist, Eastern, sort of Shaman dealer—though I couldn’t be specific about how many religions were represented in the merchandise. Christianity was not among them.
And up close, I saw the Christmas star I wanted had OM symbols on it, which means the union of body, mind and spirit. I personally think that’s shorthand for “peace” but I’m no expert. And that very same Christmas star as a Christian symbol? Hope.
What’s next on my Christmas list? (Not shopping. I can do that last minute at the bookstore.) The lessons and carols service next Sunday at 4 p.m. Wonderful music, ancient stories, hopeful prayers. What could be better?
Friday, November 26, 2010
At times, it’s more blessed to receive
By Patricia Templeton, reprint from AJC
Every Sunday of my childhood, my priest would stand before our congregation just before the offering was taken up and say these words, “Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, how he said it was more blessed to give than to receive.”
It wasn’t until years later in seminary that I realized there is no record in scripture of Jesus actually saying those words. What we have is Paul, who never met the earthly Jesus, attributing the words to him.
So maybe Jesus said it and maybe he didn’t. Whatever. Regardless of who said it the sentiment is deeply ingrained in not only most Christians, but most Americans.
Giving is good. Receiving, not so much.
But an experience my family had two summers ago changed the truth of that sentiment for me. My husband unexpectedly had to undergo major surgery with a significant recovery time.
I’ve spent much of the last two decades being with people going through similar situations. When the roles were reversed, I was very uncomfortable.
“No, that’s OK, I’ll be fine,” I said, when members of the congregation offered to sit with me in the hospital during the surgery. “No, we won’t need food,” I assured others. “Really, I’ve got the child care under control.”
In every case, my parishioners looked at me, nodded and went ahead mobilizing support for my family.
And thank God they did.
Here is what I learned from that experience. Yes, it is blessed to give. But there are times when it is also a true blessing to receive.
Every person who came to the hospital, every meal delivered to our door, every card and e-mail and call and prayer, every offer to entertain our son, was a tangible blessing, a reminder that we were loved.
I have no doubt that all of those tangible blessings hastened my husband’s recovery and helped all of us through a difficult period in our lives.
I learned something else, too. Having experienced the blessing of receiving makes me want to share that blessing with others. That, in a nutshell, is the theology of giving.
There are many reasons for people to be altruistic, to give, to do good deeds or be concerned for the welfare of others. Sometimes we do good because it makes us feel good. Sometimes we do it out of guilt or in the secret hopes that we are earning our way to salvation. Sometimes we may do it with the hope that when we are in need someone will help us. Sometimes, if we are honest, we do it because it makes us feel superior, or in control.
But for people of faith, scripture gives another motivation for doing good and for giving — we do it in grateful response to the blessings we have received.
It’s a theology that began with the biblical patriarch Abraham. I’m going to make of you a great people, God tells him. Your descendants will inhabit a land flowing with milk and honey. They will be greatly blessed.
But, God adds, with great blessing comes great responsibility. The blessings aren’t to be hoarded away, they are to be shared with the world.
It’s a theme God comes back to again and again. It’s a theology with which Jesus, a great Jewish teacher, was quite familiar. Love one another as God loves you, he tells his followers. Do good in grateful response to the love and blessings that God has given you.
Several weeks ago our son, now 9, asked me, “Mama, do you remember when Dad was in the hospital?”
“Yes, I remember,” I responded.
“Do you know what was really cool about that?” he asked. “People brought us a lot of free food for a long time.”
The blessings of two years ago continue. A time that I feared would be burned into my child’s psyche as an awful memory was transformed into something “really cool” by the love shown to us.
And so on this day of Thanksgiving, I beg to differ with Paul and Jesus. It is, indeed, a blessing to give. But today I am deeply grateful for the blessings I have received.
The Rev. Patricia Templeton is rector of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
Every Sunday of my childhood, my priest would stand before our congregation just before the offering was taken up and say these words, “Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, how he said it was more blessed to give than to receive.”
It wasn’t until years later in seminary that I realized there is no record in scripture of Jesus actually saying those words. What we have is Paul, who never met the earthly Jesus, attributing the words to him.
So maybe Jesus said it and maybe he didn’t. Whatever. Regardless of who said it the sentiment is deeply ingrained in not only most Christians, but most Americans.
Giving is good. Receiving, not so much.
But an experience my family had two summers ago changed the truth of that sentiment for me. My husband unexpectedly had to undergo major surgery with a significant recovery time.
I’ve spent much of the last two decades being with people going through similar situations. When the roles were reversed, I was very uncomfortable.
“No, that’s OK, I’ll be fine,” I said, when members of the congregation offered to sit with me in the hospital during the surgery. “No, we won’t need food,” I assured others. “Really, I’ve got the child care under control.”
In every case, my parishioners looked at me, nodded and went ahead mobilizing support for my family.
And thank God they did.
Here is what I learned from that experience. Yes, it is blessed to give. But there are times when it is also a true blessing to receive.
Every person who came to the hospital, every meal delivered to our door, every card and e-mail and call and prayer, every offer to entertain our son, was a tangible blessing, a reminder that we were loved.
I have no doubt that all of those tangible blessings hastened my husband’s recovery and helped all of us through a difficult period in our lives.
I learned something else, too. Having experienced the blessing of receiving makes me want to share that blessing with others. That, in a nutshell, is the theology of giving.
There are many reasons for people to be altruistic, to give, to do good deeds or be concerned for the welfare of others. Sometimes we do good because it makes us feel good. Sometimes we do it out of guilt or in the secret hopes that we are earning our way to salvation. Sometimes we may do it with the hope that when we are in need someone will help us. Sometimes, if we are honest, we do it because it makes us feel superior, or in control.
But for people of faith, scripture gives another motivation for doing good and for giving — we do it in grateful response to the blessings we have received.
It’s a theology that began with the biblical patriarch Abraham. I’m going to make of you a great people, God tells him. Your descendants will inhabit a land flowing with milk and honey. They will be greatly blessed.
But, God adds, with great blessing comes great responsibility. The blessings aren’t to be hoarded away, they are to be shared with the world.
It’s a theme God comes back to again and again. It’s a theology with which Jesus, a great Jewish teacher, was quite familiar. Love one another as God loves you, he tells his followers. Do good in grateful response to the love and blessings that God has given you.
Several weeks ago our son, now 9, asked me, “Mama, do you remember when Dad was in the hospital?”
“Yes, I remember,” I responded.
“Do you know what was really cool about that?” he asked. “People brought us a lot of free food for a long time.”
The blessings of two years ago continue. A time that I feared would be burned into my child’s psyche as an awful memory was transformed into something “really cool” by the love shown to us.
And so on this day of Thanksgiving, I beg to differ with Paul and Jesus. It is, indeed, a blessing to give. But today I am deeply grateful for the blessings I have received.
The Rev. Patricia Templeton is rector of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
What Are You Thankful For?
There are people sometimes missing around the Thanksgiving table, those we love who have died or who are maybe in the military or just spread out across the country. As the faces shift in and out, the customs change – maybe one generation adds a pea and olive salad, which eventually takes the place of a tomato aspic shaped like a fish. In our family, Thanksgiving was usually at my grandmother’s -- when she died 10 years ago, it shifted to my house, and so on.
But one thing that doesn’t change is the reason we gather together--to be thankful. Every year we go around the table and each say what we’re thankful for. I’d like to share some thankfulness from our house and invite you to share yours.
So, this year is the first I can remember with my six-year-old nephew Candler, sweet husky-sized boy with one front tooth, participating in the speaking of thanks. He immediately began thinking, looking for the correct answer, as if there could be only one perfect, right Thankful. Finally, knowledge lit up his chubby face “I know! Life! I’m thankful to be alive!”
His three-year-old brother Oliver concurred, “And not go to the hospital.” Candler, as the big brother, often interprets for Ollie. “He keeps remembering ‘hospital’, he’s obsessed with it.” A few months back, the boys were in a fender bender, where Candler had to be taken to the hospital for bumps and bruises.
We all had our regular thankfuls -- being together, food, health, jobs, new babies. But I have to agree with Candler, my very favorite thankful this year is nothing more -— and certainly nothing less--than life. Watching my son Wolfie driving the boys around the back yard in that old jeep he basically built scratch, the little men taking turns in his lap “driving,” with me leaning over the rail calling down “watch the azaleas!”
And I’m also really really thankful for everyone in the parish and Patricia and Joe, and for getting through this quite interesting year. What are your thankfuls?
But one thing that doesn’t change is the reason we gather together--to be thankful. Every year we go around the table and each say what we’re thankful for. I’d like to share some thankfulness from our house and invite you to share yours.
So, this year is the first I can remember with my six-year-old nephew Candler, sweet husky-sized boy with one front tooth, participating in the speaking of thanks. He immediately began thinking, looking for the correct answer, as if there could be only one perfect, right Thankful. Finally, knowledge lit up his chubby face “I know! Life! I’m thankful to be alive!”
His three-year-old brother Oliver concurred, “And not go to the hospital.” Candler, as the big brother, often interprets for Ollie. “He keeps remembering ‘hospital’, he’s obsessed with it.” A few months back, the boys were in a fender bender, where Candler had to be taken to the hospital for bumps and bruises.
We all had our regular thankfuls -- being together, food, health, jobs, new babies. But I have to agree with Candler, my very favorite thankful this year is nothing more -— and certainly nothing less--than life. Watching my son Wolfie driving the boys around the back yard in that old jeep he basically built scratch, the little men taking turns in his lap “driving,” with me leaning over the rail calling down “watch the azaleas!”
And I’m also really really thankful for everyone in the parish and Patricia and Joe, and for getting through this quite interesting year. What are your thankfuls?
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Fall Photo Essay, Nov. 21
It’s true what they say—sometimes a picture does paint a thousand words. So instead of writing out a description today, I’m offering the real life images from this 26th Sunday after Pentecost at St. Dunstan’s.
Some people feel claustrophobic in churches with humanmade stained glass windows, I’ve heard that. We never have that problem at St. Dunstan’s. God changes out the stained glass every Sunday—look at the red leaves through the windows above the altar. The person in the pic is Colin Brown, lay reader in the early service this morning.
After the service, I nabbed Peachy, our master gardener, to model the flaming euonomous bushes. Drive into St. D’s parking lot this week and see for yourself.
In the kitchen, I was offered two large plates of goodies by Nancy Dillon and Keith Latimore, who were on duty for coffee time.
Here’s Sunday School. Most of you were there but if you missed because you were busy doing coffee time or something like that, here’s our packed class being riveted by Paul Franklyn, associate publisher of a new translation of the scripture. The Common English Bible will be published next year, which is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version beloved by so many. A taste of some of the changes: Son of Man is translated as the Human One. We all received a copy of the New Testament.
An excerpt, the Lord’s Prayer:
“When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard. You shouldn’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask. Pray like this:
Our Father who is in heaven,
Uphold the holiness of your name.
Bring in your kingdom
So that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.
Give us the bread we need for today.
Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
Just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.
And don’t lead us into temptation,
But rescue us from the evil one.
“If you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins.
And here’s a pic right after class—Joe Monti, Paul Franklyn and Patricia.
As the regular service got underway, outside in the Beech Grove Sunday School kids played in the new fall leaves. Hey Mom and Dad! Wish you were here!
And here’s a sampling of Sunday School art.
Grace and peace!
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