World In Prayer, February 13

It was my week to write the World in Prayer prayers. The top news stories were the peace accord hammered out in Ukraine, and the murder of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, NC. But the story that struck me was that of a group of 6 prison inmates in Taiwan who had taken some prison guards hostage and, after a 14-hour stand-off, committed suicide. 

These were not nice people, it sounds like. And yet I felt very called to pray for them. Which then moved me to pray for other people that I would much rather not pray for. And I was reminded of the great commandments, and of Jesus' words, "I was in prison and you visited me," and "Whatever you do for the least of these, you have done for me." And that led me to these prayers.

As we prepare ourselves for the holy season of Lent, let us reflect in prayer on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: that when we love the least of these, we love you, Lord.

Help us to love the least of these in prison. We pray for prisoners throughout the world. We pray that they may receive justice, that those who are innocent may be freed and those who are guilty may be restored and reconciled. We pray especially this week for Taiwan where 6 inmates held several guards hostage before committing suicide.

Help us to love the least of these who are refugees. We pray for the souls of the 300 migrants who drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy. We pray too for all those who tried to rescue them, as they have done so many times over the past months and years, and help them deal with the grief and horror of the tragedy. We pray for the children from Guatemala, El Salvador, and elsewhere, held in family detention camps in New Mexico, USA. We pray for all those who have been displaced from their homes.

Help us to love the least of those who seek peace. We give thanks for the ceasefire announced in Ukraine and pray that it may hold. We pray for Syria, Burkina Faso, Iraq, Afghanistan, and for countries affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, especially Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger.

Help us to love the least of those of all faiths and tribes. We pray for Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad and her sister Razan who were killed this week in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA by their neighbor.

Help us, O Lord, to love our neighbors as You have commanded us to do. Help us to see in them the image of the living God who has come to dwell with us. And may we be transformed when we see You before us in the face of the least of these.

Amen.

Prayers for the new year

It was my turn this week to write the World In Prayer prayers. With my deadline on January 1, of course I was thinking about the new year. I realized how odd it is that we give this one arbitrary day such significance as a time of new beginnings since every day gives us that same opportunity, so I decided to write prayers that could actually be used at any time. I didn't refer to any specific world events, but certainly for me there was a lot of subtext in what I chose to focus on. But I wanted to leave them open enough for people to include whatever is on their own hearts and minds.

I fussed around quite a bit with which order to put the intercessions. It's not perfect, but then, they never are.

At any rate, here you go. 

World News This Week in Prayer

Gracious God, our lives are new every morning. Each day we are given opportunities to love you and to love the people you send to us. As we begin a new year, we use this moment to rededicate ourselves to your service and our gifts and talents towards creating your kingdom in this world.

Your kingdom come, O Lord.

We rededicate ourselves to compassion: give us courage when we find ourselves encountering pain and suffering in others and in ourselves. Free us from judgment and self-righteousness and give us the gift of humility in all we do.

Your kingdom come, O Lord.

We rededicate ourselves to reconciliation: let us ask for forgiveness of those we have hurt; help us, in your mercy, to do the hard work of forgiving those who have hurt us. Where there is division between individuals, races, or tribes, may we be bearers of light and understanding.

Your kingdom come, O Lord.

We rededicate ourselves to hope: when we hear of wars that seem unending and see scars of conflict that run to the bone. In the face of natural disasters or calamities that we ourselves have made, inspire us with your hope to continue to seek your presence and your will.

Your kingdom come, O Lord.

We rededicate ourselves to justice: to fighting against unfair and unequal laws and treatment, and to exposing systems that benefit those who have much and penalize those who have little. Give wisdom to those in authority in this and every land, and give us courage to hold our leaders accountable for their actions.

Your kingdom come, O Lord.

We rededicate ourselves to peace: help us to respond to hatred with love, to anger with kindness. Fill us with your peace that we may share it wherever we go, that by our witness and our actions peace may fill the whole world.

Your kingdom come, O Lord.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, this day, this year, now and forever. All this we ask through the holy name of your son, Jesus Christ, who entered this world that the world may be saved. Through him we offer these prayers as we dedicate ourselves to you, today and always. Amen.

Man, I wish I could go to this Bar Mitzvah!

Thanks, Kellor! This is awesome!

Vulnerability, priesthood, and Holy Week

Cross-posted at the Confirm not Conform blog.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear Brené Brown present at a conference to a group of Episcopal church leaders. This was especially fun for me because I’ve been a big Brené Brown fan ever since I saw her first TED talk on the power of vulnerability, but this was the first time I’d gotten to hear her speak from the point of view of faith.

Dr. Brown (may I call her Brené?) is a member of an Episcopal church in (I believe) Houston, Texas, and talked about her own experience returning to church after a long absence. She shared that during the new members class, she and the teaching priest did not have the same understanding of Christ, but that the priest had made it clear that though they didn’t agree, Brené and her family belonged.

Brené asked the group if they knew the number one barrier to belonging was. We all had guesses. We all guessed wrong. “The number one barrier to belonging,” she told us, “is fitting in.”

I was floored. Why was it bad to fit in? How does that keep us from belonging? She explained: fitting in is about assessing the situation and adapting to it. It is not about being yourself. Belonging is about showing up and being seen for who you are, even if it is different from the other people around you. You cannot belong if you have to fit in.

Isn’t that fascinating?

I suspect you think I might go on to talk about how we want people in our churches to fit in to our models of belief and behavior. But that’s not what I want to talk about right now. I want to talk to my fellow-clergy for a moment, so lean in a little closer. Because here’s what else Brené talked about: she talked about us clergy types. And she has got our number.

She pointed out that clergy, like the academics she works with, have a similar weakness: we tend to think that being more accessible means being less intelligent or sophisticated. The more Jesus-y we are, the more holy we think we appear to others. But this kind of holiness has separated us from people. She notes that often we are trained to take care of the church, not of people. “You have to start where people are, so people see their stories reflected in what you’re saying.”

“People are starving,” she said to this group. And what people need is to know that “you care more about what I need than what your peers think of you.” Actually, I would say it’s that we care more about what the people we work with and for need than we care even about what they think of us.

“You cannot have a conversation more vulnerable than you already are,” she told us. And that is a scary thought. It would be great for our congregations to be full of people who are open and honest and vulnerable and courageous. But what if they can’t do that unless we are open and honest and vulnerable and courageous? What would happen then?

Maybe they won’t think we’re smart. Maybe they won’t think we’re holy. Maybe they won’t think we look like a priest or sound like a priest or act like a priest.

But here’s the thing: our priesthood does not depend upon whether we fit in. Our priesthood does not require us to be perfect. We are called “In all that you do…to nourish Christ’s people from the riches of [wait for it…] his grace.” Not our profundity. Not our appearance of Priestliness. We’re sharing Christ, who hung out with the wrong people and said the wrong things and told little stories about farming and families and acted strangely and did not fit in. That guy. Not the "Jesus-y" behavior we think makes us holy.

So maybe we can draw from that. Maybe there will be a cost, as Jesus well knew. But Brené also told us “There is no faith without vulnerability.” What if she’s right? If she’s right, then how do we share faith if we are never vulnerable?

“Who is Jesus for you?” someone asked Brené at the end of her talk. She said (roughly), “I’m not a priest. I’m not bound to take on a certain theology or belief. But to me, Jesus is someone who could be on a cross and still look out at the people and world around him in love. And that’s what I hope to be able to do too.” Well, I am a priest, and I think if I were able to do that, I’d be a much better one.

A blessed and vulnerable Holy Week to you.

What Mr. Rogers taught me about the Transfiguration

Transfiguration by Raphael

The son of friends of mine got a concussion right before Christmas. And then another one. After he got the all clear and came home from the hospital, he suddenly started getting seizures. His eyesight blurred and his speech slurred. He got excruciating headaches.

Tests showed nothing wrong. Doctors said that there was a miscommunication between brain and body: that the pain had no cause, but the brain was getting the message that it was there. Because there was no actual cause for the pain, they could do nothing to stop it. The pain was so horrible that his father prayed that he could die just to end it.

So you can imagine that I was drawn to the second half of the Transfiguration story in the gospel, in which Jesus comes down from the mountain and is met with a distraught father whose son is having seizures.

It seems to me there is very little to separate the transfiguration into glory and the transfiguration into agony. Both involve the removing of a veil. Both involve truly seeing the person that stands in front of you.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a video of Mr. Rogers being interviewed by, of all people, Joan Rivers. Towards the end of the interview (at the 6:00 mark), Rivers invited Mr. Rogers to sing "It's You I Like." He says, "I'll sing it to you," and she says, "Oh, no, I'll die." He proceeds to sing directly to Rivers,

It's you I like.
It's not the things you wear.
It's not the way you do your hair,
but it's you I like.

And Rivers, who has faced every kind of insult and heckling, building an impervious shell of self-mockery over a long career, proceeds to pull a sweater over her head to hide from the directness of being seen. And in being seen, I at least get a glimpse of a transfigured Joan Rivers I had never seen before.



Mr. Rogers, it seems to me, has an amazing gift for seeing the person who is standing in front of him. All the time. Every time. And I think the transfiguration is in the seeing of a person's true personhood.

Jesus' words in response to the father's plea are shocking, and at first I did not find much comfort there: "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?" I found myself praying to Jesus what he was saying that for? And I don't know if this is the answer or not, I have nothing to back me up, but here's what I'm wondering:

I noticed that the father shouted "from the crowd." And one of the things he shouted was that he had "begged your disciples" to heal his son, but they couldn't.

So then I wondered, why was the father simply sent back to the crowd? How would it have been if the disciples had said, "We are sorry that we don't have the power to heal your son. Wait here until Jesus comes down and we'll talk with him about what to do."

I wonder now if the reason Jesus is angry is that He recognizes a group of people that do not see one another. When Jesus came down, did he truly see this man in his agony? Is he saying to the disciples and the crowd, "Why on God' green earth do you not see what I am seeing?" And to the man, "Bring me your son. Because I see you."

When I talk about being seen, I'm not suggesting oversharing. What I mean is, how can we look at one another and recognize there is a whole history there, of suffering and of glory, beyond that momentary encounter. How can we do a better job of truly seeing one another?

This is a very abridged (and somewhat changed) version of a sermon I preached yesterday. Your continued prayers for Robert are greatly appreciated. He is recovering, but there is a long way to go.

The Rev. Judy Upham: Love and the long haul

As you may know, I'm one of the so-called Celebrity Bloggers for Lent Madness, the yearly competition where saints fight it out to see who wins the Golden Halo. I'm writing up the bios for my first round picks and this morning was doing some research on Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian shot and killed in 1965 while participating in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama.

Photo taken by Jonathan Daniels

But as I did so, I noticed that he had not been the only seminarian there, and I wondered what happened to his fellow seminarian, Judith Upham.

God bless Google, which led me to this interview with the Rev. Judith Upham, now 70, who still serves as an assisting priest at St. Alban's, Arlington, TX. And I found myself moved to tears as I realized that, after leaving Alabama, Upham had far more to fight.

Upham spent time as a director of religious education, then earned a degree in social work. When General Convention approved ordaining women as deacons in 1970, she said, “for me it was like bells ringing.” 

She began working for women’s ordination to the priesthood, becoming a founding member of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus and serving as an alternate deputy at the 1973 General Convention. She was ordained a deacon in 1975, a priest on Epiphany 1977.

Note, too, that Arlington, where Rev. Upham now works, is in the Diocese of Fort Worth which Episcopal Church watchers will know was a diocese that refused to ordain women and whose bishop decamped, claiming the diocese was under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Not surprisingly, her work there is reconciliation.

On Sunday, when we heard the reading from 1 Corinthians 13, I was struck by how many descriptors of love include the long haul. It's not "love is kind, love is patient," but "love is patient, love is kind," and it struck me that this was key to understanding the work of love. That the work of love requires endurance and a grasp of the big picture, rather than instant gratification. The arc of the moral universe is long, as Martin Luther King said, but it bends toward justice. Because, I would say, the arc of the moral universe depends upon love which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I am not about to take anything away from Jonathan Daniels and his witness and sacrifice, but I want especially today to celebrate the long work of love exhibited by the Rev. Upham and wish her every blessing in her continued ministry. Thank you for your endurance.

Reading Auden for Christmas

I tend to look at blog stats too much, but I'm glad I did so recently when I noticed someone had clicked on Christmas Oratorio. What's that? I wondered, and found a post I'd done a year ago that was a poem by W.H. Auden that is fantastic. (It's reposted below.)

I did a little more digging and found it was one small snippet of a very long piece called For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. The plan was for Benjamin Britten to set it to music, which would have been fantastic except it probably would have taken days to perform. It's 37 pages of text in the edition of Collected Poems I checked out of the library, and covers from Advent to the Flight Into Egypt.

And it ends there, with the flight into Egypt. I hadn't thought about that, about how Christmas ends with a cliffhanger. The order of events gets so mixed up in the calendar, with the magi arriving tomorrow on Epiphany (in the church year), but the Slaughter of the Innocents, which happens after they leave, occurred a week ago on December 28.

And so, with Joseph and Mary and Jesus on the lam, and with the recitative immediately before beginning, "Fly, Holy Family, from our immediate rage," the next-to-last section begins with "Well, so that is that." So shocking, and so wonderful.

There are so many wonderful, shocking moments in this work. I haven't made my way through it all yet. I loved part II in the Temptation of Joseph section. Here's a little bit:

  For those delicious memories
Cigars and sips of brandy can restore
To old dried boys, for gallantry that scrawls
  In idolatrous detail and size
A symbol of aggression on toilet walls,
For having reasoned -- "Woman is naturally pure
since she has no moustache," for having said,
  "No woman has a business head,"
You must learn now that masculinity,
To nature, is a non-essential luxury.

And Herod's essay/proclamation on The Massacre of the Innocents is incredible.

But the whole thing is. It's worth savoring. It gave me so much to think about in a deep Christmas mode, far past the manger. I can see this is a work I will have to revisit when Advent rolls around.

The oratorio ends with this text, which is in the Episcopal hymnal and have never heard sung. It makes much more sense in its original context.

He is the Way.
Follow him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

October 1941-July 1942

From "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio" by W.H. Auden

The Flight Into Egypt
III
Narrator

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --
Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

Various & Sundry: My Miserable Pony Takes the GOEs, Gains Wisdom

I wasn't quite sure what to make of this tweet:

@vapriestess @karanslade That may be my new code phrase for something. Don't mess with Buttercup Sprinkles.
— Laurie B. (@Drtysxyministry) January 5, 2013

Until I saw this:


OK! Now that we've got that out of the way...

The General Ordination Exams are this week, testing potential Episcopal priests on subjects that I cannot recall at the moment. The Crusty Old Dean is having quite a time of it, expounding on each question, and for Episcopal geekery, he cannot be beat.

I am so glad I will never have to take those again. I realized today that they reminded me (to expand the field of geekery) of the Kobayashi Maru simulation, given to Star Fleet Academy cadets to put them in a no-win situation. Unless you're Kirk.



In other movie news, Buzzfeed offers A "Les Miz" Character Guide. For example:

And since I'm doing lots of videos today, here's that video that's been making the rounds of a family falling apart after seeing Les Miz. I fall apart just watching the trailer, so believe me, I'm laughing with them.

Oh, and for all you GOE-takers out there, and others as well, I offer you James Martin's 12 things I wish I knew at 25.  Probably especially 7, 8, and 9.

1. First up: Stop worrying so much! It's useless. (I.e. Jesus was right.) 

2. Being a saint means being yourself. Stop trying to be someone else and just be your best self. Saves you heartache. 

3. There's no right way to pray, any more than there's a right way to be a friend. What's "best" is what works best for you. 

4. Remember three things and save yourself lots of unneeded heartache: You're not God. This ain't heaven. Don't act like a jerk. 

5. Your deepest, most heartfelt desires are God's desires for you. And vice versa. Listen. And follow them. 

6. Within you is the idea of your best self. Act as if you were that person and you will become that person, with God's grace. 

7. Don't worry too much about the worst that can happen. Even if it happens, God is with you, and you can handle it. Really. 

8. You can't force people to approve of you, agree with you, be impressed with you, love you or even like you. Stop trying. 

9. When we compare, we are usually imagining someone else's life falsely. So our real-life loses out. I.e. Compare and despair. 

10. Even when you finally realized the right thing, or the Christian thing, to do, it can still be hard to do. Do it anyway. 

11. Seven things to say frequently: I love you. Thank you. Thank you, God. Forgive me. I'm so happy for you! Why not? Yes. 

12. Peace and joy come after asking God to free you -- from anything that keeps you from being loving and compassionate.

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

Thank you to David Lose for bringing this poem to my attention.

Various & Sundry: Can't Touch This

It's been a while since I've had a chance to do the random round-up. Let's see what I've got here...

In tea news, you'll be glad to hear that the London-based loose-leaf brew bar, "Bringing better cups of tea to the streets of London: loose leaf, custom-brewed and served from a 1974 Citroen H van," has already been oversubscribed on Kickstarter. I definitely plan to get a cuppa if and when I get to London.

I saw the movie Argo a couple of weeks ago, and really appreciated Lance Mannion's take on it. It's less a review and more a meditation on the lessons it may have to teach us in this day and age.

There are times when there really isn’t anything we can do. There are problems that can’t be solved. There are situations where even someone as powerful as the President of the United States has no control. Under those circumstances, when success isn’t an option, despair and surrender are temptations that must still be resisted. The best thing we can do is do our jobs, to exercise what little control we have in the little sphere in which we still have it, and instead of holing up by ourselves, reach out to those nearest whom we can help. We have to take care of each other.

One person who exercised what control he had in his sphere was James R. Dumpson, who died this week at the age of 103. The headline for his obituary was "defender of the poor," and what a wonderful accolade! He was the NYC Commissioner of Welfare in the early '60's, and had a message that still needs to be heard today: that "the only test for public assistance was a citizen’s need, not morals."

I almost always find something to love in David Lose's daily blog posts, but this one, entitled Theology as Conversation, I found particularly compelling. Probably because it's exactly what we're trying to do with Confirm not Conform. "True belief," he says, "grows only in the space created by the freedom to question." Amen to that.

Meanwhile, in a less...reverent part of the blogosphere, Lent Madness mastermind Tim Schenck prepared a wonderful Litany for Diocesan Conventions.

From those compelled to speak from any available microphone even with nothing to say,
Good Lord, deliver us.

From liturgies that include the clapping of hands and hymns no one knows,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Amen again.

Oh, there was an election this week, wasn't there? In President Obama's acceptance speech I appreciated his comment that "We are not as divided as our politics suggest." One scientific study, at least, tends to back him up on this sentiment.

It was a wonderful speech. I appreciated what he had to say about democracy, about debate, about patriotism.

Then there's this. I admit I like this too.

Forgiveness

There's too much going on for me to blog about this the way it deserves, but I wanted to post a couple of things related to forgiveness. I'm still pondering these, so not much commentary. If you have brilliant things to say to tie these together, please do!

First, an obituary for Eric Lomax, tortured by the Japanese during WWII. Many years later, Lomax found a picture of the Japanese interpreter, Takashi Nagase, who had been involved in his torture.

For two years Lomax did nothing. Then he obtained a translation of Nagase’s memoir, which explained how shame had led the interpreter to create a Buddhist shrine beside the death railway. Patti Lomax then wrote to Nagase, enclosing her husband’s photograph and suggesting that perhaps the two men could correspond. She asked: “How can you feel 'forgiven’, Mr Nagase, if this particular Far Eastern prisoner-of-war has not yet forgiven you?”

You'll need to read the obituary to find out what happens. (Or you can wait til next May when Railway Man is released as a film staring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman.)

But I was struck by that notion that you cannot feel forgiven if the person you have wronged hasn't forgiven you.

That same day I saw a video of Brene Brown, talking about going back to church "for the wrong reasons"--to get away from pain. Instead, she found that the church was a midwife, not an epidural. She describes how the dean of her church explained that "In order for forgiveness to really happen, something has to die." She goes on to say that in her research, there are two emotions that people fear the most: shame and grief. "And so, if something has to die in order for forgiveness to happen, and people are deathly afraid to feel grief, then we just won't forgive anybody, because I don't want to feel grief."

As I said: pondering.

Evelyn Underhill 2012!

I am completely partisan in today's Lent Madness match-up between Monnica and Evelyn Underhill. Let's go Evelyn! I've gone so far as to bribe encourage voters by letting them know you can get a FREE Kindle download of Underhill's book, Practical Mysticism (with the great subtitle "A Little Book for Normal People").

One of the things I love about Evelyn is her insistence that mysticism is not about getting away from it all; instead, "Mysticism is the art of union with Reality."

"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels."  In her view, mysticism is about getting beyond the superficial labels.

It's also about more than "the life of my own inside."  There's a great, but longish, quote from Underhill I wish I could have included in the write-up for today, but it was just too long.  (The last quote in the write-up is drawn from this passage.)  Here's an excerpt:

My spiritual life is not something specialised and intense; a fenced-off devotional patch rather difficult to cultivate, and needing to be sheltered from the cold winds of the outer world. Nor is it an alternative to my outward, practical life. On the contrary, it is the very source of that quality and purpose which makes my practical life worth while. The practical life of a vast number of people is not, as a matter of fact, worth while at all. It is like an impressive fur coat with no one inside it. One sees many of these coats occupying positions of great responsibility. Hans Andersen's story of the king with no clothes told one bitter and common truth about human nature; but the story of the clothes with no king describes a situation just as common and even more pitiable.

So vote Evelyn!  We need saints who encourage us to deal with Reality and not just labels. Practical Mysticism all the way!

Updated late afternoon: Someone in the comments on Lent Madness said "Generally, I have a difficult time with English mystics (yes, even blessed Julian!), but Underhill makes sense to me." This made me realize that most mystics write about "this is what I saw;" Evelyn writes, "Here is how you can look--and why it's worthwhile to do so."

Sermon from 9/11/11

I preached this sermon in Fort Bragg, CA, a town that was suffering from a far more recent trauma in the murder of a city councilman.  [The suspected murderer was himself killed last Sunday.] The service started at 10, the time when all the churches, police, and fire stations in town were requested to ring bells or sound sirens to mark the day. The following is an abridged version of what I preached, as best I can remember it, piecing it together from my notes.

To prepare for this sermon, I read the Archbishop of  Canterbury's reflections on 9/11, Writing in the Dust. He was actually there when the towers were hit, preparing to give a presentation at Trinity Wall Street, so he's not writing about this from a distant perspective.

One of the things he said that I liked very much is that he is "very suspicious of any action that brings a sense of release, irrespective of what it achieves; [he's] very wary of doing something so that it looks as if something is getting done."

I think that includes forgiveness.

The gospel for today is a particularly tough one, I think, made more difficult because we in the church want to jump to forgiveness, sometimes before either party is ready.  Too often this passage is used as an excuse for people to hurt others over and over.  Too often those injured receive no repentence and yet are told if they do not forgive, they will be punished.

But the phrase that leaps out at me is the one at the very end of Jesus' lesson: the three words "from your heart."  And once I focused on that, I started seeing the heart everywhere I turned. Starting in the collect where we ask God to "direct and rule our hearts" to the collect for purity in which we concede from the outset that "all hearts are open" to God to the post-communion prayer in which we ask "to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart," it's clear that our heart needs to be in the right place.

And so it seems to me that our first task is to ask ourselves, Where is your heart? Not where you think it ought to be, or where other people tell you it ought to be, or where you would like it to be: Where is it really?

Another theme that Rowan Williams kept returning to in his book was the need for breathing room.  It's strange to say, but even after 10 years, I'm not sure we've ever allowed ourselves any breathing room around 9/11.  What would happen if we did? If we didn't need to fix it or understand it or resolve it?

And so I would suggest that our second task is to give ourselves time, to give ourselves breathing space.  It may be that time itself will allow us to move on more than we may think. After any momentous event--good or bad--, it simply takes time to absorb what happened and adjust to the new reality.  The Israelites left slavery in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, and then spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness.  Give yourself some breathing space.

Whether it's 9/11, or the death of a friend and neighbor, or some personal slight that has rocked your world, breathe; uncover your heart; and only then, without force or compulsion, and as you find it in your heart, forgive.

Addendum: Reflecting on this, the one thing I wish I'd thought to add was a section about how we can trust and believe that God will lead our hearts to a place of forgiveness, if that is what we desire.  That's why we don't need to provide forgiveness under compulsion; God is working in our hearts and so we can be at peace, even knowing that we are not where we want to be. I believe God will lead us there.

Various and Sundry, September 10

I'm on my way to Fort Bragg shortly, so this will be brief.

Let's start with an obituary for the fabulous Miss Betty Skelton, daredevil, stuntwoman, test driver, potential astronaut, and all-around record breaker. I'll give away the ending: "Latterly, with her second husband, Allan Erde, a retired Navy doctor, who survives her, she lived in a retirement community at which most of the residents travel about in golf carts. Betty Skelton, however, drove a red Corvette convertible that almost matched the colour of her hair."

I stumbled across this site that obsessively (or perhaps compulsively) catalogs the religious affiliation of comic book characters. Supervillains have a strong predilection towards atheism. Lex Luthor, I am sorry to say, is a lapsed Episcopalian. I found myself thinking, "What could his youth minister have done?" (Superman is good Midwestern Methodist.) You will also be glad to know that Captain Underpants is Jewish. I told you they were obsessive.

Finally (I did mention this would be brief), I loved this Ted talk on tinkering. True for kids, true for adults too. I think we worry too much about Messing Up. What if Messing Up were a good thing and part of the whole process?

Various and Sundry, February 18

I'm preaching this Sunday at All Saints, San Leandro, and everything I see seems to me to be related to the readings this Sunday, a great set of readings that all, I think, boils down to the verse of the Psalm,

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes
and I shall keep it to the end.

One of my very favorite verses of the Psalms, and the section of Psalm 119 that was used at my ordination to the transitional diaconate. The thing I love is that "it"--the way of the statutes; it's not about each individual law.

ANYWAY, the point is, I keep seeing stuff that reminds me of the readings, or the readings make me look at the stuff I'm seeing through that particular lens. Such as Lionel Deimel's great aphorism, "If God had wanted to give us clear instructions for living, he wouldn’t have given us the Bible." Oh, you can say that again.

Another thing I'm seeing through this lens is both this article and the Ted talk below about what kind of incentives work for people. They are the antithesis of another grand aphorism, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." Can you see how this applies to religious life as well?



In the aid world, there's been a lot of chatter about World Vision distributing the leftover T-shirts from the SuperBowl--the ones that celebrated Pittsburgh's non-existent win. Fascinating stuff, very thought provoking. As Texas In Africa says,

It says something sad about our society's materialism and greed that we can't wait a few days for the NFL to print up accurate t-shirts while not wasting money on printing ones it knows will not be sold. But it says something even sadder when an organization that purports to be engaged in poverty alleviation with a faith-based motive won't tell the NFL "no" when it is asked to do something that actually contributes to the causes of poverty and injustice. It matters if theology motivates your behavior, and that should be reflected in decisions the organization makes about GIK [gifts in kind].

World Vision, I think you can do better.

So can we all. What is the way, not the law?

Survey says...

I really don't know quite what to make of the results from the Pew Forum's survey of religious knowledge in the U.S. The big headline in the Times yesterday was "Atheists outdo some believers in survey on religion." The headline was Basic religion test stumps many Americans. But I don't know...is it basic religion to know who Maimonides is?

I mean, there were some stunners. I was shocked at how many people couldn't identify Martin Luther as the instigator of the Protestant reformation. But that's because I thought that was something everyone learned in 9th grade world history. Although it's basic religious knowledge, I thought it was just basic knowledge, period.

I was interested to see how many Catholics thought the Catholic Church teaches that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are symbols of Christ's body and blood. Although it's more fun to say, "Ha ha! Those Catholics don't know what the Church's doctrine is!", I wonder if another read might be that even those teaching the Church's doctrine don't believe or teach that doctrine. I don't know. Just speculating.

Although much was made of the fact that atheists scored highest on average on the test (20.9 correct out of 32), it should be noted that they still only got a 65 percent. It should also be noted that how well people did on the test seems to be more directly related to level of education than other factors.

Dan Schultz, a blogger/pastor/author, put it this way on his Twitter feed: "The Pew survey on religious knowledge strikes me as a measure of reading levels in our nation. Doesn't anyone pick up a book any more?"

He's also thinking about giving the quiz to his congregation as a conversation starter. I think that's a cool idea. There's a handout with 15 of the 32 questions, but also the full phone-survey questionnaire, which was fascinating in its own right. For instance, it reports that "half of the time interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adultmale currently at home and the other half of the time asked to speak with the youngest adult female currently at home. If no respondent of the initially requested gender was available, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult of the opposite gender who was currently at home." What effect did age have on the results?

I'm afraid it sounds like I'm excusing the abysmal results of this survey. Well, maybe I am, a little. I'm just not sure it says what they say it says. After watching one or two rounds of Ellen De Generes' "Know or Go," I'm not sure this shows a special failing on the part of people of faith.

Ramadan

I learned that today is the first day of Ramadan. I will be praying for my Muslim brothers and sisters as they fast through the month to come. I will pray especially for their safety and for their freedom to worship as they choose.

There are days when I cannot believe the times in which I live. I cannot believe I live in a time in which people protest mosques as unAmerican. Frankly, the very use of that word should give people pause. Luckily, Jon Stewart is on the case.

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I say God bless NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg for his great speech in support of a group wishing to establish an Islamic Center in Manhattan.

The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right – and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.

The World Trade Center Site will forever hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves – and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans – if we said ‘no’ to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

I miss the Republican party. I miss the Republican party that gave a damn about the law of the land rather than the law of its own convenience. Ronald Reagan signed and stood up for the UN Convention on Torture in 1984. Even George W. Bush--W. himself--understood and was adamant that Muslims are Americans also. I am quite certain that we will look back on this period of our history with shame and astonishment and wonder how it could have happened. I wonder how it can happen even now.

The Roncalli Junior Varsity Softball Team Theory of Atonement

A friend of mine posted a link on Twitter to a story about the day Roncalli High School took on Marshall in a Junior Varsity softball game. Take it away, Rick Reilly:

After an inning and a half, Roncalli was womanhandling inner-city Marshall Community. Marshall pitchers had already walked nine Roncalli batters. The game could've been 50-0 with no problem.

It's no wonder. This was the first softball game in Marshall history. A middle school trying to move up to include grades 6 through 12, Marshall showed up to the game with five balls, two bats, no helmets, no sliding pads, no cleats, 16 players who'd never played before, and a coach who'd never even seen a game.

One Marshall player asked, "Which one is first base?" Another: "How do I hold this bat?" They didn't know where to stand in the batter's box. Their coaches had to be shown where the first- and third-base coaching boxes were.

That's when Roncalli did something crazy. It offered to forfeit.

Yes, a team that hadn't lost a game in 2½ years, a team that was going to win in a landslide purposely offered to declare defeat. Why? Because Roncalli wanted to spend the two hours teaching the Marshall girls how to get better, not how to get humiliated.

"The Marshall players did NOT want to quit," wrote Roncalli JV coach Jeff Traylor, in recalling the incident. "They were willing to lose 100 to 0 if it meant they finished their first game." But the Marshall players finally decided if Roncalli was willing to forfeit for them, they should do it for themselves. They decided that maybe -- this one time -- losing was actually winning.

[emphasis mine]

Sounds like a story of sacrifice, grace, and redemption to me.

I've never much cared for the theories of atonement that say God's honor was offended, or that God punished Jesus in our place. Reading this story made me wonder if we could think of atonement as God forfeiting a game God could have easily won because God is more interested in helping us win than in winning.

But I just think of those things because I'm a total geek. You should just read the story and enjoy it. It's lovely.

The mind and the senses

I was intrigued by an obituary I saw earlier this week for a psychologist named Richard Gregory. He was an experimental psychologist who was particularly fascinated by the way the brain fills in visual information. "He explained that perception involves two sorts of processing: the straightforward acceptance of what is in the retinal image; and the use of what we already know, or have learned, to fill in or complete the image."

Here he is explaining it himself:



"Well, blow me down!" he says.

A long time ago, I remember reading an interview with the documentarian Errol Morris who said "Believing is seeing and not the other way around." His further contention is that "Unhappily, an unerring fact of human nature is that we habitually reject the evidence of our own senses. If we want to believe something, then we often find a way to do so regardless of evidence to the contrary." But Professor Gregory also shows that sometimes our senses have no idea what to make of the evidence in front of us. Or that we make something of it because something in us compels us to make something of it.

I can't tell you how happy I am not to be preaching on the Trinity this Sunday. But if I were, I think I'd be talking about how desperately we want to explain things and how at this moment I am feeling very at ease knowing that I am unable to comprehend the Trinity even with the best efforts of my mind and senses. I know I'm filling in the blanks but I hope I also know that this is not because I understand but because I want to.