Stone of Witness

Enuf is Enuf!

2012-01-24T17:42:00.001-05:00

A white paper has been written for the Bishop of Norwich by a C of E which is being recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury in support of the Anglican Covenant. Written by the Canon Librarian of the Norwich Cathedral, Peter Doll resurrects much of the froth and bother that began to be developed in the US some 10 years ago as the extreme conservatives in the US House of Bishops began to lose power. There were accusations of lack of collegiality, appeals to history, uncertain theologies, lack of catholicity, etc. by those bishops then and Doll seems to return to their arguments.

It begins with a nod to the academic delving into the history of Christianity in the US with all the appropriate footnotes, but it is a history of the American ‘popular church’ that is no more characteristic of the Church in which I have served for the past 30 years than a barrel of monkeys. And after his nod at scholarship he goes on a 5 page rant about how ‘un-Anglican’ and even ‘un-Christian’ TEC is because we have been so high-handed in what we have done by consecrating openly gay and lesbian clergy to the office of bishop. It is interesting that there is no reference to the Anglican Church of Canada who did many of the same things.

Doll was born in the US and a Yalie, and perhaps feels that he is an authority on all life in America. But it is clear from his writing that he has no experience of the church he is supposed to be writing about. He has spent most of his adult life ordained for the C of E, living in the culture of the UK. The C of E and TEC are not the same but we come from the same roots.

Doll’s statement : ”The American religious experience is like no other, and even if American Anglicans have historically identified themselves as standing apart from evangelical Protestantism, as being a cut above socially and intellectually, their actual experience is nevertheless deeply imbued with these same primordialist assumptions” is not only not true in the Episcopal Church since WWII, it is offensive to those of us who find their spiritual home in a church that straddles the catholic/protestant abyss today in ways never appreciated in other parts of the Communion. It is clear he has a singular prejudice against the concept of a faith rooted in experience with nips and digs at the evangelicals that are presently ascendant in American politics and the Methodists for their lack of orthodoxy (really?) and then paints the whole American religious canvas as gnostic.

The American Episcopal Church IS a unique church. That is part of the glory of Anglicanism. All our national churches are unique to the cultures we serve. We do provide an alternative to the Calvinistic and Roman Catholic strands of Christianity that make up the majority the Christian experience here. We are a small presence in the total mainline tree of Protestantism in the US. But we do like to think that we provide a place for a thinking person’s response to faith. We are a vital leaven in the whole Christian loaf that makes up the US.

Unlike the C of E, we are not an academic-bound church. We have good theological schools and have produced fine teachers, but we do not expect our bishops to be scholars. Like the Lutherans we put much more emphasis on the pastoral duties of our bishops, priests and deacons. We find ministry to those in the pew, the celebrations of the sacraments and service of the needy lively ways to live out what it means to be the Church of Christ in our area. We believe that these stem from our Baptismal covenant and are central to how we not only experience faith but also how we share it. In other words, the laity is the primary order in the church not priest or bishop.

We are aware that we are not only a church in a very powerful country but in 9 other nations of the world. TEC often stands in opposition to the actions of US national interests as a voice for the poor, disenfranchised and the voiceless. We too stood with South Africa in her fight against apartheid. And it was the dogged work of Bishops John Walker and Archbishop Tutu that brought the US sanctions that finally helped topple the moneyed interests in South Africa. TEC too has voiced our concerns against the misuse of power that often accompanies global industries which pollute or disorient local economies. We try to address the issues of our day in the light of the Gospel. We are not the church of the moneyed class any longer.

We are truly trying to encounter this new era of technology and post-modernism with the message that the Incarnation is present now as it was in times past. Granted this newness is not going to look like it always has, but it will continue to challenge a new era by inviting a whole new generation into the intimacy with their God. Now, if that is what is to be called ‘cultural imperialism,’ so be it. It seems to me that this is what mission is about. It is also what happens when there are great movements in history that change the way that people embrace the truth of their existence in relation to their surroundings. We need but see the movements in faith history over the past 4 millennia to see what is happening in our world today.

In the past almost 10 years, I have found it almost comical that TEC is blamed for GAFCON leaving the Communion. We have forced no other church to force people or churches or dioceses from the common Table. We have not demanded that others think or act the way we do. We have gone ahead and acted on 40 years of study and ministry to best serve the people we have in our Church. We find that honesty about sexual orientation is preferred to hiding behind celibacy or denial. We believe that both the scientific and spiritual communities have spoken to the issue of homosexuality clearly and it is important to address the injustices of furthering discrimination as we have done on issues such as slavery, racism, colonialism and sexism. We do not demand other parts of the communion to believe as we do. But we do expect that when we send our leaders to be in council with other parts of the Communion that they will be respected and welcomed as Christ just as we would welcome and respect the leaders of other churches.

The Reverend Canon is kidding himself if he does not recognize the Anglican Covenant as a punishing document. It was meant to be a punishing document. Even the original writers of the early process spoke of ‘punishing those churches that did not conform.’ We know that was the intention at the very beginning of the “Windsor Process”. Even in the far reaches of the New Zealand Church the Ateroa ? people recognize the wording as unfavorable to anyone who might need to serve the particular needs of a culture. The Covenant is not a document that serves to unite. It serves to separate any culture that does not fit into some unexplained, undeveloped criteria which is formed by those who might find expediency more important than the needs in the local church.

It is part of the zeitgeist of our age that we are quarrelling. We need but look at the governments of nations around the world that have been brought to a standstill simply because one element refuses to listen to the other. No covenant can counter that. The listening processes that were set in place long ago were allowed to be ignored in our Communion. They were easier to ignore and deny rather than to deal honestly and openly even at the Lambeth venue. The voice of those specifically concerned in the present issue were silenced and not allowed to be heard collegially, so fear replaced honest and frank discussion on a topic that concerns us all. We need but see the draconic legislation against LGBT persons in Uganda a direct result of the Anglican Communion not addressing issues with respect and a willingness to listen. And now lives are threatened simply because bishops were unwilling to listen to the new medical, sociological, biblical and information. This will not be helped by a Covenant. It will only be helped when we have raised up men and women who are willing to sit with uncomfortable topics and discuss them with all their gifts so that they can work in their own areas to serve their people.

So the Covenant is designed to ‘spank the Yank’ because we have gone ahead and done something that others find uncomfortable. Is it easier to spank the church that has remained in communion than to deal with those who have been disobedient to their own churches and have been aided and abetted by churches that disagree?

The Anglican Communion has churches that stand in all kinds of places: those places that are only on the verge of modernism, those who stand fully in the modern age and those who are deeply involved in a post-modernist experience of culture. There is no hierarchy of value in that. We cannot slow down or ignore the progress that is being made in the societies in which we live. If we allow ourselves to be ‘shamed’ into some kind of time warp, we will be like the Roman Catholic Church in many places, unable to address the needs of God’s people and unable to address the sweeping changes that face us. This does not mean that we are being high-handed. This does not mean that we are arrogant. But it does mean that we are listening to the culture as it is, not the way we want it to be. We are not trying to control the experience of God for our own motives. We are trying to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to our own age.

I agree, the Anglican Covenant cannot support the kind of Christian churches that will meet this new age. “It is a modernist document for a post-modern age.” It will serve to break apart the Anglican Communion because it is not flexible enough for churches to meet the needs of their people and cultures. We do not need a covenant. We do need the charity and humility of Christ enough to be willing to address things we do not understand trusting in the Christ that is in each of us.

That this ‘white paper’ ( I would be more inclined to call it yellow) is going to those who would vote for or against the Covenant in UK with the ABC’s imprimatur has finally tipped it for me. ++Williams has shown his hand as being just as Anti-American as others have told me he is. I am sorry to have to come to this awareness. I want the men I pray for each week to be able to be aware of the church here in my edge of the universe, not convinced that we are merely being arrogant when all we really want to do is serve in the joy of Christ.

I am tired of the wrangle though. I am tired of people telling me that I am not as Christian as they are simply because I think differently than they do. I have always thought that Anglicanism was based on not ‘having a window into men’s souls.’ I will never deny anyone communion at the table I serve because it is not my table to guard. It is the Lord ’s Table I serve and from what I read in the Gospel, Jesus fed all who came with abundance left over.

Friday Five: Recomendations

2012-01-13T11:53:00.000-05:00

Revkjarla has posed an interesting Friday five:

So, it's the time of year I get inundated with requests for recommendations for students that are looking to be camp counselors. So in honor of camp counselors everywhere, today's Friday Five is the Recommendation edition (which has nothing to do with camp or summer or anything--work with me, it's late....)

1. Recommend a favorite worship resource or devotional book.
OK, I'm one of those weird "piskies" who turns to the Book of Common Prayer for everything. The other things I turn to is THE BIBLE (gasp!), the poetry of English 17th century Divines--Andrews, Taylor, Hebert, Donne and the like. I am so traditional.

2. Recommend a blog that you like to read that you think others might find enjoyable.

I am a daily reader of Elizabeth Kaeton's Telling-Secrets.blogspot.com, not only because she is my friend, but because she always has something that makes me think. She is so eclectic. She is a wonderful lover of Jesus, a tough woman, a partnered lesbian who has fought for the right to raise their children (all 7 of them) a bold priest that never denied who she was through the process and just frickin' smart. And as she says "hand to Jesus" wonderfully funny.

3. Recommend a fiction book that you think people might like.

I tend to read series. So I recommend authors: If you have never picked up a book from Laurie R. King you have missed a fine mystery writer. Also if you enjoy Episcopal humor or enjoy poking fun at Episcopalians, Mark Schweitzer's Liturgical Mysteries are a hoot. The latest The Christmas Cantata is just plain dear.

4. Recommend a favorite recipe website. O.k., if you aren't into cooking or food, then just recommend a random website that you find useful, hilarious, mind numbing or thought provoking.

I often find things on foodnetwork.com. My favorite thing tho is Yorkshire pudding to go with a roast beef. This will serve 4--in our house, it serves 2. 8>)

3/4 cup of milk
3 eggs
pinch of salt
3/4 cup of flour
Beat eggs and milk together. Add flour and salt and beat until smooth. Let stand for 30 mins. or so.

When you remove the roast from the pan to rest before carving. Add pudding mixture to the hot roasting pan and into the pan drippings and return to the oven until risen and brown on top. Serve with brown gravy and the roast. Yummmmm.

(If you need to expand this, always keep the flour, eggs and milk equal parts) This is NOT 'clean eating' I can assure you but it is the way that generations of us British rooted folks survived before potatoes arrived in Europe.

5. And for the last recommendation--it's bloggers' choice! Make a recommendation for anything!

Today I am recommending more pressing sheets time. I feel immensely hung-over. Not from anything alcoholic, but from 3D movies. I got a horrible case of vertigo last night trying to watch TinTin. It took clonazipam to get me to sleep. And now I feel fuzzy headed and grumpy. I wonder if this could be a result of cataract surgery too? They put in a different kind of lens. But 3D definetly attacked my eyes.

Enjoy the day. I am going back to bed.

Friday, January 06, 2012Friday Five - The A-ha Moments

2012-01-06T10:45:00.000-05:00

Kathrynzj has come up with an interesting Friday Five:

This past holiday season is not one I will soon forget, but not for the reason some may think. Certainly, it was a busy one for those involved in the life of the church. The 1-2 punch of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on a Sunday brought more than a few of us to our knees (or hopefully to a more comfortable napping position).

In the midst of the holiday season I had one of those moments where a path suddenly was made clear - A-ha! This experience has prompted me to wonder what some of your A-ha moments may be.

They can be mundane - a realization that you like/don't like a certain food or that you really look good in that color you never had the guts to try. They can be sacred - a way to better pace your day clicks into place or finally a devotion or meditation practice that really works for you. They can be profound - the moment you realized he/she was the one (or wasn't)or the moment you realized where your deepest passion could meet the world's greatest need.

1. I love greens and purples. I have never been able to wear them with my blond hair. And in the spirit of “When I grow old I will wear purple” I decided to really try out purple thinking it would really go with my now white/silver hair: It may go with the hair but it doesn’t go with my skin tones. So much for my A-Ha!

2. Some years ago I finally figured out that extroverts such as I do better if they work on Mondays rather than taking the day off. Sundays rev me up and I was ready to hit the work week on Mondays and take Fridays off. I broke with tradition of the parish and began to open the office on Mondays and I began to use my personal energy better.

3. When I retired, I was truly unhappy with retirement. Granted, I could sleep in any day I wanted and read what I wanted, but I needed to DO something. So I volunteered at the local parish where they needed to have some adult (read senior) bible study. (‘Ask not what your parish can do for you, but what can you do for your parish’) I now have a goodly class that meets regularly and is really contributing to the energy of the parish (and their own). We may start our own chapter of the Grey Panthers! Watch out!

4. I have a-ha moments daily. They usually have to do with technology. I fear the day when those a-ha moments no longer come because I will then no longer be able to converse with people or work my computer or my phone or my kindle or whatever. But what is happening in the technological age is that people my age are being left out of the educational world simply because we do not have technological skills. I have been asked by the diocese to chair the education committee for ‘older adults’. My initial response what “No—not just NO but HELL NO because I don’t know anyone over 55 who is going to identify as an ‘older adult’. We are all still 30 something in our heads. But perhaps what I need to do is develop a curriculum on technological studies for seniors who like I have little or no background in computers, smartphones and pad technology. I think I even have some techie younger women who have decided to stay at home with kids who can teach it.

5. God-moments are always A-ha’s. Haven’t had as many of those lately as I would like, but God is always there so I haven’t drifted too far away. Maybe a bit more singing will prime that pump.

Mike

2011-12-29T20:19:00.001-05:00

One of the things I hate about growing older is that with each Christmas, I find friends have died. Yesterday came the news of the death of the “boy next door.” Only a few years older than I, Mike was the clean-cut, Boy Scout and then ROTC cadet that any girl would have liked to have as her boy-friend, even me.

He was 8 when we moved in across the street. I was 4 so we grew up together spending time in each other’s houses and with that kind of communal parenting that went on streets all over the South and Mid-west in the ‘50s. If you got in trouble with Mike’s mom or dad it was just as bad as if you had gotten trouble with your own.

Mike was just enough older to teach me how to play ball and climb trees. He rode a bicycle before I did and helped me when I got an old Schwinn with coaster brakes. We had the same teachers at the local primary school. Mike was a better student than I so I always felt a bit in his shadow. But I could sing and he could NOT.

One of the things that we did do around this time of the year was to gather up all the discarded Christmas trees and make forts out of them. For those in the North, this was the Texas answer to snow forts and we threw mud balls instead of snowballs. The premise was the same. I always wanted to be in Mike’s team because he had strategies to “get” the other kids unawares. It is not surprising that the military became his passion. He did ROTC in high school and at A&M taking his place among “The Corps” and finally the Army.

I worried about him while he was in Viet Nam and checked with his mother regularly when I would come home from college. His mother became one of those “parent alternatives” that all teens need. She was one of 5 girls of an old Texas macho father who gave boy’s nicknames to his daughters. I never heard Mike’s mom called “Edna”; she was always “Jack” and that suited me just fine. Both she and Oscar, Mike’s dad were funny people. Oscar was an incessant reader and seemed to know EVERYTHING even when he didn’t. Jack knew the funniest jokes—a little on the ribald side—something I never heard at home.

I learned to play cards with Mike and his younger brother Tom: first Fish, then rummy and then poker for toothpicks. I was too Scot to play for money.

I became the best half-back on the block since I grew earlier than the two younger boys. It was Mike who always included me in the games until he went to high school and didn’t have time for ‘little kids.’

Our lives began to touch again long after some of our parents had died. Mike had married a girl from my high school class and they ended up Episcopalians as did I. When I lived in Washington, DC, I would sometimes see his wife at church events and Mike was a Lector at my installation as rector of my parish there. We weren’t close, and yet we were. We were both proud of each other with that kind of “hometown-kid-made-good” type of respect.

Last year I saw him again. He happened to be in town for the Cotton Bowl when another parent of that neighborhood died and I was doing the funeral. After the funeral we went with the family to lift a glass in memory of her. We talked of the old times and the fun. We remembered together silly events that make up childhood and made the grieving for the family rich with wholeness and holiness.

I am saddened by this loss. I hurt for his wife and children. I give thanks for the friendship with a boy who I knew as a child and watched as a man. I ache at the thought of not seeing him again, but my memories are warm and dear. He became the man that I though he was all those years ago—courageous, kind, faithful, innovative, generous, inclusive and above all, patriotic in the good sense. I give thanks for friends like these who have called me to my better self and mourn their passing.

May he rest in peace and rise in the Glory of God.

O Mysterium

2011-12-24T14:05:00.001-05:00

Christmas Eve is especially dear to me. Many years ago a nun friend invited me to play French horn at the convent chapel for Christmas Eve. I already had scheduled a gig earlier in the evening. Christmas season services are the bread and butter to symphonic musicians. But this Midnight Mass was different. I was doing a favor for my friend.

The chapel was dark. We had lights on our music stands but then the nuns processed in with candles and there began an event that changed my life. Somewhere in that darkened chapel my ‘gig’ turned into worship, my music turned into gift and my faith entered into relationship with the Holy One.

It would take years for me to even begin to understand what happened to me that night. It is still a mystery and each Christmas after, that mystery inserts God’s self into my memory. It reminds me of what the ancients called the mysterium tremendum. It reminds how silently and unexpectedly God enters our lives and often can only be seen in hind sight. But even in its silence, it impacts how we live, and move and have our being.

My hope for all my friends is this encounter of the Mysterium Tremendum in the services of faith tonight and tomorrow.

Theology 101: Incarnation

2011-12-22T13:02:00.000-05:00

I have been reading Mapping Human History by Steve Olson. It was published in 2002 and I got it from the library. It is a survey of DNA mapping. One of its themes is that race as a biological event is quite recent in human history. Skin color, pointed noses, flat faces, curly hair, all markers that societies have used to delineate groups of people from others are newcomers to the human DNA spectrum. And how many wars and people subjugated simply because of some blip on a chromosome?

Olson shows that after the rise of modern humans in the Great Rift Valley in Africa circa 65,000 years ago, humanity followed a couple of paths: one up into the plains of the Middle East and another by water routes to Southeast Asia and ultimately to Australia. It is fascinating to know that these migrations can be charted in the DNA of wandering groups.

From the time of my youth I have dabbled in genealogy. I was interested in knowing how my family had arrived in the Midwest and who fought on what side of the Civil War. I found that we were basically farming people who followed where good land could be found. My appreciation for cultural movements began to expand when I found that it was the Industrial Revolution that moved parts of my family from Connecticut to Missouri or from Virginia into the Missouri Valley or from enclosed England and Scotland to America.

Now to those who follow Creationism would have difficulty with this mapping of human history by genetic means. But I have never understood the Bible as a purveyor of factual history. The Bible has always been for me accounts of how people who have faith in God have conveyed how faith was passed on. I believed in archaeological developments long before I ever read the Genesis accounts so I have never had to 'give up' my faith in order to believe in science. So historical and pre-historical accounts that are confirmed by genetic research makes Scripture all that more rich and interesting.

Humanity has been far more mobile than most of us are aware. The "Journey" is at the heart of what it means to be human, it seems. However, if we stand in the history of a people who repeated to themselves "A wandering Aramean was my father..." before they offered sacrifice to their God, we know ourselves to be a species that is constantly moving. Jesus would have repeated those words mindful of his forebears who had been herders and wanders in the vast wilderness of the Middle Eastern Fertile Crescent for millennia. He would have known himself to be of the lineage of kings yet still a "country bumpkin" from Galilee. He wandered from town to town reminding people that life as they knew it needed to change to know God's pleasure, to know the goodness of God and to know their own goodness before God.

How does this DNA research connect us to the Incarnation—the God who dwells among us? I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I am heartened by this DNA information. For me it tells me that God has had God’s finger on the ‘pulse’ (or perhaps on the chromosomes) of humanity since before time. And while I am fascinated by the science and even more fascinated by the history, I am comforted by the care that God has taken in placing intelligent humans (homo sapiens sapiens) in Africa to give us our roots. No more can we claim superiority or special privilege because of exterior physical trait.

The Incarnation of God in humanity in Jesus the Christ is the sign that God has been present to Creation from the first moment of atomic fusion that created us. It reminds us that we can always turn to that Goodness, that Essence of love, Beauty and Truth that is at the center of the creation. That God chose to dwell among us (the Greek word in the first chapter of John translates “he tented among us) is the sign of God’s intentional and continuing intimacy in the continued Journey that humanity makes. And more importantly I find comfort in the fidelity of God to Creation that is written in the DNA of every living thing.

My family can trace its roots to the western movement that began in 16th century England and Scotland as can many in the western hemisphere. But this ‘wandering Aramean’ mentality is as much of the history of our faith as it is the history of our genes. God ‘tents’ god self among us reminding us of our touch with goodness and Godliness that is imprinted in us. Many genes in the physical body are not used unless ‘activated’ by some chemical process, scientists tell us. The same holds true with our ‘faith gene’. The call to be faithful to God, to return the faith that God has had in us as the created beings that we are, can only be activated if we choose. It is not a chemical reaction. It is an act of the will to respond to the goodness that was implanted in us. It is the call to live into that Imago Dei ( Image of God) that we were created to be. This does NOT mean we are to be gods. But it does mean that we are to act in living out the goodness of God that is imprinted deeply within us.

It is this Incarnation that I find the most compelling part of Christianity. Not the Cross, not the Crucifixion or even the Resurrection holds the image of God's intimacy with humanity as does the Incarnation. The Incarnation--God's enfleshment shows for all time that God is faithful to use down to the molecular level that God is with us, not only in the Christ, but in each one of us. Is this the Divine Spark of ancient theology? I am not sure. But I do know that it is within in those who choose to find it.

PREACH IT, +GENE"

2011-12-12T19:49:00.000-05:00

What Perry gets wrong about religion in America

By Bishop Gene Robinson

GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry talks about his faith and America in a new political ad Rick Perry would be pathetic, if he weren’t so infuriating. In an effort to revive a sinking political campaign, Gov. Perry has reached a new low in promoting himself in a recent commercial.

The governor begins this 30 second spot with “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian.” He goes on to say things that Christians should be ashamed of him for.

“You don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

It is breathtaking (and not in a good way) when someone who aspires to be the Commander in Chief denigrates the soldiers he means to command. Just like all the other soldiers in our military, our gay and lesbian soldiers are dodging bullets and IED’s to preserve our rights as Americans. The right of all Americans to represent their country in our military is now the law of the land, a law that Gov. Perry apparently disagrees with and presumably would work to change if elected president.

The blood of gay and lesbian soldiers flows as readily and as redly as that of other young Americans fighting in Afghanistan, yet Gov. Perry feels free to use them as political cannon fodder for his campaign. In an attempt to garner conservative Christian votes, he would stigmatize these brave young men and women who are, as we speak, risking their lives on our behalf. If this is patriotism, count me out!

Gov. Perry also apparently disagrees with the separation of church and state, a constitutional separation which not only creates freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. He’s also got his facts wrong. No child is precluded from praying in school. Any American, young or old, can pray anywhere he or she wants to. What numerous rulings by the Supreme Court prohibit, based on the Constitution, is the establishment of religion. No teacher can pray to a Christian God and force their students to participate in or listen to such a prayer, as if the Christian understanding of God is the good and only “right” way to think of God.

Christians - or at least many of us - value the separation of church and state and see no harm in drawing these careful lines of separation for the good of a diverse nation. We don’t need the enforcement of the state in making our case for a loving God. We offer numerous and ample opportunities for public prayer in our churches and religious gatherings. We don’t need them or want them in school. Besides, we learned long ago that allegiance to God can’t be a forced march.

Christians everywhere should be alarmed that a candidate for our nation’s highest office would play fast and loose with both the Constitution and our men and women in uniform. It would be simply pathetic that Gov. Perry would do so in an effort to entice conservative voters, if it weren’t such an abuse of religion and a violation of the Constitution.

Gov. Perry is right about one thing. There is something wrong in America. But surely it begins with disloyalty to our brave troops in the field and violation of the hard-won separation between church and state which protects all Americans.

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, is the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington, DC. He was the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in America.

From the UK

2011-12-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

No Anglican Covenant Coalition

Anglicans for Comprehensive Unity

noanglicancovenant.org

NEWS RELEASE

DECEMBER 6, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COALITION CELEBRATES SUCCESSES, PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

LONDON – After slightly more than a year, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition can point to several

successes, according to Coalition Moderator, the Revd Dr Lesley Crawley.

 Four dioceses of the Church of England have rejected the Covenant (Birmingham; St.

Edmundsbury and Ipswich; Truro; Wakefield). Where synod members were provided with

balanced background material (i.e., material that presented both the case for and the case

against the Covenant), the synods have voted it down. Four dioceses, where little or no material

was presented other than officially sanctioned pro-Covenant material, have approved the

Covenant (Lichfield; Durham; Europe; Bristol). A total of 23 diocesan synods must approve the

Covenant for the matter to return to the General Synod.

 The Tikanga Maori defeated the Covenant at their biennial runanganui, virtually ensuring the

defeat of the Covenant in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.

 The Philippine House of Bishops has indicated they will not support the Anglican Covenant, likely

ensuring the defeat of the Covenant in the Episcopal Church in the Philippines.

 Individual dioceses in the Anglican Church of Australia (Newcastle; Sydney) and The Episcopal

Church (California; Eastern Oregon; Michigan; East Carolina; and others) have indicated their

opposition to adoption of the Covenant.

“In November 2010, we launched the Coalition to ensure that the case against the proposed

Anglican Covenant would be given a fair hearing,” said Dr. Crawley. “Today we are seeing our efforts

bear fruit. When fair debate has been allowed, the results have been gratifying.”

Critical to the success of the campaign, especially in the Church of England, has been the support of

the Coalition’s Episcopal Patrons, Bishops John Saxbee and Peter Selby, who have encouraged

diocesan bishops to allow for a full and open debate. In the coming months, 37 more English

dioceses will vote on the Anglican Covenant. Only 18 additional no votes are needed for the Church

of England to reject the Covenant.

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition continues to provide assistance to those researching the

proposed Covenant. The Resources section of the Coalition website (noanglicancovenant.org) is

regularly updated with new material and analysis.

In the coming year:

 The Episcopal Church will consider the Covenant at its General Convention in July in Indianapolis,

Indiana. The Executive Council of the church has circulated a draft resolution to reject the

Anglican Covenant.

 The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia will consider the Covenant in July

at its General Synod/Te HinotaWhanui in Fiji. Given the rejection of the Anglican Covenant by

Tikanga Maori, rejection of the Covenant by that church seems assured.

 The General Synod of the Church of England is scheduled to consider the Covenant at its July

session. However, unless 19 more diocesan synods have approved the Anglican Covenant by

that date, the matter will not return to General Synod.

“Anglican Communion Office officials have repeatedly responded to criticism of the Anglican

Covenant by suggesting that critics have not read the document,” said the Coalition’s Canadian

Convenor, the Revd Malcolm French. “Ironically, we find that the more familiar people are with the

document, the more likely they are to reject it. The Coalition is committed to ensuring a proper and

balanced debate in churches throughout the Anglican Communion.”

-30-

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition is an international group of Anglicans dedicated to protecting

the Anglican Communion from the dramatic changes that would be effected by the Anglican

Covenant.

noanglicancovenant.org

The Revd Dr Lesley Crawley (England) +44 1252 820537

Dr Lionel Deimel (USA) +1-412-512-9087

The Revd Malcolm French (Canada) +1-306-550-2277

The Ven Lawrence Kimberley (New Zealand) +64 3 981 7384

The Revd Canon Hugh Magee (Scotland) +44 1334 47

Friday Five: Random

2011-12-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

Revkjarla has posted a 'random' Friday Five:

I don't know about you, but my life seems to have a lot of random surprises lately. Just little things,

like the doggy in the picture, who was rescued by a Good Samaritan from running into traffic, who then brought him to the police, who brought him to my neighbor's house. I took the doggy, now named Scout, to the vet on Monday, and the woman behind the desk said, "This dog looks so familiar. Were you here last week?" I told her no, that this particular dog is a stray, and she looked at me, and said (use your best Boston accent here), "Oh my GAWD! I rescued that dog on Satuhday! I took him to the police!" and then she proceeded to tell me the story. She was Scout's angel.

Random, right?

So, for our Friday Five, I invite you share five random things about you, or five random thoughts, or five random surprises in your life.

I am not Christmasy. We seldom decorate and we don't do much shopping. But I do enjoy driving around at night with Christmas music on the radio looking at the lights. I usually like doing this alone so that all my childhood aversions to Christmas don't disturb others. But it often surfaces good Christmas memories that are good to hold on to.
I notice that I have not been blogging. When last week's Friday Five is my last post it annoys me and I get off my duff and put my thinking cap on. I may have a more recent blog article by the time you get here.
I am fed up with paper! I thought computers were supposed to diminish paper--why do I now have more paper every day? And my printer isn't even working!
Tomorrow is the ordination of a colleague and Revgal Amy. I pray for her to have as holy an experience of her priesthood as I have been given.
I hate being old and out of the loop. In my head I am still in my 30's--at least until I try to stand up!

Friday Five: Being Intentional

2011-12-02T11:34:00.000-05:00

Kathrynzj has come up with today's FF. She is having a tough time remembering to do things with all the Christmas stuff and new baby.

So for today, if you are still there, the Friday Five is this:

It's a busy season and our minds get caught up in lots of different things (a shiny new baby, in my case). We all know that especially during this time of year we have to be intentional about the things that are important or we can lose them. What are five things you try to be intentional about, whether it be for this season specifically or in general?

Getting up--this is one part of being retired that I sort of like. I can generally decide when I am going to get up. There is a temptation to loll around in bed, but that gets really old after a while. Now, I am demanding of myself that I be up and dressed by 9. It allows me to watch the late shows on tv at night and listen to NPR if I want and still have a bit of the morning to do what else I have planned.

Meds--If I do not establish a routine I often forget to take my medications which can get me into BIG trouble.

Staying in contact--There is a temptation to get isolated in retirement. I try to keep up with my contacts online and stay up with what is happening in the world and the Church. Wading through all the hulabaloo is a pain in the butt but being totally unaware is worse.

Recycling--I hate it but I need to do it. Washing out all the plastic and metal things ---grrrr.

Buying healthy and imprint conscious.

Advent IB: Sermon: What are we waiting for?

2011-11-26T11:59:00.000-05:00

Advent IB
(Is. 64:1-9, Ps. 80, I Cor. 1:3-9, Mk 13: 24-37)

We come to this weekend still stuffed with Thanksgiving turkey, filled with the presence of friends and family or suffering from travel lag. We may even be battered by Black Friday insanity. But rather than bask in that feeling of well-being, the Church heaps upon us a whole new liturgical year. We begin today the season of Advent—one of those ‘purple’ seasons not with visions of baby Jesus, but of the apocalypse—the Second Coming. Our readings plead that God may come down with that terrible power to straighten out this sinful world.

Advent is filled with expectation, waiting, hope, vigilance and anticipation. This year we change Gospels. We will be hearing the words of Mark and John this year and how those gospel writers understand how Jesus touched the people they knew. And today’s gospel reading is an important text—Jesus tells his disciples this piece of apocalyptic literature as he and his disciples sit before the Temple in Jerusalem shortly before his crucifixion. The apostles are basically bumpkins from the sticks and they are marveling at the grandness of the Temple buildings and the bustle of the city. And Jesus is telling them that these buildings will fall: the temple will be razed to the ground --that the preeminence of God is not in the building. The grandeur of God can only be seen in the relationship that the people of Israel has with the Holy One. The greatness of God was only to be seen in their devotion and their alertness to their part of the Covenant.

For at least 700 years the people of Israel had waited for God to come and be their king. But God had not come down to remove evil from the earth. Instead God had sent his Son to teach humanity how to live lives worthy of the covenant Abraham had made with the people. But this covenanted people had not cared for the poor, lived justly and walked humbly with their God. The people of God were waiting for God to come down and fix everything.

So today on this First Advent Sunday, in keeping with what Fr. Jim asked last week when he asked “Why are you still here?”---asking us after all the schism and all the fuss in our diocese. I am going to ask another question. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? What does this season of Advent mean?

• Are you, too, waiting for God to come down and make the world right? For over 4 thousand years humanity has waited for God to come down and fix it. And for some reason, I don’t think it is going to happen that way.

• Are you waiting for us to blow ourselves up just to prove the Scripture right? Then the Christian Zionists are right and we should try to bring about Armageddon. But I don't think that is the answer either.

• Are you waiting for the Rapture to take us out of this miserable world? Do we subscribe to the idea of ‘No Episcopalian left behind?’

These are some of the expectations that Christianity holds for this time of waiting. And I would suggest that we are going to get what we expect—what we envision for the future for us personally, congregationally, diocesan-wise, Church and Communion-wide and even for the whole of the world.

A few years ago when Newt Gingrich was at the center of government, I heard an interview when he said “ he truly believed humanity was evil and that it was only grace that made for good in the world.” Now this is a theology that comes out of the Reformation that is part Lutheran and part Calvinism but it was also deeply held by medieval catholicism. Anglicanism has always held that creation and thus humanity is intrinsically good. Yes, there was the separation from God that is allegorized for us in the Fall in Genesis, but on the whole we believe that God created the world as good and humanity as good. It is us—we mere mortals who have messed things up.

I recently saw one of those ‘God billboards’, you know, the black ones that have white letters? This one said, “Do I have to come down there?---God”. And that is how we often think of the end times—at least in this part of the Bible belt. We drop into our childhood transactions and think God is going to come and punish us like a parent because we have messed up.

But that is not what I hear when I read Scripture. I hear of a God who wants to be in relationship with humanity. I hear that God wants to be in conversation so that we can know the goodness of God’s Creation—the Army picked up that “Be all you can be” slogan. But I really think that is what God invites us to—to be that compassionate, truthful, loving, kind and peaceful people that God covenanted with Abraham to be. We were created in God’s image and we are invited to be a part of God’s goodness by our baptism.

Our Advent is a time of preparation. It is a time of visioning and calling ourselves into relationship with the Holy One so that God’s goodness will take root in us—will continue to grow and transform us into that holy people that God wants us to be. This is not about individual salvation, for it is hard to be saved if our neighbor is not also saved. This isn’t about waiting for God to come down and save us. It is about using the tremendous gifts that the Holy One of Israel has given us—using our talents collectively for the salvation of the world. That is what 'incarnation' means.

Jesus came to "show us the Father", to teach us how to live with one another—how to live in communion with one another to serve one another with generosity, faith and commitment. The waiting that is Advent is not a passive waiting for judgment. It is a call to action; a call to transformation not just for ourselves, but for us collectively as a nation, a Church, a species. We are called to change the world—we are called to let humanity know that we are good and that in relationship with God we can become better each moment if we are willing to respond to that call. Will it ever be perfect? No. We are not to become gods. We are to become godlike—full of compassion and mercy, just, and steadfast not only individually but as a community—a holy people welcoming all to know the invitation of God to live in harmony in this world.

We, like Jesus, are to incarnate God’s life to the world. We are to live through this new church year hearing and living out Jesus’ life so that others might know that the God-incarnate is not only possible, but absolutely necessary if we are going to protect the gift of Creation that we have been given. We need not worry about judgment—we must only worry that we have not responded to God’s question of us: “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”

2011-11-25T11:49:00.001-05:00

Friday, November 25, 2011Free Gifts- Friday Five

Sally, who is a Brit and therefore not doing Thanksgiving when we do on our side of the Pond has posted a thought-provoking Black Friday Five:

Following on from Thanksgiving, and picking up the "Black Friday" theme of boycotting the Christmas rush for bargains I thought it would be good to set a simple Friday Five yet one to get you thinking. I am sure that you'll agree that some of the best gifts we receive do not come in fancy wrapping paper but might be the gift of an unexpected afternoon with a friend or coming across a long forgotten photograph, or- well the list is endless...

So take a bit of time to think back over the last year and ponder the gifts it has offered to you, then list five of those gifts, in no particular order- there is only one rule- all of these gifts must have been free, neither you nor anyone else should have spent money on them!

1. This year has been a tough one with J’s cancer taking over both our lives. Finances have been very difficult, but a friend offered to pick up some of our expenses and then put us in touch with agencies that could help.

2. A 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that was in the waiting room of the cancer therapy hospital. It was there each day as I waited for her. Each day I could do a bit more. It kept me sane.

3. I volunteered to join the staff of my local parish and I began teaching Bible Study again and celebrating and preaching about once a month. It keeps me focused on helping others in the midst. After the first of the year they are going to give a small stipend which will help us recover financially.

4. We had Diocesan Convention last weekend. It was a sign of real recovery of a bunch of people who love their church and love Christ. I believe our diocese is on the way to becoming a healthy statement of what it means to be God’s people in this area. The clergy were having fun and so were the laity. Our keynote speaker was +Barbara Anderson from the Church of Canada who told of what it was like to be a part of a group of parishes in a diocese that had ceased to be because of the abuse of First Nation children in their schools years ago. The compassion of that diocese and the compassion of their bishop was awesome and pure gift to us as we struggle to regain what it means to be Christ’s own here in our diocese that has been so torn with schism. A true gift.

5. A J’ who is beginning to return to her pre-chemo self. She became so ‘chemo-brained’ during the therapy since last Easter, that she was almost like living with a stranger. She was incredibly withdrawn and not with her usual verbally astute humor. ( at least I was saved from puns for a short while) I was so worried that she would not be able to return from that. But she is on her way back. She isn’t 100% yet but perhaps by B5

Thanks, Sally. Good idea. I REFUSE to go anywhere on Black Friday. J' used to work retail and she would come home after it and swear off Christmas! We often don't even give each other gifts on Christmas, and long ago I quit trying to keep up with family gifts. You can do this if you don't have children.

I love Christmas in Church but I try not to even go to the malls during the month of Dec.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T12:25:00.000-05:00

I am doing the Thanksgiving meditation today. It is presently quiet, sunny and with that chill in the air that makes me think of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we are going to a local parish since my family doesn’t celebrate the day until Sunday. Some years ago, Thanksgiving became a movable feast when there were just too many in-laws and too many trips that interfered with gathering the whole clan at one house. Now, brother, nieces and nephew party at their in-laws on Thursday and we gather Sunday afternoon.

There are many things to be thankful for and I generally remember them each time I celebrate the Eucharist. In some ways, Thanksgiving Day is anti-climactic. But it still is somewhat of a harvest festival.

When I lived in upstate NY we would often celebrate Ember Days—those underused agricultural festivals that are part of the Church calendar. On several occasions we met at a local farm and went from pen and field blessing the crops and animals. The farming families appreciated such festivities and all those who had grown up on farms felt reassured that all was ‘right with the world.’

Our foundational celebrations in our faith were pilgrimage gatherings. The Hebrew Scripture notes three such celebrations: Unleavened Bread which developed into Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths, both agricultural celebrations. They were ‘national’ fetes in which all traveled to Jerusalem to present themselves before God, to sacrifice and give thanks for all they had been given and then to feast on the animal that they brought for sacrifice. These feasts were generally the only time they ate meat all year.

Today, we generally do not think of Thanksgiving as a sacrifice unless our family is hard to be around. But we generally do offer gifts of whatever we can make. We seldom go to dinner without a gift even if it is just a bottle of wine or sack of dinner rolls.

In the UK there are still harvest festivals in the various communities. They are celebrated in church but also in the larger communities. There is much attention paid to the decorations with gourds and pumpkins and cornucopia. But there isn’t the family feast that we have. In Canada Thanksgiving is celebrated but on a different day.

These days Thanksgiving is just the feast day before Christmas shopping begins in earnest. We seldom think about how our feast got to the table and agribusiness so outstrips the intimacy between the people and the land that it is easy to forget how dependent we are on Mother Earth.

I am beginning to get rather grumpy about grocery-store produce all plastic wrapped tending to buy from the local farmer’s market which is a year ‘round store. It is a wee bit more expensive, but it is fresher produce and often locally grown. There is also more variety. I also can talk to the store owner about the conditions for the farmers in the area. I learn when certain vegetables are at their peak. It keeps me closer to the land even when I no longer garden or turn the soil with my hands.

Thanksgiving is at the heart of our faith. It is a primeval celebration of what it means to be human on this earth—to be grateful for all that sustains us. The Creation is made to be fruitful and we are made to give thanks to the One who created all. May your Thanksgiving be a time to reunite you with the soil (adamah Heb.) and mud from which we were created.

Is Capitalism Moral? Wrong Question...

2011-11-18T10:17:00.000-05:00

Bishop Pierre Whalon, Bishop of the Episcopal Churches in Europe has written a remarkable article in the Huffington Post. It is a great piece.

Is this capitalism moral? Wrong question, because this ain't capitalism. This is oligarchy, a few very rich and powerful firms not only selling for their clients but also buying for themselves in the financial markets. And that IS immoral. It excludes most of us, until we end up having to inject our tax dollars -- or more exactly, until we borrow those dollars -- in order to avoid a complete financial collapse. You and I can't play their game, but we must certainly keep the people who cause the disaster in business so as to avoid abject poverty, roughly on the order of the Bronze Age. That is profoundly immoral.

It is time to get real. In fact, it's long past time. America needs to create new capital to invest in productive enterprises that will employ people, growing food, inventing new commodities and services, and improving the classic ones. We are not going to do that by selling each other our houses, or opening more fast-food outlets. We need a diversified economy based on market capitalism, not on oligarchs enriching themselves in gigantic shell games played with trillions of dollars.

We need to rebuild the intellectual and physical infrastructures that undergird such an economy. That requires taxation. And it also requires regulation of markets. Any politician who will not level with the people about this daunting task has to be voted out. Bring capitalism back! should be our slogan.

That is a tall order, because the so-called Masters of the Universe can threaten to destroy the banking system the world depends upon if we touch the source of their strength, namely, the so-called shadow banking system. If you remember Frank Herbert's novel Dune, you will recall its salient point: the ability to destroy something is in fact to control it. The mountain of money spent to influence governments around the world, starting with the United States, is also a giant obstacle.

If we continue down the primrose path of tax reduction, deficit increases, and oligarchical manipulation of capital markets, there will be a much greater depression. The Arab Spring should be teaching a lesson: "tipping points" happen, and suddenly the game changes, taking everyone by surprise. The scales will fall from the people's eyes. A strongman will arise to "save" us, at the cost of our republic. History does repeat itself -- Ave Caesar, Heil Hitler, Stalin Save Us... sound familiar?

Finally, we need an economy that allows each person to be not only a consumer but an actor in it. The source of America's wealth has never been finance, but in those goods and services that entrepreneurs make available to the widest possible audience, er, market. Anyone remember Charles Ives? Yes, the Charles Ives, considered to be America's greatest composer of music. What does he have to do with this?

In his lifetime, Ives was known not for his music but for his knack for taking something and making a lot of people wealthy by making it available to the masses. Life insurance for everyone was one of his dreams. If you have such a policy, it is because Ives felt that they were not just for rich people. When President Wilson wanted to raise money for World War I, he asked Ives to take it on. Ives promptly created bonds denominated so that the most ordinary patriot -- economically speaking -- could own at least one. It was a howling success.

There have been huge numbers of examples since. There can be plenty more. But only if we break up the oligarchies and start practicing real capitalism again. A place to start: if you want to buy a stock, make sure your broker doesn't have shareholders to answer to. Better yet, make sure she's invested too.

This didn't answer the question I started with, I know. I think a morality of capitalism can be defined and defended, and that capitalist immorality therefore can be described in principle. It has to do with the notion of the common good.

But that is for another day. Meanwhile, bring back capitalism!

Friday, November 18, 2011Friday Five: Giving Thanks (Thanksgiving)

2011-11-18T09:31:00.000-05:00

Jan has given us a thanksgiving Friday Five:
I've been home from Russia for less than a week, and in less than a week it is Thanksgiving Day in the USA (Nov. 24). So for this Friday Five, answer these questions (and if they don't apply to you, list five things you are grateful for):

1. Where will you be on Thanksgiving Day? With whom?

My family will not be celebrating T’giving until Sunday due to the zany schedules we keep so J and I may go to one of the parish dinners that are held.

2. Are there any family traditions or memories associated with Thanksgiving?

Many. My mother used to host T’giving and the whole family would come—often 20 people in our small house. As a kid, I would try to get out of the house and play with the other kids if I could because there were just too many people. As I got older, I was expected to help in the kitchen which I hated. It was the only day out of the year that we ate fowl in our house. My mother didn’t eat chicken or turkey so I would feast on the turkey with great joy.

3. What will be on your Thanksgiving menu?

I haven’t even thought about it. Since I am not cooking, I will eat what is put before me.

4. What are you thankful for?

a. J. is through chemo and beginning to feel better.

b. I now have a part-time job that will help with finances.

c. For a comfortable home, 2 kitties who don’t get along but are hungry for attention and a church family.

d. A computer and my revgal friends.

5. What is the weather forecast for this day (next Thursday)?

It is supposed to be sunny and in the high 60’s

Bonus: Prayer, poem, song, or whatever you choose to exemplify your image of Thanksgiving (giving thanks

I have been reading Bruggemann’s Ancient Hebrew Worship for a class I have been teaching on Lev. and Deut. And the earliest images we have in Scripture of worship required 3 things: A. Showing up. B. bearing a gift. C. no work. For me then, Thanksgiving Day is a type of worship: I show up; I bring my dish and there is no work. However, the venue is quite different—my family is not my worshipping community. We do not present ourselves before God. But it is a time to feast and gather and enjoy one another’s company. Of course we watch a football game instead of study Scripture but you can’t have everything! Most likely I will spend Thursday morning working on my class studying Scripture which will be wonderful. I just wish I could study scripture with my family as I do with the church family.

Why We Can't Stand Idly By as the Church of England Newspaper Calls Us Nazis

2011-11-15T20:31:00.000-05:00

by Patrick Strudwick. from Huffington Post

Journalist and columnist

Last month the Church of England Newspaper called me a Nazi. I thought, as my eyelids splayed in disbelief, that the oceanic depths to which homophobic rhetoric was prepared to sink could not be lowered. Perhaps, I reasoned, they would reacquaint themselves with rational thought and retract the article. I was wrong.

Colin Blakely, the editor of the newspaper, defended the columnist who likened me to the Gestapo. "[Alan Craig] has got views that are pertinent on this issue," said Blakely, referring to the thrust of the thesis: gay rights activists are behaving like those who slaughtered 7 million Jews. The writer, who is also the leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance -- a political party -- stood firm. His self-defense comprised what he thought was an important distinction: "I've nothing against ordinary gay people but the leadership, well I stick by my word Gaystapo. It is bullying."

Ah, yes, the leadership. In his column he urged his Anglican readership to "rise up" and "forcefully confront" the "leaders" of the gay rights movement. Because, he argued, they behave like the Gestapo. And because he is a writer, he decided to invent a nifty portmanteau: Gaystapo. Thus, any bigot who is dissatisfied with the Aladdin's cave of existing homophobic epithets now has a new one!

It is, of course, tempting to laugh at such an article, so unhinged, so ludicrously offensive is it. Clearly the relationship between the author and reality is most charitably described as on/off. After all, we must ask, how many gay rights activists have committed ethnic cleansing?

But it is partly the prolonged nature of such an attack that must alert and alarm us. His Nazi simile was not a comparison en passant. This was a detailed analogy. Gay marriage, he wrote, "could be the invasion of Poland. The catalyst for war."

He continued: "The UK's victorious Gaystapo are now on a roll. Their gay-rights storm troopers take no prisoners as they annex our wider culture." Here, he detailed a range of recent cases where gay people have stood up for their rights, one of which was my landmark case against a conversion therapist. After going undercover to investigate therapists who attempt to "cure" gay clients, the therapist who "treated" me was found guilty of professional malpratice. But, says Craig, she, along with all the other homophobes, have found themselves "crushed under the pink jack boot."

And on he goes: "The gay Wehrmacht is on its long march through the institutions..."

And on: "[The Gaystapo] want to change our language, manipulate our culture and thereby impose their world-view on us all. Cultural domination is their aim and fascist-type intolerance of politically-incorrect dissent is their weapon."

As much of an extremist as Craig might sound, shrieking from a one-man raft on the river Styx, his is not a vox sola. His hate speech, endorsed by a national British newspaper, is the nadir of a recent narrative so persistent and viciously homophobic as to constitute a recognizable, sizeable backlash against gay rights.

Americans may think Britain has rid herself of such voices. Many peer over the pond to see us enjoying civil partnerships, adoption rights, employment protection and a slew of other equality measures and think that there must be a pink Waterloo sunset forever glowing over the U.K. There is not.

You may have a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination describing the discussion of homosexuality in schools as "child abuse." But we have a bulldog, right-wing press and a hefty Christian lobby routinely spraying Britons with anti-gay spittle.

The totem of this backlash is Melanie Phillips, a columnist for the Daily Mail, Britain's second most-read newspaper. She describes those who, like me, campaign for the protection of gay people as "bullies," as "totalitarian" and as "McCarthyites." When we dare to suggest that perhaps homosexuality should be discussed in schools, to help combat bullying, she opines that we are guilty of "bigotry in reverse."

When a gay couple took the owners of a hotel to court for turning them away (it wasn't that there was no room at the inn), Phillips referred to them -- and all those who uphold our existing equality laws -- as the "gay inquisition." Perhaps she is unaware -- as perhaps Alan Craig is -- of the irony of her allusion. The Spanish inquisition burned gay men at the stake. The Nazis sent thousands of gays to the gas chambers.

Others have waded in supporting those who advocate the death penalty for gay people. Stephen Green, the leader of Christian Voice, a pressure group, defended David Bahati, the Ugandan MP who is trying to introduce a death penalty for homosexuality, thus: "Bahati was trying to protect his nation's children from predatory western homosexuals."

Elsewhere in Britain, we have seen a rise in homophobic hate crime. In London's West End -- arguably the most liberal area of the country -- gay bashings increased by 20.9 percent last year.

So it is against this backdrop of drip-dripping, face-slashing prejudice that I suggest we do not simply laugh at paranoid rants like Alan Craig's. His might be the most extended and unhinged metaphor to ever disgrace a newspaper column, but delusion is no reason to disregard. Indeed, we do so at our peril.

Remember when you were in high school and you pretended not to hear the word "queer" shouted at you by the bullies? Did it work? Did it protect your face from the punch that followed?

Occupy Wall Street? Occupy Bank of America?

2011-11-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

Occupy Wall Street? Occupy Bank of America?

J and I have been having trouble with our bank accounts. Not only is there not enough in them--a normal phenomenon for folk on fixed incomes, but someone else has been using our bank accounts to pay their credit cards off that shouldn’t be. We do not use credit cards because we will not pay the usurious interest rates offered to people who have limited incomes. This has meant several trips to our local branch of BofA.

The young banker there has been quite solicitous and nice. But that still doesn’t seem to take care of the problem of how thieves have gotten access to our accounts. We have closed accounts and gotten new debit cards. We have talked unto we are blue in the face with customer service—when we finally can find a person to talk to. I sort of expect this kind of service from ATT but not my bank. They are using MY money after all!

We may have to move to a local credit union to do our banking business. But the big international bank has always been so handy. Our relocating our banking will not affect BofA. We don’t have enough for them to notice. But I do hope that with all those who are exiting from big banks because of OWS, it may say something.

I grew up with parents who had lived through the Great Depression. They had seen their parents lose it all—not that they had much. We were of working class heritage and never really trusted those who speculated on the Stock Market. We were sober mid-west folk. You put your money in a checking account or a savings account and you were careful with how you used it. You allowed the bank to hold your money so it was safe. For the privilege of holding your money the bank paid you interest. Now, the interest is negligible and going into the pockets of CEO’s rather than back to the depositors. Something is WRONG with this picture.

After yesterday’s Gospel reading of the 3 servants, I am totally convinced that what is wrong is the FEAR that unregulated capitalism perpetuates in the world. Capitalism is based on the idea that there is not enough in the world for everyone to have a bit. In order for unregulated capitalism to work, you have to believe that there isn’t enough of whatever so that you can mark up the price.

If there is anything I am sure of is that this world, if allowed to, can produce enough for every living thing to have a sufficiency to live at least comfortably. We have just been told that it isn’t to our “personal” or “national” (or these days “corporate”) interest for everyone to have enough. Not only is that bunk, it is immoral. There is enough food for everyone on this planet. And there is enough gas or oil to heat or cook if we are willing to share. We as a human race must come to the place where we have the will to make sure that all have enough. We have to put away the fear that comes with the economics of our age and trust in the One from whom all things come.

11.11.11 Friday Five

2011-11-11T12:23:00.000-05:00

Friday, November 11, 2011 11.11.11 Friday Five

Songbird is doing one of her weird things today. 11/11/11 is on her mind:

It's 11/11/11, a date you can read forwards and backwards, American-style and European-style.It's Veteran's Day/Armistice Day, which seems to be celebrated more someplace than others. The kids here are out of school and some communities have ceremonies of remembrance scheduled.

My denomination (UCC) is finishing up a drive called Mission 1, which ran from 11.1.11 to 11.11.11.

It's a popular date for getting married, or so I'm told, just like other memorable dates (for instance 09/08/07).

But mostly, it's a big day for Nigel Tufnel, in celebration of "maximum elevenness."

For today's Friday Five, share five ways you or someone you know likes to turn it up to 11. How have you gone beyond the usual expected limits? Feel free to interpret this as eccentrically as possible.

I am not one for numerology. I am dyscalculate as well as dyslexic.

1. The only thing that 11/11/11 brings to mind is my mother. My mother was born on 11/12/12. Next year I will celebrate her 100th birthday. She just died 2 years ago so I had her for a long time, but it is now a bittersweet time.

2. I always remembered the birthday of the Girl Scouts because that was 1912.

3. I always remember Armistice Day (Veterans Day) because my mother remembered “the parade in her home town inn which they “dragged an effigy of Kaiser William down the street on the day before my birthday”.

4. My niece got married on 6/6/06. And it has been a good marriage for both of them. This year he turns 60, she turns 50, and her daughters turn 30 and 20 respectively. Numbers mean something to her.

5. I am not sure what ‘turning it up to 11”really means. If it means “living large”, I think I have always lived large. It hasn’t occurred to me to turn it down. But now with my financial options fairly curtailed, I can’t live as large as I would like. Retirement has a tendency to dampen one’s enthusiasm. Now if we can get Superwoman to be silverhaired, I know what I am going to wear NEXT Halloween!

Theology 101--Worship

2011-10-31T12:03:00.000-04:00

This has been a very fruitful week for me theologically speaking. I am preparing to teach a Bible Study on of all things, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In doing a Bible Study on Amos for the last 2 months, I found that I had not learned enough about Jewish worship practices to understand the underlying theology to the ancient understanding of the Judeo-Christian concept of honoring the Divine and I needed to dig a bit deeper. Of course I went to Walter Bruggemann’s works. His Ancient Hebrew Worship was a good place to start.

Worship in our tradition began as ‘just showing up’. Three times a year there would be a pilgrimage to worship all together. There was nothing you had to believe except the Shema—“Hear. The Lord your God is one.” It was the gathering of the community—the coming together of people for the purpose of being with God that was important. The Qahal Yaveh—the gathering of the people for the express purpose of standing before God characterized the early liturgy of the Hebrew people. It is the biblical understanding of what worship is about.

All too often I find people who say: “ I can worship better sitting alone on the mountainside, or seaside, or wherever”. But they never quite get the point of worship—it is a group thing. It is about coming together with other human beings before God that makes worship sacred—set apart for the Holy One. It is when we, truculent beings that we are, must come together in God’s name and leave all our quarreling, all our grumpiness, all our human pettiness behind that we find the shalom of God. It is our greatest offering. It is the most precious gift we have to offer God and we cannot do it alone.

Now that I am retired I don’t have to go to Church. But I try not to miss services. It is when I am most alive. To come together with others in the name of Christ is truly a joy for me. I don’t care if the service is high, low or in-between. It can be any of those and be dry as a bone or as alive as the body of the individuals there makes it. I have found wonderful worship in the small and the great places of worship in the world just because there were others there who were single-mindedly there to be before God. Was God in that place more than God is on the solitary mountain retreat? No. But I was there with others who wanted to stand before God too.

That mere coming together with others demands from me a kind of ethical response that sitting under a tree on the mountainside does not. It demands of me a willingness to live within the conventions of the community. I must act in ways that being alone does not. It calls me to a kind of mindfulness of the others around me—an awareness and compassion for others that my solitary prayer does not. It gets me out of myself and while I am focused on God, I am also mindful of the whole of humanity represented by those sitting in the pew.

When I was in the convent one of the more profound experiences of community was going to the chapel for meditative prayer (a silent and profoundly individual hour of prayer before Matins or Morning Prayer) with the entire community sitting silently in their pews. Nothing was said. No one caught the other’s eye; there was not even an acknowledgement of the other’s presence. But it was the community gathered before God, all wrestling with whatever personal or communal issues interiorly. We were alone but we were all together for the same purpose--to give thanks, petition for ourself or others, or merely stand in the presence of God in awe. That hour of daily intense community formed me in faith and compassion. It formed me even when I was restive or sleepy (after all it WAS 4:30am!). But it formed me in a way that made me more mindful of my responsibilities to the women in my community, the people with whom I was in contact each day and my place in the whole scheme of God's saving grace.

Humans are gregarious creatures by nature. We are not a solitary animal such as the cheetah. And if there is anywhere we learn more of what it means to be with God, to take upon ourselves those God-like characteristics of loving-kindness and compassion, it needs to be in our worship. Worship has to do with my offering to God that which is most profoundly mine—my will. It is in worship that I can practice the progress to live into the image of God in whom I am made.

Worship is not just a service that makes ME feel good. Worship is a process that calls me from my baser selfishness to live more as God would have me live. It requires me to pray cheek-by-jowl with those that I may not even like or even quarreled with the day before. And that is why worship is such an important part of our faith. We cannot ignore those around us, those who are even on the periphery of society if we are to truly offer to God our ‘bounden duty and worship.’

As we come out of this “time of anger” in the world and especially the Church, I know that it is through the gathering of the people of faith that we will once again be the “Qahal Yaveh”. I await Diana Butler Bass’s new book to see how she finds worship in this new Reformation. Because worship is what we human’s do in the face of the Holy. And we do it together because that is where we must—call it God’s desire for us, call it a natural inclination—whatever. But it is where we are the most alive. It is where we know how inextricably we are part of that great Holiness of God. It is where we can touch the totally “otherness of God” and the infinite inwardness of humanity and we too can utter “Hear! The Lord your God is One.”

Friday, October 28, 2011What lifts you? - Friday Five

2011-10-28T12:30:00.000-04:00

Sally is in the dumps. I have been there so many times that I feel I should pay rent to the landfill. In fact I just got an appointment with a new shrink yesterday. I have taken medication since the early ‘80’s and I am so thankful for it. I know that my symptoms come from being a ‘quart low’ of serotonin, as were my father and, I think, my grandfather. I also think I have a niece who struggles with it but refuses to get help.

Sally writes:

Over the last few weeks I have been struggling with depression, I know that from reading other folks blogs that I am not alone in this, and from time to time if not suffering from depression that everyone feels down. With that in mind I wonder what lifts you? So I'd like you to share 5 things:

1. Scripture : My all-time verses come from the book of Ben Sirach in the Apocrypha: Chapter 2—the whole chapter. It calls me to my toughest self—one who can stand up to the challenge of Christ’s call. It gets my juices going to fight the enuni that is so much a part of a pastor’s life. We often pick up all the troubles of those we serve and keep them rather than give them to God. I used to have a green rug in the rectory (where I met with parishioners) and tried to remember to leave their problems on my green rug so that it would fertilize it!

2. A piece of music: I am a classical music hound. I listen to Gregorian chant to meditate, or listen to some major work that I like that fills me with purpose and strength like: Mahler 7th or the Brahms’ Requiem. I was a music major in my undergraduate days so music runs around in my soul. There is the 2nd movement to Ravel’s piano concerto that is so lovely that it makes me cry—and that is one of the things that helps me when I am down—the gift of tears is God’s way of helping me cope with the ‘stuff’ in my life.

3. A place. There are ‘thin places’ in my life. As a Celt through and through, place is important to me. There are few churches that become that place but out of doors is important. I have not found any new places here in FTW. Some of our revgals came over and helped us organize the office in our home while J was so sick. I now have a quiet office to think and pray. I also love to be near water or on it.

4. A person/ group of people: As an extrovert, people are so important to me to keep my spirits up even if they are on the internet. I can’t tell you how many times it has been one of the revgals who have said the right thing on one of their blogs, or an email from a friend that has helped me get out of the doldrums. Meeting with colleagues –often women not of my own denomination have been a boon. Just the vocabulary of ministry is just enough different to bring me some new view of faith, ministry, family, whatever is often just what I need.

While I do not solicit this, every once in a while I will get an email from a former parishioner who lifts me. But the all-time lift I got was when I wrote Bp. Jack Spong whom I had never met and asked him what he did to not give up when the arch-conservatives were trying to take over the Church. He wrote me and asked me to “come die with him for the salvation of the Church and for Christ Jesus.” I have never been so challenged to ministry in my life. I find that when people I respect challenge me when I am down, I am able to respond better and more fully than if I am coddled or comforted.

5. Something you do...There are several things:

Exercise. And this is probably the hardest to do when I am down. I am not normally a ‘movable object’ and this contributes to the depression.

Talk: If I have to, I find a therapist. When J was so sick, I found I needed someone who was a professional who could help me sort out my thoughts and fears, my whines and whimpers, my uncharitable thoughts and grumpies, own them and forgive myself so that they wouldn’t overtake me in dealing with her. It just took a few sessions, but it did the trick. I find that introverts tend to process it differently but just being willing to look at our fears is a big step to recovering from depression. For me, depression is God saying to me that I am hiding from something in my life that God wants me to look at. Sometimes it is a spiritual issue, sometimes it is a personal issue, but I am always better when I allow myself to name the fears I have and turn them over to God. The therapist or spiritual director can often help me ask myself the right questions so that I can get clear. Fear is the biggest impediment to my ministry—and I don’t think of myself as especially fearful. And most of my friends would see me as rather bold. But it is those temptations to think of ourselves as incapable or not worthy that sometimes sneak into our thinking that erodes our confidence and faith. I would ask all revgals and revpals: Do you have a pastor?

Rest: Often my depression comes on when I have allowed myself to over commit, or over do. Since over-doing is in the gene pool of us clergy types, I have to give myself permission to really rest—sleep, read some dumb who-done-it novel and forget the parish, the world, the family for a few hours.

Eat right: Depression and eating often go hand-in-hand with me. If I can be intentional about eating good food, well-prepared and healthy even if I have to eat out, it helps.

Being Nice to Myself: There is such a temptation to beat myself up while depressed and that it makes it worse. When I recognize that depression is an ILLNESS, not just a failure to cope, it makes a bit more sense. Then I can treat it like a common cold rather than a defect of character. If we have the sniffles, it is not difficult to go to bed early with a hot toddy. When we see depression as a normal part of living and that we ‘catch’ depression from our families, parishes, the world, just as surely as we do the flu then we can deal with it a bit better and without the guilt that we often lay at our feet.

Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff: When I am really depressed it is really hard to ‘find’ God. It feels like I am looking for God from the wrong end of binoculars. I have learned not get upset and fear that I am going to lose my faith. God IS there; you aren’t. Depend upon the support of the prayers of those who love you. Ask for those prayers and trust that they are there when you cannot pray.

Feel free to contact me—anyone who has problems with depression. Us depressive types need to stick together to remind ourselves that we are not alone and that the world, our lives, our parishes, our families or our careers are not coming to an end.

RANT!

2011-10-21T16:33:00.000-04:00

There is nothing like retirement and illness to make someone experience their powerlessness. I read a facebook post this morning encouraging me to speak out—to take to the streets with Occupy Wall Street. And it has dawned upon me that I no longer have a voice that speaks loudly. It is one of the consequences of being retired. Even though I get to preach now and again, I don’t have that chance to develop theological ideas over a period of time with a congregation that makes for good communal response. And with the internet, most of the time I don’t know if my blog gets read by a group of people who can bring change in their respective areas. Most of the time, I feel like I am talking to the wind. Very frustrating to a preacher.

In the ‘60’s you knew who you were working with. You knew when your back was covered. You knew who your friends were as you confronted the evils of society. The evils of society were the same ones as they are today, but we are all a bit faceless to one another now. We often walked arm in arm to show our solidarity.

On the No Anglican Covenant web, we have done some amazing work to help people see the flaws in the Anglican Covenant. But there is not the feeling of camaraderie that we had back in the 60’s. I am sure that is why my friend Elizabeth decided to go down to the OWS group in NYC to celebrate her ordination anniversary.

The women’s movement in the 70’s and 80’s was definitely a movement of women together—face to face, arm and arm to meet the white, straight, male establishment. It was the convent strangely enough was the first place I began to understand the power of women united, that incredible intuitiveness of women of faith working together to better the world. Then it was the Women’s ordination movement and the work for parity in the workplace.

What I often find in the lgbt efforts is less a desire to address the inequities in life as it is for gay men to get parity with straight men. In some efforts I do find the linking of lesbians and gays to work together but it is a difficult yoking. Lesbians on the whole are some of the poorest of the poor in our nation and there are more of us in prison than the normal population. I don’t have any statistics; I am just speaking of what I personally have seen.

So for the first time I am in the majority in life—I am a part of the 99% but it doesn’t get me anything. It should garner me at least some solidarity but because I have white hair or because I can’t get around like I used to or because I have a colleague that needs care or because I am retired from a system that is fairly generous but not enough to live on with medical expenses, my voice is quieted. I can’t buy the gas that gets me to the rallies or afford the plane ticket to events. I am silenced. AND THE ONLY PLACE I CAN SHOUT IS HERE!

Friday Five: Stages of Life

2011-10-21T11:35:00.000-04:00

Jan has stung me again—we must both be Scorpios! She has gotten to me with stages of life! I am not willing to do 7yr increments, however—it would take me all week!

Jan says:

Since it is almost my birthday and because my spiritual direction peer group is reading Living Fully, Dying Well by Edward W. Bastian and Tina L. Staley, I am thinking of my life in stages. For the latter group, we filled out a form dividing our life into 7-year increments, documenting "significant moments," then "people who guided and influenced me," and ending with the question, "What did this phase contribute to the continuum of my life?" This was a life Review Exercise devised by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

For today's Friday Five, I am suggesting that we each divide our age into 5 sections. You don't have to say your age or ages for the different parts, unless you want to. In each of the 5 points, please describe a memorable and/or significant event, either good or unpleasant.

1. Chilli Days—Ages 1-4 I lived in Chillicothe, IL (affectionately called ‘Chilli’). I don’t remember much about that time, of course but I remember snow and I remember my sandbox out under the little cherry tree and most of all I remember the train ride to TX when we moved in 1949. (you do the math, I am too sleepy!)

2. French Horn Days—I started playing the trumpet in 5th grade but I really wanted to play the French horn. Then in 7th grade I switched to Fr. Horn. It was too heavy to carry and bulky but I carried it back and forth every day to play in the band and orchestra all through school and undergraduate school. I started as a music major but added a history degree ‘in order to make a living’—as if a teaching career could make a living. I played well enough to get a scholarship to one of the largest music schools in the country and then went on to play professionally with various music organizations in and around the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Music was my soul until I met a French horn playing RC nun who changed my life by teaching me to pray.

3. Teaching Days—Some of my teaching days and my French horn days over-lap. I began teaching in the little town where I now am on non-stype staff of the church I serve. I taught music my first year and had every child in the single elementary school in the little ranch community it served. Now it is one of the fastest growing cities in the US and has 23 elementary schools. Then I went to Dallas and taught History and English in the public schools. This was right in the middle of forced integration in Dallas and was a difficult time for me and for the kids. I had been raised with an open mind about Blacks and to watch how they were treated by other whites made my blood boil. The Jr. High I taught in was predominately Black with some Hispanics and only a few White kids. The halls were often a war zone because the principal was redneck. I finally left public school to teach in parochial schools where I finally got to teach religion. It saved my life and my mind.

4. Jesus Days—I came to know Christ while teaching at that Jr. High in Dallas. Here in Ft. Worth I tell people I “came to Jesus by teaching in Dallas public schools during integration” (There is a big rivalry between FTW and Dallas. And everyone laughs.) But I did. It has led me to parochial schools, to the convent, out of the RCC to the Episcopal Church and finally to the priesthood. These days have led me from FTW to Galveston-Houston, Mexico, New Orleans and St. Louis. I have been called to Syracuse, Bainbridge in NY, Suburban Washington, DC, Berkeley and Watsonville, CA, Binghamton, NY and even into the ELCA Lutheran community.

5. Sitting Days—Now I am retired from parish ministry but I still serve a middle-sized parish as non-stype and get to do the priestly work that I love—teaching Scripture and sometimes preach and celebrate. My calling at the moment is to take care of J and I am not doing a very good job. I find myself grumpy and footloose. I would rather be doing parish work than helping her with the burns from radiation, cooking meals ( I generally love to cook), and driving her to daily therapy. It is much harder to take care of a loved one who is sick than it is to be sick, I think. Her illness scares me. I read and sleep and blog and feel lifeless. But she will be finished next week on my birthday. But it has been so costly! What the recession hasn’t taken, chemo has. I am now definitely a part of the 99% and wish I could be sitting in Zucchetti Square protesting the unfairness of the greed of Wall Street.

The Sermon I Should Have Preached: The Hindsight of God

2011-10-15T15:15:00.000-04:00

[Photo: Libby Hedrick]

Exodus 33:12-23

Moses said to the LORD, "See, you have said to me, `Bring up this people'; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, `I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.' Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people." He said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." And he said to him, "If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth."

The LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name." Moses said, "Show me your glory, I pray." And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, `The LORD'; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live." And the LORD continued, "See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.

I have never preached on this passage of Exodus. I remember reading this incident and being somewhat perplexed by this passage since just a few verses before this, Moses is sitting and talking face to face with God. It is most likely a different strain of the Mosaic tradition but that isn’t the purpose of this story.

The purpose of this story is to remind God of his covenant with the Hebrew people and for God to remind Moses that he is God.

Quibbling seems to be part of the Hebrew character: The snake quibbles with Adam and Eve, Abraham quibbles with God re. Sodom and Gomorrah. It is a wonderful literary device to show that God interacts with humanity. In this passage it is Moses who reminds God of God’s promise to be with them in the desert. And Moses goes on and wants God to show him his glory—[Heb.] Kabowd. It can also mean God’s face. And God responds with being willing to show all God’s goodness but the face of God is too much for Moses to see and live. So he hides Moses in the cleft of a rock and ‘walks past’ and only his back parts are seen.

I have known the presence of God in my life but I have never seen God’s ‘face’ either. I could never know the entirety of God—it is beyond my comprehension. But most of the times when I have experienced God in my life, it has nearly always been in hindsight. Sometimes I have known ‘a presence, or something motivating me to do the right thing, say the good thing, be the just person when in sticky situations, but generally I am only aware of God’s presence in the aftermath of a particular situation.

And now those moments, those experiences of Divine Presence have an iconic place in my life. They become the ‘Stones of Witness’ in my life that remind me of God’s holy presence that are downright palpable today.

I can remember quite clearly the evening when I finally surrendered to the love of God although it did not feel so overwhelming at the time. But I can look at that moment in my memory and claim that as God’s addressing me face-to-face. I did not hear any voice from heaven. I did not see any vision. But afterward, I knew something had happened. I did not go weeping out of the church. I did not go home utterly changed. But I was changed over time. Part of that change was by my own hard work. But the desire to change was rooted in that evening’s prayer. I no longer wanted to be angry at the world. I no longer wanted to blame the world for whatever was wrong in my life. And I began to see my life as much more blessed just as it was. It was the change from being half-empty to being half-full.

Hindsight is the way that we know the presence of God in our lives. We like Moses, may quibble with the Lord; we may even be able to see the goodness of the Holy in our lives. But we seldom really know the power of God in our lives until we look back.

Like the disciples after the Resurrection we say “were our hearts not burning as we open scriptures and broke the bread?” We often see someone helping us and not realize it was Christ until many years later. I can claim a lot of those ‘christs’ in my life over the years, some of them sitting next to me and some of them writing emails to me across thousands of miles.

I always laugh when people call me liberal—I am one both politically and theologically, but all people of faith are at heart conservatives because we look back. We stand in history because it is the past that confirms our future. It is in hindsight that we know the power of God in our lives. And contrary to being stick-in-the-mudds, we are people of vision because God has been allowed to be a part of that past-present-future walk.

Moses saw the glory of God and saw the back of the Lord. And so it is with us all. It might pay to just look back upon our lives and find those places where God has walked with us in our deserts and give thanks. AMEN

Friday, October 14, 2011Friday Five: Scattered!

2011-10-14T11:53:00.001-04:00

Revkjarla has posted an ‘all over the place’ FF for us. Since this fits my personality type and the adult-onset ADD that one therapist said I had, this type of FF is right down my alley.

So, I don't know about you, but I have had quite the scattered week. Sometimes, life is that way, right?

In the spirit of Scattered-ness, I offer you a scattery kind of Friday Five:

1. I lose my keys all of the time. Even if they are in my hand, I still am looking for them. Sigh!

What is something you chronically looking for, if anything?

It is just part of life. I am constantly looking for stuff: keys, billfold, shoes, phone, glasses. I try to plan a bit of extra time before I have to do anything to allow for lost essentials. But I can’t tell you how many times I have truly lost stuff.

2. What movie are you looking forward to watching sometime in the future? (me, the new Footloose!)

I am not much of a movie fan—except Harry Potter. But I generally want to see stuff with Julia Roberts, Helen Mirrin, Judy Dench.

3. What is one of your favorite comfort foods? (me, pizza. hands down).

Pizza isn’t a comfort food—it was generally Sunday night fare because I was too tired to cook. Pot roast in the winter. Chicken salad with grapes and walnuts during the summer. Iced tea, year round—after all I AM a Texan! (but I drink it unsweetened) Potato and leek soup either hot or cold. And PASTA at any time. I spent too much time in Mafia country to not love ‘Sunday gravy’!

4. Story time. Tell us a story of one your favorite people that has touched, blessed your life.

My last parish was a small Lutheran congregation in the country. I loved that bunch but their cultural background was quite different from mine. They had never heard of a rhetorical question and would simply answer the questions from their pews. So I finally realized that my sermons would be ‘dialog homilies’ whether I liked it or not.

I had a veterinarian in the parish—very smart but who was less likely to pick up on the allegories that I was trying to paint in my sermons. I was preaching on one of the healing stories. My mother in her last year could not see, hear, or speak but loved my touch and I was sharing how our touch, like Jesus’ touch is so important. I shared how my family was ‘stiff-upper lip British stock and hugging and holding hands was not part of our skill-set. But in the past years I had learned to be ‘touchier’ because of mom’s need.

I even said “our animals even need our touch, don’t they Dr._____?” She replied in true Germanic form: “Actually it is only the predator animals who like to be touched. Prey animals like sheep, cattle and horses find it difficult to be touched.” Well, that didn’t quite fit into my sermon so I tried to salvage my sermon by making a typical Anglican smart response—“I guess that would make us British stiff upper lip types prey, huh? Then one of the Swedes in the choir just chortled and said: “To us Vikings they are!” Here ended the lesson, I can assure you!

5. What do you do to focus or calm or center yourself? (please, I need ideas!!!)

There are several things: One is mental, centering prayer—a repetitive chant or phrase that I can use until I can calm. Big breaths—sighs that allow me to get enough air to calm down, a phrase that I can chant or run through my scattered brain. I found that meditative prayer was the vehicle that could allow me to attend to anxious moments in ministry without being overwhelmed by them. My natural tendency is scattered too so learning ways to control my anxiety or defuse it has been very important. Sometimes I had to walk away (especially in angry moments) in order to regroup, calm myself so I could re-enter the conversation.

BONUS: Share the first thing (or second thing) that comes to your mind after your read this!

When I read this I said “Ah, revkjarla is an ENFP just like me.” (see below)There are a lot of us in this business but there aren’t too many of us in the pews. Just remember being scattered means that we can also multi-task. Scattered is when we are anxious—Multi-tasking is what we are able to do when we aren’t anxious because we can think of many different things at the same time. We are awesome!

The Sin of being 'Nice'

2011-10-07T13:27:00.000-04:00

My friend Jim Beyer has written a great response to a post by Bishop Victoria Matthews' of New Zealand
support of the Anglican Covenant. http://blog.noanglicancovenant.org/2011/10/enforcing-nice-response-to-two-posts.html

In American parlance especially in the South the term 'nice' is what boys and girls are taught from first breath. 'Nice' becomes the be-all-and-end-all of all social engagement. Nice is more important than truth, 'nice' is more important than kindliness. It is more important than agreement, compassion, meaningful exchange, or even love. 'Nice' is a plastic expression of pleasantry that usually masks integrity.

In the South for a girl growing up in the 50's, nice was what girls were supposed to be. But catty was what really evolved. We could be 'sweet' to the adults but to one another, nasty was the real outcome. I got out of the South as soon as I could to escape the 'niceities' of my surroundings. I moved back last year and lo and behold I found a Texas that is not 'nice'.

I don't know if it has been all those Yankees who have moved down here or those pick'em up trucks or the Republican politics, but the 'nice' Texas of the '50's is no more. A little ole lady is just as likely to get a one finger salute driving Ft. Worth streets as in NJ and the F word is as common on the streets of NY. It has become just as crass as the rest of the world but somehow it has become a great deal more honest.

It is only when you get out into the smaller towns or the rural areas do you find people pulling over when a funeral cortege passes by or the old Southern 'drop by' still in effect. There is still respect for those 'texasism'--terms that have deeply subversive yet funny meanings like: "He's all hat and no cattle" or "she's as confused as a goat on AstroTurf". But that phony 'nice' is giving way to a more genuine set of feelings and behavior that one can depend on as being real.

With regards to the Anglican Communion, perhaps what we will have as time moves on is a group of churches throughout the world who can speak honestly to one another, who can discuss important elements of the faith without fear of 'losing face', losing faith' or some other kind of loss. The loss of 'nice' may actually help us clarify what we mean rather than using arcane theological terms that are not understood alike. "If Christ be with us, who can be against" comes to mind. It makes us a bit 'tougher' to face the discomfort of differing opinions or different aspects of what it means to be Anglican. I makes us a bit bolder to address the hard issues of what it means to be a disciple of the One who calls us to peace, not just nice.

Sermon: Ten Words of God

2011-10-03T10:58:00.000-04:00

Exodus 201-20, Philip. 3:4-14, Mt. 21:33-46

I have been reading a book called Speaking Christianity by Marcus Borg. And in it Borg points out that many of the words that we have from the Bible do not mean the same today as they meant when they were first written and don’t even mean the same as when they were translated into English 400 years ago in the King James Version of the Bible. We need but see how the word gay or the word bite has been changed in just the last 30 years and I won’t go into all words that have been co-opted by technology. But if we consider how much has changed in the past 5,700 years of Jewish history, we can begin to understand how difficult the whole issue of translation of the Bible is.

But I want to talk today about the meaning of just one word: MERCY. In today’s dictionary it is described as “forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power; also: lenient or compassionate treatment “

It implies that: 1. there is an unequal relationship between the one giving and one receiving mercy and 2. That there is some sort of misdeed that is being forgiven. Now the idea of tzadakah—or righteousness does not mean just being ‘right’ it means going beyond the law—being compassionate.

The word chesed in Hebrew is usually translated “loving-kindness” and the word mitzvoth is usually translated law. But neither of these words really catch the meaning. Today’s reading from Exodus set out the 10 Mitzvoth which we translate as “Commandments” but that too doesn’t quite get what it means either. It was the relationship that God had with the people of Israel that determined what law meant. Mitzvah is an act of kindness. And obeying the law was not out of the value of obedience, but out of being in relationship with the Holy One.

The best word then, for what is translated in our Bibles as Mercy is better translated as ‘compassion.’

Our adherence to the law and the random acts of kindness are part of being in relationship with God. They are not hard and fast rules to follow to maintain order. They are part of participating in the holiness of God by taking on the greatest quality of God—chesed—loving kindness. We do not do the things enumerated in the 10 commandments because they would damage our ability to understand the compassion of God.

In the parable we hear from Matthew we hear one of the strangest tales that Jesus tells. It is a story that is hard to hear because we know that Jesus is telling this story at the end of his ministry and he is telling a story about himself. It isn’t like some of the other ‘kingdom parables’ that he has told in recent weeks. This one has to do with all of the people of God and is foretells the destruction of the temple and all of Palestine by the Romans in 70 AD. Jesus is speaking like a prophet here, not just as rabbi—a teacher. It is a fierce condemnation of the people who have colluded with the rich and powerful to rob the lands of the poor.

I am teaching a class on the book of Amos at the moment and the same reasons that God brought the end of Israel some 700 years before are the same reasons that Jesus is outlining in this parable. Everyone who heard this parable knew that Jesus was talking about the Jewish people. Everyone knew that this had happened before. Jesus is not talking to a group of his followers. He is talking to the wealthy politicians and scribes of Jerusalem who have colluded with the Herodian and Roman governments to fleece the poor of the nation. They have been like the tenants in the parable who have tried to steal the land of God from the rightful owner. They have failed in their compassion and their following of the mitzvoth of God. They have misused the law of Moses to the benefit of themselves. And even though they had been shown mercy—shown compassion by the landowner repeatedly, they kill the son.

There is a little point here that I want to point out. Who pronounces judgment in this story?

“Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? And it is the crowd—those who are trying to find fault with Jesus who condemn the tenants. It isn’t Jesus’ condemnation and it isn’t God’s condemnation. It is the people themselves who condemn themselves. They know what is to come because they have not followed the mitzvoth of God. They have coveted, slain, lied, failed to give honor to their own families, they have not lived out the compassion –the chesed of God simply because it was ‘good trade’ to lie, cheat and steal. It was good business to cheat others out of their inheritances. It was good politics to play one country off another. It was loan with high rates of interest and misuse the old and the weak than it was to work and honest day.

Jesus was not pronouncing dire consequences that were going to happen to the people of Jerusalem. He was observing what had already happened to Palestine society. He could not help but see in the great city of David what had happened when the people did not try to live within the compassion of God.

And if there is any parable in the Gospel that is more prophetic to our own generation, I don’t know of it. When government colludes with business to insure greed at every level, when dishonesty flows from the lips of every politician on either side of the aisle, when they dumb down education so that industry can make more, when they take from the poor and give to the rich, when gamesmanship and polls are more important that feeling the poor---we are not living the compassion of God. We are not following the 10 mitzvoth of God. And “when the Owner of the vineyard comes what will he do to those tenants?” Let they who have ears…Listen. AMEN

Friday Five: Home Sweet Home

2011-09-30T11:33:00.001-04:00

Songbird posted another interesting FF. I can’t tell if she is nesting or about to pull up roots. But it gets me thinkin’...

I've got home on my mind: what it feels like, how we make it, what we carry from the past and how we separate other people's leftovers from objects that really reflect our identity. My family has had one home for the past 13 years, the longest I've ever lived anywhere. As the time when all the children are gone comes closer, I wonder where my next home will be?

So here are five questions about home.

1) Where was your first home?

My first home was in Chillicothe, IL outside of Peoria. So how it “plays in Peoria” is very interesting to me. I remember the house. My brother was there just this spring for his 60th high school reunion. He says the house is still there across from the old high school.

2) Do you ever dream about places you used to live?

I used to until I moved back to TX.

3) If you could bring back one person from your past to sit at your dinner table, who would you choose?

My mom. But not EVERY meal! I would love to talk to her again about things around Ft. Worth and how they have developed the way they did. I would love to talk to her about genealogy and what I have found out about the family. She couldn’t talk her last 3 years of her life and just to be able to talk with her would be a blessing.

4) What's your favorite room in your current living space?

My new office. A couple of revgals came last week and help me organize the office and now I have a place to work, think, pray, study, write and just putz.

5) Is there an object or an item where you live now that represents home? If not, can you think of one from your childhood?

‘Home’ was not necessarily a pleasant place growing up and I spent much of my life running away from it—claiming who I was despite what my home environment was like. It is ironic that I have returned to the place where I grew up and am enjoying it. There is something to be said about the kind of healing that has gone on in my life, psychological and spiritual. ‘Home’ now has to do less with objects—I have moved too many times in my life to center on ‘things’, but home has to do with ‘who’ is there. (J. is standing on the far left in the blue flowered jacket)

J’s cancer has made me think a lot about what happens when the “who” might not be there. And for the first time since I was a child, I have really known fear. It is an important thing to think about, fear, because it makes strange one’s whole approach to life. The only thing that seems to calm it is prayer and friends.

Ooooh I think I have a blog article coming on….

The Subversive Power of the Gospel

2011-09-21T21:35:00.000-04:00

Today was the first gathering my first Bible Study as a member of the staff of my new church. I have been attending this program-sized parish for about 9 months now. I have preached and celebrated and sung in the choir. But on Sunday, the rector ‘regularized’ my status by adopting me as an ‘assisting priest’.

It is a neat parish. It is one of the few fairly progressive parishes that was not tainted by the Iker regime. It is in the suburb of Ft. Worth where I started teaching back in the late sixties when I was an undergrad. One of the kids I had in school is now the Jr. Warden. When I taught there, it was a small spot on the road where the kids were often late to school because “the cows jumped the fence.” There was one school K-8 with 2 classrooms of each grade. Now the system has 23 elementary schools! And it is one of the fastest growing cities and tony school systems in all of TX.

But today I met with 8 very active and rather vocal and thirsty senior women who wanted to learn more about the Bible. Some of them feel as though they know NOTHING and even though they may have been Episcopalians their whole lives, they feel woefully out of touch with the source of their faith. Some were raised in other traditions but in ALL cases they felt that the Bible had been mediated to them and carefully interpreted to them by men.

I asked them what they wanted to study. Some of the had participated in a long study of Revelation (I am with Luther; I don’t think it should have been collected into the Bible), but all were generally just as baffled by it. They said they wanted to study something that wasn’t just history but something that would feed their understanding of the roots of Christianity from Hebrew Scripture. We settled on Amos because few knew about the 7th century BC loss of the Northern Kingdom and had never studied Hebrew poetry or the early prophetic movements. I am excited about studying scripture with these women.

One woman who had been the buyer for her parish book store in another conservative diocese said that the rector only allowed her to buy books from conservative authors. Another said, she quite frankly didn’t believe in a lot the ‘BS’ that she had been taught in sermons. And I was able to say, I didn’t either. And we all laughed.

If there is anything I know for certain about Holy Scripture is that it is subversive. And these women are eager to hear a liberating Word. These are women who have been betrayed by an interpretation of God’s acts that has been used to control them. And what they are going to find out is that God has a Word for them.

The whole idea of women studying the Bible together has, I am sure, been going on for 2000 years—whether it was allowed or behind closed doors. Even Paul found it scary what happened when women found the source of their power in the life of Jesus. These women are ready to step into the scary world of being free in their faith. Watch out, Church!

Friday, September 16, 2011Friday Five: Seeking What?

2011-09-16T12:05:00.000-04:00

Jan is making us use our thinking caps: I was struck in our weekly Lectio Divina group by a few verses from Psalm 105:3-4:

. . . let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

Seek the Lord and his strength;

seek his presence continually.

Seeking is rejoicing. Rejoicing comes from the seeking, NOT the end of glory, heaven, enlightenment, or whatever. Seeking is the journey--RIGHT NOW!

So for this Friday Five, list what you are seeking, whether it is trivial, profound, or ordinary--whatever you would like to share! List 5 and add a bonus if you feel like it!

1. Peace: It has been hectic ever since J. started chemo. Now she is doing radiation. I worry because I am not feeling like I am doing enough. But I don't know what 'enough' is. We only have 5 more weeks of this and we are done but it has been a long time since Easter. J is chemo-brained at the moment and it means that all she wants to do is sleep, read and watch tv. It means that there isn't much companionship but we'll get through it.

2. Activity: I am way too restless to sit at home in front of my computer everyday. Retirement can't be this boring! I am starting to teach a bible study in my parish on Wednesdays so that will get me out of the house. The diocesan properties are still hung up in court so I don't know when I will have a parish again. It has been too hot to walk until yesterday. Today it is cool again too. Perhaps I can get out and walk a bit this morning. Now I understand what my mother said when my dad retired: "I married him for better and for worse, but not for lunch!"

3. Organization: I have never been organized but I have always counted on my spontaneity to get me through. But this house needs some serious organization. A couple of friends have offered to give me a day to help me organize the office. We have never gotten moved in and after a year of boxes, it is past time to get this done. My therapist tells me I have a case of adult onset ADD. I probably have had it all my life and thought it was a gift to be able to do ministry! I thought it was called 'multi-tasking'! Oh, well, who says it isn't!

4. Meaning: Viktor Frankl aside, I think I am at a time in my life when I am trying to grasp what it means to be on the cusp of a new age. I am trying to look through my beliefs and really figure out what about faith that actually makes my life run, makes my life better. About once a month I blog on another part of theology that I am trying to work out. Words like Redemption, Salvation, Atonement, etc. don't seem to carry the meaning of my relationship to God and Christ anymore and so I am trying to work out ways of speaking about the Bible, the Incarnation, and the mighty acts of God in ways that do make sense. Faith has been a gift that was given; transformation is the way that I use that gift. I am trying to steer away from all of those metaphysical words that have peppered theology so that we don't even know what they mean. And I am using words from other disciplines to describe my relationship with the divine. Sometimes it helps.

5. A good recipe for Beef Bourguignon: I have a couple of recipes that require lard or other such vein clogging ingredients. Anybody out there got one?

9/11 Repris

2011-09-14T14:01:00.000-04:00

Things have been rather hectic around our house this past weekend. I had planned to write something on the anniversary of the 9/11 attack but J. cut her hands rather badly on Friday and I have been playing step n’ fetchit ever since. But I did see several good reflection pieces on the anniversary, not the least was a PBS piece on faith following 9/11—a rather pessimistic approach, I am afraid.

I was in California 10 years ago. I had just resigned my parish when it was clear that the Daddy Warbucks of the parish and the bishop were in cahoots to get me out of the parish. I had done what I was asked to do—start an Hispanic mission in the parish. And it had been so successful that it began to scare the wealthy Anglos in that parish. They felt that they were going to get swallowed up by the Mexicans that worked in their fields. I was angry. I was fed up with the politics in church.

My mother called me at 6am to wake me to the events on TV. By that time the first plane had struck the first tower and we watched in horror as the second one flew into the other tower. She was afraid we were being attacked by some military power at first. The remembrances of Pearl Harbor were dancing in her head. And I had heard those stories since my childhood.

I had also lived in NY and Washington, DC and was anxious about friends who I knew worked at the Pentagon or in the World Trade Buildings. I wanted to gather ‘my people’ for prayer, but I no longer had the keys to the parish. The local ministerium did gather for prayer in the largest Roman Catholic Church in town and it did get a standing room crowd. One of the prominent RC lay leaders had a son at the Pentagon that day. The son had been called to the other side of the building to advise the Chief of Staff when the third plane hit the building. His office and his co-workers were all wiped out but the son was able to call his father and tell him he was safe. We prayed in fear, in sorrow and in gratitude that day.

Later that week after the flight lockdown was lifted; I flew to TX to visit my family. I talked to flight attendants who had lost co-workers on the flights. J. had been a priest in Syracuse when the sabotage of the Pan-Am flight over Lockerbee, Scotland and there had been many Syracuse University students on that flight. I was beginning to understand deeply how precarious life is in a world that resorts to terrorism. I was being touched by events happening 3,000 miles away in ways that I had not experienced before.

And perhaps that IS what happened –Americans began to be touched by what had happened in other parts of the world. We could no longer be naïve about what happens in other parts of the globe. The poverty and the ubiquitous message of American idealism are explosive ingredients. And add to that religious piety and nationalistic jingoism, it is not surprising that we were targeted as the ‘evil empire.’

The kind of nihilism that Al-Qaida represented has been represented at other times in history. The assassination of Grand Duke Ferdinand that precipitated WWI did not have as many victims initially but certainly fanned a war that garnered many more. There was a whole series of bombings in 1848 which shook Europe. And I can’t help but be mindful of the fiery sermons of Bernard of Clairveaux that stirred the hearts of Europe to the folly of the Crusades.

I do not believe in ‘just wars’. I do not believe that there is justice in killing others to get what we want. I do however know that sometimes, despite our faith, we must fight to defend ourselves. It is something that no matter who is ‘right’ and who is ‘wrong’, when we resort to violence, we fail in what it means to follow Christ. That said, there are times when we must participate in war –survival is more important. But afterward there must be a place/time where we find a way to be reconciled.

In February of 2001 I flew to NYC and was seated next to a man who was obviously Middle Eastern. We began to chat. I asked him if he had any problems getting through security. He said no. Even though he was Iranian, he had an Indian passport. His family was Zoroastrians not Muslim and had left Iran when he was young. I became aware of how little I knew of the Middle East—the diversity of cultures that are there. I am still ignorant of the history of the antipathy between Shia and Sunni; I cannot comprehend the fierceness of the partisanship there. But I can only be reminded of the idiocy of the Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants in the 17th century. History does help in moderating opinion.

But I do believe that the 2nd Iraqi war was wrong. It was an emotional response to an emotional event. There was too much vengeance on the part of the US and it reminded me of the bullyboy who is just out for a fight and can't figure out where to apply his wrath. And the entrance into Afghanistan has never made much sense to me.

But we have been touched by the world like we have never been. We cannot resort to isolationism anymore. We cannot close our boarders anymore than Europe can. We cannot say “it isn’t our fight” anymore. There must be some balance between the haves and have-nots to keep from having this kind of ‘touch’ be epidemic and we will find ourselves battling from caves again.

Friday, September 09, 2011Friday Five: Your Work Space

2011-09-09T12:38:00.000-04:00

Revkjarla posted this for the FF:

I don't know about you, but I am a notoriously messy creative worker. My workspace at home, and at my office is always littered with books and papers and mail and pens and keys and mugs....and tschotske (momentos, weird things, etc.) I am looking right now at a pair of dice that someone gave me that have "God" on each side, so that anyway you roll 'em, you end up with God. Different, right?

So, this Friday Five is all about YOUR tschotske in your workplace. Describe five things in/on your workspace (however you define workspace--I tend to spill over onto bedside tables, end tables, coffee tables...create wherever I land) that are special to you! Bonus points for pictures!

My workspace is now my recliner. The office hasn’t been set up yet. We have only been here a year! And after a lifetime of ministry, I have so many tschotskes that I am not sure I have much of substance. I am waiting for my new parish to have a rummage sale! But now I am going to just name the momentoes of that life in ministry that I can see from my recliner.

1. A clay chalice that was given to me by a friend at my ordination. I don’t remember the name of the person who gave it to me but I can remember her face. (The problem of being over 65). It has traveled with me from coast to coast on several occasions and has arrived at retirement with many memories of intimate services at bedsides or in homes or camps. It reminds me of the gift of the Eucharist and the simplicity of the meal that Christ shared with his disciples.

2. A piece of stained glass: The first baptism I did was while I was a deacon. He owned a stained glass business in Ithaca. For my priestly ordination (just a few weeks later) he gave me a round piece of hanging glass that has the Alpha and Omega (which was on my invitations) on it. It is about pie-plate sized and sparkles in the sunlight. The night I was ordained I was called as rector of two little parishes along the Susquehanna River ( at the moment over-flowing its banks—please pray for the people of Bainbridge, Sydney and Afton, NY). In one church we had some reredos hiding a beautiful stained glass window in my new parish. I got the guys to move the reredos and found that there had been damage that had been repaired with clear glass to the window. I called my friend from Ithaca and he came and restored the window by matching the existing glass and firing painted glass to restore the 19th century glass.

3. A piece of calligraphy: When I left my parish in suburban Washington, DC, the parish presented me with a wonderful piece of calligraphy that says: “O Lord, Thou didst strike my heart with Thy word and I loved thee” by Michael Podesta. I am not especially a fan of St. Augustine, but it so encompasses how I understand how God has called me and nurtured me throughout the years that it has an important place in our home. It is a small piece but so right for the wall of an office. But right now I live in a rented home where we can’t put things on the wall. I have got to find a place where it can remind me each day of those who gave it, the One that inspired it and what I am continually called to.

4. A wooden box: In my first parish I had a wonderful octogenarian who was the matriarch of the parish. I was the first woman called to serve St. Pete’s and she didn’t know whether she was going to like me or not. My very first call in the parish, of course, was to her. We hit it off from the beginning. And two years later when she died, her niece brought me this simple wooden box that was hers. It is an antique now—but it will always be a remembrance of her ‘adoption’ and the success I had in that first parish. She taught me much, as did that whole parish. I often wonder if parishes understand how important they are for the new clergy that they open their hearts to.

5. A casserole dish: This is a 7qt big pot with a lid that my first sister-in-law gave me for Christmas. Carol died back in the late 90’s of cancer. She found this in a pottery shop here in Ft. Worth. She said that the potter sold it to her and asked her if she knew me. Joe and I had gone to school together from first grade. It has taken chili, soup, all kinds of covered dishes to church dinners for 25 years or so now. It is a beautiful pot. And just a few weeks ago I attended a meeting of my high school class and the Joe was there. That pot has ‘held us together’ all these years. And I will take it next spring as we celebrate our 50th class reunion.

Tschotskes are not so much stuff to dust; they are mementoes of your life. They are like the cross or rings or even sacraments laden with people and events that make our lives rich. Revkjarla, don’t worry about having a messy desk. Your desk reminds you of people and friends and your ability to be flexible when necessary.

2011-09-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

A friend sent this to me this morning. I really like it. Einstein was considered stupid when he was in school. I was considered stupid and did not do well in school either. I am not an Einstein but I am a helluva lot smarter than my school marks show. Part of the problem was that my folks started me to school early. I started to kindergarten at 4. It wasn't until I was in graduate school that I really caught up.

Secondly, I now know that I am dyslexic enough that I would have been put in learning disabled classes now--and probably still considered dumb. I learned differently from the way they taught. I am a kinesthetic learner--I learn by doing rather than by hearing. It is why I excelled in music because I enjoyed practicing. I love to do research now that we have computers. I am not one for sitting and reading ancient tomes in dusty libraries. I get very antsy in libraries. And I am allergic to either the dust in dusty libraries or to the library past of past years.

As an ENFP I am one of those intuitive persons who doesn't know how I know stuff but I know it. This is one of the most common personality types for clergy. We are only 10% of the population. One wag said that on any given Sunday that folks like us are preaching what we don't know how we know to 90% of the population who does know how they know stuff. No wonder the Christian message has had such a difficult time being understood!

I also speak and explain things by allegory (it is why I preach well) rather than repeating facts. But it does not serve when trying to do academic work. It has surprised me that I have gotten so much enjoyment about writing in the past 10 years.

But most of all, I do so enjoy those whom I have met on the various chats I have been a part of over the past almost 20 years I have been on line. I am still not too tech saavy. I have never learned techy language and so I still have difficulty telling the geek fix-it guy what is wrong with my computer. I just know that it is sick and needs some help--it doesn't work right. J's computer isn't much better. It is flinchy. But it also has Windows 7 rather than Vista which is on mine.

It is interesting how much of my life has been determined by how others thought I should learn-- even while I was doing doctoral work. I wonder if education means learning how to learn the way others learn in order to prove to others that I have learned rather than educators reaching into me and finding out how I know what I know. Just sayin'...

More on the Anglican Covenant

2011-09-02T12:34:00.000-04:00

I just noticed this morning a post on Alan T. Perry's blog a rather comprehensive evaluation of the Anglican Covenant. I would heartly recommend any who follow here to check his blog http://alantperry.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-i-oppose-anglican-covenant.html for this study. Alan is a canon of the cathedral in Montreal and is a canonist. He looks at the proposed canon in the light of not only Canadian polity but also of many of the different aspects that are raised by the wording of the AC.

The Season You're In - Friday Five

2011-09-02T11:54:00.000-04:00

Kathrynzj has posted a fall Friday Five:
Headquarters for me is the northeast of the United States. Here school is getting back in session, the tease of autumn is in the air (or the hope for the tease of autumn is in the air) and church life is gearing up to full throttle.

One thing I've learned with blogging and social media is that the where I live is not necessarily where you live. And so I want to know what September means to you, in your place of the world and time in your life.

This week's Friday Five is:

What are 5 things that the beginning of September mean to you?

Bonus: What's one thing you could do without?

Kathrynzj has posed a fall FF. But we are far from the fall I knew when I lived up north. And I am far from Texanized in my interior calendar so this is going to be more of a Yankee version than where I am living now. Also note that my left shift key is not working so if all the letters that should be capitalized aren’t…well, tough. The laptop goes to the fix-it shop this afternoon.

1. School; I taught for 15 years before I turned to preachin’. I am like a fire horse when it comes to September. I have been restless all Aug. because I wasn’t planning adult ed. classes, thinking about bulletin boards etc. I am teaching a bible study starting the 21st so I spent some time devising a pre-test for my class. I have not taught bible in this parish before and I don’t know what they know. I have missed teaching a regular bible study. I am leaving it up to the group as to what book we are going to study. They do want a spiritual reading of the Bible rather than a scholarly study of the book. And I can appreciate that. Some of these folk have been reading their Bible for years but want something more out of it. It is time to put on my Benedictine allegorical hat.

2. Fall weather; I love the crisp mornings, the leaves turning, etc. it is my favorite season. But in Texas we don’t get a real fall. And since we have had only a thimble of rain in the past 2 months and triple digit temps for over 2 months, I am covetous of Kathryn’s fall. I think I now know when I am going to visit my friends in Ny.

3. Rain; I have blogged about it; prayed about it; cussed about it. There is nothing like a crisp fall day with a gentle rain. But we haven’t had any this summer. The yard is dry. The leaves are dry but they won’t fall until Dec. The garden burned up months ago. It won’t be until October until we get fall-like weather if even then. I do fear that when we do get rain, the ground is so hard-pan that it won’t be able to absorb it and then we will have floods that will take the topsoil with it.

4. Pecans; we have 2 large pecan trees in the yard. They must be the kinds that have nuts every other year because we didn’t have any last year. But this year they are full of green nuts that will fall in the fall. But since fall isn’t here we don’t have nuts yet. I look forward to having those fresh nuts and some pecan pie. I always add a bit of bourbon to my pecan pie to make it a bit richer.

5. Smells and foods; There are certain smells that speak to me of fall. Of course, wood smoke or leaf smoke but there are certain spices that also remind me that it is fall—cinnamon and apples, clove and all spice. I generally don’t roast pork during the summer—I barbeque it. But in the fall roast pork with cloves and the last of the summer peaches, or ham and beans seem to go with the season. Lima beans and corn, fried green tomatoes are southern delicacies as the gardens begin to be put to bed for the winter. In CA it was time for cabbage and broccoli—oh did the fields stink after having been so strawberry-sweet all summer. It is the time for butternut squash rather than zucchini.

Bonus: Heat—did I mention that it is freakin’ hot down here?

Governance

2011-08-29T11:59:00.001-04:00

The formation of the Diocese of Fort Worth in 1983 was conceived to maintain a balance in the houses of General Convention. When the Diocese of El Camino Real wanted to be admitted, it was reckoned that it would upset the balance of power by conservatives. Bishop Davies, then bishop of Dallas, proposed that his diocese be partitioned and the Fort Worth diocese formed. The plan was for Bishop Davies was to be made bishop of Ft. Worth and then suffragan Bishop Terwilliger be made diocesan of Dallas. Bishop Davies already had a home in Grandbury so it was done deal. But the Diocese of Dallas did not elect Terwilliger the diocesan.

There was no election by the people of Fort Worth except the kind a rubber stamp process that became de rigure for the diocese. Thereafter slates of hand-picked candidates were provided by the administration of the diocese. It wasn’t clear how those people were nominated but it was clear that no alternatives would be welcomed. Nominations from the floor of Convention were discouraged and no clear mechanisms were established for any opposition to the proposed candidates. This practice established a type of cleric-controlled administration that still raises its ugly head in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

The governance of The Episcopal Church was set up to allow for good people of all orders to have equal influence in the running of the church. Yes, we did have bishops, but that power was limited by the clergy and laity. Yes, we have priests, but their power is limited by bishops and laity. And most of all, we had laity who were to have an equal say in the church but their power too is limited by bishops and clergy. We are not a congregational denomination in which each congregation can call their own shots. Each order has an important contribution and power in the church but the main job was for them to work together as equals. But this balance of power was not evident in the founding of the Diocese of Fort Worth and until its reorganization 2 years ago, the role of the laity was perceived by many as ‘pay and pray.’

So in our reorganization of the diocese it is incumbent upon us to provide ways of all members being involved in the governance of the diocese--both clergy and lay. The process for nomination must be clear and visible, not done behind closed doors of ‘confidentiality’. All proposed names for diocesan office who are members in good standing should appear on the ballots of our convention. There should be no vetting by a nominations committee or the like otherwise it will have the mark of previous administrations on the diocesan process of governance. Transparency is absolutely necessary to shake us from previous practices to insure the Church that the Diocese has righted itself from its past.

The job of a nominations committee is to provide the candidates’ biographical information to the convention and to check their eligibility. It is also incumbent for that committee to provide descriptions of the positions that are to be filled. That is all. No discussion as to the candidates’ viability or their abilities or personality should take place. It is the purview of the convention to determine the viability and appropriateness of candidates for the positions. No one should have to step down from the Nominating Committee in order to run for office; no one is refused nomination for any reason other than ineligibility.

Righting past wrongs is more than just giving previously disenfranchised persons voice. It requires a vigilance to put in place structures that provide for different ways of calling forth from us good governance and demanding from us all adherence to principles of transparency and openness. Ideally the governance of The Episcopal Church is one in which each order can trust the other because we have our unique gifts and charisms. We, as a diocese are getting there. But we must continue to demand from all our committees and organizations the kind of processes that speak clarity and openness.

Friday Five: Rainy Days

2011-08-26T10:09:00.000-04:00

Sally, who lives in jolly old Yorkshire, UK has posted this Rainy Day Friday Five. Since we have not seen rain for two months, save for a slight sprinkle and lots of Texas thunder and lightning, I am not really sure what to do. But I do remember a very rainy month I had in the UK in 1987. That was when the ‘hurricane’ went through southern England. Also many of my friends are waiting out Irene on the ‘right’ coast of the US today so I will try to remember a rainy day for their sakes.

Sally, I remember a very chilly rainy October birthday on the Yorkshire Dales in a Bainbridge/Askrigg pub that was warm and friendly. I had my first ‘Snakebite’ bought for me by a fellow in that pub to honor my day. I couldn’t find my feet when I stood up to leave! It was good we only had to walk across the street to our B&B. If we had pubs here, that is one of the places I would go on a rainy afternoon.

Sally said: “It is Friday which is my day off and it is raining, which means that an outing to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park has been cancelled. So what to do, I am currently scanning the internet for possibilities. I think we will head into York to visit the Art Gallery.”

How about you, what do you do on a rainy summer’s day?

1. At home? Rain on a Texas summer’s day usually comes with much thunder and lightning. It either comes with a heavy downpour for a very short time or it signifies nothing. Since lightning accounts for many deaths here, it is not a time I would like to walk in the rain or watch the TV, I generally read. But often it is just refreshing to be able to open the doors to the cooler air.

2. In your local area? When I we lived in NY state, it was generally a good day to go to the mall for a bit of shopping. Here in Fort Worth we have some splendid museums.

3. If you are away on holiday? Put on our slickers and go! Holidays are too precious to just sit around and stay dry. I always have a pair of shoes that allow rainy day excursions. I am generally not a ‘brawlie’ person—umbrellas do not fare well in TX wind. But I always have a rain jacket and don’t mind getting a bit damp in order to see the sights. It is often the time when others stay home and the crowded places are often more accessible.

4. Name a rainy day read. Almost anything but Dostoevsky or Camus, they are depressing on a sunny day! Harry Potter would be a good rainy day read. But any good mystery. Right now I am reading a British novel that takes place on Holy Island.

5. Is there a piece of music/ a poem/ story that cheers you up? Rain, for the most part, is not depressing for me. Having grown up in TX rain was nearly always greeted with great joy because we get so little of it. But with all the ‘sturm und drang’ that rainstorms bring here, I would listen to some of the big pieces of Richard Strauss—Die Rosenkavilier or Mahlers’ Seventh Symphony or Die Valkurie by Wagner to enliven my day. Or if J is home, perhaps some Paul Simon—Kodachrome or Bridge over Troubled Waters.

Bonus: post a rainy day photo

Friday Five: Road Trips

2011-08-19T10:28:00.000-04:00

Jan once more has posted another good Friday Five:

My husband and I just returned (on Wednesday night) from a long road trip up the middle USA to Canada, going through various national parks, and on to the Puget Sound of Washington State. This brought back memories of family road trips with my children and when I was a child, so the idea of today's Friday Five arose.

Tell us about five road trips--in your childhood, in your family, in your recent past, with friends, and/or hoped-for-places-to-drive-to. Don't forget the one that stands out as the BEST or as the worst time

1. One of the first long trips I remember taking in the car was to Rocky Mountain National Park. I must have been in my early teens. We were camping in an old tent that was difficult to put up and it rained almost the whole time we were there. It was cold and our equipment old. It was not a good time for a 13 year old. But it was my first encounter of snow capped mountains and clear streams.

2. Most of the trips I made as a child were to visit grandmothers. My father worked for the railroad so we were able to ride the train for free. Both grandmothers lived on the railroad lines. It would be hours of looking out the window. By the time I was 8 or 10 I knew all the stops between Ft. Worth and northern MO and Chicago. I was a seasoned traveler by the time I was 6, able to keep my balance walking down the aisle and hustleing bags between stations. Mom would always make boxed lunches (liverwurst and green grapes) and sometimes we would go to the dining car for bran muffins.

3. In 1995 I took sabbatical and was able to make the pilgrimage from Canterbury in England to the ancient shrine of Santiago de Compostella in Spain. Many years before I had read James Michener’s Espana and wanted to make this medieval pilgrimage. I went with a group and I guess it was more like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales than I would have liked, but I saw parts of England, France and Spain that I would never have been able to see. We saw many of the cathedral sites of the 10th and 11th centuries rather than the 12th century gothic places. We even visited an 8th century church in France with its Byzantine apse and mosaics. The history of the Church really became alive. But when we arrived in Santiago I was moved not by the buildings or the completion of the journey, but by noting that the steps to the crypt of Saint James were so dished by the trod of centuries of faithful pilgrims. I stood there flooded with the awe of being a part of something so much larger than my personal faith. On my return I road the train from Madrid to Paris arriving on a Sunday morning in time to go to church at the American Cathedral in Parish. I arrived early and the priest asked me to assist at the altar that morning because he was short handed. It was a remarkable conclusion to the pilgrimage.

4. About 3 years ago J and I took the Canadian Railway from Ontario to Vancouver. I had heard about this trip as one of the classic railway journeys in the world. I knew I would never get to take the Orient Express to Istanbul so as a way to return to my railway roots, we decided to go to Canada. It was both an awesome trip and BORING. The equipment on the railroad was vintage—was the same equipment as was running when I was a child. But by this time I had experienced the trains of Europe which put the western hemisphere railroads to shame. The meals were awesome. So we ate, slept and sat. The scenery was spectacular through Ontario and even Saskatchewan’s mighty plains were beautiful. The only problem was that we went through the Rockies at night so we couldn’t see the mountains. The only real set back to the trip was that the trains were so late.

5. In 1985 J and I traveled from Ft. Worth to Anaheim for General Convention. We allowed ourselves some time to play tourist. We borrowed my brother’s camper van and camped in various state and national parks. We were able to visit family and friends along the way. We were living in Syracuse, NY at the time and met our neighbors on the streets of Santa Fe by happenstance. We spent an incredible 2 days at the Grand Canyon with a huge harvest moon coming up over the canyon. I fished some of the streams of the High Sierra and drove across the Mohave without air conditioning. It was a part of the southwest I had not seen before.

Once J has gotten through all her treatments we are hoping to take a cruise. We aren’t sure to where yet—most likely to Mexico but we need to get out of Dodge just to celebrate life.

Friday Five: Gratitude

2011-08-12T11:30:00.000-04:00

The Place I Want To Get Back To

is where

in the pinewoods

in the moments between

the darkness

and first light

two deer

came walking down the hill

and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,

this one is okay,

let's see who she is

and why she is sitting

on the ground, like that,

so quiet, as if

asleep, or in a dream,

but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came

on their slender legs

and gazed upon me

not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look

and look and look

into the faces of flowers;

and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life

bring to me that could exceed

that brief moment?

For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,

not waiting, exactly, just lingering.

Such gifts bestowed,

can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this

come to visit. I live in the house

near the corner, which I have named

Gratitude.

(Mary Oliver, "Thirst", Beacon Press, 2006)

For this Friday Five I invite you to offer five gratitudes you recognize in your life.

• Reading: the ability and the desire to read. I didn’t really enjoy reading until I was introduced to the great British mystery writers Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey. And it was off to the races. I was well into my thirties by then and I have been trying to catch up ever since. While my favorite genre is still mystery, I enjoy fiction and non-fiction alike. Historical novels as well as history; theology as well as spiritual reading. And I am getting the time to read in retirement. I am thankful for a near-by public library.

• Cats—I have never had a dog but I have had cats since I was small. They are indifferent companions. They can entertain themselves when I can’t pay attention to them. But they know when I am not well and attend to my needs for cuddling and care. The pair we have now do not get along very well. Bit, the kitten has become the dominant one and the 6 yr old male, Tyke is a wuss. She pounces on the old man wanting to play rough and tumble and he hisses and yowls as if he were being killed. J and I laugh at their antics. But when it is time to settle down they crawl next to us and keep us company.

• Church—Ever since I was in my twenties, church has become my home. It was the place where I was known and where I knew others. It became the family that accepted me when my blood kin did not. With ordination came different responsibilities in that family but it did not change my desire to be in that family. Now that I am retired, I still look to the church, parish, diocese, national church and communion as my extended family. It is the community in which I will live and find my friends and it will be the one from which I am buried. It will be different by then, but no matter. It is my family.

• My Chair—I bought this chair for my mom when she was in a nursing home. It is a small recliner that makes my knees the right height for the lap top. It is where I do all of my correspondence and write my blog. Needless to say, I spend a good bit of time in this chair. Bit likes this chair too, but it is stick her claws into and no matter how many times I squirt her with the water bottle, she comes back to claw at the upholstery.

• J. – my dearest friend. Wed. J had her final chemo treatment for breast cancer. She has done remarkably well, all things considering. She sleeps a lot and is not too enthusiastic about eating (my idea of being taken care of). She will begin radiation treatments in a few weeks, but we are hoping now her hair will start to grow. Thanks for all the prayers. Keep them up. She will need them for the next 7 years, I am told.

• The Anglican Communion—normally I would have included this in Church above, but I have been a part of an Anglican Communion group on-line over the past year that has so expanded my horizons. It has also humbled me because what I thought was universal about my faith isn’t at all. It has challenged me to listen much more closely to people that I corresponded with and is giving me insight into this third form of catholicity that I profess.

• Bonus: New Barbeque Grill—I finally broke down and bought a gas grill this summer. It has been so dry here that we couldn’t afford the sparks from a charcoal fire. Being a Texan, I have always poo-pooed the gas grill as an interloper into the REAL barbeque world of smoked meat that is de rigure in the life of Texans. But this summer because of the heat, the gas grill has been a real life-saver. It keeps the heat out of the kitchen and outside where it belongs! It is so easy just to turn on and grill a bit of chicken or veggies. I am especially fond of grilled tomatoes, zucchini and onions. I have also learned how to make beer-butt chicken—so easy and soooo good and moist. Last night we had fajitas. And J could eat them. We just didn’t add any hot stuff. Maybe our lives will return to normal!

Of Trains and History, of Wanderlust and Home

2011-08-11T17:13:00.000-04:00

My father worked for the railroad as did his father before him. Grandfather came to the US from the UK in the late 19th century. He was on his way to Australia to be with cousins because there were no jobs for him in England. The future for him was only in the Empire. But Grandpa’s trip over was traumatic and he refused to get on another ship. Even a small boat on the lake would make him ‘white-knuckled’. So he wound up in Iowa working for the Burlington-Quincy Railroad. He was a surveyor. He met his wife who was the daughter of the owner of a boarding house for railroad workers.

About 100 years ago he joined the Santa Fe Railroad centered in Chicago. My dad grew up in suburban Chicago and when he graduated in 1927 he too went to work for the Santa Fe as a surveyor. Dad worked for the Santa Fe most of his life. During the Great Depression he was laid off for about 6 years but as soon as the economics began to recover, he returned to the Santa Fe. My mother’s mother too ran a boarding house for railroaders. My parents were married in Topeka, KS. Both my brother and I were born in Santa Fe railheads. Our lives revolved around the movements of passengers and freight. As with younger families, Bob moved many times in his childhood. Dad had moved up in the office by the time I came along. But we did move to Ft. Worth when I was young as a result of a Santa Fe new position.

I watched throughout my youth the decline of the railroads and the end of passenger service. I was well into my twenties before I ever flew. When we visited grandmothers, it was always by rail. But by the 1970’s I was no longer on my dad’s pass and Amtrack never held the thrill that riding the Texas Chief had had.

So it was with great delight to find when I move back to Ft. Worth that the new offices of the combined Burlington, Northern and Santa Fe were just down the street from where I live and many BNSF employees attended the church where I go. Last week an officer of the company and a docent of the building took my family on a tour. What a delight and a joy to relive those childhood memories with Bob (who had also worked for the Santa Fe during his college years). We saw not only the beautifully constructed building that is secure from takeover by terrorists, is designed like the old car barns of the early years of train travel, and has the most complete collection of western art of the 19th and 20th centuries that is one place.

My friends shared their own enthusiasm for the company in its new configuration and with pride showed us how the operations were carried out, shared some of the ways that they were looking toward the future and most of all shared with us the history of the various organizations that had made the US. We toured through walls that were hung with huge renditions of the calendar art that were the tour posters of the 19th and early 20th century. For us Santa Fe folks it meant wonderful painting of the Grand Canyon, First Nations peoples in folk dress, and in some cases actual paintings of the trains in great detail. I grew up with those calendars and longed to go to those places in Arizona and California. I am sure it conjured up the wanderlust that I know to this day.

Since this tour I have been caught up with how much my family was a part of the Western Movement that has marked the history of our nation. My mother’s people were part that began in the 17th century when farming Scots began to branch out from the enclosures of Scotland and spread into New England and Virginia and finally migrated to Missouri by way of the Erie Canal and the Appalachian Trail. They came by railroad and packet boats. They came first to farm but also to bring the newness of the railroad. I remember just how sleepy Texas towns were when we moved here following WWII and just how different and yet how the same they are a half a century later.

I am thankful for the kind of dream that the railroad provided for me. That calendar art said I did not ever have to be stuck in a place where I could not breathe or be creative. Yes, my family has stayed in specific places for generations, but we have never stayed in a place just because it was our home. We had the ability and the vision to branch out if we needed to.

Ft. Worth is experiencing a boom like it never has. I believe we are growing faster than any city in the South. I am surprised at how many of my high school classmates have returned to Ft. Worth after having spent most of their lives, like me, elsewhere. It isn’t as if Ft. Worth is the nirvana of TX. It may just be that all the mobility of my contemporaries’ adulthood has said it is time for the idea of ‘home’ to predominate. I certainly find it so.

I am so glad to find that the corporation that gave me the wanderlust is headquartered here in my hometown. I can go and look at those great pictures that sent me on a life-time of moving and can still come home. They are great memories. I feel as though I have been a part of a great picture and part of a history that has made this nation what it is. There is a certain sense of pride that that is not about a single individual but about families that slogged through hardship to make this nation great. This is about as ‘red, white and blue’ that I ever get, but it is tinged with the Orange and Red of the Santa Fe and the Green and Blue of the Burlington. The sounds of train whistles in the night are still the music of comfort, security and home.

Theology 101: Creation

2011-08-08T17:47:00.000-04:00

Last night I caught Richard Dawkins’ commentary on the existence of God on the Green Channel. He was showing how with the ‘Big Bang Theory’ there is no room for God. He has proven with math and logics that it didn’t take God to be creator of the Universe.

Now, I am no physicist. I do not know the mechanics of how the natural world works. I am so math-challenged that I can’t balance my check book. But I do know that natural law is not the only thing that makes the world go round. I do know that there is something that somehow not only caused the Big Bang that led to billions of years of evolving and transformation and it continues to be a part of that ever-expanding creation.

I have no way of even beginning to describe that Presence, that element that is not matter or time that I know in the depths of my being as the dimension of holiness. I conveniently call that presence God simply because I have no other word for it—he, she or they. It is just an awareness that beyond the parameters of time and space there is something or someone who touches my soul—that part of me that cannot be described but where I am most fully alive. It is not a figment of my imagination because I cannot even imagine that Presence in whole. But only in part, as Paul says..

What I call God or the Holy is not something that I can even begin to describe. I can only point to the effects in life. Professor Hawkings is an amazing scientist. And I am sure he is sure of his facts. But the Holy is not about facts. The Holy includes all of that which cannot be explained in natural law. I am sure the good professor would say that there IS nothing outside natural law. But I have experienced that Holy and it is not something I have manufactured. I am not smart enough to manufacture that presence that goes beyond time, matter and space.

Yes, I am sure that I am not too scientific about my theology, but then again just how scientific should we mortals be when trying to describe that which is beyond matter, space and time? It is an experience that moves me beyond the confines of that which can be quantified. Is this ‘fuzzy thinking?’ Of course it is! But all theology is ‘fuzzy thinking.’ To even talk about the Holy ultimately limits the Unlimited because to name puts limits on that which is named.

I have been preaching about the Indefinable for 40 years now and I am no closer to describing the Holy than before I went to seminary. I can only speak in metaphors and use words allegorically to explain that Presence that has been there all my life even though I may have not known it. I use the metaphoric language that those who have gone before me and who have known that Presence too. I use technical terms such salvation, redemption, belief, faith and even God the way my predecessors used them, but I am beginning to find that those words do not convey the awe, the kinship, the call to be in that Presence.

Marcus Borg has tried to reclaim some of those words in his “Speaking Christianity”. And I too believe it is time to redefine some of those words that have become ‘definitions’ of how that Holy acts in creation. It will require a willingness to unhinge ourselves from those nice neat compartments that we can put God so that we do not have to be present to that Presence.

In Psalm 8, the composer says: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” The psalmist understood the quandary of trying to describe God. The only thing he could do was comment on creation and the awe that the beauty of the heavens and earth seemed to express the awe for the Creator. Does the God I know have to even be the Creator? The Presence I know most surely could have initiated the Big Bang. It really doesn’t matter if God was the Creator. It matters only that I acknowledge that Presence and honor it.

I choose to call it God. I choose to personalize it because it is easier for me to understand how this Presence functions in my life if I do. But that too is not necessary. God does not demand it of me. That Holy Presence is just part of my life. It is in me and around me. I claim it and hold it for all to see. But that Holy One is the beginning for me. It is the Big Bang of my life if not creation.

It’s so hot ….

2011-08-04T21:03:00.000-04:00

It is now almost 2 months since we had rain. For about the 4th day in a row it has been 109+ F at our house. And yes, we do have air conditioning, but you do have to go out sometimes. Today I just went up to church for a while. Just walking from the front door to the car was an ordeal. And then getting into the car was reminiscent of Shaddrach, Mishach and Abendigo. Yes, my car has a/c too. But one has to wait until it gets up and running before it cools anything.

I listen to my friend Elizabeth talk about sitting on the beach in Lower Slower Delaware. Even with her lovely Portuguese skin she would be jerky here in 15 mins. My color tone ranges somewhere between buttermilk and old creamed cheese and would mock a lobster if I exposed it to this sun. The afternoon breeze has picked up but it more like a blast furnace than relief.

It is a summer like this that reminds me that I am back in TX. Watering the grass is like steaming vegetables. But it is times like this that folks have to water the foundations of their homes to keep the slabs from cracking. We have already had a water pipe break due to the heat. (I cringe at the thought of our water bill next month.) But we do have a green lawn! However now the news warns of water rationing. Some ranchers are sending their cattle off to slaughter rather than try to water them. And produce farmers have watched their crops wither and die.

Today most people are complaining of gritty eyes, runny noses as the dust takes its toll on those who just have to commute more than 10 mins. And while we are not like the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, I feel like those West Texas farmers at the beginning of the Depression—Sere, parched and leathery.

When I lived in upstate NY, the winters had the same effect as do the summers here. When it was -20 folks stayed indoors the same way we stay inside during the hot summer spells. And though the streets were filled with snow, the asphalt never melted under foot as it does here. But cabin fever sets in just as surely as when snowed in.

I met someone who used to live in MN who told me that when he retired he drove south far enough to have someone ask him what that electric cord was hanging out of his engine was. He said he had found his retirement home! And that is sort of how I feel even in this heat.

Even the cats don’t want to go out. They sit in front of the patio door and watch the birds with some interest but not enough energy to wiggle a whisker. Naps or a glass of lemonade and a good book are the remedies for this weather. Reminds me of snow days up North.

Friday Five: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

2011-07-29T10:23:00.001-04:00

Sharon has posted her first FF.

Today we play off of one of my favorite and most memorable Friday Fives to blog from: Decisions, Decisions posted by Songbird last July 23. I went back to that post to make sure I had new choices for you to make. I found out -- again -- that she was then, as I have been recently, in the midst of a discernment process and thinking about what goes into decision making.

A decision from history: There is a chair that still sits in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall). Legend has it that it was George Washington's chair, the back carved with a half sun. Benjamin Franklin would look at it and wonder whether it was a rising or a setting sun. Eventually Franklin decided it was the hopeful symbol of the rising sun, a sign of the future of our new republic.

How do you decide? Check out the following pairs and tell which one of each appeals to you most:

1) Sunrise or Sunset As you get older the clear distinctions --the either/or's in your life begin to blur. Before I retired I would have said I was a sunrise sorta gal. My best working time is still mornings. But when you don't have to be somewhere in the mornings, it is not surprising that I stay up later. My companion is really a night person whose best working time is between midnight and 3am. Now you can understand how we have been so compatable! We hardly see each other. 8>D. But I am philosophically more a sunrise person: hopeful, wanting to see what is over the next hill even if I am not going to be able to get to the promised land.

2) To the Mountains or To the Beach Mountains! Having grown up in the flatlands of Texas, I find the mountains the place I want to visit. I just can't go too high. Nothing over 8,000 ft or I get sick. Also, being a fair-haired and skined Celt, the beach is not fun all greased up to prevent the lobster-look. I am not fond of sand. J, on the other hand, is a beach kind of gal. She also turns wonderfully nut-brown in the summer. So we do one or the other.

3) Coffee or Tea Depends on the season and how I am feeling. During the summer I am definitely an iced tea person. We do sun tea in the afternoons (in this heat it only takes 15 mins). In the winter I am a coffee person in the mornings and iced tea the rest of the day. Since I am decaffinated, I do not have to have coffee in the mornings. But I have a hard time here in TX. None of the churches I have attended make Decaf. There oughta be a law.... At Starbucks I am a mocha person.

4) Advent or Lent As an Anglican it has to be Advent. We are just too incarnational to be lentish. I love the purple/blue of the season. I love the anticipation, the O Antiphons, the 'stir up' prayers, the greenery in the church but without the red of Christmas.

5) "Raindrops on Roses" or "Whiskers on Kittens" I am Both/And on this one. They tell you on the Meyers-Briggs test that as you age you tend to inhance your weaker side as you get older. I'd give anything for some 'raindrops on roses' here in TX these days. Raindrops on anything would be appreciated in this drought! Whiskers on Kittens are fun. We have a not-yet one year old cat who is fully grown but still kittenish--in other words she wants to play when our 9 yr old tom does not. Her whiskers grow a bit funny and she makes funny noises when she finds a bug or something she can jump on. Cats are a favorite thing.

BONUS: Tell more about one of the pairs. Why did you choose it? Difficult or easy choice? A story from your own experience

Sunset: I am 66 and in my first year of retirement. I know that I will again have the responsibility for a parish when the court decisions come down from the schism in our diocese. I have not appreciated 'retirement.' I am not ready to quit doing what God has called me to do. I have found retirement to be a restless time, a time of frustrated ideas, some illness and BOREDOM. I can't just read murder mysteries and watch tv and be happy. I am not ready for sunsets just yet. I have been thankful for the rest which I needed. I am also thankful for having had some chances to supply this summer. But I can still hear the firebell....

Norway, Immigration and Faith

2011-07-25T17:05:00.001-04:00

I have seen only bits and splatters on the terrorism in Norway. My heart goes out the people of that country. As the news began to trickle in over the white noise of the American press reveling in what starlet wore or got arrested for, I was shocked by the fact that the terrorism that had been acted out was home-grown. Norway seems to have its own version of the Michigan Militia or white supremacists. I mourn for those who have died—many of them young people. I mourn for the nation and King Harald who openly wept for his people at memorial for the 92 who died. It is a horrible thing for a country that for the most part is not often in the world news.

It is not hard for us to think of 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombings. It is easy to act in vengeance and to blame it on insanity, ideology or some disorder in society. And when the world looks upon such killings it tries to place the culpability for such acts on some great social phenomenon. The killer seems to blame left-wing politics and immigration for his actions. Others would blame right-wing rhetoric and exclusionism for the actions of the killer. But whatever the source, it is the lack of the ability to protect the commonweal that affects us all.

It is interesting that the 1920’s had much of the same issues. WWI was the direct result of a similar call to anarchy by Serbian nationalists. And certainly WWII was the whole world’s answer to the kind of fascism that proposed a protectionist stance against the movement of various peoples in Europe and Asia, a reaction to the economic down turns.

Whether it is America for ‘Amerikuns’ or Norway for Norwegians, the rhetoric is the same: Change of culture cannot be supported without armed rebellion. Nations must stay the same as “they have always been.” And usually the people who espouse this kind of thinking are those who do not know their history.

Norway has only been a separate country since 1905 when it finally gained its freedom from Sweden. So the Norwegian patriotism while quite important to Norwegians is not a deeply engrained type of nationalism. And while there have been humans living in Norway for 11,000 years, it has been a land held by many different peoples.

All lands have peoples who have migrated and settled for a time on that land. Europe tends to think of itself as pretty static with settled lands reaching back for generations. But there have been migrations and changing national boundaries even in recent history. We need but remember the way that Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia have been parsed in recent memory. So no one group of people can really claim a particular culture or right to the use of the land as sacred to their own.

In the U.S. there is a temptation by some who don’t know their history to claim the 50 states as ‘sacred’ to Americans. Yes, there should be patriotism. Yes, we do have a responsibility to the commonweal of those nations that have come together on these shores to make this place strong and the 18th century experience of democracy an effective way of governing. But can patriotism be the sole motivator of how we govern ourselves and how we interact with other nations?

As a Christian, I believe that God has the primary call upon my ‘patriotism’. My first allegiance is to God’s realm, not the U.S.A. And so if someone needs to share my land in order to survive, in order to gain employment, so be it. Certainly my forbearers immigrated to this land in order to find a better life. But I do not have the right to say that others may not do the same. Might I not have to immigrate to another land if I cannot find employment in my own nation? I certainly would have no problem in doing that even though it would uproot me from my family and friends. But that is part of the pioneer spirit that is a part of my nation and my faith. I need but look to Abraham left his home at God’s command.

As an act of faith, I do not believe that I have the right to claim that MY culture is greater than anyone else’s. Creation is God’s gift. We are gifted places for only a little while. Some nations have vast empires of various ethnic groups living together in a negotiated harmony. Some nations are unique to a specific people and they wax and wane as the populace grows or declines. No single culture has ever maintained their exact same presence in this world for more than a couple of centuries without considerable immigration from other cultures. It is precisely this cultural mix that keeps a single culture from becoming stagnant or ingrown.

I noticed in a post on HOB/D today that 52% of immigrants all over the world go to nations closest to their homes and that the majority of immigrants go to nations that are not the wealthiest. They often have to go to nations that are as poor as their own just for safety.

It is the fear that people have when they must share their lives with those with different customs, faiths, languages and foods that brings about the kind of terrorism that we saw this week. There are those who have so little understanding of their own motivations that they cannot understand or be compassionate about those who immigrate to their nation. Personally, I am proud that people want to immigrate to the USA. It says that I and my people have contributed to making a place where others want to be. I obviously live in a ‘land of milk and honey’. But with the coming of those people my land is going to be different. My forbearers made this nation different by their presence.

One of the interesting things about living in Washington, DC was how many different languages I could hear on the streets. Because of Washington’s diplomatic community it was not uncommon to hear the languages of the world in our midst. The same is true of NYC. The economic center of the world brings people from all over. But in the smaller towns, ethnic diversity is not always appreciated and it is a shame. We have so much to learn from one another that can enrich us and make our nations stronger and more able to adapt to the changing times.

My hope is that the horrible events in Norway will help the people of the world to look more carefully at how immigrants are introduced to their new countries and how the local peoples learn of these new citizens. It has to do with hospitality and it has to do with the fact that we are always ‘wandering Arameans’ in this world.

Parables : Proper 12 A

2011-07-23T13:28:00.000-04:00

Mt.13:10Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”11He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.12For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.13The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’14With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.15For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’16But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.17Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.

This is the passage that comes after the sower and the seed parable that we had a couple of weeks ago. In the Gospel of Matthew it is used to explain why Jesus used parables to teach about God.

Jesus used parables to get us to think! It is like teachers who uses creative ways to get their students to engage the topics they are studying.

Now I think that the reason that this little passage is not part of the readings is that it does sound a bit elitist. But I believe that there is something that is important about this little part of Matthew I read just now. Jesus used the parables to help his followers to grow, to challenge his followers to not just take the 'same-ole/same ole' way of studying God.

What does it mean to think of God’s realm? The kingdom of heaven? What was Jesus trying to do, anyway? A modern way of saying it is “Jesus was trying to help his followers think outside of the box when it came to understanding God’s work in the world.

These parables are not about the Church. These parables are not about going to heaven. These parables are about how to live more fully into the freedom of being God’s people for a people who were living in the captivity of Roman domination. The people of the Galilee had been tossed around as subjects of the great powers for almost 300 years. They lived under the real occupation of the Roman legions. It was hard to know what it meant to live as God’s chosen people in the midst of that hardship. And Jesus is trying to help a people live into that spiritual freedom without inciting insurrection because to teach the love of God means that people understand the radical freedom that God intends for them.

The first of the parables we have today is the story of the Mustard Seed. Now at first glance we could see this as Jesus lampooning the Isaiah passage about the great cedars of Lebanon, because the Mustard tree—which is a bush, a weed. more like it, that is somewhat like a tumbleweed here. But I don’t think that is what is going on because all of these parables in this part of Matthew have a bit of hitch in them. You think that they are going express something noble and then there is something about the telling of the story that jars us.

The woman is not really using ‘yeast’ in the baking—she is using leaven. Now leaven is more like ‘sour dough’ starter than the nice little cakes of yeast. It is stinky and smelly and really decaying bread. And in most cases 'leaven' is used in Scripture that readers are warned of. In the parable of the treasure or the pearl, the buyer squanders everything to buy the treasure. In the parable of the fishnet we find abundance and then angels’ discerning what is good and what is not. And the final one about how the writers or the preachers on the Scripture are supposed to take from the treasure and share from both the old and the new.

Jesus is teaching his followers how to glean from the law and the prophets the elements necessary to live out the love of God—the freedom of God in new ways while still being rooted in their own history.

Is this not our struggle too? Are we not trying, in our own age, to gather from the Bible the wisdom to live lives of freedom promised by God in those promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 5 millennia ago?

For Jacob it was living with the promise that his small tribe would populate the area and that he and his offspring would eventually have a homeland. For Paul, in the reading from Romans today, he is telling the people of Rome that it was freedom from fear—freedom from the kinds of accusations of judgment that Jesus came. And for the people of the Galilee these parables help them think of lives lived without the fear of Roman domination, the fear of local puppet kings who ruled by force rather than by the law.

Jesus was inviting his followers to live by what God’s hope for all creation—to live in harmony and peace.

Was Jesus just another instigator for Israeli freedom? I don’t think so. I believe that the pre-Easter Jesus was a man who knew in God's worship such freedom that he wanted others to know that love too. Parables allowed him to share with others the immensity of God’s love without putting limits on it. These parables are similar to the koans of Buddhism to challenge the faithful to embrace the limitlessness of the Holy.

It is so easy to become so focused on the problems of the Church that we fail to notice that God works outside of that box. It is so easy to become focused on our own problems and fail to see God working in the lives of those around us. It is so easy to become focused on what the Scriptures say in Jesus’ day that we miss what God is saying in our own day.

Jesus was challenging his followers to know the unbinding love of God—a love that rooted out the fear in which they lived. His teaching was to stand in a faith in God that moved them beyond their complacence—their satisfaction of the status quo and helped them image a future where the principles of Godly love, trust and confidence could be the way that all people could lived. Jesus didn’t tell people all the answers—he challenged everyone to develop the answers for their lives. He did not spout laws—he helped people understand that it wasn’t the law that made them secure. It was the abandonment to the love of God that would allow to know what made them a noble people, a chosen race, a royal priesthood.

Paul understood that in Christ people did not have to fear anything—not even harm or death or the Roman imperialism. In Christ we don’t have to worry or protect ourselves with walls or garner power or wealth to sustain us. It was only in the liberation of God—that sense of freedom of no longer being in bondage to the law did we really understand the real law of God—to love.

So the purpose of the parables is to help us know freedom. We are called to think of what it will be like when God’s law to love others is really lived. What would it be like? What will it call from me? What might my family really look like if I live in a manner according to Divine love? What would my job look like if I really lived a truly liberated life? What would St. Martin’s look like if I lived more of a life of joy? What would this diocese be like if we could imagin what living out our faith in this part of Texas? In order for the Kingdom of heaven to be realized, we have to vison it is possible. And so I would invite you this week to allow yourselves to imagin what it would take for you in your life to live as if your were a part of God's kingdom. What do you have to do in your heart to make that happen? What needs to happen for the Kindom of God to be come real? Because God is calling us to live in that Kingdom now. Not in the bye in bye. But now. AMEN

Overcomers Friday Five

2011-07-22T10:38:00.000-04:00

Sally has brought us an interesting Friday Five:

Today is the Feast day of St Mary Magdalene, and as I've been pondering her life, and the inspiration she is I find in her a wonderful mix of struggle and devotion. She is both the woman who needed a deep healing and the woman who was declared (by many) to be the first amongst the apostles. She inspires me by the way she overcame so much to become so much. When I stop to think about the folk who do inspire me they are almost always overcomer's in some way or another.

With that in mind I bring you this Friday Five; List five people who inspire you to dare to step out into becoming more: Bonus question, a song or fictional character that inspires you to move beyond boundaries

Anglea Merici: She was a Roman Catholic woman of the 16th century and the foundress of the Ursuline movement. It began as a service institute not a community of nuns to help young women from being forced into prostitution in her naitive Brescia, Italy. She was never an educated woman but she knew her Bible in an out from hearing it read in liturgy. She counseled "Change when necessary." And she created a women's order that has educated young women all over the world. It was this community that introduced me to strong, wise women who could make decisions and witness to the Gospel without the benefit of the white, straight, male sense of privlidge. It was this community I entered and to whom I will be eternally grateful for teaching me how to pray and the importance teaching is in promoting the Gospel..

Jonathan M. Daniels: A young seminarian in 1965 who followed Dr. M.L. King's call to Selma, Alabama to witness to the racial brutality in the South. He was from N.H. but had attended VMI and understood the racial prejudice in the South. He and Judith Upham stayed on after the march to help integrate the Episcopal Church in Selma and to assist with voter's registration. He was murdered while saving the life of two African-American women in the small town of Hainsville, AL. He now is listed on the Episcopal Church's list of Holy Women and Holy Men as a martyr for the faith. His willingness to lay down his life for the liberation of others marks what it means to be a person of faith. He was J's boyfriend and has been an intimate part of our lives in our small religous community.
The Rev. Judith Elizabeth Upham: Judy was one of the first legally ordained women of the Episcopal Church, ordained January 6, 1977. I met her at a meeting of the Saint Louis Women in Ministry (SWIM) founded by Mary Bruggemann (Walter's wife). Judy was the first ordained woman of a catholic communion that I had met and carried her office with a sense of grace and commitment that I had not seen even among many priests in the Roman communion. We became fast friends and finally began to share digs in 1978. She taught me to preach and to be a priest more than any seminary. She has been my companion, mentor but most of all my dearest friend for over 30 years.

The Rt. Revs. Ron Haines (dec.) and Jane Holmes Dixon: These two bishops were my bishops in Washington, DC. +Ron followed the sainted +John Walker. He was Walker's Suffragan. He was an amiable fellow but a man comfortable with himself. He was not the 'poster child' that +Walker had been but he was great-hearted with a sense of self-deprecation that allowed the purple to settle seemilessly upon him. He was kind and pastoral as no other bishop I have known. He ran and exceedingly difficult diocese with a sense of justice and respect with an aire of magninimity toward the growing beligerance that was developing in the mid-'90's. +Jane was one of the first women bishops in the Anglican Communion. She had been a dear colleague before her election and still is a friend with whom I will confer on matters of faith and church.

The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson: The first partnered, out gay bishop in the Anglican Communion. It was +Gene's consecration that finally gave me the courage to come out as a lesbian. I figured that if +Gene had to wear a flack jacket to his consecration as bishop, I could damn well say the truth of who I was and live it. It cost me my job and my diocese but I still feel that it was not only the right thing to do, it was the ONLY thing I could do in the face of the Living Christ and all the other LGBT people who could not be free to live their lives in Christ honestly.

Bonus: Even though I have loved the Harry Potter series because Harry crusades against evil as do I, I am more drawn to 'live' people as those who give me courage to face the world at all that is in it. The Rt. Rev. John S. Spong is one of those. I have only met Jack once before I even became an Episcopalian. But once when I was in dispair over the schism that had been happening in my denomination, I wrote him of my discouragement. He wrote back immediately and invited me into the struggle against the politically motivated fundamentalists who had attacked our denomination. He said: "Come die with me for the future of the Church." Now, who can turn down an invitation like that?

No Anglican Covenant Coalition

2011-07-19T11:33:00.000-04:00

No Anglican Covenant Coalition

Anglicans for Comprehensive Unity

noanglicancovenant.org

NEWS RELEASE

July 19, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COALITION RELEASES A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE ANGLICAN COVENANT

LONDON – Responding to requests for a concise explanation of the Anglican Covenant and the lack of even‐handed discussions of the Covenant from official sources, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition has released of A Short Introduction to the Anglican Covenant. The one‐page primer outlines the history and likely effect of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

“Most of the study material that has been produced to date has been designed for readers already familiar with the background and issues involved,” said the Coalition’s Moderator, the Revd. Dr. Lesley Fellows. “This brief, plain‐language explanation is intended to help ordinary Anglicans worldwide to understand what is being proposed.”

“Many people have complained that the official study material from the Anglican Communion Office has lacked balance and has failed to take seriously the concerns of Covenant critics,” according to the Revd. Canon Hugh Magee, the Coalition’s Scottish Convenor. “Recent study material from Canada has taken a more realistic view. While clearly written in opposition to the Covenant, A Short Introduction seeks to present a fair but critical view of the Covenant.”

A Short Introduction to the Anglican Covenant may be printed and copied by groups or individuals. It is particularly appropriate for people who know little about the Covenant or are overwhelmed by the available material related to the proposed pact. The document is available formatted both for letter‐size stationery used in Canada and the United States (http://noanglicancovenant.org/docs/short‐intro‐letter.pdf) and for A4 stationery used in Britain and elsewhere (http://noanglicancovenant.org/docs/short‐intro‐a4.pdf).

‐30‐

noanglicancovenant.org

Revd. Dr. Lesley Fellows (England) +44 1844 239268

Dr. Lionel Deimel (USA) +1‐412‐512‐9087

Revd. Malcolm French (Canada) +1‐306‐550‐2277

Revd. Lawrence Kimberley (New Zealand) +64 3 981 7384

Revd. Canon Hugh Magee (Scotland) +44 1334 470446

Theology 101

2011-07-18T13:43:00.000-04:00

I think I have arrived at a place in life where I need to gather my thoughts on faith. Fredrika Thomsett wrote a book some time ago that stated that all the faithful are theologians. And it is with that in mind that I attempt to bring some order into the faith and belief systems that make sense of my life and describe the relationship I have with the Holy One. I have been a student of theology since the late ’60. I have even studied systematic theology. But this ordering of my faith life will not be systematic—first of all because I am not especially ‘orderly’ in my thinking but also because systematic theology seems to drain all the awe and mystery from the realms of faith.

I have supped at the table of liberation theologies of Latin America, feminism and African-Americans. I drank deeply of process theologies, the anguish of Bonhoeffer and even some Barth, the Nieburs, and Tillich. Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel have informed me as surely as, de Chardin, Rahner and Kung. Carter Heyward instilled in me a critical way of thinking, testing what I believed with the way I lived and want to live. The hermeneutic of suspicion marks my faith as it bounces up against the Church and the popular theology that marks our age. As anyone living in the 20th and 21st centuries, my understanding of faith is a response and a reaction to the Bible Belt theology of the South were I was raised, the very political experience of faith of Washington, DC, the lived-out faith of those whom I served in small towns in NY, CA and TX and the meditative experience of live-in community in religious life as an Ursuline Sister. I have been influenced recently by Marcus Borg, Dominic Crossens, Karen Armstrong and Sr. Joan Chittister.

Theology is in many ways is the work of the leisured class. Those who must work grindingly to live do not have the time or the energy to meditate upon the various elements of faith and then write about them. But each person has an understanding of how they relate to God and Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” It resonates in all who have accepted the gift of faith. Most of those who claim faith have different ways of explaining how the ineffable experience of the Holy marks our lives. Some use the categories of previous ages to speak of this encounter; some attempt to find new avenues and vocabulary to describe the indescribable experience of that which is beyond. After almost 30 years of priesthood in the Episcopal Church, I am fairly conventional in the way I describe how I relate to God. But I also have been moved by the unconventional at times and am not ready to discard it simply because it does not fit Christian parlance.

Philosophical and psychological terms enter into the theological vocabulary these days as do the research paradigms of science and enlightenment methods inform my thinking. I apply such disciplines as archeology and linguistics to the Scripture of my faith. The history of how people have thought throughout the ages advises my faith just as surely as does that ‘still small voice after the whirlwind.’

The arts are also where I meet the Divine. I have known the experience of God while playing or singing or listening to some of the great works of Mozart and Brahms. I have experienced the in-dwelling of the Holy while chanting simple melodies as offerings. I have been moved by great art and the Divine art of Creation. The Omnipresent touches me in the sensate elements of taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing and takes me into realms of beyond their immediate existence. I also find God in the quiet of my heart, that deeply solitary place that has been cultivated only in the sorrow of loneliness. And it is these encounters that inform me how I am to be transformed by them, how I must be willing to enter into the kind of change that requires my attention, requires my compassion, that requires participation with the good to change not only my life but through me, the world.

And because I am an extrovert, I find the Holy in trying to express that reality that can never be defined. I find it in the actual working out of who God is as I write and as I share it with others so that they can inform or expand upon my experience.

As so, dear friends, I invite you to journey with me as I try to describe the God in which I live and move and have my being. I invite you who know faith to comment on this course of theology I am making.

Jacob's Ladder

2011-07-16T12:47:00.000-04:00

Jacob is on the run. He has stolen his brother’s blessing and has been threatened by Esau so he is trying to outrun his dishonesty. And he finds a place alone in the wilderness to sleep. He takes a stone for a pillow and falls asleep. And he dreams. He dreams of God and ladder or a ramp to God with God’s messengers going to and fro. This is where Jacob meets God—comes to that remarkable place where the god of his fathers’ becomes HIS God. It is when Jacob comes to an adult faith not based upon what he has been told, but is based upon his own experience of the Holy.

This is an important part of faith development for us all. Education is an important part of our faith. For any of us who have ever taught Sunday school or an adult forum, we can give all kinds of information to people but until this “Jacob’s Ladder” experience happens, this personal encounter with the Divine, Christian education just doesn’t take root. It takes that personal experience of God’s presence to make God real for us.

Various religious traditions try to symbolize this encounter. Around here we have what is called a “believer’s baptism” where people often get ‘re-baptized’ to sign this event. Other traditions including Judaism mark this event as Bar or Bat Mitzvah noting that often this event of coming to know God often happens in our youth. Our own Episcopal tradition provides Confirmation as a sign of our entering into an adult covenant with God. But it is usually symbolized by an accumulation of knowledge rather than that soul-event that changes our lives forever.

When Jacob wakes from his dream he knows that “ Surely God is in this place and I did not even know it.” We recognize the presence of God in our lives and can claim it. It is pure gift. It is not anything we can manufacture. And we cannot make it happen.

I liken this experience to being gifted with a precious gift that we don’t even know how to use at first. It is sort of like being presented with a new baseball glove. For those who have never played ball, a glove is absolutely worthless until you make it your own. You must oil it and practice with it; molding it to your hand until it becomes a part of you so that you can play the game. So it is with the grace of faith.

Faith is a gift. No matter what we do we cannot be faithful by our own will. We cannot be ‘saved’ by our own efforts. Faith is relying on what God has gifted us with—trusting that God’s presence in our lives is all that we need.

What we hear in this story about Jacob is how the gift of God in the dream changes his whole life—changes his perspective and even his desires. In the rest of the stories of Jacob we will see how he becomes the father of the 12 tribes that will go down to Egypt and then be brought out by Moses. We will hear how Jacob and his brother will be reunited and forgiveness mark their return. The stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob inform our faith and remind us of those moments when our lives have been transformed by the Holy presence of God. Jacob does not have to fear because in this event at Bethel Jacob knows that God is always present to him and his people.

In our Gospel reading we hear the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares—or the wheat and the weeds. It is an interesting story and I think quite apropos of what has gone on here in the diocese of Ft. Worth over the years.

The story is such that a Master sees his field of wheat growing up and there seems to be lots of weeds growing up in the midst of his wheat. The story tells us that an enemy has sown darnel, a weed among the wheat. The servants of the Master ask if they are to weed the darnel from the good plants. But the Master says no. It is at the harvest when the weeds will be separated from the wheat.

Jesus is telling a story that points out that trying to exclude the good from the bad early in the growing of the wheat will only hurt the harvest. I am sure that it was easy to tell which were the good wheat and the bad.

Today we think we can tell the good from the bad by just looking. There are those who would like to exclude certain folk from the body of Christ for all kinds of reasons: conservatives or liberals, depending upon your point of view, those who look different, the tattooed, the multi-pierced, those that do not dress the way we do, the weird-acting, the gay or lesbian, the cross-dresser or transsexual-- Or for that matter, women who ‘think above their station in life.’ We think that we can weed out these people or their ideas from the Body of Christ so that we will all be the same. But over the past 2 years we have found that by weeding them out, we are not any better than when we were together.

In some ways we here at St. Martin’s have been a bit insulated from the diocesan issues, but not completely. Some of us have come from parishes that split from the Episcopal Church. Some of us have gone to Episcopal schools, camps or events where the split has been made an issue. Some of us are from other dioceses in the Episcopal Church.

Splitting or excluding is not the answer for Christians. We are all different. We all have a ‘bit of the weed’ about us. But it is God who makes us worthy. It isn’t bad seed that we must contend with. It is about whether we, like Jacob, can find God in this place. If we can find Christ at this altar, God is in this place. Period. Full stop!

It is not about ridding ourselves of those we might deem unworthy because it is not us who confer worthiness. It is God who decides our worthiness. It is God who decides if we have accepted responsibility for the gift of faith we have been given. It is God who grants the salvation. It isn’t what we do. It isn’t what we can make of ourselves. It is God who gifts us with the ability to recognize God’s presence in this place and we must be willing to name that presence and call attention to it.

The life of faith is one that is called from us. We need but be willing to recognize God is in charge. We might even find that those with whom we are uncomfortable just might be able to proclaim Christ’s presence too and our faith journey will be strengthened by their presence. AMEN

Friday Five: Gratitude

2011-07-15T12:28:00.000-04:00

Jan has come up with a great Friday Five on Gratitude

A wise person once told me to make an ABC list of things I am grateful for any time I feel sad or depressed. It is a good practice when one is feeling happier than that, too. So for this Friday Five, I suggest that you use your name or nickname of about five letters and express your gratitude about something that starts with each letter. Some people have longer names, so you decide how you will go about this! (Last names, middle names, and nicknames count!)

Mostly Humorous- I think I look at life through the lens of humor these days. On most days it tends toward the ironic she says with one eyebrow lifted. I am so thankful for being able to laugh; it is the way God has given me to survive this vocation!

2. Utterly solemn about faith. This does not mean deathly serious. Quite the opposite, I think. In fact, if I can't convey the joy I know about God then I feel that I have failed in living a life worthy of my calling. Solemn in this sense has to do with the dignity and worthiness that Christ has called me by sharing in his Incarnation.

Thougtful-- I am thankful that I have the gift to think--to be able to concentrate on topics in order to work out gifted ways to respond to what happens in my life and give them meaning.
H2O--I had forgotten about drought before this summer. I am presently watering the lawn because we haven't had a drop of rain this month. There is something that drought does to creation. It makes you thankful for little things like drops of cool water.
Actual Cats--not virtual cats. There is something about a kitty purr that makes everything right in the world. I am not especially found of Bit attacking my feet in the middle of the night but I love her toothsome playfulness.

Bonus: Hunger--that gnawing thing that makes me aware that there is more to do, be, experience, embrace, and sometimes eat. 8>D

The Extavagant Sower: Sermon on Proper 10A

2011-07-09T12:27:00.000-04:00

When I lived in Upstate NY, I used to just wait for the seed catalogs that would come in January or February. Grocery produce was fairly hard to come by during the winters there. Winter tomatoes in the stores were hard tasteless pinkish orange tennis balls. The green vegetables were generally Brussel sprouts and broccoli and that was about it. Seed catalogs with their pictures of lush heritage tomatoes and peppers gave one hope that summer would come again—something you weren’t too sure of when it was 22 below zero.

Here in TX I am finding that it isn’t seed catalogs that thrill me in the winter. It is the early spring: flowers in February and plants for sale at Lowes by mid March and patio tomatoes from your own garden by the end of May. And when I was accustomed to eating the best home-grown produce in July and August, I am finding that most plants are shriveled by the heat.

So I find in reading today’s Gospel a bit of restlessness. No matter how much ground preparation I can do, my tomatoes are still going to burn up by August. No matter how much soil preparation I do, or how much watering, the garden that I manufacture in my back yard is still subject to the climate.

But Jesus is not talking about gardens is he? He is talking about us—he is talking about God and he is talking about the Word of God. And like anyone who uses analogy as a literary device, Jesus is not talking about the climate, or the soil, or even the seeds. He is talking about the generosity of God.

The Sower in this story is God. It is God who spreads the seed. We don’t see people sowing seed this way anymore. We either see tractors in the fields with big spreaders on the back trundling over a plowed field. And even our own gardens we transplant our tomatoes or peppers as plants carefully grown in seed pots or green houses. We don’t see the sower who throws the seed across the plowed field with abandon. We don’t know today the extravagant generosity of the sower who spreads seeds into the unplowed or the unprepared soil. We have become such careful gardeners that each seed is precious and worthy of safe guarding. But Jesus tells us of an abandonment of caution by God as the Holy One spreads the seed of Divine love, of holy care, or sacred grace. God dribbles the seeds of love into areas where it cannot grow just to remind us that no matter where we are, how far we have fallen, no matter of the existential reality of our personal or corporate lives, God is present and ready to root God’s self in our lives. And while the seeds might not root the first time, the memory of their being sown sometimes is just the thing that allows the hearer of the Word to blossom at another time or place.

As you can tell, I love to preach. I love to share the stories of God with others because of the extravagant love that God has shown in my life. This does not mean that my life has been easy or I have avoided the same pains and problems, sins or stupidity that we all face. I don’t believe that it is doctrine, or sacraments, or beliefs that allow me to preach. It is the joy that I have known in Christ that makes it possible to stand up here and tell the stories of God, or Jesus, or the Spirit, or the patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith. It comes from having encountered the Holy in my life.

This week the Jehovah Witnesses came to my door. Usually I when they come, I thank them and turn them away. This week I invited them in. They had their tracts they wanted to share but it was not doctrine that I wanted to argue with them. I wanted them to share with me the love of God that they obviously knew. It was remarkable. Most of the things that they espouse I do not. But that didn’t matter. We were talking about where the seed of God had changed our lives.

All too often we become so anxious about how to express how God has graced us. Often we Episcopalians reach for a prayer book rather than to use our own words to describe our gratitude for the blessing God has sown in our lives. But it is something that we are all gifted with and even promised by the Sower who has planted love in us

In the alternative reading from Hebrew Scripture in Isaiah 55 we hear “ So as the rain and snow comes down from heaven watering the earth, so too my word goes out and does not return without accomplishing that for which I purposed it, says the Lord.” It is a good image to keep in mind—we do not have to worry about how to describe how God has worked in our lives. We just have to do it—be faithful to speak even when we are not sure of what will come out. Gratitude for all the goodness of God’s blessing, of God’s sowing should not be kept in. It isn’t somebody else’s job. It isn’t just for those of us who have funny pieces of plastic stuck on our shirts. Sowing God’s gospel is the job of every one of us because we have already experienced the growth of the seeds in our lives. From the time we first knew of God in our lives, we have been graced with the ability to share the stories.

One of the biggest impediments to the sowing of the Gospel is because we don’t think we are worthy or feelings of inadequacy. “Why would anyone want to hear how God has worked in my life?” we think. But that isn’t the issue. It isn’t your life that is important, but what GOD has done in it that says to others that God is there for them.

I had a preaching professor once tell me that I should not share my own story in my sermons. That’s hogwash! It is our stories that we can tell with the integrity o that carry the message of God to others. That is what is so extravagant about God: none of us are worthy to even mention what God has done in our lives, but it is Christ who makes us worthy—who cleans up our act and allows our lives to be transformed by his love that makes our stories carriers of the Divine message of love.

I remember my first sermon. It was in the chapel of my seminary. And that night after I preached it I was really upset and anxious. I called one of my professors who lived on campus and asked if I could speak with her. I finally confessed to her that even though my sermon went quite well and I felt good about what I said, it had finally dawned on me that I had to LIVE what I preached. My prof, one of the first women ordained in our church, smiled and said: “Yep, that is the problem with being a Christian. You have to walk it just as surely as you talk it.” It is always a struggle to walk one’s faith and humility comes upon us fairly quickly.

It is the words of Paul’s Letter to the Romans that give us hope: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” All too often we compare our lives to Christ and find ourselves wanting. But for those of us who are baptized into the life of Christ, we do not have to worry because there is no condemnation. We can step boldly knowing that we have been given all the words to claim God’s blessings, to step out in faith despite our own failings and we can share what God had done in us, in our families, in the world, in all Creation, simply because God has sown love so extravagantly. Perhaps we have struggled with knowing God’s love, but we have learned to love through the love of another. We can see the signs of the seeds in our lives. All we have to do is share them with others whether in the pulpit or at the water cooler, whether it is in church or at a ball game, whether it is on rocky ground or well-prepared soil. The seed of God’s love will take root. AMEN

Summertime Friday Five

2011-07-08T13:48:00.000-04:00

My friend Dorcas has finally posted today summertime FF. I have been wondering why no one had come up with a summer FF. I guess it is because it has only gotten warm in some of our climes:

So, what's up, Rev Gals and Pals? How are you spending your summer? (I know, some of you are in a different hemisphere and it may be chilly...sorry!) Are you experiencing fire or floods or tornados? Vacationing? Working harder than ever? Experiencing change? Longing for change?

Share five things that are happening in your life, personally or professionally or some of each, in this season of life.

1. Pulpit Supply: While many of you are relaxing and vacationing, people like me cover your parishes. I am having great fun although the readings are awful. I now know why pastors take July and Aug. off. They leave us subs with all those readings that no one else wants to preach so I am preaching all the things I have always wanted to preach but never had to do in my own parish! 8>D

Last week it was the marriage of Rebekah. (Yeah, and I am going to preach on marriage in TX the week after the NY state vote for same-sex marriage?? I don’t like the smell of tar in the morning.) This week it is the stealing of Esau’s birthright. I have often felt that the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Abrahamic religions needed to have some family systems therapy. So this week it is about seeds and where they fall. But do I really believe that God is a sower???

2. Chemotherapy: I am not going through chemo but J is and it is harder to watch someone you love go through this than to do it yourself. At least I have found a therapist that I can go extrovert with so I don’t have to belabor J with my fears.

3. Heat: It is supposed to be 105 today and my blood is still Upstate NY thick. J can’t go swimming during chemo so there isn’t much to do except stay in the AC. Maybe a movie will kill the boredom.

4. Tomatoes: Watching my tomato plants grow and produce. It has been difficult since it turned really hot, but since they are in pots, I can move them a bit under the trees so that they don’t burn up. I hadn’t realized that cardinals like tomatoes too so I now have securely netted potted tomato plants.

5. Planning the kind of vacation we want to do in October after J has finished chemo and radiation therapy. WooHoo!

The Colenso Affair and the Anglican Covenant

2011-07-05T19:05:00.000-04:00

My British colleague and General Secretary of Modern Church, the Reverend Jonathan Clatworthy has written a wonderful response to Anglican Covenant proponant and Lambeth staff member, the Rev. Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan of Canada. Her premise is that the Anglican Covenant got its start in the mid-19th century with the Colenso affair. Jonathan has put the history right:

We are once again indebted to Dr Alyson Barnett-Cowan for damning the Anglican Covenant with faint praise, in her Living Church article. Dr Barnett-Cowan begins by tracing the idea of a covenant to the opponents of Bishop Colenso who sought to condemn him at the first Lambeth Conference of 1867. This, she tells us, was ‘the first attempt to provide a platform for churches of the Anglican Communion to discern together what to do in new situations’.

This is the kind of gloss now being put on the Anglican Covenant by its supporters. In reality Colenso’s opponents were not trying ‘to provide a platform for churches to discern together what to do’: on the contrary they were trying to impose their view on the whole Communion. In exactly the same way, recent proponents of the Anglican Covenant have wanted gay bishops declared unacceptable throughout the Communion. While the specific reference to same-sex partnerships is being backpedalled for the moment – Covenant supporters are playing it down while the provinces are being asked for their support – there is no doubt that many intend to use it, not just to forbid gay bishops but on other issues too.

By reminding us of the Colenso affair Dr Barnett-Cowan also draws our attention to the 1867 Lambeth Conference’s good sense. At the heart of the debate was Colenso’s controversial theory that the biblical narrative of the Exodus was not historically accurate. Many bishops were appalled. No reputable biblical scholar today is; on the contrary, Colenso has been proved broadly right. If the Lambeth Conference had supported the condemnation, the whole Anglican Communion would have been stuck with a commitment to an outdated biblical literalism.

The Anglican Covenant, once passed, would provide a process for present and future litigious authoritarians to impose their view on their pet hobbyhorse onto the whole Communion. One can only hope that the leaders of Anglicanism today find the courage to follow the wise lead of their 1867 predecessors.

Comment: As history major it has greatly annoyed me to see the re-writing of history that many conservatives do. That is NOT conservation! The right-wing of the Church seem to ignore or wants to "reformulate" history to their own ends. If there has been a failing of the left-wing of the Church, it has been a naive faith that history can 'prove' almost everything. But it is not the story that gets jumbled but the facts that get destroyed. Thankfully in this case, the facts are still available to see that the twisting of the story erodes confidence of the faithful in the leadership of the Anglican Communion. The loss of integrity by church leaders is almost impossible to regain once sacrificed to a single notion of "a way forward."

The Yoke of Christ: a sermon on Proper 9A

2011-07-02T12:14:00.000-04:00

I am now quite certain that Fr. Jim is taking his vacation during this month because the readings are fairly lackluster. The reading from Genesis has to do with the marriage of Isaac to Rebekah. I could preach on marriage—but after the vote in NY last week, I don’t think that that would be politic. But I would point out that if you think that today’s values regarding marriage can be found in the lives of the patriarchs, I would suggest you re read this passage. Over the next 4 weeks we are going to hear some of the stories related to this Abrahamic family. If you plan to model your lives after them, I would suggest you get into family counseling now. Because there is nothing more dysfunctional than what we see in the line of that will produce David and then will produce Jesus. These are the stories of the line of Jesse. This is our family history—the kind of stories that are told whenever the family gathers.

I learned the stories of my forbearers—the stories of the great grandfather who fought in the Civil War or the grandfather who was so seasick on the passage over that he did not go on to Australia as he had planned. That is what is portrayed in today’s readings reading from Hebrew Scripture. They are important stories to our family and the stories of the Patriarchs are important to our Faith Families.

The reading from the epistle is Paul agonizing about what is law and what is grace. He knows his own propensity for sin and temptation. But he also knows that before he can even ask, his forgiveness is already accomplished in the love that Christ has for him.

But it is in the Gospel that we hear those words we all want to hear:

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

If there were any more ‘comfortable words’ in Scripture, I don’t know them.

Most of us are not aware of what a yoke is. Carrying water is not something we have to do. But when I was working in Mexico when I was in my youth, we would see children carrying 2 buckets of water suspended by a rod that was carried across the shoulders. This is a yoke and one that made it easier to carry than using just one’s arms. Also the word is used for that apparatus that harnesses oxen together so that they can utilize the strength of both animals. This was a common enterprise in the Middle East during Jesus’ day.

It was so common that by the 3rd century before Christ, the yoke was already an analogy for Torah—the teaching of God found in Hebrew Scripture today. Jesus is using that analogy in today’s passage. “Take my yoke upon you.” Jesus was preaching to the people who followed him to embrace the teaching of God. Take the Torah and yoke with it—use the teachings of God to give you strength to face life.

When I was in college, I did not know the joy of the law of love. It was only when I was able to surrender to the love of Christ that I was able to really know what it meant to be loved unconditionally. I had always envisioned the do’s and don’ts that seemed to articulate faith in the 1950’s and 60’s as foolish and bothersome. At that time we had ‘blue laws’ in TX. Our schools and social lives were much constrained by the Baptist lobby. There was no liqueur by the drink in TX. And I didn’t think I wanted to connect myself with ‘church’ or ‘faith’ that would demand adherence to such laws. So I avoided God and church until I no longer had answers how to live my life that made sense. I didn’t want to submit to the ‘yoke’ of the laws.

When I did finally allow myself to be loved by God, I heard this passage quite differently. No longer did I have to carry my burdens by myself. The image changed from that little Dutch girl carrying pails of milk on her shoulders to being yoked WITH Christ to live a life worthy of the calling of God. The problems of teaching in South Oak Cliff during de-segregation fell away because I was yoked with Jesus to face each new day. No longer did I have to carry the load alone. I had Christ walking with me.

The law of God is not a heavy burden. Sometimes it is hard to stick with it when we are overcome with our own wantonness. The teaching of Torah is still important today. It is a good way to evaluate how we are living together in shalom—peace. It is a good way to find the principles of Torah in our lives—principles of honesty, truth, how to deal justly with those around us, how to care for the poor among us, how to deal with respect with one another. And even though some of the laws are arcane, (such as not wearing cloth of different threads, or stoning one’s children when they are disobedient) they do still give us principles for living together that are wise.

There is another word in this passage I want to bring up. And that is rest—the word in Greek is anapausis and it is the same word that is used in the Greek Old Testament to translate ‘Sabbath rest’. Jesus was inviting the people who were following him to observe the ‘Sabbath rest’ of studying Torah. Many times this passage in Christian parlance is used to remind us of heaven—that heavenly rest. But I think that is a mis-understanding of the text.

When I lived in Binghamton, NY there was an Orthodox synagogue just a block from my house. Every Friday night I would watch the men walking to shule, their heads covered, their tallits trailing from their coats. Then on Saturday morning, the whole family walked to temple services often gathering with other families also walking from their homes. Sabbath rest meant that every aspect of life rested—meals were prepared on Friday so you didn’t cook. The lights in the house were not turned on so you went to bed early. The TV didn’t go on, the computer was silent—everything centered on studying and talking of Torah—God’s love for the people. It was a way of life.

Jesus invited his followers to ‘learn from him’. He invites US also to learn from him. He invites us not to a ‘heavenly rest’, but a willingness to rest in him—to study our faith—to center our lives on him to live lives that are transformed by that unconditional love that God has for us.

Friday I got a knock on the door and it was a couple of Jehovah Witnesses who had come to the door. Now, I don’t know much about the Witnesses, I have always groaned when they came to the door with their tracks. But this time I invited them in. I was up front with the women who were there that I wasn’t about to become a Jehovah’s Witness but I did respect the denomination because my neighbors were Witnesses and I saw how they lived their lives. They were good neighbors.

What I met was a woman whose life had been transformed by faith. She wanted to talk about what it meant. I love to talk about faith too. We don’t share the same constructs to our faith, but we did share a common experience that faith had changed our lives—that yoke had become easy—the burden was light because we had submitted to the yoke of God and found that our lives had become much easier because of it. She is coming back next Friday and we are going to share Scripture.

On this long weekend of rest and pause, I would like to invite you to observe a Sabbath’s rest—a day in which you can let yourself to dwell in and on God. We don’t have to observe the rigidity of the Orthodox Jew, or cloistered life of a monk. Just find someone with whom you can share your love of God, the Holy, Jesus, the Spirit. It may be with words; it may be with music. It may be on Mon, or Tues or whatever day you have—take a Sabbath’s rest. For God will yoke with you and make your burdens light. AMEN

Friday Five: The Way We Blogged

2011-07-01T10:05:00.001-04:00

Katherinjnz is going nostalgic on us this week. She remembering what got Revgals started.

A friend and I were lamenting recently about the good ol' days of blogging and memes. Certainly there are still some very active blogs around our web ring, but the days of the Friday Five getting 50-70+ responses are in the past. We lamented that the Friday Five is the equivalent of the women's guild of RevGalBlogPals.

I am one of those who went from blogging just about daily to periodically at best. Unfortunately, the number I routinely read has gone down as well. What about you?

1) Have your blogging (writing/reading) habits shifted since the days of yore?

I started blogging when I was doing relief work along MS' coast after Katrina. There was a group of clergy and parishes who had financed me to go to MS so I tried to blog every day. Some days the net was down or our wireless wouldn't work. But I was fairly faithful to writing every day. When I returned to upstate NY I continued the practice because I was out of work and I wanted to address many issues that were going on in the church both locally and internationally. The 'big fuss' was going on in my denomination and since I was one of the ones targeted by the extremists, I needed to address issues, actions and theology. An extrovert who does not have a community must write and I did. My theology began to mature and the way I address issues has too. I began to follow other blogs. I began to get some international readership and I was off to the races!

I noticed this morning I have not written since the last FF. That says something about where I am living and what I am doing. Now that I am retired, I still write about 'the big fuss' and the issues that face LGBT Christians. But I am more likely to challenge well-held theologies that I am challenging within myself. I now have a community where I can express my beliefs. I now have even a place where I can preach occasionally. The issues in my life are more personal rather than ecclesial.

2) Do you have some favorites that you miss?

I used to follow MadPriest in the UK all of the time. His edgy humor matched mine. But he changed his format and his humor has gotten bitter. I know that change too and I lament for him. And I followed Fr. Jake. He too has changed his format and his approach.

3) Are there some blogs you still put in the 'must read' category?

Elizabeth Kaeton's Telling-secrets is still an everyday read as is Susan Russell's An Inch at a time. But I am more likely to check facebook to see who is reading what. I have watched these 2 colleagues grow and develop too. They are also both friends who live far away. It is the way that we keep up.

4) If we gathered at your knee, what would you tell us about those early days of blogging?

Blogging for me has been just one more way of telling the story of God's 'salvation' (i.e. liberation). It has been a way to challenge myself to grow in faith and the way to express that faith. If you are gathered at my knee you are probably in danger! Blogging for me has always been about how I wrestled with issues as they came up against the Gospel. And that is always dangerous business. It means one must change. However, I am getting a bit long in the tooth re. social media. I don't twitter. You can't think things through with tweets. I am concerned that sound bites or tweets have taken over our theology--not a healthy way to encounter the ineffable in my mind.

5) Do you have a clip or a remembrance of a previous post of yours or someone else's that you remember, you know an oldie but goodie?

I am not techy. I have never learned how to link or import youtubes or the like. It took me a long time to learn how to do pictures. I guess I always see what I say as being 'in process'. Most of the stuff I wrote back in '03 is probably quite different now. But 8 years isn't a long time in my life. 8>D

WAY back in the beginning I used to be one of the revgals who did a round up of what everyone posted that DAY. I cannot do that with 300+ blogs, but I can visit your Friday Five if you let us know in the comments that you played and here's how to link.

Thanks, and if you are Canadian or American, Happy Long Weekend!

Friday Five: Faith and Culture

2011-06-24T13:40:00.001-04:00

Terri has been working with a local inter-faith project and poses these questions (perhaps not five, she says) as they relate to interfaith studies:

So, in honor of a week of interfaith study and celebration:

1. Have you ever had an experience of a religion other than your own? And, if so, what was it like for you to experience something different? If you haven't, what religion might you like to study, experience, and learn more about?

I have had only minimal inter-faith experience. I have had friends who were rabbis and studied Torah with them. At one lectionary study, a conservative rabbi often came and we were able to enter the Hebrew scripture with much more depth. I have taken my parishes to services at local synagogues at the invitation of the rabbi and attended local interfaith services. I have also done inter-faith weddings and funerals with Jewish colleagues. But I am still woefully ignorant of other traditions.

2. Have you ever studied, travelled, or explored other cultures? What and where, and when?

I have traveled in Europe and Latin America so I have not had to confront the full experience of a majority experience of a faith other than Christianity. But each one of those countries had a different way of addressing Christianity that was interesting. Even the differences within my own Episcopal/Anglican tradition: the difference between the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church of Mexico or Honduras, the West Indies and the U. S. is radically different. It is my opinion that the lived-out culture carries faith more readily than any other thing. And even the different regions in our own nation carry faith differently than others. (i.e. the difference between the New England vs. the South or the experience of California in comparison to the Mid-Atlantic states) Even the way that people approach Christianity is different.

3. Any stories you wish to share about a person (author, teacher, etc), or a friend or colleague, from another culture or religion, who has impacted you in some capacity?

While I was working along the MS coast following Katrina we had volunteers from many different traditions who came to work in the Lutheran/Episcopal Disaster relief efforts. One doctor who came to assist in the tent clinic was Hindu. He would come each evening to the prayer service that was usually done from the Book of Common Prayer (the only prayer books that were available following the storm). At dinner we engaged in some interesting conversations about how he was able to worship with us and how he understood his own faith in the light of the disaster of Katrina. We also had Muslims and Jews who worked with us that fall and we all worshipped together. It was one of the most gratifying faith experiences I have ever had.

4. My last parish before I retired was a small Lutheran (ELCA) congregation in upstate NY. That experience really informed me of how insular we become as Christians in our own denominations. Theologically I AM NOT a Lutheran. Most of Lutheran theology leaves me cold and I was never able to adopt the “Law and Gospel” thing that so characterizes Lutheran preaching. But the experience helped me really understand how much national culture has to do with how we how we understand our faith. The 2nd and 3rd generation Germans, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes I had in my congregation all had different takes on Lutheranism. Those whose families who came from Prussia and those whose roots were in Bavaria had different slants on how God was to be worshipped. I got them talking about it at coffee hour one morning because I was fascinated and it helped me serve them better. It also helped them understand why they were having difficulties among themselves and made it possible for them to develop a bit more cohesiveness as a congregation.

Within my own tradition, I have worked most of my career on the interface between White/Anglo culture and the African-American and Latino cultures. To experience Christ in those cultures requires an openness that I would not have had if I hadn’t been willing to enter into another culture to share in their faith. It has broadened my faith and allowed me understand people more deeply.

5. I am presently working on an inter-communion effort within the Anglican Communion. For the past 9 months I have been on a list serve with people from all over the world, all English-speaking Anglicans but who have widely-differing understandings of worship, theology and even the English language. Churchill used to say of Britain and the US:” two countries separated by a common language.” This is VERY true. When we have tried to publish anything in the name of the group, we find that what is very understandable in one country is not necessarily understandable in another.

When I was in CA, we started a Spanish-speaking mission from our parish. But how was I going to pass on what was uniquely Anglican rather than Roman Catholic in the Spanish language? This conundrum cannot be taken lightly. Translation requires a different mindset. And that finally helped me break through many of the problems I had reading the Bible in translation. Although Hindus, Muslims and Jews read their scriptures in their original language, the language of faith is rooted in a language that is no longer used: Sanskrit, early Arabic and Biblical Hebrew. This is not so true for those who read their scripture in translation. Language carries culture. And faith is carried by culture. T’is a puzzlement.

Texas Wind

2011-06-20T16:18:00.002-04:00

This has been my first spring in Texas for almost 40 years. Spring in Texas real begins in March with its wet chilly sun. But by Pentecost in June it has gotten hot. My friends in NY are still wearing their longjohns and we are sweltering in at the 101 mark. But this spring has been windier than I ever remember.

I am sure that some environmentalist could tell how the winds are rooted in western culture’s failure to be attentive to the earth. There is blame enough all over. But I don’t recall the kind of wind that we have had.

The pecan trees in our backyard dance and rustle the whole of the day and even through the night. As a child I remember sitting on the front steps of our family home in the quiet heat of summer and the call of the cicadas beginning in one tree and growing to deafening and then subsiding and then starting up in another neighbor’s tree becoming a chorus of pulsating commentary on the day. And on still days now, I hear this chatter. But the wind keeps the cicada quiet. The nights are instead of their usual dewy respite from the days’ desiccant, continue to rob what moisture there is from the land.

We have had awe-filled storms this spring. Green skies, the tornado laden clouds, have invaded our attention on many occasions. Wild fires have run rampant over our drought dried flora west of town. Folks have lost their homes and some have lost their lives. And the wind continues to blow.

I grow tomatoes in pots. I have 5 plants arranged throughout the back yard. I can move them into the shade so they don’t just wither as the temperatures rise. I know that tomatoes love sun but they can’t take too much. Each morning while it is still comparatively cool, I water them and talk to them as if they were my children. I admire their fruit and cuss at the mockingbirds who rob them of their fruit before I can have them in my salad. Each day I have to right some part of our patio accoutrements: a chair here, a pot there. But still the wind blows them over. It scatters their fruit before it has a chance to ripen or even the bird get to feast.

In Texas the wind has always been a fact of life. But it seems so much more as am reacquainted with this southern weather. It makes me restless and anxious. It isn’t a light breeze that cools; it comes with blast furnace force. I know of one woman who while riding her bicycle was blown off a viaduct and into on-coming traffic. The wind is not to be trusted…

And yet we recall Pentecost when the wind blew in the Church. It was a violent wind too. It was not a simple breeze. It blew the complacency out of the Church. And perhaps it is a Texas wind that teaches us of what the Holy Spirit is about.

I am struck still with EM Kaeton’s story of the Shekinah of God. All too often we think of the Holy Spirit as some benign force that rustles our complacency. But the Holy Spirt that blows in our Church today is a Texas wind that blows hard. There is no “murmuring of the dove song” about the Holy Spirit in times like these. The Spirit dries our juices and demands our strength. It blows us off our bikes requiring attention and respect. It sometimes comes with tornados or hail. It dents our shiny constitutions and marks us as surely as baptismal oil. The Pentecostal wind that blows in the Church today is one that silences the choruses of meaningless chatter that all too often marks our preaching and teaching. It is a wind that moves us from the comfort of our albatross buildings into the ugliness of financial responsibility. It rattles the stained glass windows that keep out the world. It dries our moisture so that we are thirsty again for the living water of relationship with the Holy One.

We now begin the season of Pentecost—we celebrate this season with no feasts and no penitence. In some traditions this is called ‘Ordinary’ time. But it is the time of a spirit- wind that blows fiercely. We will not know where it comes from; it will blow where it wills. But it will clear and renew the face of the earth.

Friday Five: Stairway to Surprise

2011-06-17T11:18:00.000-04:00

Jan has given us a new Friday Five:

I am currently reading a book entitled Stairway of Surprise: Six Steps to a Creative Life by Michael Lipson. His premise is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "I shall mount to paradise by the stairway of surprise." Lipson's book is about practicing or developing six inner functions--thinking, doing, feeling, loving, opening, and thanking.

So these categories of attention are a jumping off point for today's Friday Five:

Pick five of the six actions and write about how you are practicing them today or recently. For a bonus, write about the sixth one you originally didn't choose!

What or how are you

1. thinking? I am thinking that today's 'win/lose' dynamic is going to kill us as Church, nation or even human race. We must find a middle ground.

2. doing? Sitting on my butt and doing nothing and herein lies the problem! I just resigned from an organization that I thought I would enjoy but found that I have nothing to offer them at present. What they need, I cannot give. I just don't have it within me to give it. It is very disappointing.

3. feeling? Depressed and angry. I have been feeling this for the past month. Guess it is time to find a counselor.

4. loving? I am loving having a house on one floor, a yard to look at that I don't have to mow and the time to enjoy it.

5. opening? I guess I have been stymied by the fact that I thought I would have a parish by now. The continued legal hassels in the diocese preclude this. With J's illness, it has been hard to start anything new. Even cooking has become a problem.

6. thanking? This IS the problem and I am not thankful at present. Oh, I am thankful for all my friends, their prayers and support. Depression makes thankfulness difficult.

...And Old Women will dream dreams.

2011-06-13T19:35:00.000-04:00

Oscar Romero said …this

It helps, now and then, to step back

and take the long view.

The kingdom [of God] is not only beyond our efforts,

it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of

the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.

Nothing we do is complete,

which is another way of saying

that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No programme accomplishes the church's mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything

and there is a sense of liberation in realising that.

This enables us to do something,

and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,

an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,

but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,

ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

A friend and colleague from the UK sent me this. She had been given this poem at her 75th birthday party. It is a wonderful way to look at what it is we are and do as ministers of the Gospel. I don’t think that there is anything that puts life into perspective—at least the perspective of God. We long to have that view but it is not ours on this side of the chasm.

Birthdays and anniversaries give us time to reflect. I celebrated a mere 28 years as an ordained person this past Saturday. And today I had lunch with the new deacon of our diocese. She asked important questions about the tensions between the older women and the young. She had experienced some of that at a gathering of women clergy she had attended. I appreciated her questions and challenge because it has made me reflect on what has happened in my lifetime in the ordained ministry. It has also helped me reflect on my own ministry at the beginnings of women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church.

Like St. Oscar Romero has said: We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.

And as impatient as I am to see the Kingdom come with regards to women’s ministry and the acceptance of LGBT people, I know that what I have been a part of is a great river of the Spirit as it went out of its banks. I will never know how fertile the delta will become because of that flood. But I am so glad I was able to be in the boat.

The first wave of women in the Episcopal Church who were able to poke a hole in the dike was those who were ordained in 1974 and 75. They were women who could no longer wait for the Church to catch up. They were ordained by ‘non-juroring bishops’ and broke all the ‘rules’ so that women could be a part of the rule-making. But they paid greatly for their brashness. Only a few of those women really got to serve in parishes. They were often marginalized long after the ordination of women was legitimized. Some taught, or were chaplains. None got to be rectors of large parishes or major voices in the structure of the Church. But that was not what God had called them to be. God called them to be those door-kickers or the boat rockers that got the church off its collective duff to be about justice, and more importantly, about the wholeness of humanity that the Gospel is really about.

The second wave was those who were the ‘good girls’ who observed all the rules. We jumped through momentously sexist hoops, we learned to how to play by ‘boys rules’, the rules that had always been played. We wore our dog collars and our blacks and tried to fit in. If we became rectors of parishes we tried very hard to maintain the ministry just as if a male priest was doing it. Oh, yes there were some attempts to institute ‘inclusive language’ but for the most part, it fell on deaf ears. We were just grateful that we were given a place at the table. Some of the second wave saw that their job was done. They had gotten their foot in the door and felt that was enough. They did not have a vision that God was calling the Church to something radically new. They wanted equality and parity. They were about just having a job, even if the ceiling was low. Or if there were one’s who were able through perfecting the male model and were especially capable at that role, often played into the hierarchical competition that so marked male privilege in the Church.

The second wave did not show the real changes that women’s ordination really herald. Women were still rare on seminary faculties. Feminist and womanist theologies were only beginning to be developed, and they certainly had not gotten into the DNA of the way that the Church was run. Slowly the men of the clergy began to understand that there were women who were just as talented and just as spiritually adept as they. And begrudgingly they realized that the Church was better off with their presence. Hesitantly they allowed themselves to work WITH women rather than against us.

I am part of that second wave of women who were ordained in the church. I naively enjoyed being a novelty. I smiled and answered “what do we call you? questions. I glibly thought that ‘inclusive language’ was not necessary because I was the sign and symbol of inclusion. Horse puckey!

There are women who are being ordained now who are as equally naive as I who enter the ordained ministry thinking “we have arrived!” And they maintain that second wave by thinking that all they are going to do is what the “good fathers” have been doing for generations. But there is another group that is coming into the ministry who realize that the job of women in the Church is to go beyond “we have always done it this way before’. They see in the gifts that women bring naturally a way to change the Church radically for the future. They see at the centre of their call to minister in the Church in a remarkably communal way. They see domination as wholly contrary to the Gospel. Their goal is to change ‘boys rules’ into something that is much more homogenized.

I love to see these younger women begin to claim their power. I am energized by their willingness to try new things and absolutely exult in the freshness of their approach. At the same time I hurt for their naïveté, for I know that they will be battered and torn in their lives as they run into the patriarchy that still freezes the Church in its failure to proclaim the Gospel.

They can envision a Church that is not based on the ‘family model’ with ‘father/mother knows best’ continuing top-down leadership. They are a bold group that can take up post-modern issues facing Scripture, the stories of our faith, and remind us that Christ still lives within us and more importantly pointing out the moving of Spirit in our midst.

It is at times like these that Romero’s voice speaks so clearly: “We are prophets of a future not our own.”

I have moved from one who sees visions to one who ‘dreams dreams.’ And I give thanks for that. Perhaps my dreams will be able to plant a seed that some young one can nurture. And one day the patriarchy will not dictate the Gospel and no one will wonder what to call me.