Spirit Stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seven Months of Morning Watch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Season of Thin Spaces

We live in the season of thin spaces:

Now, more than ever, we sense the ancestors:

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

We light the candles to ward off the gloomy spirits:

We cloak ourselves in costumes:

We sing songs in the company of all the saints:

Meditation on This Sunday's All Saints Gospel

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

First Reading: Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm: Psalm 34:1-10, 22

Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-3

Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12

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

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

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

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

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

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

Masking Prayers

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

A prayer as I put on my mask:

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

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

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

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

Celebrate Reformation All Week (and Beyond)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call to Worship for Reformation Sunday (on Video)

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

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

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

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

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

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