Thankfulness

Well, it's been a while.

It's been a challenging few months; Beloved has had struggles with her depression and her job; I've had a new job (which I love, but being new somewhere sort of demands that you raise the level of your game), and there have been a couple of other "extra effort" sorts of circumstances. I've had NO time to write, or even to think too deeply or for too long.

Which is, perhaps, a blessing in disguise. ;-)

And we're heading into December, which is generally my most stressful month of the year. But today I'm in a good place with it. The last few days have taught me some stuff; Beloved and I stayed home and had a quiet Thanksgiving together, and it's been a terrific weekend framed by wonderful worship services at my home church.

For the six of you who are still reading after this long hiatus, I shall spill out the wisdom that's presently in my tenuous grasp:

• In times of stress, sometimes you have to pare down to the essentials as a family. Being able to say "No, thank you" is a critical survival skill.
• Remembering to do something sweet and surprising during such a time can have extra impact. Beloved got me a "real" version of this piece of art, had it beautifully framed and gave it to me on Thanksgiving. Ummm...wow. I get a bit weepy just thinking about it. The Ruth passage it references was read at our wedding.
• Ask for help when you need it. (I know...duh, but I'm still working on this lesson, after years of Life's gracious re-presentation of opportunities to learn it.)
• Speak your truth, even when it's difficult. Sometimes the only way forward is through.
• Love is all around. Look for its impish grin peeking at you around corners and beckoning you.
• Finally, from Meister Eckhart: if the only prayer you say in your life is "thank you," that would suffice.

About that last one--though I find much of contemporary culture (at least that part that relates to getting/having/sharing our stuff) seriously out of whack, I have to say that a day set aside for pondering the gifts of our lives, and being thankful for them, is a not-so-distant relative of the Biblical concept of jubilee. In the same way that jubilee released people from debt and punishment, intentional thankfulness releases us from the bindings of fear and despair by reframing our vision.

• Instead of worrying about what might be, we see what is.
• Instead of focusing on the material (and its potential for loss), thankfulness rightly locates us in the abundance of God's mercy and love.
• Instead of ruminating about "I," we find ourselves in relationship with "Thou" (and "thou," and "thou," and "thou...").

This is all to the good, and I'm facing December with a lens of quiet confidence and with a singing heart...at least, for today.

Deo gratias.

Choice vs. gift

Sometimes, in my more lucid moments, I recognize that the technology I enjoy is changing not just the culture around me, but also my perceptions about my place in the world.

The opening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so long anticipated, has got me thinking. This sense of group expectation and shared experience used to be a lot more frequent. Remember when we had to all wait together to find out who shot J.R.? And for a while, NBC had must-see-TV on Thursday nights...and people talked about it together on Friday mornings.

Like so many other people I know, I have a TiVo and an iPod...not to mention Pandora and Hulu and iTunes. I get to choose what media I watch/hear, and when, with much more control than ever before. Generally, I like this very much; I get to fast-forward through commercials, and I never have to waste my time with a song I don't like.

But...

Remember what it was like to be driving along, listening to the radio, and the EXACT, PERFECT SONG came on, seemingly just for you? Remember having a moment like this?



That doesn't happen to me any more. Most of "my" music feels like a choice, not a gift.

Maybe sometimes, in order to be surprised by joy, you've got to be "free fallin'" and just see what comes your way. :-)

Moses and the flood: meditation on Exodus 34:1-10

Yep, Moses.

I delivered this meditation at our Lenten service last night. Context: our Lenten theme and the handing out of a rock to each worshiper upon entry into the sanctuary.

Traditionally, many of us think of lent as a time of repentance. We search ourselves for signs of sin, of too-small vision, of the ways that we're broken. Then we ask for forgiveness, maybe not quite daring to hope that anything will really be different afterward, but trying anyway to "get right with God" again because...well, because we should. For some of us this is a dreary season, more about rules than relationship; more about guilt than grace. And going through a 40-day exercise of self-examination and self-denial may not seem so helpful when we're grieving or afraid. But is there another way to see it? There isn't one of us who doesn't need to repent, but is there also good news to be found here in the desert?

Let's take a closer look at the Moses story and the chapters in Exodus that lead up to this point. In tonight's chapter, God and Moses are having a conversation...one that takes place as Moses is pleading for forgiveness for his people, the Israelites. They have messed up spectacularly. You remember the Israelites--God freed them from slavery and brought them through the desert to Mount Sinai, where (in Exodus 19) God made this covenant with them:

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,
and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.
Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.
Indeed the whole earth is mine,
but you shall be a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.

It's a grand vision, isn't it? God will be God, and we will be very, very good, and all will be well. Except that it won't, if we have to depend on the strength of our own goodness. We're frail creatures, and despite our best efforts, we can't hold up our end. But at this point in the story, just after making their first covenant, God keeps Moses running up and down the mountain for a while, handing out all kinds of laws about how the Israelites are to hold up their end of the deal, including the Ten Commandments.

Perhaps inevitably, Moses eventually comes down from the mountain, stone tablets in hand, to discover that this "priestly people," this "holy nation," is worshiping a golden calf--a sacred cow of their own making. God and Moses had been off in conversation for kind of a while, you understand, and so the people filled that void with what they could see...which left them

• worshiping wealth and security
• admiring their own creation in the place of God's work, and
  
• making a god small enough to comprehend and to control.

Those naughty Israelites. We'd do better, right?

Maybe not...at least, I often don't, despite my best intentions. So let's take a minute here, with this tiny piece of mountain in our hands. (hold up rock) Let's think a bit about our worship of the sacred cows that we create...about our own broken places. In fact, let's sort of mentally glue them to these rocks we're holding.

a few minutes of silence

Now, the story continues: God kicks them off Mount Sinai, sputtering, "You people have gotten on my last nerve. Our relationship is broken; I'm not coming with you to the Promised Land." Imagine the desolation of that moment--they know they're guilty, convicted by the law, and now they have to go back into the desert without God's presence.

Bleak, bleak, bleak.

Now Moses, after smashing those tablets on the ground and ranting at the Israelites a while, begs forgiveness for them, and pleads for a reason to have hope for the future: "Show me your glory, God, so that I'll know you're not really abandoning us."

And what does God do? Something surprising. Something absolutely dripping with grace.

First, God commands Moses to remake the stone tablets of the covenant--saying, in effect, "Yes, I'm still in this thing with you; in fact, I'll meet you more than halfway in repairing this breach. I'll go even a step beyond simple justice in order to stay with you."

That's some extraordinary peacemaking. But honesty is also a necessary part of any life-giving relationship. And so God doesn't just gloss over the sinfulness of the Israelites, but acknowledges the reality that "Hey, you guys really messed up here. According to the terms of our covenant, you were supposed to listen to me...to obey me. And now I'm supposed to punish you, and your children as well, to the third and fourth generation after you. But I'm not going to do that. In fact, I'm tearing up our previous covenant. Let's start again."

At one of the most wretched, sinful moments to date in the story of God's people, God breathes new life into the relationship...and instead of 3-4 generations' worth of punishment, God offers them a renewed commitment, drenched with enough hope for several lifetimes.

And so it is with us. As we heard earlier, God promises to do an "awesome thing" with you...and with you...and with me...with all of us. God promises to stay with us not just on the mountain, but in the desert, too. And in that desert, God drowns our sin and renews our spirits in flood after flood of grace.

As we leave tonight, we'll put these rocks in the baptismal font, where they--and we--are washed clean. We'll remember what God is doing and offer our thanks.

And then, God will go with us out that door.

Ash Wednesday: sabbath of the soul

I got this today from Inward/Outward. I think it's rather wonderful.

Humility is not a matter of beating ourselves up.
It is not a question of judging ourselves
as stupid or sinful, as hopeless and bad.
Who are we to judge these things?
Humility, for John [St. John of the Cross],
is the gentle acceptance of that most tender place inside ourselves
that throbs with the pain of separation from the Beloved.
It is that deep knowingness that identification with the false self
brings nothing but further separation.
It is an initially reluctant dropping down
into the emptiness
and an ultimate experience of peace
when we stop doing
and rediscover simple being.
It is the Sabbath of the soul
when we heed the call to cease creating
and remember that we are created.

--Mirabai Starr

Our theme at my church, this Lent, is "Renewed by Floods of Grace." It's from a hymn that we'll be learning and using all season, with a wonderful text by Ruth Duck. She begins

Remember and rejoice, renewed by floods of grace:
we bear the sign of Jesus Christ, that time cannot erase.

I know a lot of people who see Lent as a time in which we beat ourselves up for being hopeless sinners. They got that impression from years of Lenten services that emphasize our sinfulness to the point of creating a distorted view of our relationship with God.

I believe it may be true, as Martin Luther allegedly said on his deathbed, that "We are all beggars." But I think that people need hope even more than they need bread (with the exception of Eucharist, which is both).

Penitence is necessary sometimes, and today's remembrance of the brokenness of our nature and our world is helpful because it locates us in reality. But we need to be careful not to leave people in the dust.

Our location within God's grace is necessary all the time.

Found grace, part deux

Yesterday, between my day job at Universitas Majoris and a worship planning meeting at church, I took some time out to prepare for the meeting. I love this part of the job--sitting with my colleagues and peering into the readings, figuring out how to exegete them musically in our particular context. So I try to get my head in the game ahead of time, in order to participate fully in the discussion.

There's a route from the U to church that follows the river, with a parking lot at a particularly lovely spot. I pulled in there to appreciate the view and to do my "pre-game" thinking. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day, with the late-afternoon sun hitting the colorful trees along the riverbank--the perfect setting for thinking about transcendent things. I rolled down my car window and got to work, Bible and hymnal in hand.

After a few minutes, a truck pulled into the spot next to mine. Two high school-age kids got out, sat on the hood and began to talk and laugh as they took in the view of the river. My first response was to be sort of annoyed--it was a big, unoccupied parking lot, and they had to be making noise right next to me? (You can see the "transcendent" thing doing its work, right? Ha ha ha.)

Cranky me. And I was about to get reframed in a BIG way by this "annoyance."

I got back to work, and noticed a few minutes later that they'd moved to the edge of the bluff, about ten yards in front of my car. Further, I noticed that these two kids are in love--nestled together, laughing, occasionally sharing a kiss, gazing into each others' eyes as if they were the only two people in the world...just being totally in the moment on a gorgeous, sunny day.

Now, add in the factors I haven't mentioned yet: this unself-consciously smitten couple was both mixed-race and all-female. And, in that moment, their joy became my joy. They were beautiful.

Love generally is; especially when the sun is allowed to shine on it.

Maybe things are getting better for gay kids. Maybe this next generation will finally get past the racial and sexual barriers that have been so divisive for mine and those that have come before.

I hope.

Late-breaking news: Fantastic. :-)

Repentance

Linus has a habit that I'd like to help him correct. It bugs me. It interrupts my sleep regularly. The four of us (Beloved, me, Linus & Lucy) sleep in a queen-sized bed. For a long time, they slept in a kennel next to the bed, but they sleep longer if they're with us, and besides--what's sweeter than a just-waking-up puppy, first thing in the morning?

Except.

For the last week or so, Linus has not been willing to go to bed when we do. We've had a schedule change during the week, and he's not used to it yet. So we're running the pups around in the evening to tire 'em out, and we've commanded him to "lay down" (which he's just learning) and to "stay," (which he knows how to do). To no avail. He jumps off the bed and goes to sleep on the floor.

Which means that, sometime in the wee hours, he realizes that he's away from his pack, and starts popping up around the edges of the bed like a prairie dog.

Can I come up? I'm lonely!

Which means that one of us has to get up and help him onto our very tall bed, where he contentedly sleeps the rest of the night. I don't go back to sleep as quickly as he does.

I was sort of grumping around the house this morning when it hit me: he's ME. And luckily for me, God manages more grace in this situation than I do. I always get warmly welcomed back when I assert my independence like a 7-month-old puppy.

Not the first time Linus has taught me something! I'm going to shoot for "gracious" tonight. :-)

Bread, circuses and Emmanuel

... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,

the People have abdicated our duties;

for the People who once upon a time

handed out military command,

high civil office, legions - everything, now restrains itself

and anxiously hopes for just two things:

bread and circuses.

-- Juvenal

Do you remember where you were when the planes hit the World Trade Center?

I do. It's sort of the New Defining Question for people of my age, replacing the moon landing and the Kennedy/King assassinations as the Moment When Everything Changed.

Except that it didn't, really. WE did. We comfortable Americans looked fear full in the face, and it changed us.

Like so many others, I was standing in my living room, toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, jaw agape as the horror and magnitude of the moment settled over me. I remember watching the flames and the shocked look on Matt Lauer's face, thinking to myself, "The world has just shifted. Nothing will ever be the same again. This will be a new Dark Age."

That was the shock and horror talking. But there are a lot of ways in which that has been true: War. Fear. Suspicion of our neighbors. A quest for personal and national security at all costs. A wish to not know what we know now: that life is dangerous, and our first-world sense of security and entitlement is an idol.

Really--no price seems to be too high in order to go back to a time when we average Americans didn't have to think of ourselves as vulnerable, of our archetype as anything less than heroic. We can no longer maintain our happy illusion that we're the cavalry, or at least the cowboy, in that Great Global Motion Picture. Because the danger and anger and insecurity of the world has landed on our own doorstep, and our hands have blood on them, too.

There have always been people who have been willing to try to see the world realistically...to be true citizens of their communities, their countries, their world. And, well-fed as most of us in the States are, it's scarily easy to let others do that seeing for us, and to keep on driving to Wal-Mart in our gas guzzlers, one of the many versions of Clear Channel on the radio, seducing us into just one more level of disengagement.

If we can't have safety, we'll settle for the illusion of safety. We'd like our bread and circuses, thank you.

But what about those moments when life takes us by the hand and makes us see the burning building or the hungry child or the scary diagnosis? When our next-door neighbor loses her house to foreclosure, or when an angry, messed-up guy hoses a church sanctuary with gunfire? What do we do then? Turn up the radio? Buy a new toy?

Love to. But it doesn't really work, does it?

So then, the questions remain:

• What do we do when we realize again we are not specially favored, safe from the vagaries of life?
  
• How do we muster the courage to be more fully citizens of our world, our communities, and to really inhabit our own lives?
• Where do we turn our faces when, on one side, there is the seduction of bread and circuses, and on the other, the blackness of the abyss (in any of its many forms)? How do we keep these things from distracting us?

No simple answers, really...at least at the outset. But there's a way in which these questions lead us more deeply into our lives.

Did you ever wonder what was in Abram's mind when God said, "Pack up and go?" I mean, the guy just went. I feel more of a kinship with Moses and Jonah, who basically said, "Me? WHY? Ummm...I've got something in the oven. Let me just finish this project and I'll be right with you. No, really, ME? Do I have to?" Or listen to Jesus, praying in the garden of Gethsemane just before his betrayal, torture and crucifixion: "Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me. And yet, not my will, but thine be done."

That last line is where the world turns. Because Jesus found a way out of that human "this is about me and I'm not enough" consciousness and a way into trust: "not my will, but thine." Jesus found a way to hear what God said to all those others in their moments of crisis: basically, "I will be faithful. I am in covenant with you, and I will be with you the whole time."

God is with us all the time. Now, it's easy...even reasonable to say, "So what?" when you're in your own Gethsemane moment. God's presence usually doesn't make the cancer go away or bring back the loved one or close that crack in the earth.

But God's presence gives us ground on which to stand. God's presence locates us in a deeper reality, where despair is not the final answer. God's presence locates us in a reality in which all roads lead not to Rome, but to love and grace.

This world is both beautiful and broken. Flowers bloom while steeples are falling. BUT the reign of God also underlays that world with something stronger and deeper. We can tap into God's reign when we co-create love and grace, when we see past our despair and fear and can truly pray, "Not my will, but thine be done." We tap into God's reign by acknowledging the mess we're in and by reaching out to one another anyway. By telling the truth. By putting one foot in front of the other, even when we're weeping or terrified. By trusting God's promise and sharing our bread.

We don't need to rely on bread and circuses; we have instead the reign of Emmanuel, God With Us. We have instead five simple loaves and two fish that create the abundance to feed, comfort and inspire not just us, but also our neighbor, through us.

So, friends, know that no matter where you are, God is with you. Share your bread. Love one another as God loves us. That's better than security; it's life itself.

Thanks be to God.

Preach the Gospel continually...

and, if necessary, use words.
— St. Francis of Assisi

I'm reading Here if You Need Me by Kate Braestrup. It's the story of a woman (mother of four, writer) whose husband was killed while on duty as a state trooper. He'd intended to go to seminary upon retiring from the force, in order to become a UU minister and law enforcement chaplain. She did so in his place, and found work she loves.

Holy cats, read this book. She's earthy and wise and funny; in the last half-hour with the book, I've wept and I've laughed out loud more than once.

Anyway, she tells a story of the day her husband died that perfectly illumines that quote at the beginning of the post, long a favorite of mine:

Perhaps forty minutes after I had heard the news of Drew's death, I was sitting in the living room with my friend Monica when the doorbell rang. The sergeant was on the telephone, so Monica sprang to answer it.

A young man stood on the front steps, clad in a spiffy dark suit, his hair neatly combed, exuding a scent of soap and virtue. Holding out a pamphlet, he beamed at Monica. "Have you heard the Good News?"

For a long second, Monica glared at him, not sure whether to punch him or laugh hysterically. She compromised by slamming the door.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang again. This time, I answered it. It was my neighbor, an elderly woman I had exchanged no more than a dozen words with in the ten years I'd lived in Thomaston. She had pot holders on her hands, which held a pan of brownies still hot from the oven, and tears were rolling down her cheeks. "I just heard," she said.

That pan of brownies was, it later turned out, the leading edge of a tsunami of food that came to my children and me, a wave that did not recede for many months after Drew's death. I didn't know that my family and I would be fed three meals a day for weeks and weeks. I did not anticipate that neighborhood men would come to drywall the playroom, build bookshelves, mow the lawn, get the oil changed in my car. I did not know that my house would be cleaned and the laundry done, that I would have embraces and listening ears, that I would not be abandoned to do the labor of mourning alone. All I knew was that my neighbor was standing on the front stoop with her brownies and her tears: she was the Good News.

We mainliners aren't usually doorknockers. I'm not. There's something about it that just doesn't quite sit right with me. But I am very verbal (stop laughing, Friends of Mine), and I do love to discuss that old, old story when the right moment presents itself. It's just that...well, it seems to me that Big Truth rests much more comfortably in the passenger seat of a vehicle that looks a lot like Love. And that Grace shows up in hands and eyes of God's children in a much more compelling way than any abstract discussion can manifest.

Don't misunderstand me; I'm a Lutheran, and a good sermon is right up there on my list of favorite (and, for me, most necessary) things. But the Church Basement Ladies in my life (of all ages, arenas and genders) live out some serious wisdom: preach continually, and lead with your hands.

Aural grace

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify
You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so
fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and for ever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

- Michael Dennis Browne

This is the text to Pilgrim's Hymn, set to the music of Stephen Paulus (local composer and frequent collaborator with Browne). Click the link to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's version; turn it up and close your eyes. You'll be glad you did.

Some days, it's so easy to get caught up in the ordinary hassle and pain (or simple "attitudinal arthritis") of the moment, that we forget the beauty that underlays every breath. Vast, silent, shimmering...and ours to dial into.

This text comforts and reassures me, in a cosmic sense. Not in the "if I just trust, everything will come out right" sense, because that denies so much of the experience of being human--the painful part. But rather, I believe in our connection to an immense, generative web of love, which binds and weaves through the Creator, creation, and one another. And that we're all pilgrims, when we're at our best: we seek out the relationship that draws us further into the light, and we keep on climbing up to it, and making our offerings along the way.

The heart of Holy Week is in this text--Christ was sealed into death and darkness, in order that we may experience the light of unceasing love, surpassing all we know.

Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.
Amen.