Video Sermon for Mark 1: 21-28

My church is going back to mostly virtual church services.  At this point, we plan to gather in person, in the back acreage, socially distanced, on the first Sunday of the month.

Last Sunday, my pastor asked me if I would like to do the sermon  for this Sunday (today), and I said yes.  I will always say yes, unless . . . well, ordinarily, I'd say unless I'm traveling to a place where I can't be sure I'll have internet access, but that would only be Mepkin Abbey, and I'm not sure when I'll get back there.

I did the sermon, but it's too big to post on this blog.  Here's a taste, to whet your appetite.

To see the whole sermon, go here.  And feel free to explore the rest of my YouTube channel.

Seminary, Creativity, Community--Midlife Yearnings and God's Guidance

Early this morning, I made this Facebook post after seeing this web page:  "Does God speak to us through our internet ramblings? Is this the way modern seekers might discern a call? I went to this page and these words stunned me: "DMin Track: Creating Community through the Arts." Seminary, Creativity, Community--all in that one webpage title. Be still my beating heart!"

Granted, I'm not eligible for a DMin yet.  But the MDiv degree, the one that can lead to ordination, also has a theology and arts track.

I have 9 windows open on my computer browser--more than 9, but 9 that are part of the Wesley Theological Seminary.  They have several intriguing tracks, but the theology and the arts track is the one that interests me most.

Before I started looking for this focus, the intersection between theology and the arts, I assumed that there were more.  I have searched and searched and only found one other one, at a UCC seminary in the twin cities, United--but they don't have as many of the arts classes as I would like (for more info, go here).  I've looked at every Lutheran seminary--nope.  I went to some of the schools that I feel might be out of my league, like Candler at Emory (in Atlanta) or Duke; if there's a track that looks at theology and creativity, I'm not finding it.

There's another wink from God in this choice of Wesley:  the theology and arts program is housed at the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion.  Henry Luce III is the son of Henry Luce, who married Clare Booth Luce.  She is the woman who donated the land for Mepkin Abbey, a spiritual home for me.

Other advantages:  Wesley is in Washington, D.C., another home where I often long to return, and where I still have friend and family connections.  It's a Methodist seminary, so it wouldn't be that far from my Lutheran tradition.  It doesn't require Greek, Hebrew, or other ancient languages--I'm not sure why the thought of the ancient language requirement spooks me so much.

I will keep thinking and dreaming and asking God for guidance--but honestly, this program makes my heart sing, and that fact, right there, is where I hear God saying, "How much more guidance do you need?"

Hospice Chaplain with a Sketchbook

 Long ago, when we first set up our COVID check in station, I started making a card each day with the date and a quick sketch.  I thought people would need to know the date, and rather than answer the question multiple times, I'd make the card.  Some days I sketch a scene, while other days it's more abstract.  Some days, it's a scene with abstract elements or a scene, sketched abstractly:

There are days I wonder if I should still do this.  After all, most people have a phone with a date.  But people do look at it, and it does bring a spark of joy into my work day as I do it.

Last week, I didn't have much time to make Friday's sketch, so I created this:

My colleague and friend had been having a tough week with her dog who was in the last stages of life before dying on Friday.  I had dogs on the brain, but truth be told, I was only trying to capture the essence of a dog, not her particular dog.  Still, my friend told me that it meant a lot to her.  Later, she made this picture her Facebook picture:

Since my first sketch meant so much to her, I decided to create a better sketch, based on the photo:

She wants to keep the date card.  She had me sign it:

When I first started this date card with sketch practice, I didn't anticipate all the directions it would take me.  To be honest, the me that I was in May, when I started, would be surprised that we're still doing this as January moves to February of 2021.  Even though I didn't realize I was starting a daily practice, I'm glad that I have.

It's brought me joy, and I'm glad that it's brought joy to others.  And I'm happy that it's brought solace.  When I used to say that I had vague longings of being a hospice chaplain, I wasn't thinking of this approach.  As I look at much of my life in the past few years, I often get the sense of God saying, "You want to be a hospice chaplain?  I have work for you to do, sweetie."

Hearing a Call in Haiku

Yesterday as I was working, I got several messages from people asking about seminary and me.  Yes, on the same day.  I realize it's just a coincidence, but it's one of the kinds of coincidences that make me say hmm.  I revisited the various websites of seminaries and programs.  The one that looks most interesting to me is a program focused on theology and creativity at a UCC seminary--but that program doesn't lead to ordination.

Many Lutheran seminaries now offer scholarship programs so that seminarians can graduate with no debt, which is great.  Of course, there would still be bills that need to be paid.

I'm writing to colleagues from the community college in Charleston where we were all faculty members together in the 90's--we're exchanging haikus on a daily basis.  What fun!  Yesterday I wrote this haiku:

Seminary thoughts:
daydream or question or call?
Am I too far gone?

My friend wrote me 2 in response. I loved them so much that I want to record them here:

For daydreams you plan.
Questions and calls you answer.
It’s never too late.

It's a risk we take.
Cool headed logic versus
The pursuit of dreams.

And a different friend wrote this one:

Inevitable,
the call and the discernment.
You will find your way.

I feel so lucky to have friends who have these kinds of supportive responses--and in haiku, no less!

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 31, 2021:

Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

It's interesting to consider the early days of the ministry of Jesus, as we do in these weeks before we launch ourselves into Lent. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus preaches and teaches and does a bit of healing. So far, so good. But he also casts out demons.

I've written about demons before. How do we modern folks see this act of casting out demons?

When I was young, my mother had a sensible explanation: ancient cultures didn't understand mental illness, so demon possession was how they explained diseases of the brain. It makes a lot of sense.

Lately, though, I wonder if we dismiss this idea of demon possession too quickly. Perhaps it's a metaphor that can speak to us in other ways.

I joke that I'm the last person who doesn't own a smart phone. But I also make clear that I'm not buying a smart phone package because I am surrounded by other screens. I am no less possessed than those people who nearly walk into me because they are so distracted by their pecking at their phones, by the dinging that proves so intrusive.

I have learned the value of leaving the screens, however. For every bit of connectivity that our technology buys us, it's worth remembering that our technology can keep us distracted and detached. And we might feel less and less worthy as we see others who seem to be living charmed lives. It's not hard to spiral into depression as we stay plugged in.

Our screens aren't the only things that possess us and keep us separated from each other and from God. Maybe it's the political scene that has split so much of our community into factions. Maybe it's our health issues that hold us in a tight grip. Some of us are possessed by our houses which need so much attention or by our vehicles.

For this week, let us think about all of our personal demons and all of our societal demons. Let us decide how we will attempt to cast them out. As a church, what can we do to minister to those afflicted? As individuals, can we be doing more to reach out to those who, for whatever reasons, feel on the outside of our communities?

When my mother-in-law was sick in the hospital, the hospital had us wear visitor stickers on our shirts. Sometimes I would forget that I was wearing mine, and I'd go to the grocery store. I noticed that people treated me more kindly. That sticker showed that I wasn't having a normal day.

We should go through our lives, seeing our fellow humans as wearing similar stickers that show their need for our gentle treatment. Think of what a different world we would inhabit if all people of faith made gentle treatment of their fellow humans a daily practice. Think of how those demons would be diminished.

Poetry Tuesday: "Cassandra Visits the Fertility Clinic"

 In all the Inauguration news of last week, all the various work ups and downs, I forgot to mention a publication.  I was happy to get my copy of Gargoyle, which published one of my Cassandra poems.

Cassandra is one of the figures from Greek myth to whom I return again and again.  As I was thinking about this poem's publication after I got my contributor copy of the journal, I got the idea for another one, Cassandra visiting her spiritual director and trying to use centering prayer--so let me note that, for a day when I feel like I have no more poems to write ever.

I was thinking of this poem, of Cassandra in the modern age, of the idea of the future in a time when the future seems so fraught with peril.  Does the future always seem fraught with peril?  It has in my lifetime, although the nature of the peril has shifted.

Would Cassandra, with her vision of the future, keep her eggs?  This poem attempts to answer that question: 

Cassandra Visits the Fertility Clinic 

Cassandra flies to Minneapolis, her annual 

pilgrimage to visit 

her frozen, fertilized eggs. 

She sees this storage 

facility as an an extravagant luxury 

in an age of rising 

seas and record 

shattering heat. She understands 

the cost of her clenching 

grasp and insistence on open options. 

Still, she cannot release 

these eggs, either to fallow 

wombs or to the sewer. 

Her Catholic upbringing and her guilty 

sense of failed femaleness 

forbid her to sign the forms. 

And so she pays for freezer 

space and back up generators 

and monitoring of all sorts. 

During boring meetings, she designs 

the nursery she will likely never need.

Feast Day of the Conversion of Saint Paul

Today the Church celebrates the conversion of St. Paul. Take a minute to imagine how the world would be different if we had had no Saul of Tarsus. There would have been no Saul persecuting the Christians, no Saul to have a conversion experience on the road to Damascus, no Paul who was such a singular force in bringing Christianity to the Roman empire.

Early Christianity would have had some traction even had there been no Paul. Those disciples and apostles had a fire borne of their experiences to be sure. But it was Paul and his compatriots who brought Christianity to populations apart from the early Jews. Without Paul, Christianity might have withered on the tiny Palestinian vine, since the other disciples and apostles didn't have the same fervor for converting people outside the immediate geographical area, and they certainly weren't interested in bringing a new message to Gentiles.

Would someone else have come along? Probably. The Holy Spirit does work in interesting ways. But Paul was a fascinating choice, a man with extensive training, a man who could speak to multiple populations. For those of us who feel we don't fit in anywhere, we should take comfort from Paul's story. The Holy Spirit can use misfits in fascinating ways. The Bible is full of them.

Some criticize Paul's letters for their inconsistencies. I would remind us that Paul was writing to real congregations who were facing real problems. I imagine that he would be aghast at the idea that anyone centuries later would use them as a behavior manual to teach right behavior. It would be as if someone collected an assortment of your e-mails and centuries later saw direct communication from God in them.

For those of us who have found Paul troubling in terms of his ideas about women, about married people, about slaves, I'd recommend Classics scholar Sarah Ruden's Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (Pantheon 2010), which I first wrote about here. She gives a window into the ancient world which I had never really peered through before. Her depiction of sexual relations of all sorts makes me shudder, and more than that, makes me so glad to be alive today. The Roman empire really was a rape culture in all sorts of ways. Viewed through this lens, Paul's ideas on relationships seem radically forward-looking.

Here is a prayer for today:

Triune God, you work in truly wondrous ways. Thank you for the ministry of Paul and all the ways that we have benefited from his missionary fervor. Let us use the life of Paul as inspiration for our own lives. Let us trust that you can use our gifts in all sorts of ways that we can't even imagine. Give us the courage to follow your calling to the far reaches of whichever empires you need to send us. Give us the words that congregations need right now. Grant us the peace that comes from having partnered with you.

Eleventh Visit to the Spiritual Director

Yesterday I went to see my spiritual director for the eleventh time.  We talked about my experience of the online onground intensive, my wandering attention, my wanting to go to other open windows and do something else while the intensive was happening.  We talked about all the ways that attention spans are fractured.

I brought up my Mepkin journaling group and the segment we discussed on Wednesday night.  I talked about the suggestion (by St. John of the Cross?) that we sit in silence and encroaching darkness as day slips into night.  Sit this way for an hour, thinking of nothing, being open to God--then get up, take off your clothes, and go to sleep.  

We talked about how I found the idea of this impossible.  And then we talked about starting much smaller--for 5 minutes, for example.  We've talked about this before.  Our thoughts often come back to the idea of centering prayer.

My spiritual director reminded me that we've talked about this before, and she reminded me that I don't have to do a spiritual practice.  She asked me why I felt like I should.

I talked about teaching poetry and telling my students that when an image shows up again and again, it likely has a larger significance.  Similarly, when I've been bumping up against the idea of centering prayer again and again in a variety of settings, I wonder if God is trying to tell me something.

So I decided that I would be a bit more committed to the idea of centering prayer between now and the next   My spiritual director showed me an app, but I'm not sure it will work on a regular computer.  I don't have a smart phone because I don't need one more electronic pulling my attention into a zillion fragments.

As always, I found the time fruitful, even as we're circling back to topics we've discussed before.  And I did find the traffic and the trip a significant negative.  I wonder what it would be like to finish the time of direction and be able to stay in the good headspace.

Religious Elements in an Inauguration

I have written a long post on the Inauguration on my creativity blog.  Here I want to think about the religious elements of the day.

I have friends who are atheists, agnostics, and outside of mainstream Christianity and Judaism, by which I mean I have at least one friend in each of the following:  Hindu, Quaker, Unitarian/Universalist, Wiccan.  I am aware of the many ways that religious elements can make people feel excluded.

I was heartened that Biden went to a Mass on the morning of his inauguration.  I was REALLY heartened by the number of other political leaders (from both parties) who went with him.  While I don't think it was broadcast live or recorded, if you want to read the homily, you can go here.  

It did not contain many surprises, and perhaps this quote best summarizes the message:  "I am sure that today’s inaugural address will be a bit longer than Jesus’ brief reading from the Jewish scriptures! But knowing the Bidens, I am confident that the substance of today’s inaugural address will echo Jesus’ message because your public service is animated by the same conviction to help and protect people and to advance justice and reconciliation, especially for those who are too often looked over and left behind, the people whose voices you raised in the campaign and throughout your public life."

To me, there's nothing objectionable in the message of service and protection.  I felt similarly about the opening and closing prayers of the Inauguration, but I realize that I have a bias.  Here is the text of the opening prayer, which is a little less inclusive than the closing prayer, which I can't find in written form.  I was struck throughout the closing prayer about how it was inclusive--even in its reference to the Divine.  I'll keep looking for the specific words.  It didn't occur to me to take notes.

There will be a prayer service today which will be livestreamed at 10 a.m.  It's an amazing line up, and I plan to watch/listen while I'm working at my desk.  For more information, go here.  I'll be interested to see which religious elements people emphasize.  Can a spirit of unity and ecumenism be sustained?

I hope so.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The Readings for Sunday, January 24, 2021:

First Reading: Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Psalm: Psalm 62:6-14 (Psalm 62:5-12 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Gospel: Mark 1:14-20

I'm interested that in this Gospel, people don't seem to hesitate. They don't weigh the cost of discipleship. They don't create a spreadsheet that compares the pros and the cons.

No, God beckons, and these men leave their normal lives immediately.

The story we get in today's Gospel seems like a young person's story. How hard is it to give up everything when you're young and don't really have all that much to give up?  It's also a man's story--in today's Gospel, we hear about young men leaving the family fishing business.  There are people left behind.  One of the miracles of Jesus involves the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, which has always made me wonder about the wife he left behind.  I'm assuming he left children behind too.  There may be a reason why we don't hear about female disciples--someone must take care of the children, and it's not going to be people tramping across the countryside with Jesus.

In my younger years, the idea of giving up responsibilities and following Jesus sounded very appealing.  Many days, it still does.  But how might our world be different if we had centuries of emphasizing a different part of the ministry of Jesus?  One of the reasons why these men were able to traipse around the countryside is because there were people funding the ministry.  How might our world be different if we had had two thousand centuries of celebrating those who make ministry possible in this way?

For that matter, what if instead of celebrating the evangelizing apostles who went out with very little in their pockets, we celebrated the ones who stayed to build up the communities that the apostles created? We rarely celebrate settling deep roots into a community and staying put. We often see those churches as stagnant and out of touch, even if they're the ones supporting the local elementary school and teaching new immigrants and running the food pantry.

Most of us can't be the kind of disciple that leaves family and commitments behind to traipse the country. Many of us have been raised to believe that's what Christ wanted us to do--there's a Great Commission after all that tells us to go to all the lands and make disciples. We don't hear about the families that the disciples left behind. How are they supposed to cope?

Let us remember that there's more than one way to be missional.  Today we celebrate a certain kind of disciple, and it's a kind of discipleship that has changed the world.

But let us also remember that God offers a variety of calls and invitations.  At the root is always the idea that we'll be fishing for people.  We have so many ways to fish for people.  

How are you baiting your hook?

Confessions: Saint Peter, MLK, and All of Us

Today we have an interesting intersection of high holy days, both in the older religious calendar and in our secular calendar of federal holidays.  Today we celebrate the confession of Saint Peter and the life of Martin Luther King.

I've always had a fondness for St. Peter. I've always had a fondness for all the disciples, really. Such flawed people. So much like us all. Today's feast celebrates Peter's assertion, "You are the Christ." 

Think back to those early disciples, travelling the countryside with a mystifying man named Jesus. They must have had trouble figuring out exactly what was happening, much as we all do when we're in the midst of our life experiences. And yet, they are able to confess their belief and to commit to this new life path. For most, it will cost them their lives.

I think about our secular holiday that celebrates the life of Dr. Martin Luther King today, and the juxtaposition of the two holidays. As a child growing up in the 70's, even in the deepest parts of the U.S. South, we were taught to admire those Civil Rights workers (I went to fairly progressive schools; I know that not every Southern child had that experience). What tremendous odds they fought against! What vision they had! How solidly committed they remained!

The older I get, the more I continue to be impressed with that social justice movement. I'm especially impressed with their commitment to nonviolence. One of the books I keep meaning to read is Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World : Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People; I've heard him talk about one of his book's main points that the twentieth century's biggest leaps in transforming societies came from nonviolent movements: think about the collapse of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the Civil Rights movement in the U.S., and Gandhi's campaign in India. Those three examples are examples not just of nonviolent movements, but nonviolent movements rooted in religious belief.

I have argued before, and I will continue to argue until I die, that social justice movements that have a religious core will be more successful than those that don't. A religious core gives us the hope we need to keep going when it appears that all our efforts aren't working. A religious grounding assures us that just below the surface, justice simmers, and seeds wait.

So today, we celebrate both St. Peter and Dr. Martin Luther King. If you want a religious reading for the day, turn to Matthew 16: 13-20. Any of Dr. King's writings provide a respite, no matter what day of the year it is. We might offer a prayer for all the workers toiling in the social justice field, that their work might flower. We might pray for ourselves, that we hold fast to what is true, that we not sacrifice our deepest principles for political expediency, or the other darker temptations that lead individuals and social justice movements astray.

Commissioning and Anointing

Much of the end of last week revolved around the onground intensive for my certificate in spiritual direction program. Because of the pandemic, we met online instead of onground. While it wasn't a perfect way to be together, it was better than a cancelled intensive, which was the response in June.

On Friday, my onground intensive ended with a commissioning service for the class ahead of me that was finishing the program. It felt strange for the experience to end at 5:45, to turn off the screen and wander around the house. It should have been a later service that ended with a champagne reception--or a Saturday morning service where we headed out into the world with our talents.

But as we were doing the service, I thought about how it was profoundly moving in unexpected ways. As each person's name was called, we all stretched out our hands to our individual cameras--so the Zoom session was a series of boxes of hands. That approach also made it easier to find the graduate we were blessing.

And in our care packages, each graduate got a vial of consecrating oil. So even though the candidate had to do self-anointing, we were able to hold onto that element of the commissioning service.

As each part of the body was mentioned, the graduate touched the oil to the body part: "The servant of God, (name), is anointed to a ministry of spiritual direction. May your mind always be attentive to God. May your ears be attuned to the words of those whom God sends your way and to the promptings of the Spirit. May your mouth under the guidance of the Spirit speak deep wisdom that is not your own. And may your heart be centered in the love of God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

In the end, it was still a profoundly moving service--just moving in a different way.  And a side benefit:  family members and friends could attend, the way they would not have been able to do during regular times for those of us coming to the campus from a distance.

Onground Intensive, Intensively Online

 Yesterday I was aware that if it had been a year ago, I'd have been arriving at the seminary campus for the first onground intensive in my journey to be certified as a spiritual director.  At the end of that intensive, I was in great spirits, ready for where the future was taking me, even as I admitted that I wasn't sure what I envisioned.

Little did I know what was about to fall on our collective heads . . .

I do think that there will be an upsurge in demand for spiritual direction in all its variations once we get past the worst part of this pandemic.  Times of plague often lead to times of change, some of it tumultuous, some of it rewarding.  I'm thinking about the Renaissance that came after the Black Death.  In generalizing hundreds of years of history into a single sentence, and all the risks inherent with that condensation, I could argue that the the 30% death rate during the first outbreaks of the Black Death led people to question religious authorities and to move in directions they would not have if there had been no plague, directions that made them more free.

But I digress.

I have spent the last 3 days, at least part of them, at the second onground intensive, but because of the pandemic, we met online.  This morning I thought, well, at least I don't have a 10 hour car drive today.  But I also don't have that surge of energy and enthusiasm that comes from time away.

I missed the opportunity to have deep conversation with people along the way.  Last year, I stayed with grad school friends before and after the intensive, and during the intensive I had great opportunities to talk with people, even though one purpose of the intensive was to explore the idea of solitude.

This year, I stared into a computer screen, hour after hour after hour.  We had some small group sessions, which were great, but not quite the same.

Also not quite the same:  the worship.  They felt more like sessions than services.  They were well done, with beautiful slides and music.  But it wasn't the same as going to the chapel with its beautiful stained glass.  And we didn't have communion.

What I missed most was the chance to be away--I missed it, even as I realized that it was much easier for me to participate online than onground this year.  Had there been no pandemic, it would have been tough for me to get away.  My request for leave was only granted early this week.

On Wednesday, I needed to be at the office, or at least I thought I did.  My school is being bought by a Brooklyn school, and on Wednesday, the new owners were visiting my campus.  So on Wednesday, I tuned in for the morning prayer and the opening remarks.  I was able to be part of the instruction sessions and one of the 2 small group sessions.  I stayed at the office so that I could tune in for Vespers.  It was strange.

On Thursday and Friday, even though I was taking leave, I went to the campus to help open it.  We only have 3 people with all the keys to open the campus, and one of them was out on unexpected bereavement leave.  Each day, I opened doors, took temperatures, answered questions, did a few tasks, and then headed home.  It was much easier to focus on the intensive at home, but still imperfect.

Throughout I tried to adopt the attitude that it was better to have an online intensive than a canceled intensive.  We were supposed to have this intensive back in June.  But I also wrestled with my feelings of disappointment.  A year ago, I thought I had found a way to be at more peace with my feelings of displacement.  This past year, I've been feeling more displaced than ever.

It's a spiritual displacement.  In literal terms, I'm rooted in South Florida:  I have a house, a job, and friends.  But in the past few years, most of my South Florida friends have moved away, and it's become clear that I can't count on my job the way I once could, and that global warming is moving much faster than I anticipated, which means that my house is in constant danger.

My spirit yearns to live in a different place, and last year, I was thinking that by working towards this certificate, I'd have more chances to get away to places that soothe my soul:  the seminary campus, Lutheridge, time with friends as place.  This year, I have no idea what's coming our way.

In a way, it could be worse.  At least I didn't enter into this program with a rigid idea of my expected trajectory--that might make it harder to make adjustments.

I've continued moving forward.  I've lived long enough to know that sometimes it's best to just keep going, even if one has lost one's nerve/faith/certainty.  I'm reminded of the advice given to those who have lost a spouse to death or divorce--don't make any big decisions leading to big changes for the first year after the traumatic event.

For at least the next year, that's the advice I'm following, even with the knowledge that I may not have the luxury of being the one making the choice.

Unsettling Mystical Experiences and a Special Word from God

I had an unsettling mystical experience yesterday.  That's a sentence I didn't anticipate writing.  I thought I might write many observations about my onground intensive to become certified in spiritual direction, but not that.

Have I had a mystical experience?  Have I ever?  I've had a mystical experience here or there, but I've also been a bit skeptical.  Were they really mystical experiences?  Was it just a tired brain?  Most of my mystical experiences have happened as I did a guided visualization/meditation, so maybe it was God speaking to me or maybe it was my subconscious or maybe it was something innocuous that gets transformed into something that seems important.

Yesterday's later part of the onground intensive revolved around silence, and the leader of the last session offered us an extensive guided meditation.  I tried so hard to follow the directions.  I sat in my desk chair and closed my eyes.  I visualized energy moving through my body.  After what felt like an endless journey from head to toe, we got to a space where God was waiting for us.  We visualized the space.  We visualized God.  Then the leader said, "God has a special word or phrase for you. Let's sit in silence and wait for that word or phrase to emerge."

It didn't take long for my word to emerge:  patient.  Not patience, but patient.  I thought about the difference between the two.  I sat resisting the urge to open my eyes and flip through other online sites.  I was not concentrating on God or my word.

I opened my eyes and reached for my sketchbook.  I decided to write the word across the page, and then I wrote it on other parts of the page in different ways (all capital letters, block print, cursive).  I turned the page around.  I wrote patience instead of patient, but I turned that word back to patient.  I revolved my sketchbook again.

Then I wrote Pain.  I only realized what I wrote when I paused to think, how do I spell patient again?  Then I looked down and realized that I wasn't just a letter or two off.  I looked at the word.

So if I believe that God was sending me a word, is my word patient or patience or pain?  My brain remembered that pain means bread in French, and that seemed relevant too.  I looked up some definitions to see how the words wind/wound their way together.  I tried to figure out if pain had interesting meanings in other languages.  I liked this definition for patient:  "not hasty or impetuous."  I have certainly had impulses, especially in the past 9 months, that have seemed hasty and impetuous, like my yearnings to sell everything we own and move to a place on higher ground that's more affordable and less hurricane prone.

I felt a bit of anxiety--was God trying to warn me that pain was coming my way?  Was God telling me I would be a patient?  Was God telling me to be patient with pain?  My first thoughts had not gone in these dire directions--my first thoughts had been, Yes, I will be patient in the the belief that better days are coming.  I will be patient; I will hold on.

My first exercise in embracing patient/patience was the meditation itself.  I had done as much thinking about the word, sketching, pondering, as I had in my tired brain. I looked at my computer screen again--surely the leader would bring us back soon?  How long could I sustain this meditation?  Were all those people on my Zoom screen meditating or napping?

Finally she brought us back.  We had a question and answer session, and some of us asked about alternate ways to do the exercise, with journaling or sketching or walking.  She replied in language that seemed significant enough to capture:  "Respond in a way that's consistent with who you are."

At least I did that.  At most, I got some interesting information from God or from the Collective Unconscious or from my own subconscious.

Intercessory Prayer in the Chat

Yesterday was my first day of the onground intensive for the certificate program in spiritual direction.  This onground intensive being held online.  By now, I've done so much online that I thought I didn't have many discoveries to make about what it means to live chunks of life online.  I've been teaching online since 2013, and I've also been a student here or there.  I've been a part of more online communities than I can count.  In the past year, I've been part of worship services that are online--that was a first for me.

So I wasn't expecting anything new from last night's Vespers service.  That's not to say that I thought I wouldn't appreciate it or that I dreaded it--on the contrary.  And at first, I relaxed into the service--we breathed together, we listened to music, we heard a Bible reading and a homily.  And then we got to the intercessory prayers.

We were worshipping by way of Zoom, and instead of speaking out loud or turning in our prayer requests in advance, we entered our prayer requests into the chat window.  For the first 30 seconds, while people typed, it was quiet, but then the requests rolled in.  I kept scrolling through the chat, offering up prayers, wondering what I would type in if I was so inclined.  There were about 45 of us worshipping, and I don't know if this approach would have worked as well if we had been a larger group.  And if I was a slow reader, I might have felt frustrated at my inability to read every request.

I did not enter any prayer requests, and lately, I've been doing some thinking about that.  Part of it is rooted in my not wanting to be a bother.  And part of it is that I feel like any of my problems are not nearly as bad as the problems of other people--I'm also not sure why I think there's a hierarchy of problems, and that my problems will always rank as not as important as the problems of others.

Earlier yesterday, in our small group session, I heard an idea that was new to me:  wanting to be independent and/or self-reliant is a common response to trauma.  I can't quite capture the essence in words, but it was profound when I heard it yesterday.  When I think about the recent past as trauma, some of my thinking makes more sense to me.  The last 4 years of the Trump administration have felt like continual trauma, as has the past year of pandemic developments.  

No wonder it's hard for me to ask people to pray for me.  And lately, the prayer list gets ever longer.

So perhaps my inability to offer my own prayer requests makes more sense.  Or maybe I'm becoming ever more like my grandmother, compressing myself, not wanting to be a burden or a bother.

And yes, I understand all the theological implications and why I need to resist those urges, why I need to keep connecting, why I need people to pray for me.

We all do.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Jan. 17, 2020:

First Reading: 1 Samuel 3:1-10 [11-20]

Psalm: Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17 (Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Gospel: John 1:43-51

In this week's Gospel, we see the start of Jesus' ministry--and what a simple start it is. A low pressure invitation to come and see.

Note what is left out of this narrative. I assume that many people declined Christ's invitation, for all the standard reasons: no time, conflict of interest, family commitments, laundry and grocery shopping to do, too much work to do before quitting time; we are people with responsibilities; we can't just abandon them to follow some guy around the countryside. Experts tell us that it takes 4-8 invitations before a friend will come with you to church. Imagine what Jesus faced as he offered invitations to total strangers.

And notice that Jesus carries on. Jesus doesn't go off in a huff. Jesus doesn't spend time complaining about how he'd rather have a different sort of ministry. Jesus doesn't whine to God that God promised him something different, one of those mega-churches perhaps. Jesus walks from town to town, issuing a simple invitation: Come and see. The ones who respond to the invitation offer the same invitation to their friends. Come and see.

There are several powerful messages for us here in this Gospel. We, too, have been offered this invitation. Come and see. And what are we to make of what we see? How do we respond? Do we tell others? Do our lives change? Can other people tell that we've been changed?

One of the tasks that God calls us to do is to transform the world we live in, to make the Kingdom of God manifest here on earth. No small task. But God has given us an example of how to do this: Christ's experiences on earth show us the way.

For those of us who are members of small churches or small ministries, we should take heart in this example. Jesus doesn't start with a huge group. Jesus doesn't start with a huge budget. Jesus doesn't even have a building to call his own. Jesus shows us what we can accomplish on a small scale--and that small scale is capable of transforming the larger society.

On a daily basis, an hourly basis, God constantly calls us to come and see. God always calls us to transform the world and God promises that transformation is possible, even probable. We are Resurrection People: Life blooms even in the middle of death, even in the deep midwinter.

When Your Seminary Sends You a Care Package

 I have had this lingering sadness mixed with grumpiness mixed with dismay mixed with jolts of pure rage and a tumble back down into despair--but who hasn't?  My pandemic mindset (the negative kind, not the grateful I haven't gotten sick kind) seems to be triggered most by events that either aren't happening or are happening in a different way.  

This past week, as I've started working my way through the modules for my onground intensive for the certificate in spiritual direction, I've felt the negative pandemic mindset struggling to root itself in my brain.  I try to root it out with gratitude for the fact that it's still happening at all--in June, the intensive was simply cancelled, which has added 6 months to the program.

But this is so NOT what was making me thrilled a year ago when I went to the first onground intensive at the seminary last year.  I was so happy to get back to a campus that has a traditional feel, to explore an amazing library, to meet new people and to room with an old Create in Me pastor friend.  The coursework wasn't unfamiliar to me, but I was glad to hear the concepts again and in a new context.

An in-person onground intensive isn't practical in a year when a contagion continues to wreak havoc.  And to be honest, I'm not sure I'd have been given permission to leave my full-time job this week to travel to the seminary if it had been a traditional onground experience, so in some ways, this works out for the best.

But there's a very different energy to sitting in front of my computer working my way through video modules than the energy that comes from being in a classroom.  Not for the first time, I realize how easy it is to be distracted when sitting in front of a screen.

Yesterday a UPS truck pulled up, and I wondered what this could be.  All of our Amazon orders have already arrived.  The delivery person handed me a package.  It was a care package from the seminary.  It contained a variety of treats, many of them made locally in South Carolina, plus some instructions:

I was blown away by this care package, and I continue to think about why.  After all, I could buy these kinds of things myself. I often don't, but I could.

But it's more than that.  It's the fact that the people in charge realize that we could use this kind of boost.  Many of us yearn for the situation to be different--and the care package shows an effort to mark this time as special, as sacred even.  We may need to be separate, but we can drink the same tea and coffee, light similar candles, trace our fingers around a finger labyrinth at the same time.

During the past 9 months, I've seen various teachers create care packages for their students.  I've read the comments of those who go online, looking for suggestions for a box of inspirations sent to creative writing students or poems sent to literature students, art supplies and self-care items and all sorts of other items that can be delivered by a variety of methods. 

If you're a teacher and you wonder whether or not the extra touches have meaning for your students, speaking as a student, I'm here to tell you, yes they do.  Your students may not ever tell you, and you may not know for sure, but I am profoundly moved by this gift.

Sitting in Silence, Moving in Silence

I am about halfway through a program that will leave me certified to be a spiritual director.  I loved the original design of the program:  4 onground intensives (2 in June, 2 in January), with one book to read a month.  It seemed doable with my life.

Well, here it is, one year later, and how life has changed.  One onground intensive, June 2020, was cancelled, and the one this week will be held online.  We've been given all sorts of resources to explore in advance.  I thought those resources would be written resources, but most of them seem to be videos--with all sorts of ancillary readings, if one is so inclined.

I've just watched my way through a series of videos on silence; the irony is not lost on me.  While the ideas are not new to me, I'm happy to be reminded of them.  But as I was watching, I did wonder if there was an angle we might be missing.

We were told to experiment with silence first by finding a place and time when we could be silent.  For me, that's a stumbling point, and if it's a stumbling point for me, a woman with no children in the household and a supportive spouse and an office door that I can close at will--if I'm having trouble visualizing that, imagine how difficult others would find it.

I thought back to a piece of wisdom that I discovered about meditation.  I have tried meditation through the years, but I have similar issues with meditation.  I can't empty my mind.  I can't sit cross-legged.  My back wants to slump.  If I close my eyes I go to sleep, but if I leave them open, I'm distracted by all the dust.

In one of Julia Cameron's books, she mentioned that Western minds have trouble with the kind of meditation that mandates that we sit in a quiet space and empty our minds and think of nothing.  She recommends writing as a means of meditation.  It gives us something to do, which helps quiet some part of our brains.  And for many of us, writing gives us the space for some inner wisdom to bubble up, wisdom we might not be able to access any other way.

I wonder if the same might be true of silence.  If we write, might we be more successful?

But for me, writing is a kind of noise too.  It's a good kind of noise, but how can I be sure I'm hearing God?

Maybe instead of sitting in silence, we should exercise in silence.  For those of us who want to focus on a single image, we could do that, if we were working out on a machine.  For those of us who need to move through space, we could do that too, by walking or jogging or cycling.

I'm also thinking that knitting or crocheting or making a series of lines on the page could be useful.

This line of thinking has made me wonder how many other spiritual processes we might need to rethink.  How many traditional methods of practice might be opened up to many more people if we widen our approach?

One Last Look Back at Epiphany 2021

Before we get too far away from Epiphany, let me post a sketch and the haiku-like creation that I made:

Cold cosmos, keep watch
Follow the star so distant
Promises fulfilled.

And after I worked on finishing this sketch, I went for a jog.  I made this Facebook post:

"I am that woman out for her morning jog before 6 a.m., that woman who hollers, "Happy Epiphany!" to a group of tipsy teenagers, toddling home from the beach.

I am a bright, shining star."

Looking back, I think about how enthusiastic I felt about the fact that one Georgia Senate seat had gone to a Democrat, and I had hopes for the second seat too.  And then, the events of the day unraveled with the invasion of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C.

And yet, I still feel hopeful.  I know that events like the ones on Wednesday can be the ones that set a country on a different trajectory.  Hopefully we will choose a better one.

Committing to Justice, Not Vengeance

I've been reading much analysis of the events on Wednesday. I haven't read much that startled me out of complacency, that made me want to think further and more deeply, but this article on the NPR site did.  Sociologist Alex Vitale says we shouldn't be focused on the police angle but on the larger issue of justice in society.

But he's not talking about justice the way most of us have been talking about justice.  Most of us want people punished, want people put in jail, want officers fired.  Vitale says, "Well, look, Americans are deeply committed to their retributive impulses. The United States has become a gigantic revenge factory. So obviously, people are falling back on these impulses — imagining justice as a question of punishment. Imagining that accountability is going to be measured in years of incarceration."

But then he pivots--he doesn't leave us drowning in our retributive impulses.  He sees that we have a 2 year window to deepen the conversation.  He says that in the past, we've been content to turn a variety of problems over to the police:  homelessness, drug abuse, mental illness.  The police aren't equipped to handle those issues, and as a result, we see the fractured and broken society that we have today.

He also notes that the people in charge along with the people who benefit--white people, to be specific--prize order over justice.  If we commit to justice, we have to tolerate some disorder, some messiness.

I see two issues here, the one of what to do about this specific group of people who rampaged through the U.S. Capitol building and the issue of how to craft workable public policy that works for more of us.  In terms of punishing Wednesday's rampagers, I have a vision of education, not prison.  Let them read the books that were on the smashed bookshelves.  Give them a choice of whether or not they'd like to serve their sentence in prison or in the U.S. Congress, being useful to Senators and Congress people and the Capitol police.  Make them write research essays about the artifacts that they trashed.

The question of public policy is even thornier.

We've had decades of public policy crafted by wealthy white men, mostly for the comfort and benefit of wealthy white men.  What would happen if we started to listen to other groups?  Not just black, brown, and indigenous groups, which would certainly be a good start.  But what if we listened to mothers and fathers?  What if we listened to immigrant groups and those seeking shelter from ruinous policies in other countries?  What if we listened to artists?  What if we listened to members of religious groups that aren't mainstream Christian groups?  What if we listened to mainstream Christian groups?  What if we listened to poor people?

I could continue to list types of groups that haven't been a major voice at the table when public policy has been made.  But what I really want to think about is the kind of public policy that might benefit more of us, the type of public policy that could lead to a society that is more aligned with principles of justice than vengeance.

I have the glimmerings of an amazing vision.  And these kinds of societal transformations start with a vision.  Let's dream it today. 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, Jan. 10, 2021:

Genesis 1:1-5

Psalm 29

The voice of the LORD is upon the waters. (Ps. 29:3)

Acts 19:1-7

Mark 1:4-11

I write these words after an unprecedented day of violence at the U.S. Capitol.  I thought about abandoning this meditation and writing prayers for the day after a coup attempt.  I thought about writing a more pointedly political post.

But I have always loved the discipline of having a lectionary that gives us readings and asks us to contemplate how God speaks to us through them, rather than having us hunt for readings that will tell us what we want to believe that God is saying or give us meaning.

In that spirit, let us return to the story in Mark, where we see Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.  For years, I've focused on the idea of God's approval in the beginning of the ministry, even before Jesus has done a thing.

Today, I'm thinking about the Jesus of history, the Jesus who had choices to make.  Even before he began, Jesus was at a crossroads.  He could have joined a group of freedom fighters and worked to free the Jewish homeland from Roman rule.  He could have become a mystic and joined his compatriot (cousin in some texts) John in the desert.  Perhaps he could have made his way up a more traditional job ladder and aligned himself with the Jewish religious authorities.

And God would have loved him and been well-pleased.

We, too, stand at a crossroads:  as individuals, as a country, as a planet.  We, too, have choices to make.  God invites us to be part of the inbreaking Kingdom of God, and we have a number of decisions to make.  Do we accept the invitation?  How big a part shall we play?  What unique contribution can we offer?

Like Moses, we might protest and point out our deficiencies.  But God needs us now, not later when we feel more ready.  The history of humanity shows that even flawed humans can create amazing change and make remarkable improvements in the world.

At every turn, God offers us the gifts of grace and love.  The juxtaposition of Epiphany and the Baptism of Christ also gives us an opportunity to see how differently people respond to this gift of grace and love. Herod is so threatened that he slaughters every child in Bethlehem and the surrounding region. John, on the other hand, tells everyone about the coming arrival of Jesus.

How will we respond to God's great gift of love?

Politics, Ancient and Modern, on the Feast Day of the Epiphany

 Perhaps I will write about Georgia later.  Perhaps by then, others will have written eloquent pieces about Georgia.  Perhaps by then we'll know for sure who won each race.  Right now, one race has been called by the AP for the Democrat, who happens to be the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr.'s church.  He will be the first black senator to serve Georgia (I think).

Perhaps I will write about what happens in Congress today later, when I know what happens in Congress today, a day when Congress accepts/affirms the certified election results from the Electoral College.  There will be Congress people who object to the results, which is just unfathomable to me.  Did they not take a vow to protect the Constitution?  Do vows mean nothing to people anymore?

Rhetorical questions.

As I've been paying attention to national politics and the pace of the pandemic, I've also had Epiphany on the brain.  The Feast Day of the Epiphany celebrates the ways in which the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus is revealed early in the Christ story.  More specifically, the Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the wise men from the East to see and bring gifts to the baby Jesus.

We may or may not remember the rest of the story.  This year, even more than other years, I am thinking of the murderous Herod.  I am thinking of those travelers, those academics who studied the stars but not human behavior, who inadvertently set a crisis into motion.  I am thinking of Herod, unbalanced Herod, so threatened that he killed all those children who might have grown up to be a threat to him.

Literalists may protest that there's no shred of evidence that this massacre actually happened.  Surely history would have recorded this slaughter, this genocide.  The story about Herod's murder of toddlers and babies may not be literally true, but it wouldn't be behavior that would be out of the realm of possibility for Herod.

Like many stories in the Bible, even if it isn't factually true, the story points to a larger truth.

These past years, many of us have had a closer look at the behavior of old white men who have felt threatened, and it's not a pretty sight.  We see many people killed in the crossfire and killed by the fall out.  We see lives diminished and potential stamped out.

We see the truth of that proverb that warns us that without imagination, the people will perish.  

Would old white women have behaved the same way?  Who can say?  Women have never had the kind of power that old white men get to have throughout history.  It is hard for me to imagine this kind of behavior if women did have that kind of power, at least not in the same kind of widespread way.  Maybe after women have had that kind of power for thousands of years, maybe after that kind of power has sapped all empathy.

But even if we don't think that Herod's story speaks to us, it offers a powerful testimony to the corrosive effects of power.  We would be wise to think of our own power, our own feelings of inadequacy, how we attempt to control the elements of our lives or how we don't.

We would be wise to think about all the strangers who show up to tell us of a different way, a different paradigm.

We would be wise to keep our eyes trained to larger vistas.

Locating Ourselves in the Advent Christmas Epiphany Story

Before we leave the Christmas and Epiphany narratives, let us take one last look back and see where we are in these stories:

If you are older, and wondering if you've devoted your whole life to a promise that was an elaborate hoax --

If the thudding of your heart wakes you up at night so that you can ponder how all your good plans came to ash and ruin--

If you are part of a highly trained professional elite who sees something new and unexpected in the cold cosmos--

If you feel like a wanderer in a land that has no scent of home--

If you are overtaken by mysteries that you only partly understand--

If you feel old and all used up--

If you are part of an unappreciated part of society, caring for flocks of sheep or students or spreadsheets or patients or products to be sold--

If you feel desperate to keep hold of the small scraps of power that you have--

If you have lost everything--

If you read these stories and feel distant from them--

Know that the Good News comes for us all.  

Some of us will hear it in the form of angel choirs singing so loudly that we can't ignore it.

Some of us will perceive it in a speck of light beamed from a great distance.

Some of us will perceive it in the ways our lives are upended.

Some of us will have to wait a bit longer for the full revelation while at the same time being present to the mysteries.

But know that the inbreaking Kingdom of God is both here now and not quite here yet.  Look ahead to the Baptism of our Lord and the words of God who is pleased with Jesus at the start of his ministry, before he's done anything much at all.

Setting the Stage for 2021

I know of two pieces of folk wisdom that concern New Year's Day.  One involves what to eat to bring good luck in the new year--I was raised in the U.S. South, by a southern mom, and on New Year's Day, we always ate greens and black eyed peas, even though no one in the family liked them.  As a grown up, some years I do this and some years not.  I like greens of all sorts, but black eyed peas are a tougher sale with me.

I have also heard that what we do on New Year's Day sets the stage for the coming year, and as such, we should focus on the activities not the food.  While I didn't set out with that intention for Jan. 1, 2021, I'd be happy if the new year delivers me these activities in abundance:

--I had a lovely jog with beautiful water views and a lovely sunrise.

--I ate good Christmas bread and drank good coffee.

--I got some writing done.

--I made pizza dough with my ever-forgiving sourdough starter.  We ate homemade pizza later.

--I spent much of the day reading a book--a whole book, from start to finish.  Sue Miller's Monogamy is fabulous, even though it sounds like a sad slog through widowhood.

--As New Year's Day became New Year's Night, we sat on our perfect porch and greeted the neighborhood walkers with a cheery "Happy New Year."  Everyone seemed friendly and relaxed.

--As we sat on our perfect porch in the perfect weather, we lit all the remaining candles on our two Advent wreaths.  One man walking by was so struck that he asked us if he could take a picture.  The porch was particularly lovely in all that candle light, framed by pots of jubilant petunias.

--In candle light, you don't see all the repairs that need to be made, the fact that the whole house needs to be repainted and the awnings have seen better days (they're stained but not ripped).   Maybe 2021 should be the year of softer lighting.

The rest of the week-end has been lovely too:

--I had a Saturday Zoom meeting with my quilting group.  We talked about the vaccine and who would be in what order to take it.  One of our friends had left a message with the health department, but she wasn't sure they would ever get to it.  During our actual Zoom meeting, her phone rang, and she held it up so that we could see it was the health department calling.  She made the appointment for Wednesday as we watched.  It was extraordinarily moving.

--My parents will get the first dose of the vaccine on Tuesday.  I am so profoundly grateful.

--On Saturday night we saw the couple who has been our pandemic podmate group through the year.  It was good to catch up.

--We ended the week-end by playing Christmas carols on the porch last night.  My spouse played violin, and I plucked my way through on mandolin.  We chose all the ones written in F major so that we didn't have sharps and flats to keep track of beyond the B flat.  I was surprised by how many were written in F major.  I was surprised by how well I could keep up on the mandolin--I've come a long way from a year or two ago.

--As he drove away, one of our neighbors rolled down his car window to say, "Sounds great."  As he drove away, he called out, "Love you neighbors."  And yes, it did make me wonder if maybe he shouldn't be driving--he's a verbally reclusive sort.

--But in the end, I decided to give credit to the power of Christmas music being made imperfectly by stringed instruments on a perfect porch.

Here's hoping we have set the stage for 2021--may we have many more moments like these all year long! 

The Possibility of a Truly Ecumenical Prayer Manual

While I have no shortage of projects and potential projects, let me record an idea I had this morning.  I have been using Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours for the morning watch sessions that I broadcast on my church's Facebook page.  

Tickle uses The New Jerusalem Bible translation and the prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. I find that these texts have some limitations.  There's never a day where I don't have to do some de-gendering of God imagery.  Every so often, I look up a text afterward to see how other translations handle tricky God/Savior imagery.  I don't take out the warrior imagery, although it sometimes makes me uneasy. 

I am guessing that most people who watch my broadcast are Christian--in fact, from what I can tell, most of them are members of my church.  I don't think we have much ecumenical outreach, but I have wondered if I shouldn't be thinking about the possibility. 

This morning I wondered if it would be possible to write a truly ecumenical prayer manual, one that could be used by Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists.  I don't mean having a Muslim section, and then a Jewish section, and so on--no, everyone would use the same readings and prayers each day.

And then I wondered if such a prayer manual could be used by atheists and agnostics.  I figure that it might be a tough sell for atheists, since I envision a prayer manual having prayers and sacred texts that talk about a creator.  I'm guessing that atheists wouldn't want to engage in practicing relationship with a creator in whom they don't believe.

Like I said, I don't need any additional projects and certainly not one that would be so huge.  But I wanted to note the idea regardless.