Spirit Stories

I have never been one of those Christians who disapproves of Halloween.  I have happy memories of Halloweens as a child.  That was back in the 70's before we could buy costumes, so my gang of childhood friends would spend weeks planning our costumes.

As I've gotten older, I've done a lot of thinking about costumes and what they mean.  I've watched lots of friends and colleagues dress up, and I've done my share of amateur psychoanalysis as I've seen what they create.

I've also been thinking about God, who knows our real selves underneath our costumes, who knows our essential selves that we so often lose track of or our essential selves we haven't ever had a chance to know and discover.  I'm thinking about God who delights in our creativity, whether or not it's when we create our costumes or tell our scary stories or bake some Halloween treats.

Some of us come out scary religious traditions, with a god who doesn't take much delight in us.  Some of us come out of religious traditions with a god who plays tricks on us, a god who judges us, a god who condemns us and banishes us.  Some of us grew up with scary stories of hell and other types of perdition, stories full of the kinds of details of tortures far more frightening than any we might see in scary movies.

God knows our essential selves--I tend to think of my essential self as my soul, although I realize that idea might not be theologically sound.  God knows our spirit.

Medieval people would have seen this 3 day period of Halloween, All Saints and All Souls, as a time when spirits got loose and roamed the earth.  Some of our customs come from that time.  People dressed differently to hide from roaming spirits.  People kept Halloween bonfires burning to keep the evil spirits away and to keep a vigil on the feast days of All Saints and All Souls.

My brain keeps coming back to the idea of spirits.  Does our view of spirits and ghosts affect our view of the Holy Spirit?

Seven Months of Morning Watch

Seven months ago, I started "broadcasting" a morning watch devotion time on my church's Facebook page.  I started it as the pandemic began spreading exponentially in the U.S.  I started it in the days after my church decided to move to virtual worship.  I had no plan, really.  

My pastor was putting together online opportunities to support our congregation members, and I wanted to help.  I'm an early morning person in a way that most people aren't.  Several church friends had been moved to working from home, and I had heard from them that they wished there was some sort of morning mix of devotion and creative time to begin their day.  I got my pastor's O.K., and on the morning of March 30, I made my first attempt.

I had originally planned to choose my own Bible passages and write my own prayers, but as I thought about it, I said to myself, "Why do that when Phyllis Tickle has already put together that resource?"  I've been using her 3 volume set, The Divine Hours, so on the morning of March 30, I pulled that book off the shelf and read the passages out loud.  Then, before the final prayer, I gave us 5-7 minutes to journal, to sketch, to meditate, or to do whatever grounds us.

I am so glad that I used the Phyllis Tickle book.  Back then, I had no idea that I would still be doing morning watch seven months later.  I thought I would do it for a few weeks and then life might shift back to something that looked more like normal.  I thought that Easter might be a demarcation point, and once the Octave of Easter was over, I'd stop broadcasting.

Now I have no idea when I'll stop.  It's been a good experience for me.  I read the Bible passages differently when I'm reading them out loud and when I know that people will be watching me read them out loud.  I don't mean that I change my verbal reading style, but that when I'm reading out loud, I don't skim or let my eyes wander across the page, the way I do when I'm reading silently.

I have been sketching more, and if I hadn't been doing morning watch, some of that sketching wouldn't have happened.

But what's most important is that at the end, I do a benediction, a time of reminding people of how much God loves us.  I give the message that I need to hear:  God is with us, God delights in us, God is rooting for us.  

As the months have gone on, periodically the process feels stale.  I feel like I'm sketching the same thing, saying the same thing, using the same words.  And then, a fresh idea breaks through.  

The process is important for me, in the way that it has been for years.  I make my way through the day in a much more grounded way if I actually begin the day by doing something that grounds me (imagine that!).  Is it important to anyone else?  I have 3-6 faithful viewers; usually 1-4 people watch live.  Usually each post gets positive interaction:  some likes, some comments.

I'll keep doing morning watch--for how long?  These past seven months have shown us the folly of making definitive plans.  It works for me now, so let me stay the course.

 

Season of Thin Spaces

We live in the season of thin spaces:

Now, more than ever, we sense the ancestors:

We sort through our projects, looking for the living among the dead:

We light the candles to ward off the gloomy spirits:

We cloak ourselves in costumes:

We sing songs in the company of all the saints:

Meditation on This Sunday's All Saints Gospel

The All Saints Sunday readings for Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020:

First Reading: Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm: Psalm 34:1-10, 22

Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-3

Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12

This Sunday we celebrate All Saints Day. Most churches focus on loved ones of the congregation who have died; some churches give special emphasis to members who have died since the last All Saints Day. Some churches will be thinking about the larger collection of saints.

The Gospel reading for today at first seems jarringly out of place. Why are we back to the Sermon on the Mount? But after reading it, we see the connections. These are the behaviors of those whom we traditionally consider saints, people like Mother Theresa. They should be the behaviors of those of us still on earth who consider ourselves to be part of that saintly pantheon.

When we read Gospels like these, many of us might think that we do these things as our admission ticket for Heaven. But some of the more interesting books of theology that I've read lately remind us that Christ didn't come to take us to Heaven. In fact, the concept of Heaven with all our loved ones waiting for us there is relatively new to Christian thought. Christ came to announce that God's plan for redeeming the world had begun. That plan involves our pre-death world, which is not just a place where we wait around until it's our turn to go to Heaven. No, this world is the one that God wants to redeem. Christ comes to invite us to be part of the redemptive plan.

Jesus comes to give us instructions for how we can join together in the redemption of the world. Think of the Sermon on the Mount as a behavior manual. As you move through your days, view your actions and your thoughts through the lens of the Sermon on the Mount. Do your thoughts and actions support this vision of peace, justice, mercy, and comfort? If not, how can you change to be more in alignment with God's vision of redemption?

We could use this All Saints Day as a reminder that we need to jump start our efforts to act as saints in this world. If that behavior means that we also get to be saints in the next world, swell. 

But the good news of Jesus is that we don't have to wait until we die to experience redemption. We're already saints. We just need to remember to be about the business of sainthood, and to avoid the behaviors that distract us from our mission.

Masking Prayers

Kevin Strickland, the Bishop of the Southeastern Synod of the Lutheran Church (ELCA) posted this prayer:

A prayer as I put on my mask:

Creator,
as I prepare to go into the world,
help me to see the sacrament
in the wearing of this cloth—
let it be "an outward sign
of an inward grace"—
a tangible and visible way of living
love for my neighbors,
as I love myself.

Christ,
since my lips will be covered,
uncover my heart,
that people would see my smile
in the crinkles around my eyes.
Since my voice may be muffled,
help me to speak clearly,
not only with my words,
but with my actions.

Holy Spirit,
As the elastic touches my ears,
remind me to listen carefully—
and full of care—
to all those I meet.
May this simple piece of cloth be
shield and banner,
and each breath that it holds,
be filled with your love.
In your Name and
in that love,
I pray. Amen. 

by Rev. Dr. Richard Bott, Moderator of the United Church of Canada

Celebrate Reformation All Week (and Beyond)

Yesterday was Reformation Sunday.  In a different time, we might have gone to church and belted out "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" with vigor.  This year, I don't know anyone who did that--among the people I know, those who are going to church are not singing or they're in cars.  

Let's think about Reformation and how we might celebrate as creative people in a time of pandemic.  But first, let me remind us why we should celebrate the Reformation, even if we're not Christians.  Very few people understand how the invention of the printing press made the Protestant Reformation possible. We have this vision of Martin Luther nailing a handmade document to the Wittenberg door. We don't think of the mighty Reformation as being powered by the lowly pamphlet. But it's a legitimate interpretation. 

The printing press is the main reason why the Catholic church couldn't contain Luther's dangerous ideas (a great book, by the way: Alister McGrath's Christianity's Dangerous Idea). Those darned pamphlets just kept popping up everywhere. In a way, Luther was an early incarnation of a blogger or a user of Twitter or Instagram: someone who knows how to use "free" technology and apps to get their ideas more widely distributed.

If Luther had stopped there, the world might not have been transformed so completely. But then Luther translated the Bible into German, which meant more people could read and interpret for themselves. And then more people wanted to learn to read, so that they could read the Bible. Those events have a direct link to the world we know today.

But of course, the Reformation wasn't a seamless path to a better world for humanity.  We can also blame the Reformation for centuries of war and upheaval.  Many people came to new lands in search of religious freedom because the persecution in their home countries was so persistent and deadly.  Reformers aren't often open to the reforming ideas of others, after all.

So how can we celebrate this holiday on a day where we can't go to church and sing together?  Maybe we could stretch out the holiday, since most of us didn't have a chance to do what we might have traditionally done.   Here are some ideas:

--Lift a beer or an apple cider in a toast to the Reformation.  Be thankful for the positive changes that the Reformation gave us.  Resolve to protect those changes.  Be on the alert for extremism that often comes with times of Reformation.  Resolve to protect those who are vulnerable with extremists roam the land roaring about reformation.

--Read a book or an article, either on paper or online, and think about how wonderful it is to have the ability to read and more stuff to read than you can ever plow through.

--Many people have done a lot of thinking about our current society and what needs reform.  Reformation is not just for churches!  Here we are, a week and 2 days out from election day.  But we know that one election day won't usher in all the changes that we see that need to be made in our local societies.  How can we be positive change agents?  Reformation Sunday is a good day to ponder all the possible answers to that question.

--Take a popular song and make new lyrics, like so many of those early Reformers did: some of our most famous Lutheran hymns have melodies from drinking songs.

--Think about your own art form and the reformations you'd like to see. Treat your inner artist with a spirit of grace, not judgment.

--Try a new art form.  Maybe your creative life cries out for a Reformation.  If it doesn't work out, you can always abandon it.  But trying something new often energizes what you've already been doing.

--One of Luther's ideas was that the emphasis on earning one's way to Heaven was wrong.  He focused on the readings from the Bible that reveal God as a Divine being full of grace, not judgment.  Let us think about how we can reform our own approach to life, to move from judgment to grace.

Call to Worship for Reformation Sunday (on Video)

 For the past several weeks, I've been recording the call to worship for our pre-recorded worship service.  I volunteered to both write and record a call to worship for both Reformation Sunday and All Saints Day.  Below is the recording and below that, the words that I read:

Let us remember Martin Luther John Calvin and all the earliest reformers of the Catholic church.

We also celebrate later reformers, the Azusa Street revivals, the different fruits of the spirit through the ages. 

We celebrate people like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Romero, and all those who called us, who continue to call us to remember our mission to work for justice.

We give thanks for monastics and all who help us remember and recover traditions to nourish us.

In this time where se wee such need for reformation, revive us and open our hearts to your vision.

Creating Something Special (and Socially Distanced) for All Saints

How can we create something special for a worship community that can't gather in person?  I'm thinking specifically of All Saints Sunday, but this question seems essential to our time.

Disability activists would remind us that the question has always been essential but that many of us had the privilege of being able to avoid wrestling with it.

So, if we wanted to create something special for All Saints, what might we create?  If we wanted it to be participatory, what would we create?

I've thought of mailing something to all of our members, a care package of sorts.  I saw one person post about plans to send all the odds and ends of Christmas eve candles to members along with a liturgy of remembrance that could be done alone or with families/other pandemic pod members.  But the thought of addressing all those envelopes and getting everything mailed overwhelms me.  After all, there's not much time before All Saints Sunday on November 1.

Our church does drive through communion, and I've thought of having some sort of special package to hand out.  But that does eliminate the participation of those who can't get to drive through communion.

The other vision I've had involves setting up a meditative space on the church grounds.  In past years, we've had a table where people could bring pictures of lost loved ones.  I wouldn't think that people would want to do that.

I have a vision of a Day of the Dead type altar--we have an outdoor barbecue in the back.   It's made  out of cinderblocks and hasn't been used as a barbecue in years, if not decades.  Could that be transformed?

Here's a picture that I found by way of a Google search; It first appeared in this article in Los Angeles Magazine:

I could do the initial transformation by Friday, and then people could come during the week-end or send something that we'd add to the altar.  I could create some sort of video something that could be sent to members who can't get to the site.

Of course, the potential problem might be vandalism.  But I'd create it with cheap materials, and even if someone stole them, I wouldn't care.

In a different time, I'd invite people to bring a picnic and maybe we could start a different kind of All Saints tradition.  But that will not be this year.

Let me also wonder if I'm appropriating the traditions of a culture that's not mine.  Yes, in some ways, I am.  I'm a descendent of immigrants from northern Europe--this tradition is not mine.  Yet my hope would be that if we could do this in a respectful manner, that it might be meaningful, both for those of us who never had this experience and for those in the community who might be happy to have this opportunity, this temporary monument to memory.

The Quilt Need Not Transform Itself

My Mepkin journaling group is listening/journaling our way through Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate, a conference that was recorded.  This month's segment was a 25 minute talk by Father Richard Rohr.  The most compelling part of the segment, on the Wednesday in October when I listened, was Rohr's idea about how we feel we must prove ourselves, over and over again, and get ever and ever better.  He posits that this need of overproving of ourselves is part of Western culture, not Christian culture.  

I had that idea on the brain as I closed my morning watch, the morning devotion time that I do each morning on my church's Facebook page.  I always say a few sentences, a benediction of sorts, after the closing prayer.  Yesterday, I talked about how God loves us just as we are, that God's not waiting for us to change.  God delights in us--God's not waiting until we transform ourselves into something else.  After all, God made us the way we are.

I shifted my computer a bit to show the quilts on the bed behind me.  I said that I loved them--of course I do.  After all, I chose the fabric and sewed it together.  I'm not disappointed with the quilts because they don't have pink fabric--if I had wanted them to have pink fabric, I'd have included it.  I'm not waiting for the quilts to develop their inner pinkness before I love them.

Likewise, God does not say, "I would love you so much more if you could just become a more patient person.  I would love you so much more if you would cut down on your drinking.  I would love you so much more if you gave 3% more of your income to charity.  Do those things, and then I will love you fully."

In fact, Richard Rohr would tell us that God loves us so that we can change, not if we change.  But any self-hatred we feel is not God's voice.  God's love opens us to possibility--and it's why saints don't become cynics (Rohr's approximate words).

It seems like such a basic idea, and yet it's so hard for me to believe it, to live it.  It's an idea I return to again and again in my writing and my preaching/devotion work.  Sadly, the idea that God loves us, that God's not passing harsh judgment on us--this idea isn't one that's preached widely enough.

And that's sad, because that should be the central message of the Christian church--we found it woven throughout our sacred texts.  Would that we proclaimed it more loudly.

Pope Francis and Civil Unions for Same-Sex Couples

At some point yesterday, I became aware of Pope Francis' approval of civil union as an option for same-sex couples, the comment that was part of a documentary released yesterday (October 21).

To be honest, my first thought was to wonder if this approval was truly newsworthy.  Hadn't he already signaled his support?

Yes in some ways his support has been there, but yesterday may have been the clearest statement of approval.  I have Catholic friends who pointed out that he's not opening up the sacrament of marriage to same-sex couples, but that his approval of civil unions is a step forward.

I know that some people might be frustrated with these steps forward, at how small they seem.  I know that some people might wonder why the Supreme Court of the U.S. is moving forward at a faster pace than the pope.

Some people might say that the pronouncements of a pope no longer matter at all.  But that's not true; this article in The Washington Post tells us otherwise:  "Researchers have found that people are more likely to express support for same-sex marriage when they have been exposed to that message from an “in-group” leader, such as a politician or a pastor. In one experiment, [Brian] Harrison* found that religious participants who read a statement in support of gay rights written by a prominent religious figure were more likely to agree than if the statement had been written by an anonymous writer."

I saw this tweet from James J. Martin, a famous writer who is a Catholic priest:  "For those who think the Pope's comments about same-sex civil unions are no big deal: Perhaps in the US or Western Europe. But in places like Poland, where some bishops are virulently anti-LGBT; or Uganda, where bishops side with laws criminalizing homosexuality, it's a big deal."

And let's put the matter in terms that are more stark.  In many parts of the world, homosexuality isn't just a crime, it's a crime punishable by death.  Will those places immediately change because of the pronouncements of the pope?  Probably not.  

But the history of social change shows us that these changes happen incrementally--the landscape won't change immediately, but in 10 or 20 years, it will be different.  The pronouncements of religious leaders do still shape the direction.  And although I'm not Catholic, I'm glad that the pope is helping to move the world towards more inclusivity.

*Harrison is a political science lecturer at the University of Minnesota.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel for Reformation Sunday

The readings for Sunday, October 25, 2020:

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm: Psalm 46

Second Reading: Romans 3:19-28

Gospel: John 8:31-36

In past years, before the pandemic, I might have written a meditation about reform and how we shouldn't be afraid of times of reformation.  It's easy to write those kinds of words in gentle times, when we think we can control the pace of reform.

It's easy to be pro-Reformation when we're thinking about times of reformation in the past.  It's also easy to remember the positive elements of those times of reformation while forgetting the upheaval that times of reformation can bring.  Those of us who love elements of Celtic Christianity may have forgotten that we have those elements because of a time of Roman invasion and immigration.  Those of us who have memorized all the words to "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" may have forgotten how that Martin Luther's ideas triggered centuries of destruction in the name of God.

Now we are in a time which might come to be seen as just as important in terms of how we think about church and the ways to do and be the church.  Many of us will not be singing together this Sunday, and certainly not in ways that we used to sing together.  Many of us now see our worship on a screen.  Some of us mourn this fact, but for many others, this move online has given much more access to a wider variety of people, and not just the people who can't leave their houses.

When we can gather again in person, I hope that we keep elements of this online life too.  I hope that we can find ways to integrate our online presence and our in sanctuary presence to make a community that's much more inclusive than we've been before.

We should take comfort from the knowledge that the Church has always been in the process of Reformation. There are great Reformations, like the one we'll celebrate this Sunday, or the Pentecostal revolution that's only 100 years old, but has transformed the developing world (third worlds and those slightly more advanced) in ways that Capitalism never could. There are smaller ones throughout the ages as well. Movements which seemed earth-shattering at the time--monastic movements of all kinds, liberation theology, ordination of women, lay leadership--may in time come to be seen as something that enriches the larger church. Even gross theological missteps, like the Inquisition, can be survived. The Church learns from past mistakes as it moves forward.

Times of Reformation can enrich us all. Even those of us who reject reform can find our spiritual lives enriched as we take stock and measure what's important to us, what compromises we can make and what we can't. It's good to have these times where we return to the Scriptures as we try to hear what God calls us to do.

Once the dust settles, each of the previous time periods of Reformation has left the Church enriched, but enriched in ways that no one could have predicted--that's what makes it scary, after all. As we approach Reformation Sunday, I'd encourage each of us to tap our own inner Martin Luther. What is the Church doing well? What could be changed for the better? What part can we play?

Spiritual Scraps from Quilt Camp

The time at quilt camp did inspire me to think about quilting as metaphors for our spiritual lives.  Here are some initial ideas:

A wide variety of quilts can be made from the same medium, cloth.  

God, the ultimate quilter, can use small pieces or large swaths to create something new and more than the sum of its parts:

Quilts themselves have a variety of purposes:  to keep us warm while we sleep, to protect us from the floor, to decorate, to make us smile:

Some of us may feel that our lives are not a whole cloth, that we just have a collection of small pieces or scraps even more slender than fingers:

  

Happily, God is a talented quilter who can use every bit, no matter  how small.

You may protest that your life is shredded too small to be made into a whole cloth:

But God can create something delightful:

The Spiritual Side of Quilt Camp

I wasn't sure what to expect from quilt camp in terms of the spiritual aspect.  I knew that we'd have devotions each morning, devotions led by our leader who has graduate level training.  Would she tie it into quilting?  Would there be a larger theological theme?

Our leader, Mitzi Spencer Schafer decided to focus on prayer for our theme.  On Thursday morning, we thought about the Lord's Prayer.  Mitzi talked about how many of us see ourselves as the actors in our prayers, but we don't always think about God and the actions that God takes.  We took some time to meditate on what the Lord's Prayer teaches us about the priorities of God.  For more, read Mitzi's blog post here.

On Friday morning, we talked about prayer breathing, and then we went through the process together.  If you'd like to try it, Mitzi's blog post is the next best thing to being here with us.

On Saturday morning, we had a brief session where Mitzi introduced the concept of Mad Libs.  In my child, we used them to create a HILARIOUS piece of writing.  You'd fill in blanks with an adjective or a color or a way of doing a verb or something you'd find at the beach.  Then you'd get the information around the blanks, and if you were lucky, unintended humor ensued.

Mitzi had created a Mad Lib around Psalm 150--if you want to try for yourself, her blog post has a downloadable form.  Mitzi asked us to spend the day thinking about how we'd fill in the blanks and said we'd read them in the evening, if we felt OK with sharing.  Here's what I created:

We had great responses.  I loved how we filled in the blanks with activities we were doing during the retreat, along with larger aspects.  One person wrote "with tired eyes and just one more row."  Laughter showed up on more than one list.  

I loved this process for the reasons that I love poetry--at its best, it was a great way to get us thinking about what we'd been doing and what God has been doing in a new way.

In fact, that was one of the recurring themes of the devotion time, and I can't think of many better ways to spend our reflective time together.

The Feast Day of Saint Luke in a Time of Pandemic

On October 18, we celebrate the life of St. Luke, an evangelist and a doctor, or perhaps a healer would be a more accurate way of thinking about the ancient approach to medical care. 

But St. Luke was so much more: he’s also the patron saint of artists, students, and butchers. He’s given credit as one of the founders of iconography. And of course, he was a writer--both of one of the Gospels and the book of Acts. As we think about the life of St. Luke, let us use his life as a guide for how we can bring ourselves back to health and wholeness.

The feast day of St. Luke offers us a reason to evaluate our own health—why wait until the more traditional time of the new year like the start of a new year? Using St. Luke as our inspiration, let’s think about the ways we can promote health of all kinds.

Do we need to schedule some check-ups? October is perhaps most famous for breast cancer awareness month, but there are other doctors that many of us should see on a regular basis. For example, if you get a lot of sun exposure, or if you live in southern states, you should get a baseline check up from your dermatologist.  If we've put off medical care because the nation is in the grip of a pandemic, this feast day is a good opportunity to think about how to get that health care safely.  The pandemic will be here for awhile, so let's not delay any longer, if we need professional care for our physical selves.

Many of us don’t need to visit a doctor to find out what we can do to promote better health for ourselves. We can eat more fruits and vegetables. We can drink less alcohol. We can get more sleep. We can exercise and stretch more.

Maybe we need to look to our mental or spiritual health. If so, Luke can show us the way again.

Luke is famous as the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, but it’s important to realize that he likely didn’t see himself as writing straight history. He was maintaining a record of amazing events that showed evidence of God’s salvation.

It’s far too easy to ignore evidence of God’s presence in the world. We get bogged down in our own disappointments and our deeper depressions. But we could follow the example of Luke and write down events that we see in our own lives and the life of our churches that remind us of God’s grace. Even if it’s a practice as simple as a gratitude journal where each day we write down several things for which we’re grateful, we can write our way back to right thinking.

As we think about St. Luke, we can look for ways to deepen our spiritual health. In popular imagination, Luke gets credit for creating the first icon of the Virgin Mary. Maybe it’s time for us to try something new.

We could experiment with the visual arts to see how they could enrich our spiritual health. We might choose something historical and traditional, like iconography. Or we might decide that we want to experiment with something that requires less concentration and training. Maybe we want to create a collage of images that remind us of God’s abundance. Maybe we want to meditate on images, like icons, like photographs, that call us to healthy living.

St. Luke knew that there are many paths to health of all sorts. Now, on his feast day, let us resolve to spend the coming year following his example and restoring our lives to a place of better health.

Camp and the Changes that Plague Makes Necessary

It's been interesting being at Quilt Camp at Lutheridge.  Faithful readers may or may not remember that Lutheridge is one of my all-time favorite places, one of the few places on earth where I truly feel at home.  I've been coming to this camp since I was a child, and my mom was one of the first camp counselors back when Lutheridge first opened.

It's a different year, this year.  It's strange, in some ways, to gather as a group when a highly contagious virus with no vaccine and no cure burns across the planet.  But we've all been wearing masks for months, so it's not as strange as I thought it would be.

We're meeting in the dining hall not the Faith Center.  The Faith Center is being used by the YMCA, which is running an all-day program for kids whose parents have to report to work away from home.  The children are in virtual school, so they spend time "in class" in the Faith Center and take breaks outside. It's interesting to hear children's voices echoing across Lutheridge in a non-summer season.

We are meeting in the dining hall, and for the most part, we stay at our tables.  If we leave our tables, we wear our masks.  At our tables, some of us continue to wear masks, but most of us don't.  

Meals are different these days at camp.  The main difference is that we don't serve ourselves, and we take our food back to our work tables, so we're eating socially distanced.  I thanked one of the workers and said that I wished she didn't have the extra work to do.  She said, "We're just so grateful to have jobs."

I've been thinking about this retreat and whether or not the Create in Me retreat could meet in a similar way, and I have to conclude that we could not.  Of course, we could change the retreat radically, and it may be time for some changes that makes the retreat a little easier to plan.

And I'm aware that after almost 20 years, it may be time for that retreat to retire.  The camp still hasn't replaced the program directors who announced their retirement a year ago.  The new program director may have very different ideas of what should be offered.

I have really enjoyed having huge swaths of unstructured time to work on our own projects.  It's still inspiring to see what people are doing.  We're still able to learn from each other.

Could the Create in Me retreat work in a similar way?  Most everyone who attends does have a creative practice.  I'd enjoy that kind of retreat, a chance to bring the projects which are speaking to me most.  If I don't get to try out new things, that would be fine with me.  There have only been a few practices through the years that I took home with me and was still doing a year or more later.  It's been useful to figure out what I didn't want to do because I had a chance to experience them at the retreat.

One difference with this retreat is that we could arrive on Wednesday afternoon, and for just an extra $35, we could get an extra night (some people are sleeping off site and wouldn't need lodging) and have Thursday morning breakfast.  I'm so glad that I did this!  Several Create in Me friends are at this retreat, and as we've talked about possible changes to that retreat, they've talked of shortening it so that we'd arrive on Friday.  But I think expanding it to include an optional Wednesday arrival would be cool, especially for people like me who are coming from far away.

I'm so grateful to have had time away, to have had a chance to create, to have a space to share.  And the retreat isn't over yet--we don't leave until late tomorrow morning!

Quilt Camp!

I am writing from my room at Lutheridge--at long last, I've made it to Quilt Camp!

I say at long last, because I wanted to go last year.  But last year's Quilt Camp happened just before our big accreditation visit, and I knew I wouldn't enjoy it even if I could get away from work, which I probably couldn't do.  I was determined to go this year.

This year, it was unclear that the retreat would happen, given that there's a pandemic raging across the country.  But the camp folks figured out how we could be socially distanced and masked and reduce our risks.  It seemed worth the risk to me.  We are not working in close proximity to each other; we're spread out across the camp dining hall.  We could open windows and doors, if we want additional air flow to reduce risk.  There are only 13 of us.  Here's a sense of how the room is set up:

I had some vacation time that will vanish if I don't use it before Oct. 31, so I am even happier to be here, using that time for a real treat of a get away:  quilts and Lutheridge and the mountains and a trip to the apple orchard that's still open!

I'm also interested to see how this retreat will work.  The retreat  is mostly long periods of unstructured time.  One devotion in the morning, and a sharing time in the evening (sharing as in more like show and tell than emotional sharing). The room is open around the clock--last year, one group of women worked until 3 a.m.

This schedule is unlike the Create in Me retreat schedule, where there was more Bible study and worship.  Of course, if we have a Create in Me retreat this year, the schedule might be different too.  I know that the planners for this Quilt Camp retreat have been very focused on how to do this quilt retreat safely.

Truth to tell, I'm fine with less Bible study or small groups or any of the other things a retreat schedule might have traditionally.  I really want to get this quilt finished:

I'm also interested to see if we could do something similar at my church--and I'm interested in what I can learn for how we might run the Create in Me retreat safely.

More to come . . .

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for October 18, 2020:

First Reading: Isaiah 45:1-7

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 33:12-23

Psalm: Psalm 96:1-9 [10-13]

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 99

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Gospel: Matthew 22:15-22

This week's Gospel contains a saying of Jesus that is probably familiar: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" (Mathhew 22, verse 21). Even people who have never set foot inside a church are probably familiar with this saying, although they may attribute it to somebody else, like Shakespeare or Ronald Reagan.

I love how Jesus realizes that the Pharisees have set a trap for him, and he manages to avoid entanglement. This passage also shows Jesus reacting to the legalistic outlook of the spiritual leaders. He seems to tell us not to be so rigid in our formulas of our finances. We know what we must do. We have bills and obligations (among them, caring for the less fortunate); we cannot escape those worldly cares. But in figuring out our tithes and taxes, we should not lose sight of the larger spiritual picture.

I remember a church council meeting long ago, when an older member of council didn't understand why we were having money trouble--weren't all our members tithing?  A different member had once gone to a more fundamentalist church where he was required to share his tax return with the church elders so that they could tell him how much he would give--if he didn't give that amount, his family couldn't come to church.

That way of doing church and money is not what Jesus calls us to do either.

God calls us to more than a rigid formula of living. Instead of dividing up our budget into rigid categories, we should always be on the lookout for ways to love each other. Some days/months/years, that love might be manifest in monetary ways. But in a way, just writing a check is much too easy. God calls us to be involved with each other's lives. That doesn't mean we need to hop on a plane to personally respond to every huge disaster. Look around--you'll see plenty of opportunities just outside your door.

In these days of financial insecurity, the message of Jesus seems more prescient than ever. If we save up our treasures on earth, moth or rust or inflation or deflation or bad policies or any other kind of ruin you want to name will leave us bankrupt.

The way we live our lives moves us closer to God or further away. If we devote our lives to God, our whole lives, not just an hour on Sunday, not just 10% of our income, then we'll find a relationship that we can count on. And that relationship can help us transform not only ourselves, but our families, our communities, everyone we touch.

Returning to Ruth and Naomi

Although I've been fascinated by the Biblical character of Ruth my whole life, I'm surprised to find that I haven't written much about her.

In my early years, I was fascinated by the daughter-in-law aspect of Ruth. My teenage brain wondered what it would be like to be married and for both my husband and brother-in-law to die so close to each other. My older self wonders what kind of catastrophe had fallen upon the family or the land to make this happen. I look at that picture of Naomi telling those women to go back to their families of origin. One leaves, and one stays.

My current self can feel the terror in the situation of these women. They don't have great potential outcomes. If they return to their families, their families may not take them in. If we read between the lines of the story, it seems that hard times have descended everywhere. There's mention of famine, and when resources are scarce, older women do not fare well. Ruth and Orpah have been married for 10 years, so their chances of starting over with a new husband are not very good.

When I was in college, I saw the story of Ruth and Naomi as one of feminist sisterhood, and in some ways, it is that--but my college self would not have seen the utter desperation in this story. My older self is aghast at what Naomi asks of Ruth--essentially to seduce the man who could take care of them both. The story has a happy ending, with Boaz making an honest woman of Ruth, but it could have gone badly.

We might see this story as a tale of kindness, and it is. Ruth's kindness to Naomi goes before her, and that's why Boaz is so protective of her, even before he decides to marry her.

It's also a tale of kindness towards outsiders. Ruth and Naomi are the ultimate outsiders: two women from a distant country with few connections. It doesn't take much imagination to tie this story to our modern history.

Like many, I have been distressed at the tone of some of our leaders when it comes to immigration policy. I am distressed to realize that I've spent my whole adult life feeling this way.

We have enough room for everyone who might want to come here to this country. There are huge swaths of the U.S. that are empty. Some are truly uninhabitable, but most were once inhabited.

I understand that these arguments against taking refugees are not based in rationality. I understand the scarcity consciousness behind some of them. I understand the fear of those who are different.

But I also understand the richness that we all bring to the pot of stew where we live. One ingredient does not make for anything interesting.

The end of the book of Ruth shows what can happen when we open our hearts to outsiders. At the end of the book of Ruth, we find out that Ruth is an ancestor of Jesus. If Boaz had treated her the way that so many refugees and immigrants are treated today, we might have had a different kind of miracle--or no miracle at all.

Eighth Visit to the Spiritual Director

It was a strange day to go to see my spiritual director; it had been a day of upheaval at work on Friday.  Two people were laid off, our director of Admissions, with whom I had worked closely and the one non-director worker in Financial Aid.  It was also the last day on our campus for all of the Admissions Team.  Starting on Monday, they will work at the Ft. Lauderdale campus.

I wasn't so upset that I needed to cancel the appointment.  We've known that restructuring at school continues, so I was both surprised and not surprised.

During my Friday afternoon appointment with my spiritual director, we talked about how this news of layoffs and restructuring didn't make me particularly anxious.  On some level, I'm expecting to be laid off at some point.  I am not neglecting my responsibilities, mind you.  I continue to hope that if I do my best I'll have a space in the new structure.

We talked about my Zen Buddhist (?) idea to see the glass as not half empty or half full but already broken and the water having drained out.

We talked about my desire to move to the Carolinas, about how my spouse wants to stay here.  I talked about my frustration with feeling like I'm wasting time, while at the same time, wishing I had more time to do what brings me joy--morning contemplation, writing, sketching, creating. 

Near the end of my session, my spiritual director pointed out my negative imagery and asked me about that.  She asked me about whether or not the negative imagery leads me to be self-critical, and of course, it does.  She asked if we could think about transforming the thoughts--so we tried.

We thought about God using my frustration with not having enough time as an offering to seek out more opportunities to enter into that space that I crave more of--more time for thinking, creating, meditating, visioning.

My spiritual director asked me if I could transform our discussion into a prayer, and we did.  The one part I want to preserve:  I asked God to help me remember that I could have lots of opportunities for new adventures even without losing my job or moving to a new town.

We closed, as we always do, with prayer.  Then I made the long drive home.

I'd be happier if my spiritual director lived closer.  She offers other cool opportunities, but it's at least an hour drive each way.  And it's not an hour drive through delightful countryside--it's crazy Miami traffic on the Florida turnpike, complete with construction.

I'll continue to make the drive to see her once a month.  I continue to gain insight, so it's worth it to me.

Our Nobel Laureate and My New Favorite Poem

 I was having computer issues yesterday, and then I had accreditation documents to craft at work, so I couldn't write about my great joy at the news that Louise Gluck has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  I am always happy when a writer I know wins a big prize, and I'm even happier when it's a woman, and I'm even happier when it's a poet.

The Nobel Prize is the biggest literary honor, and a female poet from the U.S. won.  Hurrah!

Now let me confess that she's not my favorite poet, although I don't dislike her.  But if you asked me to choose my favorite Gluck poem, I wouldn't have one.  If we're being honest, I couldn't even name one.  I do remember reading volumes of her work that I checked out of the library, but I didn't love them enough to buy my own copy.

This morning, I'm reading through a variety of posts, primarily on Twitter, posts written by people offering their favorite poems by Louise Gluck.  Suddenly, I have found a lot of poems that are new to me, poems that I love instantly, poems that make me say, "Hello, and where have you been all my life?"

I was late to Mary Oliver in a similar way.  I had heard of her, read a bit here and there, but it wasn't until a group at church worked with her poems during Lent that I sat up and took notice.

I suspect the poetry of Louise Gluck is the same way:  versatile and universal, searing with insight.  I look forward to discovering her again for the first time (and yes, I mean that with all the glorious imprecision that exists in that sentence).

In the meantime, here's the poem that has bewitched me most this morning.

"Witchgrass" by Louise Glück

Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder—

If you hate me so much
don’t bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything—

as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
one enemy—

I’m not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers

dies here almost every day
and you can’t rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion—

It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.

I don’t need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, October 11, 2020:

First Reading: Isaiah 25:1-9

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Exodus 32:1-14

Psalm: Psalm 23

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23

Second Reading: Philippians 4:1-9

Gospel: Matthew 22:1-14

Today's Gospel sounds impossibly harsh. The kingdom of heaven is compared to this story of a king who can't get people to come to the wedding feast? Is God really like the King who murders people who won't come to the party and burns their city? Is God really like the king who punishes a guest who comes in the wrong clothes? And such a punishment!

But perhaps our brains are too quick to see God as judge.  Maybe we're losing the point of the parable.

So, let's look at this parable from a different angle: what's keeping us from accepting the invitation to the wedding feast? If the wedding feast is the kingdom of God, what keeps us away?

What activities keep us from accepting or even hearing the invitation?  Is it the work we do to earn the money to pay our bills?  Have we let that work take over our every waking hour?  Does our work wake us up at night?

Or maybe we don't have enough work, and we worry about how we will pay for our obligations.  We can't accept God's invitation now, because we need to work our multiple part-time jobs or fill out applications or research our new career field.

Jesus is quite clear on this issue, and he instructs us again and again. What good will it do us to work ourselves this way, to devote ourselves to earthly things, like work and earning money?

Or maybe we reject God's invitation because we feel inadequate. We'll accept at a later time, when we've improved ourselves. But that's the good news of God's grace that we find throughout the Gospels. We don't have to wait. God loves us in all of our imperfections.  In fact, we may find that what we see as an imperfection is what God will need and use to work for God's purposes.

Perhaps we should see ourselves in the wedding guest that didn't have the right garment. What clothes do we need to invest in to make ourselves better wedding guests?  Maybe we need to clothe ourselves in the garments of love and acceptance. Think of what attitudes you need to wrap around yourself, and work to shed the ones that do not serve you.

Life is short, and Christ returns to this message again and again. We think we will have time to get to the things that will be important. We'll do it later, when the kids are older, or when we don't have to work so long and hard. We'll do it when we retire. We'll wait until we have more money. Once we lose that 20-100 pounds, we'll buy the right clothes and go to feasts to celebrate sacred occasions.

But God calls us to focus on the important things now. The apocalyptic tone of the recent readings may seem overly dramatic, but apocalypse dramas remind us that everything that is precious can be gone in an instant--and so the time to focus on what we hold dear is now.

It's a luxury that so many do not have, to appreciate what we have while we still have it, to be able to tell our loved ones that we love them while they're still with us.

Yearning for a Pumpkin Patch

In past years, I would wait to buy pumpkins until my church's pumpkin opened.  This year, we're not having a pumpkin patch.

We made that decision before COVID-19.  We are in the very slow process, made even slower by this pandemic, of selling the part of land where we put the pumpkin patch; we thought that the land would be a construction site by now.

Even if we hadn't been in the process of selling part of our land, we likely would not have had a pumpkin patch.  Our pumpkin patch was set up to rely on volunteer labor.  The truckload of pumpkins arrived, and volunteer labor took it from there:   unloading the pumpkins, setting up the patch, staying at the patch during most daylight hours.

Once, we had a church with more younger members, and staffing the pumpkin patch was arduous, even then.  The burden of work fell unfairly, but a lot of people remained committed.

Last year was one of the first years that I felt the commitment level drop.  Fewer of us could volunteer.  Fewer of us felt the need to continue to offer the pumpkin patch.  It seemed like a HUGE amount of work for very little profit.

I always loved the way the pumpkins transformed the corner of the church property.  I always wished that we could have pumpkins year round.  But I know that if we did, I'd eventually stop seeing them in the same way.

I miss the seasonal marker.  We are still having our daily highs in the 90's, so it's hard to remember that it's really October.

I wonder how many churches are doing pumpkin patches this year.  I'd be happy to support a different area church.  As I've been on the lookout for a church with a pumpkin patch, I'm aware of how few churches are on my commuting routes.

The Feast Day of Saint Francis in Our Plague Year

 If we made a list of the most famous saints, the ones that even the most non-religious are likely to "know," Saint Francis would be on the list, perhaps just under Saint Patrick.  Or maybe Francis is more famous, if we judge by how often he appears as a statue in our gardens or our birdbaths.

Born in 1181 or 1182, Francis didn't have to deal with bubonic plague or any of our more modern diseases.  He did work with lepers, so he had experience with contagion.

He founded an order not based in monasteries but in going out and being with the people who needed the friars most; the traveling friars would stay in church properties.  

In our current plague year, the idea of a cloistered monastery appeals to me more.

Our current pope is the only one who has chosen the name of Francis.  Francis is not a saint who is usually the favorite of those in power.  During his life, Francis did all that he could to challenge our ideas of wealth and power and who deserves riches--and what constitutes riches.

Traditionally, many churches would have a pet blessing service today.  How did Francis come to be associated with pets?  Our pets often lead more pampered lives than we do.

In a year in which we are already to Hurricane Gamma and the west coast burns, I think of Saint Francis and his commitment to the care of all creation, not just the cute pets.  We live in a society run by those determined not to see how interconnected we all are; it's a good time to return to Saint Francis.

In this plague year, I think about Francis and his fierce commitment to living an authentic life.  I think about his father, who beat him and left him bound and locked in a small storeroom.  I think about his mother who set him free.  I think about all the ones we love who so often act in baffling ways.

Here's a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, we don't always take good care of your creations. Please give us the generosity of St. Francis as we wrestle with the best way to use our resources. Please open our hearts the way you opened the heart of St. Francis so that we can take care of the members of our society who are at the lowest levels. Please give us the courage to create communities which will allow the light of Christ to shine more brightly.

If Hildegarde Could Speak

Two weeks ago, I tried to write a poem that incorporated Hildegarde of Bingen, but I felt like I was just doing the same thing that I've done before, using the life of a medieval mystic (usually female) to contrast to the lives we're living now.

Tuesday  morning, I came at the poem from a completely different angle:  what can a medieval mystic teach us about how to live during a time of pandemic?  From cloistering to robes to ordering the day--if I lived a different life, a freelance writer kind of life, I'd write it up as an article and hope that I'd get my big break.

Maybe I'd even write a self-help book--but would it get published before there was a vaccine?  If there was a vaccine, would there be a need for such a book?

And now I'm thinking of my unpublished book length memoir project, a project which probably reads very differently now.  I haven't been working on getting it published. so I'm not broken hearted that it probably won't be published in our current time.

So many projects, so little time--what advice would Hildegarde give me?