Monthly Archives: November 2010

Our Thanksgiving was quiet but thankful, thankful for another year, another month, another day, another meal together celebrating the life given to us on this good earth, the passage of mortal time as we move toward eternity.

We were thankful to be home again too, safely, after airport scanners and pat-downs, which, while disconcerting, I do not mind.  I believe major threats to our freedoms warrant these minor infringements to our freedoms.  For the most part, I prefer less government intrusion simply because it is not efficient and often unworkable, but this is an exception, falling into the realm of public safety, national defense, and educating the electorate through excellent schools.

So this morning we left for church on this First Sunday in Advent with full hearts, driving through crisp cold under blue skies here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  After checking on the Nursery and the Sunday School, I entered Saint Peter’s nave and stepped quietly up the red-carpeted aisle to our pew, falling on my knees in thanksgiving for the simple freedom to worship God.

The altar and tabernacle were vested in deep purple satin, and the richness caught the light from the windows in the pitched roof above, the light that shone on the large medieval crucifix on the brick apsidal wall.  The sanctuary, in the light like that, glowed with royalty, and I smiled as the Gospel was read, the account of Christ entering Jerusalem on a donkey, entering as a King, the people praising him, waving their palms in laud and honor.  Purple is both penitential and kingly, I thought, two aspects not always paired.

Our preacher mentioned that this scene, the riding into Jerusalem, was the only one in which Christ allows himself kingly accolades.  He went on to answer the question we all ask on this Sunday: What does this Easter passage have to do with Christmas?  Why do we read a Palm Sunday scripture for our Gospel on this first Sunday of the Church Year, this First Sunday in Advent as we prepare for Christmas?  Indeed, it is his kingship, our preacher explained, that we are to recall as we greet him as a newborn in Bethlehem.  During Advent, we consider who he is, how he comes to us, this King of Glory, riding in humility.

Advent is a time of penitential preparation in our Church Year.  We prepare for the great festival of Christmas, the Incarnation, the coming in flesh of the Son of God.  Such humility to become a helpless baby, a humility we are called to as well.  It is a time to reflect on the meaning of this incredibly credible event, this intersection of time with the eternal, this love song sung and sent to us from God.

We call him the Savior, for before Christ, we had many rules and warnings and prophecies but could not see God’s face, could not speak his name.  After Christ, we see his face, we speak his name, we know him, and are intimately known by him.   The great chasm has been breached, that caused by Adam and Eve’s disobedience so long ago in the Garden.  No longer are we in the dark, but now walk in the light.  We are saved.  Our wrong turns, our sins, are forgiven and we can look upon the face of God.

During the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent I try and take on a memory verse, adding words to my mind and heart that will lighten my darkness and prepare me for the days to come.  This Advent I shall work again on the Collect, the special opening prayer that collects together the faithful, for this Sunday:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal…

And I shall try to read the Morning and Evening Offices, including the Psalms and Lessons. A half-hour each day to prepare for the Incarnation seems only fitting, following the admonitions of Isaiah and the coming of Christ in Mark’s Gospel.  I shall examine my conscience against God’s law, asking continually, is his will being done?  I shall consider the four great themes of Advent: death, judgment, heaven, hell.  Our preacher explained that we have no choice about death and judgment, but we do have a choice about heaven and hell.  I am glad I have such a choice, a choice given to me by a loving God who never turns away from us.  But have I chosen to turn away from him?

We returned home and I wedged my three purple candles and one rose candle into my Advent wreath holder, snipped some greens from my garden to weave around the plate, and lit the first candle, a purple one, to begin our season of Advent.

I shall prepare for Christmas, for the Incarnation, the coming of God as a babe in Bethlehem, for his coming at the end of time in judgment.  In this way my heart shall be ready to receive him too.

Soon it will be a national day of Thanksgiving, but for Christians every day is such a day.

It’s lovely to say Morning Prayer watching the waves of the Pacific Ocean wash against the rocky shores of this coast.  And I always include the Te Deum, that powerful prayer of praise and thanksgiving attributed to fourth-century Saint Ambrose when he baptized Saint Augustine of Hippo in the Milan cathedral.

It’s been a productive week, in spite of the tendency to gaze out to sea and be mesmerized by the undulating waters off the coast of Maui.  My husband and I are in our gentle years, as they say, and our activities are somewhat circumscribed by age, fatigue, and illness, but we’ve taken slow walks along the coast in our thick-soled trainers and felt the heat of the sun burning through our shirts and hats.  It’s been warm here, surprisingly warm for November in this region of Hawaii, and there has been little rain.  We look for shady places and read and write and ponder this brief passage of time in our lives.

My fourth novel, Hana-lani, is in its final editing stages with my publisher, OakTara, and I have hopes to see a copy by Christmas, and further hopes to have the book available to the public in January.  Hana-lani is set on Maui, in the village of Hana.  It is a love story and deals with themes of American culture, particularly the definition of love, the role of tradition, the importance of family in society.

Also in very early progress is my fifth novel, The Magdalene Mystery, set in Rome and Provence.  Just finished the first draft, and now for the fleshing out, the deleting, the next fifteen-plus drafts reworking these sixty-four thousand words.  It is a carving process in many ways, a whittling down but also a building up.  And, as in my trilogy of Western Europe, there are Chapter Notes and facts to be hunted down and verified.  Sometimes I think writing a novel is like a great puzzle, and since I love words, it is also a great deal of plain old fun, figuring out where to put them.  I also love ideas, and the perplexing nature of faith, and novel writing gives me the chance to swim in these seas as well, these pools of theology and history and art, considering the nature and purpose of man.  In short, the meaning of life.  No small task I suppose, but nevertheless riveting.

So we walk and we read and we write, watching a few puffy clouds move over the vast expanse of ocean, hearing the distant roar of the waves as they crash on the beach and onto the black rocks of porous lava, spewing foam into the moist air.

And I say my prayers of petition, intercession, confession, thanksgiving, and praise, listening to the sound of the surf.

God is full of surprises.

He’s surprised us by the weather the last few days, for there has been little rain and a good deal of sun.  We settled in to a room overlooking Hanalei Bay, the home of Puff the Magic Dragon (remember Peter, Paul, and Mary?) and before that, Lumahai Beach, the setting for the filming of South Pacific.

I am always stunned as well by Kauai itself, for it is the most dramatic of islands, and the Princeville-Hanalei area one of the most dramatic of Kauai.  With the heavy rainfall, the terrain is a lush rain forest, and the coasts are rugged with high cliffs that plunge into the sea.  Hanalei Bay on the north shore is a quiet finger of a bay that slides into a white sand beach, bordered by mountains and cliffs ringing to the east and west.  We are in a hotel that has been built into the eastern side of the bay, and we look out to what I believe are pali, the vertical ridge-like canyons that rise into the mountains.  In good weather, the green crags with their peaks and bluffs stand silhouetted against the blue dome of a sky, the sea below spread out to the horizon.  The sun sets this time of year behind these cliffs, and turns the white puffy clouds orange and crimson.

We drove into Hanalei one day and to the end of its narrow road where a State Park welcomes visitors.  Along the way is the Post Office and general store, and a historic church, green shingled, with stained glass and belfry, pitched roof and red doors called Wai’oli Hui’ia Church, once Congregational (founded 1834) and today United Church of Christ.  A plain interior, but solid, and remains I am sure a witness in the neighborhood.  I picked up a bulletin from last Sunday and saw some familiar pieces of the service – the Gloria, the Lord’s Prayer, the Doxology in Hawaiian (wish I could have heard that!), Psalm 139, the wonderful hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”  They once ran a mission school for the neighborhood although I’m not sure they need to now with the public school in operation.

The road to Hanalei is lovely, with green and lush foliage, and single-lane bridges that discourage too much traffic and encourage a sharp eye.  Flooding often closes the road, but it has not rained much lately so it wasn’t a problem, but then again we have not seen the myriad waterfalls we recalled from earlier times when it poured and the water streamed down the cliffs, white ribbons falling through the lush green, plunging to the sea.

There was a time when Hanalei was a hippie center, and the drug culture rampant, the bearded folks picking up their checks at the post office.  The area has moved on it seems, and folks have upgraded their properties and become staunchly middle class, possibly proletariat.  We learned lessons from those years – the immense risks, often deadly, of “free love” which meant of course “free sex,” and of addiction itself in all its forms, the deadening of the mind, soul, and body, an early death for many.  Some folks experimented and moved on and others stayed, lured by the good vibes of the slow colorful drug infused life, a life full of self and no responsibilities to others.  Friends of mine were participants and victims in that culture of death which was so camouflaged at the time to seem so full of life.  Those that survived, now in their sixties, continue to drift, unable to connect the dots of daily living, of planning, of setting goals, of becoming a creative human being.  Some sort of synapse in the brain simply burned out.  They have lost their families and in some cases their minds.  They have grown obese and continue the minor addictions of alcohol and tobacco.  One friend is severely diabetic and schizophrenic.

I dropped off a set of my Trilogy at the local library and spent many hours this week reworking my first draft of The Magdalene Mystery, my novel-in-progress.  I also heard from my publisher that my fourth novel, Hana-lani, set in Maui, will be available by the new year, a sudden surprise.

I say my prayers each day, read and write, and wonder how God will surprise me next.

We walked along the coastal path toward the Beach House restaurant and back, the sun warm and intermittent, burning through the heavy moisture and humidity.  Some rain, and sporadic wind bursts that carry the aromas of sea and flowers, swirling about us, but it is warm and we don’t mind the wet as we watch the skies change again and again.  We have been walking along this bit of coast for nearly thirty years, a shoreline reshaped by hurricanes, houses toppled and swamped, streets re-aligned.   The Beach House was there in the first days, and I recall the hippie-style restaurant with the cats and the questionable sanitation.  It was rebuilt after the big hurricane (eighties?) and recreated into an open airy sunset-facing restaurant.  Clean now, with a broad promontory of grass that juts into the sea.  Excellent grill as always, but the crowd has changed, faster, louder, and there is the sense it has become a tourist stop.  Time passes, nature has her way with this island, and we reach back and touch those moments of our past, amazed.

We returned to sit on our shady balcony and stare at the pounding surf.  Now the sun is out, and we wonder for how long, but the sea is blue green, laid before a swath of grass spread along the curved half moon of Poipu Beach.  Green cabana lounges face the crashing waters.  The sea roars in my ears and, indeed, we hear it sleeping carried through the window on warm breezes, and waking with all our senses open, and I drink the sound in as though it shall restore some balance, somehow wash my being, a baptism of sound.

Kauai seems to me to be the most dramatic of the Hawaian islands.  Here the winds play with the palms, sliding up and down the fingered stems, tossing them in a dance of air and light and moisture, and the sun glances off the fronds where the always-recent rain has polished and quenched them.

The roar of the sea drowns human chatter and busy-ness, as though greater events continue regardless of our witness and participation, regardless probably of our recycling and conservation efforts.  Here on Kauai we humans are smaller and humbler, bits of life surrounded by the powers of weather.  We glimpse briefly in a moment now, then, later, the grandeur, beauty, and indeed, the terror.  This island is a watered island, where rain forests drink from waterfalls tumbling from cliffs, and hurricanes and floodwaters reshape the land, destroy and rebuild.  The island is nature’s huge canvas, a recreation by elemental forces of water, fire, air, and earth.  Dramatic with giant players, intense colors, rushing movement, the creation of the world again and again.

Here man’s building man has been slow, often thwarted by these forces, and the villages of Kauai reflect these fits and starts.  The crossroads of towns still revolve around the general store, post office, churches and schools.  Shopping centers and hotels rise and fall with the economy, and are appreciated as job providers, catering to the tourists who come to escape their cities, their mainland mania of desire and speed.  Escape they do, for the humidity, the floral air, the sweet sea, the majestic palms dancing in the skies, all work their magic.  Folks sit and stare from lounge chairs, from black lava outcrops, from towels in the sand.  They stare at the tremendous waters rising and swelling as far as the eye can see, out to the slim curving horizon, the whitecaps pushed by the wind, the surf crashing and spilling its foam on the black fingers of reef and rock that stretch from the edges of the cove.  As they stare, holding a bestseller open to the first pages, the roar of the sea slides into them, and they nod slightly, drifting off for a moment of surprising escape.  They have become one with the canvas of greens and blues, of surf soundings, of aromas of hibiscus and plumeria, and a part of a greater life.  They become renewed.

A line from Psalm 95 said in the Office of Daily Morning Prayer (TheVenite) rings in my ears again and again here in this land of sea, sky, earth, air:  The sea is his and he made it and his hands prepared the dry land, O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our maker… 

Deo Gratia