Outdoor Church

I wish we had had this morning's chilly weather when we had outdoor church for the first time this past Sunday.  But last Sunday, it was much warmer.

We got to the church an hour and a half before the start time.  We needed the time to set up and for choir rehearsal.  

We hauled equipment from the sanctuary and lugged the piano out into the back area that would serve as the chancel.

The choir rehearsed, and I went to the office to start sorting the offering that had come in since last week when we did the counting.  Then I went out back and figured out where to put my folding chair.  I was grateful for the shade, but it was still uncomfortable with bugs and no breeze to cool the 84 degree heat.  The candles on the Advent wreath stayed lit for about two minutes:

As people gathered and set up their lawn chairs, I did have a moment of strange emotion--here we were, together for the first time since mid-March.  We were able to have communion together while spaced far apart behind the church.

The outdoors provided all sorts of distractions.  The sky was brilliant blue and occasionally a flock of birds flew by.  Every so often, the small planes from the nearby regional airport buzzed by.  I often looked up and breathed deeply.  Then I swatted a bug.  We're about 2 blocks away from a very busy fire station, and the church is at the intersection of 2 busy streets, so there was no end to traffic noises.  We also smelled someone's barbecue.

If my spouse wasn't part of the choir, I'd just stay home for the next few weeks of outdoor church.  There's not much participating, and sitting in a mask outside is just not pleasant.  If I'm going to sit and watch church happening, I'd rather do it from the comfort of my living room.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 12, 2020:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Psalm: Psalm 126

Psalm (Alt.): Luke 1:47-55 (Luke 1:46b-55 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Gospel: John 1:6-8, 19-28

Today's Gospel returns us to John the Baptist. John proves to be such a compelling figure that the religious people in charge try to determine who he is. This interchange between John and the priests and Levites fascinates me. I love that John knows who he is, but he's not interested in explaining himself to institutional figures. Still he'll answer their questions.

One answer in particular keeps banging around my brain: "I am not the Christ" (verse 20). Some interpretations have him say, "I am not the Messiah." He's also not Elijah, not the prophet. When asked to explain himself more fully, he refers to Isaiah: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' . . ." (verse23).

The first lesson from Isaiah seems more appropriate as a mission for the modern Christian, with its language of binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and comforting those who mourn. We are to be a garland, instead of ashes, to be the oil of gladness.

These days, there's so much to do in terms of building up, proclaiming liberty, comforting the mourners, figuring out how to rise up out of the ashes of this past year.  It's overwhelming.

When overwhelmed, it's good to return to the message of today's Gospel: we must be careful to remember that we are not the Christ. There are days when I shake my head and think, "I've been working on hunger issues most of my whole life: writing letters to legislators, giving away money, working in food banks. Why isn't this issue solved yet? How long will it take?"

I must practice saying, "I am not the Messiah." That doesn't mean I'm off the hook in terms of my behavior. I can't say, "I am not the Messiah," and stay home and watch reruns of The Simpsons and do nothing about injustice in the world.

But I am not the Messiah. We struggle against a huge domination system, as Walter Wink termed it. The lives of John the Baptist and Jesus serve as cautionary tales to me, when I get too impatient with how long it takes for the arc of history to bend towards justice (Martin Luther King's wording). They struggled against injustice and died in the maw of the system they worked to dismantle.

But the good news of the Advent season is that our work is not in vain.  The domination system, the systems of empire, are strong, but they can be overcome--and in the most unlikely ways.  New life from infertile wombs--what a powerful idea.  A new star in a vast sky heralding a change for those who have been paying attention--wow.

We are at the halfway point of Advent. What new creations are germinating in you? What new cosmos is waiting for you to discover it?

Quantum Connections and the Virgin Mary

Last week, I wrote a post about my sketching with the Virgin Mary.  The earliest one is a date card I made when I was working ahead:  

I thought it was a bit too cartoonish, so I tried again and came up with a very abstract image:

Then, I decided to do something in my larger sketchbook, the one with better paper quality.  I was also thinking about the online journaling class I've been taking, where we've been reading and creating visual responses to Barbara A. Holmes' book, Race and the Cosmos.  I really love this sketch I created, of a pregnant Mary and the cosmos:

I wrote this post to go with it:  "I saw an icon of Mary, pregnant with Jesus (or was she just in swirling blue robes?). I've been experimenting with the shapes in that icon, and this week, I merged the idea of the icon with some cosmic imagery of the types that have delighted me as we've read this book. This image seems like a good ending note (or perhaps not ending, but a gateway to the next set of images)"

And indeed, I continue to sketch:

Yesterday, I thought about Mary and Elizabeth and thought about doing something with the Visitation.  But I decided I wanted to try to capture the idea that quantum particles will continue to affect each other, even when they're not together anymore.  I started this sketch yesterday:

And then this haiku like creation bubbled up later in the day:

Quantum connections
Container of galaxies
Worlds in our wombs/words

The sketch is unfinished.   I look forward to seeing where it takes me--and the sketches beyond!

The Feast Day of Saint Nicholas

December 6 is the feast day of Saint Nicholas.  I've put some of my favorite decorations on the piano this year:

Today, all over Europe, the gift-giving season begins. I had a friend in grad school who celebrated Saint Nicholas Day by having each family member open one present on the night of Dec. 6. It was the first I had heard of the feast day, but I was enchanted.  I am guessing that Saint Nicholas Day will be celebrated differently this year, as the pandemic roars across continents.

I don't have as many Santa images in my Christmas decorations. Here's my favorite Santa ornament:

I picked it up in May of 1994 or so. I was visiting my parents, and I went with them on a trip to Pennsylvania where my dad was attending a conference. I picked this ornament up in a gift shop that had baskets of ornaments on sale. I love that it uses twine as joints to hold Santa together.

While I don't have many Santa ornaments, I do have some Santa objects.  One year, my step-mom in law and my father in law gave me these as Christmas presents:

They're actually cookie presses, and the Santa figures are the handles of the press. I've never used them as a cookie press, but I love them as decorations that are faithful to the European country of origin.

It's always a bit of a surprise to realize that Saint Nicholas was a real person. But indeed he was. In the fourth century, he lived in Myra, then part of Greece, now part of Turkey; eventually, he became Bishop of Myra. He became known for his habit of gift giving and miracle working, although it's hard to know what really happened and what's become folklore. Some of his gift giving is minor, like leaving coins in shoes that were left out for him. Some were more major, like resurrecting three boys killed by a butcher.

My favorite story is the one of the poor man with three children who had no dowry for them. No dowry meant no marriage, and so, they were going to have to become prostitutes. In the dead of night, Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the house. Some legends have that he left a bag of gold for each daughter that night, while some say that he gave the gold on successive nights, while some say that he gave the gold as each girl came to marrying age.

Through the centuries, the image of Saint Nicholas has morphed into Santa Claus, but as with many modern customs, one doesn't have to dig far to find the ancient root.

In the past decade, I've been on the lookout for more modern Saint Nicholas images.  A few years ago, one of my friends posted this photo of her Santa display to her Facebook page:

I love the ecumenical nature of this picture of Santa: Santa statues coexisting peacefully with Buddha statues. And then I thought, how perfect for the Feast Day of St. Nicholas!

God as Midwife and the Cosmic Virgin Mary

I've been thinking a lot about Mary, the mother of Jesus.  It is December after all, the season of Advent, when many people start to think about all the various meanings of Christmas.

I've also been thinking about the idea of God as midwife.  I saw this tweet the other day:  "So many of our God metaphors are aggressively masculine, obsessed with war, power, authority. Maybe they’re true, but they aren’t the whole truth. God is our Father but also our Sister. God is our savior but also our midwife" (from Laura Jean Truman).

I wrote in response:  "God as midwife--am I the pregnant woman or the baby being delivered? Perhaps both."

On the same day, Dec. 1, I saw an icon of the Virgin Mary (go to the RevGalBlogPals website and scroll down to the Tuesday prayer--I wasn't able to capture the image of the icon created by Terri Cole Pilarski).I was taken with the swirling blue robes and the red cloak.

I tried to replicate the shapes and came up with something a bit closer to cartoon than icon.  So I tried again and came up with a very abstract image (blurry in this picture, but not worth trying to capture in a better image for this post--you get the idea):

Yesterday, I decided to do something in my larger sketchbook, the one with better paper quality.  I was also thinking about the online journaling class I've been taking, where we've been reading and creating visual responses to Barbara A. Holmes' book, Race and the Cosmos.  I really love this sketch I created, of a pregnant Mary and the cosmos:

I wrote this post to go with it:  "I saw an icon of Mary, pregnant with Jesus (or was she just in swirling blue robes?). I've been experimenting with the shapes in that icon, and this week, I merged the idea of the icon with some cosmic imagery of the types that have delighted me as we've read this book. This image seems like a good ending note (or perhaps not ending, but a gateway to the next set of images)"

 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 6, 2020:

First Reading: Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm: Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

Second Reading: 2 Peter 3:8-15a

Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

Today's Gospel takes us to John, a fascinating character. In today's reading, we see him, clothed in his strange costume, eating locusts and wild honey. Other Gospels present him as the cousin of Christ. Who is this guy?

I find him fascinating for many reasons. Maybe I'm always intrigued by a prophet. This year, I'm thinking about John's place in the drama of Christ's life, and how he seems completely comfortable with his place.

In earlier years, I've wondered if it would be hard to be John, with his more famous cousin Jesus overshadowing him. This year, I notice that he has the perfect opportunity to upstage Jesus--people of the time period were desperate for a Messiah, and there were plenty of predators wandering around, trying to convince people that they were the Messiah. John had more legitimacy and a wider following than most of the other people with their wild claims.

But John knows who he is. And he fills out his full potential by preparing the way for Jesus. Not only does John know who he is, he knows who Jesus is. John knows for whom he waits and watches.

We might be wise to see John as a cautionary tale too. John is one of the earliest to know the true mission of Jesus--indeed, in some Gospel versions, perhaps he realizes the mission of Jesus before Jesus fully does. Notice that John's life is turned upside down.

Many people are shocked to discover that being a Christian doesn't protect them from hard times. Being a Christian doesn't mean that we won't suffer sickness, that we won't lose our jobs, that we won't lose almost everything we love. To be human means that we will suffer loss--and thinking people know in advance that we will suffer loss, which means that we suffer more than once.

But we have a God who has experienced the very same thing. Think of the life of Jesus, who had no place to lay his head and died by crucifixion.

The good news is that we have a God who fully understands all the ways in which we suffer--and wants to be with us anyway. We have a God who fully understands all the ways in which we will fail--and loves us fully anyway.

John reminds us of our Advent goal, which is to keep watch, to stay alert. Of course, our Advent goal should spill over into the rest of our life. It's easy to keep watch in December, when the rest of the world counts down to Christmas. It's harder to remember to watch for God in the middle of summer. That's why we need to develop daily spiritual practices that will keep us watchful.

John also reminds us that we are not the Messiah. It’s Christ’s role to save people. It’s tempting to think that we can save ourselves and each other. But we can’t. It’s comforting to say, “I am not the Messiah,” as John the Baptist does, in John 1:20. In our daily lives, we’re confronted with scores of problems that we can’t solve, from various national debt crises to meetings about missed numbers and opportunities to friends and family who make disastrous choices. We can only do so much. We are not the Christ for whom the world waits.

That phrase can keep us humble too. Many a powerful figure has been disgraced by forgetting that someone else is the Messiah.

These days, perhaps we have the opposite problem. Far from feeling powerful, we may feel oppressed by forces outside our control. But our scripture readings offer comfort. We have a larger salvation, even when our daily lives feel like a persecution. Christ came to claim us, the Holy Spirit stays with us, and the day will come when we will be reunited ever more deeply with the Divine. Watch and wait and work for "a new earth, where righteousness is at home" (2 Peter 3: 13).

World AIDS Day in a Time of a New Pandemic

 Here we are, World AIDS Day, in a year of a new pandemic, a disease that's much easier to contract than AIDS, a disease that has no cure, a disease that like AIDS preys on the more vulnerable in our society.

Maybe all diseases target the more vulnerable.  And our epidemiologist friends would remind us that diseases don't have emotions or calculations.  Diseases infect where they can, and in vulnerable populations, diseases have more opportunity.

AIDS is still a fairly fierce disease, even though we have medications that can keep people alive for decades--that's still a lot of disease management, which isn't a cure.  According to this site, there are still more than 17 million new AIDS cases each year.  Every week, more than 13,000 people die of AIDS related diseases.

With vaccine news of the past weeks, I do expect that in years to come, COVID-19 will not kill as many of us.  But it will still be a disease to be reckoned with, a disease that leaves lots of wreckage in its wake.  Like AIDS, many of us will assume that COVID-19 has been tamed or disappeared.  But like AIDS, some of us will be more protected than others.

Dec. 1 is also the anniversary of the day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This act is often given credit for launching the Civil Rights Movement, but what many forget is that various communities had begun planning for the launch, even before they could see or know what it would look like.

In fact, for generations, people had prepared for just such a moment. They had gotten training in nonviolent resistance. They had come together in community in a variety of ways. They were prepared.

Someone asked me once how I had come to be such an optimist. I've always had an optimistic streak, but frankly, my whole world view shifted when I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison. I fully expected him to be killed, but again, my worldview shifted when I watched South Africans stand in line for days (days!) to elect him president. And he was ready to be president because he had spent those decades in prison thinking about how he would run the country and making plans.

I have seen enormous social change happen in my lifetime--in the face of such evidence, I must agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, who said the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.

Some years, that arc seems so long and the bending so difficult to discern.  Diseases show us where we need to bend that arc towards justice, where there's still opportunity for progress.

On this day of grim disease statistics, let us also remember what various social justice movements have taught us.  If we can harness the will of a group of people towards a similar goal, we can make great strides.

Those of us who work towards social justice and human dignity for all know how long the struggle might be. We are similar to those medieval builders of cathedrals: we may not be around to see the magnificent completion of our vision, but it's important to play our part. In the words of that old Gospel song, we keep our eyes on the prize, our hands on the plow, and hold on.