Christ Dwelling and Delighting in Us--a Prayer/Affirmation

On one of our walks during Music Week, my Florida friend gave me a prayer/affirmation that she often uses, and then she sent me a link.

Here's the prayer/affirmation:

"I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights. I live in the strong and unshakeable Kingdom of God.  The kingdom is not in trouble and neither am I."

James Bryan Smith is the one who gets the credit.  He talks about how the sentences came to him in The Next Right Thing podcast done by Emily P. Freedman:

"The story isn’t as great as I like, I should probably make up a better one. In truth, i happened accidentally. I was teaching the first phrase, “I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights” came about when I was teaching a college class, undergraduate class and I was trying to communicate with the students something very important about Apostle Paul. That is the Apostle Paul in his epistles used the phrase, In Christ or In Christ in us by my count around 89 times. That’s a lot. So, I was stunned at the sheer size, the amount at the time. Wow, if Paul uses that phrase and self identifies as being in Christ or Christ in us, then that should be the dominant way we understand our identity as Christians. So, I was up in front of the classroom. I had written 89 times on the board and I’m talking about all of this stuff. I said at the end of the day, folks, as Christians, have to understand we are people in whom Christ dwells and to the class as I was saying those words, just like your listeners, there was a student in the front row, his name is Chris, and I’m still in contact with Chris, he is a doctor now. But, he raised his hand and asked if I could say that again. And I said, we are people in whom Christ dwells and I could tell that when I said the phrase the phrasing had some spiritual energy and I believe it does because first of all, it is biblical and it’s dealing with truth that we didn’t just make up as power of positive thinking. It’s actually rooted in biblical reality. So, I think that certain words and phrases have that kind of power. Dallas Willard said that he prayed for those kinds of words and phrases because he knew the power. Dallas had so many phrases like that. They are so quotable.  Dallas said, quit quoting me. I said I can’t say it any better."

I like the idea of praying for the right words and phrases.  Smith says, "Speaking of writers, I think it was Mark Twain that said, The difference between goodbwords and the right word is the difference between a lightning bug and lightning. The idea of well, it’s a good word, but it’s like POW!, like lightning, it has life to it, when the words come together just the right way."

You can listen and/or download a transcript here.

Music Week Day 1: The Contrasts and the Contradictions

 The last 24 hours have been full of contrasts.  On the one hand, it was the first full day of  Music Week at Lutheridge:

--Monday began with a long walk with the S. Florida church friend who is staying with us for the week.  Up and down hills, but I didn't really notice them because the conversation was deep and meaningful.

--Morning worship was also deep and meaningful.  I LOVED this prayer of the day:  "On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, not revenge.  He offered bread to feed and to forgive.  On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took a basin of water to sooth [sic], liberate, and heal.  Help us, so washed and fed, to do the same."

--My inner English major was intrigued by the above spelling error, which made me think of soothsaying, which I continued to think about all day.

--My inner English major also was there for Bible study, which will take us to some villains in the Bible.  We began with one of the biggest, the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  One participant talked about the devil possessing the serpent, which sent me to the text, which reminded me that it's not in the text.  Ah, Milton, how your version has taken over everything we think we know about the story--which is what I said, in more non-English-major accessible form.

--One of our last questions for Bible study was "What does the serpent get out of this?"  I keep misspelling serpent, and this morning, I thought about serpent and repent, and now I want to write a poem, "The serpent repents."

--I was there for general choir rehearsal.  From the very beginning, this group can sing.  They sounded amazing, like they had been practicing for weeks, instead of just beginning together.

--The director has interesting ways of describing what he wants:  "You just sang the color dusty rose.  But it was the dusty rose of a piece of tuille or a curtain so faded you can see through it.  Now try it as a deeper rose color."  I immediately thought of a creative writing class idea, having students write a description and me bringing in different fabrics and colors and saying, "Now write it this way." 

--We had good meals together at our house.  The prep work was easy because I did most of it in advance.  It's becoming clear that I have prepared too much food--happily, much of it is freezable.

All of yesterday happened against a back drop of World Cup drama, both the games themselves, and the rumors of a phone call pressuring the officials to change a decision about red cards.  And then, this morning, the U.S. team lost anyway.

I got up this morning to news not only of that sports/political development/scandal, but also of the one in Maine.  If I left that sentence standing by itself, would future me remember which scandal I'm referring to?  In the interest of history, let me note that there are new rape charges against the Democratic candidate for Senate.  The charges that were already known (inappropriate sexting, inappropriate use of force against girlfriends) by the time of the primary would have been more than enough to disqualify him in the not-so-distant past.  Sigh.

I don't have a pithy way to end this post.  After all, if we're lucky, every given day is full of these contrasts if we just know to look:  deep friendship and deep spirituality and the farcical elements of modern life particularly the political bits and pieces, along with song and sustenance of all sorts.

Long Lasting Labyrinth Made of Braids

Yesterday, I posted this picture after we finished setting up the labyrinth at the chapel at Lutheridge:

Early on, the Create in Me retreat ended with closing worship and a labyrinth walk.  We have occasionally used the labyrinth that was created at the old tennis court, but it's not very accessible--and right now, it's still under downed trees.  So back in 2009, we created the braided strips that make the labyrinth.

How do I know that?  I went back to my blog and found this blog post that describes making the strips.  I also found this blog post which is a photo essay, and this post, which describes the experience of using the strips in words.

I have many reasons for why I continue to blog:  this ability to quickly find answers to the "what year was that?" or "how did this project go?" questions is one big reason why I keep blogging.

On the braided strips, we wrote prayers, along with gratitude and appreciation.  This morning, I thought about those prayers from 2009.  How many of them have been answered?  I thought about all of the people:  those of us we prayed for, those of us who did the praying.  Who is still alive?

I thought of all the ways we've used these long, braided strips:  for every Create in Me retreat since (almost 2 decades!).  Other retreats have used the braids, even non-Lutheridge retreats.  Other people have been inspired to try something similar.  I love that it's a budget friendly way to create a labyrinth.

It's a great metaphor for all the ways that our prayers and communities support us, even as the years and decades go on.  We braid our prayers together, in a variety of ways.  Those prayers braid us together, both immediately and through the years.  God, the master fabric artist, takes our offerings and weaves together our communities into an even more beautiful creation.

Prayers and Poems for the Artemis Mission

Like many others, I get the occasional e-mail that tells me that the sender can help me find new readers for my brilliant books, millions and millions of readers.  Yesterday I got a different e-mail, an old-fashioned fan letter of sorts.  

The e-mail writer told me that she had selected my poem for a specific reason:  "This is to let you know that as a member of a Lectio Poetry group that met this morning, I chose your poem 'The Moon Remembers' for our session. Because of the recent NASA mission to send humans farther into space than ever before, and to study the dark side of the moon, I felt fortunate to find your poem to share."

The e-mail concluded this way, "In this world of chaos, 'The Moon Remembers' gave us an hour of peace, of joy, of hope."

Wow--what writer could hope for more than that?  I mean that sincerely.  It is one of the reasons I write, in the hopes of bringing something positive to people.

I don't get many fan letters anymore, and the ones that I get are usually about "Heaven on Earth," perhaps my most famous poem, read on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac.  Yesterday's e-mail referenced "The Moon Remembers."  It's a poem I barely remember writing, and at first, I wondered if she was writing to the wrong poet.

Happily, my blog answers many a question for me.  I posted it in this blog post, and I'm guessing that's how the group leader found my poem.  Even though it's not one of the poems I remember, I'm still happy with it.

Let me post it here again, as I also say a prayer for the Artemis Mission which returns home Friday:

The Moon Remembers

                “I sing and the moon shudders"
                            Li Po, “Drinking Alone by Moonlight”



The moon does not approve of elementary choir
masters who stop the rehearsal, make each quivering
child sing a solo to find the one
who is off key. The helpless moon, marooned
so far away, wishes she could offer sanctuary.

The moon knows what the choir master forgets.

The moon doesn’t understand scales or the division
of voices into the caste systems of chorus:
superior sopranos, dowdy altos, basses as the bubble
of depth holding us up, the star tenor.

The moon remembers what the choir master forgets.

The moon sees our best selves as we sing:
the lonely driver late at night, singing to stay awake,
the melancholy mother, humming Christmas carols
to cheer the babies, the desperate lover
serenading the empty window.

The moon remembers what we all forget.

The moon knows that if we believed in our songs,
strengthened our fragile voices, and sang
as if we meant it, then galaxies would blow
to bits as the universe expands.

Quilt Camp Midway Report

 Much of yesterday, I would have looked like this:

I've had one of those Quilt Camp weeks where I've had to balance the retreat and the other duties of my life.  Yesterday I had planned to go to the class I'm taking, Lutheran Confessions, by way of Zoom and come to Quilt Camp in the afternoon.  But my professor was having travel related disruptions, so we didn't have class.  I got several additional quilting hours in the morning--hurrah!

I made progress both on my own projects and on one of our group projects:

We were asked to take one of the paper doll forms and add fabric scraps to it to represent ourselves.  We've been putting them on the poster, and as we've been looking at our work, we've been praying for each other.

I loved making my self portrait in threads and fabric scraps:

I am tired, tired, tired.  Ordinarily I might say that I'm tired in a good way.  But last night, as my energy level crashed, I spiraled into a strange thought pattern, feeling like all of my fabric art is ugly, ugly, ugly.  What was that all about?

Part of it is being surrounded by other quilting artists who are all doing very different work from the work I'm doing:

My workspace is full of scraps, and the process of putting them into larger squares usually delights me.  The process still delights me, but I'm less sure how well it all works together.  I put some of my more varied squares together and felt despair.  I've got autumnal squares (think browns, coppers, oranges, yellows) and jewel tone squares.  Last night I thought, I've really got two quilts here--which might not be a bad thing.  But will I ever actually finish?

I'm also noticing a pattern in my larger life.  It's easy for me to do the individual parts, but harder to finish the larger project.  I thought about my writing life and all the poems I've written--but so few larger books.  

On the one hand, I take delight in the process, the creativity itself, the commitment to doing creative stuff every day.  On the other hand, I wonder how it might all be different if I focused on seeing a project through to the end.

Do I let myself off the hook too easily?  Should I be more rigorous?  If I decide I should be more rigorous, is it too late?

Let me remind myself of this article I read in The New York Times, an article that talks about Matisse in his later years, his last years, and an exhibition of his work from this time:  "The show includes more than 300 works on loan from around the world (with some exhibited for the first time) that demonstrate how wide the French master’s oeuvre stretched beyond his best-known paintings — to innovative drawings, gouache cutouts, illustrated books, textiles and stained-glass windows. It also challenges the conventional understanding of any artist’s 'late' years as an inevitable tapering off. Here, we see a blossoming, a relentless drive to experiment in new mediums and a radical simplicity that only a lifetime of making could achieve."

Hurricane Prep, Winter Storm Prep

It's been an interesting process, preparing for this widespread winter storm.  In some ways, it's reminded me of hurricane prep, especially in terms of making sure we have the supplies that we need, in case we're cut off from the world for several days.  

But of course, a winter storm is different than a hurricane.  I haven't been worried about the perishable food in the refrigerator--if we lose power, we can put the food outside.  I have been researching carbon monoxide risks with a propane heater that's rated for indoor use, something we never would have needed in South Florida.

Just like with a hurricane, it's hard to know what part of the storm will arrive with what intensity.  So far, we're doing fairly well here, but that could change this afternoon.  And let me be clear, when I say we're doing fairly well here, I am not leaving the house because of the wintry mix that fell and keeps falling and the slick surfaces.  But we have electricity, and so far, the tree branches seem to be their normal shape.

I have gotten most of my information through various online weather sites, not the TV news.  I wonder if the coverage is the same kind of intensity as hurricane approaching coverage.  One of my colleagues at Spartanburg Methodist was so freaked out by it all that she left town, and there was a moment when I wondered if she took the wiser approach.  If the ice had been thicker, if we were out of power for a week or more, I'd say that she was the smart one.  I may yet--we still have hours of precipitation yet to fall.

I do wonder how much of my jitteriness has also been because of Hurricane Helene.  I filled up the stock pot with water, to go with some of our jugs of water left over from Helene--just in case the water system goes down.  Before Hurricane Helene, I wouldn't have thought I needed to worry about that here in the mountains.

I'm glad we decided to cancel worship.  I would not have been able to make it across the mountain, and I am guessing that the roads in Bristol, Tennessee are as bad or worse than they are here.  

My spouse suggested that I do an abbreviated worship, and so I experimented with that this morning.  I did a Facebook Live broadcast on my Facebook page, and then I captured the video so that I could put it on my YouTube channel (you can view it here).  The Facebook post has already gotten more views than almost anything else I've done there.  I don't really know what counts as a view, so I am not reading too much into this.

I'll close with a prayer I wrote for the Sunday devotional time:  

Creator God, as we wait for the storms to pass, give us patience and strength. Help us to remember that you are with us in every kind of weather, both the literal weather and the other types of storms that threaten us. Inspire us to be the light of the world, today and every day.

Prayers for Healthy Choices

While I set New Year's intentions, they aren't usually wildly different from year to year:  there are health goals and creativity goals and spirituality goals.  Most years, my sister joins with me on one or more.  We often adopt a word or phrase for the year.  This year, it's an advertising slogan, but we like it:  "2026:  The year that incremental becomes monumental."

This year, we've got some additional people trying to make incremental health changes that will become monumental.  I sent out this e-mail this morning, and because I like the prayer, I wanted to include it here:

"I wanted to let us all know that I prayed for us this morning, and I'll do so every morning. Some times, it helps to know that someone prays for us. It's a simple prayer:

Give us the strength to make healthy choices, the wisdom to forgive ourselves for past unhealthy choices, and the courage to go forward.

Peace be with us all!"

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.

Jan Richardson's Prayer/Hope for Peace

During a Monday morning prayer group, our leader shared the following prayer by Jan Richardson with us.  Jan Richardson has written many prayers, so I couldn't track the prayer to the original posting of it.  I loved the imagery and language, and it seems appropriate for our moment in history.

That peace will rise like bread we can always hope.
That justice will flow like wine we can always hope.
That the table will make strangers kin we can always hope.
That our hope will rise like bread we can always pray.


By Jan Richardson

Prayer Routines and Rhythms

I have spent the summer experimenting with prayer.  I haven't experimented with forms of prayer, the way I might have in the past.  I haven't done any new types of praying.

But I have prayed more throughout the day.  Since I've spent the summer doing chaplaincy training, this development may not come as a surprise.

Of course, you might say, "Wait, didn't you just finish a divinity degree?  Weren't you a person of prayer before?  And aren't you a Synod Approved Minister?  Doesn't that mean that you pray more than a non-minister person?"

I do understand all the reasons why we should pray.  Many of us do.  And yet remembering to pray throughout the day can be hard.  I've always envied monks their the community who reinforces the expectation of prayers throughout the day.

We began our chaplain day with prayer.  We met at 8, went over who would be where each day, and then we prayed.  We offered up our own prayer requests, and we prayed the prayers left in the prayer box in the chapel.

I tried to stay in the prayer habit as I moved through the day.  When I went on self-care walks on the grounds, I tried to remember to pray for everyone in the hospital.  I spent much of the workday going back and forth to the ward that was assigned to me.  I tried to remember to pray on my way up to the ward. 

It probably will come as no surprise that when I remembered to pray, my time on the ward felt better.  That was in part because of me:  prayer calmed my anxiety about feeling like I was intruding.  Prayer helped me remember who I am and why I was there.  

I am sure that prayer also helped in other ways that I can't quantify.  I hope to carry this illumination with me throughout the months and years to come.  I hope to remember to pray as I move through each and every day.

Sermon on The Lord's Prayer for Sunday, July 27, 2025

July 27, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Luke 11: 1-13


If you were reading this passage in your Bible, you might say, “Ah, a new chapter, a new subject.” But that’s not the way the Gospels were written. Chapter and verse breaks were put in later, for a variety of reasons, but originally, they weren’t there—each Gospel was one long manuscript. The Lord’s Prayer takes on extra nuance if we read it in context of the chunk of text that comes before it, the Good Samaritan text and the story about Mary and Martha.


Both of these are often taught and preached as a stand-alone story. Indeed, we’ve just seen that approach ourselves: 2 weeks ago we had the Good Samaritan as our Gospel reading and last week Mary and Martha.


My New Testament professor was convinced that those two stories, plus the Lord’s Prayer and the teaching on it, were designed to go together, that they speak to each other. The Good Samaritan shows us how we are to love our neighbors, and it stresses that everyone is our neighbor. The Good Samaritan uses his own resources and enlists the help of others, namely the innkeeper.


The story of Martha shows us the dangers that can come from being the Good Samaritan to the larger world. As we discussed last Sunday, Martha is distracted by the kind of work that still has power over us. She is doing the work of diakonia, which can be interpreted as the work of discipleship. Martha’s work is similar to the work that the Good Samaritan does: the work of making people healed and whole. But she’s likely doing this work on a larger scale.


It's important work. But if we approach it the wrong way, we run the risk of becoming like Martha: tired and irritated and exasperated by it all—and much too caught up in the exhaustion to remember why we’re doing this.


It’s a question that has permeated much of Christian teaching through the centuries: how can we stay grounded at the feet of Jesus, like Mary, while doing the work that Jesus calls us to do, like Martha. In today’s Gospel, we get the answer.


We pray.


Jesus knows how hard this simple action can be, and so he gives us the words to use. Many of us have prayed them so often that we might forget how radical they are. We pray to God in the familiar way that we would talk to a parent who loves us. This approach to speaking to any of the gods of ancient times would be unheard of. Indeed, if we look at almost any ancient god, we’d probably want to avoid talking to them if we could. We wouldn’t want them as parents. We certainly wouldn’t seek them out.


When we pray to this Divine power who loves us, we begin by praying for our daily sustenance, our daily bread. We can’t do much else if we’re starving. If we are ever confused about the work that God calls us to do, it begins with sustenance. A starving body can’t focus on much else beyond sustenance. Yet God does call us to so much more, both as individuals and as humans.


Once our daily needs are met, we can focus on larger issues. We pray for forgiveness. We may have been taught that we’re praying that God forgive our individual sins, but Jesus probably had a larger vista in mind. Some translations interpret this passage as a kind of debt relief ("forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"). Scholar Marcus Borg notes that these two aspects--food and debt--would have spoken to Jesus' followers in the first century, who often found themselves short of bread and currency. Many Jews found themselves in a downwards spiral as they leveraged their land, and eventually lost their land, to pay an increasingly heavy tax burden imposed on them from Rome.

It's not so far away from the lives that many 21st century people lead—many of us face financial uncertainty, where we’re just a few unexpected bills away from hardship or catastrophe. Even if we have a more secure financial foothold, it doesn’t take much to make the stock market wobble, which means our portfolios, too, are precarious.

In addition to financial forgiveness, we pray not to be led astray. I like the language "save us from the time of trial," but all the variations speak to me, and sometimes I include them all, praying not to be led into temptation, to be delivered from evil, and to be saved from the time of trial. We are praying that we can resist all that calls us away from the best selves that Christ calls us to be.


You may be wondering where the rest of the Lord’s Prayer went. It’s in the Gospel of Matthew. In Luke, we get this shorter version. There’s a benefit to brevity. A short prayer means that we can pray whenever we have a minute or two—which means we can pray throughout the day.

Notice that Jesus doesn't tell us we have to be in a certain mood to pray. We don’t have to be ready to forsake our bad behaviors or be in a repentant mood. We don't have to wait for the right time of day. We don't even need to come up with the language for ourselves. Christ provides it.

And then at the end, after the prayer itself, Jesus gives us imagery to teach us how God will listen to us: as a loving neighbor or better yet, a parent. Jesus once again reminds us that our God is a loving God. We are to ask for what we need. We should not be afraid to yearn. God has not abandoned us to our own devices. We have chosen to partner with a powerful force when we pray--and yet, it's not a distant force. God loves us, the way a parent loves a child, offering love and protection and comfort.

It seems so simple. But often, we can find it hard to pray—not hard to find the words—Jesus has given us the words, and if we want to fill in with our own petitions, we’ve got a great template. However, it can be hard to remember to actually do it—to be in conversation with God as we go about the day. Martha may be doing important work, the work of the church—but she has ceased being mindful of why she is doing the work. Perhaps Jesus, witnessing her, begins to formulate the prayer which could keep her grounded as she remembers who has called her to do the work in the first place.


Martha’s sister Mary offers another glimpse of the contemplative life, a life which might seem attractive in its silence and stillness. I’ve looked at monastics and envied them their life that is set up to return them to prayer at set hours during the day. But most of us aren’t living in those kinds of communities. I’ve envied monks like Thomas Merton who have a hermitage made out of gardener’s shed and the command from his superior to meditate on Jesus and to write. Most of us have other commitments that we must attend to. Those commitments can claim so much of our attention that we forget to pray.


Notice the shortness of this prayer that Jesus gives his disciples. It’s a prayer that only takes a minute or two. And yet, that moment or two can recalibrate us, centering us in the work that God calls us to do, reminding us of the One who has called us to do it.


Jesus isn’t just talking the talk. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, we see Jesus praying more than in any of the other Gospels, and he often prays after the most intense miracles. The disciples know that Jesus has tapped into something different than the prayers that they’ve seen modeled by priests and Levites. They’ve seen Jesus do great miracles without burning himself to a crisp. They know that he’s tapped into a powerful force with his prayer life.


We are not called to burn ourselves to a crisp like Martha. We are not called to be silent like Mary. We are called to continue the work of Christ, loving our neighbor the way the Good Samaritan did.


Jesus tells those first disciples to talk to God with both familiarity, like when one talks to a family member, and insistence, as one might talk to a neighbor whom we need to share resources. Jesus assures us that we will not be give scorpions or snakes when we ask for what will sustain us.


What work does the world need us to do? Ask, seek, knock—tap into the same powerful force that propelled Christ and centuries of followers to show the world a new kind of love. What do you need as you do this work? Ask, seek, knock—Jesus assures us that God will answer.


Ask, seek, and knock—and know that God will hear and God will not leave you in the cold night needing help. Ask, seek, knock—the world needs what we will find when we do.

Praying for Peace in the World, With Map and Candles

This year, because of CPE,  I can't participate in Music Week the way I have in the past.  But I can go to evening worship.

Last night when we arrived at the chapel, a map of the world was spread out across the center of the worship space.  We picked up battery operated tea light candles as we entered.

Photo by Piper Spencer

The focus of last night's worship was praying for peace in the world.  Near the end of the service, as we sang "Dona Nobis Pacem," we were encouraged to put our candles on a part of the map that we were praying for, and to widen our focus so that we didn't include just the U.S.

Photo by Piper Spencer

As you might be able to tell, the map is not to scale, so I wasn't sure exactly where I placed my candle.  But I thought that aspect worked symbolically too.  If I just pray for peace in the U.S., that peace is much less stable when the rest of the world is not peaceful.  I don't necessarily need to be able to visualize a specific country when I pray for peace in the world, although that prayer practice has merit.

When in doubt, without a doubt, let us pray for peace in the whole world.

When Patients Pray for the Chaplain

Long ago, I had assumptions about what it meant to be a chaplain in a hospital.  I assumed that the chaplain would come along after the doctors had visited the patient, that the chaplain would do pastor type things, like praying and perhaps communion and last rites, depending on denomination.

At some later point, when I'm done with chaplain training and have more time in the mornings, I may write about what we've been doing as chaplains--it's much more intense than just praying, and in fact, prayer may not even be part of a chaplain visit.

In an ideal world, the hospital chaplain is not the only one giving pastoral care--the patient's pastor may be visiting too.  Of course, many people don't have a home church, and even if they do, the home church may not have a traditional pastor, who can make regular hospital visits.  For my parish, Faith Lutheran in Bristol, I can visit after Sunday worship, but that's it.  Fortunately, parishioners can fill in the gap, and they do, but not every church community is so lucky.

Yesterday, I had a variety of hospital visits, and the whole week has been one of variety.  I've had expected joys, like my own prayers, most of them silent.  I've also had unexpected joys, like when a patient offers to pray.   I don't know why I didn't expect to have people pray for me, but I have been surprised at my overwhelming gratitude when others pray.

I shouldn't be surprised.  I remember getting a Christmas card from Mepkin Abbey with this notation:  "The monks of Mepkin are praying for you and with you."  I burst into tears. 

I don't have the time to explore this idea in depth this morning, but I did want to record this joy so that it doesn't disappear into the mists of memory.

(This meditation will show as published on Saturday, June 28.  I actually wrote it on Friday, June 27, but forgot to hit "publish")

Prayers of Blessing at a Seminary Eucharist Service

Yesterday was an even more interesting juxtaposition of events than I thought that we would have when I first wrote a blog post in the morning.  In the morning, I learned of the death of Martha Silano.  In a way, it wasn't a surprise.  I knew of her ALS diagnosis, and her latest poems showed how quickly the disease was progressing.  Here is her May 3 Facebook post:  “If I could eat just one sliver of Genoa salami … and maybe a bite of crispy bagel …. I’d give back every poem I’ve ever written.”

Those words have haunted/inspired me in the days since, the idea that we never know when the things we enjoy might become unavailable to us, because of disease or the forces of history or the lack of time or tariffs or any other reason we want to plug in.  I think of all the times when I've been worried about something (weight gain or would I have enough money to pay the bills or would a teaching schedule come through or why did someone wrinkle their face a weird way which might mean that they are annoyed with me) when I should have been cherishing the moment in a different way, a savoring the richness way.

I thought of Martha Silano at lunch.  My mom, dad, spouse, and I had gone up to Fredericksburg, MD, and we ate at The Wine Kitchen.  It was the perfect day to enjoy their patio seating that overlooked the Carroll Creek, which had a vibe that was both commercial and natural; the weather was perfect with a light breeze, and it was shady.  They had a lunch special that included a glass of wine.  I had the glass of wine for many reasons:  because it went so well with the mushroom strudel, because it was a good deal, because it was part of a perfect lunch.  In my head, I made a toast to Martha Silano and all the wise ones who have reminded me that we need to enjoy life as we can, in all the ways that we can.

During the afternoon, we found out that we have a new pope.  There was some time in the afternoon between lunch and leaving for seminary for the Eucharist service, and I did some reading.  Pope Leo seems like an interesting choice (a Chicago native who spent so many years in Peru that he became a naturalized citizen of Peru).

And then we headed down to D.C.  We left early, because one can never be sure about rush hour traffic.  We got there a bit early, but that was good, because I could get the tickets my family will need to get into the graduation ceremony.  There was a moment when the person in charge of tickets looked at the list, and I felt this fear that maybe I wasn't on the list, that maybe there was some requirement I had forgotten.  Happily, that fear was ungrounded.  I got the tickets, and we went to the chapel.

It was wonderful to sit in the chapel, being surrounded by classmates and family members.  I was touched by how many people remembered me from my brief time living on campus; a few people could still call me by name.  The Eucharist service included a blessing of graduates-to-be by individual faculty members.  We waited in a line, and as each person was free, we processed to them.  I felt lucky to be blessed and prayed over by a faculty member whom I liked:  I took both her Ethics class and her Stories of Power class.  Some of the faculty members I didn't know, and I wondered how that prayer would have been--much more generic, I imagine.

My prayer/blessing included mention of me as a Literature professor, as someone who inspires good in the world, as someone who is both confident but with humility.  I found myself wishing I could have recorded it in some way.

But then I thought about how much I have recorded, which often means I'm not truly in the moment.  I tried to concentrate on staying present and tried not to think about how much concentration it takes to stay present with the moment.

There was a reception afterwards, with heavy appetizers, which made our evening meal.  We ended with a glass of wine each back at the hotel, a wonderful end to a wonderful day.

We live in a time where everyone uses the word "blessed" so much that it seems stripped of meaning:  "How are you today?"  "Blessed"--or "Have a blessed day."  But I really do feel blessed, along with the guilt that comes along with that.  Why do I get to enjoy a day like yesterday when a talented poet like Martha Silano does not get a longer time on the earth?  Even theological thinkers have some trouble with that question.

In the end, let me just remember that if we're lucky, we have good days, and the good days aren't a sure thing.  Let me remember to live with intention, to seek out the good days, to arrange my life so that good days are more likely. 

Prayer Loom Reborn

Nine years ago, my spouse and his father made a prayer loom for our Maundy Thursday dinner and worship (for more on that experience, see this blog post).  That summer, I used it for Vacation Bible School (this blog post tells about it and gives pictures).  Eventually, we moved the prayer loom to the back of the church sanctuary.  I liked seeing it and occasionally someone returning from communion might touch it, but I imagined it had been thrown away by now.

This morning, I woke to the happy news that the prayer loom has found a new life.  One of my friends at my Florida church used it for a class project and posted pictures on Facebook, along with a shout out to me.  Here's the picture:

I look at it and can see parts of the original, still there.  It reminds me of how our prayers build on each other, weaving a web, weaving a net, keeping us from falling into the abyss.

Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul

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

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

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

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

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

I also find it helpful to remember that Paul expected that Christ would return within the lifetime of everyone hearing or reading his words.  He wasn't writing guidebooks for the centuries.  He would be astonished to realize that we're still reading his letters--much the way that I would be if someone from 2000 years in the future told me that future communities treasured my blog posts or e-mails.

Here is a prayer for today:

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

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.

Part of a Prayer for Monastic Vocation

This week, I was part of a Zoom session, where, for closing prayer, the woman used part of the Mepkin Abbey Prayer for Monastic Vocation.  She reminded us that we could have an expansive view of that vocation.

I have been thinking about an expansive view of a monastery, something beyond the physical building.  Can our lives be a monastery?  I've written some poems about the heart as a monastery, although I can't find them right now.

I did find the Prayer for Monastic Vocation.  Long ago at Mepkin Abbey, the Abbot passed out postcards.  On one side was the prayer; on the other side, a picture of all the monks.  I put the postcard in the pocket of the winter lightweight coat that I rarely used in South Florida, and I was always delighted when found it in subsequent seasons.

It's still there!  Here's the passage that we used in closing prayer:

"We come before you now asking for the grace

To be faithful to our vocation

Striving to live in the communion of Love which surpasses all other gifts."

We Are Waiting, Jesus: A Closing Liturgy/Prayer for Advent

Yesterday, we watched worship from other churches where we have a connection.  I'm always interested to know what other churches are doing.  I had taken a walk with the pastor who was supply pastor at our local Lutheran church yesterday, and I wanted to know how her sermon would turn out, especially since her ideas about the fig tree inspired me to look at the Gospel passage with fresh eyes.

Her approach was different than mine, which was no surprise, but we both saw the leaves on the fig tree as a sign of hope, not a harbinger of doom (or a harbinger of autumn and winter being right around the corner).

Our Florida church observed World AIDS day, which seemed appropriate for Advent.  I thought about how I neglected to mention it, but I'm at a very different church in Bristol, Tennessee.  I could have made it fit with my sermon, though--drat for lost opportunities.

Our Florida church has an Advent liturgy that I've never seen anywhere else, and can't find now.  I'm almost sure it came from the Iona community in Scotland originally.  We close worship each Sunday in Advent with a prayer that says, "We are waiting, Jesus.  We are waiting in Pembroke Pines."  

Through the years, we've added various cities.  At first, it was just the cities surrounding the church where members live:  "We are waiting in Pembroke Pines and Hollywood, in Dania Beach and Ft. Lauderdale."  Now, as we livestream and record, the church has added all the cities/states where former members have moved.

Yesterday, I felt a sublime happiness to hear, "We are waiting, Jesus, in North Carolina."  How wonderful to know that although we are gone, we are not forgotten.  It's what the best liturgies do--sew the past to the present, while looking to the future.

A Prayer/Blessing for the Day after Thanksgiving

We gather with grateful hearts in the hopes that we can remember to maintain this gratitude.

We pray for those who do not have much that inspires gratitude this year.

We pray for those who went to bed hungry last night.

We pray for those who have been shattered and broken.

We pray to a God who knows how to transform brokenness into beauty.

We prepare our hearts for Advent, watching and waiting, even when we are tired of watching and waiting.