Monthly Archives: October 2012

As we approach our national election it is appropriate that we who follow the Church Year find ourselves celebrating the Feast of Christ the King today, All Saints’ Day on Thursday, and finally All Souls’ on Friday.  Further ahead, we look forward to the “real” holiday season, in America one bracketed by Thanksgiving and Christmas.

On Wednesday this week we pretend to be someone else, as we don costumes on Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, the night before All Saints Day. As Christianity took root in the West, the Church transformed druidical and other pagan celebrations into Christian ones. Just so, it is thought that the end of summer was observed on October 31, a long dark night in which it was believed the spirits of the dead roamed the earth. Villagers lit bonfires to frighten the ghosts away or left food out to pacify them. “Trick-or-treating” probably evolved from the poor begging from house to house, lighting the way with a candle in a hollow pumpkin. The Church created All Saints Day to drive away these fears with the love of God witnessed in the saints. It was and is a day of hallowing, making holy, these men and women who taught us how to live, alight with the love of God.

We all need to look up to someone, to admire, to emulate. Every culture has their saints of sorts – those who inspire, who set an example, who chart the course. Sports, movie stars, rock stars, artists, leaders, builders, become role models, both good and bad. We call them stars because they rise above us, bright and twinkling in the dark of night. They light our way or at least the circuitry of our minds. Some stars are more obvious than others, some bright, some dim. Some sneak inside our souls through advertising and subtle fashions, harmless at first, dangerous later. We all want saints in our lives. We all want kings.

In our country we do not have a king because we have seen bad kings. We do not have noblemen. We do not have lords and ladies, barons and baronesses, princes and princesses. We make up for monarchy and aristocracy by creating our own sort of kings, hopefully a meritocracy – our congressmen, our judges, our presidents, vice-presidents, military leaders. In this way we raise our own royalty onto pedestals so that we can see them better, so that we can emulate them. We want to tell our sons and daughters, you can be President, you can be great, if you act like this man.

I looked up noble, which comes from the same root as knowledge. To be noble, to act nobly, is to have knowledge as to what is right and what is wrong.

But where does that knowledge come from? Where does nobility or kingship come from?

God’s People of Israel had no king for many generations, from Abraham to Moses to Samuel. But after a series of judges, they demanded a king. Others had kings – they wanted a king too. God gave them Saul, and Samuel, God’s prophet, anointed Saul with God’s wisdom to do right. From that time, Western kings have been anointed by the Church in some fashion, an admission of their dependence on God’s authority.

Of course, King Saul, being a descendant of Adam, didn’t always do right, and all kings and those in authority can never be perfect, never live up to God’s law. The Old Testament is largely the story of this doing right, then doing wrong, of listening to God, then not listening, of obeying, then not obeying, with resulting blessings and curses.

So finally when God became incarnate, took flesh upon him, a true star shone over a true king come to earth in Bethlehem. Here was a king who would be perfect, who would be an absolute standard of right and wrong, who would embody ultimate love and its defining sacrifice, one who would guide, defend, heal. One who, through the Cross, would give life eternal to the children of Adam and Eve. Here was the Christ, the King, the anointed one, the long awaited messiah. And as king, he would demand obedience to his law of love.

Rightful and saintly kings are gladly obeyed. The feudal contract in old Europe was (and I simplify with abandon) protection in battle (knights, lords, kings) in exchange for a portion of the bounty pulled from the earth (serfs). Lords acted as judges as well, keeping the peace, and serfs were expected to obey the laws of the kingdom.

Just so, we the people create and recreate a government of laws to be obeyed, and in exchange for our obedience, the government protects us from invasion and ensures the peace at home. But because the government is made up of sons and daughters of Adam, leaders and laws, like kings, will never be perfect. How then are we to choose those leaders who will make those laws?

Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian morality, looking to the authority of God to set the course. But today, as we drift from our founding, we drift from our authorities as well. We drift from God; we drift from Christ the King. We have become, in many ways, becalmed, waiting for the next wave to engulf, the next riot to destroy, the next massacre to horrify, the next nine/eleven or Benghazi to be etched on our national memory.

As we approach November 6 and the election of our President, we must ask the question, even in this democracy, which candidate is the more noble? More kingly? Who has the greater knowledge of right and wrong? Who, in the end, has the character to lead us, to articulate the course for us, to pull together the threads of history into the present moment of choices? Who has the experience that ratifies that knowledge, that directs judgment? Like the days of lords and serfs, who can protect us in battle? Who can protect us in our towns, in our public squares, theaters, offices, homes?  Who can protect our individual freedoms to life, liberty, worship, and the pursuit of happiness?

We the People will gladly support such a man, a kingly and noble-man, perhaps even a saint. We will gladly point to such a man when he strides onto the dais and we say to our children, “That’s our President. A great man. Be like him, be noble-knowing. Be wise and learn to make the right choices. Be strong. Be brave. Be kind, loving, sacrificial.”

We will gladly anoint such a man. Indeed, we long to.

I recently asked a friend why folks don’t like to use the word “sin.” They are comfortable saying “mistake.” But in common conversation it is awkward to say “I sinned.”

My friend answered with a profound statement. “It’s too big a word.”

I’ve been thinking about that. We use the term “freighted” sometimes when speaking of words that have huge connotations. I suppose “sin” and it’s cousin “forgive” are freighted with implied judgment, God’s judgment. And yet we all admit judging ourselves and others by some kind of standard. Wouldn’t God’s judgment be more reliable than yours or mine? He was after all author of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes and a few other refinements on basic behavior. But such authority is no doubt part of the bigness, part of the freighted baggage that modernity wishes to throw off the train. But where does that leave us? Without bigness and only smallness.

We sin against God and against one another. When we do this we actually are sinning against ourselves, according to Raymond Raynes, late Superior of the Community of the Resurrection in England. Father Raynes argued that since God is our Creator and has set up the system of natural laws that govern his creation, when we break those laws we actually break ourselves. Sin destroys. Sin pays wages we may not want – including death.

A baby was baptized in church today. She was washed clean of the sin inherent in our broken human nature, sin passed through generations from Adam and Eve to the present. And she was given a means to deal with future sins, future times of brokenness, by being grafted onto Christ’s Body the Church in baptism. Through water and spirit she has been made new, renewed, made whole. It was a miracle and we were a part of it.

We honored this miracle with a special hymn as the Sunday School children gathered around the font and sang, “Dearest Jesus, We Are Here,” and as the Bach tune lilted through the air we prayed for our little Ka’alayah in her long white gown. We prayed as the priest poured the holy water over her tiny head and said her Christian name, Christening her.

She has been Christened. She has been made a part of Christ’s Body. These too are large words, big words. We still speak of a person’s “Christian” name, the individual name given at baptism. It is a unique name for a unique person created by a loving God, a God desiring to heal our brokenness again and again.

The priest marked her forehead with a cross as he said:

We receive this Child into the congregation of Christ’s flock; and do sign her with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter she shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end. Amen.

Words. Not ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified… We have banished big holy words from our discourse because we are ashamed. We are Peter as he denied knowing his Lord in the courtyard that dark Maundy Thursday night, or perhaps the early graying dawn of Good Friday. We don’t want to be different from others in our culture; we want acceptance. We are ashamed of the Cross, the naked bloody way he died, publicly, humiliated, for us. We have tried to sanitize the Cross through the centuries, removing the corpus, forging it in gold, but it returns and reminds us, nudging us. We are ashamed to confess Christ crucified.

Words. It seems okay to say God, but not Jesus. It’s okay to say church, but not Christ. (Unless cursing.) It’s okay to speak of going to church but not what we believe, as though church were some kind of hobby one chooses or not. We make church small, for the word is too big if it is really the Body of Christ. We dance around the big words. They are fiery and dangerous, embarrassing and offensive.

We don’t want to offend. But in the process of banishing big meaningful words, big beautiful powerful, exciting and adventurous words that speak of the meaning of life and death, love, marriage, and family, why we rise in the morning and how we spend our short span on earth, how we care for one another, how we organize the pivotal relationships of society and social intercourse – in the process of banishing these words – we step into a dangerous universe. In this dancing around and covering up the bigness we enter a void of meaning, we drug our language, make our speech comatose.

I don’t want to live in the shadow-lands, somewhere between reality and fantasy. As I embrace these big words, I am thankful that some sixty-five years ago, I was, like little Ka’alaya, reborn with water and spirit, and since that time have been nurtured with the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, being regenerated and made whole again and again. I have learned hopefully to recognize sin when I see it in myself so that I am able to confess it. Once seen and admitted, I repent these thoughts, words and deeds. I can then turn once again toward the light.

Father Raynes says the beginning of eternity is now. We follow our Creator’s plan and desire to grow in him, to grow into our resurrection bodies.

So we are baptized with water and Spirit, we are given the sacraments, and we are given his son to nourish us along the way. Through this lifelong  process of renew-ness, we step toward heaven, another huge word and one of which I am not ashamed to confess.

Early Sunday morning the fog nestled in the valley below our house, its fingers creeping up the canyons. But the early morning sun shone through the moist October air, promising.

I see this view from my kitchen window and am always stunned. I say my morning prayers gazing upon this valley, and all the changes of seasons that it holds through the year. I watch the red tails and the black hawks soar and dive, following the wind currents. Swallows nest in an ancient oak nearby and their young fly from the leafy branches in spring and summer. Bobcats visit from Mount Diablo and we’ve seen a fox and a mountain lion intently cross our driveway. Turkeys run rampant over our garden and the deer grace us with their beauty, nibbling with abandon. We are situated on a low crest, just high enough to be above, and yet below the vast dome of the heavens.

These days mid-October teases us with winter, a cold night followed by a warm day, low temperatures suddenly vanquished by warmer ones. The harvest is over (I think) here in California, but we celebrate its bounty as we head toward pumpkins and Halloween.

Just so, I found myself in an October celebration, Oktoberfest, on Sunday, after Mass. We filled our plates with sausage, kraut, potatoes, applesauce, strudel with cream, and of course beer. We danced the chicken dance, stepping in a circle, hands clasped, making curious gestures with our hands and arms to quick-stepping music, imitating, I believe, chickens soon to be dinner. Some of us wore costumes – Bavarian hats, shorts, suspenders. Long graceful country dresses. As we circled, it seemed to me a moment of silliness, of gathering together, of fun. We spanned one year to ninety-three, and those closer to ninety-three enjoyed the chance to be closer to one, the chance to dance.

Our parish is a colorful one. We have Scottish, Hispanics, Irish, Bahamans, Germans, English, Norwegians, Swedes. We have folks from Belize, China, Japan. And many other countries. It is a parish of every age and skin color and we celebrate our differences. We all contribute to the wonderful American melting pot here in our parish hall. We celebrate our differences because we have our common faith in God.

I Googled Oktoberfest, and was interested to learn that it began with a royal wedding on a Munich field on October 12, 1810. The townspeople celebrated the following anniversaries as well, and soon fair booths showcasing beer and other local items were added. The booths became halls.

As we danced on Sunday it seemed we danced through fall and into winter, traveling into new times, new hours, days, weeks. The crisp tease of autumn will soon leave us, and the real cold will chill us to the bone, a real rain will sodden our lands, and we shall wait long dark nights for the sun to bring us day.

So too we Americans will dance together in the coming weeks. We will take one another’s hands in this highly charged world of wars and rumors of wars, of demagogues and saints. We will pause and try to read the signs. We will enter our voting booths; we will mail in our ballots; we will choose our new leader for the next four years. We will pray that our freedoms, especially our freedom to practice our faith, will be protected.

As I stepped in time in our Oktoberfest circle on Sunday, I was grateful for the warm hands that held mine. I was thankful that we were joined together in this moment of song. We knew the fog enshrouded our church, but we also knew it would burn off by afternoon. We knew winter was coming, but we were safe in our church, loved by God, a love that wove through us.

Earlier we had worshiped God in the nave above. We had prayed side-by-side on our knees. We had received him in the Holy Eucharist, palms raised at the altar. We had taught our children in the Sunday School about Solomon and his great temple built to the glory of God – just like our temple – and the children had rehearsed a Bach tune to sing for next Sunday’s baptism.

The tease of October filled us with joy, and we danced God’s seasons, hands clasped, in his Church.

We moved from a tame sea sliding upon a manicured shore on the Kohala Coast to a roaring surf crashing onto a steep incline of beach on Kauai. Both waters were clear, sparkling in the sun. The calm bay was painted in deep to bright shades of blue. The thunderous bay was more gray-blue aquamarine, shaded by black rock formations on the ocean bed, hinting of danger.

The shoreline of Poipu, Kauai drops steeply and suddenly and as we walked in bare feet the waves rose and rolled and descended upon us, at times catching us off balance with their force. Then we would turn and face the sea, legs apart to brace our bodies, sinking into the churned sand, and watch the surf rise, roll, and crash once again upon us.

We were protected from the sea at Kohala. We were exposed at Poipu. The tides pulled and ripped, dramatic but dangerous.

It made me think of the upcoming elections and how we see our world.

Americans are largely protected from the dangerous waters that seethe and pound our shores. We have not been attacked on our own soil since 2001, and the attacks on foreign soil, as recently as last month in North Africa, seem far away, tragedies enlivening the evening news and providing material for campaigns. The economy is not good. Prices are up and unemployment has remained high, higher than reported according to many, as high as 20% in parts of the country. Yet our food and water and gas are not yet rationed, we do not have anarchy in our city streets (yet), police and fire services still appear with sirens screaming, keeping us safe.

Americans will be choosing soon the kind of government we desire. How do we choose it? Most of us do nothing to prepare to vote. Most do not read about the issues, let alone study them. Many of us do not read or speak English. We rely on second hand reports from biased reporters or newspaper recommendations. We enter the polling booth and we study the names and propositions – who are they and what will they do? We don’t really know. Yet we vote, randomly it seems.

The waters of tyranny rage against our shores. How do we brace ourselves as the shoreline wears away, as the floodwaters pour in?

Many of us do not see the crashing surf, but rather see a calm bay. We are soothed by the media, told that all is well, we can slide along, the government will care for us. We need not worry. We do not need to make educated choices, choices that require work, study, even learning English. We are told we do not need to save, to practice self-restraint. We are told that we have the right to do as we wish. The government will provide our bread and perhaps tickets to the circus. The government will choose our date of death. It will ensure that the unwanted will be unborn. We do not need to worry. We do not need to choose.

It is easy, when looking out to sea, to see calm, friendly, soothing waters that undulate in the sun, that foam and slip softly onto the sand. But in the neighboring harbor, the sea churns and crashes onto the shore, devouring the coast and spitting it out.

Now is a time to see with both eyes, to study, to learn about our upcoming choices. It is a time to face the reality of our world, a world with no common authority, no common belief in God, the author of all authority.

We talked about the Ten Commandments in church today – the simple rules of life that help us to live with one another peaceably, etched in stone and given to Moses so long ago. There was a time when this list provided a common authority, but no longer. We, by God’s grace, have not yet been destroyed by the riptides, but if we pretend they are not there, that the sea is calm – if we look away from the realities of our world – we may be pulled under.

I believe it was Alexis de Tocqueville who called America “the great experiment in democracy.” It was and is an experiment to allow universal suffrage, to allow citizens who may be uninformed, uneducated, or illiterate to determine our future. The issues have become complex and even the informed, educated, and literate cannot be experts in their intricacies. So we have learned to vote for character, candidates whom we trust to know, experts in governing.

In the end this may be our best solution – to admit the ocean is dangerous and to hire a trustworthy captain to sail our ark.