A Meditation on Easter and Holy Week

The readings for Sunday, April 4, 2021:

First Reading: Acts 10:34-43

First Reading (Alt.): Isaiah 25:6-9

Psalm: Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Second Reading (Alt.): Acts 10:34-43

Gospel: Mark 16:1-8

Gospel (Alt.): John 20:1-18

Finally we move through Holy Week to Easter Sunday. At last, our Lenten pilgrimage draws to a close. It's strange to write about Easter when we have yet to move through all of Holy Week. But the Christian life invites us to live in this strangeness, the coming of God existing in various planes of time: the past, the present, and the not yet.

This year, more than many other years, many of us feel like we're living outside of regular time.   Perhaps you still linger back at Ash Wednesday. Perhaps you find the Good Friday texts more evocative than the Easter texts. Maybe you're in a state of joy, back with the shepherds hearing the angel choir. Maybe, like Mary, you prefer silence and pondering the mystery. It's interesting how our emotional lives aren't always in sync with the liturgical seasons or the Lectionary.

Maybe this year we can approach the Holy Week stories differently. Maundy Thursday gives us a view of how to love each other. Notice that it's about what we do: we eat together, we wash each other's feet, we anoint with oil. It's not about an emotion--it's about an action. It's not a theory of love, but a concrete way of being loving.

We are called to break bread together, to drink wine together. We are called to invite the outcast to supper with us. We are called to care for each other's bodies--not to sexualize them or mock them or brutalize them, but to wash them tenderly. Thus fortified, we are called to announce that the Kingdom of God is breaking out among us in the world in which we live, and we are called to demand justice for the oppressed.

Perhaps we find ourselves more like the disciples who would transform the loving act of anointing with oil into a way to help the poor by selling that oil and giving the money to the poor. It seems a good way to show love. Jesus rebukes this way of thinking. We will always have the poor; we won't always have the ones we love. This year, a year when so many mourn such severe losses, those words speak to me.

Good Friday gives us a way to think about betrayal and how we can respond. The Good Friday message is that we will all betray God. But some of us will try again, while others will give up in abject despair. Some of us will apologize and try to do better, while others will choose death.

I also find myself thinking about the tree that must wish for a great destiny, but is transformed into the cross, an instrument of torture. Likewise, Jesus, who has been in some amount of control of his own actions, but finds himself handed over to others. In these past years when I've watched so many friends and colleagues battle cancer--handed over to the medical-industrial complex--the idea of the Passion takes on an excruciating hue.  

Holy Week takes on an even more poignant tone this year, as we consider the pandemic time we're still living through, along with a variety of social justice movements that remind us that we still have work to do to make our societies better for all.

Easter promises us that our efforts will not be in vain. In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, N. T. Wright says forcefully, " . . . what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff" (208). We may not understand how God will transform the world. We may not be able to believe that bleakness will be defeated. But Easter shows us God's promise that death is not the final answer.

Spring reminds us that nature commits to resurrection. Easter reminds us of God's promise of resurrection. Now is the time for us to rekindle our resurrection selves.

One Year of Morning Watch

 A year ago, many of us went into our houses and wouldn't come out again for weeks--and those of us with underlying health conditions probably still haven't left our houses much, if we have been allowed to stay sheltered.  As we went into lock-down, we experimented with broadcasting a variety of activities, from school to church to fitness classes.

My church had already been doing some live-streaming of Sunday worship service, so making that pivot to broadcasting worship wasn't hard for us.  My pastor added some evening Compline services to the mix.  Those of us who are early risers wanted something on the other side of the day, and I volunteered to be the one to do it.

I thought about choosing texts for the day, but then I wondered why I would do that, since we had common lectionaries.  I took the path of least resistance for me, which was using Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours.  I used the Facebook Live feature and used the church's Facebook page, which meant that people could tune in live or they could watch the recording later.

I planned to continue until Easter and maybe a few weeks beyond.  But as the weeks went on, I found that being the one responsible for doing morning watch enriched my day in ways that it didn't when I was alone.  At the end of the time together, after the closing prayer from The Divine Hours, I give a benediction of sorts.  Some days it's more like a reminder of how God is working in and through the world, in and through us.  Some days it's a connection to the church calendar--I'm particularly fond of feast days of saints that most of us have forgotten or never heard of.  Always I stress that God is with us, rooting for us, delighting in us, waiting patiently for us, pointing us in new directions.

My view of God is not the view of God as angry judge or of us as helpless children in need of a parent.  The image I come back to again and again is one of God as a creator in the middle of a big project, and we get to be part of the creative team, if we say yes.  And if we don't say yes, God doesn't go off in a huff.  God is there, each day, inviting us again and again.

In short, I finish morning watch each day by sending us off into our separate lives with words that I need to hear.

Has it made a difference?  I do hear from church members about how much they appreciate my efforts.  There are a few people who tune in every day, day in and day out, while others watch the recording.  There are some I'm sure I know nothing about.

I have not missed a morning except for the one time I didn't have connectivity at Lutheridge.  I have never been that devoted to a practice in my past.  I've usually taken days off, and sometimes, the practice has fallen away altogether.

It's also been good for my sketching.  Each morning, I've spent 5 minutes on a sketch--and it shows in my "realistic" sketching.  There are still plenty of ways I'd like to be better, but I wouldn't have seen the improvements that I have without my daily appointment.

I plan to continue doing morning watch--let's see what year 2 brings!

Paid Holiday for Passover

I have today off for Passover, and then, I have Friday off for Good Friday.  It's very ecumenical, and not at all what has been usual at my school.  But the sale actually happened last week, and now we have new owners who are Jewish.  Now we will get all the Jewish holidays, along with Good Friday and Christmas, and a slate of federal holidays.  This year, in September, we will only have about 12 work days, between Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and several days for Sukkot.

Let me be clear that I am not complaining.  I would also be happy to celebrate Muslim and Hindu holidays.  

Since I knew that I had the day off, I scheduled my last psych evaluation appointment necessary for the candidacy committee.  Maybe today will be the day when I finally find out which 4 letters I am in the Myers-Briggs universe.  I've done some of that work in the past, but I can never remember the Myers-Briggs.  In fact, I don't think I've ever done the Myers-Briggs because it cost too much money.

The appointment will be by way of Zoom, and I feel a bit of anxiety about the stability of my internet connection.  That anxiety seems to have joined my stable of anxieties.  Ugh.

I will also practice the bass part that I'm playing on 2 songs for the Easter sunrise service.  My friend has loaned me her bass ukulele to practice this week.  I am amazed by what a different kind of music playing experience it is.  I look at the music and the words and the advice to play every other beat--but with words, it's distracting.  I'll do best if I ignore the singing, but can I?

Happily, if I discover that I can't, I won't be wrecking anyone's sunrise service experience.  It's a gift in so many ways to be part of a forgiving and encouraging church.  Not every church music program is this way.

So, onward to my first paid holiday I've ever had--ever--for Passover.

Sermon for Palm Sunday 2021

I was happy that my pastor let me do the video sermon for Palm Sunday.  We are still meeting remotely, so it needed to be pre-recorded.  This time, I used still photos and wrote out most of the sermon before, so that I could record segments and put them together.

I still have much to learn, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.  It's too big to post here, but you can go here to my YouTube channel to see it. 

And because I wrote it out, I can paste the sermon below:

Palm Sunday 2021 Sermon

In some ways, it seems strange to be celebrating Palm Sunday again, here in year 2 of our pandemic. When we had to cancel in-person services last year, so many of us probably assumed we’d be back to “normal” again soon. And here it is, a year later. In some ways, nothing has changed. In some ways, so much has changed.

Palm Sunday reminds us of the cyclical nature of the world we live in. The palms we use on Palm Sunday traditionally would be burned to make the ashes that will be smudged on our foreheads in 10 months for Ash Wednesday. The baby that brings joy to the manger at Christmas will suffer the most horrible death--and then rise from the dead. The sadnesses we suffer will be mitigated by tomorrow's joy. Tomorrow's joy will lead to future sadness. That's the truth of the broken world we live in. Depending on where we are in the cycle, we may find that knowledge either a comfort or fear inducing.

Palm Sunday reminds us of life's journey. No one gets to live the triumphal entry into Jerusalem day in and day out. If we're lucky, there will be those high water mark periods; we'll be hailed as heroes and people will appreciate our work. Our friends will be by our side. We won’t grow disillusioned with our loved ones.

If we’re lucky.

But we know where Palm Sunday is taking the story of Jesus. As we move through Holy Week, we’re reminded that today’s adoring crowds can turn on us quickly and demand our death just a few days later.

Palm Sunday offers us some serious reminders. If we put our faith in the world, we're doomed. If we get our glory from the acclaim of the secular world, we'll find ourselves rejected sooner, rather than later.

If we put ourselves in the crowd on Palm Sunday, we’ve got lessons there, too. Those first century people with palms in their hands, welcoming Jesus—they, too, were expecting something totally different. They weren’t interested in spiritual liberation. They wanted a conquering hero, someone who would kick the Romans out of Jerusalem, someone who would restore the Homeland to Jewish rule. They didn’t want to be free to love each other. They wanted to be free of the rule of dictators.

Our world has not changed that much. The rule of government can still be tyrannical. We still live in a culture that will choose crucifixion over death. How can we live in such a place? How can we not yearn for freedom?

The passage from Palm Sunday to Easter tells us to take heart. God will not leave us abandoned in this crucifixion worshipping culture. God who has been working through time and outside of time to transform this human condition. We don't always see it, but Easter assures us that the process is in place and that resurrection will break through, even in the most unlikely circumstances.

Up and Down News and an Acceptance

 In the late afternoon, as my spouse got ready to teach his Friday night class, I read about the death of Larry McMurtry.  At one point, McMurtry was my spouse's favorite writer, and we owned all of McMurtry's books.  And then, about an hour later, I learned that Beverly Cleary had died at the age of 104.

I've written about Cleary before, most completely in the first part of this blog post.  And I periodically return to Lonesome Dove--see this blog post for one of my more complete considerations.  Last night I made this Facebook post:  "A tough day in terms of literary losses, with the death of Larry McMurtry and Beverly Cleary. So I was happy to meet the baby of my neighbor's son, the son who had a horrifying motorcycle accident a few years ago, and it's amazing he lived, much less had a baby with his high school sweetheart. In October, just before the baby was born, I made her this quilt, and tonight we met face to face. In a few years, maybe I'll give her a book by Beverly Cleary, after we go around the neighborhood Christmas caroling."

Yesterday was that kind of up and down day all day.  It is strange to be at a campus that is in a slow motion closing, doing the work that keeps the campus going, while at the same time, knowing that work will eventually come to naught--and yes, I get the metaphor.  All of life can be described this way.

During my lunch break, I was writing an e-mail to my family to catch them up on developments--for the most part, I've been in a wait and see period.  I sent the e-mail that said that my application to Wesley Theological Seminary was complete, and I had been waiting impatiently for the mail each day, as if I was a high school senior.

Then I wondered if I would get an old-fashioned letter, so I went to the Wesley website.  The application area has a dashboard once one has applied--that's how I could track whether or not my materials had arrived.  A week ago, they all had (on March 15, one letter still needed to arrive), and the dashboard showed that my application was complete and under consideration.

I wasn't sure how the process worked at that point.  Does Wesley do rolling admissions?  Are there a limited number of seats?  How many of those seats might be reserved for Methodists, for people of color, for people with higher GPAs than mine?  How long before I would know?

Yesterday afternoon, the dashboard showed that there was a decision.  Oh my!  I clicked, and the website launched my acceptance letter.  I made a copy, just in case one never comes by U.S. Mail.  I clicked on the button to let Wesley know that I plan to enter seminary for Fall 2021, and I paid the $125 fee.  I read a bit on the portal that I now have access to as an entering student.

Then it was time to return my attention to work.  Part of me wanted to tell all of my colleagues the good news, while part of me wanted to keep checking to make sure that I had seen news of acceptance.  Had Wesley changed its mind?  I also didn't want to share because I didn't want to answer questions. 

I know that a lot of people might have surprised at how relieved I am to get official acceptance.  Some people have said to me, "Of course you'll be accepted.  How could you not?"  And I resist listing all the reasons.  

I'm so glad that none of those reasons turned out to be a dealbreaker.  I'm so glad for this acceptance letter.

Prophets, Ancient and Modern

In his daily reflections, Richard Rohr has been focusing on prophets this week.  He has been reminding us all week that the role of the prophet is to point out what's wrong with society, with all the idols we worship, including priests and the temple itself.  But it's so much more than that.  It's about sharing the ecstatic vision of God, about the vision that God has for creation.

The reflections have been speaking to me.  I feel we need prophets for our own time.  Most people assume we need prophets to speak truth to power, and we do.  But we also need prophets to proclaim God's vision for creation, to remind us all, again and again, that a better way is possible.  We need prophets to paint a picture of the possible, so that more people catch that fire and work towards that vision.

It's important to remember that any of us can do that work.  Prophets through the ages have come from all sorts of places and backgrounds.  This morning's reflection quotes Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister:

"These prophetic people, people just like us, simple and sincere, eager and inspired—these sheep herders like Amos and small-business people like Hosea, these simple country farmers or priests like Jeremiah, these thinkers and writers and dreamers like Isaiah and Ezekiel, these struggling lovers and suffering witnesses like Micah, these brave and independent judges and leaders, like Deborah and Miriam, made no small choices. They chose courage. They chose the expansion of the soul. They chose to stake their lives on what must be rather than stake their comfort, their security, the direction of their lives, on what was." 

from her 2019 book The Time Is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage

For more, go here and look for the Daily Meditations section of the website.

Sketching the Feast of the Annunciation

Since May, I have been creating a card for the temperature check in station that gives the date and has a sketch.  Some days, the sketch has something to do with the date, while other days, I'm simply sketching the latest thing that appeals.  Some days I'm striving for realism, while others, I'm being fanciful.

When I realized that the feast day of the Annunciation was coming up, I decided to see if I could create something special.  I ended up with this sketch:

I might have been less pleased with it, had I not gone through several rough drafts.  Here's one with a goofy face that turned into a deformed face when I tried to fix it:

And another, where Mary looks too masculine:

As a model, I was using a linoleum block print that Beth Adams created years ago, a process which she describes in a blog post that makes me want to do printmaking:

In the end, I worried that the image was too religious, so I decided to create something more ambiguous:

I love the feather left behind from Gabriel's wings.  I love that the image of the feather gave me a poem that I wrote yesterday.  I love that the Virgin Mary image hearkens back to images I was creating back during Advent (see this blog post for more on the Advent images of the Virgin Mary).  I love that I'm the only one who will see the religious significance.

And let me include my process notes, in case I can't remember later.  One might wonder why I don't use a pencil and make copious corrections.  Part of the reason is because I haven't worked much in pencil, and I don't have good pencils in the office.  Part of it is because I don't want to get too bogged down in a quest for perfection.

Similarly, one might wonder why I'm not using a better quality paper.  When I started, I thought I would be throwing them all away, so I used the backs of paper from the recycling box.  But I found I couldn't bear to throw them away.

I have 3 sets of markers here, so I'm limited to some extent in terms of color.  But that's true at home too.  I'm not as good at blending these markers as others are--and on this kind of paper, it's even more difficult.  But again, I want to be aware that I'm not creating works of art; the goal is to do a quick sketch, to train my hands and my eyes, staying focused on the process, not the end result.

In short, like Mary, I want to say yes to a plan that shimmers with hope.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel: Palm Sunday

The readings for Palm Sunday, March 28, 2021:

Liturgy of the Palms:

Psalm 118:  1-2, 19-29

Mark 11:  1-1

John 12:  12-16

Liturgy of the Passion:

Isaiah 50:  4-9a

Psalm 31:  9-16

Phillippians 2:  5-11

Mark 14 - 15

Here we are at the second Palm Sunday when it is not safe to be together in large groups or in most small groups.  Our Jewish friends are preparing for their second Passover when they must celebrate from a distance.  Humans have created holidays to be celebrated in person, not by way of a Zoom meeting.  How do we make sense of all of this?

Palm Sunday (and Passover too) has always reminded us of the danger of crowds, although it's a different kind of danger than the viral kind.  The crowds that gather to give acclaim on one day may turn into the crowds that call for crucifixion not that much later.  If we put our faith in the acclaim of the world, we are surely doomed.

Palm Sunday reminds us that life is precarious.  We might protest that we don't need that reminder.  We've known it.  We see Jesus riding on a donkey, a lowly animal, and we say that we understand the signal he's sending.  In the time of Christ, a leader recognized far and wide would come riding in on a magnificent horse.  Christ is not that ruler.

We claim we've learned the lessons of Palm Sunday.  We swear that we can do better.  Our pandemic year has taught us how to be better humans, citizens of Palm Sunday's hope and optimism, not of Good Friday's demand for punishment and agony.  

Yet it's been a week of not one, but two mass shootings, one in Atlanta and one in Boulder.  We get out of lockdown with some of us determined to go back to our old ways, ways that embrace of power for the good of the few, the embattled, the threatened.  And all sorts of people end up dead.

Let us return to our lessons.  Let us think about the lesson of the palms.  Let us go forward, forewarned about the fickleness of the world's acclaim.  Let us work return to God's vision of leadership:  providing for the poor, binding up the broken-hearted, preparing a meal.

Let us think about the other meaning of palms, the part of our hands that can hold this work.  One of my favorite images of God comes from Isaiah 49;15, which tells us that our names are written on the palms of God.  God hold us in this way.

And in this way, we can be strengthened and comforted to do the work that our broken society needs us to do.

The Vaccine as the Pressing Social Justice Issue of Our Time

 I didn't have a chance to post yesterday because I was distracted by the news that I had become eligible to get a vaccine.  In future years, will we remember which disease I'm getting vaccinated against?  Of course it's COVID-19, and I'm hoping we all get vaccinated enough so that the new variant in Brazil doesn't come roaring in to undo all the gains we've made in this year of lock downs and masks and social distancing.

I didn't take as long a walk as I might have because I wanted to be ready to snag an appointment when Publix released the next round of appointments at 7 a.m.--which was also another reason why I didn't write.  The page refreshes every 60 seconds.  At some point, the side of the page with the make an appointment button lights up and stays lit up, but I didn't know that when I first logged on.  I thought I'd have 5 seconds to hit the button before someone else got the appointment.  I thought it was that kind of competition.  So I would switch to a different browser window, but then switch back after 45 seconds.  I did this for about 10 minutes.

It became clear to me that I needed to try to get an appointment later, when I got to work, where I have 2 screens.  I went about getting ready for my day.  When I returned from my shower, I saw that the make an appointment side of the screen had lit up and stayed lit up.  I was taking no chances.  I clicked.

I took the first appointment offered:  9:40 on Thursday, March 25.  I typed in all the information; it couldn't have been much easier, but I do realize it's easy for me because I have a computer and I have familiarity with this way of filling out forms and I have home internet access.

At the end, the form asked if I wanted to make another appointment.  My spouse is also eligible, so I clicked on yes, and made an appointment for him.  The first appointment offered was when he teaches, so I asked for a different time.  I was warned I might lose any and all appointments, but I clicked on the change button anyway.  It gave me 6 time ranges to choose from, so I clicked on noon to 1:00 on March 25--and now my spouse has an appointment for noon on March 25.

I am aware of how many people don't have access to a vaccine appointment yet, but I do believe that in a few weeks, these appointments will open up to more of us, and I have hope that by May, anyone who wants a vaccine appointment will have one.

Now for the hard part:  convincing everyone that they want an appointment. We aren't going to get to herd immunity if just 50% of us are vaccinated.  

And then there's the other hard part, the even harder part:  figuring out how to get the rest of the world vaccinated too.  But here, too, I have hope.  We've done it before.  We can do it again.

In the past week, we've had 2 mass shootings, which will grab our attention, and perhaps rightly so.  But vaccine distribution is one of the pressing social justice issues of our time, and failure to get it right will kill far more of us, and more of those dead will be the poor, the marginalized, the outcast, the ones on the lower rungs of the social ladder.

God calls us to look out for them, and getting vaccines into more arms will help protect us all.

Days that Increase Anxiety and Techniques to Calm It

It has been a difficult week to be a thinking, feeling person--perhaps every week is, if one is aware and reads widely enough.  I won't do a complete catalog, but it was a week that began with the Pope declared that he will not sanction in any way same sex marriage or commitment services and then moved on to the Atlanta shootings that targeted Asian women.  I'm having trouble sleeping because my neighborhood has turned into one big short term rental market, and it's noisy with party people.  I wake up numerous times, and I lay there making sure I'm hearing the noise of good times, not the noise that means the police should be summoned.

All of this on top of the drumbeat of vaccine news and new variants of the virus news, and it's no wonder that many of us are feeling worse, even as spring is upon us and we grow ever closer to enough of us being vaccinated.  And I suspect I am not alone in having interesting job developments on top of it all.

This morning, I will go to get groceries early, before the rest of the world shows up.  I've always done this, even in pre-pandemic times.  I'm listening to today's episode of On Being, which discusses the nervous system and how to work with it during these high stress times.  Christine Runyon has all sorts of great techniques, like uncrossing our legs and putting both feet on the floor when we're sitting and/or taking a long exhale.

I got another anxiety reducing tip from this episode of 1A:  trace the fingers of one hand with one finger of the other hand.  As you move up and down the fingers, you inhale and exhale.  Tracing the fingers is better than just breathing deeply.  It gives the brain a physical focus in a way that just breathing does not.

I predict the days to come will bring us many opportunities to practice these techniques.

Long Obediences, Same Direction

As I drove home from work yesterday, I thought about how much change I've set into motion this year.  Of course, some of that change, the work related change, was first set into motion by others.  But I am amazed at what I've managed to accomplish.

Those of you who have never applied to seminary while also applying for candidacy may not have an understanding of how huge an undertaking it is.  Applying to seminary required 4 letters of recommendation, for example.  Yesterday I took another psychological profile, the MMPI2, and it's the 3rd or 4th one required, along with pages and pages of paragraph/essay answers to questions in yet another type of psychological testing.  I've also written an essay for the seminary application and a much longer essay for the candidacy committee

In the past, the sheer volume of these tasks overwhelmed me, even before I got to all the logistics of actually attending.  This year, I've made my way through them methodically.  I am lucky in that I like doing this kind of exploratory writing and test taking.

The Wesley application dashboard shows my application is complete and under review. I’m like a high school senior. I want to keep going to the mailbox to see if there’s a letter from the school.  I wonder if schools still send letters.

At one point in the past week, I printed the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 class schedules, and spent a few minutes feeling giddy at all the possibilities, all the wonderful classes.  From what I can tell, all the classes in the Fall will still be online, and in the spring, it looks like a mix.  I wonder how many students will be living on campus in the spring.  I plan to do online classes in the fall from down here, and be residential in the spring, if my job has ended by then, as I expect that it will.

How strange to be able to type those words without panic, words about job endings and applications that are likely to set me on a very different direction--and yet, I've been headed in that direction for a long, long time. 

The Feast Day of Saint Joseph

March 19 is the feast day of St, Joseph, Mary's husband, the earthly father of Jesus. I have done some thinking about Joseph, as many of us do, in the Advent season, when occasionally we get to hear about Joseph. He thinks of quietly unweaving himself from Mary, who is pregnant. This behavior is our first indication of his character. Under ancient law, he could have had Mary stoned to death, but he takes a gentler path.

And then, his life takes an even more surprising turn. He follows the instructions of the angel who tells him of God's plan. He could have turned away. He could have said, "I did not sign up for this!" He could have said, "No, thanks. I want a normal wife and a regular life."

Instead, he turned toward Mary and accepted God's vision. He's there when the family needs to flee to Egypt. He's there when the older Jesus is lost and found in the temple. We assume that he has died by the time Christ is crucified, since he's not at the cross.

Some of us today will spend the day celebrating fathers, which is a great way to celebrate the feast day of St. Joseph. We might also celebrate stepfathers and all the other family members who step in to help with the raising of children.

Lately, I've been thinking about his feast day and what it means for administrators and others who are not the stars but who make it possible for stars to step into the spotlight.

Most students will remember their favorite teachers. They won’t remember the people who scheduled the classes, the ones who ordered the textbooks and supplies, the ones who kept the technology working, the people who kept track of the records, the ones who interfaced with loan officers and others to get the money necessary for school. But those people are important, too.

Let us today praise the people in the background, the people who step back to allow others to shine. Let us praise the people who do the drudgery work that makes it possible for others to succeed.

Many of us grow up internalizing the message that if we're not changing the world in some sort of spectacular way, we're failures. Those of us who are Christians may have those early disciples as our role models, those hard-core believers who brought the good news to the ancient world by going out in pairs.

But Joseph shows us a different reality. It's quite enough to be a good parent. It's quite enough to have an ordinary job. It's quite enough to show up, day after day, dealing with both the crises and the opportunities.

Joseph reminds us that even the ones born into the spotlight need people in the background who are tending to the details. When we think about those early disciples and apostles, we often forget that they stayed in people's houses, people who fed them and arranged speaking opportunities for them, people who gave them encouragement when their task seemed too huge.

I imagine Joseph doing much the same thing as he helped Jesus become a man. I imagine the life lessons that Joseph administered as he gave Jesus carpentry lessons. I imagine that he helped Jesus understand human nature, in all the ways that parents have helped their offspring understand human nature throughout history.

Let us not be so quick to discount this kind of work. Let us praise the support teams who make the way possible for the people who will change the world.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 21, 2021:

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm 51:1-13 (Psalm 51:1-12 NRSV)

or Psalm 119:9-16

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:20-33


This verse is my favorite of the Gospel for this week: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (verse 24). I have a vision of a seed who desperately resists change, who wants life to continue as normal. "Let me have the familiar. Don't force me to change."

But that seed doesn't see that it lives alone in the dark, damp earth. It thinks life is fine, because it has never known anything else. It thinks life is fine, because it doesn't have a vision of anything else. How can it? It lives all alone in the dark, damp earth.

Only by letting go (however painful that might be) of its current life, will that little seed find itself transformed. That seed, in its current form, must die, so that it can be reborn into a much more glorious life. That seed, once it lets go, once it faces death, will break through into a life of sunshine and fresh air and water and smiling faces. That seed, once it lets go, will find much company. It will bear fruit, which means it has fulfilled its biological imperative--it has gotten its genes into the next generation.

The most obvious way of interpreting this passage is to see it as being about death and Heaven. Eventually, we die and break out of our existential loneliness by joining our loved ones in Heaven.

But perhaps this passage gives us a deeper insight.

Certainly, we see a vision of Christ, who is troubled (according to traditional interpretation) by his impending death. That seed represents Christ's death as well as our own. If Christ had just lived quietly into old age, preaching and teaching, it's a pretty safe bet that you and I wouldn't be Christians. It is only by Jesus' death and rebirth that Christianity can flourish.

We might also think about how that seed could represent our current lives. What part of your life do you need to let die, so that you can be transformed into something glorious? Past visions of Christianity stressed the glories we could look forward to in the afterlife, yet Christ comes to live with us to show us how we can live now, how we can make the Kingdom manifest on earth now.

We spend much of our lives in the dark, damp earth--and that earth can be a metaphor for many things--what imprisons us? Is it our tendency towards anger? despair? Does the earth stand for the substances we abuse? Does the dirt represent the behaviors that keep us from fulfilling our true potential as Christians?

Before you plunge into sadness about all the ways you've fallen short, take heart. Remember that the dirt is also a nourishing medium. Seeds won't grow without dirt. All that dirt has gone a long way to protecting you for that time when you're ready to bloom.

God's vision for us is not one that keeps us muffled and buried and alone in the mud. All we have to do is to die.

That sounds so harsh. And yet, it is what is required of us. Much of our New Testament stresses that fact. Being a Christian requires that our old life dies. Otherwise, we won't flower and flourish like we should.

In keeping with the seed metaphor, perhaps I should have said, all we have to do is shuck off the husk of our former lives. All we have to do is to have the faith to face transformation.  All we have to do is sprout.

Saint Patrick in a Plague Year

As I recall, last year at this time, holiday plans weren't disrupted.  People still did Mardi Gras and Spring Break.  But here and there, Saint Patrick's Day parades were cancelled.  I remember shaking my head, but during a week when the NBA suddenly cancelled the whole season, cancelling parades made sense.

This year, they will be canceled too.  Part of me hopes that this time of exile away from our traditional ways of celebrating might help people find their way back to the actual saint, but that is probably hoping for too much.

Those Celtic saints of early Christianity have much to say to us still.  Many of us think of Ireland as pastoral, the land of the best butter and beer.  We forget how savage it seemed to those early Celtic Christians.  Not just seemed--it was a harsh, harsh land far from prestige and power.

In many ways, modern people are living in as distant an outpost of empire as those ancient Celtic monks. Many of us are far from the corridors of power, whether they be in the U.S., in China, or in India. Most Christians reading this post are far from the places where Christianity flourishes today.

But instead of despairing and longing for the mythical glory days of past times when the Church was more influential in the U.S., perhaps we should think of ourselves as Celtic monks, trying to till a very rocky, thorny soil. We should take comfort and encouragement from how much God can accomplish, even in the most unlikely circumstances. There’s plenty of transformative work for us to do today.

The past year has shown us, month after month, of how much transformative work there is to do in the fields of racial justice, equal access to health care, the inequality of work and opportunity, the scarce resources for parents, the burdens that so often fall so disproportionately on the backs of women, of the poor, of immigrants.

The lives of the Celtic monks remind us that even in a distant exile, wondrous things can happen if we stay open to all of the possibilities. During our times of exile, it's good to remember that basic truth.

Notes on an Interfaith Justice Rally by Way of Zoom

My focused writing time is short this morning; I spent it writing in my offline journal.  But I want to make some notes on last night's BOLD Justice rally.  It was held by way of Zoom, but in many respects, it was the same as previous years:  local government officials joined us, they listened to our research, and last night, we all committed to moving forward.

Because it was by way of Zoom, we had more participants.  I was able to invite people from near and far, and to my delight, some of them said yes.  It was a treat to trade notes with my grad school friend in South Carolina.  That would not have been possible in past years.

We had bishops from many denominations join us--that, too, has never happened before.

As I watched the display in the Zoom box, I thought about how male they are.  Not one female bishop shepherding the Florida denomination of the Church?  

I thought back to an earlier thought I had, one where my inner critic sneered at the thought of me going to seminary:  "Sure, just what the world needs, one more post-menopausal pastor lady."  Looking at that Zoom display, I thought, yes indeed, more women of all ages are needed.  I'm trying to ignore the voice of despair in my head that says that we've been ordaining women for 50 years now, and maybe what's needed is a better/surer/swifter pipeline to leadership.

When the rally was over, I did not miss the traffic jam that always happens as everyone tries to leave at roughly the same time.  But I did miss the energy that is always in the room.  I didn't feel that energy in my front bedroom staring at the computer screen.

I want to believe it will make a difference.  As my grad school friend said, lots of eyes have been watching and paying attention.  I often think that elected officials only need to know that to know that they have to make some changes.

My grad school friend said that she was relieved to see that Florida people are different than the way the news media portrays them:  more diverse, more concerned with the poor and the outcast.  I am relieved too.

I do realize that the need is huge and that our efforts are so small.  But if I only worked in areas where I can make immediate, sweeping social change, I'd never get out of the chair.  

My hope, of course, is that a steady progression of small changes will lead to those sweeping social changes. 

As Octavia Butler would say:  "So be it.  See to it."

Interfaith Community Justice Organizing in a Time of Pandemic

 For over a decade, in Broward county, in South Florida, an ecumenical group has been meeting the past few years to demand justice from our local leaders. Some years we've worked on housing issues, some years dental issues, and so on. We make real changes.  The work has culminated in a Nehemiah action, where we meet with local government officials to show the results of our research and to ask for--and demand, if necessary--changes.

Last year, our Nehemiah action was scheduled for April, shortly after our county went into lockdown.  We canceled that action.  In the year since, we've learned how to do community organizing and justice work from a distance.  As with school and work, we rely on Zoom.

Tonight we will have our first Nehemiah action by way of Zoom.  There will also be a drive-in component, for those who feel safe doing that.  I will be logging in.

Because of the magic of Zoom, you could log in too.  Here's the information that was sent:

We have loved ones living on the streets with mental illness. We are going to push for better access to housing.

Children and adults in Broward County are being saddled with lifetime arrest records for minor mistakes. We are going to push for expanded access to diversion and an end to the criminalization of poverty.

We expect Broward County Commissioners and the Broward County State Attorney to respond at the Action.

Time: Log on 7:15pm, Call to Order 7:30pm
Zoom link: http://bit.ly/bold-nehemiah-action


Meeting ID: 828 4106 4274
Password: 4649
To participate by phone only dial: 312 626 6799

Sermon on Matthew 22: 35-40

My church is off lectionary today; we will celebrate International Women's Day today.  My pastor chose Matthew 22:  35-40 as the Gospel text and invited me to do the sermon.

This Sunday is not one of our meet-in-person Sundays, so my sermon is recorded--which means that all can view it.  It's too large a file to post here, so I direct you to my YouTube channel.  Go here to view the sermon.

Unlike other video sermons, I don't have segments to show you here.  I used the voice recorder on the computer and recorded segments.  Then I chose a photo to go with each segment.  In some ways it gave me more flexibility, and on a windy week, my usual approach to video segments recorded outside was not going to work.  I still have more to understand about the video editor feature that comes with Windows.  I have to do a lot of moving audio segments around.

I'm pleased with the final product.  I'm pleased with the idea that we are butterflies stranded in the swimming pool of chaos and God comes along to fish us out of our chlorinated misery. 

An Owl in the Ruins Sketching Psalm 102: 6-7

On Sunday, I was struck by this reading that was part of the daily lectionary, Psalm 102:  6-7:  "I have become like a vulture in the wilderness, like an owl among the ruins.  I lie awake and groan; I am like a sparrow, lonely on a house-top."  The reading has inspired me throughout the week as I worked on this sketch:

I was using Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, which uses The New Jerusalem Bible.  I looked up some other translations, but I really liked the words I first read.  The poet in me really loved the language and the imagery:  an owl among the ruins--not just any bird or animal, but an owl.  One translation, the Message, uses crow, not owl.  In some translations, the sparrow is solitary, which feels different than lonely.  Likewise, a mournful sparrow is different than a lonely sparrow.

I rarely wish that I knew Greek or Hebrew or other ancient languages, but now I do.  That word choice, particularly with the sparrow, fascinates me.

On Sunday, I knew that I wanted to do a more complicated sketch, so I made some notes and initial sketches:

As I've sketched, I've wondered why that passage spoke to me.  I haven't been aware of being in a desolate state.  In day to day life, I haven't felt like I'm lonely or abandoned or in the midst of ruins; many parts of my day to day life in March of 2021 are similar to what they were in other years.  As I've returned to the words and the sketch, I've realized that it's a the perfect passage for this week of pandemic year anniversaries.  

In many ways, we are all that lonely sparrow.  We're on a roof, so we can see other vistas.  We're not sparrows locked in the bathroom or basement.  We have wings, so we could fly.  But we're also in the ruins, which makes it hard to plot an escape.  Many of us are so committed to the ruins that we can't imagine another way.

I continue to hope that we will emerge from the ruins to create a better society.  That will be the subject for a different sketch.

How Are You Holding That?

How are you holding that?

In a podcast that explores Octavia Butler's Parable of Sower chapter by chapter, in the podcast that discusses chapter 12, 37 minutes in, adrienne maree brown tells us that she uses that question when she finds out about a person's loss.  When I heard her discuss that approach to grieving, it felt important, and I wanted to record it.

I like that it gives people space to talk about how they're really feeling.  If I say, "Wow, that must be tough,"  --  well, it may not be tough, right?  It might be an unexpected blessing.

I've thought of this ambiguous grief as we approach the one year mark of when the pandemic first changed most of our lives so dramatically.  It's grief that isn't over yet, so it's a different kind of grieving.

It's also a strange kind of grief because it's been a year of big lows and also some highs, at least for most of us.  It hasn't been all bad for most of us.  How do we talk about all of that?  It's particularly strange when we're bombarded with all sorts of media that tells us how we should be feeling.  It's hard to find space to hold anything.

How are you holding that?

Jumping from Online Worship to Online Worship

Last night, one of my Synod FB friends made this post:

"I miss mid-week Lent services something fierce, but am so grateful for the chance to participate virtually.

. . .

For all the pastors, worship leaders, and others who continue to coordinate, record, livestream and share weekly services of many kinds...THANK YOU!! It matters!"

She went on to post:  "The great thing about virtual participation is the capacity to be in multiple places at the same time. Jumped from Messiah Lutheran Church Winnipeg to Faith Lutheran Church, and was nourished by both services!"

I decided not to post a comment, but I was grateful for her insight that one can be nourished by both services.  More specifically, I needed the reminder that the fact that people jump from one online experience to another, and it doesn't mean that the experiences left behind are bad experiences.  

When I see someone leaving the online space I've created, particularly if it's live, I assume it's because the online space is lacking something essential.  I assume people jump because they aren't finding any nourishment at all.

It's good to remember that people who jump aren't leaving because something is lacking.  While I want to be the online presence that is so compelling that people would not have an inkling to leave, it's good to remember that even when people leave, it's not necessarily because of me, of the experience.

And the larger question:  why do I always assume that there's a problem with me, that I am lacking?  Why don't I see the problem as situated in the person who jumps.  In my younger years, I might have been more judgmental and talked about lack of commitment.  In my middle age, I am often the jumper, and I understand the difficulty of focus.

And the even larger question:  why do I frame it as a problem?

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 14, 2021:

First Reading: Numbers 21:4-9

Psalm: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

Gospel: John 3:14-21

There are some Bible texts that are so prominent that it's hard to imagine that we could find something new to say about them. This week's Gospel includes one of them, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

I spent my childhood and adolescent years in a variety of small, Southern towns, and this text was often used as one to exclude people. Most responses to the text that I've seen zero in on the idea that we must believe in Jesus to have eternal life, and I'm certain that I don't want to wander into that theological muck. I used to be able to spend many hours deliberating whether or not a Hindu could go to Heaven, or an atheist or your beloved pet.

Now I'm much more interested in how we live our lives here--not so that we get into Heaven, but so that we participate in God's visions for us and for the larger world.

Today, let us focus on the text that reminds us that God doesn't enter the world to condemn us--many pop culture preachers forget that. But almost every verse of this week's Gospel reminds us that God comes to us out of love, not judgment. God comes, not to cast us away into the shadows. Most of us spend many hours dwelling in murkiness. God comes to lead us into the light.

Many of us have come from Christian traditions which would find this theology strange. Many of us have been scarred by a theology of a divine judge who finds us wanting. Many of us fear hell.

Many of us have been taught that the purpose of religion is to save us so that we get to go to Heaven not Hell.  But the message that Jesus delivers again and again is that God is interested in the life we're living right now, not just the life we'll have or not have after we die.  Jesus comes to announce to us that the frayed piece of cloth that we clutch is not the quilt of life that God intends for us to have.  Jesus comes to show us new fabrics, new patterns, stronger stitches to hold all the pieces together.

Our world is desperately in need of the message that Christians can tell. We live in a world of rampant Capitalism, which is doing a wide range of harm. The world needs our message of something that is more vital, something that is more important than making money and buying more stuff.

We can be the lighthouses that lead people to safer shores--not the shores of Heaven or Hell, but the shore of a transformed life.  We can be part of God's quilting team, reminding people that life is more than the threadbare scraps they see before them.  We can be the ones who offer new fabrics and the knowledge of how to stitch the small pieces together into glorious new patterns, a quilt that will keep us all.

Stress Report

On Sunday, Feb. 28, I wrote this e-mail to a friend:

"I feel like I'm in this strange head space that my head doesn't usually occupy. There are lots of unknowns and several possible timelines, and I am going with the flow, trusting in God. I am usually the person with a plan A, B, and C, a back up plan for each, and a remote back up plan in case of utter disaster. But with this heading to seminary, I'm in a strange laid back place in terms of the time line and the process--and I must say, I like it very much.

That's not to say that I'm not being proactive. It is a process that requires much--which is a bit astonishing to me. But I'm not stressed, the way I might usually be, or overwhelmed. I'm just completing tasks, step by step, trusting in the overall vision. It's that Ignatian concept (maybe it is? it's still fairly new to me) of consolation, not desolation, I think."

I knew at the time that I wrote it that those words would come back to haunt me.  By yesterday morning, I woke up feeling awash in anxiety about a variety of outcomes.  Who did I think I was applying to seminary and candidacy?  Surely I'm on a road to bankruptcy.  It wasn't too long before the spiral of too old/too late/too unworthy started to drag me down.  And now people have made an effort for me--written me letters and sent me words of encouragement--now I'll let all those people down.

I spent the morning working on calming myself down--and realizing that part of my anxiety is rooted in the changes coming at work, now that it looks like they are finally coming.  The sale of my school to the school in Brooklyn is scheduled for March 24, and this time, it looks like it will actually happen.  

Oh, and we have an accreditation visit this week--and it's virtual, a type of visit I've never experienced before.

So, it's no wonder that my anxiety comes to visit here and there.  Let me continue to remember not to undo decisions made in a time of consolation.

International Women's Day and the Church

March is the month designated to celebrate women's history; March 8 is International Women's Day. We might ask ourselves why we still need to set time apart to pay attention to women. Haven't we enacted laws so that women are equal and now we can just go on with our lives?

Sadly, no, that is not the case. If we look at basic statistics, like how much women earn compared to men in the very same jobs, we see that the U.S. has still not achieved equality. Although the Lutheran church has been ordaining women since the 70's, although we have a female bishop in the top position, our local churches are still likely to be led by white men. If we look at violent crime rates across the past 100 years, we discover that most violent crime rates have fallen--except for rape. If we look at representation in local, state, and federal levels, we see that members of government are still mostly white and male.

And that's in a first world country. The picture for women in developing nations is bleak.

Most of us understand why a world where more women have access to equal resources would be a better world for all of us. Many of us have spent years and decades working to make that world a reality. Some of us are lucky enough to have a church that supports the vision of equality that God offers to us as what the Kingdom of God looks like.

Not everyone has that experience. And sadly, many people have experienced discrimination against women coming at them through their churches. That damage may have happened years ago, in churches that no longer resemble the ones we have now--but the damage is done, for those people.

We know that the world can change very quickly, and God calls us to be part of the movement to change the world in ways that are better for all--and particularly for the vulnerable and powerless. We have made great progress on that front. But there is still more to do.

So, today, let us get started, let us continue, let us make progress. And let us pray for all who are with us on the journey.  And let us pray for all of those who need us to make progress at a faster rate for their very lives and the lives of their daughters are at stake.

Psychological Tests and Pairs of Choices

 I'm in the process of doing the tasks that need to be done for seminary and candidacy (the process by which the Lutheran church, the ELCA, will determine if they approve me for ordained ministry).  I've been working on the psychological piece:  the forms and the tests.

This morning, I decided to do the two tests that need to be done on the computer.  The link came with instructions to do this when I had plenty of time, when I had gotten enough rest, when I wasn't frazzled from work (my wording, not the instructions).  The e-mail of instructions told me that each of the two tests could take 30-60 minutes, so I wasn't sure that taking them at the end of a work day made sense.

This morning I had the push-pull reaction that I have almost every morning.  If I take the time to do the writing that I want to do, I don't have time for exercise.  I want to exercise before the sun comes up and before lots of people are out and about--but that's my best writing time.  I am most likely to be able to be focused when I am the only one in the house who is awake and up and about.

This morning, I decided to start a batch of pumpkin bread dough and then do the tests, to forego exercising and writing until later.  And that's what I did.

One test was a vocational/occupational/interest kind of test.  I was given a variety of careers and asked to rate each on a scale of 5 from most interested to most disinterested.  I was told not to think about whether or not I had aptitude or training, just whether or not I would be interested.  Then I worked my way through a similar set, but was asked about how I would want to spend my free time.  I was mildly to very interested in most of them, except for accounting, tech support, and military types of things.

The other test was the Myers-Briggs.  I've taken that type of test before, but I can never remember how I scored.  The test gave me pairs of words and phrases and situations and asked me to mark the ones most like me.  I tried to go quickly and not overthink it all.

And yet . . . and yet:  would I prefer to be at a party where I'm talking with just one person or with lots of people?  It depends.  Several times, the test tried to assess whether or not I want to be on a schedule or more free, and if scheduled, how far in advance?  It depends:  am I on vacation or at work?  How overscheduled have I been feeling?  Who's in charge of the scheduling, me or someone with completely different interests?

So I tried to choose and not to think too much.  I'll be interested to see what the results are.

The Kingdom of God, The Quilt Making Team of God

I continue working with different images to capture what God is doing in our world.  You might use the words of Jesus, according to popular translations:  "The Kingdom of God/Heaven is like . . . ."  I've written many times about the problems with "The Kingdom of God" and "The Kingdom of Heaven."  I've been trying to create some imagery that would work better with 21st century listeners and believers.  Jesus isn't talking about some future time when we all go to the family reunion in the sky.  Jesus is talking about a creator who isn't done yet, a concept which is often described as "both now and not yet."  We might hear about "the inbreaking Kingdom of God"--but how do our brains process that?

I fear that this language leads many of us to a vision of a rescuer God, someone who swoops in and fixes things.  Or worse, a Santa Clause God who gives us everything we want if we pray hard enough.  And I understand the appeal of that.  But I don't think it's true, and I worry about the danger of expecting that kind of God.  How does that theology handle the times when God doesn't swoop in or doesn't deliver what we prayerfully request/demand?

I've spent a lot of time issuing those warnings, but not a lot of time trying to create other ways of thinking about the concept.  Now I'm making that attempt.

A few weeks ago, I played with the idea of the Cosmos of God in this blog post.  This morning, I want to think about the quilt making team of God.  I've played with the idea of God as a quilter before.  But I haven't thought about being part of God's quilting team.  God invites us to be part of creation, which means that our vision gets to be sewn into the larger vision.

We have agency:  we get to choose fabric, we get to choose thread, we get to work with patterns that we choose.  The quilt can support a variety of stitches, a variety of approaches to quilting.  There will be purists who insist on hand stitching, there will be wealthy team members who have a fancy long arm sewing machine, and there will be all sorts of sewing approaches between the two.  All can be part of the quilt making team of God.

I've been doing a morning watch broadcast on Facebook each morning since late March of 2020, and I try to end with both inspiration and comfort.  A week ago, on February 26, 2021, I developed this idea of the quilting team of God and that our mission is to find the right material, the right fabric, the perfect thread, the stitches and pattern that will make us feel most complete.  How can we be on the lookout for that? 

I realize that it may be a scary/alien concept to many believers.  It gives us credit for having skills and talents that we may not realize we have.  It gives us a commission to develop skills--we might protest that we don't know how to sew!  We can't be expected to do all of this measuring and cutting and maintain accuracy!

The beauty of the quilt making team metaphor is that we can develop these skills, but even when we're inept, God can work with that.  The quilt can still achieve its purpose.  

But when we're all a bit more skilled, how much better the process is--and we can also be part of the teaching of the skills.

The inbreaking quilt making team of God--the quilt of creation is both now and not yet.  You might think you see a perfectly fine quilt already, no need to improve on what's here--but God has an even better vision of it.  And we bring something to the sewing table.  God incorporates our visions and creations--and I believe that God then changes the master vision to something even better, something that would not have existed, had we not been part of the team.  If we choose not to contribute, the quilt making will continue.  But the more who contribute, the stronger the quilt, the vaster the quilt, the more beautiful a creation we will make.

It's a metaphor that speaks to me.

Reading Julian of Norwich, Again and for the First Time

Like many of us, I've read bits and pieces of Julian of Norwich.  I first encountered her as I taught the first half of the British Literature survey class.  I wanted to include more female writers, and there weren't many to choose from.

Until yesterday, I hadn't read all of her Book of Showings.  It's one of the required texts for my certificate program in spiritual direction, so I was happy to have a chance to work my way through the whole thing.  I was surprised that the public library didn't have a copy, but it's available online, so that's how I read this one.

I made my way through the work, skimming the parts that were so very sin-heavy, relishing the parts that had more descriptive writing.  Some of it was offputting, like the descriptions that kept looping back to, of Christ bleeding on the cross.  Some of it was quite delightful, like the hazelnut imagery.  And some of it was radical, both for her day and ours.  We're still arguing about gender and Julian of Norwich explodes the gender binary and gives us a vision of God the Mother, God the Wife--and it's not the Virgin Mary, whom she also sees in her visions.

As I read, my English major brain was in high gear, and I'm happy to report that I found the writing solid.  I know that we sometimes include writers simply because we have so few of them; in her case, we have very few women writers from that time period.  But her work holds together, both as theology and as poetic prose. 

It's not a work that I'll read again and again.  In fact, it's a work that works well for excerpting.  The parts that find their way into anthologies are often the best, and they adequately represent the whole.  I didn't feel any more edified from reading the whole thing than I did from just reading the best chunks.

Not for the first time, I wonder what's been lost to history in terms of writing.  If she was thinking about some of these explosive ideas, might others have been even more radical?  What happened to them?

I'm grateful that we have her work--at least there's something that gives us a window into the medieval mind, which was more expansive than we usually give credit for.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 7, 2020:

First Reading: Exodus 20:1-17

Psalm: Psalm 19

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Gospel: John 2:13-22

Ah, the moneychangers in the temple! Many of us as children (and perhaps as adults) loved this tale. Finally, a non-wimpy Jesus. A Jesus who wasn't afraid to take on the religious establishment. As a sullen teenager, I looked around church and thought, boy, Jesus would have his work cut out for him here.

Don't get the wrong idea--I wasn't going to some church that was transgressing on any large scale, and not on any small scale. I just looked around and saw lots of hypocrisy. Look at all this gold, I would say. We could sell the offering plates and give the money to the poor. Why do we all buy church clothes? We could come in our jeans, and give the money that we would have spent on fancy clothes to the poor. Why don't we invite the poor to our potluck dinners?

In retrospect, I'm surprised my parents still talk to me. What a tiresome child/teen I must have been, so self-righteous, so sure of everyone's faults and shortcomings.

As I've gotten older, I've become interested in this story from the moneychangers' point of view. We often assume that the moneychangers were scurrilous men, out to make easy money, and I'm sure that some of them were.

However, I suspect that the majority of them would have told you that they were making salvation possible.

Under the old covenant, people had to go to the temple to make sacrifices to wash their sins away (it's a simplified version of a complicated theology, but let me continue for a few sentences). People who farmed had animals for sacrifice. Those who didn't, or those who came from far away, had to buy their sacrifice on site. And they needed help from the moneychangers and the animal sellers.

These people didn't know that Jesus had come to make a new covenant possible. They got up, went about their personal business, went to work, took care of their families--all the stuff that you and I do. They weren't focused on watching for the presence of God. They didn't know that they had been called to make way for a new Kingdom. They didn't know that the new Kingdom was breaking through, even as they showed up at their day jobs.

We might take a look at our own modern lives and institutions. In what ways do we think we're participating in God's law/kingdom/plan? Are we doing the best we can?

We might also take a look at our own modern institutions, especially religious ones. Where are we participating in God's plan? If Jesus showed up, what would he see as problematic? And how would we respond, if he pointed out something that needed some Spring cleaning, and it turned out that it was something we really cherished or thought that we were doing well?

What tables need to be overturned in our own temples of self-righteousness? How can we leave the practices that no longer serve us well?

The Wisdom of Merrick Garland and the Highest, Best Use of Skills

I was struck by a snippet of Merrick Garland speaking at his confirmation hearing last week.  Senator Cory Booker asked him to conclude by explaining why he wants to be the Attorney General of the United States.

Garland said, “I come from a family where my grandparents fled antisemitism and persecution.”  And then he paused, and then continued, with a choking voice:  "The country took us in and protected us. And I feel an obligation to the country, to pay back.”

I took a moment to say a prayer of thanks that we're once again hearing from people who believe that they have a duty to serve in this way:  a duty to country, a duty to pay back, a duty to pave the way for others. We so often hear from people who are only interested in their own well being, and that approach can be so ruinous.

What he said next intrigued me too:  “This is the highest, best use of my one set of skills.  And so I want very much to be the kind of attorney general you’re saying I could be.”

I love the idea of finding a way to the highest, best use of a skill set.  Now I think that Merrick Garland probably has more than just this one set of skills.  But I'm so happy that he's willing to use them in this way, for the good of the country, for the good of us all.  

After what happened when he was nominated to be a Supreme Court justice and wasn't allowed a hearing by Senate leaders, I would understand if he never wanted to be nominated for anything again.  I'm glad that he didn't take that approach.  I'm glad that he's willing to serve in a variety of ways.

There's a lesson here for all of us.  

Sacraments in Our Hair

Yesterday morning, I made this Facebook post:

"With bread dough in my hair*, I'm headed to church to offer drive through communion. If you're in SE Florida, come on by! (Trinity Lutheran, corner of Pines and 72nd, across from Broward College.

*yes, literal bread dough--I've been baking and the morning has zoomed ahead of me--the sacraments don't need me to take another shower, and I like the symbolism of bread dough in my hair, sacraments in my hand.

I've been baking bread for personal use, not for communion. No one need worry about finding my hair in their sacrament."

I spent the rest of the day thinking about these images--bread dough, sacrament, the way that sacrament becomes flesh, flesh becomes sacrament, sacrament becomes indwelling presence, indwelling presence becomes sacred, sacred becomes word, word becomes flesh, round and round and round.

I was also thinking about a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva, but I couldn't remember the name of it or much about it, except for one line about having stars in our hair.  I first encountered that poem in a workshop at a conference in a South Carolina state park, a conference on bringing international/global elements to first year classes.  I loved this poem, and for about a year, I took it with me everywhere I went.  I wrote poems in response to it.

And now, I might again.

This morning I decided I wanted to read the original, and I did some Google searching.  There are many more Tsvataeva poems than one could once find.  But I couldn't find that one.  One search led me to another search, and I began to remember the other line, about avoiding, evading, or escaping death, and finally, I got to the correct poem.  

Some readers may already know that I was Googling the wrong line and the wrong image, but the correct author name, which led me to some interesting places, and I began to despair of ever finding the poem.

Now that I have found it, let me paste it here.  And let my poet theologian brain keep thinking about stars in our hair and bread dough in our hair and the meaning of sacrament.

We shall not escape Hell


by Marina Tsvetaeva

We shall not escape Hell, my passionate
sisters, we shall drink black resins––
we who sang our praises to the Lord
with every one of our sinews, even the finest,

we did not lean over cradles or
spinning wheels at night, and now we are
carried off by an unsteady boat
under the skirts of a sleeveless cloak,

we dressed every morning in
fine Chinese silk, and we would
sing our paradisal songs at
the fire of the robbers’camp,

slovenly needlewomen, (all
our sewing came apart), dancers,
players upon pipes: we have been
the queens of the whole world!

first scarcely covered by rags,
then with constellations in our hair, in
gaol and at feasts we have
bartered away heaven,

in starry nights, in the apple
orchards of Paradise
––Gentle girls, my beloved sisters,
we shall certainly find ourselves in Hell!