Honoring the Hems of Home

Sermon #6

2010-04-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

Worried? Jesus has the Cure!
In our times together this year, meditating upon the Word proclaimed and its response in our lives, we have shared and pondered many realities, continuing to ask God to speak to our hearts and give us the courage and strength to listen. Jack preached a sermon-series on the stain glass windows that surround us, and he has recently preached powerful, succinct sermons about the meaning of Jesus’ actions in the Gospels—spurring us to ask: What is Grace? What is the meaning of the Resurrection; what transformation lies ahead as we answer the call of God in our lives?

In sermons with you this past year, I recall preaching about grace alongside my fear of water. We talked about the dance of the Trinity as well as the magnificent Advent quote in Isaiah, where the lion and lamb lie down together. We have also grappled with Jesus’ peculiar interaction with fig trees.

Preparing today’s sermon, I came across this forceful quotation from Presbyterian author and pastor, Frederick Buechner. Defining the word, “sermon,” Buechner writes:

SERMON

Well, something one cannot deny if one preaches as Buechner describes, daring to look authentically at human experience and how God breaks into our world and shakes things up (or seemingly lacks the ability to do so), one of the most challenging realities in the world today is fear and correspondingly worry…

You don’t have to have a PhD in counseling to know that there is great pain and corresponding worry in the world. We talk about it in small groups and sometimes it wakes up us at night, religious questions, financial questions, existential questions,. We recognize worry as we strive to recruit and build our organizations and town businesses. We sometimes even see our pain and worry when we consider our children’s futures or the future of our church.
Fear and its reciprocal response of being worry meets us early… at the first loss of a pet… or the first sign or taste of injustice….

For me, as for so many, memories of injustice begin soon—too soon. As an example, I recall one of my classmates in kindergarten named Carmencita. Carmencita was the only Latino student in my class and, even at such a young age, I recognized how she often experienced a kind of alienation and loneliness in the context of our little classroom.

In our world of harshness, where we know what it is like to worry, we meet today’s Scripture…. And we dive and are driving into the core of authentic human experience!

And then one might wonder: What does this Scripture say to me? At the surface of the text, simple and true, a profound message appears:
Do not fear. You are not alone. The Father & I are one, and so you need not worry about being snatched away. You are my sheep, and the shepherd knows how to care for his sheep.
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.
(FOLLOW ME)

Handel has his famous refrain speaking to this theme:

He Shall Feed His Flock, like a shepherd. And he shall gather the lambs in his arms. In his arms. And carry them in his bosom.

In the wider context of our Gospel, the Gospel of John, we see increasing meaning for our passage:

Consider the Gospel of John itself
John 1—The Word (Jesus) with God.

** God, the Good Shepherd, cares for us. Christ comes to us in divine-human form to represent the shepherd, to become and be the shepherd. We now see the shepherd in the flesh. We experience the reality of divine compassion.

Moving on: Beginning his ministry
“The Jews”—2:13 Beginning of conversation with the Jews

Jewish religious establishment in Jerusalem is being spoken to

What question are “the Jews” asking here? Are you the Messiah?!
Luke 22:67 ‡ 23 (Conversation with Pilate)

** God, the Good Shepherd, cares for us. Christ comes to us in divine-human form to represent the shepherd. to become and be the shepherd. We now see the shepherd in the flesh. We experience the reality of divine compassion.

The Samaritan Woman: 4:25

** God, the Good Shepherd, cares for us. Christ comes to us in divine-human form to represent the shepherd. to become and be the shepherd. We now see the shepherd in the flesh. We experience the reality of divine compassion.

*** OUR VERSE: Theological conclusion to Jesus’ public ministry

OUR PASSAGE:
The Feast of Dedication
This is the Jewish festival of Hanukkah
The liberation of Jerusalem from the reign of the Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes

Portico—eastern side—most protected during the winter

Jews have a new question for Jesus. They wonder: How long will you keep us in suspense? Translated in the Greek, many suggest the question likewise suggests: How long will you take away our life/continue to annoy us? What is your intention here?

Then, Jesus gets into the MEAT of a fairly direct, theological conversation. No parables here. He says plainly: I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; 26but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. (WORKS—sometimes translated as miracles—It refers to everything—from the water‡ wine, Jesus’ work in the temple, Jesus’ encounter with the Samitarian woman—and he says POWERFULLY: My children, my sheep. They know me. And they do not need to worry or go over and over and over again in their heads: Who is this Jesus? Does he have any meaning to me? They know: He and the Father God are ONE.
He and God are united in the work that they do.

God gives life; Jesus gives life.

God judges. Jesus judges. God, the Good Shepherd, cares for us. Christ comes to us in divine-human form to represent the shepherd. Christ is the shepherd. We see the shepherd in the flesh. We experience the reality of divine compassion.)
Jesus continues: 27My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.
For those of us who need to hear this kind of message more than once… give it time to sink in amongst many of the contrary messages that our culture gives us… let me say it again:

Jesus tells us: 27My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Friends, have you been feeling this grace? Have you been experiencing the profound life that God gives? Our world is full of pain, and we have many reasons to feel overwhelmed by it all. But this passage, this Scripture for us today, says: Dare to know that if you are worried… If you are, like so many, worried and worn down by the world’s suffering, God has a special word for you today:
My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Looking in our passage further, another morsel of encouragement appears:

Shepherd Info!!

Prominent figure-
Sheep- sign of wealth

Shepherd-
1) Symbol for God
Psalms 23
Psalm 80- Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock;
you who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth
Isaiah 40:11-- 11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young. (handel)
MOVING INTO THE NT:
(2) As a Figure for Jesus
Hebrews 13:20 – Jesus as the Great Shepherd of the Sheep
1 Peter 2:25—Jesus as the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

shift as example to follow‡

Ephesians 4:11 The world used for pastor is the same word used for shepherd.

1 Peter 5:2-4 – warning to get rich at other’s expense.
2Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 3not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

WORRY
In our world of great worry, Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, has suggested that we live a new reality… a powerful reality in a world of great worry and concern: Let us pastor each other, according to the example of our Triune God!

Carmencita Story

Sermon # 5

2010-03-11T16:54:00.002-08:00

And I promise I will stop numbering my sermons shortly....

Today's Sermon, I used as an opportunity to step a little away from my manuscript and to work more with notes. Where you see the Luke Scripture quoted, I improvised, with the help of the Spirit, to contextualize the Scripture and otherwise make the Word do what it will, which is to come to life!

Was Jesus a ‘Tree-Hugger’?: Sermon on Luke 13 & Isaiah 55

You know, us Christians… us human beings… We often like progress, movement forward, achievement, mmm! In some ways, we’d rather talk about speed than steadiness, theory than praxis, quantity than quality, and being cured rather than the sometimes slow, labor- filled process that is real healing.

And Jesus… Jesus is amazing. His parables address these visceral, in our heart and in our mind concerns—and they come out of the stuff of life, center upon the very things that the people he was in ministry with would regularly encounter.

In today’s Gospel, our everyday object is the fig tree—but rather than being cursed, it is salvaged for a year--- with the call to spread more fertilizer – or manure-- which prompts the question from my sermon title:

Was Jesus a Tree-Hugger?

A slightly bizarre question, you might say, and I would agree with you. It’s not everyday that we hear words like tree-hugger as we sit in these pews; it’s a word more often heard in cultural conversations… and even at times, (at least in the part of the country where I’m from), the word has a slightly negative feel to it; hence, a tree hugger is someone who supports environmental concerns but might, just maybe, has his or her head in the clouds—

Unfortunately, in our present cultural climate, values of universal importance find themselves connected to specific political agendas… leading one to wonder how caring for the earth could become confined to the interest of only a few people? Don’t we desire our young people to have opportunities to explore and preserve Creation and hence we support organizations like the Girl Scouts & Boy Scouts—amazing breakfast!; shouldn’t we all do our part to make sure Mother Earth survives into the future.

It is words like tree-hugger that remind us to question the influence of our cultural rhetoric, unless we find ourselves mistakenly politicizing or quarreling about the very thing that Jesus would have us do!

Ultimately, in Jesus’ telling of the fig tree parable, we receive an important message about tree hugging and it is nothing to do with our mere cultural concept. What this message is may not immediately meet the eye, yet it is remarkably meaningful!

Trouble in the Text
Today’s Gospel lesson feels almost just right for Lent. We are met with several images and depictions that appear, at first, weird, and then full of foreboding. First, there is the discussion of the dreadful fate of the Galileans: Pilate and the Roman forces exact upon them a particular awful form of suffering. Pilate slaughtered a group of these Galileans with the result that their blood mingled with that of their sacrifices. The fact that the suffering of Galileans is mentioned is not particularly shocking: Biblical commentaries suggest that Josephus, an early historian, records Pilate’s bloody confrontations with various peoples—his troops killed a group climbing Mt. Gerizim or there was the time when Pilate seized Temple treasury funds to build an aqueduct.

The mention of these particular Galileans, however, comes up suddenly, seemingly from a member of the crowd, and we don’t know much in the way of any back-story. Yet a powerful, emotional question exists underneath: Were these Galileans somehow worse sinners than other Galileans that they suffered these things?

And then the turning tide continues. More suffering is mentioned: Apparently the tower of Siloam fell, killing 18 people. Were these folks someone worse sinners too?

Jesus’ answer is quick and to the point: It has a grace and an uncomfortable challenge: No—Jus because they suffered this way does not mean that they were worse sinners! Do you hear that?!?! But unless you repent, Jesus says: we all will perish as they did.

Trouble in the World
When it comes to the question of suffering, we cannot help but jump out of 1st century Palestine and consider too the suffering going on right before our eyes! There was the earthquake in Haiti, for instance, and what some of the youth group found out the other week when we were fasting together for the Thirty Hour Famine, it is not just countries like Ethiopia or Haiti that are suffering but also Chile, with their recent earthquake, and even suffering among the poor in our own country… those suffering on this island and just across the bridge.

Beyond economic/physical suffering, there is the emotional suffering
Own despair over the things that keep us from being productive as we’d like
Our over-fatigue, our commitment to so many things that we feel committed to none of them.. We consider what we wrote on our Lent cards as things we’re hoping to take out of our lives during lent—addictions, frustrations, hostilities.

Isaiah passage speaks to this circumstance—Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Grace in the Text
But then, just when we think at all is lost, our text hits us square in the eye with grace when Jesus tells the parable of the “tree-hugger.” What does Jesus tell us it means to be a Tree Hugger?

Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any.

So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'
" 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.'

Our days are precious—We have some responsibility to act, on God’s initiative.

Manure with the growth --- things fail---
Christ the Gardener does not say and so as you garden your lives you should not say: Why waste the soil? -- Even when you are not being productive, it does not mean you’re wasting the soil.

Grace in the World

All the community groups on our campus. The AA group is finishing just as the youth group arrive.

Frederick Buechner:
“It is simply a group of human beings coming together with the common problem of alcohol, . . . saying we simply cannot live full human lives without each other and without [a] Higher Power. Miracles happen. I've seen them happen. In little ways, I think I have experienced them happen in myself. I just can't help wondering to what degree this is perhaps what the church originally was, that is to say, if you went back to the earliest days of the Christian community . . . I suspect you would have found something like this. A little group of people coming together wherever they could and simply helping each other and helping each other find a God who [found them first and] would help them became human beings.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Jesus as tree-hugger is our gardener.

STRONG ROOTS

Garden for others…
Give Thanks!

Communion: "Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Amen.

Sermon # 4

2010-03-11T16:54:00.001-08:00

hearts be acceptable to You, O Lord & Savior.
An Offering for Advent:
One of my favorite passages of Scripture we often hear as our cyclical church calendar spins into Advent-time & then finally into Christmas. It is neither one of our Scripture lessons today and yet these words offer us a starting place from which to contemplate today’s Scriptures as well as the imminent questions: What is all this fuss about Advent—and why is Advent framed with scriptures that speak about what we seminarians call eschatology or, in plain-speak, the question of the end time of history and when Christ will return. For me, these questions are significant, they are powerful, and they likewise spring from yet another one, a question that naturally flows from these much loved scripture verses:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, . . . and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will NOT judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.

These words come to us from the 11th chapter of Isaiah; consider the way that they depict the person of Jesus Christ for us Christians. Christ, as part of the Trinity, is intimately connected with the Holy Spirit--- and Christ acts from this spirit—a spirit of wisdom and of understanding…. a spirit of counsel and of power…. The wickedness that we know on the earth: Our personal sins in which we disobey God’s guidance in our lives and objectify those around us as well as the powers that be who look only to self-interest, the systemic forces that keep people in poverty, that oppress native peoples binding individuals in addiction, self-loathing, and violence --- all of this wickedness will be blown (with breath) away and instead that mystical, heavenly portrait appears: the wolf and the lamb together, the leopard and the goat, the lion and the calf with even the yearling--- (predator safely beside prey) – and a little child will lead them.
Why the little child we wonder and then need look only to our Sunday School program perhaps to find an answer? Yet, I have wondered “Why the Child” myself many times. In Scripture, we find Christ telling his disciples to allow the little children to come to him. We are told in Matthew 18: 3 that unless we become like children, we will “never enter the kingdom of heaven.” There are many ideas about what is special about children; one thing I have noticed is their intrinsic sense of right & wrong. I have seen this most specifically while watching children learn about the abuses of history—they are shocked that the Holocaust could have happened only 60+ years ago, they are saddened by the gap between the rich and the poor, many of them understand what MLK meant when he spoke his famous words about his children being judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, and they are righteously indigent—our adult politics aside--about child labor, human trafficking, and pollution.
And so that aforementioned question that springs from all of this, that emerges with the poignancy of an African American spiritual, the intensity that likewise revealed itself in the words of a teenage girl who said, in the midst of losing everything, “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart,” and this question which likewise flows when one learns about the emotional courage of Hutu and Tutsi young school children in Rwanda who refused to step aside so that 1/2 of them could be killed; this is our question: (PAUSE) When, O God, when… When will your peace come to this earth?!
This advent we symbolically wait for your Son to come, a little child, who ushered forth a new kingdom on Earth. But your child has come, and we are also waiting for something else? We wonder when all the pain in this world will finally cease and the lion and the lamb can in fact lie down together—and no one ends up in the Emergency Room. For, otherwise, as Woody Allen jokes: “The lion and the calf will lay down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.”
With this question of pain waiting and hovering just between our eyes, we come to today’s Gospel lesson. Our lesson from Luke is an apocalyptic text. It is clear that Luke’s community is grappling with the question of time or, more specifically, God’s timing of when the promised return of Jesus and consummation of history will occur. As Preaching Professor at Luther Seminary, David Lose shares: “Whereas Mark seems to tie [the end times and return of Christ] to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, Luke distances the promised end of history. Luke is, in fact, down right vague about when Jesus will return, refusing to offer any specific time-table.” Woe to all of us Schedulers or Type A folk who like our 5 year plans and love to draw up our trim and tidy schedules; we are not talking about 2012— this scripture is not comfortable and although it provides us with some certainty, it seems to be more of the gray kind than the black and white one; but perhaps—at least for those of us here in North America who struggle with the ways in which our use of certainty has hurt others—this is a good news. Perhaps too there is something in this Scripture that we must be certain about—a certainty that we need faithfully exclaim!
If you are reading along with me in your Bibles, take a look at verse 29. Christ hastens his followers, rather than the lilies, to consider the fig tree. “Just as budding fig leaves unmistakably herald the [coming] of summer, so also will the signs of the coming kingdom be [seen] to the Christian community.” The emphasis of the Scripture therefore shifts from when these things will happen to the issue of how the Christian community should act. Look at the fig tre & SEE.
This call to see reminds me of the book that our Book Club has been reading this past month: AJ Jacob’s Year of Living Biblically. Herein, Jacobs comes to Christian faith after trying and failing to live out literally all the laws from the Old and New Testaments. About 3/5 of the way through the book, we read of Jacobs’ experience of taking on the food laws, in particular the rule that one may only eat fruit that is older than four years old. Jacobs finally discovers that, from planting to produce, cherries take five years. They are safe! On this experience of cherry-eating, Jacobs writes:
Each cherry took about 3 seconds to eat. Three seconds to eat but at least five years in the making. It seemed unfair to the hard-working cherry tree. The least I could do was devote my attention to the cherry in those three seconds, really appreciate the tartness of the skin and the faint crunching sound when I bite down. I guess it’s called mindfulness. Or being in the moment, or making the mundane sacred. Whatever it is, I’m doing it more. . . . The fruit taboo made me more aware of the whole cherry process, the seed, the soil, the five years of watering and waiting. That’s the paradox: I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world” (Jacobs, Year of Living Biblically, 172).
What strikes me about Jesus’ parable in Luke is that it functions in a similar way. After revealing many signs of the end of history—signs which people have continuously used to prove their own timetables and oftentimes to condemn the sinfulness of others rather, perhaps, than their own sin--- Luke urges his readers to be mindful: Interpreting the signs of the end is like watching the blossoming of trees. In this sense, regardless of how you interpret the signs themselves, they should be fairly obvious. The important action that is often missed is the watching of the signs—or the watching of the sign-maker. Do not be so bogged down in your own cares that you miss what our Triune God is doing! When you pray and ask God for help, be attentive to how God will respond to your need; as the well-known story goes, don’t refuse the boat, the helicopter, and the ambulance!
This topic of the Apocalypse occasions many emotions and feelings for us; it is just the kind of text that could fill the seminarian with an appropriate amount of fear and trembling. Many, out of faith, speak of the end of history as that great event when the Prince of Peace will come back to earth and those who have loved him will be with him in eternity. Yet depictions of this event fluctuate: some are particularly violent and even seem triumphalist —like kids on the playground, one shouts: It! Not It! Others’ depictions are more gentle—wondering: When, O God, will your You and your Kingdom come to earth?
Today, in our prayers and faith life, let us all look to the 28th verse in today’s chapter. It reads
:
“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
This text reminds me of why, when we say the Assurance of Pardon, I want to shout with enthusiasm! Our God of Love cares for us so much that God desires the absolute best for us. How do we live into that best?! How do we care for others and, empowering them, allow God to touch their lives too? How do we speak of our faith not as something we can dissect or use as a weapon or a selfish tool of self-justification but afford it as the kind of thing it is: Something alive, something moving the world, something speaking a truth so precious that we need not be ashamed to say: We are Christian people. We love our Church. As Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians and as many of us have been saying to each other this Holiday Season, we are thankful for you. Church, I am thankful for you. I am thankful for what God is doing in you: The way that our community serves the Midway Shelter. How we rise around those in pain and grief. Let our love for our God, for each other, and even ourselves— because we cannot love our neighbor unless we have also loved ourselves— Let this love GROW!

Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save the world. Writing about judgment, Presbyterian minister Frederick Buechner tells us: “We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and our dreams. . . . Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have. The NT proclaims that at some unforeseeable time in the future, God will ring down the final curtain on history, and there will come a Day on which all our days and all the judgments upon us and all our judgments upon each other will themselves be judged. The judge will be Christ. In other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully. Romantic love [often] is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.” Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 58.
In conclusion,
“We live, according to Luke, between the two great poles of God's intervention in the world”: the coming of Christ as the baby we celebrate on Christmas morning & Christ’s triumph over death on Easter as well as the coming of Christ in glory at the end of time and his triumph over all the powers of earth and heaven. “We are in the in-between space. We hold by faith and trust belief in what happened in the past—the story’s beginning-- and we now reside in the difficult time before our story’s ending.” Do you know that part of the purpose behind apocalyptic literature was comfort—to communicate hope. Even though we live in a world with great suffering, there is reason to hope. And so, you might wonder: What is the comfort we have from today’s Scripture?!
Congregation folks here at the First Presbyterian Church of Alameda, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is our comfort: We are free to struggle, to wait, to work, to witness, to love- – indeed to live and die – with hope because we know the end of the story…We know the end is in the hands of our Triune God who chose to humble himself, to suffer himself, so that we might live. This Advent, as we wait for the coming of Christ on Christmas, let us remember that all the suffering we experience together is temporary, let us work together to comfort each other, and let us hold firm in faith and be watchful for the day when the lion and the lamb will truly be able to lay down together. Amen.

Sermon # 3

2010-03-11T16:53:00.001-08:00

The sermon for today is called

“Never Alone”

If I were to add a Sub-title to this sermon, I would also call it: Dare to Dance!

Prayer of Illumination-- Silence all voices but thine own.

Let us hear your Word for us today: Amen.

They cut me down, and I leapt up high! I am the Life that will never, never die. I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me. I am the Lord of the Dance said he!
Dance then… wherever you may be.. I am the Lord of the Dance, said He. And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, and I’ll lead you all in the dance said he.

From Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalk,” Classical Ballet, to square-dancing (which I actually got to learn in gym class of all places), the Macarena, DDR, and Step dance, we Americans are a people who enjoy dancing. Now, after hearing our Scriptures read this morning--- Psalms 23—which has a special place in the heart of many of our congregation members as the beloved Scripture of our member Ruthie Pond, who recently passed--- and John 14—( ….) you might be scratching your heads and wondering, rightly: What in the world do these scriptures have to say about Dance?…
And to top this all off, what do these Scriptures and DANCING then have to say about our featured stain glass window for today? For as some of you know, our sermon series the past number of weeks has focused on the church’s stain glass windows. Today, we will focus on this window . I want to encourage you to just take a moment and look carefully at the window and ponder---- What do you see there….

As I speak to you today, be challenged to hear what Word the Lord of the Dance would give you- not some other day—but this day.

I invite you all to contemplate and pray with me on this theme:
Even when life feels odd--- remember you’re loved by a Dancing God.

In other words, when we’re walking through the valley of the shadows, remember that our Triune God has our back; just as in the dance of love we see displayed in the Trinity relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—so the Holy Spirit will come and stir a dance in our hearts--- a dance of the soul, a dance of life—and for this reason, no matter the challenges, let us be bold--- Because God will never leave us alone. We will never be orphaned. Hence, if we live in God, God will live with us—just as the song I sang in opening expressed.

Well, I am a sucker for stories… and our stain glass window for today has a very interesting one. It was created in the memory of a woman named Sarah Hastings by her son. Doing research on this window, one uncovers these words, describing the life-filled spirit of this woman, Mrs. Hastings. She is described as:
“A moving spirit in the Church, a very intelligent and capable woman, who gave considerable financial assistance. One of the earliest members, connected from the start.”
Perhaps this phrase depicting Mrs. Hastings as a “moving spirit” strikes us— We imagine her fluttering through the congregation, like some kind of Energizer Bunny of skill and intelligence. And her memory causes us to imagine the beginnings of our church and the founding of any church community—The hope. The power. The passion. The possibility—all enmeshed and wrapped up in one little community’s devotion and faith in their living God.
The window offers another significant image. It depicts the human SOUL as the young woman we see in the frame--- hand-in-hand with Christ. Yes, the woman pictured in the window with Jesus is not Mary Magdalene or another female… but the woman represents the “human soul.”

The depiction of the soul as a woman might shock us at first—perhaps even particularly at the time when the window was first created. Perhaps, for some of us, it makes sense. But beyond the gender-element of the illustration, I want you to pay close attention to the illustration itself:

Here, the soul is depicted as being deeply CLOSE with Christ. Perhaps if one were to squint just so or merely use the imagination, we could imagine the image being that of the two figures, Christ & soul, just about to break into a dance.

The illustration of the SOUL in this window possesses a very special theological significance for us to contemplate: In the OT, the Hebrew word for soul is the word, nepes. It has a wide range of meanings but is primarily used to express the LIFE FORCE OF LIVING CREATURES. ‘Thus, [in Genesis 1:20-21 we read how] all the earth is full of ‘living creatures’ that have the ‘breath of life.’ [And] when God creates Adam, God breathes the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils, and Adam becomes a ‘living being,’” a nepes, a SOUL. Far from referring simply to one part of a person, the ‘soul’ refers to the whole person… and in such places as 1 Kings 19:4 and Ezekiel 32:10, we see where the SOUL refers to a person’s very life itself. We see the way in which SOUL and LIFE refer to one another in our Psalm 23—Here the psalm is often translated: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul…

OR (this last section is also translated): He restores my LIFE.

In the NT, the word soul appears in significant places as well. In Mark 3:4, Jesus asks the synagogue authorities whether it is lawful on the Sabbath to ‘save life [or SOUL] or to kill.’ In the parable of the rich young fool in Luke 12:13-20, the ‘young man says to his soul that he has ample goods laid up for many years; Jesus then tells him: ‘This very night your soul (life force) is being demanded of you.’

If I desire to follow Christ, the decision has SOUL & LIFE SIGNIFICANCE

From these meanings of SOUL, there seems to be something in this window’s depiction about how closeness with God, with the 2nd person of the Trinity, God’s Son, gives life… Herein, we encounter or need meditate on Christ’s words to us in John 14 today: BECAUSE I LIVE, YOU ALSO WILL LIVE. See here how everything starts with God’s action. As Presbyterian Christians in the Reformed Tradition, we believe that God is the life-force, the source, the LOVING initiator that enabled our relationship in the first place. It is a willingness to let go of our hard-heartedness, our own prerogatives, and‡ living as our unique selves, as who God created us to be‡ dare to dive into living relationship with God.

Personally speaking, as I see this window too, my imagination is drawn to remember the spirituality course I recently took called Contemplative Listening. Here, as seminarians-in-training, we were encouraged to LEARN how to listen to another’s soul as well as listen to our own.

This matter of soul listening is crucial. When have you listened to another’s soul?!—Perhaps, taken a seat at your favorite café, and just looked at another human being, their whole self, in the eyes—and de-cluttering yourself from your usual preoccupations, dared to ask: HOW ARE YOU?! Perhaps you (could) sit down with someone at Jims and Tuckers and ask: How is God moving & active in your life?

When I think about a good soul listener, two people come to mind: My college chaplain, who would often take us to the local independent coffee shop for honest conversations. I remember most how his eyes would sparkle at times when he encouraged us to imagine how God was moving and, to quote one of his favorite phrases, being a life-giving source for us.

He would remind us that: Even when life feels odd--- remember you’re loved by a Dancing God—and challenged us to see where LIFE was. There was space to express our doubts, our fears, and our hopes. He would remind us, in the vein of Socrates’ well-known phrase, that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living,’ and encourage us to truly listen to our heart & mind, OUR SOUL, to be willing to risk asking the HARD QUESTIONS, and to love God, as the Scripture proclaims, with all our heart & Mind--- and hence SOUL…..Also in these conversations with my college chaplain, he would sometimes share from an appropriate, mutual place that made us feel like We’re Not Alone.

b) My Grandmother was another triumphant listener. I still remember how, when my Grandfather’s Alzheimer’s got very bad, her care-giving skills kicked in. She had this incredible way of attentiveness- of noticing when something little was off or wrong. When the dreadful time came where my Grandfather had to move into a health care center—and we all cried and she, in particular, felt greatly distressed—I will always remember how she spent her days there at the center, caring deeply for my Grandfather…. And then ALSO going and listening to the stories of the other patients there. She knew everyone by name. She would give them a head and listen to their stories. There was “Sea Daddy,”—the old Navy captain, Ted, Dan, Silvia… and my Grandmother loved all of them….

Reminding me of the Scripture, paraphrasing, if we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our father in heaven take care of us?!

Here, time takes on a different pace—less studded by the pressures of the blackberry or the false belief that we can always be secure from dead, communication OPENED, masks dropped, and SOUL & LIFE LISTENING HAPPENED.

Hard NOW:

Things have been hard for us. Our congregation has seen a good amount of pain: people we love in the hospital and struggling with illness. We have many of us that are looking day in and out for work. We have leads and possibilities and then

Our businesses, our homes, and even our congregation is facing significant financial questions. In this vein and others, there might seem to be little to dance about.

YET—there are a few interesting things about dancing---
First, comes to mind for me—the image from high school dances, actually- or something from the 1980’s TV Show “Saved by the Bell”--- Here, the question remains: What- if I approach this person and ask them to dance, will they refuse or back away from the dance? THE AMAZING THING ABOUT OUR GOD IS, HOWEVER, IS THAT HE NEVER BACKS AWAY.

Another interesting thing about dancing is that it is ultimately something about CONNECTION & INTIMACY: I imagine the beautiful scene from the “King & I” where the lead characters sing, “Shall We Dance.” I imagine the gentle, rocking dance between a mother and her baby…. Or the first dance of a couple on their wedding day—danced to their special song. Dance is about CONNECTION & INTIMACY.

And so let us remember, even when life feels odd--- remember you’re loved by a Dancing God.

But you might be wondering: What is it that makes God a dancing God – and is there anything in our theology to support this idea? And I say YES and it starts with our understanding of the Trinity!

In a contemporary text of Reformed Theology, Daniel Migliore writes about the dance between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit called PERICHORERIS in our understanding of the Trinity. He says:

Perichoresis is a Greek word translated ‘mutual indwelling’ or ‘interpenetration.’ It was first used by the patristic theologians (or Church Fathers] to describe the mutual indwelling of the divine and human natures in Christ, the Incarnate Word. Then, in the eight century, John of Damascus” used the term to describe the unique communion of the God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Trinity relationship. The three persons of the Trinity live in, with, and through each other in ineffable communion. (INDEX- Migliore) And you know one way that modern theologians enjoy depicting this communion—as something like a triangle dance (rather than square) where God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit live in harmony with each other—and therein, knowing relationship themselves, invite us to enter relationship with them, with our One God!

Friends, this is huge! It means simply that, like the woman-soul & Christ depicted in that window, God desires to be in relationship with us.

I was talking with a friend from another country the other day who is also in seminary, and he told me these words… words that I have been pondering in my heart deeply and so I share with you. He asked me: Is the United States of America going to end up like Europe—where our churches are empty and fading in significance because we no longer believe in God as an active, moving reality in our life—as God as more than just an idea that we can control for our own benefit but never truly engage with.

Although part of me grimaced at these words, I sensed within them a call—a call for all of us—to remember who and whose we are! To dare to… believe more and more fully again. We are all of us on a journey, and we are here together because we trust that God has something to say to us and that it is God who is at the helm of this ship.

Reading from the Dictionary of Theological Interpretation of the Bible the other day, one comes upon these words:

“Humanity can never interpret itself in terms of itself, but only in terms of God, its creator.” -- We are always related to God—and let us remember this orientation in all times and stages of our life—when we’re doing the innocent swirls of childhood, the enthusiastic dances of youth, the tango of middle age… and the opening broad waltz of age.

This section from John’s Gospel we read today is also known as “The Farewell Discourse.”

“The primary orientation of the Farewell Discourse is not to an event that preceded it, but to an event whose arrival is imminent—that is, Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension.” IT is from this trio-action of death, resurrection, and ascension that we have hope!

From John 14, we see that belief in Jesus empowers the community—and we learn that we are never alone—The first time that the Holy Spirit or Paraclete is mentioned. The Holy Spirit will be our Comforter, Counselor, Advocate to keep us in the dance of communion with our God.

And so, let us dance then—wherever we may be!

To love Jesus is to live with God the Creator and Jesus & the Holy Spirit—that is, to enter into relationship with them, to come home. (WORD)

And so, dance then—wherever we may be!
Even though I walk through the valley—I fear no evil..
For you, God, are with me!

The dancing of our congregation has taken us to many places: The Midway Shelter, baseball stadiums, bible study home meetings, at death beds and hospital beds where newborn babies are born.

And so, even when Life seems Odd, Remember that you are Loved by a Dancing God.
The God, who is our shepherd—who like a horse whisperer, communicates to us, the flock, in ways even stronger than what might first meet the eye—beyond our pain and disappointment. God is in the still, small voice. God the Holy Spirit is alive and working in the world! Will we enter the dance? By God’s grace, friends, we already have! Let us remember this! This is something to dance about!

Sermon # 2

2010-03-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

Because it is sometimes nonsensical to start with # 1.

Well, these are definitely not the days to talk about houses…. Real estate, the bottom line, assets—these aren’t popular topics either…. but definitely not houses…. In fact, its associated word, that word economy has come to feel all the more and more ominous —like a one-word formula to define all the problems going on the world.—And you don’t need me to tell you this—We even hear it in conversation:: How is your cousin doing?! Well, you know, the economy. How are you feeling!? Well, you know, the economy. What do you think about the future?! Well … the economy.
According to the biblical account surrounding the life of King David, we have good right to imagine that the life of the people of Israel was likewise unstable and fraught with complications. As Biblical scholars are quick to note, these people of Israel were a small band often in competition with the peoples surrounding them… competing for land and resources. Perhaps we get a sense of this instability when we consider the emotion and pathos that must have birthed the Exodus narrative and imagine that tremendous, frightening escape out of the land of Egypt—and how, regardless of how one interprets it, the manna must have glittered like specks of gold across the horizon… As we move further through the pages of the Old Testament, we hear the resounding words of the prophets, who spoke with boldness & clarity, demanding an end to the unjust exporting practices of the rich few in their midst—likewise showcasing the instability of the world… And perhaps we discern the instability of life for these biblical witnesses even in the little bit of text that precedes this one in 2 Samuel: In the narrative that denotes the capriciousness of a God who would decide to bless King Saul and then drop him with the wink of an eye. Nonetheless, I know for myself that it doesn’t just take Economy talk to bring up the issue of instability—although that one usually does it. But too, I am moving into the last years of my degree program, and many days I literally feel like my future could take almost any form or bring me to any place. Instability--- yes, sometimes we feel like we are riding a rollercoaster…. Setting sail along the pendulum swing and we’re not sure where is up or down… Yet to imagine that God is likewise an inhabitant of this pendulum swing, of a seemingly topsy-turvy, out of control—kind of roller-coaster ride, may be --- as we’ll see as well in the case of King David--- unwise.
..Nonetheless, in today’s passage, it appears that things aren’t that bad or unstable for King David. In fact, we find striking language of settledness & seeming relaxation…. The Philistine attack is repulsed, the Ark is in Jerusalem, and King David is described as “settled in his house” and given “rest from all of his enemies.” You all know those long days when you wake up with the alarm clock, jerk out of bed, and then continue to surmount item after item, activity after activity, on your to-do list. But then you come home, your husband or wife or friend is no longer angry about your behavior a few days ago, the insurance company sends you a letter, realizing that they mistakingly over-charged you and so you have an extra cheque in your pocket; you begin to draw yourself a gentle warm bath, and then walk into your bedroom and someone has made up the bed for you---even put a chocolate on your pillow and arranged that comforter you like the most. Perhaps this description is stacked high, but my point, I think, is made: King David is comfortable and, no longer roaming the wilderness, fighting off aggressors, he is now living in a house of cedar--- those beautiful cedars of Lebanon. And so, as things are pretty good for him and … out of seemingly good intention, he imagines: Well, this is great for me—I bet that God would like this too… I know—I should build God a house!
There is something of mythic & theological significance in this move—This deciding to put the Ark of God in a house…
According to the OT, the two tablets of stone constituting the "testimony" or evidence of God's covenant with the people (i.e. The Ten Commandments) were kept within the Ark itself. A golden jar containing some of the manna from the Israelites' trek in the wilderness and the rod of Aaron were added to the contents of the Ark (According to Ex. 16:32-34; Heb. 9:4)…. . A Rabbinic tradition states that Moses also put the broken fragments of the first tablets of the Law into the Ark. And some scholars have argued that the plans to the Tabernacle were contained in the Ark.
But no matter the distinctions coming to us from tradition, the Ark was a symbol of sacredness and sanctity--- meant to depict the actual dwelling place of God. And hence, when King David suggests that the Ark be put in a house, the nuance of meaning we glean is this: That the Spirit of God can belong to one particular place and be kept there. But, as our 2 Samuel passage reveals, God, in true punster-form, offers King David, through the mouthpiece of Nathan, a different option: “No… I do not belong in a box! God says: “You will not make me a house…” But I will make you a house—the word in Hebrew is bayit--- and it can also refer to the term household or dynasty. In my musings for today, I will also use the term realm. But this point is huge: Our God cannot be categorized or limited to our own human needs and perceptions.” As I said before, it is not wise to put God in a box…..
In another book that deals with houses… the one we’ve been reading for our upcoming Tuesday night book club, The Shack… this same point is brought to bear: Mackenzie who goes by Mack, a middle-aged father who has known great tragedy, has an experience with the Holy Trinity—the book is a story of redemption and we read of his conversations with Jesus, God, and Sarayu—a special name the author crafts for the Holy Spirit. Listen into this conversation between God, who is called Papa in the book, and Mackenzie:
Page: 98
But what does this mean for us today?! To that question, let’s turn to today’s Gospel reading—a few short verses but with a lot of weight to consider. We hear these words: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it , because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”
• I first met this story on some cartoon television film when I was quite young, and from my perspective at the time, the message was this: “ Do the right thing, be a good Christian, or your life will fall apart like the dilapidated house at the bottom of the shore. There is some truth to this statement. There come times in our lives when we have to make a stand and when personal responsibility and response is crucial. And yet, as too many of us know (and as Leslie pointed out last week), bad things happen and we cannot necessarily equate them to our actions. Sometimes the economy falls apart, a Hurricane comes and rips apart your house, and you had nothing to do about it.
• But I also believe that today’s passage offers something else for us to chew on.
The first thing that this passage does is echo that cute title of “Lord, Lord” that we see other places in the Bible—the first place that strikes me is that famous line…”Not all those who say the word, Lord, Lord”--- The title suggests: “Be real. Wipe away your niceties… your encounters that lack real encounter, real communication…. And get serious. This faith stuff.., this religious stuff is important. It’s meaningful. It’s the kind of thing to base your life on!
Second, the passage endorses a triple way of approaching God: “The act of coming to God, hearing God’s words, and acting on them.” So often, we in communities of faith find ourselves arguing over the way to do things—making faith come down to either: A) cognitive belief—“the act of coming to God”— B) l istening to God & prayer—or how spiritual you are – which could be described as hearing God’s words,--- and C) service & social justice--- “acting on God’s words.” In today’s Gospel passage, we see that all three of these faithful responses are significant and important. The wise person is one who does all three…
Finally, third, today’s Gospel passage beckons us to consider our own foundation… to ask– What is our foundation?!
And that wise one we want to emulate in Luke, who comes to God, hears God’s words, and acts of them (NOTE THAT TRIPLE FAITH ACTION) is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock.
What is this rock that the Gospel passage refers to?! To me, it is quite simple—so simple that it’s in some ways too complicated to express… The Sunday School answer works— Jesus, or the one who announces the coming house, the realm of God. And too—let us consider the term Foundation; it is an evocative word. It connotes structure and stability and yet too--- in some of its other lingual uses—foundation as an organization that exists to create change as an example, to help those in need, the term suggests something that is capable of empowering transformation, non-rigidity--- SPACE FOR GRACE. This is significant.
If we only think of this story of the wise man building his house on the rock as a drama of moral rules we must follow, we risk making the same mistake that David did: Thinking that we could build God a house—while instead it is the other way around. The triune God announces a house, a realm, that we can both experience and help to announce—the kingdom of God—where we live as brothers and sisters, where reconciliation is the rhetoric of reality, and where the story of God’s great grace is given space to speak.
In one of his famous reflections on the spiritual life, priest and theologian Henri Nouwen (Note: L’Arche )wrote about the important step of moving from the house of fear to the house of love…. It is hard to just say move from the house of fear to the house of love…. Something about it to our contemporary ears usually sounds so soothing —and so you don’t have to convince anyone to think about it more deeply--- to others it can sound so sweet and syrupy, that people feel like: “Oh gee… More naivety for us.” Some fear is helpful—practical…. But moving from the house of fear to the house of love is the work of a lifetime. Ronald Rolheiser, President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, expands on the concept for us:

Henri Nouwen, in his writings, frequently asked this question: "How can we live inside a world marked by fear, hatred, and violence and not be destroyed by it?"
At a certain point in life that becomes the real task of spirituality: How do we stop ourselves from being sucked into the house of fear so as to live in the house of love? What's meant by this?
We live in a world of division, hatred, and violence. One only has to watch the news to see this. Daily we see fear and hatred translated into violence and death all over the world. What's true at this level is true too, in a less pronounced way, in our ordinary lives. Inside our families, churches, and communities we see the problems of the world played out on the small-screen of our daily lives. Bitterness, suspicion, the sense of injustice, anger, jealousy, hatred, division, and subtle forms of violence eventually penetrate even our most intimate relationships. We often don't recognize these for what they are and consider them simply part of the normal give and take of everyday life….
What this does is keep us, almost always, inside the house of fear. Because we live inside of families, churches, and communities where there is suspicion, gossip, cynicism, jealousy, and bitterness, it's natural that our first instinct so often is to protect ourselves, to be suspicious, to be hard… We live, as Nouwen puts it, inside the house of fear rather than inside the house of love.
How do we save ourselves from getting lost there? How do we remain tender when so much around us is hard? How do we remain free of fear when we there is so much anger around? . . .
There are no easy answers. Moreover this is not, as Nouwen himself points out, something that we can ever accomplish once and for all. (Although this actually gives me some hope) The world is not divided up between those who have conquered fear and those who haven't. Rather our own days and hours are divided up between those times when we live more in fear and those times when we live more in love. There are times when our fears take over and we act out of them, just as there ****** are other times when grace opens us beyond fear and we can act in graciousness and love.”

How do I think we can live within the house of Love?!—the realm of God. I obviously do not have the whole answer, but three last convictions have struck me:
1) First, it’s all about Grace. God is building the house. We need to respond, but it’s all wrapped up in the story of grace.
2) First is to remember a thing about rocks. When they are under pressure, they become diamonds!
3) In the Shack: story……

Blog in Construction

2010-03-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

This blog is being cleaned up and transformed into a place to post my sermons! Apologies for the messiness but perhaps it resonates with the rough edges and surprising grace of life. :)

2010-02-07T07:43:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have found myself concerned about the future, wondering what decisions I should make, and where I am heading. The fragility of this place is hard. I wish all the answers I needed would simply lay themselves at my lap. Nonetheless, this involves the precious exercises of putting my fear in its place, of listening to the wisdom that suggests that worry will not help a thing but rather trustful, open-eyed, laughter......... Trying.

A Poem by Kay Boyle

2010-02-06T00:39:00.001-08:00

Advice to the Old
(Including Myself)

Do not speak of yourself (for God’s sake) even when asked.
Do not dwell on other times as different from the time
Whose air we breathe; or recall books with broken spines
Whose titles died with the old dreams. Do not resort to
An alphabet of gnarled pain, but speak of the lark’s wing
Unbroken, still fluent as the tongue. Call out the names of stars
Until their metal clangs in the enormous dark. Yodel your way
Through fields where the dew weeps, but not you, not you.
Have no communion with despair; and, at the end,
Take the old fury in your empty arms, sever its veins,
And bear it fiercely, fiercely to the wild beast’s lair.

Hmmm- speak of the lark's wing... Call out the names of stars....
Something strong in these words speaks deliberately and delicately and devotedly about a vocation.
What would this mean, and how would one live it?!

A Lesson about Peace from the Snow

2010-02-05T23:02:00.000-08:00

I left the snow of Upstate New York and moved to California:
The Golden State, the place where you are supposed to be able to wear shorts year-round. The state of sunscreen mandates, surfing safaris, and warm watery waves,
The place where you can regularly buy strawberries, mangos, and ripe & juicy oranges.

I knew what to expect. Or at least part of me, it did.

Then there was that day: The first time I took a trip up 80N.

The snow was thick and tall, and it dusted the streets with a heavy covering.

Unbelievable: I was in California and wearing snow-pants and snow-boots and all sorts of snow gear.

It was like Christmas had come to July. Except it was not July. Just something right at an unexpected time.

We talk about peace like it’s always that someday, sometime, apocalyptic—just not quite here moment.
But Vanier says that peace only happens one-heart-at-a-time. So what are we waiting for?!
Let’s get started now! Let’s open our hands to each other, risk partaking in acts of
adventurous caring, create a party and invite everyone, like Jesus would do!
Let's start acting now, with our own heart.
Why?!

Because everything in this world cannot be explained in expectations.
Because this New Yorker learned that there is in fact snow in California.
And once we stop thinking that peace can only exist in the realm of the utopian, we might recognize its possibility right before our eyes,
like the snow on I-80 that day
and the beautifully welcoming snowman that resulted!

2010-02-04T20:02:00.000-08:00

Those familiar words: "Live the life you've always dreamed"... They are with me like a close friend now.

Amazing Grace

2010-01-23T18:55:00.001-08:00

Amazing Grace.

Hearing this song played on the bagpipes, I still get goose bumps. I remember when I first heard this particular rendition; I was about fourteen, and I loved it…

But, what is grace? I have so often been enchanted by Fredrick Buechner’s definition. It feels more all-encompassing albeit full of prose. Perhaps I like it because of its prose. Perhaps something in its story speaks a mighty truth.

"After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
"Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
"A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
"A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.
"The grace of God means something like: 'Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.'
"There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can only be yours if you'll reach out and take it.
"Maybe being to reach out and take it is a gift too.”

This grace is amazing.

On Making Plans...

2010-01-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

I just emerged from a movie at the theater, and so I am in one of those grand states where your life seems to stretch out before your eyes, and you believe that anything is truly possible. You know, I think this isn't an illusion; this should be the way we think about life most of the time. So, as I wanted to say when I suddenly felt the propulsion to write these words, I am not a movie critic professional. I cannot tell you how this film ranks with the latest Spielberg hit or if I should rate it as a classic. But, it was beautiful. It was a story about love & and making plans. The woman.. needed a plan. She learned that she did not need plans: And she finally found something and someone precious enough not to make plans! And he... he loved her enough that he wanted to make plans with her. Making plans. I've never actually been one of those 5 year planners-- I'm pretty spontaneous, especially at the soul-level.

But I do hope, I do hope... that I will be with someone who loves me enough that he is willing to make plans with me (and visa-versa). In this sense, I think that making plans is dream-making.... It's not about whether or not the plans come true-- We never know this-- But it is about loving someone enough that you hope that the plans will come true-- In fact, isn't this what planning is all about, anyway?! Amen, in this sense, to making plans. I hope you'll come find me...

Power

2010-01-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

Power; it is a word that has managed to wrangle up watchword level distinction in the rhetorical realm and culture of American Christianity. Upon first examination, power is a rather simple word. It is composed of two mere syllables, and we hear and us it often; of course, we imagine and even rightfully assume that we know what power implies and consequently understand its associated meaning and subtexts. And yet, as we suggested often in our class, power is a multifaceted word. For example, the website Dictionary.com, our illustrious contemporary Websters, defines power with a sum total of 32 different clauses. Herein, Dictionary.com designates that power refers to the “capability of doing or accomplishing something,” as our class likewise affirmed, and its definition also is made wider, expanding to include such notions as “political or national strength,” the “possession of control or command over others,” and even “deity or divinity” ( ). And thus, even though power has found itself forming and informing ample rally cries and analyses, it is expressed in innumerable ways, and thus the word is intricate, vast, and innocuous.
It is words like these that remind us scholars that we do in fact have important work to do. We are the celebrators of ambiguity, those who find the task of re-definition a deeply reverent one. Therefore, grappling with the word power and offering more shades of substance to our notions of power and the impact of these notions on contemporary American Christianity is one of the objectives of this paper. For ultimately, if we look into our traditional concepts of power, likewise impacted by our culture, and juxtapose these definitions with specific Gospel depictions of power, the meaning that emerges for contemporary Christians is momentous. Likewise, this re-definition of power is pertinent for the task of reconciliation. As American Christianity becomes increasingly polarized by ideologies and opposing facets strive to build up support and power for their side, we are challenged to imagine the shape of God’s power and what God would, in fact, have us do. This brings us to the second word that will largely inform this narrative; the word is grace.

Morning Theological Reflection

2010-01-22T09:39:00.001-08:00

I have been sitting in a coffee shop for the last hour or so, proofreading, thinking deeply, and working on my own thesis around reconciliation and religion and the arts. Two men in proper clothing and loud voices have continued to discuss everything from Tiger Woods to Shaq. For a moment, I felt like I belonged to a completely different world... but it wasn't filled with judgment (I hope)... just difference. I would like to to use my intellect and imagination for a truly good purpose. I hope that this wish can inspire me to continue on, even when things are difficult. Perhaps, today, one of the greatest things I am learning is to value what I bring and to let this sense of loving value sing deeply from my heart. Someone may not understand and yet, I don't truly desire to be understood as much as I hope for mere connection, to bridge divides, and to live with the resilient power and strength that comes from peace and listening to God.

Love: What I Have Learned

2010-01-21T08:22:00.001-08:00

What I Have Learned:

When it happens to you, you don't have to wonder.... In some sense, you find yourself captive to a power that is so truly sweet and surrender is really the only option you have.... At the best of times or ways, the Holy Spirit is leading you in it all... It keeps one balanced. It keeps one honest. It keeps one capable of love that is neither about possession or manipulation but just pure openness, care, & grace. And then you don't write words like these to brag. Bragging is not even possible, because it is all about faith. And if your heart should break in the process, you know you're not alone in the fellowship of the heart-broken... and so, although fear will be a sibling, it can never speak as loud as love. And love: It is more pragmatic than simply being practical.

Morning Gratitude

2010-01-21T08:09:00.000-08:00

This morning I am wondering: What gives us the capacity to dream? Sometimes I wonder this particularly about youth. Some youth seem so closely connected to their dreams and passions, and this has always been an inspiration to me. Perhaps I have never grown up in this way. You know, I am glad to say those words.

There's been a lot of worry in the air the last year. The words the economy have been launched at us from various media platforms, and many are also feeling the effects in their own pocketbooks. Then too there is the conversation around security, and the whole dialectic of fear that has been so pervasive that scholars have gone to aims to unpack the meaning for the people.

Sometimes I am tired of the rhetoric of American politics; it is so often too two-sided. I don't think in twos. I like to think in either ones or threes. :)

I wonder why when the time comes to write, the words sometimes feel adolescent, like I am feigning for just the right phrase, and yet I haven't the ability to reach beyond abstractions and inspirational sayings.

The last few days I have been blessed, in particular, by prayer. How come what may feel like one of the most mundane activities can suddenly be full of such dramatic possibility?!?! I am grateful.

New Year Perspectives

2010-01-20T17:26:00.001-08:00

The New Year has arrived and hope is palpable. I experience most of my days with a vivid gratefulness for the stream of people that pass-- that intersect with my path. I see myself dreaming again and again about the future, drawing up deep dreams. With all of my laughter and joy comes an underlying fear: What if all of this would fade away? This fear I will not hide. And yet, fear's presuppositions are never complete. I trust in a different story.

Living Doxology

2009-12-03T21:54:00.001-08:00

Living Doxology

Why let another day pass as the same,
sky as crystallized blue, ground the color of humus--
and not simply rejoice?!

I am living each day with a
newfound independence--
trading correctness for mindful gestures--
all of which means, at this very moment,
that I am loved by something/by Someone
so much bigger than I am.

Why imagine? Imagine why
we continue this cycle of living
that can too easily feel
clunky like charcoal at the bottom
of a shoe, resisting light:
a dialogue with Sisyphus' strategician.

I'd like to create for myself
a mechanism in which to remember Spirit,
motion mightily like tenderness,
like living life under a soft cotton blanket
and opening out the edges to embrace the world--
not afraid of cold feet.
Spend an hour smelling cinnamon;
another one relishing the taste of water.
Listen to the scratching sound of pen against paper.

I will steep my life for awhile in joy,
savor the seasons.
Live Doxology in Laughter:
This is my work.
This is my labor.

A poem written 12/3/2009 by Elizabeth G. Campbell

Peace

2009-11-13T18:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we don't know why life offers us what it does or why we make the choices that we do... But I don't believe that it is mere impulse or choice--- Sometimes the path set before us, I believe, God leads us on... And I won't explain this theologically here or try to describe in many logical ways or words here... I think it is just something we know... and if I could describe it in any way, it would be with one word: peace.

I am grateful

2009-11-10T00:20:00.001-08:00

I am grateful for the one that I love, who reminds me that forgiveness is real and also that I can truly be myself! I am living into this grace.

A Prayer

2009-11-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

Inevitable. Baby-steps. Wondering. Imagining: All leading towards a fear of regret? God, how can the choices in our lives fill us with a sense of life and wonder, so that we can walk in peace? How can we hold each other during our choice-making, comforting and catalyzing... so that we dare to make the choices that bring out our deepest, truest truth?

These words have been floating in the back of my mind over the last few days, as I continue to find myself awash in choice-making and wondering which way to turn. I am writing a theological reflection about conflict as quotidian and therein I establish this point: That conflict is not something to be feared as it is often part of the process towards something greater and may, in fact, enable us to reach a more prayerful and communal goal or hope?

This day I ponder the choices of the week and I wonder how I can continue to live life as I always dreamed... God, in your grace.

Thinking about Lilies

2009-11-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

Mary Oliver has a lovely poem in which she uses this phrase, thinking about lilies, and yet that is not why I am writing this post. I write this post instead to announce a new part of my blog called "Stories: Lil Epiphanies." Here will be a place where I will work on nurturing and crafting little epiphanies in process, stories that are in the midst of creation. Suffice it to say, this blog author has been inspired to do something that she should have began awhile ago... Amen.

Life Exploring

2009-10-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

I am at the pinnacle of something important, breathing words of reverence, of honesty, of self-care and challenge. I long to enter the song of soulfulness and there reveal the timbre of the drone, playing underneath it all...

Wonder

2009-10-30T22:35:00.000-07:00

I am struck by the wonder of raw emotion-- when we uncover deep truth in the performance of rite. Sitting as a participant and member at Erin's wedding today, I was reminded of this very fact: of the gentle, marvelous beauty of love.... of knowing another person so deeply that you are willing to let your soul be known... In all the many defenses that we have in this society--- resorting to the games of busyness, blame, and bureaucacy-- still there remains, in spite of the noise and voices offering otherwise, the deep knowingness that all one truly desires is to be loved. OH, to feel such love! Wonder.

Listening...

2009-10-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

A few times this past week, my heart showed up--- echoing its longing and speaking its mighty language-- and I had to listen. Stop. Pause. And this is so important. As I am in this time called "seminary formation," I find it so easy to revert into one of the many habitual patterns of ministry and attend to all the needs of those around me.... but in doing so, it can be a never-ending fountain, and sometimes all one truly desires is to give simply-- Just give. And know that this giving is enough. Receiving is also important. It is so important. And in as far as it is possible to express this unselfishly, I desire to have the opportunity to do more receiving the next months... this Advent... and therein discover the gift to which I have been called. But now, it is time to listen!

Wisdom

2009-10-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

If I want to learn about wisdom, I feel like I had better take the time to walk in another's shoes for awhile-- I would prefer to follow the footsteps of a 80 year-old man. That is one thing I have discovered today.

Photograph Prompt: The Sandwich

2009-10-23T08:52:00.001-07:00

I wrote this tiny reflection from a writing prompt at our SFTS "Writing Colony" meeting.... I found the opportunity to write that evening incredibly therapeutic. I did not know what I would write, except that I was given this photo that touched something very deep within--- A woman was in between two walls.... At first thought, I thought I knew what I was writing about... But then I realize that something more profound was twinged. This is what I wrote:

Sometimes this is me, sandwiching myself between two abstractions-- the bridge--- sometimes I am there for important reasons- redemptive reasons, positive reasons, reasons traditionally worth writing about or, at the very least, celebrating. But, other times, sometimes, at these times the abstractions become paralyzing firm towers that resist, quantifiably and definitionally, moving. Then, although I tend to be a bridge, instead I feel like some hard piece of steel that lacks ligament and lightness. Then, I am trapped by perspective; perspectively-speaking. Then I look at the photo once more and realize that what I am seeing is not only, in fact, as I see it. If I take one or two steps back or forward, I am no longer in bondage. But how to meet the place where boundaries are to be blurred and still maintain some solidity and yet refuse to become dogmatic categories that prove mathematical equations but will never figure in anyone's life?

How do I allow myself to step into the natural flow of life that is both black and white and gray at the same time and live graciously with this discovery? I am something of a life explorer and something my pondering gets me in trouble; but, although thinking deeply is risking business, the refusal NOT to do it at all is even riskier. And so you might not ever agree with me, and I may never agree with you-- or more, correctly stated: They may never agree with "them" and "them" with "them" likewise-- But why feel brutalized by these senseless demands: The thems squared, whether in fact algebraically the same or not, are simply and complicatedly people. And so are you. And perhaps it is time to spend some time celebrating and pondering what this person thinks!

FREEDOM

2009-10-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

Recently, in my Religion & Literature class, I found myself untangling a very difficult subject: "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter from Dostoyevsky's "Brothers Karamazov." I have wanted to read this book ever since I first heard about it-- and I cannot even recall when that was... Perhaps when I read "Walking on Water" during my semester abroad in 2003... At any rate, here, six years later, Dostoyesky is with me again-- as well as "Walking on Water." Both authors tell us to consider anew the NOTION OF FREEDOM-- and the meat of the subject, theologically, is that the freedom Christ offers us is everything. Now, when we are talking about freedom, we don't mean the kind of freedom that is often spoke of-- the freedom of individual rights, etc., etc. This freedom is more monastic-- like the innate heart-freedom of responding to God's call... Christ gave up the ability to take our freedom... We even have the freedom not to respond to him. This is sooo much more gutsy than I have ever seen or known.

Dear God, give us the courage and grace to live out from what we have learned and been told. Amen.

The Incarnation

2009-10-22T20:31:00.001-07:00

Words from Madeleine L'Engle, "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art":

"Perhaps for the Christian the Incarnation is the best example of that magnificent 'probable impossible.' It has been called the 'scandal of the particular,' for to many people it is scandalous that the Lord of the universe should condescend to come to his people as an ordinary man, with every human restriction. Why would ultimate power choose to limit itself in such a humiliating way? Is this really what love is about? The answer to this question has challenged artists throughout the centuries. How can this probable impossible be real?"

The second photo is entitled "Kenosis" and a photograph image of a work of art by my friend, Peter B. Daniel

I do not like you.. but I will use what I "don't like" to judge you

2009-10-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

People ask me, after finding out that I am a Christian: Are you conservative or liberal? To that question, I offer a number of responses... Yet, regardless of what I say, I continue to have the same dissatisfaction. The thing is, whether conservative or liberal, members of both sides seem to be very eager to say how the other has failed to grasp the Kingdom, how the other should be excluded-- somehow... how the other needs to be more loving or more orthodox. This I find very dissatisfying. I desire to begin the hard work of changing myself and encouraging those around me to do the same-- rather than merely pointing to another as the object of my dissatisfaction. And yet, I am doing that just with these words.... Oh, the depth to which we can be moved and learn!

A hope...

2009-10-17T13:14:00.001-07:00

To live with harmony with each person... to believe in the potential of all..... to meet violence with a more beautiful & powerful strength........... May we all be carriers of such passion!

A Photo that Makes me Smile

2009-10-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

Fragmentary Thoughts on Love

2009-10-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

"Whenever you speak / A word of love to me / It turns into a star / And ripples in my heart."

Claudia Hae In Lee

A Beautiful Prayer

2009-10-13T21:30:00.001-07:00

"O Christ, You ask us, first of all, to live in the Spirit of childhood. In putting our trust in You, we accept to be vulnerable, and we can live from your love in all simplicity, close to those who have no protection, close to the very littlest. Enable us to welcome the Kingdom of God: Your presence amongst us."

Prayer from the Community of Taize

Dostoyevsky Resonates with My Sermon

2009-10-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

About Ivan & The Grand Inquisitor in "Brothers Karamazov": “Both of them understand the mystery of the Gospel as the mystery of divine/human freedom, yet they cannot accept it. They are in bondage. In rejecting the deliverance offered to them in the God-man they have chosen to be the man-God; the man who rules the Tower of Babel, or any tyranny in any time and in any place. . . . For the sake of his idea, he condemns Jesus who is the Word become flesh.” (The Bruderhof, The Gospel in Dostoyevsky, 7)

Galatians 5:1 “ For freedom, Christ set us free.”

"This is not just an idea invented by scholars. It is the costly action of God in his freedom. This freedom has awful consequences. We have the freedom to defy the living God who has created us. What we term the Fall is an act of freedom. It is a negative freedom, however; it is that of rebellion" (7)

This past Sunday I preached about how can we encounter the LIVING God-- and not just keep God, at a distance, as an idea............

Empathy...

2009-10-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things for me, not to do, is to be empathic... And yet I feel like I have been giving myself a bit of a break-- and that there is always more that I could be empathic about (in the right circumstances).... And yet, in order to enter this wide and new realm, I feel that I need some great canvas of compassion to wrap around me--- I need a safe space to land, where I can say whatever is on my mind... and heart... and soul. And yet, the time to make excuses or to bargain is over... and sometimes it is simply about plunging and diving into this new space. God, teach me to continue to learn. I have been on many mountaintops and valley-places, and in many ways I have found a settled rest-- But encourage me to continue digging, to delve into something new, and see if in my delving I discover the delicacy of home....

A New Impulse to Write

2009-10-12T23:30:00.001-07:00

Someone shared something with me the other day that convinced me that I need to write again... or perhaps it wasn't so much, even, the sharing of someone... but I, in fact, remembered-- moved by the impulse of something beyond human-- that it was time to stop messing around and share something of my heart on these pages again.

Part of the title of the blog entertains the very essential question: What is home? Is it something that someone can find or discover? When I think about the specific place and geography of where I am from--- Upstate, NY--- still a lot of idealism stays with me: This is the land where you can see the leaves fall and the hills change colors with the autumn. This is a place where the landscape is not yet fully ruined by the plastic, box-line architecture of modern suburbia... This is a place where children can still be involved in play and not so fully scheduled that they have forgotten the definition of fun.

Then too: What about home am I searching for? Well, the answer has nothing, really, to do with Upstate, NY-- although I miss the place--> I think, tonight, home for me is more about being in a space of connection & unity--- where I am in touch with the truest love there is..........

A lovely Poem

2009-06-30T06:36:00.001-07:00

This poem stopped me in my tracks this morning---- speaking to many images that made me wake up--- the industrial worker, the child naming a star, the banana leaves filled with rain.....

The Unnamable River

1.

Is it in the anthracite face of a coal miner,
crystallized in the veins and lungs of a steel
worker, pulverized in the grimy hands of a railroad engineer?
Is it in a child naming a star, coconuts washing
ashore, dormant in a volcano along the Rio Grande?

You can travel the four thousand miles of the Nile
to its source and never find it.
You can climb the five highest peaks of the Himalayas
and never recognize it.
You can gaze though the largest telescope
and never see it.

But it's in the capillaries of your lungs.
It's in the space as you slice open a lemon.
It's in a corpse burning on the Ganges,
in rain splashing on banana leaves.

Perhaps you have to know you are about to die
to hunger for it. Perhaps you have to go
alone in the jungle armed with a spear
to truly see it. Perhaps you have to
have pneumonia to sense its crush.

But it's also in the scissor hands of a clock.
It's in the precessing motion of a top
when a torque makes the axis of rotation describe a cone:
and the cone spinning on a point gathers
past, present, future.

2.

In a crude theory of perception, the apple you
see is supposed to be a copy of the actual apple,
but who can step out of his body to compare the two?
Who can step out of his life and feel
the Milky Way flow out of his hands?

An unpicked apple dies on a branch:
that is all we know of it.
It turns black and hard, a corpse on the Ganges.
The go ahead and map out three thousand mile of the Yantze;
walk each inch, feel its surge and
flow as you feel the surge and flow in your own body.

And the spinning cone of a precessing top
is a form of existence that gathers and spins death and life into one.
It is in the duration of words, but beyond words -
river river river, river river.
The coal miner may not know he has it.
The steel worker may not know he has it.
The railroad engineer may not know he has it.
But it is there. It is in the smell
of an avocado blossom, and in the true passion of a kiss.

~ Arthur Sze ~

The Wisdom of Fools....

2009-06-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

I continue to find myself fascinated in re-definitions of wisdom and power-- One I found in a book entitled "Contentment" by Robert A. Johnson & Jerry M Ruhl.....

"There is an old proverb that God wanted to hide wisdom so that no everyone would indiscriminately find it. Accordingly, God decided to place it in innocent children and fools. It is hard to get wisdom out of an innocent child, and we would never think to get it out of a fool. In both cases it is fairly safe..." (page 51)...

What am I thinking? It is time to hang out with more children & "fools"!!

2009-06-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

I woke up with a question this morning... (well, sometime during the morning): Am I living my life the way that I've always wanted and dreamed (Shyam's question)? How can I relax whatever fears I have and continue to live into the moment-- compose that "Little Guru" story I am always crafting in my head, lay to rest too many considerations about the future-- all will come to fruition soon--- and just be me! :) I saw a woman, holding a baby in a sack that holds the baby to your stomach, and I was awed by the simplicity and beauty. I want to be simple and beautiful. .... in the way that is me. I am... and will continue....

poetic musing....

2009-06-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today was brilliant and lovely... What did I learn??? Or what am I experiencing? The reminder of the beauty of not acting, of calm, of rest.... These things are filling me now, and it is like there is new air flowing in my lungs, and somewhere, deep within, my heart is singing...

Wow.

2009-06-18T18:51:00.001-07:00

I am now a candidate for Ministry of Word & Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Word & Sacrament: Literature meets Religion..... Being a candidate has stopped me, delightfully, in my tracks-- like another kind of deep conversion. I am so happy. I feel so happy. This is meaningful......... and not about me, alone.

New Day

2009-06-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

Wow. Today the day greets me with the usual lethargy and fatigue of the last two days. I feel like I am trying to make up sleep deficits from the last year... But it is so good to try to stay still... or rather, stay still, sleep, and type. This is a good discipline. I feel like I am back at Taize at the silent retreat, where I learned the beauty of just staying still and felt God inspiring me simply to use the time to sleep-- Totally not a cop-out!

At the moment, I have this strange propulsion to sleep and read at the same time and am wondering if my mind and body would be content with reading my dreams for awhile......

Edge?

2009-06-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

What is edge? It has been so long since I last wrote her, and with the advent of the summer and what I am hoping will be a plethora of new time... mostly to WRITE, I feel like I need to begin with this blog in the beginning. Hmmmm, a very good place to begin, as Mary Poppins said. Wow-- ?!? No, you might be wondering: How much sleep has this blogger had? But, before digressing too far, what is the purpose of this blog? It seems to me that this space is mostly for story telling. Storytelling and musing... and for me, in this genre, edge is always paramount: Edge is the tension-point, the point of incarnation (where two opposites meet to create something new, even if just momentarily). I desire to use this space to write and give birth to the stories in my heart and mind... that they might find a place to live.... even if just ever so briefly.

Latest Poem

2009-02-15T19:55:00.001-08:00

I wrote this for "Seminary Night Live" yesterday evening... It is still in the editing stages but I felt ready to be shared with the world.. at least the virtual world. ;)

Enjoy!

“I Hear Seminary Singing”

Part 1

I hear seminary singing—Not, perhaps, in the usual Whitman-like way: proud, robust, positing presumed pragmatic strength.

… And yet, as a matter of fact, as a matter of course, as a matter of mere mentioning, perhaps these songs are just as palpable and true.
Perhaps Whitman himself would be pleased.

What carols do I hear?

A jubilant registrar sings, alchemizing empty schedules into full & hoped-for ones – just that stamp, that golden seal.
She does it all.
Another sings out existential phrases, pondering postmodern complexity, recognizing one’s liberation in contrast to their own ancestors’ worldview:
When will the blame game be gone?
The brother beside me sings as well—although his he does by traveling abroad.
Still another with daring heart, awash in the angled-nuances of life-- she sings her heart into being.
She lights a candle.
Amidst every painful reason not to, she becomes Easter personified

We sing theology.
We sing vulnerability.
We sing the faith.
We sing to celebrate.

I tear-up, open-heartedly, when my classmate preaches.
We are flamboyant and fortunate.
I wonder and worry about saying goodbye in a few years:
We are dreamers and earth-shakers, and sometimes we remember,
We recall what brought us to these castles in fairy tale Marin.
Then….
I hear seminary singing:

In the chapel services from 10:15-10:45,
A woman typing a memo in office space,
Another advocating for the homeless,
Still another wanting more to serve,
Another trying to come home—
In whatever way that means.

Amidst promises and pains of irrelevance and relevancy.
Seminary sings
And the song is beautiful!

For as I walk up our prodigious hill,
I stop for a moment, catching my breath.
A small cleft in the sidewalk discloses like surprise:
A lizard moving in and then quickly out of view.

I think: This lizard is like Grace.
So suddenly Grace appears.
It is in this that I realize our Grace,
That when seminary sings,
the I becomes the We.

Realization

2009-02-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

Today I struck upon an important realization: Letting Go. It is hard to let go, especially when you care so deeply... But to care for something and in something that is not mutual, it brings a kind of violence: a short-sided unhappiness, a gritting your teeth and bearing it. Our society speaks so much about love: It infiltrates our music stations and general music collections, but what about the simply beautiful task of putting down self-criticism, of laying down blame, of stopping to judge the other and simply hold them, lovingly, hand-in-hand, with their vulnerability. Some of us might want answers. I certainly know that I have felt this way. But what I want more deeply... what the ego cannot give..... is the simply joyous task of ceasing the endless cycle of want... so that I can be present to today.... and in today, I found so many precious and beautiful things... as well as a new friend. I wonder when I look back at this post: What will I think? Such naivety. Such sappiness. Such lack of true insight. But to that critic then and to this critic now I say the only thing I know: You are loved, Elizabeth-- even when you do not feel it. Go and dare to show that same love to others. Mean it.

"For Presence"

2009-01-07T07:15:00.001-08:00

I just received this beautiful poem from the Panhala listserv.....

For Presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to
follow its path.

Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of
soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek
no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

Homecoming....

2009-01-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

Being back home in CA, which I reached last Monday-- I have only been home one week... In this time I have learned (and been reminded of) a number of things: More on the four letter word that has been captivating my attention, how to drive to the South bay two times, how to roller skate, how to fall asleep with a lot on my mind, and how to drift into sleep with thick slumber, how significant it is when someone takes the time to listen as well as speak, give as well as receive, that I want to meditate, that I need to keep praying, that stories can be so profusely inspiring that you feel like you are putting together colorful gems from which you create something greater, and that love is not needing someone to be happy but rather more so working and hoping for another's happiness ... I have learned that I am not as old as I might think, and I have noticed that my hair is growing longer. I really can be simple. I panic. Yet, I am not panicky. I doubt and want answers. Sometimes, I don't want to know. I like raw, sweet carrots as well as running in the rain. When I am around true friends, my whole beings feels ready to radiate. At times, knowledge declares but wisdom listens.......

I have also learned that sometimes the truth hurts-- but, cliche as it is and most likely sounds, it sets us free. But we cannot lay aside our connection to the One from whom all things come--- Anchored amidst freedom & with freedom, we can live more open-handed... We can learn to love and not need to possess. We can let go as well as hold close. I have learned that I am still learning. Sometimes I don't want to learn at all. Sometimes I am so grateful for all the learning that I feel like a little child doing somersaults down a safe hill in my back yard.

Would that we could all dare to understand the truth that propels us?! Would we resist using each other as pawns but rather recognize all the uniqueness, all the wonder, all the potential. Friendship. Yes, I am still learning.

2009-01-03T08:58:00.000-08:00

Birthdays are all about Facebook Love. YAY!

Integrity

2009-01-01T09:55:00.001-08:00

Integrity: It makes sense that it is all about integration--- that all the parts of your self make up a whole, a unified whole. I am striving to embody integration in the fullest sense.... while keeping my heart open to those around me.

Sunday Sermon- Basically in Full :)

2008-12-28T06:06:00.000-08:00

* Using the words of writer-preacher, Frederick Buechner, let us pray: “If preachers are to say anything that really matters to anyone including themselves, they must say it not just to the public part of us that considers interesting thoughts about the Gospel and how to preach it, but to the private, inner part too, to the part of us all where dreams come from … the inner part where thoughts mean less than images, elucidation less than evocation … [and where we’re] less concerned with matters of form and good taste than simply with telling the truth” … And so, God, as we embark about this time of dream-sharing together, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you. Amen.

What is so amazing about the Child!?!?

After all the office gatherings & parties with friends, after eating way too much food and/or baking a ton, after the kids return to college or school, depending (of course) on their age, after special worship services at church & singing “Silent Night” by candlelight, and (perhaps even) after the chaos of consumerism has finally slowed-- the vicious cycle where (perhaps) even the most thrifty among us were placated to consider—“Maybe I do need another television…” or rather when the realities of the current economic recession hit us hard—our pocketbooks not stretching as far this Christmas as before-- After all of this we return, in liturgical lingo, to today, to so-called ordinary time. …. Welcome.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The evening of Dec 26th, I decided to go on a run, and I was excited to see that—laid out on the houses-- after (most) all the gifts and presents had been unwrapped and what for many of us passes as Christmas had come to a close, there the Christmas lights remained. The Susquehanna river-water was dark and squinting; you could barely make out where the ground or water began, and yet, from the Victorian houses along Front Street, I saw deep blues, reds, and silvers—a festival of light… Then I passed alongside the residential streets closer to the center of town, and I could still make out the distinct shape of Christmas inflatables & other white & colored lights: All suggesting that, post-Christmas, something of hope, strung in the lights still shining, remains: (Perhaps) reminding us that even in the monotony of a simple & ordinary winter day, God’s presence can intervene in exceptional ways. Hence, if we look and listen carefully, we realize that, like the shepherds, we too can walk "haphazard by starlight,”—thanks be to God’s grace---“into the kingdom of heaven." (Unkno)
*******************************************************************************
Yet--- When people think about the Church in North America, (I wager) that they don’t always think about such Kingdom-walking—In fact, it is more likely the Church’s deficiency and not its divinity—its possibility or amazingness- that first comes to mind. And I don’t say this as a criticism—it’s more an observation. And perhaps it’s a foundational one because it prompts questions like this: Amazing Grace—is this something related to us— something we are meant to actually experience?! And perhaps this too: Is there space for sacred adoration left in the Church? Walking by worshippers at a Hindu temple or a Muslim mosque— one quickly notices shoes poetically stacked alongside the front sidewalk & doorway— or listening to a charismatic speaker in the street and there, moved by the genuine glimmer in this soulful individual’s eye, one thinks: This person: They are truly alive; their very essence resounds with the stuff of life—that which beckons transformation! And then after such observations, people turn to the Church & wonder: Have we allowed, enabled, and envisioned such a space—where, as the Doctrine of Incarnation suggests, divinity comes down & actually affects the humanly realm.
Seminarians are just as susceptible to this disposition as anyone else: With our advent to ministry positions, we sometimes resign ourselves- as if its part of the contract—to (presumably) a life of too many, unnecessary meetings, of offering Sunday words to parishioners who may or may not really care, and we bolster the sacks of our dreams onto the lump-pile sum of the Institution of the Church- describing how we both love and hate it—and then, in the midst of all of this, risk forgetting the (perhaps truest) sacraments of Church: a) Transformation or--- Love so real that You are freed to be yourself… that as like Mary Oliver writes in her poem, “Luke”— that we are how “we long to be- that happy in the heaven of Earth—that wild, that loving” and b) the characteristic my words today center on: the deep, profound, and moving ability to care.

My intention today, with the anchoring help of our Scripture passages, is to reveal that, contrary to all our first observations and (perhaps) even contrary to ourselves, the Church has something incredibly important, revitalizing, revolutionary, and life-changing to claim— It’s simple really… So simple that I struggle to put it into words—struggle because just spitting out the words seems too coarse, too besides the point, too simple, and yet equally so strikingly necessary. Our amazing grace is Jesus Christ--- the Christmas child—who gives us reason to hope not in abstract or distant ways but in real, beautiful, the most empowering, right-here-and-now ways!!! – --All this bringing truth to bear on the words that “If we look and listen carefully, we realize that, like the shepherds, we too can walk ‘haphazard by starlight” and notice that, after the Christmas presents have been unwrapped, the Christmas lights remain- and thanks be to God’s grace—we can walk into the kingdom of heaven.’”
This gives us reason to hope. This gives us reason to really Care!

************************************************************************************
My sermon is a bit like a patchwork quilt: Annunciation of Mary using a poem form Denise Levertov—From there we will consider what our Galatians and then Isaiah passage provide in the context of Luke 2—and then look specifically at the, to use poetic license with the term, annunciation or divine revelation we see, almost incarnational, between Christ & Anna and Simeon--- focusing on the significance of God coming into the world as a child and Anna & Simeon’s response to care—even when the odds seem against them.

‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.
But we are told of meek obedience.
No one mentions
courage. …

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
…
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
______________________________
She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child – but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.
Called to a destiny more momentous
…
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, 'How can this be?'
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –
but who was God.

Hail Space for the Uncontained God. …. The words I just spoke were written in the 21st century by poet Denise Levertov—and one could say it was her own response to Parrish’s question to us last week: What is it about the Annunciation- Mary’s encounter with the angel & then ultimately with the Spirit of God- that so enchants—that we so remember Mary’s Magnificant prayer of praise that followed?—that something inside us is struck—and we care.
In today’s sermon, we find ourselves in the same Gospel, that of Luke, the devoted chronicler & supposed physician, a Gospel often said to be for a Gentile audience and noted for its unequivocable presentation of Christianity as an international religion (or, more simply, not just a religion of and for the Jews); the Gospel of Luke also, perhaps more than any other Gospel, holds a special perception for outsiders; in the case of today’s story, we recognize the striking role of women and the elderly.
The Scripture begins, and we see something unique: the Holy Family is seen as distinctly Law-abiding Jews. Also, the setting is the Temple- a significantly Jewish locale, and Joseph, Mary, and the baby Christ are there for the time of purification, according to the Law of Moses- as our New Revised Translation tells us. This “Law of Moses” is detailed in Exodus 13:2 &12 & describes the consecration of the firstborn to the Lord. This reality of the Holy Family as Law-abiding is also mentioned in our Pauline lectionary reading today: Paul tells us, in distinctly authentic Paul-speak, that God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law…. However, here is where the magic happens: the result of Christ’s identification with the Law is that the Christ-child then re-translates it. Instead of God’s favor resting with one nation or ethnic identity, as Paul describes and the Letter of Galatians is particularly well-known for describing: God’s grace is with and for all people!
Inclusiveness!!!!
Also, Christ is called Son of God--- a poetic image of closeness--- so close—revealing the poetry of the Incarnation & Levertov’s words: to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Abba, Father--- Daddy----
In summary-In today’s text from Galatians, we see, with Paul’s use of children—we move from slaves to heirs! The word slave is hard to stomach—Its cruel history in our context and the reality of its presence even now in other contexts doesn’t lighten the load. And yet, when we see that, in this case, it is the term child lifted up as its contrast—one might begin to wonder: (Title & subject of importance) What is so amazing about the child!?! (Repeat)
-------------------------
As I was preparing my sermon, I came across some other insights about our passage in Luke that harken to our other lectionary passage today- the reading from Isaiah—and related discussion of Jewish salvation history.

1. Scholars observes that the neuter ‘soterion’ (salvation) which is used four times in the New Testament (3 of them in Luke-Acts) is found throughout Isaiah 40-66. Our Isaiah passage today comes from this section of text, specifically chapters 56-66, also known (sometimes) as 3rd Isaiah- believed to have written after the return to the Promised Land. Like Second Isaiah, this part speaks of the hope that God will soon restore Jerusalem to its former glory and make a new home for all peoples. Today’s passage is unique: Celebrative- There is wedding imagery! Agricultural!

My whole being? SOUL

One is drawn to imagine the prophecy as evoking one to action- to remembrance— the potential of the promise! See what our God has done! God can do this for all of us. God answers God’s promises! --- Hence, we can hope. We can care!

This theme of promise-fulfillment is also manifest in Luke 2.
This is the second Temple scene in the Infancy Narrative of Luke. The temple figures prominently in Luke-Acts. It opens and closes the Gospel. By the time Luke composes his gospel though, the temple in Jerusalem stands in ruins after the crushing defeat of the revolution under Titus. **** Hence, Luke’s audience would (likely) have been aware that the temple was no longer the institution it was just decades before. (This makes the theme of promise and fulfillment all the more palpable—!)
It is in this context that two old folks happen upon a couple carrying a child. Luke describes Simeon and Anna in terms that he will use of the early Christian movement: Simeon is “righteous and devout and the Holy Spirit is upon him.” Anna is a prophetess and a long time widow. Both await the fulfillment of the promise to redeem Israel.
In Simeon and Anna, two separate encounters with the Christ child, we begin to glimpse that there is something different—something “amazing” about.! And there is something different about this child! From the text, we gain a few things:
• From Simeon’s renown words that form the famous “Nunc Dimittis”- we hear that this child, echoing Paul’s theology, is salvation- “prepared in the presence for all peoples”—to enlighten the Gentile as well as for the glory of Israel.
• This child will cause the inner thoughts of many to be revealed.
* And uniquely, from Anna’s encounter with the child, the child becomes the speaking topic to those “looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Potent Stuff.
And in thinking that it would be a small child to symbolize all of these things, our projections and biases about power are challenged and reorganized (A Lord of Hosts (armies) who is a Prince of Peace). Somehow, God has a different idea—and instead, it is a child and not the mighty warrior that functions as a messenger of greater truth…

In thinking more about this personally, I also thought about children and what is unique about them. A few things came to mind:
1) Like Paul’s theology, they don’t see differences between people as aptly as adults often do. ** Ghanaian children (village)
2) They also tend to believe & care deeply. (Bowling alley- Marin)- thank you! In this vein, they are apt to believe that just because something is a certain way-- doesn't mean it should be
3) They also believe in what we adults often call “fairy tales.”—
In thinking about fairy tales & the Gospel:
The whole truth, says Buechner, has to be told “as a kind of fairy tale where everybody is disguised as something he [sic!] is not and only at the end are all disguises stripped away so that all are revealed for what they truly are ."

We see the Gospel as fairy tale in Luke 2---

Old Anna & Simeon- prophets who SEE announce the truth..

Think about it—in our context where it is often the elderly who are too quickly seen as disposable, where commercial advertisers focus upon the 20-40 year old audience—it is not some young beautiful man …

What is their unique response to their own annunciations or divine interventions? (Simeon uniquely from the Holy spirit and Anna through her prayers)

They hope. They are ready. They are there—seemingly even despite the pain of all the waiting (pain—this child will know—Mary too).

Back to our context! Why should we care??!?!

TV: News (1 think I don’t like)

I want us to stop for just one moment, and I want you to remember a moment of grace in your life: (When like Simeon & Anna you saw the sacred!)

Consider these words:
The absence of exciting and unusual stories about Jesus younger years does suggest one thing about this period. It was probably quite normal. It would be quite typical of the life of any young person growing up in that time. After the dramatic events surrounding his birth, Luke tells us that Jesus and his family “returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth”. They withdrew into the humdrum obscurity of daily life in their rural village, into the customary routines of daily life, the rhythms that marked the lives of friends and neighbors and relations. They shared the struggles and celebrations of their own particular time and place as much as the other families of Nazareth and the rest of Galilee. We can be sure if any unusual events had been associated with the family of Joseph the carpenter, the people of Nazareth would not have been so perplexed by the sudden emergence of Jesus as a powerful preacher and wonder some years later. Jesus and his family would be immersed in the experiences common to the people he met every day. The sheer ordinariness of Jesus youth, such as it could be summed up in a single sentence, was undoubtedly the best preparation for his extraordinary ministry, and precisely because he had come forth from the community to which he was sent.

*** The incarnation affirms that the most ordinary dimension of life can be the place of God's extraordinary saving activity. Recognizing this, suggests Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is the secret to living the entire liturgical year with a sense of God's presence. In our most mundane circumstances, "here we are daily, not necessarily attractive and saintly people, along with other not very attractive and saintly people, managing the plain prose of our everyday service, deciding daily to recognize the prose of ourselves and each other as material for something unimaginably greater — the Kingdom of God, the glory of the saints, reconciliation and wonder" (Where God Happens, 2005).

We have heard similar advice from Simeon & Anna this morning. If I could re-phrase it for myself, I would say something like this:

There’s something truly amazing about God revealing God-self in a child-- IT speaks of a God whose love is different, deeper, and truer…

Even when life feels so ordinary, there is reason to hope.

* Like Simeon spotting the child--- Prodigal Son parable in Luke where God like the Father—reveals to us that we are all God’s beloved Children. God’s love for us is deep. This is what the Church has the incredible privilege to claim & to celebrate. Let us proceed with courage. Let us be Kingdom-Walkers.

The Christmas lights are still shining for a reason.

Let us conclude in prayer & this time of mutual dream-sharing with the words of a man who needed hope, Nelson Mandela: “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, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are 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.”

Still Thinkin' on Fairy Tales

2008-12-27T19:19:00.001-08:00

Joni Mitchell Lyrics
"Moons and junes and ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As evry fairy tale comes real
Ive looked at love that way."

Sunday's Sermon in Progress...

2008-12-26T20:03:00.001-08:00

I am preaching this Sunday.... This is what I've written so far....

* Using the words of writer-preacher, Frederick Buechner, I pray: “If preachers are to say anything that really matters to anyone including themselves, they must say it not just to the public part of us that considers interesting thoughts about the Gospel and how to preach it, but to the private, inner part too, to the part of us all where dreams come from … the inner part where thoughts mean less than images, elucidation less than evocation … [and where we’re] less concerned with matters of form and good taste than simply with telling the truth” … And so, God, as we embark about this time of dream-sharing together, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you. Amen.

What is so amazing about the Child!?!?

After all the office gathering & parties with friends, after eating way too much food and/or baking a ton, after the kids return to college or school, depending (of course) on their age, after special worship services at church, and (perhaps even) after the chaos of consumerism has finally slowed-- the vicious cycle where even the most thrifty among us were (perhaps) placated to consider—“Maybe I do need another television…”-- After all of this we return, in liturgical lingo, today, to so-called ordinary time. …. Welcome.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The evening of Dec 26th, I decided to go on a run, and I was excited to see that, after (most) all the gifts and presents all the house had been unwrapped and what for most of us passes as Christmas had come to a close, there the Christmas lights remained. The Susquehanna river-water was dark and squinting, you could barely make out where the ground or water began, and yet, from the Victorian houses along Front Street, I saw deep blues, reds, and silvers—a festival of light… Then I passed alongside the residential streets closer to the center of town, and I could still make out the distinct shape of Christmas inflatables & other white & colored lights: All suggesting that, post-Christmas, something of hope, strung in the lights still shining, remains: (Perhaps) Reminding us that even the monotony of a simple & ordinary winter day can be a place where God intervenes in exceptional ways. If we look and listen carefully, we realize that, like the shepherds, we too can walk "haphazard by starlight,”—thanks be to God’s grace---“into the kingdom of heaven." (Unkno)
*******************************************************************************
Yet--- When people think about the Church in North America, (I wager) that they don’t think about such Kingdom-walking—In fact, it is more likely the Church’s deficiency and not its divinity—its possibility or magic-- that first comes to mind. And I don’t say this as a criticism—it’s more an observation. And perhaps it’s a foundational one because it prompts questions like this: Amazing Grace—is this something related to us— something we are meant to actually experience?! And perhaps this too: Walking by worshippers at a Hindu temple or a Muslim mosque— one quickly notices shoes poetically stacked alongside the front sidewalk & doorway— or listening to a charismatic speaker in the street and there, moved by the genuine glimmer in this soulful individual’s eye, one thinks: This person: They are truly alive; their very essence resounds with the stuff of life—that which beckons transformation! And then after such observations, people turn to the Church & wonder: Is there any space for sacred adoration left there?! Have we allowed, enabled, and envisioned such a space—where, as the Doctrine of Incarnation suggests, divinity comes down & actually affects the humanly realm.
Seminarians are just as susceptible to this disposition as anyone else: With our advent to ministry positions, we sometimes resign ourselves- as if its part of the contract-- to a life of unnecessary meetings, of offering Sunday words to parishioners who may or may not really care, and we bolster the sacks of our dreams onto the lump-pile sum of the Institution- describing how we both love and hate it—and then, in the midst of all of this, risk forgetting the (perhaps truest) sacraments of Church: a) Transformation or--- Love so real that You are freed to be yourself… that like Mary Oliver writes in her poem, “Luke”— how “we long to be- that happy in the heaven of Earth—that wild, that loving” and b) the characteristic my words today center on: the deep, profound, and moving ability to care.

My intention today is to reveal that, contrary to all our first observations and even contrary to ourselves, the Church has something incredibly important, revitalizing, revolutionary, and life-changing to claim— It’s simple really… So simple that I struggle to put it into words—struggle because just spitting out the words seems too coarse, too besides the point, and yet equally necessary. Our amazing grace is Jesus Christ--- the Christmas child—who gives us reason to hope not in abstract or distant ways but in real, beautiful, the most empowering, right-here-and-now ways!!! – --All this bringing truth to bear on the words that “If we look and listen carefully, w realize that, like the shepherds, we too can walk ‘haphazard by starlight” and, notice that after the Christmas presents have been unwrapped, the Christmas lights remain- and thanks be to God’s grace-- walk into the kingdom of heaven.’”
This gives us reason to hope. This also gives us reason to really Care!

************************************************************************************

‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.
But we are told of meek obedience.
No one mentions
courage. …

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
…
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
______________________________
She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child – but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.
Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, 'How can this be?'
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –
but who was God.

Hail Space for the Uncontained God. …. The words I just spoke were written in the 21st century by poet Denise Levertov—and one could say it was her own response to Parrish’s question to us last week: What is it about the Annunciation- Mary’s encounter with the angel & then ultimately with the Spirit of God- that so enchants—that we so remember Mary’s Magnificant prayer of praise that followed?—that something inside us is struck—and we care.
In today’s sermon, we find ourselves in the same Gospel, that of Luke, the devoted chronicler & supposed physician whose writing is often said to be for a Gentile audience—because he did not use much Semitic language and his gospel unequivocably presents Christianity as an international religion (or, more simply, not just a religion of and for the Jews); he also, perhaps more than any other Gospel writer, holds a special perception for outsiders; in the case of today’s story, Luke illumines the role of women and the elderly.

The Scripture begins, and we see something unique: Although Luke’s Gospel is addressed to a Gentile audience, the Holy Family is seen as distinctly Law-abiding Jews. Also, the setting is the Temple- a significantly Jewish locale, and Joseph, Mary, and the baby Christ are there for the time of purification, according to the Law of Moses- as our New Revised Translation tells us. This “Law of Moses” is detailed in Exodus 13:2 &12 & describes the consecration of the firstborn to the Lord. This reality of the Holy Family as Law-abiding is also mentioned in our Pauline lectionary reading today. Paul tells us, in distinctly authentic Paul-speak, that God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law…. However, here is where the magic happens: the result of Christ’s identification with the Law is that the Christ-child then re-translates it. Instead of God’s favor resting with one nation or ethnic identity, as Paul describes and the Letter of Galatians is particularly well-known for describing: God’s grace is with and for all people!
Inclusiveness!!!!
Christ is called Son of God--- meant a closeness--- so close—revealing the poetry of the Incarnation & Levertov’s words: to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

Abba, Father--- Daddy----
In summary- In today’s text from Galatians, we see as children—we move from slaves to heirs! The word slave is hard to stomach—Its cruel history in our context and the reality of its presence even now in other contexts doesn’t lighten the load. And yet, when we see that, in this case, it is the term child lifted up as its contrast—one might begin to wonder: What is so amazing about the child!?! (Repeat)
-------------------------
As I was preparing my sermon, I came across some other insights about our passage in Luke that harken to our other lectionary passage today- the reading from Isaiah—and related:Jewish salvation history.
As well as the temple-setting
2. The allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures--- Scholars observes that the neuter ‘soterion’ (salvation) which is used four times in the New Testament (3 of them in Luke-Acts) is found throughout Isaiah 40-66. Our Isaiah passage today comes from this section of text, specifically chapters 56-66, also known (sometimes) as 3rd Isaiah- believed to have written after the return to the Promised Land. Like Second Isaiah, this part speaks of the hope that God will soon restore Jerusalem to its former glory and make a new home for all peoples. Today’s passage is unique: Celebrative- There is wedding imagery! Agricultural!

My whole being? SOUL

One is drawn to imagine the prophecy as evoking one to action- to remembrance— the potential of the promise! See what our God has done! God can do this for all of us. God answers God’s promises!

This theme of promise-fulfillment is also manifest in Luke 2.
This is the second Temple scene in the Infancy Narrative of Luke. The temple figures prominently in Luke-Acts. It opens and closes the Gospel. By the time Luke composes his gospel though, the temple in Jerusalem stands in ruins after the crushing defeat of the revolution under Titus. Though it has been argued that some temple sacrifices were being offered from 70 C.E. to the final destruction of Jerusalem under Bar Kochba in 135 C.E., Luke’s audience would (likely) have been aware that the temple was no longer the institution it was just decades before. (This makes the theme of promise and fulfillment all the more palpable—!)
At the time of Jesus the temple was one of three pillars upon which Judaism was established (the Torah and the Land being the other two). In our own time, when the remaining ruins of the Temple (the ‘wailing wall’) threaten to crumble, it is difficult to imagine the size and importance of this institution. During times of festal pilgrimage, it could hold between 80-100,000 people (numbers you only see nowadays at a college football game or protest!). The doors to the temple were 80 feet high and took 200 men to open them each morning and close them each night. The creaking of the doors, made of Corinthian bronze, could be heard all around Jerusalem and its environs. The temple served as the depository of the wealth of the rich and powerful. It had its own fortress and complement of Roman soldiers. In it were all the treasures of Jewish history. It was a place of great importance politically, economically and religiously.
It is in this context that two old folks happen upon a couple carrying a child. Luke describes Simeon and Anna in terms that he will use of the early Christian movement: Simeon is “righteous and devout and the Holy Spirit is upon him.” Anna is a prophetess and a long time widow. Both await the fulfillment of the promise to redeem Israel.
In Simeon and Anna, two separate encounters with the Christ child, we begin to glimpse that there is something different—something “amazing” about.! And there is something different about this child! From the text, we gain a few things:
• From Simeon’s renown words that form the “Nunc Dimittis”- we hear that this child, echoing Paul’s theology, is salvation- “prepared in the presence for all peoples”—to enlighten the Gentile as well as for the glory of Israel.
• This child will cause the inner thoughts of many to be revealed.
• And uniquely, from Anna’s encounter with the child, the child becomes the speaking topic to those “looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Potent Stuff.
And in thinking that it would be a small child to symbolize all of these things, our projections and biases about power are challenged and reorganized (A Lord of Hosts (armies) who is a Prince of Peace). Somehow, God has a different idea—and instead, it is a child that functions as a messenger of greater truth…

In thinking more about this personally, I thought more about children and what is unique about them. A few things came to mind:
1) Like Paul’s theology, they don’t see differences between people as aptly as adults often do. ** Ghanaian children (village)
2) They also tend to believe & care deeply. (Bowling alley- Marin)- thank you! In this vein, they are apt to believe that just because something is a certain way-- doesn't mean it should be
3) They also believe in what we adults often call “fairy tales.”—

A Great Example: Nullah in the movie Australia

The whole truth, says Buechner, has to be told "as a tragedy of men and women suffering more than even their own folly and wickedness seem to merit; as comic both in the sense of a terrible funniness and of a happy end to all that is terrible … and as a kind of fairy tale where everybody is disguised as something he [sic!] is not and only at the end are all disguises stripped away so that all are revealed for what they truly are … with the possibility of being turned into human beings."

LOVE

2008-12-26T16:55:00.000-08:00

The Chinese Character for LOVE...

Watching the television news or even reading the internet posts following this Holiday season, one can feel particularly inadequate or frenzied: Want to hear the best "wedding proposal" stories of 2008, want to figure out how to shave off those last 15lbs?, know what the new Winter Red Is (Yes, I just completely made up that color... ;) ).... Hmmm--- All this to say, with the advent of all these messages about what should or should not be my resolution this New Years, I think I am going to stick with a simple one: Be Loving. Simple but incredibly Hard. How does one know what is the most loving thing to do? Does being loving intimate that one will find love? How is love given freely? Good questions. I don't have answers. But somehow, one thing I do know: It's a gesture of more restfulness. LOVE. Hope this post fills you with a bit of it. ;)

Riemann Sums Strike Their Head!

2008-12-26T16:47:00.000-08:00

Ever since I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Kathleen Norris & Annie Dillard, I have been contemplating their spiritual investigations in light of the calculus theories behind Riemann sums-- I know, pretty nerdy for someone who does even claim to be good at Math! ;) Anyway, I am truly excited, because I am almost finished with Norris's latest book, "Acedia & Me," and she herself mentions Riemann!-- I figured I would share my joy with the Facebook world, most notably my housemates! :)

In Norris' words: "Late one night as we were conversing about such matters at our kitchen table, it occurred to me that what David called 'big numbers' and I called 'angels' might well be the same thing: after following our different paths to get there, we might come around on the circle and meet in the place Keats glimpsed when he equated truth with beauty. David was delighted. I think he would love a simile that seems fitting for our marriage: it was like the differential equations the mathematician Bernhard Riemann insisted he had not invented; he had found them in the universe, where God had hidden them." Kathleen Norris, "Acedia & Me," 255.

-- Hmmmm, this gives me even more to think about concerning my definition of the Gospel-homework....

Owegea

2008-12-26T15:28:00.000-08:00

I just found out that where my parents' town sits (kind of my hometown, although it is not Spencer) used to be a Native American village called Owegea--- hence the name of the town: Owego... The Indian village was burned in 1779 (I believe) as a General went through the area to join forces with another army commander.... Talk about a hard reality to consider!!!
I learned this today as I was going on a walk, and it is suddenly explained a lot to me.... I wonder if the earth has fully grieved the tragedy? At any rate, I feel the presence of the Native American sensitivity.... I now understand, in part, why I feel so touched by spirits and the consciousness of Nature's presence when I am home.... I felt this particularly when I was on a run on a farther distant country road last week. The landscape was incredibly bare and the trees were like slender totem poles decorating the horizon.... And I felt this deep sense of familiarity, of being at home. I remembered when I would run on the back roads of Spencer in high school, always running towards the high school building-- it was the goal, the end-point, the finish line; now, I realize, that the finish line is not quite as certain and definite: In fact, it is incredibly more abstract and complicated, and yet I long for it all the more. I long for perfect, present contentment. Perhaps it is the longing that really matters most?

Santa in India

2008-12-25T19:11:00.000-08:00

The more I understand what makes me tick or what gives me incredible joy, I realize that more often than not, I am in the context of some international community. There, in the humid, truly alive streets of Porte Alegre, Brazil or in the moon-rock slopes of Ladakh, India, skipping over the rocks with my Nepali friend, I have felt closer to my soul and spirit and to the all encompassing truth that, as human beings, we will not be truly happy until there is happiness for us all... and that, within one human heart, we uncover the dreaming of the universe; we are not as different as we first might presume-- There is so much more to see than what first meets the eye!

Enjoy!

first sermon this year

2008-12-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

This is the text of the first sermon I preached at Alameda Presbyterian Church this year... As the text reveals, I didn't preach everything-- I had far too much material... But what I tried to do and what, I hope, my theological voice enabled was an appreciation of Phil 2 and what art might be gleaned from the often philosophical & heady notion of kenosis...

One of the dangers of this having “an occasional opportunity to preach” is that one faces the temptation to try to say everything one knows (or, perhaps, thinks ones knows) all at once: In this way, I don’t just want to give you a few insights, I want to share with you the whole story of my experience of faith & God-- and all the people and peoples, the events and circumstances, the remembrances, miracles, and mysteries that made it happen. I want you all to come down and sit with me. I would like to order a few lattes and really get the conversation brewing… Or go out and get some pizza, so we can talk theology for the rest of the afternoon. And so yes, this has most certainly been a temptation.
BUT, instead of trying to tell you everything and perhaps even instead of directly trying to tell you anything, my intention today is to share a few stories—with the hope that something therein speaks to you.

And so I am ALSO going to start today’s sermon with perhaps a very unconventional beginning: I give you permission to gently allow your mind, your heart, and your spirit to go to the places it needs to go as I speak today. I hope that some of these places will include a grappling with the specific words I present … but I also think that something of the miracle and goodness of preaching is that it is creative art—some might even call it Incarnational (little sense)…. And the thing about art is that it’s not just about the artist—but those who experience art—those who step back, but this time, NOT limited perhaps by that little museum rope with sigh, saying: You must remain 4 feet away from this piece of beautiful, expensive art: Those who see! And so Come close! Please, feel free to bring your hands (dirty and clean) and get them dirty in the task of open handedly grappling with the ideas presented or, for you, connoted and brought to mind! This sermon is my little big task of listening and then being given the abundant privilege of sharing with you all what I have heard. But, by the end of today’s words (sermon), it is not simply my hearing that is important—but yours. So let this be a space—a place—where the Holy comes—and hence where God speaks to you.
Taking the Plunge: Looking at Light; Contemplating a Kenotic God
When I was a kid and even up to my middle teens, I was scared of water. Now before you imagine this in the silly way of (holding up water)- “Oh, Elizabeth—you’re scared of this”- let me frame it in this way: I wasn’t afraid so much of water as that moment of going under—of taking the plunge into the unknown world of everything that lie just under the surface of the tide. In thinking about it today, I realize that a lot of my fear probably stems from my physical breathing limitations. I have a reduced lung capacity—and even though it hasn’t kept me from playing the saxophone or running a race—it has notably impacted my ability to feel safe, holding my breath under the water. Underneath the waves, I grapple with the thickness of this unbreathable substance and somehow the margin of error seems greater—When playing my saxophone or running a race, one can always stop and take a breath—Swimming feels harder—In fact, when I looked at swimmers on television—effortlessly hurling themselves through the waves (Think David Phelps!), I could never see them looking up, cocking and tilting their heads to take a breath. Hmmm--- but upon further investigation, at looking closer, one sees that swimmers do make space and time to breathe: They have to; It’s part of the process. But, when I imagined the act of swimming, I never saw this. Truth be told, I simply needed more imagination as well as the willingness to stop and really see. I needed a paradigm change.
I think about my fear of water, and although it might be too easy to draw parallels, I am set, at least for a few moments, to considering my own vocational and career discernment (Note: water analogy will come later!). I remember the first time I thought about being a minister (which I’m still discerning). I was 14 years old, and I went into my pastor’s office and was talking with him about life. This was not unusual. We had something of a mentoring relationship, in which I would often meet with him, ask him for his interpretation of particular poems I had read: “Pastor Huth, what do you think about this???---- OR--- I remember describing my unease at classroom dynamics when a substitute teacher would come, and it seemed that the whole classroom day was designed around: How much can we get away with—and I would relate to him these enormously sensitive chronicles about how I couldn’t understand why we acted so differently when subs came. Given certain realities of the human condition… one of them being: “Impress the Pastor”-- someone might wonder: Wow, Elizabeth… Were you one of those traditional do-gooding youngsters, looking for affirmation and therein—a sense of self. And I would say no--- there, in the light of his office (whether spiritual or projected), I had this safe space to really question the way the world was and why we did what we did. And yes, the question with substitute teachers always bothered me, because, first of all, I liked routine, and so I didn’t like the chaos that erupted when the normal classroom teacher and his or her expectations were gone.. But also, because, I had this undeniable sense that this ganging up on the often more passive or gentle substitute teacher was wrong. My empathy was with her. It was during one of our conversations that my Pastor asked me, “What do you want to do with your life.” And, at 14 I told him: Ah, I want to pursue goodness. He told me to consider being a pastor, and—even though I’ve sometimes kicked and screamed (metaphorically)—I haven’t looked back. Somehow I want to take the plunge into ministry, but there’s also this part of me—this part that won’t go down into the waves easily—and it wonders: Well, but what does this mean” What kind of minister would I be? What paradigms would I have to change or seen changed in my own imagination before I could be comfortable with such a title.

For me, this takes us, in part, to the Scriptures in today’s lectionary. First, there is Phil 2—known for its famous “kenotic” formulation. Kenosis refers to the way in which Jesus is described as “emptying” himself—From this concept of kenosis, many interesting and truly amazing theological concepts have emerged—drawing us, compelling us, and persuading us to consider our God images and what way they speak of a God who would chose this emptying path…. Who, as Rose Powell mentioned at Light youth group on Wednesday: a God who was willing to die to set things right. (Put an end to violence!!!!!)

From these verses in Phil 2, we abstract many important ideas and questions. We are drawn into theological debates about creation, about Christ’s relationship to the Creator God, and to our own ethical-oriented, life response to all of this---- When I think of Kenosis, I am reminded of a very specific idea: Before Christ came to Earth and God revealed Godself through Jesus as One who comes to the least of these, to the so-called sick, to the needy and poor—people of the ancient world imagined God as everything different from themselves: God was omnipotent, omnipresent, away—away—away (perhaps some might even say—safely away in abstraction)--- but then, God makes this kenotic move (Jesus comes to earth) and chooses to reveal the divine nature in such a way that culture and norms are questioned-- quick descriptions and socially conditioned definitions of what is good, successful, proper & powerful are reversed. Here’s our paradigm change: The last will be first and the first will be last. Love Your Neighbor as You Love Yourself. "You have heard it said, ' love your friends, hate your enemies.' But now i tell you : love your enemies and pray for those who presecute you Blessed are the poor in Spirit (Luke: poor)…. (This might be particularly hard to hear—Financial situation- My bank was bought up)…. In short, the Incarnation reveals a new politic, a new Kingdom or Presidency—but this time, (not to disparage politics- they are necessary) we’re not talking about John McCain’s or Barack Obama’s notion—we see a very different one: The Kingdom of God where all the vineyard workers are paid a fair wage, where tax collectors, prostitutes, and children have the inside perspective that the older, established Jewish elites (Pharisee) attempt to claim for their own, and where a poor man named Lazarus is given a name and thus an identity, subjectivity, & hope. Namely, power is re-defined & re-claimed.
The Interpreter’s Bible Commentary on Philippians explains the Kenotic miracle in this way:
** The enduring supremacy of Christ’s revelation (of this emptying of himself) will not depend on the support of theologians or the vote of the churches. It will rest on the simple fact that to the end of time no one can show any power other than the love that swooped to earth in Christ, which can win over our human spirits from enslavement to self (or, as other theologians have shared: self-effacement). This power unto salvation contradicted all the expectations of authorities, religious and secular, in Jesus’ own day. And it will forever contradict every way of imposing on the human will from outside which tries to supplant this inside persuasion and constraint. Nothing else can save humanity from itself and at the same time leave a person his/her freedom.”
“All kinds of saviors will promise to change the world from outside,” the Commentary continues, “and they can bestow certain external benefits; but at long last, [individuals] must be freely won away from self if [they are] to know the true ‘liberty of the children of God.’” 52. I would add to this usage of the word self here, a kind of concept of fearful individualism—The self is not free when it thinks it needs all the answers--- when it is too busy trying to fit in or gain just a bit of power—that is trods over another—as in my sub. Teacher ex.
The Interpreter’s Commentary then helps to clarify my clarification, stating, again about
Phil 2 “Here Paul holds up a contrasted figure who, with the nature of God, became a servant to the lowliest on earth, whom we would consider beneath us and who, by enduring all that the typical sins of men can do, revealed how respectable people (with whom we would feel quite at home) may be the chief enemies of the living God who seeks their liberation.
The thing to do with a picture is not to analyze it, but to let it talk, as Paul wanted it to talk to those in Phillipi who were exalting themselves. (GIVE some SPACE)--- I will:

It suggests that God the Creator, who ‘eternally gives Godself that we might exist,’ has had in nature from all eternity this outgoing, self-giving disposition of mind; which became visible by one supreme revelation in Christ, reaching down to individuals in order to lift each one out of self into a new union with the selfless life of God, for which our spirit was created (When I say selfless- I do not know mean without our uniqueness- but like at the beginning of Phil 2—harmony & non-violence!) Once this revelation was made in a deed, there was nothing more that could be added to it.---
In other words, Christ says, on the cross,

It is finished of Jesus: he means it.

I was able to attend a conference at the seminary this weekend. A number of amazing theologians came, including a very well-known one, a French man named Rene Girard. Rene made his academic career describing the ways in which violence so often enters into religion and showing how we can reverse this (which I described above)---

Rene, who is now in his mid-80’s, spoke with great wisdom and simple eloquence about Jesus, whose violent death, launches a new truth (light)--- He would go perhaps even so far as to say that this truth is now hidden and revealed in our human consciousness--- We have seen truth—and it was captured in the loving kenosis movement--- so much, that – although we might not consciously recognize it--- It is not those who come with great power as it is traditionally defined that truly captivate us--- We know the falsehood of manipulation – of power that overpowers rather than empowers.

In our Gospel lesson,
Sanhedrin now directly challenge Jesus (By what authority are you doing these things).
Claim: These things refer to Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple—They wanted him to claim Kingship, for they knew that Rome would deal with that claim. Perhaps they hoped he would claim messiahship—this they could denounce as blaphemsy. – with some support from the crowd (those who only saw him as a prophet).

He was proclaiming truth. He both refrained from a claim and made a claim.
There are striking meanings& suggestions here: “Jesus said in effect that when truth is spoken, it rings on the conscience as a true coin rings on stone. Like light, it needs no validation: light is its own evidence. If we tried to prove light by anything beyond itself, we would have to use light for the proof. Thus, every person has the primal gift to recognize truth. “

And we? If only we could face the light----

Talking about Light, I have begun thinking a lot about the brilliance of this name for our church youth group.

Light—When I realize that I need to empty myself—of my agenda… even my own theology. SO that it can be a space for the light can be shown--- where we as young men and women can look and confront truth

So—what does all of this leave us: A kenotic God?—Our ability to recognize truth, a God revealed through Jesus whose power politic (or way of being) is strikingly different from the politics of the world?

How can we reach out?!

I have a few thoughts:

Let’s trust, for instance, that when we speak of God as Christians we are not talking about the God who has often been presented in history or media as the judging Parent Figure who acts in the world as a great emperor would—using power to advantage, diminishing free will.

We speak of a God instead who has taken the plunge with us—shown us the way… And I allow your minds and consciences to add to this description---
Let’s also trust the important role of community… the purpose of the church. Barbara Brown Taylor writes: (struggling with her vocation as a pastor)--- She sees congregation members being playfully pushed into a swimming pool during an outdoor party. Others had already gone in, both kids and adults, and Taylor wished that she, too, would be shoved in as one of the gang. (as a teen, I would not have this wish but now)--

“Whatever changes were occurring inside of me, I still looked waterproof to them,” she worries, while standing there as an observer. But then, she feels two hands on her shoulder, and in she goes with the others.

“I never found out who my savior (the one who threw her in) was, but when I broke the surface, I looked around at all of those shining people with makeup running down their cheeks, with hair plastered to their heads, and I was so happy to be one of them. If being ordained meant being set apart from them, then I did not want to be ordained anymore. I wanted to be human. I wanted to spit good and let snot run down my chin. I wanted to confess being as lost and found as anyone else without caring that my underwear showed through my wet clothes. Bobbing in that healing pool with all those other flawed beings of light, I looked around and saw them as I had never seen them before, while some of them looked at me the same way. The long wait had come to an end. I was in the water at last.”

Brothers and Sisters: We don’t have a waterproof God. Our God has come to earth, taken the plunge, and in so doing revealed a new way of being: a light of truth about what life is really about—Instead of manipulating, mediating, instead of hating, loving, -- and so, let us remember this (as it already dances within our consciousness): Our God’s Upward way is not one of “us” versus “them”—of separating, overpowering, persecution or violence. Our God would not say: You are not good enough-- Our God of the Upward Way reminds us of the beauty and power of a way where upward does not mean HIERARCHY- or good, better, and best ----- but I have come close to you, in the person of Jesus, to love you. And it is not a wimpy or weak love--- But a love that changed the world.
Let us take the plunge, lay aside our fear, and know that this, our news… is truly GOOD! AMEN

Today

2008-12-21T18:04:00.001-08:00

Today, I have found myself thinking a number of things: First and foremost about technology... As I have been enjoying my slumber-filled time at home, I have seen how much energy I have used "poking" around Facebook.... It has been truly wonderful, really-- getting to catch up with folks, even if only through the streams of the internet, and seeing what is new-- and yet, too, there is something unfortunate about how much of life can be spent near a computer.... Where is the present moment--- as we busily text message, change our status, and chat... I am certainly not poo-pooing technology. I love it as much as I loathe it-- and my family will be the first to say that I also utilize it-- :) and yet, I sometimes feel bombarded with that wonderful hopefulness I use to feel when I would check the mailbox and see if I had a letter-- But that was confined to one moment of one day... Now, I can hope for such moments at all times... and yet, at the same measure, with such hope comes equally dissatisfaction..... All of these reinforces for me the unique gift of the present moment... and so instead of constantly checking my e-mail, I have been switching to other avenues: listening to Taize podcasts, Bach's cello suites, and the latest Vienna Teng song.... This has been more blissful.

2. Joyce Carol Oates writes: "Although we 'know' better, we tend to 'feel' symbolically."

Inspiring Things to Do (One a Day from January 30-April 4)

2008-12-18T18:43:00.000-08:00

1 -- Today, I will reflect on what peace means to me.
2 -- Today, I will look at opportunities to be a peacemaker.
3 -- Today, I will practice nonviolence and respect for Mother Earth by making good use of her resources.
4 -- Today, I will take time to admire and appreciate nature.
5 -- Today, I will plant seeds--plants or constructive ideas.
6 -- Today, I will hold a vision of plenty for all the world's hungry and be open to guidance as to how I can help alleviate some of that hunger.
7 -- Today, I will acknowledge every human being's fundamental right to justice, equity, and equality.
8 -- Today, I will appreciate the earth's bounty and all of those who work to make my food available (i.e., grower, trucker, grocery clerk, cook, waitress, etc.)
9 -- Today, I will work to understand and respect another culture.
10 -- Today, I will oppose injustice, not people.
11 -- Today, I will look beyond stereotypes and prejudices.
12 -- Today, I will choose to be aware of what I talk about and I will refuse to gossip.
13 -- Today, I will live in the present moment and release the past.
14 -- Today, I will silently acknowledge all the leaders throughout the world.
15 -- Today, I will speak with kindness, respect, and patience to every person that I talk with on the telephone.
16 -- Today, I will affirm my value and worth with positive "self talk" and refuse to put myself down.
17 -- Today, I will tell the truth and speak honestly from the heart.
18 -- Today, I will cause a ripple effect of good by an act of kindness toward another.
19 -- Today, I will choose to use my talents to serve others by volunteering a portion of my time.
20 -- Today, I will say a blessing for greater understanding whenever I see evidence of crime, vandalism, or graffiti.
21 -- Today, I will say "No" to ideas or actions that violate me or others.
22 -- Today, I will turn off anything that portrays or supports violence whether on television, in the movies, or on the Internet.
23 -- Today, I will greet this day--everyone and everything--with openness and acceptance as if I were encountering them for the first time.
24 -- Today, I will drive with tolerance and patience.
25 -- Today, I will constructively channel my anger, frustration, or jealousy into healthy physical activities (i.e., doing sit-ups, picking up trash, taking a walk, etc).
26 -- Today, I will take time to appreciate the people who provide me with challenges in my life, especially those who make me angry or frustrated.
27 -- Today, I will talk less and listen more.
28 -- Today, I will notice the peacefulness in the world around me.
29 -- Today, I will recognize that my actions directly affect others.
30 -- Today, I will take time to tell a family member or friend how much they mean to me.
31 -- Today, I will acknowledge and thank someone for acting kindly.
32 -- Today, I will send a kind, anonymous message to someone.
33 -- Today, I will identify something special in everyone I meet.
34 -- Today, I will discuss ideas about nonviolence with a friend to gain new perspectives.
35 -- Today, I will practice praise rather than criticism.
36 -- Today, I will strive to learn from my mistakes.
37 -- Today, I will tell at least one person they are special and important.
38 -- Today, I will hold children tenderly in thought and/or action.
39 -- Today, I will listen without defending and speak without judgment.
40 -- Today, I will help someone in trouble.
41 -- Today, I will listen with an open heart to at least one person.
42 -- Today, I will treat the elderly I encounter with respect and dignity.
43 -- Today, I will treat the children I encounter with respect and care, knowing that I serve as a model to them.
44 -- Today, I will see my so-workers in a new light--with understanding and
compassion.
45 -- Today, I will be open to other ways of thinking and acting that are different from my own.
46 -- Today, I will think of at least three alternate ways I can handle a situation when confronted with conflict.
47 -- Today, I will work to help others resolve differences.
48 -- Today, I will express my feeling honestly and nonviolently with respect for myself and others.
49 -- Today, I will sit down with my family for one meal.
50 -- Today, I will set an example of a peacemaker by promoting nonviolent responses.
51 -- Today, I will use no violent language.
52 -- Today, I will pause for reflection.
53 -- Today, I will hold no one hostage to the past, seeing each-as I see myself-as a work in process.
54 -- Today, I will make a conscious effort to smile at someone whom I have held a grudge against in the past.
55 -- Today, I will practice compassion and forgiveness by apologizing to someone whom I have hurt in the past.
56 -- Today, I will reflect on whom I need to forgive and take at least one step in that direction.
57 -- Today, I will forgive myself.
58 -- Today, I will embrace the spiritual belief of my heart in my own personal and reflective way.
59 -- Today, I will enlarge my capacity to embrace differences and appreciate the value of every human being.
60 -- Today, I will be compassionate in my thoughts, words, and actions.
61 -- Today, I will cultivate my moral strength and courage through education and creative nonviolent action.
62 -- Today, I will practice compassion and forgiveness for myself and others.
63 -- Today, I will use my talents to serve others as well as myself.
64 -- Today, I will serve humanity by dedicating myself to a vision greater than myself.

A Post to Prompt!

2008-12-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

Well.... as all writing has its muse... whether it be simply that gentle, short, epiphanic moment of knowing: "This is it-- This is what I have been striving all my life to attain" -- This kind of thought that stays with you for awhile and then flutters away, ever so wonderfully, ever so livingly.... So I thought it apt to include some poetry here that has nothing to do with me .. in the sense that I did not write it-- but then, as we all know, this does not really define any significant distinction of difference: As we all know, sure- I did not write these words, but they seal and shimmer for me in a way that I feel that you, the author, simply awaken a truth that I already know to be true--- within... So it is with writing... And so, as I almost started to begin to say, before I found a moment of inspiration and needed to expand upon it: I want to include some poetry here now... I did not write these words... but thanks be to God-- they do inspire me to write some of my own!

Luke
I had a dog
who loved flowers.
Briskly she went
through the fields.
yet paused for the honeysuckle
or the rose,
her dark head

and her wet nose
touching
the face
of every one

with its petals
of silk
with its fragrance,
rising

into the air,
where the bees,
their bodies
heavy with pollen,

hovered--
and easily,
she adored
every blossom,
not in the serious
careful way that we choose
this blossom or that blossom--

the way we praise or don't praise--
the way we love
or don't love--
but the way

we long to be--
that happy
in the heaven of earth-
that wild, that loving....

Mary Oliver

The Intention of this Blog...

2008-12-17T13:53:00.000-08:00

Life is intensely beautiful; there is so much to reflect & muse upon. Walking across my seminary campus or trudging across the snow-laden sidewalks of Upstate New York, story ideas come to me continuously..... Rather than fight against the muses therefore, I have decided to oblige them. This space is a forum for personal but public reflection, where I will share expanding and developing story ideas as well as reflect upon my life. Feel free to provide comments.....

lovingly,
Elizabeth