Post Hurricane Gratitude

I am surprised to be here with electricity, writing a blog post, sipping freshly brewed coffee.  Let me clarify:  I expected to be here, just not with electricity.  This time yesterday, I was sure we would be without power, and if we were lucky, it would only last for several days.  I was still worried about the storm wobbling west with stronger winds than we were expecting.

While I said my share of prayers, I don't believe that God decided to spare my house.  I have offered gratitude both to God and to the laws of planetary physics that kept the hurricane offshore.  But I also realize that luck probably had more to do with my good fortune. 

It certainly wasn't my good behavior.  I worship a God of grace; as my pastor reminded us in a Facebook post this morning addressed to people who would soon suggest that the hurricane's path had something to do with God's judgment, "God does not send cataclysms to get our attention or punish our sins or because you hate people who are different from you. If God punished our sins like you think God does or should then everyone (people like you) would be dodging tidal waves and meteors and volcanic eruptions instead of having time to post or tweet or even whisper such drivel."

Happily, I haven't seen many posts that suggest that Haiti was being punished or that southeast Florida was being rewarded.  Those of us who avoided a close catastrophe know that we did, and we're immensely grateful.

Part of my gratitude will include making a donation to those less fortunate.  For those of you who want to contribute too, I recommend Lutheran World Relief--they've been in Haiti for decades now, and they'll stay there for decades to come, alas.  They also have a great record of actually using the money for relief instead of for staffing administrators in offices back in the U.S.  Go here to make a donation.

Weather that Nourishes All of Creation

I have always felt weird about praying about the path of hurricanes.  For one thing, I'm not sure that God gets involved in the laws of physics that way.

But for another, I'm aware that if I'm saved by the hurricane going elsewhere, it means doom for someone else.

Yesterday, I came across a way to pray about hurricanes.  The rest of this post is from a Facebook post written by Mary Mappus Finklea, who has given permission to share:

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"Grant weather that nourishes all of creation."

 This petition from Holden evening prayer has always been particularly moving for me. Especially after staying at the Lutheran Seafarers Hostel in NYC and meeting a sailor who said it drove him crazy when everyone just wanted the storms to go out to sea. He said there are people there too to care about. I've also liked this petition because it's not "me-centered" as in 'get the storm out of MY front yard and send it up north to be some other guy's problem'. And the petition keeps in mind the welfare of plants, animals, livestock, etc.

So my prayer this morning is "Grant weather that nourishes all of creation."

(a Facebook post from Mary Mappus Finklea)

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, October 9, 2016:


First Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Psalm: Psalm 111

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 66:1-11 (Psalm 66:1-12 NRSV)

Second Reading: 2 Timothy 2:8-15

Gospel: Luke 17:11-19

We've spent a lot of time lately wrestling with texts which offer us guidelines for discipleship which may seem close to impossible for modern people to follow: give away our wealth? Surely Jesus didn't mean that.

This Sunday's Gospel gives us a task which should be easier. We need to practice gratitude. It seems like it should be such an easy thing, but some people find it easier to give away their money than to be grateful. We focus on the prayers that we perceive of as unanswered. We find ourselves obsessing over people who seem to receive better blessings than we do. We nurse our disappointments, our hurt, our anger. We are in spiritually dangerous territory when we do this.

If you can pray no other prayer, get into the habit of saying thank you. If you think you have nothing over which you'd like to offer thanks, think again. Do your body parts work as well as can be expected? Even if you're not in the best health, you can probably focus on something that's a blessing. Once I saw Arthur Ashe on the Phil Donahue show, where he had appeared to talk about his recent diagnosis: he had AIDS. But he seemed so cheerful, and when asked about that, he said that he focused on what his body could do. He grinned and said, "I've never had a cavity." If only more of us could follow his large-spirited lead.

When you think about what's lacking in your life, you might focus on your lack of funds. But compared to the rest of the world, you've extremely wealthy. Want to know just how wealthy? Even if you're in the lower tiers of poverty in the US, you're still fairly well off compared to the rest of the world. You're still likely to have safe water and electricity and some sort of roof over your head--even a TV!

My friend Sue used to do a type of gratitude exercise with her children. When they saw a magnificent sunset or a field of flowers or a tree ablaze in autumnal leaves, they’d yell, “Great show God!” It could be a bit startling if you were the one driving the car and not expecting this outburst. Yet the spirit was infectious. Even today, when I see something beautiful in nature, I murmer, “Great show, God.”

The beautiful thing about cultivating a garden of gratitude is that it opens our hearts in a unique way. Being grateful can lead to those other spiritual disciplines that seem so hard taken out of context. We’re saying “Thank you” more often, which puts us in a space where prayer comes more naturally. We are aware of all the blessings that we have and we’re more inclined to share. Our hearts and our brains and our hands move in unison to work with God to create the kind of reality that God wants for each of us to experience.

The Feast Day of Saint Francis

Today is the Feast Day of St. Francis.  These days, we might be more familiar with this saint, since our current pope chose the name Francis.  Many of us think of Francis as being kind to animals.  Today, what would Francis say about modern people and our pets?

When I was in elementary school, one of the most pressing theological questions concerned pets.  Would they go to Heaven?  I remember that it seemed like a pressing question.

Of course, I also worried about the unforgivable sin and the fact that various adults answered the question differently when I asked, "What is the unforgivable sin?"  So, I will grant you that I was an unusual child.

When I asked about pets and Heaven, some adults brushed off my question by saying, "Of course not.  Animals don't have souls."

I suspect that few adults today would go for that simple answer, at least the ones who share their lives with pets.  We live in a time where people spend enormous amounts of money on their pets.  Gone are the days when you'd spend a chunk of money for shots and that would be the extent of your vet bills for the life of the pet. 

Lately, I've been thinking about the care we offer our pets and contrasting that care with the amount of care we give ourselves.  I've known more than one person who cooked better meals for their dogs than they do for themselves.  You can probably offer similar examples:  humans who make sure that their pets see dentists, even when the human members of the family don't take care of their teeth, dogs who see therapists, pets who get wonderful treats that humans deny themselves--the list could go on and on.

 I wonder how Francis came to be so associated with pets.  I think of him as someone who looked out for the outcast of society as he cared for lepers.  We don't think about the implications of that aspect of his life in the pet blessing services that many churches will have to celebrate the life of this saint.

We also don't hear much about the work of Francis to help end the Crusades.It's a good day to think about modern wars and the sweep of destruction.  We might also think about just wars, the kind that many Crusaders would tell you that they were fighting.  What's the best way to rescue populations that are invaded?  Or should we intervene at all?

But there's more to Francis, so much more.   He gave up everything he owned--and he was rich--in a quest for a more authentic life. He inspired others to follow the same path, and he founded two religious orders that still thrive.  I can't decide which impresses me more, the insistence on an authentic life, even if it cost him everything or his fierce commitment to community.

As we celebrate the life of St. Francis, will we hear these parts of the story? I doubt it. Those are the parts of the story that are threatening to the social order. We can't have young people behaving in the way that St. Francis did. What on earth would happen then?

Our society would be transformed.

Happy New Year!

Several people have asked me if my school has Rosh Hashanah off.  No, we don't. 

I remember the first autumn we lived down here, and how remarkable it seemed to me to have Jewish holidays off.  Before South Florida, I had never lived in any place with enough Jews to affect holiday policy in this way. We moved down here to be part of a more multicultural environment, but before we arrived, I hadn't thought of North American Jews as one of the cultures I'd get to meet.

I'm an equal opportunity celebrator: let's have some Muslim and Hindu holidays off too!

At my school, we have Christmas day and a day before or after Christmas--those don't seem like particularly Christian holiday times to me.  We have Good Friday off, which is strange to me, since there are only a few of us deeply Christian enough to observe this holiday.  Most people would probably rather have Easter Monday off--it would make travel on the week-end easier, if we're part of families who celebrate Easter in any way.

But back to this Jewish high holy day.  If I was a practicing Jew, this day, indeed this time, the 30 days before Rosh Hashanah up through Yom Kippur and beyond to Sukkot, would be drenched with meaning.  I've met many Jews who will fast on Yom Kippur, even though they don't observe any other part of the spiritual path which is Judaism.  I've met "cultural Jews" who will cook the foods of each holiday but participate in no other way.

Are there aspects of this holiday that can speak to us all?  Certainly.  I like the idea of times that encourage us to be mindful of our best selves--how we're manifesting our best selves and where we still need some work.  For many of us, that time comes once a year, around January 1.

I know that people eat sweets on this holiday in the hopes of having an upcoming year that's sweet. Does the same hold true for other kinds of invitations? Should we be doing activities on Rosh Hashanah that we hope to invite into our lives for the rest of the year?

I'm not sure that's a real Jewish tradition, but I like the idea of it. Here I sit, writing in the early hours of the morning--I hope that I can still be doing that as the year progresses.  Later today, I'll be in touch with friends and family, whether by way of Facebook, e-mail, or good old-fashioned face to face talking.  I've gotten away from some of the visual arts that I do--let me find time to do that today.  Today is the first day of the new term at my school--may there be many more!
Happy Rosh Hashanah to us all, whether we be cultural Jews, Orthodox Jews, ecumenically minded folks, or that large group of people who have no religious practice.  May the coming year be sweet in ways that will nourish us!

Stay Alert--the Hurricane to Our South Version

Today I am distracted.  There's a huge hurricane to our south, and even though it won't affect the weather here in south Florida for several days, there's some part of me that wants to go fill the water bottles.

I won't do that--today is my day to be in charge at church while my pastor is away, so at least I won't keep checking the National Hurricane Center's website or the blogs at Weather Underground.  I will pray for everyone in the path of this storm--the people of Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba have far fewer resources than I do.

I keep thinking of all the admonitions throughout the Bible that we stay awake and watchful.  I know that the ancients didn't have hurricanes in mind, but having a hurricane in the neighborhood can trigger an alertness that can be valuable in many ways.

Hurricane season reminds me of how little of my life is really in my control, and the idea that I'm in charge is such an illusion. I can no more control many of the currents (economic, health, political) that affect my life than I can control the weather.

I could live in denial of my essential powerlessness; many people do. I could pretend that benign powers bend to my will as I cast my votes and save my money and do all the things which may or may not lead me into healthy old age. I could eat my vegetables while I salt away money and try to believe it will all work out. Or I could become that sneering cynical person who is so tiring in social settings. Or I could become comatose with hopelessness.

Happily, I have another option. I can trust in God, who has promised that my needs will be met. I can trust that this creator, who has provided such a glorious planet, has not left us all alone to the whims of currents that we can barely perceive.

And I can help those who will come out on the other side of this storm as the unfortunate victims.  Let us all remember them, in advance, today as we meet and worship and pray.

Blessing Our Pets in Church

Across the country this week-end, many churches will be having services to bless pets. We do this ostensibly to celebrate the life of St. Francis, although there was so much more to St. Francis than his love of animals (more on that on his feast day on Oct. 4). Today, I'd like to think about pets and whether or not we should have a service to bless them.

I once attended a church that incorporated the pet blessing into the regular service, which meant that we all attended church with a variety of animals that day. I confess to being nervous. What if some of those less-friendly animals got loose? What if someone in the church was deathly allergic to the hair of one of those animals? I was deeply distracted that day and relieved to get out of the sanctuary. Worship should not inspire those feelings.

Many churches do a separate service these days. That means that people like me can avoid the whole thing. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate animals, and if I lived by myself, I might want a pet for companionship--but only if I worked fewer hours and travelled less.

Moving the worship service to a separate time, and perhaps a separate place, still doesn't solve the theological question. Why are we blessing our pets? I'd ask a harder question: why do we welcome pets into our sanctuaries while not welcoming the most destitute members of our society? Let's be honest: what would your church members do if a deranged homeless person walked through the doors or a skinhead or a family who didn't speak the language of members?

Maybe a pet blessing service opens our hearts to those who don't speak our language or look like us? But I'm also troubled by the knowledge of how much money we're spending on our pets. Gone are the days when you'd spend a chunk of money for shots and that would be the extent of your vet bills for the life of the pet. I know people who cook for their pets because they're horrified at what goes into pet food. Yet I don't see that passion for food safety translate into other areas of life.

What does it mean that we spend so much on our pets and so little on the poor? What does it mean that we care more about the health of our pets than our own health or the health of our fellow humans or the health of the planet?

I worry that our pets are shrinking our human contact. I know several people who are happier to spend an evening with a pet than with a friend. What does that say about our society?

A good pastor could address some of these elements in a pet blessing service. A good pastor could remind us that as we care for our pets who are thoroughly dependent on us, we are called to care for the poor amongst us, who are also thoroughly dependent on our generosity.

Yes, a good pastor could make all kinds of connections so that a blessing of the pets service avoids insipidness. Let me rest in the hope that most pastors who incorporate pet blessings will take advantage of this opportunity.