The Labyrinth and The Red Doors

Nightlight ~

2011-11-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness
And the black of the night cannot harm us
We can trust not to fear, for our comfort is near
There’s a light, there’s a light, in the darkness

(Beth Nielsen Chapman)

There is a light, a light in the darkness.

I bought it at Ross a few weeks ago for $4.99. My first nightlight since I was toddling around in diapers. It’s crafted out of cut mocha-brown glass, and when darkness falls on my 830 square feet of living space, the mosaic pattern shimmers against the periwinkle color of my bedroom walls.

My need for a nightlight has come on slowly over the past few years. I’ve always been a girl who doesn’t mind the dark. Oregon is a good spot for me. I can be the tiniest bit grouchy when the temperature creeps up past 80 degrees. Give me some cloud cover, a little mist, a bit of sun playing hide-and- seek, and I’m just fine. I am comfortable under the steely-gray of a blustery sky. I savor a dark, chilly night with a blanket, a latte, and my puppy dog.

And yet, over the past few years I began to sense a change. The dark started to feel, well, really, really dark. I imagine there are a few reasons that account for this change: the “bad” news being “extra-extra-read-all-about-it-bad”, the false comforts I may have relied on showing themselves for the counterfeits they are, and the fact that I’m on the short list to receive my invitation to join AARP (hey, I’ll take a discount where I can get it, but really, AARP?! I’m there already?) It’s possible that some of the neurons firing around in my brain, the ones that have made me a lover of the cozy-dark are, how can I say this delicately? …changing.

I mentioned my unsettled night-time feelings to a friend, and she took me nightlight shopping. I plugged in my mosaic Ross-find late that night after everything in my house was tucked in. I loved how the reflection danced along the vase across the room, the mirror above my dresser, even the brushed nickel accents of the ceiling lamp. I settled in and went to sleep, easily, for the first time in several weeks. The shades, the shadows, the weight of the darkness didn’t bother me for the first time in many bedtimes. There was light.

A few months ago I went to see the ‘Narnia’ exhibit at OMSI. I was captivated enough by the maps and the movie props, the interactive displays and the life-size costumes. But Aslan, that good and wild lion, was nowhere to be found, his presence in the fantastical stories given hardly a mention. I expressed my disenchantment to my sister, who has read the C.S. Lewis books several times. I told her that all I really wanted was to walk into the exhibit hall and see Aslan; to hear his voice, to bury my head in his mane and to hear him say that all would be well soon enough. When I told her how I felt, she replied with a quote that may have come from Lewis himself: “Just because you didn’t see him doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”

I’ve heard preachers declare that the phrase found most often in the Bible is “don’t be afraid”. My own version of an in-depth Biblical word-study (Google) tells me that the word “afraid” does appear over and again in Scripture. It shows up like this: “He was afraid”. “She was afraid”. “They were afraid”. I can’t imagine God the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit being fans of preaching to the choir, so “don’t be afraid” must have been words of comfort, encouragement and hope to fearful people.

“God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.” (I John 1:5)

God is light. There is darkness. That’s the tension we live in. There are shades and shadows; there is a weight to the darkness that we all encounter. And yet, I believe that in the dark, those good and wild words, “don’t be afraid”, aren’t so much a marching order but an invitation: “I know you are afraid, come to Me.” “I’m afraid.” “I know.” “I’m afraid.” “I know.”

The nightlight doesn’t make the bad news any better. It doesn’t change the truth that I’ve let myself be misled from time to time about where my comfort lies. And it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not getting any younger. And yet, the shimmer of the nightlight reminds my heart that God is present, even in the dark.

I don’t see Him, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t there.

God is light. And in Him, there is no darkness. None at all.

There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness
And the black of the night cannot harm us
We can trust not to fear, for our comfort is near
There’s a light, there’s a light, in the darkness

For the Love of St. Francis ~

2010-10-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

by Kathy Douglass

I took my 3-year-old terrier-who-knows-what-else-mix mutt to the park last Sunday for the Blessing of the Animals. Maggie’s been mine for about eight months now, and because she’s been such a gift, such a blast, such a comfort and source of laughter to me, I figured, hey, sure, we’ll do the Blessing.

The Episcopal tradition offers me an invitation to remembrances and celebrations that are new to me, and this is one of my favorites - a chance to thank God for the life of St. Francis of Assisi, and while doing so, to thank God for His creation, for the life of His creatures.

Um, yea, “creature” about sums it up. As the good Reverend approached, my gentle, fun-loving, scratch-my-belly-would-you-please puppy dog stiffened, growled, snarled and bared her teeth at the hand that would bless her.

I was mortified. I wanted to yank at her leash and make a quick getaway. I sifted through the excuses that quickly flooded my thoughts, all beginning with “she’s never done that before, I can’t imagine what…” I wondered what happens to dogs who bite the clergy. Sigh.

It didn’t go at all like I had planned. I’d spent 45 minutes the evening before, brushing her coat so it would be soft and shiny. I got her to the park in time to run off some spunk, chase a few squirrels and sniff about the grass to find her spot.

I’d told her what we were doing, and while I understand she doesn’t know the meaning of my words, (I dorealize she’s a dog), I do believe she understands my tone and she knew that this tone meant we were off to do something fun together. She had to know.

Yea, not so much.

When my eyes are open and I can see beyond what I am “seeing”, I find that there a story pictures, snapshots, collages everywhere. Any given moment can present itself like the next page in a pop-up book, springing off the flattened surface with nuance and color and dimension, revealing a bit of truth we may not have otherwise noticed.

I can be a little cranky sometimes, out of sorts, anxious. I would like to receive a blessing, a prayer, a kindness, a bit of light in the dark, a pathway out of a dead-end, but I can’t see beyond the present circumstance to understand that what I long for is actually happening. I can be like Maggie, not trusting that the hand that’s reaching toward me is good and kind, and bearing what I hope to receive.

The gospel of Luke records that Jesus, aching for the people He loved, spoke these words: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not.” (Luke 13:34)
　
Maggie would not. All the Reverend wanted to do was touch her gently on the head and offer a word of blessing. But Mags would not have it. She would not.

Sometimes we won’t either.

We stiffen, we growl, we snarl and bare our teeth at the One who would simply come near to lay a hand of gentleness on us, but… we… will… not.

She wasn‘t as animated as she usually is about the car ride home, she lay quietly on the passenger seat, and later that afternoon she rested her head on my lap, all “you still love me, don’t you?”, emanating from her big, brown eyes. I rubbed her ears and remembered the blessing the Reverend had offered Maggie, albeit from a safe distance, earlier in the day: “May the God of all creation bless and keep you, and fill those who love and care for you with joy and thanksgiving.” Amen. Yes Mags, I still love you.

We’ll try it again next year. The Reverend is willing, so am I. Hopefully Maggie will be too.

Receiving can be hard. “I will not” comes so easy. We all need another chance to give “I will” a try.

God bless St. Francis, who loved the Creator
God bless the kind Reverend, who loved my cranky dog
God bless Maggie, who got her blessing despite her behavior
God bless all of us, when we are growly, snarly, reluctant receivers of His goodness

2010-07-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

by Judy Bevilacqua

“Free will:” it’s one of the most attractive and liberating doctrines of the Christian faith - but it’s also one of the most maddening and frustrating. It’s can feel like a divine marketing ploy: “free sample,” “free test ride,” “free estimate,” “free carpet cleaning.” How many of us have gone for the free vacation stay, only to have to listen to a 3-hour, high-pressure sales pitch for a time-share condo. We vow: “never again!” We learned that free isn’t “free.”

Decisions have never come easy for me. I was a child who was not allowed many choices. They were made for me, and I learned to be passive (resistant!) and complain and criticize under my breath, rather than risk and take responsibility. It was quite late in life that I came to learn to be “the adult” and choose for myself and bear the required results. I still agonize over the outcome of every bad decision and feel shame and guilt over not getting it “right.” So free-will is a double-edged sword for me. It’s designed to produce grown-ups, but I still find myself with these pesky pockets of adolescence.

The scriptures are abundantly clear about the necessity of making choices:

“Choose this day whom you will serve…” Joshua 24:15

“I would that you were either hot or cold…” Rev. 3:16

“Let your yes be yes, and your no be no...” Matthew 5:23

“Be you doers of the word and not hearers only…” James 1:23

“Put your money where your mouth is…” (oops, I guess that one’s not in there!)

God’s desire is that we choose….He leaves so much up to us. But there’s an overarching grace that accompanies this learning curve of decision-making. I think being parented by God allows me a large space in a less condemning environment. Our proof-text is to see the line-up of bad choices represented in the stories in the Bible. And yes, there’s hell to pay, sometimes! But primarily it’s a classroom atmosphere of “let’s try that again.” King David and Peter made some rather poor and consequential gaffes. Moses and Paul made some stellar blunders! In this journey of faith, it seems we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witless-ness.” Ahhh, what a comfort! It takes some of the pressure off. It turns the heat down and the shelves the shame. I’ve always loved that proverb: “A righteous man falls seven times and rises again.” Proverbs 24:16. It’s that do-over principle. This “free will” thing would be completely scary without the knowledge of God as a loving, forgiving, nurturing and completely realistic father-mother. We get to make this very human choice…and yet, in that finite moment, we brush against the infinity of the One who is with us and in us….and over time we learn we are still “on the way home.” We find our will is slowly getting conformed to His. Whatever unique and hidden road we may be taking, it’s still a pilgrimage of faith ….He is on the road with us!

Recently I read again a favorite poem. This time, I came away with a fresh view - like a glance in the rear-view mirror - perceiving that “way has lead onto way,” in that mysterious and transformative path of free-will…and “that (God) has made all the difference.”

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I Had a Father ~

2010-06-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Kathy Douglass

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.For what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? (Matthew 7)

I had a father who lived at my house

He was my hero, he was my friend

Turned on the lights when the dark left me scared

Laughed at my stories, cuddled and cared

And every good gift that a father could give

Was mine for the taking as long as he lived

I had a father who lived at my house

As I grew older, wiser, I knew

This body I’m in is the same that he wore

He suffered, he struggled, he failed and he tore

My father needed a father too

We found the Father we needed in You

When I need my father

You are the one who won’t be gone

When I need a shoulder

Your love is the shoulder that I rest my life upon

If I ask You for bread,

You don’t go throwing stones

You’ve given me a home

And I am not alone

You are my Father, You are my Savior, my Lord

You are the One who loves me so much more

I’ve lived most of my life without my father. He left us when I was a little girl, and died a few years after that. I saw him just a handful of times in-between.

All that means is that I belong to a community too numerous to count, a community of names and faces and stories, a community of children who’ve lost their fathers. Death, abandonment, neglect, abuse, chasms of emotional distance that seem impossible to bridge, never-knowing-his-name… there are so many ways we “lose” our dads in a world hell-bent on loss.

“When I was a child, I talked liked a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became grown, I put childish ways behind me.” (I Corinthians 13:11) What we see, what we perceive, what we interpret as children can’t help but grow into something more as we grow into who we are. From childlike naiveté to weathered understanding, the view of my dad as “my hero, my friend” has taken on layers of meaning and perspective in the years since he went away. As I’ve had to confront and contend with my own brokenness, I’ve had to confront and contend with his.

Brennan Manning writes “blessed are those who know they are broken”. In knowing this truth about ourselves, about one another, a pathway toward wholeness opens up. I don’t think that God’s promise to bind our wounds (Hosea 6) means that healing isn’t going to hurt. Wounds ache, it can hurt to apply balm, to change a dressing, the journey toward rehabilitation is painful and long.

I don’t think God wanted to be my earthly father. I believe it was His heart, His hope, that my dad would do that. And yet, in that failure, in that loss, God has been intimately present, just like He was at the beginning, when I was fearfully and wonderfully made.

I miss my dad, I do. I’ve allowed myself at times to wonder about the impact of his decisions on my life, to consider what might have been had he stayed with us, to feel the starkness of the empty space where he was supposed to be. And yet, with time and God’s grace, I’ve been able to experience the things that a father can provide: a sense of being cherished, an awareness of protection and shepherding. These good things have not been withheld from me in my fatherlessness. I’ve not been left alone.

It’s not okay that I don’t have a dad, and yet… it is… okay.

When I need my father

You are the one who won’t be gone

When I need a shoulder

Your love is the shoulder that I rest my life upon

If I ask You for bread,

You don’t go throwing stones

You’ve given me a home

And I am not alone

You are my Father, You are my Savior, my Lord

You are the One who loves me so much more

Singing to God

2010-06-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

by Ian Doescher

Today, the Grant High School Royal Blues Alumni Choir had our second concert ever. Reverend Jennifer sings in the choir (though she doesn't say much about it in church), and we were happy to be singing several sacred pieces. These included...

- A setting of "O Vos Omnes" (Lamentations 1:12, Jeremiah lamenting for Jerusalem)

- Morten Lauridsen's enchanting and ethereal "O Nata Lux" (O birth of light)

- An Italian madrigal filled with joy, called Exsultate Deo.

We can't bring the concert to the blog, but we can at least share one piece with you. Click here to listen to Exsultate Deo online. Here's to singing praise to God with our bodies, hearts and voices.

Pondering the Promise of Pentecost

2010-06-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Judy Bevilacqua

I love spending time with my grandkids. We have great conversations about life, food, gross insects, dinosaur minutiae, bird identification, career possibilities and - even relationships. It’s fascinating to watch them slowly develop -- like little polaroids! But though they are unaware of this process, I am tracking their development into the future, like an archeologist in reverse!

Sometimes, there are things I would love to share with them. But they are not asking the questions. They are not ready. And frankly….neither am I. There are a lot of things I’m sure God might want to tell me, but He must also wait until I’m ready. My future is now a pretty short span, (I hardly need binoculars!) It’s not the vast frontier of my youth. But still that future is all fog and smoke, only a dim path. In my nearsightedness, I must wait for wise guides to lead me there. Last night before dropping to sleep, I read this quote from an “mid-life” woman, who suddenly became aware of all the elderly women around her in Paris: "It’s as if I’ve only now developed the rods and cones in my retina that allow me to see them” [Traveling with Pomegranates, Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor]. I know this feeling. Maybe it takes old age to see old age, or ill health to see ill health. (You could fill in the blanks to this formula….ad infinitum!) The truth is: there is a reality that has been there all along, but you can’t “see” it until a certain moment in your life…..until you’re ready.

There is something strangely comforting about this whole phenomenon. We can’t just know and understand at will. We can’t just read the best books, get the degree, text our friends for advice or check Wikipedia in our search for “answers.” We just can’t produce wisdom. Wisdom just doesn’t happen in isolation, or “out of context,” or without the road-time, shoe leather and deep investment. We have to need it, to be ready for it.

In nutritional science, research shows that extracting and isolating a vitamin or mineral from the whole food usually prevents it from being well utilized by the body. Often another enzyme or protein is needed to allow that intricate “process of absorption.” If this is true for my physical body, can I grasp that there are a complex of elements that must be present for real learning to take place in the rest of me? This is Wisdom: that “assimilation” is essential for wisdom. Not just for my grandkids! This patient osmosis is vital for my own spiritual growth as well. It gives new meaning to the quote: “when the pupil is ready, the teacher will come.”

Last week, our lectionary reading from John 16:12-15, came as….“a slow wind to work these words of love” around me! Jesus was talking to his disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

“…but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” When we are ready…. when we need it and are asking and when our experience can support it. (God used the Montessori method long before we did!) Pentecost reminds us that the wise guide of the Spirit will give us the truth - as we are able to absorb and assimilate it.

Like my grandkids, I can’t receive all the information. I can’t bear all the truth. I’m not developmentally ready! But the Spirit knows how to guide me along and help prepare me for all that my future holds…..whether short or long. The Spirit, like that enzyme, is the catalyst that turns on the light…..

I close with a line from a song that’s been in my head this season of Pentecost:

“God only knows, when God makes His plan; the information’s not available to the mortal man” [“Slip sliding’ away.“ Paul Simon]. Ah, but it is available through the Spirit! This is the promise of Pentecost!

Conscientious Cooperators

2010-05-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

by Ian Doescher

Because this is Memorial Day weekend, here's a story about peace. My friend Ken, the pastor of Tualatin Presbyterian Church, passed this story on to me, the story of a man named Desmond Doss. Have you heard of Desmond Doss? He was a Seventh-Day Adventist and an avowed pacifist who, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, joined up with the army because he felt he should serve his country. However, he refused to carry a gun. He was mocked, ridiculed and even threatened by his fellow soldiers, and was brought up on formal charges by an officer. But it was determined that just because he wouldn’t carry a gun didn’t make Desmond unfit for service. Desmond became a medic, a medic who did not carry a gun. And though he himself was peaceful, he saw more than his share of violent action. In a battle in Okinawa, in which American soldiers were trying to take a certain ridge that overlooked the island, the Americans were routed and beat into retreat, but not Desmond. You see, 75 men were already wounded up there, so Desmond stayed and served them. One of the men he treated was the same officer who had brought him up on formal charges.

Desmond’s story is the story of a man who knows in the core of his being what the peace of the Holy Spirit means, a man who lived that peace courageously and boldly, helping people understand what it means to be both a patriot and a pacifist. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first and only conscientious objector to have received that commendation. Desmond says he doesn’t like that term “conscientious objector,” though. He refers to himself as a “conscientious cooperator” -- a term that has been adopted by his denomination, the Seventh-Day Adventists. What a great way for us to envision our lives as Christians, surrounded by the Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to us: you, me, all of us, conscientious cooperators.

Value Every Moment

2010-05-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Julia Graves

Close your eyes. Now think of someone you care about. What were there wearing? Can you remember the sound of their voice or what they smelled like? What did you talk about? Was your interaction pleasant or stressed filled with condescending remarks? Did you hug them when you parted and say “I Love You”? Did you value their existence?

We live our lives as if they will continue forever. We take relationships for granted. It only takes a moment to change our lives forever. In a moment a car accident, stroke, heart attack, or unexpected death can occur changing or taking the life of a loved one.

Our words and actions can cause an emotional death to an individual. We demean and minimize others in person and behind their backs. At times we behave more like people of darkness rather than of the light.

Life is a gift and every moment is precious. In a moment, it can all change… forever.

What do you value?

Ascension

2010-05-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

And if I go,

while you're still here...

Know that I live on,

vibrating to a different measure

--behind a thin veil you cannot see through.

You will not see me,

so you must have faith.

I wait for the time when we can soar together again,

--both aware of each other.

Until then, live your life to its fullest.

And when you need me,

Just whisper my name in your heart,

...I will be there.

"Ascension"

All Dressed Up ~

2010-05-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Kathy Douglass

I walk through a park every morning on my way to work. It gives me a few moments to breathe in some fresh air, smell the lilac blossoms or kick at the leaves, and watch the squirrels skitter up the tree trunks before I hang my coat on my cubicle wall. The park is just across the street from the courthouse, so people-watching is also available, no extra charge, all day long.

A few mornings ago, a scene in the park caught my attention: a young woman, dressed in a white wedding gown, with the veil pulled back over her head, sat alone on a wooden park bench, her eyes pooling with tears as she held a bouquet of red roses limply across her lap.

It’s not unusual to see a bride in the park; weddings take place at the courthouse every day, simple ceremonies, as well as more elaborate rites. It just seemed out of place to see a bride, alone and sad, at 8 o’clock in the morning. Her body language, her expression told me that there was a story unfolding. Her face was downcast, her shoulders were bowed. As I approached and then walked past her, she looked up and off into the distance once or twice as her fingers absently traced the rose petals in her lap.

I walked as far as the crossing signal, then turned and looked back. A few women, braver than I, approached her as she slumped on the bench. I wasn’t close enough to hear their exchange, but as they bent toward her, as they leaned in with expressions of kindness and concern on their faces, I imagined them asking, “are you alright dear?” “Do you need some help?” “Are you waiting for someone?” “Shall we wait with you?”

The young bride slowly shook her head in response, one of the strangers touched her gently on the shoulder, and they walked away.

I’ve wondered since that morning about that scene in the park. That young woman seemed to share her park bench with the pain of disappointment, the fear of humiliation, the ache of wondering and waiting, the anxiousness of uncertainty.

I wonder how often we feel just like her… all dressed up and nowhere to go. Ready to be the bride, but no bridegroom in sight. Weary of waiting. Bracing for disappointment. Turning the page in our own story to find a twist of character or plot or setting that we didn’t want or anticipate.

It can be difficult in those moments to do anything but look off into the distance and absently trace what feels like a limp hold on our hopes.

When we come to these moments, we have to face a truth that is never far off: the way things unfold sometimes is simply not what we had in mind, not how we thought it would look, not what we had hoped for.

Joel 2:21-27

The word of the Lord that came to Joel:

O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God;

For he has given the early rain for your vindication,

He has poured down for you abundant rain,

The early and the later rain, as before.

The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten,

The hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God,

Who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

When I read the prophets, so much of what I read is beyond my understanding. I believe that context matters, and while I am interested in the interpretations of people who are wiser than I am, I just have to keep searching the Scriptures for the same thing I’ve always searched for: a glimpse of God's heart. Just as sheep begin to recognize the voice of their Shepherd, I believe that the Beloved begin to recognize the heart of their Lover.

When I read this passage from Joel, the glimpse I get of God’s heart is that it understands that we have, at times, felt jilted, disappointed, ashamed. I glimpse a heart that feels the losses we have felt, cares about the moments, the days, the years that seem, on the surface, to have been wasted. I glimpse a heart that knows the pangs we have endured, the hunger, the thirst, the want.

And I glimpse a heart that is set to make things right one day, a heart that will bring plenty where there was want, overflow where there was scarcity, and gladness where there was despair.

I don't know why that young bride was in tears on that park bench. I only know that there was something about the scene that resonated with familiarity. We wait and we wonder. We hope and we hang on. We brace ourselves for a twist in our own story.

God is greater than the reasons we sit alone with tears pooling in our eyes. “He is the Lord our God, who deals wondrously with us”, as He spoke to Joel. He will make us glad, He will. He will come to us now, He will come for us then, just as He promised He would.

We’ll be dressed in white, as a Bride adorned for her Bridegroom, and we will have somewhere to go.

When He cometh, when He cometh to make up His jewels,

All His jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning, His brightness adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown

He will gather, He will gather the gems for His kingdom,

All the pure ones, all the bright ones, His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning, His brightness adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown. (William O. Cushing)

Swimming in the Sea of Doubt

2010-05-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Judy Bevilacqua

During the travels of my younger days, I remember the deep respect I practiced (fear would be more accurate) while swimming in the awesome surf near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Then there was the memory of tiptoeing through a minefield of poisonous sea urchins, in order to enjoy the sumptuous blue waters of the Mediterranean off the coast of France. I also remember the colorful stew of sea-life, from lobsters to moray eels, surrounding a dive in the Sea of Cortez in Baja. Most familiar of all, are the many adventures in the chilly purity of the NW’s Puget Sound and traversing Hood Canal. But nothing I experienced has prepared me for swimming in the “Sea of Doubt.” Nothing.

I realized something was happening to me a few years ago. A huge backlog of denial drifted loose from its moorings and set free a raft of “questions without answers.” This was neither a comfortable nor familiar situation for an old evangelically schooled woman. I had acquired no survival skills for this condition of soul. These questions were teeming with dangerous implications. Threats of apostasy and damnation circled menacingly just under the surface. Right on schedule, the guilt to which I am prone, produced a riptide for my unstable emotions. Not safe waters for swimming! I could sink and drown out there.

Reading John 21, in a recent lectionary passage, I was moved by Peter’s leap into the sea to swim to the resurrected Christ, who was calmly preparing breakfast for his band of doubters. I was reminded of Peter’s earlier plunge into deep water as he followed the Savior. Walking those few steps on top of the sea, then….sinking in panic. What was it about Peter that so often got him into deep water with his faith? His impulsiveness has always been endearing to me; testing his own limits and God’s patience - usually at the same time. I have grown to trust Christ more easily in the wake of Peter’s failures, rather than in the light of his displays of faith. His “sink or swim” attitude seems the best training model for swimming through doubt. There’s no way around it. Best to make friends with it. Dive right in.

I remember training for my ocean swim a couple of years ago. I ordered a video that was recommended for endurance swimming. It introduced me the T.I. technique, developed by Terry Laughlin, an American swimming coach. The initials stand for “total immersion,” or what he describes as fish-like swimming. TI approaches swimming as a mindful practice done in the spirit of yoga or tai chi. The aim is to become more self-aware and to feel "one with the water." After my childhood Red Cross training, it felt so counter-intuitive! This method asks you to lower your head in the water, not struggle and strain to stay on “top.” You are encouraged to sink down into the water and relax, to let your hands move like anchors - not paddles. And most helpful of all: to swim more quietly - minimize waves and splash. Recently, this training came back to me, as I considered the spiritual swim with which I am challenged at this season of my life and faith. I am in need of new techniques to help me stay afloat in this sea of doubt. Not with the goal to conquer those doubts, and stay “on top,” or to arrive at any particular destination, but simply to learn to breathe and relax for the long haul – this “crossing over Jordan!”

Since I’ve ceased thrashing about on the surface, gasping for quick answers and easy solutions, the terror has lessened. What was weighing me down, was the exhausting effort it took to manufacture certitude. Like swimming in a wool coat, it just got heavier and heavier. Finally, I just slipped it off and found I wasn’t drowning after all. I could hear the deep silence. Could just “be still and know that (He) is God” - in some completely ambiguous way. These days, I am finding myself able to relax and sink down into my questions and fears. There are plenty of them. I don’t need to tell you what they are. Yours might have different names. These doubts are not the enemies of God that I imagined them to be. They are not the opposite of faith. Just the shadow side, the view from underneath.

I always imagined that real faith would resemble Peter’s on the water, defying the laws of gravity – at least in those brief seconds before he sank. But in the end, those whose faith seems the most real to me, are those who’ve sunk peaceably into the deep, unfathomable waters of God’s great mystery and man’s undeniable humanity - and called it home.

Ah, there’s the tension! This very suspense by which we are somehow held by God - in suspension - (even, at times, suspension of belief), is the same uncertainty by which we “live and move and have our being” in God. To quote Parker Palmer: “I thought God was in the general direction of up. But I’ve learned that God is down and in.” And maybe our own resurrection, like birth or baptism, happens in the deep water - not on, or above, or in spite of it. Perhaps Jesus experienced his own Resurrection in just such a daring and doubt-filled sea.

Not one of them!

2010-04-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

My mother talks about the moment when, in college, she had the sudden realization that she was a Gentile. “I knew I wasn’t Jewish,” she remembers, “but it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that I was one of those nasty Gentiles!” She shares this memory with a smile at her own naiveté. Having grown up in a Christian household reading the Bible and being fascinated with Jewish tradition, my mother’s experience was surprising but safe. Surprising because she suddenly realized she was a Gentile, one of those “others” who are often looked on with suspicion throughout the Bible. But safe because the Gentiles were already “in,” had already been accepted by the followers of Christ long, long ago.

This coming Sunday, we will hear the story from Acts 11 of Peter’s vision, in which he is called to serve the Gentiles: “As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” The passage concludes: “When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’”

My mother’s realization, while humorous now, is safe because her group is already included in the Christian sphere. If this passage from Acts—and the whole movement of the book of Acts from a band of small followers to the ends of the known world—tells us anything, though, it is that the Christian community should have no bounds. None. That’s why St. Luke’s practices the profound hospitality of inviting absolutely everyone to the communion table. As Reverend Jennifer says, “This is Christ’s table, and Christ turns no one away.” May we live with confidence the Easter faith that welcomes all to God’s table, even us Gentiles.

You Shall Be ~

2010-04-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

by Kathy Douglass

I hired a hedge man a week ago. My little yellow house with the purple door is bordered on the south side by a laurel hedge. It seemed like a great idea when I bought the house. I liked the privacy and shade it offered, I liked the sense of security that comes with a hedge. What I didn’t realize at the time is that this hedge has a nickname: Goliath. It’s giant, it’s brawny, it’s mouthy, and it’ll cut me right in two if I don’t take the first swing. A friend recommended a gardener, and by Friday evening I’d made an appointment for Sunday afternoon. My first thought was that I’d better spend a few hours on Saturday trimming the hedge before...the...hedge…man...came…to…trim…the…hedge. I didn’t want him to see how scraggly and overgrown I’d let it become.

A few weeks ago, I gave myself a bit of a pedicure. Pampering? Taking good care of myself? Going all girly? No. Prepping for the Maundy Thursday foot-washing. If anyone is going to see my feet, they are going to be clean and shiny, blister-free and soft as a baby’s bottom. You know, ready…to…be…washed.

I am seeing the dentist in a few days. You know where this is going. Let’s just say that my little box of minty floss and me are spending lots of quiet evenings together.

My mom tells a funny story: when she was a young girl in the 50s (sorry ma), she and her brother had an every-Wednesday-after-school routine. They’d clean up the house, vacuum, polish the stair-rail, straighten the magazines and newspapers, spritz the mirrors, hang up all the clothes, wash, dry and put every dish in its proper cupboard, and sweep up every speck of dust. Why? Because Dorothy Simon, the cleaning lady, was coming by on Thursday to do…just…that. My nana did not want dear Mrs. Simon to think they were a “messy family.”

C’mon, admit it. You do it too. Do your best to “present” yourself.

We can be such a mess sometimes. What a relief to say it out loud. I’m a mess sometimes. You’re a mess sometimes. We’re a mess sometimes. This is not news. It just takes a few “let me clean this up” episodes for us to recognize it. And those episodes are available, well, “on demand”. We demand to be seen in a certain light. A light that’s lovely, a light that masks our most obvious flaws, a light that says, “ooh, would you take a look at her, at him.”

The truth is, we are known and loved and accepted as we are -- as… we… are. There is a Redeemer, and He’s had his heart set on us since before the foundations of the world were laid (Ephesians 1:4). A heart set to love and transform, heal and redeem. His heart is set, but ours still wavers now and then. We’re not always so sure we’re what He had in mind… so we trim and primp and mop up so we can be presentable, loveable, worth it.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God lays out His kind invitation: “Come, let us reason together”, says the Lord. “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be as crimson, they shall be like wool”. How, exactly does that happen? I don’t know. All I know is that there is an invitation with our names on it. And this is no black-tie affair we’ve been invited to. “You shall be white as snow”. Seems to me that God understands His invitation is to the messy. And that helps me breathe a bit, and loosen my grip on the “do-it-myselfing”. We respond to His invitation. He transforms us as we respond.

Transformation comes in time, it does. We’re all at one point or another in the “becoming” process. Transformation takes some growing into. So does accepting the truth about how we are seen by the One who invited us to be transformed.

The hedge will need to be trimmed again next spring. There will be more blisters between now and the next foot-washing. And I have to go back to the dentist. This “becoming” isn’t over, not quite yet.

We show up mouthy, blistered and un-flossed… and find ourselves welcome and embraced.

White as snow, white as snow

Though my sins were as scarlet,

Lord I know, Lord I know,

I am clean and forgiven

Through the power of your blood,

Through the wonder of your love

Through faith in You, I know that I can be, white as snow (lyric by Leon Olguin)

Disposable

2010-04-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

I have found it very difficult to write my contribution to the blog. I am usually a very task oriented person and get commitments completed early. Then I don’t have to think about them any more. This has not been the case with the most current blog. I have found myself avoiding my computer, for if I am there I should sit and write my blog. If I sit and write my blog, then I have to look at the feelings I am experiencing. May of these feelings are rooted in deep anger and hurt. I really would prefer not to look at or feel them. I do not enjoy turmoil or pain. I would rather experience peace, tranquility, and joy.

I know what it is like to struggle emotionally and financially, I know what it is like to feel abandoned. When I see other people experiencing this it makes these memories and feeling come to the surface for me. I hurt and I get angry. I feel empathy for them.

It is upsetting to see adults only thinking about their own wants, usually in the form of self gratification, shunning their responsibilities. They don’t think about the impact of their actions on the people around them, their spouse, children, family, friends, and community. All they think about is their “wants” and not the “needs” of others. Or is it they just don’t care.

Of course people who don’t think about the ramifications of their actions are not truly adults. They are children. Children in a candy store grabbing treats, and toys for self fulfillment. They are thieves who steal the emotional wellbeing and security of everyone around them. They are spoiled children, bullies, and criminals. They do irreparable harm to the innocent.

We live in the disposable generation. If we don’t want it anymore we throw it out. Give it away. Recycle it. Maybe someone else would like it. In our present society families and relationships are disposable also. Throw out the spouse and the kids, they will be fine. Don’t believe it, they will not be fine. They will experience a life time in mistrust, pain, and insecurity. And for what? Someone else’s happiness and gratification. How selfish is that! People are not stuff.

How many times in the Bible is the word touch used? Jesus healed by touching people. Did he hit, emotionally abuse, walk away? He embraced the sick, poor, homeless, widowed, outcast. He healed. We as Christians are supposed emulate Christ.

Jesse Manibusan, a local Christian song writer, says it best:

"Open My Eyes"

Based on Mark 8:22–25

Open my eyes, Lord.
Help me to see your face.
Open my eyes, Lord.
Help me to see.

Open my ears, Lord.
Help me to hear your voice.
Open my ears, Lord.
Help me to hear.

Open my heart, Lord.
Help me to love like you.
Open my heart, Lord.
Help me to love.

Bridge
And the first shall be last,
and our eyes are opened,
and we'll hear like never before.
And we'll speak in new ways,
and we'll see God's face
in places we've never known.

I live within you.
Deep in your heart, O Love.
I live within you.
Rest now in me.

This link shows Jesse performing his song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbihOyKIvi8&feature=related

Let us open our eyes and follow Christ’s teachings.

Resurrection Thoughts... (picking up the broken pieces)

2010-04-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

by Judy Bevilacqua

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;a broken and contrite heart. Psalm 51:17

I thought about the idea for many years: a large mosaic that would someday grace our outdoor entranceway. Finally, about 2-1/2 years ago, I eagerly began the work. My daughter Gina helped me create the design. It was colorful and Italian in spirit, bearing the greeting: “Benvenuto,” Italian for “welcome.” Hospitality is important to me, so it was work I believed in. It started out innocently enough, as, I suppose most life-changing events do. My ignorance was bliss. Enlarging the design and mounting it on strong wood wasn’t difficult. I had been years collecting broken tiles and dishes. (We’re hard on dishes at our house!) And I had even brought tiles home from a vacation to a pottery center in central Mexico.

So the work began: hammers, tile-cutters, and goggles. There was blood and band-aids, nicked knuckles and frustration over cutting problems and confusion over glues. But it was satisfying work…even if slow. PAIN-fully slow. Oh, did I mention slow? In my mind, I had the mosaic grouted, framed and hung by the following Spring. But only a few square inches were completed by then. Other priorities and duties sapped my strength and filled my brief leisure hours after work. Before long I couldn’t even see the mosaic, it was buried under piles of rubble and debris in the utility room, neglected and forgotten.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” Proverbs 13 says. It’s true. My heart was sad. Life was hard. My employer for whom I’d cared for over 19 years, was failing. Then suddenly, she was gone….and with that a sudden retirement. Not quite as I’d imagined, abrupt and aborted. I felt oddly unprepared for what I thought would be a hopeful season – now so tainted with sadness. Then illness followed, 60 days of a mysterious virus no physician could determine. I languished all February and March in my plaid pajamas on the couch, my hearing all but gone. This event fell during Lent last year. Perfect! Then in early Summer, I learned of my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. And late Summer, brought the devastating loss of my 5 month old grandson…..and the world turned inside out. All I knew of faith was tested. Deep underneath all this debris, in the darkness, lay all my broken pieces. I was the mosaic. Life was imitating art. God not only held the glue. He was the glue. But still I was “undone” – with no means or energy to make sense of it. My heart lay dormant for many long months.

Then….one morning 2 months ago, I awoke to yet another gray day. Only inside me, on this morning, there was light and color, and an unexpected friend: energy! I didn’t know what to make of this. Where did it come from? Oh, Grace! Just when I thought you’d lost my address! The first thing I did was go to the utility room and turn on the space heater. I couldn’t wait to uncover the mosaic and begin moving my broken pieces. I longed to coax out a pattern in the chaos: a sky and some hills, a dragonfly and a salamander, flowers and trees and wine grapes, ripe for harvest. Two Sundays ago, our scripture reading was a love song: “See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…” I could only smile knowingly and give thanks and praise to God!

And so this Season of Lent draws to that hard familiar close. Christ is crucified, His body broken for us. There are pieces strewn all over the ground: 30 pieces of silver, pieces of broken dreams, shattered shards of hope, fractured bits of faith. And the Father-Creator’s hand moves over all that is formless and void, dark and sad and deep. Once again, the Spirit of God brings beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, inexplicable light of Resurrection after Lenten darkness, wholeness after brokenness, and out of chaos, brilliant clarity in the Light of Christ. All this from broken pieces. Alleluia!

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life - (or maybe a mosaic!)

Two Holy Saturday Poems

2010-04-03T18:21:00.001-07:00

Two poems for this special day in the church year.

Vigil ~

by Kathy Douglass

A poem for the night

before the Morning

Have I come too late to the cross?
Such regret
They’ve taken You

They’ve carried You,
They’ve cradled You so tenderly
Across this savage hillside to a tomb

And there, with myrrh and aloes sweet
They bathed your head, your hands, your feet
Balm for fatal wounds suffered as ransom,
Your life for mine

They’ve shrouded You, enveloped You
Buried You behind a stone
I am undone
I am alone

Have I come too late to the cross?
Such regret
That all that I had meant to say
Might now remain unsaid
I was silent
You are dead

I fall upon my knees and press my face against this stone
And cry out to the night
That I was loved, that I was known
That I was lifted from my shame, my guilt
To stand beside You,
Lover of my soul
You called me friend, You called me bride
That I had found my shelter in the strength of your embrace
That I had tasted mercy
That I had tasted grace
And though You said You’d die for me
I died, with your last breath
There is no life for me if not for You,
I am bereft

I beat my fists against this tomb that tears your life from me
And whisper what I pray that You can hear

That I believe

---

Holy Saturday: A Sonnet ~

by Ian Doescher

In silence and in desolation I—

Abandoned by my friends and now alone—

Can find no words to speak, no tears to cry,

But thoughts within me cut me to the bone.

The Sabbath day is here, and yet, no rest

Will calm the inner chamber of my soul.

The morning sun is in its splendor dressed,

And yet its light does nothing to console.

For yesterday they crucified my Lord:

The candle snuffed, the promise turned to dust.

The teacher, healer, leader we adored

With nails was giv’n to death’s voracious lust.

When all around me sings a song of sorrow,

How can I look with hope upon tomorrow?

Why Is This Week Holy?

2010-03-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

by Ian Doescher

This is my sermon today from Calvary Presbyterian Church in Portland, appropriate for this blog because it talks about St. Luke's, the labyrinth, and Palm Sunday.

---

Luke 19:28-40

Have you ever walked a labyrinth? Would you know what to do if you were placed in front of one? Labyrinths are essentially mazes with no wrong turns. Unlike a corn maze or a garden maze, it’s impossible to get lost on a labyrinth. Generally, labyrinths are large circular pathways set in stone or found in nature but circumscribed by stones, so that you walk a pathway all around and inside of the circle, only to be delivered, at long last, to the center. Labyrinths don’t have walls, so you can see where you are headed from where you start. Though labyrinths are an ancient spiritual practice, they have found new life in recent Christianity. Maybe the most famous Christian labyrinth is found in Chartres Cathedral in France, set into the stone floor of the church. You can find a diagram of the Chartres labyrinth in your bulletin. My spouse Jennifer’s church, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Gresham, has a Chartres-style labyrinth outside the church that is open to the community at any time of day or night. A kiosk stands next to the labyrinth, with a guestbook of sorts for people to sign when they stop by and walk the labyrinth, whether they have come out of idle curiosity, spiritual practice, or deep need. The book has comments scrawled into it like, “Thank you so much for this. My mother is dying of cancer and I needed some peace.” Or just simply, “Please say a prayer for me.” It is a tremendous ministry St. Luke’s has offered to the people of Gresham and beyond.

Pastor, theologian and writer Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book An Altar in the World, talks about her first experience of walking a labyrinth. This is what she said: “Not too long ago I walked a labyrinth for the first time in my life. I had flirted with labyrinths for years, but my expectations were so high that I kept finding reasons not to walk alone. I did not want to hurry. I did not want to share the labyrinth with anyone who might distract me. I did not want to be disappointed. I looked forward to walking a labyrinth so much that looking forward to it kept me from doing it for years. Then one day I met a woman who showed me a labyrinth on her land. Set in a small grove of pines, it was made of found stones, with a large one as round as a pillow near the entrance. When the wind blew, invisible chimes tinkled in the branches overhead, while pine needles sifted down to pad the circular path below. Beyond the edge of the trees I saw a small pond sparkling in the sun, and two horses grazing behind a fence. I could walk the labyrinth whenever I wanted to, my host said, even if she were not there. I did not even have to call first. With all of my excuses gone, I returned one late summer afternoon, said a prayer, and entered the labyrinth. The first thing I noticed was that I resented following a set path. Where was the creativity in that? Why couldn’t there be more than one way to go? The second thing I noticed was how much I wanted to step over the stones when they did not take me directly to the center. Who had time for all those switchbacks, with the destination so clearly in sight? The third thing I noticed was that reaching the center was no big deal. The view from there was essentially the same view from the start. My only prize was the heightened awareness of my own tiresome predictability.”

From this telling, at first it seems like Barbara Brown Taylor’s experience of walking a labyrinth is unfulfilling, profoundly normal, totally the opposite of illuminating. I have to admit that the first time I walked a labyrinth, I had a similar reaction at first to the experience. I remember clearly, it was two years ago this week on Good Friday that I walked a labyrinth for the first time, the labyrinth out at St. Luke’s. After entering the labyrinth and taking the first switchback, I was on a path that looked like it was headed directly for the center, and I thought to myself, “This was too easy, I’m already bound for the center.” Only then did the path turn, just barely skirting the center and going around the pathway just left of center, and from there, I wound around for the better part of a quarter mile before making it to the actual center. And once I was there, I was sold on the idea of labyrinths.

Let’s leave Barbara Brown Taylor and me right there, in the center of the labyrinth, for just a moment. Why am I spending so much time in this Palm Sunday sermon talking about labyrinths? This week in the Christian tradition is called Holy Week, the week between and including Palm Sunday and Easter. It is the week that begins with shouts of Hosannas, continues through angry cries of “Crucify him!”, and ends with shouts of “He is risen indeed!” This is a tradition, a ritual, a celebration that repeats in Christianity year after year. Like a labyrinth, we can see the end from where we begin, so what is the point? We know—when we sing the triumphant hymns of Palm Sunday, go to the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services—we know how the story will end, we know that Jesus is going to be raised again. Easter is the good news we can rely on, it’s the good news we have come to expect. So what is the point of Palm Sunday, what is the point of putting ourselves through sadness on Good Friday when we know where this is all going to end up? Growing up in the Church of Christ, which considers itself a non-denominational church, we never celebrated Easter much, but we sang songs about resurrection all year round. As a result, I grew up thinking that Palm Sunday, which I had heard of but never celebrated, had something to do with the palm of a person’s hand. The thinking in the Church of Christ was, Jesus is always and everywhere risen, so why make a special day out of it? Theirs was the thinking that says why bother with a quarter mile of one-directional maze just to end up at that point I can see twelve feet away?

The original holy week—when Jesus was actually celebrated, then killed, then raised—all took place in the context of the week of the Jewish Passover. If you know anything about how the Passover is celebrated, or if you have ever been to a Seder meal, you know that part of the Passover tradition is the asking of four questions, or as they are known in Hebrew the mah nishtanah. Mah nishtanah means “what is different?”, because the primary question at the Seder meal is, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” And from that, the four questions spring up: “Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzoh, but on this night we eat only matzoh?” “Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only bitter herbs?” “Why is it that on all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once, but on this night we dip them twice?” and “Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we eat in a reclining position?” The answers to all of these questions recall the Israelite exodus from Egypt, and the first Passover instituted by God. I called this sermon “Why is this week holy?” to emulate and draw on that tradition of Passover questions. Because in a tradition that repeats itself year after year, that ends up repeating the songs and the rituals and even the emotions over and over, we might forget why this week matters at all, why it’s important to remember Jesus being lauded like a king as he entered Jerusalem, his Last Supper with his disciples, his crucifixion, and his miraculous resurrection. Why is this week holy? Why is this week different from all other weeks?

There are two reasons why I think it is important to honor and celebrate the days of this week, why I think this week is indeed a holy week. And the two reasons complement each other. The first is put in a helpful way by Barbara Brown Taylor. When she first explains what labyrinths are, she writes, “the path goes nowhere. You can spend an hour on it and end up twelve feet from where you began. The journey is the point. The walking is the thing.” The journey is the point. The walking is the thing. Part of the joy and the pain of holy week is that we get to imagine ourselves on a journey with Jesus, walking with him as people shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” We imagine ourselves as Judas, moved by anger and jealousy and fear to betray our beloved teacher. We imagine ourselves as Peter, guilt-stricken and despondent after we have denied three times that we knew our friend, just as he knew we would. We imagine ourselves as the women at the foot of the cross, looking up at their rabbi and lamenting the waste of such a promising life. We imagine ourselves approaching the empty tomb early in the morning, our eyes still adjusting to the light, hoping against hope that what we see is true, that the broken body is indeed gone and that Jesus’ promise has become reality. It is the journey through this week, the journey we make intentionally each year, that makes it holy. Like pilgrims on their way to Bethlehem, or Jerusalem, or Mecca, or Canterbury, or Iona—like anyone on a pilgrimage in search of God, we walk this road because to do so is to tread on sacred ground.

The second reason this week is holy is because after we have journeyed with Jesus and made our way to Easter, the story doesn’t end. A few minutes ago I left Barbara Brown Taylor and myself at the centers of our respective labyrinths. When I first walked the labyrinth two years ago, I reached the center and sat down for a few minutes. I closed my eyes and said a prayer of thanks. I had experienced such peace, such renewal as I walked toward the center of the labyrinth, that it was something of a shock to realize that I now had to leave the center and walk out. Feeling protected in the center and changed by the process of walking the labyrinth, I had to walk back through the pathway and reenter the world. Barbara Brown Taylor writes about something similar. She was unimpressed by the time she got to the center, writing as I quoted a minute ago that “My only prize was the heightened awareness of my own tiresome predictability.” But then she goes on, “I thought about calling it a day and going over to pat the horses, but since I predictably follow the rules even while grousing about them, I turned around to find my way out of the labyrinth again. Since I had already been to the center, I was not focused on getting there anymore. Instead, I breathed in as much of the pine smell as I could, sucking in the smell of sun and warm stones along with it. When I breathed out again, I noticed how soft the pine needles were beneath my feet. I saw the small mementos left by those who had preceded me on the path: a cement frog, a rusted horseshoe, a stone freckled with shiny mica. I noticed how much more I notice when I am not preoccupied with getting somewhere. When the path delivered me back to where I had begun, I lay down with my head on the stone pillow and dreamed the same dream Jacob dreamed, the night he saw the angels of God climbing up and down a ladder right where he lay. Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” Both Barbara Brown Taylor and I were transformed by our first experiences of walking the labyrinth. To draw the parallel between this week and walking the labyrinth once again, this week is holy because the story goes on past this week, and we are transformed by it. After having reached the center of the Holy Week labyrinth, Easter, we rest and we rejoice for a moment, but we do not and cannot linger in the center forever. The good news of the resurrection, which even from this moment on Palm Sunday we can see, calls us back out into the world where we shout hosanna to the son of David, where we tell the story of a teacher, healer and Lord who ate with his friends and died to set people free, where we witness to God’s resurrection in Christ’s life, in our lives, and in the lives of those around us. So having said our prayers in the center, we open our eyes, take a deep breath, walk our first steps out toward the world, and practice resurrection every day, through this Holy Week and beyond. Amen.

Making Allowances

2010-03-14T09:12:00.001-07:00

by Kathy Douglass

It’s an old joke: patient says to the doctor, “Doc, it hurts when I do that.” Doc says to the patient, “well, don’t do that.”

“Don’t do that” makes a lot of sense sometimes. Why would we do what we know might hurt?

Vulnerability, exposure, a keen awareness of need, these aren’t the things we are naturally inclined to give ourselves over to.

This Lenten season, these are the very things I am choosing. In seeking to reflect on Christ’s sufferings and hold a mirror up to my own heart as we experience these days before Holy Week, I considered that my best practice would be to make some allowances… allow for vulnerability, allow for exposure, allow for need.

It’s not that these things aren’t present in my life, in all our lives. They are ever present in a broken and waiting world. But it takes some intentionality to see weakness and frailty with their noses pressed against the glass, and to open the door and say, “ok, you can come in.”

We get awfully skilled at keeping our guard up.

I stood outside Buckingham Palace a few years ago, peering through the iron gates with my touristy binoculars for the lightest twitch, the tiniest breath, the slightest budge from the Palace Guard. My hands and eyes got tired after awhile, and eventually, I walked away. I’ve suspected at times that some fuzzy-hatted soldiers keep watch outside my heart, not twitching, not breathing, not budging. And why would they? They are simply following my orders, to guard my heart, to keep me safe, secure, and out of harm’s way.

As Rev. Jennifer reminded us a few Sundays ago, the Bible tells us not to be afraid so many times because God knows it can be scary out there, He knows that sometimes we do feel afraid.

So, trusting His “knowing”, I am trying to live these Lenten weeks with my guard down, with my sentries dismissed. I am making some allowances:

I am allowing for vulnerability… this came in a difficult conversation with one of my sisters, a talk we both needed, but one that left us both feeling a bit bruised for a few days. Telling the truth, hearing the truth, instead of relying on our mousiest “oh, it’s fine”, or our squeakiest “no worries.” Letting it be okay that everything was not okay.

I am allowing for exposure… I was with a group of people recently, some strangers, some friends, when my large self tangled with a small bench and both of us went crashing to the floor. I wanted to find the nearest door to run through, or at least the nearest rock to crawl under, but instead, I had to allow for a strong hand to help me up, kind eyes to look into mine and scatter the shame that had begun to call me names, I had to allow for gentle voices to assure me that everything was alright.

I am allowing for my need… this came as I rejoined a group of women who can speak truth and hope into a place of weakness for me; a group I had decided I could do without, preferring instead to claw after change and growth without the benefit of community.

These instances could have taken place on any day, in any season. Being ready to welcome them instead of stiff-arm them behind a wall mortared with pride and fear is the difference.

The prophet Jeremiah tells us that God’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). I imagine there’s design behind that truth: we are people in need of mercy every day.

What I am experiencing this season is the same truth I experience anytime I let my guard down: Jesus is with me. His sufferings, his own willingness to allow for vulnerability and exposure and need, make Him my true Advocate. As we taste a tiny bit of suffering, we experience that His suffering prepares Him to be with us to repair and comfort, shield, rescue and console. He comes to us at our most exposed, vulnerable and needy, and offers His mercy.

Making allowances can feel a little scary. As the apostle John writes to a group of believers, the love of Christ is a perfect love, a love so perfect it casts out the fear that keeps us from letting our guard down. (I John 4:18)

Perfect Love casts out the fear in me and sends the darkness to hide
Perfect Love tells me that I have found my refuge at His side
Perfect Love will never leave me, He has promised to abide
And be my Strong and Perfect Love

Making allowances… for vulnerability, for exposure, for need. It’s an open invitation to the true Keeper of our hearts.

What are you doing for Lent?

2010-02-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

by Kyle Wiseley

We are in the first few days of the forty days of Lent. Lent is the most penitential of the seasons of the church year. Where Advent helps us look within to prepare for the coming of Christ into our lives, it also has a significant element of hope and expectation. Lent inviters us to go more deeply within ourselves, to recognize and confront those attitudes and behaviors that damage ourselves and others. Doing this in a conscientious and serious way is an extremely difficult task. The experience can be like trying to exist in a desert without nourishment or comfort. Traditionally, using some act of personal sacrifice – giving up something – was meant to serve as an aid to self examination and contrition.

Today’s gospel tells of Jesus going into the desert after his baptism, presumably to discern how he was to carry out the ministry the call of which he felt so keenly. While he was there we are told of temptations he was offered: power, wealth, prestige, and release from hunger.

When we attempt a similar experience, we too experience temptation, often the temptation is to judge ourselves too harshly, to over-emphasize the recognition of our mistakes, shortcomings, and intentional sins. Although the desert is a harsh place, we need to remember that it also exists under God’s blue sky and nourishing sunlight and within its harsh boundaries often we unexpectedly discover refreshing oases with cool, pure, refreshing water. The desert is not an evil place – just harsh. It is a place for learning difficult lessons, for finding deep within one’s self, or sometimes with the help of others, hidden pools of spiritual resourcefulness and refreshment.

So perhaps, instead of giving up something for Lent, we might try adding something, perhaps a daily devotional activity or a project or gift to be given without expectation of thanks or recognition, remembering all the while that beyond this desert, this forty days of spiritual penitence and beyond the grief and pain of Christ’s Passion, we eagerly await the dawning of Easter morning and the joy that we feel in the realization of Resurrection.

Complications

2010-02-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Kathy Douglass

I was sitting in my living room with my little piano student a few weeks back. We were in the middle of our lesson, reviewing the quarter note and the half note, calling out the names of the white keys and brushing up on our fingering. I scribbled a few notes in her assignment book while she twirled on the antique piano stool a friend had picked up for me at a yard sale.

We were just about to turn the page and begin our next piece when she looked up at me with her big blue eyes and asked, “Kathy, what are the black keys for?” We hadn’t gotten to the black keys yet. I’m a new teacher, she’s a new student, so we’re taking this nice and slow. I thought for a moment, and not wanting to confuse her or jump ahead too far, offered the simplest answer I could muster in my gentlest, beginning-piano-teacher voice. She slowly looked down at the keyboard, and then looked back up at me as her eyes widened and said… “whoa, this is gonna get complicated.”

Oh sweetie, you have no idea.

I’m new at this teaching thing, but I think we all understand intuitively that the response can be as important as the question. When my little gal said “whoa…”, it mattered to me, in that moment, how I respond. I didn’t want to look back at those big-blue eyes and say “oh, no, it’s not complicated at all.” I’ve been playing the piano since I was 6 years old, and I know different. I wanted to tell her the truth. There are some complications. There are key signatures and dotted-quarter notes, rests and dynamics, chords and flats, sharps and accidentals, half-steps, clefs and tempos, fermatas and, last time I checked, about 88 keys.

A few lessons into this, I knew it was way too early to mention too much of that, but I also wanted to honor her question. She’s eager, she’s curious, she’s giving herself a chance to become a pianist. So I simply said, “you’re right, kiddo. There are some things that will be complicated, but we’re just going to take this one lesson at a time, I will help you, and then, someday, you will be able to put together all you’ve learned and play whatever you like.” I said that with confidence, because once I was a little girl just learning how to play the piano, too. I worked, with lots of guidance and help, through some of the “complications”, and now, I can play. I told her the truth. She smiled, seemed satisfied, and twirled around one last time.

Her “whoa” really struck me. We’ve all heard children land squarely on the truth – “out of the mouths of babes”. And I’ve thought, since that evening, that if I can sit at my piano next to a spunky little girl and offer her assurance about what she doesn’t yet understand, what she hasn’t yet experienced, I can surely sit next to my Father and allow Him to teach and encourage and assure me. Lean in and listen for Him to tell me the truth. After all, He knows what He is doing with my “becoming”.

We come to God over and again with our questions, and sometimes we respond with what sounds like a “whoa”… “this is too hard, this hurts too much, where are we going, it’s too late, are you there?”

The Psalmist writes that “God desires truth in our innermost beings…” (Psalm 51:6). As His children, we were designed to desire the truth as well. Even if it’s complicated. Jesus wasn’t big on sugar-coating. He warned of sorrows and aches, brokenness, loss… complications. And yet… He also spoke the truths his Father wanted us to hear, so that we could believe, so that we could trust and follow – the truths of his Father’s presence, his Father’s intent and desire. He offered us a look into the heart of God; a heart as revealed through the prophet Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to bring you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

I chose the curriculum my little student and I are using because it’s interactive and fun, it’s full of color and whimsy. I also chose it because every lesson includes a student-teacher duet. Even if we’ve just taken the tiniest musical step forward, we get to hear, at the end of our lesson, how it sounds. It’s a favorite moment. I put my hands right next to hers on the keyboard, I guide and encourage and help her. We end our duets with a cheery “wahoo!” or a high-five or a great big “we did it!” She brings what she is learning; I bring what I know, and it is music.

Anne Lamott, a favorite writer of mine, said once: “how is it that you can play one note, and then another, and then your heart just breaks wide open?” I keep that in mind as I teach. My little student will experience that one day. I know she will. Despite the complications.

We’re not alone in our questions; we’re not alone in our quests. God is with us, His strong and tender hands covering our own, guiding, encouraging, drawing out of us what He first sang into our souls before the foundations of the world were laid. Songs of joy, songs of peace, songs of hope, songs of life.

The Pilates Prayer

2010-02-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Judy Bevilacqua

With the arrival of January, the cellophane gets ripped off my shiny new calendar (mine purchased at the Victoria Art Museum, months before). A spankin’ clean New Year – free of erasure marks - tempts me to turn over a “new leaf” with the turning of that first crisp page of uncharted future. This year was no different. There I sat staring at the long list of classes at our local gym. I had recently read that your body actually gets used to a repeated routine of exercise and memorizes it. Like we all learned by rote the Pledge of Allegiance, and could recite it with no thought or effort. So too, apparently, the body learns the drill and it will eventually expend less energy and you get less benefit. Change is what shakes it up and wakes it up. Well, when it comes to exercise I need all the “bang for my buck” I can muster. My body, as well as my wallet, is facing a depressed economy, so I’m all for “expending” less and receiving more! Perusing the list of classes, I tried to find one that would prove the least embarrassing, most beneficial and with the lowest risk of fracture or cardiac arrest! I decided to try the morning Pilate’s class.

Arriving early for class, the new teacher looked far too young. But I grabbed a mat, bolstered my nerve and explained that I was a beginner, nervous and well, obviously a “senior.” Was there any advice for an old newbie? She waved her hand, as if to dispel my anxieties with fairy dust, and consoled me with these words: “Don’t worry, just remember to breathe! That’s the most important thing: your breathing. Next, learn to work from your center. Find your core. That will improve your strength and balance. And finally, don’t be distracted by what the person on the next mat is doing. Don’t try to keep up, just focus on what you are doing. Work at your own pace.”

They were good words, and during that next hour, I tried to remember them. But what I hadn’t counted on was that all through the next week, they kept on helping! But this time it was for the exercise of the soul. Perhaps, it was because of the Annual Business meeting at church, and the opportunity of turning a new page and a new leaf in our parish. Her words gave a new focus through all the prayers and the hopes, the possibilities and the challenges of that meeting about how, together, with God’s help, we can walk into an unknown future. I’m sure we’ll find some new muscles, and discover some changes to our “memorized routine.” But with practice, the Body of Christ can learn the great benefits of change and learn to build each other up in the coming year. As for me, I’m going to be praying the “Pilates prayer.”

“O Lord, keep us breathing - the breath of your Spirit.

Teach us that You are our center, the core of our being.

Train us to work from our gifts and strengths and find balance.

Help us protect the weaker parts of the body,

with gestures of gentleness and grace.

Guide our focus, so we won’t become distracted,

comparing ourselves with others.

Rather, lead us to rejoice in our unique calling.”

Amen.

No

2010-01-31T14:22:00.001-08:00

by Julia Graves

I had an interesting conversation with several close friends this week. The conversation was about saying no.

Have you ever been asked to volunteer to do something and found your hand automatically going up? Why? Would you feel guilt if you didn’t volunteer? Of course if you didn’t volunteer quite possibly no one else would. Then the job would not get done, or maybe not done as well as you could. And surely you could make the time.

I know how it feels when someone says no to me when I want something. I would not want to cause someone else to experience this uncomfortable feeling by me not answering their request. Is this why I feel guilty if I don’t volunteer? Is it to protect other people’s feelings or is it for the gratification I experience from helping out? If it was because of the feeling of gratification, why then don’t more people volunteer so they too can get some gratification too?

I then began to ponder about how many times we pray to God asking for something. Sometimes it appears our prayers go unanswered. But are they really going unanswered or is God saying no to us? Could it possibly be that God is pondering a bit before saying yes? Giving us time to grow, gain more understanding, perhaps becomes wiser. Maybe an answer of no is more like pause, look, listen, explore other options?

So when I say no it could be proving others the opportunity for growth. This allows me the opportunity to give quality time to the projects I truly have time for. In doing so I am healthier both physically and mentally because of this decision.

A Year in Books

2010-01-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

by Ian Doescher

Since we're at the start of the new year (or close), I thought I would share ten of the best books I read in 2009. Enjoy!

10. Another Country, by Mary Pipher. Pipher, a well-known psychologist

and author of Reviving Ophelia, takes on issues of old age and the issues faced by the elderly in this excellent book.

9. Shakespeare: The Biography, by Peter Ackroyd. If you like the Bard, Acroyd’s biography is clearly written and gives a good sense of Shakespeare’s historical setting.

8. No Impact Man, by Colin Beavan. In this often humorous and always thoughtful book,

Beaven tells the story of his attempt to live life for one year with almost no environmental impact at all. No trash, no plastic dishes, and yes, no toilet paper. The result is an effective example of environmental stewardship.

7. Godric, by Frederick Buechner. The life of an unusual (not to mention unorthodox and irreverent) saint is told compellingly by Buechner. It’s a short book and a quick read.

6. Pilate’s Wife, by Antoinette May. May’s novel imagines what the life of Pilate’s wife --

mentioned only once in the Bible, in Matthew 27 -- was like. In the novel, Jesus is a revolutionary figure who is killed for his radical ideas. Probably not far from the truth!

5. Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggemann and Prayers Plainly Spoken by Stanley Hauerwas. Okay, this is two books, but they are both excellent collections of prayers by two of the twentieth century’s most prominent theologians.

4. Colonies of Heaven, by Ian Bradley. Bradley explains what is true and what

isn’t about our notions of Celtic spirituality, popping some myths and putting historical precedent behind some modern ideas. More importantly, Bradley shows how authentic Celtic spirituality and practices can be brought into congregations and communities (one example he refers to regularly is the Iona Community in Scotland).

3. Craddock Stories, by Fred Craddock. Fred Craddock is a preacher well-known for the stories he told. This book includes plenty of modern parables that hook you and then often convict you with a clever conclusion. His ability as a master storyteller leaps off the page.

2. Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor. The poems in this volume are

thought-provoking and often very moving. Poems can be found for all life occasions, and often just put a satisfying smile on your face.

1. The Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claiborne. I’m in the middle of this book right now, and already I’m calling it the most important book I’ll have read in the past year. Claiborne has really taken Jesus’ words to heart and has tried to live them as authentically as possible. Highly recommended for anyone who is frustrated with mainstream Christianity and looking for new ways to serve.

"What's All This Fuss About...?" (A Tribute to Emily Litella)

2010-01-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Kyle Wiseley

My favorite sketches from the early years of “Saturday Night Live” were the ones that featured Gilda Radner as the perpetually misguided Emily Litella who always started her rant with the phrase “What’s all this fuss about . . .?” focusing on some ludicrously misunderstood issue of the day – hilariously funny and almost guaranteed to be as racy as contemporary television censorship then allowed. Emily misunderstood the most obvious of contemporary concepts and at the end of each of her screeds, when she was corrected, obviously miffed, would concede, “Well, that’s different. Never mind!”

So, as I consider the issues that contemporary Christian organizations agonize, and unfortunately, fight over, I am tempted to say with Emily: “What’s all this fuss about . . . ?” (Fill in the blank with whatever the controversy of the day may be.)

I think we overcomplicate what it means to be a Christian or to try to live a Christian life in our contemporary world. If I were to attempt to explain Judeo-Christian theology to one who had absolutely no knowledge of it, I would begin, not with a creation story, or a story of a Messiah, but with a simple verse from the words of a prophet by the name of Micah, who spoke to his people in a time of both significant economic and political prosperity which was threatened by the mighty strength of the Assyrian Empire. He pointed out the obvious injustices practiced by the people, both individually and as a nation, and particularly emphasized the ongoing disputes and conflicts regarding proper ways of being faithful to Israel’s covenant with Yahweh, He said simply:

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8 NRSV)

For me, those simple words succinctly state the entire requirements for righteous living:

To do my best to understand the story that both the scriptures and the tradition has passed down through the millennia
To practice and advocate for justice for all people
To make kindness the prime intent of all my actions
And to practice humility in all things and with all people

So, what’s all this fuss about anyway? We are a diverse people – created so by the Divine. How dare any of us say that, because God has revealed God’s self differently to others, that I can no longer relate to them in brotherly love? Because all of us, like Emily, can woefully misunderstand even the simplest of things.

The Hopes and Fears of All Our Years

2010-01-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Kathy Douglass

I was just meandering along this Advent, Christmas season, spending my days, minding my own business, when it seemed a few times, my breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t tell, by how I felt, whether I was meant to laugh or cry.

The old woman in period garb, hammering out an ancient carol on her dulcimer. My breath caught as she played in the cast of a million tiny lights on a windy night at The Grotto.

The young students of the St. Olaf choir, singing “Beautiful Savior” in brilliant, gentle harmony. My breath caught as they sang : “Truly I'd love Thee, truly I'd serve Thee, light of my soul, my joy, my crown.”

The little kids, walking the ceramic Mary and Joseph statues a bit closer to Bethlehem each Sunday morning at St. Luke’s. One Sunday I arrived early, and found Mary and Joseph set on a small table near the back, with a shiny nickel lying between them. My breath caught as I smiled and wondered which child had left an early gift for the baby Jesus.

As we worshipped together the Sunday after Christmas, we sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. I sang along as I played the piano, and got as far as the last phrase, when my breath caught again: “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” I couldn’t sing, but could only mouth those words, sure that if I sang it would sound like a cry.

The hopes and fears of all our years. Sometimes they shout, sometimes they whimper, making their presence known. And when they do, our breath can catch as we consider what they bring along with them, what they uncover: what we’re afraid of, what we regret, what we long for, why we laugh, where it hurts, how we’d do it differently, who we miss, why we still believe.

I can’t manage my hopes and fears on my own. Given the time, the day, the circumstance, I may handle things with grace and openness, with a hopeful heart. Or, I may be a mess and shut down, over-react, or simply take my ball and go home.

To find that I have a companion in Jesus, in whom all of my hopes and fears are “met”, is breath to me. A deep, life-giving breath.

In her book, “Listening to Love”, Jan Meyers writes that responding to Christ, responding to His voice in our lives can often come as a simple question... “is that you, Jesus?” A few years ago some friends and I read through this book together, and began to ask ourselves this question as the “hopes and fears” of daily-ness came knocking: a disappointment, a surprise, a loss. A change, a tension, an ache. A disruption, a joy. “Is that you, Jesus?”

Jan Meyers goes on to write that every longing, wrapped up in hope, wrapped up in fear, is actually, at its center, a longing for God. I want to live with that kind of Presence, with that understanding that I am never alone, never unknown, and that what makes me catch my breath sometimes could very well be the Spirit of God.

An ancient carol at the Grotto... a tune recognized by saints and angels that I long to sing in chorus with them.

Beautiful Savior... an ache and a hope to see Him with my own eyes.

The journey of Mary and Joseph that reminds me of my own... will I find my way, will I have what I need, will promises made be promises kept?

There’s a reason, I know, that I couldn’t sing that last “O Little Town” phrase on the Sunday after Christmas.

There are hopes, there are fears. Moments when things catch in our throats and we don’t know whether to laugh or cry. What we can know, is that we are met. In every hope. In every fear. In every breath.

The "Gift of Limits"

2010-01-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Judy Bevilacqua

I just read an article in our local paper about “the worst Christmas gifts ever received.” It got me thinking. In this season of giving and receiving gifts, it might be a good idea to unwrap some of those unwanted gifts in our life -- the less obvious ones that may still be lurking under the tree, or thrown out with the fruitcake from Aunt Thelma. For New Year’s I’m going to try and look at one gift in my life that often remains unopened...unused…unwanted. That is, until I’m in deep trouble!

One of my most neglected and unacknowledged gifts is the "gift of limits." I don’t want this gift, but I need it. When I don’t pull it out of the back of my underwear drawer and wear it, I suffer -- and so do others. This gift is a bit binding, a bit restricting and not immediately comfortable. It hampers all my wild, impulsive and frankly addictive tendencies. Whether it is over-spending or overeating, or over-anything! Saying "yes" when I should be saying "no." It whispers to me when I’m being the indispensable workaholic whose body is really crying for a nap. I should be in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. I make a great martyr!

Jesus received the “gift of limits” for Christmas. He left eternity to be birthed into the restricting confines of time and space. He left inexhaustible riches to experience our exhausting poverty. He set aside limitless power and freedom to put on flesh and bone, emotions, pain, weakness, and narrow social and cultural identity. He became a vulnerable diapered baby in a cheap hotel - dependant on the likes of us! Yes, “He was in every way tempted – just like we are.” The Master became the servant and the Lord became the serf. This is what I mean by the gift of limits. God appears to do his best work through human limitations. (A quick survey of the personal weaknesses of the prophets, apostles and Holy Fathers would certainly prove this point!)

So where’s the “gift” in the gift of limits? Surprisingly it seems to be in the very DNA of “limits.” This was brought to my attention the other day, as Jack and I helped a friend prepare for a songwriting assignment that had him baffled and overwhelmed. We suggested he narrow down his choices to only a few notes, and then to give himself a short deadline to complete it. He shared with us later how miraculously that worked! Amazing. Less became more. Limits brought freedom. How many times have I experienced a surge of creativity when I only had limited time or resources to complete a project. All the juices get going! This is not to praise procrastination. But hey, we all know it works!

What other limits have I experienced as a “gift?” Steve, the grotesquely handicapped man at the gym, hobbling through a huge room of buff strangers, approaches me to share about his upcoming surgery and make me feel loved and privileged to learn of his hopes and fears. How many more amazing gifts have I received from those with very limited education, advantage or opportunity. No wonder Jesus loved the children. They were so comfortable with their limits.

The limits of age are becoming all too apparent. I’m slowing down in every way. My memory seems laced with molasses and I can’t seem to care about multi-tasking anymore. But what a gift to have arrived at the age where I value nothing more than to be “idle” with my grandkids, or my aging parents, or a friend. Or to stop and acknowledge the finches at the thistle-sock, or weep with my neighbor who only stopped by to bring me the eggs. These are but homely examples of a much deeper awareness. The reality that we are mortal after all, (sigh.) My struggles and weaknesses bind me to my human family and keep me awake to my own hunger, weakness, poverty, and blindness. Yes, like that church in Laodicea in the book of Revelation. They forgot too! I need God, and I need others.

The gift of limits is, in fact, the BEST gift I could ask for. Hmmm, so why don’t I ask?

O God, turn your Spirit loose now,

and me with it,

that I may go to where the edge is

to face with you the shape of my mortality:

the inescapable struggle and loneliness and pain

which remind me

that I am less than god after all,

that you have made me with hard limits,

limits to my strength,

my knowledge,

my days.

Facing those limits, Lord,

grant me grace to live to the limit

of being unflinchingly alive,

irrepressibly alive, fully alive

of experiencing every fragile, miraculous, bloody, juicy, aching, beautiful ounce

of being a human being……

from a poem by Ted Loder

Celebration of Christmas

2009-12-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

by Julia Graves

Here I sit in my favorite chair wrapped in a warm blanket sipping on my soy late. I consider this a small piece of Heaven. I look forward to this daily ritual of luxury. As I sit my mind wonders over yesterdays events.

After Church I went home and readied the holiday meal. A simple meal prepared with love. The desserts that were hand made and loving prepared by the children were set out to thaw; chocolate covered cheese cake, chocolate cookie cream cheese truffles, cheery and apricot breakfast braids.

Next I brought out the everyday dishes chipped and warn from years of daily use. Basic white Corelle, it is amazing how it can bounce off the floor. If dishes could talk these would be filled with many, many exciting stories. This is and will be the only set of dishes I will ever own. They are loved dearly because of all the memories attached to them.

Then I finished off the preparation of the Christmas Stockings. These stockings are filled with an assortment of chocolate kisses, rice paper candy, maple syrup Santa’s, flavored coffee and hot chocolate samples, corn nuts, etc…. food items the children learned to love while growing up. Each brings up a memory of some past wonderful childhood experience. I look forward each year to traveling to different stores to collect these items. They are small, however the memories are rich. When the children dig into the stockings the experiences are discussed with smiles and laughter. These small items are inexpensive, the experience is priceless.

The chairs are placed around the living room, just enough to accommodate the number of guests. The aroma of the holiday meal fills the air. Every thing is ready, my excitement grows. The door bell rings. The guests enter who have traveled from many different locations, the meal is served, and the home fills with laughter and conversation. Empty dishes are gathered and put to soak to be dealt with later. Dishes can wait, moments with family and friends are more important.

Our attention turns to the gifts we have brought to share with one and other. Pickles organically grown and canned, hand print chocolate chip and thumb print cookies (these are gigantic because they are made by adult children’s hands!), and the deserts, truffles, coffee and cheese cake. My mother brought a note book entitled her memories. It is the beginning of her memoir. It shows her humble beginnings in the Deep South. There is a picture of the three room shack she grew up in, the outhouse, and the well where she drew water as a child. Her first set of shoes for school were made out of old truck inner tubes. I read her history and am in awe of how far my mother has come from such humble beginnings.

Desert is served and the conversation changes to our plans for the upcoming week. Leftovers are packaged to be sent home with the children to be enjoyed later. Coats are retrieved, hugs given, goodbyes said. The door is close and the house is once again quiet.

My mind wonders to the Holy Family. I think of the similarities of the Christmas story and my family experience. Mary and Joseph traveled many miles to be counted and taxed; Christ started his life sleeping in a trough designed for feeding livestock. I think of the Epiphany and the Wise Men that came bearing gifts. Gold, a gift fit for a King; Frankincense, some believe carries prayers to heaven; and Myrrh used for treating wounds and also used in the preparation of the dead.

For many churches the Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas celebration and the beginning of Ordinary Time. The colors of celebration, white and gold are packed away and exchanged for green. Similar to what we do with our Christmas decorations. They are put in a box and stuck in the attic or garage for next year. We sit and wait for the change of the seasons to spring and the greening of the landscape. And await celebration of Lent.

Challenge the ordinary and continue the celebration of Christmas. Don’t pack Christ’s humble beginnings into a box. May we continue to celebrate the birth and revealing of our Lord, Jesus Christ, God among us!

Where Are The Answers?

2009-12-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Kyle Wiseley

It seems to me that there are four basic questions with which all humanity wrestles:

· Where did we come from?

· Why are we here?

· Where are we going?

· What does it all mean?

I suspect every individual, regardless of religious tradition or outside of such, ponders these questions at one time or other. In fact, it seems to me that all religious thought finds its foundation in these questions. I suspect that our individual commitment to this inquiry spans a continuum from those of us who have little or almost no interest in the matter, to those of us who are almost obsessive in finding the answers. The greater portion of us fall somewhere in the space between these two extremes.

Personally, I find this to be a “good news/bad news” situation; the bad news being that there are no answers, but the good news is that the questions are amazingly interesting and the process of seeking those perpetually elusive answers is one of the mechanisms by which we accomplish spiritual growth.

Different faith traditions approach this conundrum in a vast variety of ways, and even within some specific traditions the approach ranges across the entire continuum, with some finding definitive answers within scripture or institutional tradition and others finding nourishment in the seeking process itself. I can only relate the reality of my experience drawn from my personal faith journey, and by no means do I assert or even imply that mine is the correct or only way to approach the matter.

My experience began in a strict religious environment where there were a lot of definitive answers accompanied by stringent rules of behavior. Despite the sincere dedication of my parents to that particular approach to religion, I found there only confusion and overpowering guilt and never inner peace. Once I reached a place in my journey where I could develop appreciation of religious practice based on a balance of my own intellectual reasoning and my personal intuitional conclusions which seemed valid, was I able to find the sense of joy, awe and inner peace that gave meaning to my existence.

As Episcopalians we tend to put more emphasis on questions than answers and find support and nourishment as we attempt to assist each other in our struggles with the questions. Hopefully, we offer a safe haven where all who are searching can find support and companionship on our mutual journey towards the ineffable mystery.

Advent Calendar

2009-12-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

by Kathy Douglass

Come, Thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free

From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee

Her name is Mary Elizabeth. She’s 96 years old. She’s my grandma.

She lives in the valley in a simple room at a comfortable place, the kind of place where people approaching the end of their lives, who cannot live without help, settle in for as long as they have. Here, her most basic, human needs are tended to by underpaid young women with lavish tattoos and loving hearts. They care for her so tenderly, washing, changing, turning. With gentle voices, they call her “sweetie”, they call her “dear”.

By her bed on the wall is a calendar. A black felt pen rests within reach on the nightstand by her bed, somewhere between the tissues, the emergency call button and the bowl of butterscotch candies she has kept nearby for as long as I can remember. Each morning, as she wakes to a new day, she crosses “yesterday” off the calendar.

She can’t clothe or wash herself, she can’t walk or throw an extra blanket across her bony feet. She can’t open the mail or tend to her African violets. But she can raise that pen to the wall each morning and cross off another day.

Grandma isn’t waiting to die. No, she’s just waiting. “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” has leapt off the pages of the hymnal for her.

Jesus has come to her over and again in her 96 years. He came to her in the tin-shack laden industrial town in Pennsylvania where she was born. He came to her in the lonely days of growing up with a daddy who was on the road, playing pro baseball, and whose image on a trading card could never make up for his absence. Jesus came to her as a young woman, as she gave her life to a man who dreamed of giving his life to the ministry. He came to her in the loss of a longed-for baby girl. He came to her in the suffocating silence that crept in after that loss, as she determined to never speak of such deep wounds. Jesus came to her in the small towns and churches filled with people who needed more than a young preacher and his wife could sometimes spare. He came to her as she found a way to spare what she could.

He came to her in the loss of her son, my dad, a loss that crushed her not so much because of the cancer that killed him, but the spirit of rebellion that plunged him into confusion and brokenness a few years before the diagnosis. She never dreamed her grown son would take a prodigal turn, and when she finally spotted him heading for home, he was taken.

Jesus came to her as she spent her later life tending to the lonely and forgotten. And He was there on that morning a few years ago, when grandpa touched his fingers to his lips, waved her a tiny kiss, and took one last breath.

Jesus has made himself at home with grandma ever since she invited Him to. As a fair companion on her journey, He’s held her through these sorrows and losses, but also kept sweet company with her through every joy, every delight, every surprise. And even in the mundane moments that make up a life, ninety-six years worth, He has been her ever-present Friend.

On a recent visit, I pulled a chair close to her bed, held her withered hand in my fleshy one, kissed her and stroked her face. I quietly told her a few stories; I asked her the simple questions I ask every time I visit. I asked if I could take her picture. She said I could, as long as her hair looked alright. I told her she was lovely. As we sat together in the stillness, I looked at the calendar. December. The fourth, the fifth, the sixth, all crossed off. I imagined her waking up in this room in the morning, reaching for her black pen, and crossing off the seventh. And in that moment, I realized, this is her Advent Calendar. This is her way of watching and waiting in the dark, in this time between Now… and Not Yet.

For years, grandma and grandpa kept a tiny ceramic plaque on the wall in their home. It followed them to a dozen humble parsonages; it kept them company through 70 years of marriage. It’s nailed today to the wall by the door in her room, positioned in such a way that she can see it from her bed. The inscription simply reads, “Perhaps Today”. I understood, even as a little girl, what that meant. Someday, Jesus will come back. Someday. “Perhaps today”. I never questioned it, but I did wonder. And sometimes I wanted to ask them both: ”I know you want Jesus to come back, but, um, grandpa, grandma, don’t you wanna live?”

Yes, yes she does. She wants to live. So she marks off her calendar, her calendar of Advent. About death, C.S. Lewis said that “one day we will turn the corner, and all our dreams will come true.” She wants to live in that place of dreams come true. “No more crying, no more separation, no more dying.” The place where “these former things are passed away”.

Her body is dying, and yet she is alive with the spirit of anticipation, the spirit of Advent. Her longing heart is filled with joy. She believes that Jesus will come to her still, again, and finally.

She’s 96 years old. She’s long-expected Him.

The Labyrinth and The Red Doors

Nightlight ~

For the Love of St. Francis ~

I Had a Father ~

Singing to God

Pondering the Promise of Pentecost

Conscientious Cooperators

Value Every Moment

Ascension

All Dressed Up ~

Swimming in the Sea of Doubt

Not one of *them*!

You Shall Be ~

Disposable

Resurrection Thoughts... (picking up the broken pieces)

Two Holy Saturday Poems

Why Is This Week Holy?

Making Allowances

What are you doing for Lent?

Complications

The Pilates Prayer

No

A Year in Books

"What's All This Fuss About...?" (A Tribute to Emily Litella)

The Hopes and Fears of All Our Years

The "Gift of Limits"

Celebration of Christmas

Where Are The Answers?

Advent Calendar

Not one of them!