A Different Kind of Getting to Know You Exercise

Let me remember to record a really neat getting to know you exercise that we did the first night at the Create in Me retreat.  It's something that could be modified for non-retreat groups, and I'll give some ideas at the end of the post.

Advent

Our retreat theme was "Nature, Imagination, and Liturgy," so our opening exercise revolved around the liturgical seasons:  Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time.  

Epiphany

When we checked in, we had a nametag with a piece of colored paper in it--we sat at the table that had a larger sheet of colored paper that matched the color in the name tag.  It was a great way to make sure that we mingled new folks with returning folks.

Lent

The color of the paper matched the liturgical season (purple for Lent, for example).  We had a sheet of facts about the season, along with a small, blank banner.

Christmas

There was a table of all sorts of supplies.  Our project was to make a banner that matched the season, along with a song or prayer or poem.  We only had 20 minutes.

Ordinary Time

I admit that I was skeptical at first, as we sat there, every table staring blankly at the blank banner.  But it was a room of creative people, so soon we sprung into motion.  The energy level and discussion level rose.

Pentecost

When we were finished, we went around the room, explaining the banners and presenting our song or prayer or poem.  I was impressed with what we created--and impressed with how this exercise helped us get to know each other through a joint task and some friendly competition.

Easter

Could I create a non-religious variation for the first week in class?  I've used getting to know you Bingo, which is good.  The banner creating meant that people didn't have to move around the room and approach strangers, which is a plus for a lot of people.

Holy Week

I have a vision of this exercise, but with secular holidays and seasons, along with the holiday of Christmas, which is universal for my students.  Could non-creative students rise to the challenge?  I think they could.  Let me tuck this idea away.

Halfway Point of Winter

We are at the halfway point of winter--halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Today is Candlemas, where Christians celebrate the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, and pagans long ago celebrated the goddess Brigid (and the feast day of St. Brigid was yesterday), and some Wiccans today will be celebrating at Imbolc, or a variation of any number of pagan holidays. It's also Groundhog's Day. It's one of those times when we can almost perceive the shifting of the seasons. It's not spring yet, but it will be soon.

Candlemas is the feast day that speaks to me. Candlemas celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple. It's the last feast holiday that references Christmas. We could see it as the final festival of Christmas, even though most of us have had the decorations packed away since even before Epiphany.

This morning I'm thinking of Simeon, who held onto the promise of the Messiah throughout his very long life before he saw it fulfilled. He waits and he waits and he waits. But finally, at the end of his life, he does hold the Messiah, the light of the world, in his hands.

Simeon holds the baby Jesus. Imagine it: to hold the light of the world in your hands. In so many ways we still do. We carry the light of the world inside us. How can your body deliver light to the world?

Some churches and monasteries will bless the year's supply of candles. I love this tradition, although it's never been mine. Today would be a good day to light a candle and to think about our own lights. Are we dimly burning wicks? Take heart--the Bible promises that we can still be useful. Does our light burn pure and true? Take care to protect that flame.

The holidays of early February (Groundhog Day, Candlemas, St. Brigid's Day, Imbolc and Oimelc ) remind us that the light hasn't really left us. Spring will be here soon.

Epiphany Stars and Haiku-Like Creations

It is lovely to have a morning where I'm not racing around doing storm prep.  Yesterday I decided that I should leave even earlier than my usual MWF time of 7:15-7:30, so I was out the door just after 6.  I was able to get more gas for the car and stop by the grocery store one last time.  It turned out to be a wise decision.  I was able to get some ice melt granules, the ingredients for the seafood stew (recipe here) I want to cook today, and treats.

I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of student attendance yesterday.  Thursday night, the e-mail announcing distance learning on Monday went out.  I decided that I would hold class as normal, to respect the students who did come to class.  My 9 a.m. class was only missing 2 students, the normal absence rate.  By my afternoon class, the e-mail from the school president had gone out, telling students that we're looking at a significant ice storm and that they should go home if possible.  Still, I decided to have class.

Let me record the poetry writing experiment that I did with my English 102 students.  

On Wednesday, we looked at versions of the arrival of the Magi, which I described in this blog post.  Yesterday, I brought in poems inspired by the text, along with epiphany stars with words on the back.  

I began by having them choose three stars and writing the words on a piece of colored paper that I gave them.  I then talked about the ways I've used the stars as a pastor, the ways I describe in this post.  I had them think about the words while I passed out the first poem, Jan Richardson's "Wise Women Also Came."  As I read the poem, I had the students underline words and phrases that struck them for any reason, at least three.  We did the same thing with T.S. Eliot's "The Journey of the Magi."  We also had a bit of conversation.

I gave each student three more stars, and then we returned to the yellow sheets of paper.  I had them write one of the lines that they had underlined on the yellow paper.  Then they wrote one of the new star words.  Then they wrote words that rhymed with the star word or words that started with the same letter.  They wrote another line from the poem that they had underlined and another star word.  Then they wrote a New Year's resolution, theirs or someone else's.  Then another line from the poems and another star word.  I put this sentence on the board (You will ___________) and asked them to imagine that they met a wise sage that could foretell the future from the stars; what would they want the sage to fill in the blank or to say to them?  Then I had them write another line from the poem.

Now they had a lot of stuff on the yellow paper, and we moved to the condensing part of the creation process.  I showed them my collage with the haiku-like creation I created a few weeks ago with my neighborhood friend and creativity partner:

Here's the haiku-like creation that I wrote:

Wise ones return home
but by a different way
empire's long shadow.

I do tell them that there's so much more to haiku than just the syllable count, but for now, we're only focusing on syllables, as a way to try condensing ideas and lines into something that might be more profound, but it doesn't have to be.

We took the last 10 minutes of class for students to try their hand.  They came up with some interesting short/haiku-like creations.  If I had more time, it would be interesting to add collaging to this process, to see if images prompt anything different.

This experience has been so fruitful that I'm adding it to my list of possibilities for my creative writing class.  

And now, since the day is not going to improve in terms of weather, let me go out on a walk.  I am not likely to have a chance to walk outside again for the next few days, in the storm and its aftermath.

A Post-Epiphany Prayer as January Settles In

For those of us who need help understanding the signs that we see, let us pray.

For those of us who search for new directions, let us pray.

For those of us who lose control of our fears and insecurities, let us pray.

For those of us finding that we need to take a new road, let us pray.

For those of us who need a new dream, let us pray.

For all of us, we pray.

Help us to bring the message of God's love to the world, whether our approach is more like the angel choirs or the steady light of a distant star. 

Help us to be the star, shining a message of God's love to the world. 

Give us the courage to follow our visions.

A Poem for Epiphany

As I look back through my poetry folder, I'm surprised to see how many Epiphany poems I have.  I've always found the liturgical year and holidays to be fruitful places for inspiration, and Epiphany is particularly rich.  You've got a new star, wise people from a distant land, a murderous dictator, a baby whose story we already know, and various types of knowledge (observation, dreams, ancient information).

I often read T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" as Epiphany approaches; this year, Ross Douthat posted a reading which I like even better than my own internal voice reading the poem.  That reading sent me back to my poetry folder, and today I'm posting this poem which draws inspiration from Eliot's.  It was written about 10 years ago, and this appearance is its first publication.

Dispensations Old and New



The old dispensation cannot save
you now. Hard and bitter agony.
Eat stones for breakfast, crack
your teeth before sunrise,
it makes no difference.
Suckle the camels who cannot eat cactus,
wait for the silken girls with their sherbet,
No one will sing to you.

You must listen to a different song.
Plug your ears against the angel chorus.
Put away the mandolin and fiddle.
Listen for the star’s quiet plainsong.
Follow the single note.

Leave death’s twilight kingdom.
Enter the deep midnight,
the place you hoped
would be a temporary sojourn.
Learn the new landscape with only
your fingertips for navigation.

Genocidal Despots and Poems

I am taking 2 wonderful seminary classes, and I'm so happy that I get to end my MDiv on this note, with two wonderful classes in my last term, no drudgery work.  Last night's class is a New Testament class called "Birth, Death, and Back Again:  Christmas and Easter."  It looks at Christmas and Easter texts without the in between, and I am loving it.  In my first year, it was offered, but it was onground, so I couldn't take it.  This semester, it's virtual.  It's not offered every semester, so I'm glad that I had a chance to take it--an advantage to taking a slightly slower route to graduation.

Last night we discussed Matthew 2:  1-23, the visit of the magi, the flight to Egypt, the massacre of Bethlehem boys, and the return.  It was the kind of class meeting where I took extensive notes and thought, I need to remember these details for next year's Christmas season sermons.

Of course, the most powerful part of last night's class is one that I'll probably use more in funeral sermons than in Christmas sermons.  We talked about Herod's slaughter of the Bethlehem boys under the age of 2 and asked the question of why Joseph gets a dream that saves Jesus, but the other parents in Bethlehem don't.  Does God allow genocide?

My professor, Dr. Laura Holmes, finished our discussion of the death of the innocents by reminding us that salvation/redemption/liberation comes with a high price, and not just for Jesus; there's lots and lots of damage to those around him. 

In other words, Jesus came into our world that is ruled by empires, by genocidal despots, by the people in charge who are scared and thus make terrible decisions.  I realize that that on some level, my professor's response doesn't answer the question.  My own answer, as people who read every blog entry of mine will know, is that God isn't all powerful and that evil forces do have a lot of power, and that those two facts often lead to bloodshed, which is not what God wants, but God can't always prevent it.

I admire my professor's ability to give us insight and encourage class discussion.  I hate the classes that are too focused on student presentations.  I am paying for the professor's expertise--if I wanted to be taught by peers, who may or may not have extensive experience, I can do that much more cheaply than a seminary class.  Last night we had both expertise and really insightful class discussion.

When class started, I thought about one of my all-time favorite poems I've ever written, a poem that imagines what might have happened had the magi showed up at the Southern border.   The final poem had multiple strands: Epiphany, the perpetual crisis on the border, the crisis between east and west that ultimately led to the taking down of the wall between East and West Germany, a bit of the underground railroad.  As the class went on, lines of new poetry kept bubbling up in my brain.  Happily, I had a blank legal pad nearby, so I wrote them down.  It was wonderful to feel inspired.

I am not sure I can transform those lines into anything that I like as much as the poem that I'll post below, the poem that was published in Sojourners in 2020.  

 

Border Lands

I am the border agent who looks
the other way. I am the one
who leaves bottled water in caches
in the harsh border lands I patrol.

I am the one who doesn’t shoot.
I let the people assemble,
with their flickering candles a shimmering
river in the dark. “Let them pray,”
I tell my comrades. “What harm
can come of that?” We holster
our guns, and open a bottle to share.

I am the superior
officer who loses the paperwork
or makes up the statistics.
I am the one who ignores
your e-mails, who cannot be reached
by text or phone, the one
with a full inbox.

When the wise ones
come, as they do, full of dreams,
babbling about the stars
that lead them or messages
from gods or angels,
I open the gates. I don’t alert
the authorities up the road.
Let the kings and emperors
pay for their own intelligence.

I should scan the horizons,
but I tend the garden
I have planted by the shed
where we keep the extra
barbed wires. I grow a variety
of holy trinities: tomatoes, onions,
peppers, beans, squashes of all sorts.
I plant a hedge of sunflowers,
each bright head a north star.

Plough Monday and Blessing the Tools of Our Work

I saw a post from Eleanor Parker about today:  "Today is Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany. This was traditionally the first day back at work after the Christmas holiday, and it was celebrated by blessing tools of work - a way of starting off the new year well, but also an excuse for some last Christmas festivity!"

My first thought is that she had dates wrong; it feels like it's been a small ice age since Epiphany.  But I knew better--she's an expert on medieval times and customs, after all.  Then I looked at the calendar:  a week ago was Epiphany, so today is, indeed, the first Monday after Epiphany.

I love the idea of blessing the tools of our work as we settle into our post-holiday rhythms.  I love the idea of blessing the tools of our work periodically, since work takes up so much of most of our lives.  Most of us would be blessing electronics, and I do love this laptop where I do so much work.

As I got to campus last week, on Monday which was Epiphany, I said a prayer for all of us:  faculty gathered for a day of meeting, training, and eating before the semester started, a prayer for the students who were getting ready for class, a prayer for all the support staff who make our lives better.

I would like to be the kind of person who offers these kinds of prayers at the start of every day, at every arrival and departure.  It's much easier to be aware of these kinds of prayer opportunities as the calendar changes, as semesters start, as we look back at how our ancestors lived.

Epiphany Stars, Water Words

I saw this picture that a friend of mine, Diane Roth, posted of water words surrounding a baptismal font:

You may have seen many of us doing star words last week, as a way to celebrate Epiphany, and as a way to have a word to take with us through the year:

What to do with these words?  We could meditate on what God might be saying to us, or we could see where the word appears in our reading.  We could consider the opposite of the word.  We could just flip the star over and enjoy a blank side.

I like the idea of water words for the Baptism of Our Lord Sunday, which will be this Sunday.  It's good to remember that even if we missed Epiphany, it's not too late to have this kind of experience.

Epiphany 2025

I am one of those people who always checks the weather.  In part, it's because I want to make sure I'm dressed for whatever is coming, and in part, because I want to be prepared in other ways.  On Saturday, the church council president texted me to ask if I was concerned about the weather.  On Saturday, the weather service for Bristol, TN was forecasting the wintery mix to begin falling in the middle of the afternoon.  I thought we had plenty of time to clear out of town before that happened, and I wasn't too worried about travel across the mountains.  Plus I knew that the forecast for our side of the mountains didn't call for any moisture at all.

I had a great Sunday planned, and the energy in the church was wonderful.  The church was still decorated for Christmas, and during the children's sermon, I gave them each a fabric angel.  

We talked about how God speaks to us, through angel choirs and stars, and that the most important thing to remember is that if you hear a voice telling you that you're worthless, it's not God talking, but someone else.  If they remember nothing else from our time together, I hope they remember that one message that I bring up periodically.

Then I had the youth help pass out the Epiphany stars:

My sermon talked about our Christmas to Epiphany journey, how God spoke to people then and how God still speaks to people now.  I thought it went well.  You can view it for yourself and decide; it's posted here on my YouTube channel; you can also read a version in this post on this blog.

As we processed out to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," I looked out the plate glass door to the church and realized it was snowing.  I wasn't really concerned, since it had just started.  

We had planned to take communion to a parishioner in the hospital on our way back, but I became more and more concerned about how rapidly the weather conditions were deteriorating.  So we decided to just keep pressing ahead.  We got onto I 81, and then I got really concerned about how the conditions were deteriorating, how much slush there was on the interstate, which had been treated with a de-icing agent, but was still slick in places, with icy rain/sleet/snow falling from the sky.

Happily, we were headed south, so even though we climbed in elevation to get across the mountain range, the wintry mix changed to rain.  We stopped at the welcome center on the NC/TN border to chip away at the ice that had formed on the windshield and wipers.  The whole front of the car was cased in ice, something neither one of us had ever seen before (and my spouse grew up in Indiana in the snowy 70's).

It took much longer than our usual commute home, but we made it home safely.  We made a stir fry and settled in to watch Street Gang:  How We Got to Sesame Street.  The documentary of the early days of Sesame Street was just what we needed for Epiphany Eve.  It was wonderful to be reminded of the magic that can happen when people are set free to experiment, to try something new, to see what happens.

And here we are, another Epiphany.  It makes me sad that for many people, this date will be associated with violent domestic attack on the U.S. Capitol, instead of a day of thinking about insights and new information.  Of course, the Epiphany story has always had a shadow side, a jealous ruler (Herod) and insecurity that leads to a bloodbath.

Today and every day, 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.

Sermon for January 5, 2025

 January 5, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

John 1:1-18

On Friday, I invited two friends to come to my house to cut out stars, to enjoy some cookies, and to be together.  You might be feeling some pity towards me right now, that my idea of fun is to cut paper into star shapes with my friends.  But of course, the advantage to paper cutting and cookie eating is that we can also have great conversation.

One of my friends talked about a retreat that she led, where one woman asked why God doesn’t speak to us the way God once did.  My retreat leader friend asked the group of 100 women to raise their hands if they had ever felt God speaking to them in some way.  About half raised their hands.  Then she asked how many of them had ever told anyone about the experience.  Most hands went down.  

As we think about stories of God speaking to us, we might be on the look out for burning bushes or angel choirs.  But as I think back to our collection of Gospel texts in recent weeks, I’m struck by the variety of ways that God does speak to us.  Let’s consider our readings from Advent to Christmas.  Before we move away from our Advent to Christmas journey, let’s look back, to see the types of crucial information that we’ve been given, to think about the ways that God might be communicating, and how we can train ourselves to pay attention.

Think back to that first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when we gathered to hear the apocalyptic message about signs in the sun, moon, and stars, about people fainting with fear.  It’s interesting to look back to see what all has happened geopolitically since then.  Take, for example, the fall of the dictator of Syria—should we be fainting with fear or will this be a new opportunity for peace?  Is this a sign of redemption drawing near?

I am not a person who sees God speaking to us in terms of geopolitical developments like this one or any other.  But I do see the value in using these upheavals to remind ourselves of what the Gospel lesson of the first Sunday of Advent told us:  stay awake, because the day of redemption draws near.  We live in a time where it may seem that geopolitical turmoil is the only constant across the world, and we might get used to this background noise of governments overturned, civilians slaughtered.  Let us use the news to remind us to stay alert, to pray, and not to let all the news of world events weigh us down.

As we think back to our Advent time together, we might remember the Gospel readings focused on John the Baptist, who preached a message of metanoia, of turning around, of renouncing the lives we had been leading.  Does God still deliver messages through fiery prophets like John the Baptist?  Certainly.  But in our world where more and more people can find a megaphone, it can be hard to discern if we’re hearing the voice of God or someone who wants us to turn our lives upside down for reasons that will ultimately lead us away from God as we turn to more and more distractions.

By the end of Advent, we found ourselves in communities very different from the wilderness where we traveled to hear John the Baptist.  The fourth Sunday of Advent reminded us of the importance of intergenerational community, of new life in unlikely wombs and the ways that believers young and old need each other to help discern how God is speaking.  That need didn’t end with Elizabeth and Mary, and it didn’t end when Jesus entered the world to become flesh.  God still speaks to us through our communities, through friends and mentors, through the lives well lived that shine as examples for us.

Christmas Eve tells us of the reason for all this watching and waiting—the kingdom of God, breaking into the world.  Shepherds hear the angel’s message, and they don’t deliberate about what to do next.  They go to see the wondrous event.  Some of us will get this kind of message from God—we will hear of something amazing happening, and we will go and see.  Some of us will stay by the manger, pondering these things in our hearts.

Epiphany reminds us that God’s message may come in small ways that are easy to miss.  It would be hard to miss an angel visitation or an angel choir—but many did.  However God’s message to the magi comes in the form of a new star.  They are the ones who hear this message because they are the ones who have been studying the sky, keeping watch at night.  They know that something new has appeared.  Epiphany reminds us of the need to raise our eyes from the minutiae that can consume us, the need to stay alert as we study the expanse of what we don't fully understand, as we appreciate the mystery. 

It’s a delicate balance, all these ways of being alert and awake.  Some of us have been trained to keep our heads down so that we don’t attract the attention of those who would harm us.  And yet, if we do that, we may miss seeing those on the margins or in the wilderness, like John the Baptist who call us to new ways of being true, of returning to the life of flourishing that God intends for each and everyone of us.  If we keep our heads down, we may miss out on the connections that we can make within our families and communities that will help us discern the path that can lead us to a more authentic life with God.  If we keep our heads down, we may miss the angel and star shaped messengers that tell us that God is still at work in the world, doing a new thing.

The star you hold in your hand may not be giving you the message you hoped to hear.  Is it the message that you need?  Or do you want to pick your own star?  If you want to sift through other messages and choose a new star, that’s fine.  Discernment between choices can work that way too.  Or maybe you don’t want a word at all.  Maybe you’d prefer this angel made of scraps of cloth and foil to carry with you into the new year.

Wise people year after year are led by that steady voice that tells them to look where they haven't found success before or to keep looking even when it seems futile. Wise people are the ones that find a way to ignore what the world tells them should be important, who stake out their part of the sky to watch and to wait.  

As we prepare to leave our Advent to Epiphany journey, the message I hear is one of God reaching out to humanity, again and again, as we see in today’s Gospel, God becoming flesh and moving into the neighborhood, as Eugene Patterson puts it in his translation, “The Message.”  In the last six weeks, we’ve seen God use different ways to communicate in the hopes that something penetrates and gets through.  God still works this way today.  Maybe it’s geopolitical change that gets our attention or terrorist attacks or other types of death.  Maybe it’s something different in the natural world.  Maybe we will hear God in the voice of a fiery prophet or in the greeting of a family member.  Maybe we will find God as we ponder our impossible blessings and try to make sense of it all.  Maybe God’s voice will come in a majestic form, like an angel choir, or in something smaller, a yearning that can no longer be ignored.

And of course, our Advent to Epiphany journey reminds us that all along the way, God will try a new way of reaching out.  Those of us who are watching, waiting, listening, staying open—we will be more likely to be the ones to greet God, our God, who longs to gather us back from all the ways we have been in exile.

To hear the preached version of this sermon, go to this post on my YouTube channel.

Preparing for Epiphany

Some years in church, it's easier to work in Epiphany than other years.  Last year, New Year's Day was on a Sunday, which was a Lessons and Carols Sunday, which meant I could be away.  January 7, the following Sunday, was the Baptism of Our Lord Sunday.  But this year, the Feast Day of Epiphany (Jan. 6) falls on the day after Christmas II; if I had been in charge of the Lectionary, we'd be doing Epiphany tomorrow, instead of the first chapter of John.

Happily, I've thought of a way to make it all work.  I wanted to do a repeat of the Epiphany stars that I did for my Florida church in 2017, and happily, I thought of this possibility before it was too late.  I took advantage of some post-Christmas sales and bought some glittery cardstock.  I downloaded some templates.  I invited some neighborhood Create in Me friends over to play.  

I knew that I would be creating stars for Sunday, and it was fine with me if my friends helped or if they created Epiphany cards to give away.  We had a great time doing a mix of projects, and in the end, I got my stars done in record time.

I wrote words on the back of each one.  As we talked, words came to me, and I used them.  I want to believe it's the Holy Spirit at work, but it may be my own brain.  I had looked at some word lists, like this one, but in the end, I went my own way.

I will be suggesting that members of my congregation use them in a variety of ways.  They're portable, which means they could travel through the year, in a pocket, a backpack, or a car.  We could use the word to inform our reading through the year or to inform the way we view popular media or the news.  We could use the word and think about the variety of meanings, as well as the kind of meditating that we'd be doing if we had pulled a word that meant the opposite. 

But most important, I want us to use the stars to train ourselves to listen for what God might be saying.  We won't always have an angel choir or a John the Baptist yelling at us.  We live in increasing amounts of noise, and a star word might be what we need to focus our brains to look away from what the powers and principalities of our time want us to stay focused on, the stories that cause us to feel fear and pain and powerlessness.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, February 18, 2024:

First Reading: Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm: Psalm 25:1-9 (Psalm 25:1-10 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Peter 3:18-22

Gospel: Mark 1:9-15

We begin Lent back in the country of baptism. Once again, we hear the story of the baptism of Christ. Didn't we just cover this material a few weeks ago?  Indeed we did.  What a versatile Gospel text, suitable for both the early days of the Epiphany season and the early days of Lent.  There's a lesson here for us.

In today’s Gospel, we see Christ going through the stages of the life of a Christian, in a sort of fast-forward filmstrip: baptism, wilderness/desert time of desolation and doubt, temptation, death of mentors, carrying on with life’s work anyway. Why should we, thousands of years later, think that life will be any different for us?

Most Lutherans were baptized as babies.  Like Jesus, we too are welcomed into a larger context before we've done anything.  We can't prove ourselves; we can't even feed ourselves.

But we don't get to stay in the land of grace and good feelings very long.  Even Jesus faces a wilderness time, the kind of time that those of us who have been alive any amount of time at all will remember.  We feel the presence of Satan, of everything that could possibly go wrong going even more deeply wrong.  Surrounded by wild beasts, we despair.  But if we can come out of the other side of a wilderness time, we'll find ourselves in the company of angels, who minister to us in our time of need.  Maybe those angels are members of our family.  Maybe they're our church community.  Maybe it's something more clinical, a doctor or a therapist.  Or maybe, in the dark night of our souls, Divine beings care for us.

But here, too, the Gospel offers both solace and warning.  We may find ourselves put to death by the ruling authorities, the way that John and Jesus were.  Or maybe it's a more metaphorical death--the larger culture has many ways of killing us, our physical bodies and our souls.

We can't say we haven't been warned, just like Jesus must have known the forces that he would put into motion.  Still, the world has need of us, and God has need of us, to do the work of ministering to the world.  The Gospel closes with Jesus moving forward.

There is an urgency to this Gospel, a pace that seems appropriate to these days just after Ash Wednesday has reminded us that we're not here for very long.  We have lingered too long in the land of self-loathing, in the dark night of the soul with Satan's voice hissing in our ears, in the wilderness where beasts want to rip us apart.  Our Lenten journey is at hand.  It is time to do the work of discerning what is truly important.

Sketching for Schoolwork

I am really enjoying my Foundations of Preaching class.  I'm impressed with the wide range of activities that we do to show that we've learned the material.  

I'm also surprised by which parts take the most time.  A few weeks ago, we had to make a PowerPoint to teach others about the worship traditions that formed us.  Not only did that project take less time than I had budgeted (hurrah!), but it also made my inner artist happy, although my inner tech person was exasperated with the deficiency of the software (and unwilling to learn a new system like Canva in short order).

The project for last week seemed like it would be solidly in my skill set:

A creative activity! Imagine you are trying to explain Christian concepts of time for a child/youth.

 

1) Draw your own lectionary wheel, with informative notes on each season. 

 

2) Draw an infographic on the Christian concept of time, including how "Sunday" was established as a tradition.

 

3) Upload drawings as your activity submission.

 

*You will not be graded on your artistic talent. ;) 

I spent so much time on this one.  Part of it was my fault; I didn't sketch with a pencil, so once I made a mistake, I had to start over.  It was hard for me to figure out how to divide the lectionary wheel, since some seasons like the time after Easter and the time after Epiphany vary widely from year to year.  And I wasn't sure what an infographic should include, the proportion of pictures to words.

I'm not going to post my work here, not until it gets graded.  I would hate for the plagiarism detection software to flag the work that I turned in, because the software found it here.  Plus, it speaks to another issue I had:  the photo isn't as good as the work itself.  I'm not sure that here you would be able to see it clearly.

Now it's off to Faith Lutheran, where in addition to preaching, I am leading a several week session to get children ready for First Communion.  It's an interesting endeavor, and I'm really enjoying it.

Festivals Halfway through Winter

We are at the halfway point of winter--halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Today is Candlemas, where Christians celebrate the presentation of Jesus at the Temple (also known as the Feast Day of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple), and pagans long ago celebrated the goddess Brigid (and the feast day of St. Brigid was yesterday), and some Wiccans today will be celebrating at Imbolc, or a variation of any number of pagan holidays. It's also Groundhog's Day. It's one of those times when we can almost perceive the shifting of the seasons. It's not spring yet, but it will be soon.

Candlemas is the feast day that speaks to me. Candlemas celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple. It's the last feast holiday that references Christmas. We could see it as the final festival of Christmas, even though most of us have had the decorations packed away since even before Epiphany.

This article by Eleanor Parker tells us about the long history of Candlemas, and she focuses on the medieval time period, where the Christmas celebrations extended throughout January:  "Short days and bad weather limited the work that could be done anyway, and the general gloom made festivity all the more welcome — much more cheerful than Dry January."

Even though electricity has made us feel we need to be just as productive in January as in July, the natural light moves in its own seasonal cycle.  I have always wished that Christmas came in late February, so that we had the lights and the festive decorations for consolation throughout all the darker months in the northern hemisphere.




Some churches and monasteries will bless the year's supply of candles.  In past times, according to this article by Diana Butler Bass, Christians would bring their candles to the church for blessing and then there would be a candle lit procession through town.  In a more agricultural age, it's a time of lambing, a time of getting ready for spring planting, a time where we might see snowdrops poking out through the snow/ground.

It's good to have these holidays that remind us of illumination; I'm a fan of the growth that can happen in the dark, too, but that's a different blog post.  We live in a time of despair, and the gloomy weather doesn't help us feel cheerful.  Being surrounded by the glow of candles can lift our spirits, and it's a cheap fix.

And it's also a reminder that God is at work in the world, even when we don't always see that happening, that spring is on the way if we can just hold on a bit longer.

Epiphany Ponderings

I was up early this morning, listening to the precipitation, trying to determine if it was rain or ice or sleet.  I thought of Epiphany, read T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi," remembered a poem I had written in response (go here to read it), did some internet wandering, came across an idea in a blog post of mine, and wrote a few lines in response.

Two years ago, I wrote, "I am thinking of the angel warning Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt, and he does. Did other parents in Bethlehem that night dream of angels with strange messages about their infant boys? Did they remember their dreams? Were they haunted by the memory?"

This morning I wrote about being frozen in place, unable to escape what's coming.  Part of me wants to turn it into a poem that references Gaza; part of me thinks it will be stronger if it's more universal.  Sadly, the death statistics out of Gaza, while shocking, are not unusual for any given year.  At least, I think that's true.

I took some pictures of the ice on the branches, pictures that have more a Halloween vibe than an Epiphany vibe.  Here's one:

I am also thinking of a squirrel who seems to be making a home in a pumpkin by our fenceline:

Hoping the animals would eat them, I put the autumn pumpkins down at the back fence after Thanksgiving.  For weeks, the animals have paid them no mind.  For the few days I was gone, they have now eaten their way through much of the largest pumpkin, and last night, I watched a squirrel hollowing out one of the other pumpkins.  I like to think that he is there now, listening to the rain/ice/sleet patter on his pumpkin home.

All of this may come together into a poem eventually.  Looking through my files, I'm amazed at how many Epiphany poems I have.  And I do remember that they didn't all come together immediately.   One of my favorites that I've written was published in Sojourners; go here for process notes and to read the poem. 

I am also thinking of the attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021.  It seems there should be a poem that pulls that event into its Epiphany orbit, but anything I have to say poetically seems much too obvious at this point.

Let me add one more detail to this rather disjointed blog post:

Scholar Wil Gafney made this Facebook post last night:  "Merry 12th night! It is the 12th day of Christmas and instead of finality, there is a sense of expectation. Sometime during the night a number of sages trained in astrology and other sciences will come from the east. Tradition says they are three men but that little plural in Greek could also include women and no number is given. Tonight we celebrate the end of one holy season and the beginning of another."

Getting Ready for Epiphany

I know that many churches will not be celebrating Epiphany as its own Sunday.  Still, we could celebrate Epiphany as a season.  Here are two ideas:

--We could decorate.  I have this on the brain because yesterday I helped my mom and dad decorate their church in Williamsburg, St. Stephen Lutheran.  We got there to find that the heavy work had been done, the Moravian stars hung:

But even if you don't have the budget for these types of stars, you could still decorate.  We hung cardstock stars strung on ribbons.  Some of them had been decorated with glitter, and some were white.

This project would be so easy, and it makes the sanctuary so much more festive.  We looped them around the candles that line the walls, but if you're nervous/cautious about climbing and draping (as we all should be), you could string them in other ways.

--You could use star words even if you're not celebrating Epiphany.  Star words involve having a bag of stars with evocative words on them, words like "Peace" and "Say Yes" and "Say No" and "Patience" and on and on I could go.   You can find a more comprehensive list here.

Some people on social platforms will choose a star word for us.  Here's mine for 2024:

People use these words in all sorts of ways.  We could meditate on the word or use the word to focus on what God might say to us.  We could see how the word is used in the Bible.  We could do a Google search.  We could write for 5 minutes without stopping to see what comes up for us.

I wrote a blog post about the process and the possibilities here, and if you want to use your star words in a group, in a Bible study sort of process, I wrote a blog post about how to do that here.

I love the way Epiphany amplifies the Advent message of the importance of staying awake and alert. Some of us will hear God speaking through an angel choir.  Some will hear God speaking in dreams.  Some of us will have an encounter with a John the Baptist, some type of prophet that speaks God's word in a way that only he or she can.  But others of us will study the sky for years or decades, looking for a sign, waiting patiently.  Epiphany reminds us of the need to raise our eyes from the minutiae that can consume us, the need to stay alert as we study the expanse of what we don't fully understand, as we appreciate the mystery.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024:

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

This Sunday marks the baptism of Christ. I can't help but think of all the years that are missing in this Gospel where we meet Jesus fully grown--what would Christ have been like, as an adolescent, as a young carpenter?

I love the words of God in this baptism: "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased." Note that God says this at the beginning of Christ's ministry, before Jesus has actually done much. In fact, in this Gospel of Mark, the baptism scene is our first introduction to Jesus. Mark doesn't give us a nativity story.

Here's the best news of all: God feels the same way about you.

God feels the same way about you: you are God's chosen ones; God is well pleased with each and every one of you.

For those of us who might have grown up with the idea of an angry God, a punishing parent of a God, this message can be quite powerful. God loves you, regardless of what you've done, in spite of what you've done. God's love has nothing to do with what you've accomplished. Certainly God has ideas of how we can live our best lives, in much the way a friend wants what's best for a friend, a parent wants a child to make choices that will lead the child to fulfillment. But regardless of what we've done or not done, regardless of the roads we've taken, regardless of how well we're living our mission to be the light of Christ in the world, God loves us.

This is a powerful message as we start the new year. For some of us, a new year is a chance to beat ourselves up over how much we haven't accomplished. We think of all the past resolutions we haven't been able to keep. We think of all the ways we haven't been our best selves. We think of all the people we've disappointed. We can quickly spiral into a vicious circle of self-hatred and depression.

God knows all the ways we might not deserve it, but God loves us anyway. Again, that's the great thing about being a Lutheran and believing in grace--God knows us completely, and God loves us thoroughly. We don't have to do anything to earn this love. Indeed, we can't.

Look at the great lengths God has gone to to let us know of that love. Think of the Christmas and Epiphany stories. God becomes a little baby, born in a stable--and why? To let us know of God's love. God becomes a refugee because of Herod's jealousy. God loves us so much--the Bible is full of stories that show God going to great lengths to show humanity this love. An observant person might say that God still goes to great lengths to get our attention.

This year, we celebrate the baptism of Jesus just one day after the feast day of the Epiphany.  This juxtaposition 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 the Baptist, on the other hand, tells everyone about the coming arrival of Jesus.

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

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 31, 2023:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:10--62:3

Psalm: Psalm 148

Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7

Gospel: Luke 2:22-40

This Sunday, after the whirlwind excitement of Christmas Eve, we return to the Temple, where Simeon and Anna have been patiently waiting for God to fulfill God's promise. And in our scary times, that message is a wonderful reminder: God fulfills the promises that God makes.

Of course, it may not happen in the time period that we would like to demand. So what do we do in the meantime? We wait. Maybe we wait patiently, like Simeon. Or maybe we become impatient, like the Psalmist. But we wait. What else can we do? Scripture and Literature across many different cultures warn us of what happens if we decide that we're as powerful as God and can proceed on our own--nothing good can come of that.

What do we do while we're waiting? We can take Simeon and Anna as our models. We can surround ourselves with people who believe in God's promise. Hopefully, we find those kind of people in our Christian communities. Hopefully, we've spent our lives finding people who live in hope, even when surrounded by evidence that would make more rational people doubt. This past pandemic years has shown us that if we don't have those people with us in person, there are many communities out there that can offer us ways to connect with hope.

Of course, we don't have to just wait passively. The Advent lessons have reminded us of the importance of staying alert and watchful. The Scriptures tell us that God will appear in many guises, none of them what we expect.

We can also take our cues from Mary and Joseph, from Elizabeth and John the Baptist, from any number of spiritual predecessors. We can decide to take our part in the redemption of God's creation. Every day gives us the opportunity to practice resurrection, as Wendell Berry phrased it. We can choose to move towards renewal. We are called to be the light of the world, the yeast in the bread dough, the salt of the earth. We've got lots of ways to do that.

I would encourage us not to leave Christmas behind too quickly. We can leave our Christmas trees up for a few more days (twelve, even, until Jan. 6, Epiphany, or until Feb. 2, Candlemas, the end of the 40 days of Christmas that some monastic communities still celebrate) to enjoy the vision. We can eat one last Christmas cookie, while we reflect on the past year, and plan for the year to come. We can pray for the patience of Simeon, for the wisdom of Anna, for the courage of Mary and Elizabeth and Joseph, who said yes to God's plan. We can pray that we have the boldness of John the Baptist, who declared the Good News.

We can pray for the strength to evolve into people of hope, people who watch and wait, confident in the knowledge that God fulfills all promises.

Children's Sermon, Advent 3: Stay Alert for Stars

Yesterday, instead of giving a second children's sermon on John the Baptist, I skipped ahead to Epiphany, sort of.  I looked back to last Sunday's sermon about John the Baptist and talked about what points us to God.  

Sometimes what points us to God is something noisy, like John the Baptist.  I talked about angel choirs--if an angel choir appeared, that would be something obvious.  But often what points us to God is something quieter.  I passed out glow in the dark stars.  I'd gotten a box of 100 for about $6.00 for Amazon and divided them into sandwich bags.

I talked about the wise men who noticed a new star because they had been paying attention.  I said that it's easy to pay attention to what points us to God in a time of Advent--there's lots of beauty to remind us.  I gestured to the tree behind me.

But more often, we're going to have to be paying attention--and that's what our texts have been telling us, to stay alert, even when we don't have beautiful trees and lights to remind us.  I suggested that they take the stars and hang onto them, maybe keep them in a pocket or by their bed, where maybe they'll glow in the dark, and remember to keep watch for God at work in the world.

After the service, we stayed to help decorate the church for next Sunday; we are doing one service at 2 p.m.  One of the children's mothers told me how much she loves the children's sermons that I do and how her daughter loves them too and finds so much richness in them.  It is a moment I will treasure--I feel less sure about my children's sermons than other elements of being a minister.  I like the children's sermons that I give, but I've never had formal education in children's intellectual and moral development, so I don't know if they're at the correct level.  This encounter helped me think that maybe I'm doing OK.

Holidays Halfway through Winter

We are at the halfway point of winter--halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Today is Candlemas, where Christians celebrate the presentation of Jesus at the Temple (also known as the Feast Day of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple), and pagans long ago celebrated the goddess Brigid (and the feast day of St. Brigid was yesterday), and some Wiccans today will be celebrating at Imbolc, or a variation of any number of pagan holidays. It's also Groundhog's Day. It's one of those times when we can almost perceive the shifting of the seasons. It's not spring yet, but it will be soon.

Candlemas is the feast day that speaks to me. Candlemas celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple. It's the last feast holiday that references Christmas. We could see it as the final festival of Christmas, even though most of us have had the decorations packed away since even before Epiphany.

Some churches and monasteries will bless the year's supply of candles. I love this tradition. Today would be a good day to light a candle and to think about our own lights. Are we dimly burning wicks? Take heart--the Bible promises that we can still be useful. Does our light burn pure and true? Take care to protect that flame.

This morning I tried to sketch a basket of candles, and then a haiku-like poem-like bit came to me:

Basket of candles

Waiting to be blessed today

Year of light to come

The holidays of early February (Groundhog Day, Candlemas, St. Brigid's Day, Imbolc and Oimelc ) remind us that the light hasn't really left us. Spring will be here soon.