Monthly Archives: June 2021

I don’t think I ever fully appreciated, in my fifty plus years of being an Anglican Anglo-Catholic, the marvelous Pauline epistles that populate the summer Sundays. We are in the green, growing season, a long season of parables and preachings, as we learn more about how Christ Jesus commanded us to live. And in the Liturgy of the Mass, the Gospels are introduced by the Epistles, letters sent to the fledgling churches sprinkled throughout the shores of the Mediterranean during the persecutions of Christians by the Roman Empire.

To be sure, the Gospel rang true this morning, as I listened in our Berkeley chapel, as Jesus spoke of forgiveness and judging not and motes in our eyes. Still, St. Paul writes these poetic words, sung in hymns and echoing two thousand years into our present. Our Lord chose well when he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, for Paul was (and is) a poet. He knew how to use words and he understood the meaning of the Incarnation, the Son of God walking among us.

“I RECKON that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God…because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:18+, BCP 194)

He is speaking of Heaven and Earth, of life and death and life again, and the resurrection of our new bodies. Our corrupted, earthly bodies which we know so well, will be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” That glorious liberty is something we can experience here and now, in the intimacy of the Eucharist, the joy of many voices singing as one, praising our Creator. We are free, now and forever. And we, now, having the first fruits of the Spirit granted in Baptism, groan for that day of glorious liberty when the hints and shadows that T.S. Eliot speaks of become fully realized.

The rim running between Earth and Heaven is a theme explored in my recent novel, Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020), in which our hermit Abram visits Heaven (plot spoiler). He leaves his body and soars through the thin veil that separates Heaven and Earth. We too can puncture that veil, can glimpse our future if we pay attention.

Today, there are glimpses all around me, for here in the Bay Area, the wind blew the morning fog bank back out to sea, and the sun lands like diamonds upon the silvery leaves of the olive tree in my garden. The light glances off them like blinking stars, saying, pay attention, watch and listen and wait. I also glimpse Heaven in the glorious creatures I am privileged to see, like my kitten Angel with her huge fluffy golden tail, a tail beyond measure. Then there are the rapt faces of my fellow worshipers in the chapel this morning, the sense of renewal and the sighs of relief that we can once again worship together, mask free, even singing! I could go on and on. Once I start looking, I begin seeing, and the groaning within isn’t as loud, as I wait for the adoption of my body into God’s glorious liberty.

Fernando Ortega, Christian composer and songwriter, describes the Second Coming of Christ in his song, “Beyond the Sky.” He says that God will “fill the skies.” In his song, “Creation”, he writes, “He wraps himself in light as with a garland, spreads out the heavens, walks on the wings of the wind.”

We live in a fallen world that seems to be falling farther and faster each day. And yet believers hold it together, like a garland wrapped around Earth, a garland of love and praise. For we know the groaning of our corruptible bodies, which began to die with their birth, will be no more. Our bodies will be made incorruptible by the one who created us in the beginning.

And in this fallen world we are given glimpses of future wonders. We are given the Church, Christ’s Body, to nurture us in this mean-time, to catch us when we fall and set us upon the right path again. For Christ lives, here, in our own time, in us and outside us, in the Bread and the Wine, as we wait for our manifestation as sons and daughters of God.

In the meantime I will work on the mote(s) in my eye. As Christ commanded, I will give, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over. Then, perhaps, the mote will be gone, and my blindness turned into sight. Glorious, glorious, sight. Glorious, glorious liberty.

Today is Father’s Day and a day to celebrate. We celebrate fathers of all kinds – Founding Fathers, biological fathers, stepfathers, fathers who fathered the fatherless, priestly fathers who care for their flocks in the pews.

It is also Good Shepherd Sunday, when the Gospel tells of the telling by Jesus of the parable of the good shepherd who finds his lost sheep and rejoices. (Luke 15+) In other scripture we learn the shepherd knows his sheep and the sheep know his voice. The shepherd is a father to his sheep. He protects his children.

The Epistle (I Peter 5:5+) bears that colorful warning from St. Peter that we must be sober and vigilant, for our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour. The devil is seeking sheep, no doubt, lost sheep stranded on a cliff, alone. The Good Shepherd finds the lost sheep and saves him from the lion’s mouth.

Our preacher mentioned this morning that the role of the father is to protect the child from outside threats, but also to introduce him or her to the outside world. The father protects and emboldens, training his children to enter the world, a world of wondrous things and events, but also a world of harm and disarray.

And so, as Christians, we are protected and sheltered, yet also empowered, encouraged, urged on to do what we are called to do. The Body of Christ is also the Family of God, and clergy (if they are good ones) are our spiritual fathers who protect us in the name of the Good Shepherd. If they are not good priests, justice awaits them in the next world.

In this world, however, there is a sense of a great awakening as the Good Shepherd calls his sheep to gather other sheep into his fold, in time, before the lion roars. The pandemic, the drastic lockdowns, the fear, the disruption of lives, the loss of jobs and businesses, the loss of school, and the unforgivable masking of children have all given folks a chance to reflect upon what is important. In the losses, some have used the change in habit and communities to evaluate life and death, good and evil.

Where this has happened, it is a vivid example of God writing straight with crooked lines, a turning of despair into hope, darkness into light. For in reflection upon our own deaths, we see our own lives more clearly.

You or I do not know if tomorrow will be our last day on this good Earth. It is beneficial perhaps to hear time ticking, for it quickens us to live more fully, listen more acutely to the Master’s voice, the Shepherd’s call.

And we are all called by him. How do we know his voice? How can we hear him?

In scripture, sacrament, and song. In prayer and care and love. We immerse ourselves in the Shepherd’s words so that we recognize his voice, his calling us, his warning us of the darkness coming and the edge of the precipice.

As I drove to our Berkeley chapel this morning I considered that I had at least a year of eucharists to make up. The bread and the wine, changed into the Real Presence of Christ, nourishes us as no other. I missed the sacred elements feeding both my body and my soul. I took part via screens, singing and praying, but I missed the Holy Eucharist, the presence of the Real Presence.

It is a mystery, the action of the Eucharist. And yet fully supported by scripture and two millennia of doctrine. I know, with faithful attendance now, I will be like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ robe. I will be made whole, holy once again.

And then I will know the Shepherd’s voice. I will hear him calling me out from a crowded place, the world of souls remaining on the planet. I will follow the voice, the voice of love, the voice of protection and comfort, the voice of salvation.

And across this land the fathers who are truly fathers will encourage, give courage, to their children. They will protect them from the world. They will shepherd them, and send them into the world with the shield of salvation, speaking truth to lies, good to evil, peace to war.

The Founding Fathers – those noble souls who worked to achieve a perfect union of disparate peoples in this great nation of immigrants – will never be forgotten, will always be honored, will teach us how to unite and not divide, to love and not hate. They too are our own national fathers, our own shepherds. They have given each of us a great gift: America. We must always remember and hear their voices on page and in song, voices lighting the way.

We are awakening from a long slumber. We hear the fathers’ voices, voices of love and light. We need merely listen and follow.

Lockdowns, we are told by the State of California, will be lifted on Tuesday, June 15. But I fear the fear remains locked into many hearts, a place where it has found a home, fed by fear and led by fear. The lockdowns have robbed us of time, talent, and treasure, have isolated us from family and parish, have done incredible harm to each one of us.

Most of my Sundays these last fifteen months have been sheltered ones, tuning in with my husband to Facebook and Zoom screens. We watched and listened. We sang songs and repeated responses and prayed prayers, as if we were heard through the screens, our voices carried by invisible angels of mercy. Some of the liturgies were masked, then unmasked, then masked again. Some got off to a rocky start, taking several months to upgrade equipment and signal boosters (a challenge in Berkeley). Some were outdoors, in courtyards, such as our Arizona parish and in the dead of winter those blue blue blue skies were welcome on our screens. Some kept the organ playing; some didn’t. Some teetered toward a semblance of the Eucharist we all know and love. They all did their best, given the mandate to close down.

Each parish, each Mass, had its own character or personality, a quality I have long enjoyed in our travels through Europe, visiting churches and abbeys and monasteries, each one different, the Mass always the same, yet each a living breathing incarnation of God’s love, his magnificent acts in history.

It is those acts in history, the first years of the first millennium, that we re-member in the Mass, and it is those salvific works that we eat and drink at the altar rail, embodying the mysteries of the universe living in the bread and the wine.

And so today I considered the value of symbol, of word as symbol, of musical note as symbol, representations of a greater truth or truths for which we all hunger, our longing coming from somewhere deep within. I considered these things on the periphery of my delight, my lingering joy as I drove home from our chapel in Berkeley.

I realized that the screens are a poor representation of the Body of Christ, and that the purpose of the living gathering, with real people in real time in real space, kneeling on real cushions, praying to the Real Presence in the tabernacle, was to embody the love of God. We meet together, a disparate gathering from all walks of life, many races and backgrounds, to worship the real and living God of Abraham and Isaac, who became one of us as Jesus of Nazareth, and who loves us beyond measure. I experienced the real thundering notes of the real organ behind me (five feet away in this intimate chapel), the real action of the Mass celebrated by a real priest, sung and chanted, sending real notes into real ears. I felt the real hard tiles under the real velvet cushion under my bony knees and the gentle ache of my back, unused to such posture.

Our preacher preached on the wedding feast parable and all the excuses that are made not to come to the feast. I recommend tuning in to the tape still on Facebook (St. Joseph’s Chapel) to hear what he said, words that expressed ideas and imperatives that made sense. For we must answer the invitation to the feast of the Eucharist, if we are at all able, in person. We must gather with our fellows and sing together as one voice, uniting many voices. We must praise together with the Gloria and repent together with the General Confession. We must kneel together as the precious words are spoken and the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. We must pray together, out loud, prayers that are prescribed for the very reason of saying them together as one, an anthem of heart and soul raised to the altar, to the Real Presence of Christ who enters each of us on this bright warm morning in a small chapel near the university.

It usually strikes me during one of our Anglican liturgies, when I am physically present in the nave, the diversity, the many differences among us. I have come to believe that Christ continually creates us, and recreates us, his brush strokes adding something here, something there, to the canvas of our person, spirit and flesh. He does this if we engage in the greatest love affair of all time and all eternity, the love between each of us and God. He does this if we allow him to order our goings, to prepare the path for us to walk on, to enter our hearts and minds, to accept gladly our invitation to accept his invitation to live in one another. He does this if we say yes as Mary did.

And so our priest (who is half Chinese and half African-American) spoke without notes from the head of the aisle before the altar, his eyes twinkling in love for each of us. He was so joyful as he spoke I wondered if he might burst into laughter, but instead he simply enjoyed us, each one of us, sitting in our spaced folding chairs, rapt. I found at one point I laughed out loud myself, enjoying his enjoyment. He moved from the Gospel parable to St. John and another passage on loving one another. We must love one another, he said, and we cannot do this looking into screens.

I sighed my thanksgivings. He was right. And meeting the challenge in parish life is rather like meeting the challenge in any group of devoted people. Each one of us has opinions about masks and sheltering and hoaxes and what we have gone through in the last year plus. Each one of us has thoughts we would like to express that might not be another’s thoughts. There even may be some strong disagreement, some hissing, some biting of tongues. But that is because we are so very different with each passing day, month, and year as the Master works his will upon us in this great creative dance of life.

So we learn to love one another, differences and all, a beautiful diversity. We learn to love in the greatest school of charity (love), the Church. The English mystic Evelyn Underhill wrote a short book called The School of Charity. She was speaking of the family as I recall, and here too we learn to love those under our roof, those whom close proximity provides a challenge. But the parish is also a school of charity and we must attend liturgies in person in order to fully partake of the lessons to be learned. When we stumble, we are raised up by others, held by others. When they stumble we raise them up. We listen to one another. We see the intricate complexity of each person, glimpses of their true hearts and souls. We learn to love as one before Christ in the tabernacle, as we use symbol and song to express the inexpressible.

Our nation is a school of charity as well. It is a parish of individuals that come together to love one another in spite of our differences. We love one another also through symbol and song, through high-flying flags, through pledges of allegiance intoned together, hand upon heart. We have stories that tell our history, just as our faith is told in Epistle and Gospel, and in the Nicene Creed. As Americans, united under one flag in one nation, we gather at appointed times to renew our love for one another and our freedoms – at Thanksgiving, on Memorial Day, on the Fourth of July, on Veterans Day, and many other celebrations of who we are as a free people.

Flag Day, tomorrow, June 14, is often neglected. The flag, with its increasing number of stars over the years, reminds us that we are Americans, a union of many peoples and states and tribes. Our differences, the flag says, are our glories. Our unique populations from all over the planet, have chosen this land, this nation, in which to live and in which to love. The many differences we see all around us are why we are the envy of the world. For we are called by symbol and song, and story too, to love one another, to celebrate our human worth.

Our nation, like our church, has a calendar of seasons, and these seasons call us in real time to be a union and not a disunion, to heal and to not hurt. Memorial Day steps into Flag Day and Flag Day prepares us for Independence Day, July 4. The men and women who gave their lives defending our nation, did so under our flag, and we sense them watching over us as we celebrate the anniversary of the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1976, the flag billowing against the blue sky, for the Declaration declared our national creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thirteen colonies, each one vastly different from the others, signed the Declaration. Each one would have to learn to get along, learn to love in this national school of love.

The Declaration was a piece of parchment with markings on it. It was words that symbolized deeply held convictions. Just so we today, in our little chapel, declared deeply held convictions about the nature of man.

And so we learn to love one another, to welcome all to the feast.

We have embarked upon Trinity Season in the Church Year. It is a season marked by love, the love of God as embodied in the Holy Trinity between the three persons of God and the love of God for us as his created own. It is a long season, lasting through most of November to Advent and the new Church Year beginning again. It is a “green” season, in terms of the Kalendar, and is a growing-in-the-faith season, as we follow the teachings of Jesus, Son of God, as he walked among us. It is a love season and it is a growing season and we realize we cannot grow without God’s love moving among us, and we cannot love without God’s creative growing, his reaching to touch us and our reaching to touch him.

This movement of God among us, first in flesh as Jesus of Nazareth, then in spirit as on Pentecost, is the glory of lives faithfully lived. Without the stirrings of our soul, the confessions of our conscience, the commandments ordering our ways, and their defining judgments at the end of the day, we become creatures of the wild, no more than beasts. The poetry and prayers of our daily lives disappear without the Holy Spirit’s presence among us, breathing upon us, inspiring us to love one another.

There are those today who desire social justice and indeed, this is a product of God’s love and a commandment of Jesus. In today’s Gospel, Our Lord teaches the parable of the poor man Lazarus who begs outside the gate of a rich man:

“There was a certain rich man,” Jesus says, “which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.” (St. Luke xvi.19+, 190, BCP)

It is a vivid description of the rich and the poor (I find it interesting that the rich man is not named as is the poor man.) Jesus continues with the parable, describing what happens to each man when he dies. Lazarus is carried by angels to Heaven. The rich man, unnamed, finds himself in Hell in torment.

Every year when we hear this parable read and interpreted from the pulpit, I sense the congregation squirm, as if they hoped the poetic Epistle would be the text for the sermon (St. John on love) rather than this uncomfortable story told by the Son of God which seems to condemn riches. And Christians believe in a final and personal judgment, which includes judgment of the heart. I have heard many interpretations of this parable, some more symbolic than others, but the underlying image is too forceful to be ignored, sores and dogs and all. We are, indeed, commanded to love, as St. John says in the Epistle. And how do we love? We love our fellow man. And hence the social gospel, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. John writes,

“We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” (I St. John iv.7+, 189, BCP)

The social gospel came out of the Christian gospel. This care for the greater community, indeed, for those whom we do not even know, was a radical departure from earlier times. And this Christian commandment emerged from the Jewish sense of social justice. This was not practiced in the Classical world of master and slave. This imperative came from the belief that each person is created in the image of God, and thus is sacred, regardless of class, race, handicap, born and unborn.

Just so, it was the Christian culture in England that condemned slavery; it was the Christian imperative in America that fought the Civil War to end the barbaric practice.

I have been revisiting the history of our nation in the Hillsdale College online education class, “Land of Hope.” I am hoping I can retain some of this broad sweep of the past. Regardless, I am thoroughly enjoying the lectures given by Dr. Wilfred McClay and the many photos of earlier times. He speaks of Woodrow Wilson, one of the leaders of the “Progressive” movement, an elitist, intellectual, program to care for the poor, i.e. the imperative felt by the Christian culture of the time.

Dr. McClay contrasts this movement to the “Progressives” today. Those who claim this title and the mission of social justice today bear little resemblance to those of the early twentieth century. The key difference is that Wilsonian Progressivism was based on Christian principles that supported churches, faith, and family. Today’s Progressives marginalize, penalize, ostracize, and even criminalize Judeo-Christian faith and practice. It is a term designed to sound positive and caring, but in reality reflects a desire for power and control over the population at large. Progressivism sounds more caring than Marxism or Communism, doesn’t it?

The earlier Progressives and today’s Progressives, however, do share a few characteristics: they are elitist, see themselves as the nation’s intellectual chosen people, thus desire to remake society top-down, and require the power to do this by mandate. They also share the desire to improve the race through a version of eugenics, popular in the Darwinian early twentieth century, and seen today with gene editing and abortion, a kind of racial cleansing of the “unfit.” But again, it is to be stressed that the Wilsonians were curbed not only by their Christian assumptions in regards to human dignity, but by freedom itself, in the popular vote which welcomed Harding and Coolidge in the next round of elections.

And so we are commanded to love God, for God is love, and our fellow man, made in God’s image. It is a commandment that intersects Earth with Heaven. It is an intersection that makes all the difference, and as we remain faithful to our communities of faith and encourage others to join our Christian family of love, the two spheres – Heaven and Earth – merge within us and without us. We see more clearly. We live more courageously. We love as we are meant to love, without fear, as St. John writes.

This intersection informs the setting my recent novel, Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020). The mountain rises to the skies like praying hands and, deep within its caverns, icons gleam reflected light, pulling our hermit Abram through their doors. And as he is pulled in, he is fed and filled. He can then go out, into the world, to embody, incarnate the love of God for his fellow man.

We are told that God resides within and without. The Spirit within urges us to do right and be righteous, to follow the commandments burned into the tablets of stone on Mount Sinai. The Spirit within nudges us to be full-filled with God himself.

For God loves us so very much. He wants our good. He desires us to be with him. He wants to fill us full of his joy.