World In Prayer, April 17

It was my week to write the World In Prayer prayers. I started by looking at the lectionary, before even looking at the news. I thought I was going to focus on the gospel reading about the resurrection appearance, but the line that leapt out at me was from the Psalm, "Many are saying, 'Oh that we might see better times!'" followed up by a beautiful request. As you'll see, that seemed like a good refrain. At the same time, I wanted to note resurrection as an ongoing revelation of the Easter season.  Moving from bad news to signs of hope was another way of lifting up my own countenance to see resurrection at work in the world. 

Here they are:

Many are saying, "Oh, that we might see better times!" *
Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.
                                                                                    Psalm 4:6

In this season of resurrection, lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord, that we may see your risen Son, Jesus Christ, who walks with us, even in our confusion and grief.

We pray for all whose lives have been affected by the Holocaust as the world bears witness on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

We pray for all migrants who have fled North Africa attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Italy, remembering especially those who have drowned, including the 400 who have died this week alone.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

We pray for Yemen, where Al-Qaeda of the Arab Peninsula has taken over a major airport in Mukalla.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

We pray for the United States where a history of slavery, racism, and oppression continues to reveal itself through deadly violence towards African Americans.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

We pray for Colombia where rebels from Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia broke a recent cease-fire, killing 11 soldiers, and where aerial bombings are set to resume.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

We give thanks for the 5,000 people in Durban, South Africa who marched to protest a spate of recent xenophobic attacks.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

We give thanks for signs of peace between the U.S. and Cuba after more than 50 years of hostility.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

We give thanks for all who work for peace, for reconciliation, for restoration, for healing, for justice, and for hope.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O LORD. In our homes. In our families. In our communities. In our countries. And in our world. Amen.

Who am I doing this for?

Cross-posted on the 50 Days of Fabulous site.


Read

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes,
And I shall keep it to the end.
                                                -Psalm 119:33

Reflect:
I was just starting my first job out of seminary, setting up a college chaplaincy at Kenyon College, and I needed help and advice on what to do. So I went to Chicago and met (among others) the great Sam Portaro who was then chaplain at Brent House at the University of Chicago.

He had all sorts of fantastic advice on setting up mailing lists and creating calendars and the nitty-gritty of getting things done. I took notes furiously, overwhelmed at everything I would have to set up in the month I had before classes started. And at the end of our meeting, as I looked over everything on this huge list, I probably radiated anxiety. I certainly felt it anyway. And Sam looked at me and gave me this advice: “Just love those kids.” I didn’t write it down, but I’ve never forgotten it.

The section of Psalm 119 that’s in today’s lectionary has always struck me because of one word — and the word is “it.” At first I thought, shouldn’t it be “them”? After all, it’s about following God’s statutes, all 613 of them. But although “statutes” is plural, it’s not the statutes that the Psalmist is hoping to keep; it is the way of the statutes, the basic underlying premise. The Psalmist asks God to teach me that one way, the singular thing that keeps all of those statutes together in one place, and that is of course the way of love.

This way of love isn’t simply a mushy-gooey excuse for not planning. When I returned to Ohio, I got to work and dug into the nitty-gritty details. But knowing that the underlying premise of all my tasks was to “Just love those kids” gave me the assurance that even if I didn’t do things perfectly, I was still headed the right way.

Respond:
Before you start work today, instead of focusing entirely on what you need to do, take a minute to think about who you are doing it for and say a prayer for them.

On the feast of John Muir

Cross posted at 50 Days of Fabulous 


Read
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” — John Muir

Reflect
John Muir’s home in Martinez, a National Historic Site, is 15 miles away from where I now live. I’ve never visited. Even though it’s free and open to the public. Even though it’s open 7 days a week. Even though it’s dog-friendly. Even though I’m writing a friggin’ reflection on John Muir.

“Oh, I’ll get to it,” I say. “But first there are so many important busy things I have to do. I have plenty of time to do fun stuff later.”

And strangely, the important busy things keep knocking on my door saying, “I’m important and busy. Do you know how important and busy I am? Meet my needs!” while the John Muir house sits 15 miles away inviting me to stop by, walk around the orchard with a dog or two, enjoy the scenery.

Important and Busy say, “Don’t stop now! Don’t ever stop! Keep your head down! Focus!”

The John Muir house says, stop for a moment, look around and something new, be refreshed, be replenished.

Is it the John Muir house that’s calling me? Or is it something else? Something more fundamental.

We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, Jesus tells us. And weren’t the first words that came from the mouth of God the words of creation?

I promise to visit the John Muir house. Not because I ought to. Because I want to. Because I’ve been invited. Because Important and Busy can only give me bread. And because God created all of us for more than bread alone.

Respond
Schedule the time to do something you’ve been wanting to do to feed your spirit that you’ve been putting off. Then do it!

Extra personal response:
I went by the John Muir House on Saturday with every intention of poking around, albeit briefly. As it happens, they were having an Earth Day Celebration, which would have required parking the car a long way off since the regular parking lot was full/reserved for mobility impaired, and taking a shuttle, which with three dogs was not going to happen. So we just took the photo you see up there. I'll have to go back another time. I did, however, go for a great hike on the Franklin Ridge Trail in the Carquinez Regional Shoreline Park. It was wonderful.

Easter sermon, close to how I remember giving it, abridged and without special effects

A long time ago I heard a sermon about how you can't keep God in a box. I'd heard dozens of "God in a box" sermons in my time and in my mind I was saying, "yeah, yeah, you can't keep God in a box blahblahblah" as the preacher held up a small white box to demonstrate.

Then the preacher came out of the pulpit. This was a little disturbing. It was all very well to talk about how you can't keep God in a box as long as everyone was staying in the right place, but when the preacher left the pulpit, I couldn't help feeling a little nervous.

She came to the center, holding up the box and talking about how you can't keep God in a box when all of a sudden, she threw the box to the floor and it shattered.

And my first, completely unbidden though was, "That was a nice box!"*

It hadn't occurred to me before that even the nicest box is still a box. And God doesn't fit in a box.

Let's think of this in terms of Jesus, who didn't fit into the nice boxes of law or purity or race and gender relations. He healed people on the Sabbath. He touched lepers. He and his disciples didn't practice ritual cleaning. He talked to women -- including a Samaritan woman and a Syro-Phoenician woman. He went to dinner with tax collectors. And he suggested God did all of those things too.

This kind of behavior was so disturbing that they literally nailed him down to keep him in his place. And then, once he was dead, they bound him up in cloths and put him in a tomb with a stone blocking the entrance. Talk about a box.

But the story of Easter is you cannot keep God in a box. God will break open the box no matter what you do.

There are two ways this applies to us today. First of all, we need to examine what kind of boxes we try to keep God in. They may be nice boxes, but they are boxes all the same. Author Anne Lamott quotes a friend who has a great way of summing this up: "You know you've made God in your own image when God hates all the same people you do."

The second is this: What kind of box are you in?

A few weeks ago, I got to hear Brene Brown talk to a group of church leaders and she said something I thought was very interesting. She asked us what we thought was the biggest barrier to belonging. After our guesses, she told us that her research indicates the biggest barrier to belonging is fitting in, that fitting in requires you to assess and adapt. It's all about being in the right box.

In contrast, what really leads to belonging is showing up and being seen, and isn't that what we hear today in the story of the Resurrection? Jesus shows up and is seen, after everyone's best effort to force him to fit in.

You don't need to fit in either. You already belong.

Easter is about the breaking of boxes. God does not fit in a box. Jesus will not stay in a box. And you are free from the boxes that hold you as well.**

*yes, I did in fact do all of these things during the sermon. My "box" was unfortunately very clearly a flower pot, but, you know, it got the point across. I had placed a piece of marble I'd found in the garden of the house where I was staying on the floor in the center aisle of the church and disguised it with Easter lilies. The altar guild member in me was upset when I realized I had placed most of the lilies with the sales tags facing out. After saying "That was a nice box!" I also added that the second thought that may be running through their minds was "Who is going to clean this up?" I told them I would. The Altar Guild still took care of most of the cleanup, but I did do the vacuuming at the end.

**I practiced the closing sentence over and over and over again, and still messed it up! This isn't it exactly either. I can't remember the exact words I'd prepared. But they were pretty good -- better than this version anyway. Too bad I couldn't remember them in the moment!

Not an April Fools Joke

Start watching at about 1:10.


Huge props to the unflappable singer.

Found on Facebook.

Easter Service Adventures

As readers of the blog know, I spent Holy Week at St. Michael's, Fort Bragg, which as an itinerant clergy person was a real treat. For the most part, services went well with only the usual mishaps and blunders. And then...there was Easter. Which was going along fine until the cops showed up.

I'd vaguely heard sirens in the street but I hadn't thought anything of it. And the congregation certainly wasn't disturbed; every week the beginning of the 10:00 service gets interrupted by the whistle of the Skunk Train as it passes by (often during the sermon).

I was actually right in the middle of the offertory, so everyone was standing and singing a hymn and I was setting the table and didn't really notice when the back door swung open and someone came in. It didn't register for a beat that it was two police officers in complete regalia and even then I thought, "huh. Maybe they're here for the service." And then a moment later I thought, "Maybe they need to tell the mayor something," since the mayor of Fort Bragg is a member of the church.

At any rate, I just kept going with the service since there didn't seem to be any real reason not to. I guess a couple of people in the back of the church had noticed them come in, but everybody else was facing forward when they came in. They gave a once over to the congregation and made their move forward just as I was starting the sursum corda, shouting

Happy Easter!

And may the Force be with you.

Source: neatorama.com via Anne Lane on Pinterest

Easter sermon (abridged)

Love this picture! It's apparently a bar in Chapel Hill, NC.

Did this gospel take you by surprise this morning? How many of you were going, “Wait! Isn’t Jesus going to show up along in here?” How many of you were waiting for the part where Mary thinks he’s the gardener. Great story, but it’s not here. Like Jesus’ corpse, there’s a lot that appears to be missing, including any explanation of what on earth happened.

I love the ending. Love it.

“and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.” 

The end.

Well, clearly the story leaked somewhere or we wouldn’t be here today.

But the thing that’s so wonderful to me about this version in the gospel of Mark is that it captures the confusion of that morning of the resurrection in a way that to me, at least, brings it home.

So often I think we get blasé about the resurrection. We know too much about it. We hear the story every year and are reminded of it in every Eucharistic prayer. We know how the story is going to turn out and we are not taken by surprise. It’s no shock when Jesus is missing because he’s supposed to be.

But he wasn’t supposed to be missing. He was supposed to be there, where the women had seen him last, placed in a tomb with a big old rock in front of it. What they found instead shocked and surprised them so much that they couldn’t even talk about it, at least at first.

The first surprise was that the stone was moved back.  Who did it? How did it happen? Was this a good sign or a bad one? What did it mean?

So they enter into the first chamber of the tomb where they expect to see some shrouds, perhaps bones in the niches along the walls, and certainly Jesus' corpse resting on one of the shelves along the walls and instead, they get their second surprise: a man dressed in white.

Who is this guy? Is he an angel? Mark doesn't say.  He's just a man dressed in white. There's no other explanation whatsoever.  But he does have something to tell them:

“Do not be alarmed [good luck with that!]; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.”

And that's surprise number three:

Jesus isn’t there, and the only explanation they get is “He has been raised.”  

None of them know what that means. There’s no creed with a tidy summary statement about what Jesus has done and what it signifies. There are no theological treatises on the resurrection; they haven’t even used the word. They went to the tomb expecting to find a body and the body wasn’t there—not because it had been moved, or stolen, or desecrated, but because (they were told) the person they loved whom they had seen shamefully executed had been “raised.”

Whatever that might mean.

You can imagine that for these women—for all of us, actually—one fixed point in the world is that the dead are dead. That’s it. Done. But to show up and discover that dead may not be dead after all? You can see why this would turn a person’s world upside-down.

We really don’t expect the dead to be raised. For Jesus, though, we’re willing to make an exception. Of course, we’ve had a couple of millennia, give or take, to get used to the idea of Jesus rising from the dead. We put it on our calendars and send out flyers to let everyone know when to expect it. It is so hard to imagine how confusing this was in the moment, how completely unexpected and completely unexplained.

And so I’m not going to say anything about what the resurrection is or what it means or what it does or how you should remember it. My hope for you this Easter day is that you leave here confused. At least slightly confused. My hope for you today is that you leave here this morning wondering what happened, what on earth went on in that tomb? What does it mean? If he’s not in the tomb, where is he? Where will he appear? Will he ever be seen again, or will he just vanish? And if he does appear, what will he say or do? And where is Jesus now?

I hope you’ll leave here a little on edge, wondering if Jesus is going to show up around every corner, wondering what you ought to say to people about it, what this means for you. Easter is 50 days long and we’ll have time to mull this over and try to make sense of it. But today, on this first day of the week, I invite you to have no idea what happened and what this means, to be bewildered and astonished at the news. He has been raised; he is not here. Where on earth is he?

Monday Morning Preacher: Easter redux

At 10:48 pm on Saturday night, I posted on my Facebook page: "Guess it's time to get started on the Easter sermon."  I wasn't kidding.  Well, I was and I wasn't.  I'd been pondering for ages, but writing? Not so much.  Boy, was I glad not to have a Vigil to do as well. Whew! Good Friday and Easter Sunday were plenty for me.

Sermon writing outfit

This is only the second time I've preached on Easter Sunday.  The other time was my very first year out of seminary; I was still a transitional deacon at that point.  The rector offered me the gig and I fell all over myself thanking him.  He told me, "I'm not doing you any favors." He was so right. Easter is a tough, tough gig. Can I get an amen?

For all that I was putting it together until 7 AM Sunday morning, I thought the sermon turned out well.  It helped a lot that I did indeed have a clear idea of what I wanted to say long before I started writing things down.  The other thing that helped immensely was a book called Roll Back the Stone: Death and Burial in the World of Jesus , much of which I could read on Google Books.  For me, at least, it helped to picture what it was the women were expecting to see.  I hope it helped the congregation as well.

Sermon preaching outfit

The congregation, by the way, was wonderful.  If you have a congregation that laughs at your jokes and responds when you ask questions, it makes preaching so much easier and more fun.  And I have found that almost every congregation is willing to do that, willing to be with you in the midst of the preaching, so I do try to invite them in to participate--mostly for my sake.  It just feels so much better preaching when you don't feel like you're talking to yourself. So, thank you, St. Giles!

And Happy Easter, everyone! How did it go for you?

Easter Sunday Funnies

Well, more like an hour fifteen.

h/t Scott Gunn who posted about this grand collection of honest church signs.

One of a kind Barbies

So when your sister comes to visit you and you live in the cultural center that is the San Francisco Bay Area and you want to show her the best your town has to offer, what do you do? Well, since the cupcakery that sold Chicken and Waffle cupcakes has sadly closed, you do the next best thing and take her to One of a Kind Barbies!

Here's how I learned of One of a Kind Barbies:

That's advertising money just can't buy.  Well, I guess it can, but most of the time for some reason it just doesn't.

I'd passed by this car a zillion times on the way to Elaine, the fabulous tailor (but that's another story), and it was hard to miss it, but I'd never stopped by the actual storefront before.

But then my artsy sister came a-calling and I knew I had to get in there somehow.

Despite the fact that we stopped by on a Wednesday and she's only officially open on Saturdays, the artist, Lavonne Sallee, was working in the back and opened the store for us.

And can I just say, I had no idea you could make Barbie look quite like this.

This place might just be the Barbie Diorama Capital of the World. Barbie got eaten by dinosaurs, blinged beyond belief, turned into a centaur, re-cast as Kathy Bates' character in Misery, and shish-kebobbed.  And if you've ever thought to yourself, "Gee willikers, why won't someone just give Barbie nipples already," well, you're in the right place.

My personal favorite was Barbie's Last Sleepover:

Description: "The lead Barbie is dressed in a white velvet robe as she holds out her arms to welcome her 12 followers. Some are White, some Black, some Asian and some Latin. Each of the 12 is dressed uniquely in a velvet robe with a matching scarf around their hair. Maybe they just took a shower and are eating before the sleep over. I made the bread of Polymer Clay and the glasses of wine out of ear ring findings. They set on benches around a long table covered with an amber velvet cloth." Price: $800.

We must have spent the better part of an hour looking at Barbie in all her various guises.  It was...I'm not sure what it was, but it certainly wasn't the usual.  Because I take my sister only to the best places in town.

I didn't spend the $800 it would take to own Barbie's Last Sleepover for myself, but I got several cards with this image on it.  If you're very nice, maybe I'll send you one for Easter. 

Easter Bunny-Zombie Apocalypse

A friend of mine posted this picture by her 11-year-old son on Facebook. I HAD to have it.

Love the scribbled out bit in the upper left corner. As my friend said, her son was NOT going to take her suggestion for an Easter cartoon. She reports that he told her, "At least I didn't make Jesus the zombie." Of course, someone's already done that.

Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?

I actually still like what I said last year about Ascension Day, that if you just stand looking up, you get a crick in the neck and can't see anything going on around you.

This whole notion of people looking up towards heaven is informed this year by these two posts from the late Michael Spencer who asks

Is there too much heaven in some versions of Christianity? Was Jesus as much about heaven as my faith tradition told me? Is rejecting this world and longing for heaven the normal Christian life? Is there something wrong with those of us who are rooted in this world and find out joy in God here now?

Certainly I think Ascension Day would suggest the answers to these questions.

It's funny. The line that stood out to me in the readings for today was a line from Psalm 47: He chooses our inheritance for us. I don't think I'd ever noticed or thought about that before. It seems like another clue that I should just get on with the things I've been given to do and leave the rest to God.

Rogation days: Beating the Bounds

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (the three days before Ascension Day) are Rogation Days, from the Latin "rogare" which means to ask and during which people prayed to God for a good harvest and safety from natural disasters. In Elizabethan England (and beyond) people would also "beat the bounds," walking around the perimeter of the parish lands, "to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands."

I was going to be all reverent about this practice, but then I read this:

The priest of the parish with the churchwardens and the parochial officials headed a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, usually birch or willow, beat the parish boundary markers with them. Sometimes the boys were themselves whipped or even violently bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember. The object of taking boys is supposed to ensure that witnesses to the boundaries should survive as long as possible.

Well, that's one way to do it, I suppose.

Strange Britain reports that

Curiously, certain stones, trees or other marker points around the boundary would also be beaten by literally bumping a boy (often a choirboy) against the mark. The boy would be suspended upside down and his head gently tapped against the stone or he would be taken by the feet and hands and swung against a tree!

Photographic evidence:

To be honest, doesn't that sound like something a lot of the boys at church would love? To be swung by your hands and feet by the boundaries of the church? Not violently, but, you know, for fun. If they wanted. I could see kids vying for the opportunity. OK, so it's strange and arcane, but goodness, it could be kind of fun.

Add that to the lovely prayers for the day, and you might have yourself quite the intergenerational event

I hope you're able to get out and about today to see what's going on in your neighborhood, to enjoy creation, and to discover ways we can be better stewards of God's good gifts. And if you see any choirboys, make sure to bop 'em on the head.

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lent redux

I sent this ecard yesterday to a friend of mine (who shall remain anonymous). She sent back a message saying, "too late, I already found new spiritual insights!" And I guess it's too late for me too.

I accidentally backed into my Lenten observance. I gave up working on the weekends. Working at home, the days seem to blend into one another and it's hard to tell the difference between a workday and any other day.

I did pretty well. There was one weekend where I did some emailing and such, but by the end, there, it was a glorious feeling to reach the end of Friday afternoon and say to myself I'm shutting it down until Monday.

Spiritual insight? Here's one: News Flash! The world did not fall apart if I didn't work every day. Also: other things besides work need tending. Also: I work better during the week if there are specific times when I am not working. (See: Sabbath.)

One of the great things I was able to do on my days off was work in the garden. Three weeks ago, I planted some beans and peas. And look what we have here!



I love how the beans, in particular, burst out of the ground and out of their seed which sticks to them for a while. Where did I hear something like this recently? Oh, yes. "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." I hope you all have a fruitful Easter.  And if you wish, I'd love to hear about your spiritual insights.

Easter Sunday Funnies

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Ascension Day

"Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" say two men in white robes as the disciples gape. Well, duh! Jesus just got lifted up and into a cloud; I'd look too.

But it occurred to me this morning that if you keep looking up, two things happen: first of all, you get a horrible crick in the neck. But secondly, you can't notice anything going on around you.

It seems to me that a whole lot of Jesus' followers are still looking up toward heaven, waiting for Jesus to come back in the clouds, instead of looking around us at the work Jesus has given us to do. You keep looking up, you run into a lot of stuff, trip, generally can't see where you're going. Maybe the message was, "Watch where you're going."

Good Shepherd Sunday

I noticed something today in the readings for Good Shepherd Sunday, a kind of distillation of the conflict between the Christianity that believes our primary call is to bring others to Christ and those that believe our primary call is to serve the poor and the needy.

In John's Gospel, Jesus says, "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."

In John's epistle, we hear, "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?"

Of course the argument can be made is that one of the needs is to hear the saving word of God. But the very next line in the Epistle is "Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." So I'm going for the caring for physical needs angle. Not that I'm doing too well on that front.

There's much more I could say about all of this, but I have to get ready for church.

And for some fabulous shepherds, check out the video below:

Sermon for Easter 2

Abridged for blog readers, who got a lot of this thinking along the way. I didn't know that one handy thing about this blog was that it helps for sermon prep.

As you well know, I am an obituary fan. And as you may recall, at Easter I was reminded of an obituary for a theologian named Nancy Eiesland who wrote a book called The Disabled God.

In the book, as referenced by the obituary, Eiesland writes about the gospel we hear today.

“In presenting his impaired body to his startled friends, the resurrected Jesus is revealed as the disabled God,” she wrote. God remains a God the disabled can identify with, she argued — he is not cured and made whole; his injury is part of him, neither a divine punishment nor an opportunity for healing.

I suspect that many of us would like to get rid of our bodies – the actual physical parts of them. The parts that ache or leak or don’t look “right” or don’t work the way they should. I find it surprising that it’s here in the resurrection, the very part when I thought Jesus would be most spiritual and least fleshy, that I am finding him to be at his most physical, thanks to Nancy Eiesland.

I looked around and found another quote from her that I liked very much:

“Resurrection is not about the negation or erasure of our disabled bodies in hopes of perfect images, untouched by physical disability; rather Christ’s resurrection offers hope that our nonconventional and sometimes difficult bodies participate fully in the [image of God] and that God whose nature is love and who is on the side of justice and solidarity is touched by our experience.”

There are two very difficult things to believe in this:
1) that our non-conventional and sometimes difficult bodies participate fully in the image of God.

and, 2) that God is touched by our experience.

But these two things remind me of Susan Boyle. And though I'm still trying to figure out why she has had such an impact, I think in part it is because she very much embodies these two things.

I was reminded of this quotation from Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Maybe you are a doubting Thomas on this point. Maybe you don't think that your non-conventional and sometimes difficult body has anything glorious and radiant about it. And that is all right. There’s a solution for that. It’s in seeing other scarred and risen people show forth the glory of God that we begin to believe that we can do so ourselves.

Christ is risen, and we are set free. Christ shows us through his scars that our bodies are not the miserable husks we might think they are, that the body is not something to get rid of in exchange for radiant perfection. Instead, he shows us that “our non-conventional and sometimes difficult bodies participate fully in the image of God.” You, in the flesh, in your body, are witnesses to the risen Christ. Truly. Believe it.

A sermon I thought about giving

Yesterday was the diocesan confirmations at Grace Cathedral. I went as part of the St. John's contingent, but three of the parishes presenting youth were using Confirm not Conform which emphasizes hugely that youth need to make up their own mind about whether or not to be confirmed. In fact, that's main premise of CnC: that youth choose to be confirmed for themselves rather than conform to other people's (particularly parents') expectations.

So it's a bit unfortunate that the bishop began his remarks to the confirmands before the service with, "Some of you are here because your parents want you to be confirmed. And that's a good reason, because you are honoring your mother and father." Ummm...oh dear. Dearie dearie dear. Given that, oh, 2/3 of the confirmands had been through CnC where they were told over and over (as were their parents) that they should NOT be confirmed just because their parents wanted them to, this was...unfortunate.

I have to give the disciples a big thumbs up for how they dealt with Thomas--Thomas included. One of the things today's gospel reading suggests to me is that you can't force someone to believe something if they don't believe it. You just can't. And you can't force yourself to believe something if you don't believe it either. And each person has different experiences that make believing possible or not possible. And that it's OK to be in fellowship with someone who believes something different from you. They may change. They may not. But belief is a mysterious thing that cannot be dictated. And I think it's dangerous and potentially damaging when we think we can.