Author Archives: Christine Sunderland

Shattering Time

Posted on September 8, 2013 | 1 comment

An elderly member of our parish journeyed to Heaven this last week. Her photograph was in our church’s narthex this morning – bright eyes, red hair, full of life.  It had been many years since I had seen her like that, for she had been weakening for a good and Godly while, and I smiled in recognition. She was younger then. (So was I.) 

I carried her image in my mind as I entered the nave and took a seat alongside my husband in the long oak pew. Now, thinking over the morning and my friend’s celestial journey, I am grateful for this great ark of the church that cradles each of us in this world. We the faithful sit in the nave, a word derived from the Latin navis or ship, and our own church is shaped rather like a boat, this one sailing the seas of Oakland, California. One day I too, like my friend, will journey out of this world and into the next, but for the time being I am protected by the Church. And not only protected, but in this womb I am fed by the Church, until reborn in Heaven. And what is the heavenly food that I feed upon in this womb of an ark?  I feed upon prayer, worship, scripture, and God himself in the Mass.

Today was fittingly a day of rebirth in our parish, celebrating the opening of the new Sunday School year with our annual Ice Cream Social. The children trooped up the red-carpeted aisle for their blessings and trooped out to their class. Soon they skipped downstairs for ice cream and home-made hot fudge. There were many smiles as we indulged, and more smiles as we were quizzed on Bible story facts and figures. There were prizes too.

Our children represent a new generation being raised up that replaces those, like my friend, that have journeyed on. So we teach (and show) our children the love of God. We tell them the stories of his great acts among us, those great acts that led up to the Incarnation in Nazareth two thousand years ago and those great acts since the Incarnation. Our preacher said today (and now I paraphrase, reaching into my rough memory) that the Cross intersected time and space; the Cross made past and future all new, re-newed. It shattered time. And I saw in my mind as he spoke the fissures of an earthquake crackling and cracking through time and space, in every direction. The Cross and the Resurrection changed everything. The Cross vanquished time by vanquishing death, giving us eternity.

We teach our children these stories of before the Cross (B.C., Before Christ) and after the Cross (A.D., After Christ, the Year of Our Lord). We call these eras Old Testament and New Testament (literally the old and the new testimony or witness or history) and we cradle our children in the ark of these stories, each account true in different degrees and ways, so that the new generation may know and be protected by the love of God. We teach our children God’s commandments so that they may experience God’s loving forgiveness. We teach them to sing and celebrate and offer themselves to God in the great liturgy of the Mass, so that they may receive God back in the bread and wine, and so be inspired, full of the Spirit, as they travel through the hours and days of the week ahead.

We cradle our children in the Church, just as my friend had been nourished and cradled by the Church in her earthly life. Through the Church God holds us close to him, and we sail on the waves of our sea of earthly time, the way clearly charted and the destination in sight. The bow of our ark cleaves cleanly through the waters, whether stormy or still, our ship directed and driven by the words of consecration before the altar within, where in the glorious song and silence of each Sunday morning (and sometimes during the week), God’s priest re-members (pulls into the present) the action of the Cross and  shatters time in the mystery of the Mass.

Dear Dwan, may your soul rest in peace and may light perpetual shine upon you.

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Meaningful Work

Posted on September 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

My sixty-seventh summer has passed. My sixty-seventh autumn is upon me. And linking summer and autumn is Labor Day. While instituted in 1887 to honor union labor, Labor Day has come to be a celebration of all kinds of work, whether organized into unions or not. 

I believe human beings are wired to work, to produce, to create in some fashion. The Midwest killing over the summer by someone who said he was bored reveals the despairing numbness that comes from lack of purpose, lack of work.

Purpose. Rick Warren speaks of The Purpose Driven Life. We ask one another, what is the purpose of man? What is the purpose of life? We seek meaning, and work is an expression of the meaning we have found.

Of course there are many jobs that seem mindless, meaningless. I filed and typed for long hours and longer days as I cobbled my may through college, and later, as a single parent, as I supported myself and my young son. Not all work is meaningful, but most work is productive, if at least for the boss or the company worked for. At the end of each day, the file cabinet was plump with the filings from my inbox, and my inbox was empty. I had been productive. And when I received my paycheck it felt good to have earned it.

And in a sense every job, including sitting here at my computer in the comfort of my office lined with icons and books, with my cat nearby and my husband’s ballgame heard in the distance, has long periods of routine work, of slugging along. But I have been blessed with meaning in my life, so that no matter what work I do, it is offered to God. I am secure in the knowledge that I have tried to listen to God’s voice, I have tried to understand the next step to take, the next turn in the next crossroads (no pun intended).

Christians are or should be purpose-driven people. They know who they are and why they are and how they came to be. They know where they are going and they know the way. Sometimes we take wrong turns, more than we confess, but God brings us back. Through his Church he gives us road signs and we finally get back on the main highway, the way to home.

This morning we witnessed two young adult baptisms in church. The young ladies, one finishing high school this coming year, the other in the middle of her college years, had been brought home to the Church by their grandparents. I thought how wonderful it was that at this moment in their lives, when so many crossroads would soon appear before them – choices of classes, schools, careers, dating, marriage, family – they would have the grace of God empowering them, nudging them along. They would see signs that would steer them in the right direction. And as they make these choices, they would have a reference point – God’s will, his design for them, as expressed through the Church.

We are forever wandering and forever coming home, every one of us. And the nature of what we do with our lives, how we spend our time each day – our work as children of God on Planet Earth – matters. It matters because everything matters, everything counts. We may not always get it right, but as a member of the Body of Christ, we have signposts helping us along, helping us choose. 

Many baby-boomers will be retiring in the next decade, and they will face these choices, how they will spend the rest of their lives, their hours, their days, their weeks, their years. Some will volunteer at local hospitals. Some will take another job to supplement their income. Some will spend precious time with children and grandchildren, or neighbors and friends. Some will volunteer at church or temple. Some will give their time to spas and saunas, fitness clubs and golf courses. Whatever the trade-off that is made for the remainder of their days, they will choose activity that brackets and organizes their time, and this choice will shape them in the last leg of their journey through time. 

For me, I have the Church, and through the Church I have God. With the Church as my home, with the family of God surrounding me, with the sacraments and hymns and joyful Sunday worship, I have signposts along the way. I need only watch for them. Without the Church I should wander aimlessly, bored, purposeless, without meaning to my work. With the Church I can see; I am given productive years as I travel the last leg of my journey to Heaven. In the Church I am home, and when I stray I know the way back. A good exchange for my working life.

In today’s Gospel, Christ tells of the ten lepers he healed, but only one returned to give thanks. Today, this Labor Day weekend, I give thanks for the meaningful work God offers us, and I return each Sunday to give thanks again and again.

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New Israel Baptism

Posted on August 25, 2013 | 1 comment

Our rector is Jewish. A number of years ago he converted to Christianity while a student at Cal Berkeley. Last year he accepted our call to become our parish priest. For us, he brings a rich Old Testament background to our community of faithful and we are grateful for his fiery and brilliant sermons. For him, I believe, he finds in our Anglican worship a rich liturgy flowering from Jewish roots in both word and action.

We have other Jewish converts in our midst, folks that came to believe the long awaited Messiah was indeed born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, lived, died, and was resurrected so that we might be resurrected too. But they also are drawn here by incense, chants, bells, and soaring worship, by the beauty of holiness lauded in the singing of the Psalms.

I was thinking about this as I witnessed baby Joshua being baptized in church this morning. One of Joshua’s grandparents is Jewish, so his baptism added another Hebraic stream to our river of faithful. Through water and Spirit, through the words of the priest and the vows of the godparents, Joshua became one with the Body of Christ, our New Israel.

Our New Israel. For in spite of the horrific conflicts between Jews and Christians over two millennia, orthodox Christianity holds that Christ did not found a new church but was the fulfillment of the old, promised by God to Israel through the prophets. As Christians, we are an extension, as it were, of Judaism. And in baptism those outside the New Israel, outside the Church, are brought inside; those not a part of the Body become one with the Body of Christ. When Joshua is twelve (or so), he will be confirmed by the bishop. He will receive the Holy Eucharist and become one with Christ in an even deeper and more fulfilling way.

The Good Shepherd finds his sheep, no matter how scattered they may be. They may be from older traditions, different traditions, or no traditions at all. They may be clinging to a mountainside of doubt, fleeing a burning forest of anger, lost in a desert of despair and loneliness. The shepherd finds them and brings them home to safety, to love.

Our preacher said today that Christianity provides the map to Heaven, both in this life and the next. Some parents say they want their children to grow up with no faith so that they can choose when they are adults. But why wouldn’t we want to give our children maps to Heaven? our preacher asked. Why wouldn’t we want to give them directions, signposts, lights to light the path? If we know how to get there, shouldn’t we show them the way? 

God gave the Old Israel a map. God’s people journeyed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph to Moses to Joshua, from the kings through the prophets, through wars and persecutions and slavery. They drew close to God and drew away from God, but God always brought them back to him. His people were clearly chosen, clearly set apart. And Christians too, as the New Israel, are chosen. They are sanctified, set apart. This happens in baptism in the miracle of water and Spirit. This happens when the Children of Israel, or any of us who are wandering in the desert, are baptized into the Body of Christ, and we are set on the road to Heaven. We are given a map.

The Gospel today was the story of the Good Samaritan, a parable reaching beyond one’s own people, one’s own tradition. While the story is about love, about caring for a man beaten and robbed and left for dead on the side of the road, it is also about prejudice and fear. Two Jews – a priest and a Levite – pass by on the other side, ignoring the victim, whose blood would make them unclean. A Samaritan, considered outcast by the Jews, stops, binds his wounds, brings him to an inn, cares for him, and even pays the innkeeper to continue the care.

This morning, our Jewish priest poured water on the head of Joshua, saying, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”  Another sheep was brought into our fold. Another child of Israel was made one with God in the Body of Christ through water and Spirit.

And as for me, I am thankful that I too have a map to Heaven.

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Rare Books

Posted on August 18, 2013 | 1 comment

I visited an intriguing bookshop in Walnut Creek this last week.  It is owned and operated by a friend who loves old books – those printed before World War II. After creating a significant inventory in her home and setting up an online business, she took a leap of faith and established a “bricks-and-mortar” store in a charming old-town area of Walnut Creek. 

Walnut Creek is a suburb of San Francisco, and while once a quiet crossroads with horses and cattle grazing the surrounding hills, today it is a bustling town. But Main Street has retained its small town feel, not too different from my childhood memories with quaint shops, cafes, and shade trees. Parallel with Main runs Locust Street and the two streets form a quaint village center, perfect for strolling after a movie (around the corner) or a bite to eat or a coffee. 

Bookstores have had challenges here just as they have everywhere. A Barnes & Noble is farther away in a larger shopping area. There used to be a used bookstore in the Main Street neighborhood, but it closed its doors a number of years ago. So it is pleasing to see another store appear in the mix of shops that is book-related. 

Swan’s Fine Books is just that – run by Laurelle Swan and full of rare books. Set back from shady Locust Avenue and across the street from the Lark Creek Inn café, her store is immaculate. There was little musty smell that accompanies old books; the ambience was more of a genteel library with good lighting, attractive shelving, cozy corners to sit and browse. Only a few of the titles are behind glass – the rarest of the rare – so the visitor may enjoy holding and peeking into titles of all kinds. A Winnie-the-Pooh first edition caught my eye, but there were many other temptations. A few folks came in to look around, and I liked the fact that Laurelle allowed them to meander about on their own. “Book lovers like to to that,” she said, smiling, and I nodded. How true, I thought. 

Laurelle tells us on her website: 

Our desire is to allow you to both find that treasured book you’ve longed for, as well as to experience the wonder and delight of finding a new author or book you never knew was out there: to fall in love all over again and experience the reader’s wonder and delight.

Yes, wonder and delight is what I felt as I traveled through time in this shop. She showed me her different sections, by country and era and subject. Each book – it’s binding, its contents, it’s generation – was like a visitor from the past pulling me in. Some volumes had etchings that made them valuable; others the edition made them rare; others were simply unique, never to be duplicated, found treasures. The children’s books, especially, opened a window on another time, a simpler time, a time not far from my own childhood.

I thought about reading and my courtship with words as I travel into them, hearing them echo other words and meanings, my finger on the corner of the page, ready to turn, not wanting to lose the flow. I thought about those writers who were gone from us but their words occupied these shelves and here I was looking at them, reading them, in downtown Walnut Creek in 2013. I thought about the miracle of our brains, how our minds work to link us with one another through language, spoken and written, link our time with other times, the present with the past and future.

This morning in Sunday School as we sat in our circle and prayed the Our Father together, I was struck by the enormity of prayer and praying and offering our words of praise and petition to God, for in offering our words we offered ourselves. We folded our hands. We knelt. Our several voices became one, as we gave voice to this best-of-all prayers. Our words rose to heaven. I was stunned by language and its power to silence us to listen to its voice. 

The journey of words is captivating. They form in my mind, drift to my tongue to become speech, travel into the air to become conversation with God or with one another. Or they slip into my fingers and onto this keyboard, suddenly appearing on this white screen. Or they live in a book waiting in time and space. A miracle. 

So it was fun to travel through time and space in Laurelle’s unique shop, a truly rare bookstore, one-of-a-kind. Swan’s hosts free events from time to time (last Friday there was live jazz and wine) so her shop is swiftly becoming part of the neighborhood. She also features a shelf of local authors (yes, my books are there…) even if they aren’t rare (authors or books). With validated parking, it’s a pleasant visit to a unique setting, with some nice eateries close by. She’s always adding to her collection and she welcomes browsers. 

To see photos of the store and some of her treasures online, visit www.swansfinebooks.com. Or stop by and say hi for me: Swan’s Fine Books, 1381 Locust Street, Walnut Creek.

 

 

 

 

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Transfiguration

Posted on August 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Summer seems to end early these days, with schools starting mid-August. Gone are the Labor Day weekends devoted to shopping for school supplies and school shoes. Gone, too, are the last few weeks of August when our sleepy, lazy days stretched on forever. 

This ending of summer, coupled with a chilly few weeks in the Bay Area, pushes me to think of fall and going back to school, of endings and beginnings. Trained as a child that when summer ended school began, I still think in these terms, although my school days are long past. My children’s school days are long past as well (except for the fourth-grade teacher, I suppose), but my grandchildren certainly are ending their summer days and beginning their school days this month. 

For many years the scents of the season, the chilly mornings and hot afternoons, triggered within me anxious dreams bordering on fears – being on time for class, finding my locker, and the worst of all, arriving in my pajamas.  I haven’t had such dreams that I recall in a long time, which shows time does heal and repair. But I recall vividly the anticipation of that first school day, waiting for the school bus with my books cradled in my arm (no backpacks then), balancing a bag lunch somewhere, not sure where. Did I remember my dime for the orange-aid machine? (no cafeterias, no sodas)

I remember the sound of the school bells ringing, not really sounding like bells, but more like staccato notes strung tightly together, shrilly stinging through the air, slicing, horizontal. They were a happy sound for the most part, an it’s-time-to-come-on-in sound, but they also carried a warning note so that the fear of being marked tardy added wings to my feet. Was that the five minute bell? Or the final bell?

I slid into the desk, arranged my things, watched the teacher and the broad blackboard (really dark green). I prepared my attention for what was to come. Oral reports? Pop quiz? Did I complete the homework in time? Did I remember to bring it? I recall the smell of the metal-and-wood desks with their attached seats and their sloping surface that opened to a compartment in which to place things. I don’t recall what I put in there (eraser? pencil? ruler?) or if I always had the same desk… it surely varied from year to year, grade to grade. We all faced the same direction – toward the front and the board and the teacher and the teacher’s huge desk, heavy and sturdy like a barge and command center rolled into one – and perhaps this arrangement instilled a reverence for authority. 

I liked the way the room was arranged. It provided security. I liked that the teacher could give me knowledge, as though on a platter, and I could receive it, feed on it. And I could trust the person who served me. She or he was, after all, a Teacher. She would change my thought processes, rearrange my words and ideas, she would fill me with images and solutions to so many problems. Reading, writing, arithmetic. California history, U.S. History, World History. Civics – the three branches of government and who we are as Americans. What freedom meant and why we fought wars to protect our freedom. She would explain my world, give me the tools to cast my vote one day. She would transfigure my thought processes, the workings of my mind. 

Transfiguration. Change of a miraculous and mysterious nature. We celebrated the Transfiguration this week in our Church Kalendar, a stunning moment in the life of Christ on earth. Peter and James and John go with Jesus to a mountain to pray. As Jesus prays, they see his “countenance altered, and his raiment white and glistering”. Elijah and Moses appear and they speak of what was to come in Jerusalem. When the two ancient prophets leave, Peter doesn’t really understand – he wants to build altars to the three of them as though they were equals. It is then that a cloud covers the apostles and they are afraid. They hear God speak to them through the cloud, “This is my beloved son: hear him.” Jesus is not merely another prophet.

Christ’s transfiguration occurred as he prayed. He opened the door to heaven, he broke the chains of time. He was in both worlds. Just so, when we pray, we open the door to another dimension. And when we think and learn and allow words and phrases to re-figure our minds and hearts we open doors to change, to a kind of transfiguration. What we do matters. What we think matters. Who we pray to matters. Who we listen to matters. For we will be transfigured. Nothing is lost, not one second, not one minute is lost in eternity.

So we choose our teachers wisely. We choose our reading wisely. We even choose our entertainment – media and games and events – with the thought to how they will reshape us. We join in weekly worship, so that we will be transfigured rightly and not wrongly. We listen to Scripture and sermon with the knowledge that the changes made inside us will be good ones, Godly ones. We are transfigured, changed, by the holy.

And so, on this edge of seasons, I wait with anticipation to see what shall enter my hearing, my sight, my heart and mind. A new season is near, approaching steadily, I can see it coming, it is in my view. I watch and wait, just as I did for the yellow school bus so many years ago. Where will God lead me? What are his plans? How will I be transfigured in the days to come?

I am certain that, as a part of the Body of Christ, the Church, I will continue on this marvel-ous adventure, in an ongoing transfiguration, and of this I am glad.

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Sunday Surprises

Posted on August 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

It’s been a day of pleasant surprises.

As I checked my email this morning, before leaving for church, my picture flashed up on Catholic.Ink, a newsletter of CatholicFiction.net and Tuscany Press showcasing Catholic authors and books. The interview was a while back, and I had forgotten it. What a surprise! I read it with fear and trembling, thinking occasionally, is that really me? It was one of many seeds planted in the last year. Many seeds I plant never sprout, let alone flower. So it was a pleasant surprise. 

I had forgotten about it by the time we arrived at church in a bitter, numbing fog. I turned on the heat in the Sunday School rooms (heat in August? I asked myself, shivering). The balloons and welcome sign were already by the entrance and I set out the materials for the crafts, the cloth for our circle time, the storybook, the snack, and the poster board attendance chart waiting for its sticky stars to shine like a rainbow. Our sunflower plants had emerged from the black loamy soil in their little pails and there were even some green leaves. Natalie (3 ½) will be happy with that, I thought. 

Summer Sundays are often quiet and predictable, for folks go on vacation, attendance is lower, and today our rector was gone as well, and it, well, it just seemed like it would be quiet, slow. 

The children arrived and we stuck our sticky stars on the chart and gathered together around the circle, praying, talking, and singing about the saints of God. We worked on our crafts and watered the plants and lined up in the narthex for our blessing, then stepped solemnly up the red-carpeted aisle to the altar rail where our senior priest blessed us and gave the teachers Holy Communion. We padded back to our classroom and finished our projects.

We were beginning to put things away when I saw, standing in the doorway, a gentleman from the past whose uncle had been a dear friend, now in Heaven, probably one of those saints we were singing about. What joy it gave my husband and me to chat with Tim, mid-forties I guessed but looking much younger as he spoke of God in his life (“I’ve been reborn,” he cried at one point), what memories he brought back, as though Father Gilman were right there with us, chuckling and rubbing his chin, and saying I told you so. 

Happy with this turn of events, we headed toward the stairs to go down to the hall for coffee. Swimming in a current of memories of Father Gilman, I was surprised by the approach of my good friend Edwina. She introduced me to her pretty granddaughters, seventeen and eighteen. “They want to be baptized,” she announced quietly, her face alight as though she had discovered a great secret or was planning a coup. “When can we do it?” she asked me. I led them to the baptismal font in the back of the nave and we spoke a bit about baptism, the action of God through water and the Holy Spirit, the becoming part of the family of God, the Body of Christ. I gave them some materials to look over and promised that the rector would call them soon. By the time we all trundled down to have our coffee, we had become family, soon to become God’s family, a close connection indeed.

Downstairs in the parish hall I rejoined my husband and Tim. We chatted about Father Gilman, the old times, sharing the many stories of this robust man of God. Father Gilman was tall, a hefty man, once an engineer (he built tunnels through the Rocky Mountains, he told me), who had found his priestly vocation upon retirement. He loved to laugh, but what many recalled was his discipline. He ran the Bishop’s office like a Marine another once said (I for one appreciated this aspect, working in the office from time to time). He barked at acolytes who were late to Mass. He was a practical man and a spiritual man too, an effective combination. He knew when to be quiet and he knew when to act. He was thoughtful and watchful. He wasn’t afraid of warning people they were going to step off a cliff. As we chatted with Tim, I thought how the past linked us together like a great fishing net, or wove us into a huge tapestry. Seeds sprouted, full-flowered, within minutes in my soul. “As you get older,” Tim said, shaking his head and smiling (just as his uncle once did), “you look back and see connections.” How true, I thought, and how good it was to have such blessings travel with us as we age. 

Looking back in my own life I see patterns form, remarkable connections made, and I often think the saints in Heaven pull the strings this way and that as though we were part of a great drama, but of course it’s so much more than that. I do wonder, though, at times, if one day from my Heavenly perch I might be able to nudge or prod those I love who are still on earth, nudge them toward God, since I would be surrounded by the power and glory of the Father, Christ would be beside me, the wind of the Holy Spirit would be at my back, the angels would be whispering and fluttering. The temptation, it seems, would be to forget those on earth when one is so transfixed with God himself. One day I shall see; one day I shall know.

In the meantime I watch and wait for these amazing surprises, these moments of sudden joy, of the sun coming out. C.S. Lewis once said (and Father Raymond Raynes said this as well, so I’m not sure who was first; they were contemporaries, both saintly men) that belief in Christianity was like belief in the sun rising. When the sun rises, we know it has risen not because we can see the sun clearly, but because we can see everything else. Just so, God lights up the world and we can see.

I suppose the greatest surprise of all is that I’m still surprised, surprised by joy, way more than pleasantly surprised, but stunningly, excruciatingly, sweetly surprised. Today I have added a few more bright sticky stars to my own chart of Sundays. My chart is sprouting color like crazy, this sudden Sunday, the Tenth after Trinity in the year 2013, with all these rainbows weaving through my time, here and in eternity.

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On Princes and Kings

Posted on July 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

This last week a prince was born to the House of Windsor. 

A sudden intake of air, a soft gasp of delight, was heard around the world. We sighed with joy when we learned of the birth of Prince George Alexander Louis in a London hospital. Royalty comes and goes, rises and falls in public opinion, but this week all the world watched and waited for the birth, then listened for the name. We heard the melody, the song that births new life. 

We do not have royalty in America, at least none that we officially recognize. We treat Hollywood stars like royalty, to be sure. And we place some politicians on pedestals that crumble all too quickly beneath them. We yearn for the royalty we do not have, so we make it up as we go along. We yearn for the kingship of God. 

There must have been a similar moment of sudden delight two thousand-plus Christmases ago when kings in the East saw the magnificent star rise in the night sky, portending great things for the peoples of the earth. They too must have experienced a hushed expectancy, wonder, and joy. They sensed a right and good thing had happened, was coming among them. They followed the star to the manger-cave outside Bethlehem. There they knelt before the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Son of God. 

Humanity, I believe, has an innate, if not always recognized, love of God and desire for Him, a hope that streams through our very being. So when a prince is born, even though he be royalty of human making, there is a collective sigh. The prince in the London hospital, third in line to the throne of England, recalls the true prince, the Prince of Peace. 

This love of God informs our ceremonial rites of passage, times when we join man and woman in marriage, times when we celebrate birth in baptism, times when we support the family that is the protector of life and the genesis of the future, in inter-generational gatherings. And the family extends to church family which reaches out to community and country and world, the family of God. 

My niece visited this last week and introduced us to her fiance.   We shared their announcement with other family members, and made a special visit to my mother so that my niece could introduce her young man to her 93-year-old grandmother. Once again I heard the melody of divine purpose, repeating in a different key that song streaming from the heart of God. This man and woman will join together in public ceremony, for marriage is important to societal well-being.  They will vow to love one another in sickness and in health. They will exchange rings. They will become one flesh and will welcome new life into their newly formed family. They will give to the world the next generation, just as Kate and William have given the next generation to the House of Windsor. 

Of course there were wars and rumors of wars in the news this week too. Many are suffering, troubled, lost. Many do not know God, do not hear his music or his invitation to dance with him in the great dance of life. Many are alone, have chosen to cover their ears, not wanting to hear the music.

My week hovered in my mind as I gathered the children around the shiny yellow table in Sunday School this morning. The younger ones colored, and the older ones worked on memory assignments. As we worked together we talked about the Resurrection of Christ, the Prince who became our King, about God’s great love for us, sending his son to die for us. Now, as I write this, I see how it all forms a pattern, a poem, a concerto. Marriage, children, God’s stunning love song weaving through our midst. How do we hear his song? Because a woman named Mary Magdalene was witness to the risen Christ and ran to tell the others. Because the others wrote it all down and we have the words they wrote. And the words form a melody.

A child was born that Christmas night two thousand years ago. A prince was given to us. Heaven’s melody rose to full symphony with harps and strings and trumpets. The world rejoiced, the forests wept with happiness, the stars danced, the seas roared, for a royal prince was born. The prince would live, die, and live again. He would be crowned King of Kings.

Earthly kings pale to our Heavenly King, yet we respond to the birth of an earthly prince because we have known, and know, a true Heavenly Prince. God’s love song fills our hearts and minds and we give thanks for every marriage and every birth, every miraculous joining and every breath of new life.

Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

 

 

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Patient and Brave and True

Posted on July 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

My husband and I drove from one micro-climate to another this morning as we headed to our local church, from valley sun to coastal fog. I entered the Sunday School rooms, switched on the lights, and leaned the welcome sign against the front door.

I inflated balloons – red, blue, yellow, green – and tied them to white ribbon, making a Sunday School bouquet, and hung them next to the sign outside. The sign read, “Summer Sunday School, Saints of God, All Welcome.” I left the door ajar in spite of a cold breeze that had found its way through the July fog and into our church.

All was ready – the Attendance Chart with its stickers, the circular rug for Circle Time, the organ accompaniment downloaded into my smart phone for “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” Small pails, pink and blue, waited for seeds and soil, the beginnings of new life, one of our summer projects.

I Sing a Song of the Saints of GodThe teachers arrived, followed by the children. We sat around the circle and read the story about the Saints of God (based on the hymn).  I tapped my phone and the organ accompaniment began. We stood, singing and illustrating the words with hand movements and twirls. As we sang (and twirled) I pondered the words of this classic hymn (243):

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
 
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green:
They were all of them saints of God – and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
 
They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake,
The whole of their good lives long.
 
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
And there’s not any reason – no, not the least –
Why I shouldn’t be one too.
 
They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still,
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus’ will.
 
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too. (Lesbia Scott)
 

I love this hymn for it defines a saint as practicing ordinary virtues. Saints are patient, brave, and true. Saints simply love God and because they love him, they try to do his will. They are “just folk like me.” They may not always succeed (saints are not perfect) but they try.

Patience and bravery are clear enough. But true? The saints were true to the truth. They believed God became man and died for us, rising again. And they were martyred, rather than deny this vital truth. They were martyred for witnessing to it, for telling folks the good news.

Mary MagdaleneMy recent novel, The Magdalene Mystery, is about truth and its telling in the media, in academia, and in the Church. It is about the truth of Saint Mary Magdalene, who she was and who she wasn’t. It is about how we know what we know about the stunning events of that first century, events that changed our world, indeed, saved our world.

Tomorrow, July 22, is the Magdalene’s feast day, and we celebrate this woman who knew Christ Jesus, was the first to see the risen Christ, and preached his resurrection in Provence. With Bishop Maximin, she traveled the roads east of Marseilles, sharing the good news with this Greco-Roman culture. Some years later, she died and was buried in the area of Aix-en-Provence. Today, some of her relics rest in the cathedral in St. Maximin and some in the Grotto of La Sainte-Baume nearby, where legend says she lived her last years. Other relics are venerated in the Vézelay cathedral and some relics rest in her Paris basilica, La Madeleine. 

A group of American pilgrims are traveling to La Sainte-Baume for the annual Dominican pilgrimage from the town to the cave (Dominicans care for the grotto). They will pray for blessings, for patience, for bravery, for truth, and continue praying a novena, a nine-day prayer cycle. And, according to many, Mary Magdalene is a powerful saint and will hear these prayers. Paula Lawlor, a mother of seven from San Diego whose intercessory petition was answered some years ago, is leading the pilgrimage. She believes Mary Magdalene saved the life of her son, pulling him from an abyss. She believes this was a true miracle, and is now committed to witnessing for this saint. It is clear that Mary Magdalene changed Paula’s life.

Our Gospel today told of Christ’s warning against false prophets, “Ye shall know them by their fruits…”. We know the saints by their good fruits, by the lives they led, and lead among us today. As I sang with the children this morning, I knew Mary Magdalene would have done the same, teaching the next generation the truth about God and his mighty acts among men. She would have shared her love of God. She would have encouraged them to be saints too, to bring forth good fruit. Mary Magdalene was the first witness to the resurrection, and she witnessed throughout her life, just as we do today.

This morning at church, after coffee and conversation, my husband and I stepped outside. The fog was gone, the sun shone brightly, radiantly burning away the mist, allowing us to see the leafy greens and the blues of the sky. A dim curtain had been parted, lifted, burned away, just as it was parted two thousand years ago in that Easter tomb-garden when Mary Magdalene saw her risen Lord.

(To follow Paula’s pilgrimage, visit http://magdalenepublishing.org/blog/.)

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunday in Hana, Maui

Posted on July 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

Learning the Lord’s Prayer in Hawaiian may now be on my to-do list. I have picked up French and Italian “Our Father” phrases through the years, but Hawaiian is particularly foreign to my western ear. Even so, the prayer song this morning in Hana’s St. Mary’s Church was lilting and lovely and I think God smiled upon our efforts. 

On our way to St. Mary’s, we passed the Wananalua Church, the historic Congregational Church which is featured in my novel, Hana-lani (Nani-lei’s church with the big white cross), and continued the half block to the historic Catholic Church. St. Mary’s is a white church, inside and out. It’s whiteness is like entering a soft cloud, airy and arched, and its curved windows along the side aisles open onto a sea of green grass. At the door we were greeted warmly with leis of vines and leaves and wide smiles and kisses on the cheek. We found seats in a pew. Others came in, some greeting friends and family, some looking about for the first time, wondering at the airy interior, visitors like us.

The Mass danced through the white space. Hawaiian phrases sailed alongside English as though the temperate breezes blowing through the windows winged and paired them as they flew to the high altar. I felt as though I too had been borne up high on the “wings of a prayer” to a holy aerie. Yet, I knew that we the people anchored the pews as all around and above angels dived and soared in their airy dance.

It was a good thing to worship together here in Hana once more, and again I sensed the Body of Christ united before God’s altar, partaking of God himself, allowing God to weave through each of us as we stood in song or knelt in prayer. The hymns weren’t our classic Anglo-Catholic hymns from our home parish, but the beat was easy and the words profound, and as I found myself tapping my toe lightly on the hardwood floor, I sensed that we the people were pulled into the experience of worship itself. This is a good thing and not to be considered lightly – to be pulled into prayer and praise, singing together with one voice to God our creator. And it is not a good thing, I think, to be pushed away from joining in worship, to be watching as spectators, as sometimes happens in evangelical or even high liturgical productions, silencing the voices of the people in the pews. 

The Mass, the great prayer given to us by Christ, is meant to be a sacred shared supper, one that never loses sight of God’s presence in the bread and wine, always points to whom we worship with every fiber of our being, every intention of our soul. When we cross the threshold of a church, we step into the home of God and the home of his people. We become one in him and through him one with each other. We are in this place, this sacred space, to worship God, and to receive him into our hearts and bodies. We are God’s family, his dear children.

Hana, Maui is a small gentle town sloping to the sea. The green flanks of Haleakala rise to the west and the blue waters undulate to the east. The sun appears early, erupting from the curved horizon separating sea and sky, traveling up and turning slate to silver to deep sapphire. The trade winds soften the burning sun and the sky is an ever-changing drama of cloud formations.

And near the center of town, where Hasegawa’s General Store offers snacks and tackle and the Post Office connects with the rest of the world, a white church stands in the grass, with its doors open and welcoming. “Come on in,” the church says. “We love you.”

So we did just that this Sunday morning in Hana town, and I’m so glad we did.

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My Birthday in Hana

Posted on July 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

We flew into Hana on my sixty-sixth birthday. 

The ten-seater plane lurched and bounced a bit in the winds as it rose over Kahalui, but soon glided smoothly along the coastline of eastern Maui heading south to Hana. I peered through the window of the plane as we flew beneath the volcano Haleakala, the green pastures clothing her flanks, the skies framing her summit in a pale misty blue.

The outskirts of Kahalui were soon left behind as we sped alongside the black rock cliffs, mantled in green, and descended to a single runway that parted the rich rain forests of Hana. 

It is good to be back in Hana, the setting of my novel Hana-lani. It is summer here, the temperatures slightly higher than winter, the humidity weighing softly against my skin. The hotel greeted us with juice and cold cloths and soon we were riding in a cart, bouncing along the winding path through grassy gardens toward the sea. I climbed the stairs of our cottage, entered, crossed to the back veranda fenced with wire and green posts, a nod to the ranch hands’ cottages in the past. Once this hotel had been part of Hana Ranch. Today it is called Hotel Travaasa, owned and given new life by an investment group from Denver.

From the veranda I looked out over the swathe of freshly mowed grass to palms and foliage bordering the shore, and beyond to the crashing sea. The sound of the sea rushing and pounding reflected my heartbeat, as though the sea and I shared the same pulse. The rise and fall of the waves, their gentle rearing to reveal their opalescent underbellies, their bubbling white froth donned like like a lacy lei, their final fall onto the shore, their orchestral movement of sight and sound, mirrored my own ebb and flow, my own movement of body and soul, my own life blood.

It is as though my sixty-six years rolled with the waters, as though I sailed on an ark of time. But even before my sixty-six years, I sailed in my mother’s womb for nine months as my father pastored his first church in Fresno. The heat was suffocating that summer, my mother says, and I believe her. Fresno sits in California’s great agricultural basin, summers are warm, and in 1947 there was no air-conditioning.

My mother was twenty-seven, young and beautiful. Photos show a Queen Elizabeth twin, brunette curls, regular features, broad smile, slim build. She was at the time an enthusiastic Christian, with a Masters in Christian Education from Biblical Seminary in New York. When I was born, and the doctor announced I was a girl, she cried out “Another girl for the mission field!” Some thought she was delirious, since I was the first-born.

My sixty-six years have been, like most folks’ time on this earth, marked with tragedy and triumph, grief and joy, hard times and good times. Through it all, except for a few wayward college years, I have belonged to God and God has belonged to me.

Those college years were, as I look back, difficult ones, dry ones, years of drifting and despair. But finally I returned to the one who makes sense of our lives, our loves, our wrong turns. I am today grateful for that return to belief at the age of twenty, for the grace to believe, thankful to C. S. Lewis for his Mere Christianity, giving me the tools of a reasonable faith.

And so it is also with supreme gratitude to God that my recent novel about the nature of reasonable faith, what is true and what isn’t, what happened that first Easter morning when Mary Magdalene saw the risen Christ, is now published, my characters free to breathe deeply their first breaths, traveling up from each page.

There is a “leap” of faith, I believe, usually made in all belief, but this leap is more of a baby step. It is merely, simply, an openness to God’s grace working inside. Once I took that baby step, once I opened my mind, heart, and soul, redemption was allowed and I could see. And of course, sanctification continues with each minute, hour, day, week, month, year, with each sacrament and prayer…. until we step into the other world that is the real world, our earthly world a merely pale reflection.

We see, as St. Paul says, through a glass darkly. But we see a clearer vision of God in the Jesus of history. 

On my birthday, I am thankful for all of this.

(PS: Posted from the hotel library, the only place to get an Internet signal…)

 

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