Christine Sunderland

Friday was the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. I find angels to be special gifts we are given. They are messengers, guardians, and protectors. It is easy to forget that they are all around us. I firmly believe that I have my own guardian angel that prompts me, protects me, and encourages me.

We are told that Michael and his godly angels drove Lucifer and the demonic angels from Heaven, in St. John’s great vision revealed to him on the Island of Patmos:

“THERE was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” (Revelation 12:7+, Book of Common Prayer, 252)

This is a powerful passage, one that predates Adam and Eve and their fall from grace, one that finds Lucifer in the form of a snake tempting Eve. But Mary becomes the new Eve, grinding the serpent with her foot, giving birth to the one who will overcome Lucifer by his own blood, the “blood of the Lamb.”

For now is come salvation, strength, the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.

And so in this rich passage, we see the beginnings and the endings, so that we understand our gift of salvation in the endings, either of our earthly life or the end-times of Earth. Either way, we are welcomed by Christ into his Kingdom. We are welcomed to the great feast, the supper of the Lamb, the Heavenly table. We are invited to be a guest, to make merry with many others who have said yes to Christ, yes to his invitation.

In the mean-time, we on Earth watch the creeping and slithering of the dark angels, the demons. We see persecution of believers, persecution of faith, persecution of virtuous living and those who seek to practice the moral law given to our world in time. We see silencing and shunning, redefining truth to embrace lies, filling a vacuum that many Christians have left when they ceded the public square to a secular culture.

For Christ gave humanity entrance to the Garden of Eden and we have chosen to remain in the jungle of death. We have chosen to look the other way, passing by the wounded man on the side of the road, wanting only to be left alone. We must speak the truth, that men are men and women are women, that parents have the right to raise their children and determine their education, that abortion can only be an option when the life (not just the health) of the mother is at stake. We must call genocide by its name, and all holocausts by their deeds. We must defend the defenseless, execute our laws, respect justice meted out equally. We must respect all persons, unite and not divide, for everyone is made in the image of God.

And so I am thankful for Michael and all his Angels. I pray they give us courage and wisdom to fight the good fight, meet hate with love, and speak truth to lies.

We know how the story ends. God wins. We want to be on God’s side, to be sure. We want to be on the side of life not death. There will be an accounting.

For as my bishop of blessed memory reminded me often, all is grace.

I’ve been thinking about home, having just discovered a beautiful book series called The Theology of Home by Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering. What is home? Home on earth is where our family is or was, where we feel (felt) safe and loved. Home is where we are seen as the individual we see in ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, our habits and ways of living and speaking. Home is not a house as the real estate folks insist. Home is a gathering of a family who loves us unconditionally (ideally).

My mother-in-law was not raised in a normal home. She was moved from foster care to foster care, at one point sleeping in a bath tub. Yet she valued home for she yearned for it and created, I believe, a home for her sons and husband in the 1930’s and 1940’s. She extended her home to her church home and her school home with volunteer work and leadership. She was a devout Methodist, and she knew about home from her Lord, whom she would meet when she returned to her heavenly home.

I recently saw “Fahrenheit 451” (the remake, 2018) in which home and family are enemies of the state. Several images have stayed with me, ways of speaking truth to a dying culture, warning us that we are on a path away from our heritage of freedom, a crooked path we need to make straight, one taking us away from our nation’s home, the founding principles and documents (creeds, essentially) that form our cultural home of freedom.

The story is set in a world in which the written word must be destroyed. Books are burned, movies are burned, anything offering ideas or debate or history is burned, and speech of this nature is against the law. The rationale given is that these books that allow people to think, especially to argue, destroy the peace and happiness of humanity. We are much better off, it is decided, if we don’t think at all. There is a daily dose of eye drops that aids this tranquility, so that every citizen can find the peace (and by inference, happiness) they so desire.

Peace. We all want peace, right? But at what price? Many already drug themselves to deaden their emotions, to feel less pain, to avoid suffering at all costs.

The alternative, allowing people to speak, to write, to debate, is fraught with challenges. Thus, in democracies or republics where we are all given a voice (in theory), rules must be followed, respect maintained, and at the end of the day debaters shake hands. In peace. A framework, the Founders believed was important – checks and balances on the powers of government, free elections, and goodwill, so that there is a just, even-handed, playing field for all.

It appears we must be dependent upon individual goodwill, an honor system. Manners, customs, traditions that birth goodwill must be nurtured and taught to the next generation. Rules of behavior are learned from a young age in the school of the family, for we learn by living together in close proximity. We learn to love one another, not necessarily like one another, a difficult thing to do, from our parents, and our grandparents. We learn that love means sacrifice and possible suffering, for love is a gift given to the beloved, the gift of oneself, one’s time, one’s care. It is the gift of coming home.

When the family is attacked, we lose God’s way of teaching us how to live together, how to be civil.

And without civility, we cannot speak to one another. We cannot write contrary thoughts. Without respect for all persons, if not all viewpoints, we find ourselves at war with one another, rather than at peace.

And so this movie is about a world that has given up on civility between speakers and thus must silence speech of any serious or profound nature. But there is an underground world of booklovers who seek to save the many conversations between reader and writer since the first scratches discovered on the walls of caves. These secret librarians do more than save the books, however. They memorize their contents.

Memory is the handmaiden of history, for memory holds close these alternative views, these alternative actions that populate the past – the disagreements, the wars, the cultures who defended the right to write and the sanctity of speech. Memory reminds us what happens when freedom is lost, when mankind is silenced, when gatherings are disbanded. We do not have to reinvent the wheel, as they say, or more to the point, reinvent civilization, reinvent the home.

Today we see a conscious effort to divide the family and families of faith found born in churches. These institutions nurture personal choice, personal responsibility, and personal civility with a litany of vices and virtues. The list is clear and forms a path to civility and freedom of speech:

The Theological (theos=God) Virtues

1. Faith: Belief in God and His love for us.
2. Hope: Belief that God will work out all things for good.
3. Charity (Love): Love of God and of our fellow men.

The Cardinal (Important) Virtues

1. Justice: Being fair to others.
2. Prudence: Thinking before acting.
3. Temperance: Not over-eating or over-drinking.
4. Fortitude: Courage and endurance

The Ten Commandments etched in stone on Mount Sinai give us a way to love one another, civilly. The Church and the family provide methods to confess one’s vices, to repent, and to be forgiven by the supreme justice of all, God the Father, and to cultivate the virtues. The architecture of peace lies in this tradition, a Judeo-Christian tradition that teaches us how to honor all mankind, born and unborn. 

This is no small thing. This is not something to ignore or toss out or silence.

And so, in my novel, The Music of the Mountain, I explore some of these challenges in our world today, as I have done in The Fire Trail (2016) and Angel Mountain (2020). Our world is close to the book burning described by Ray Bradbury. We have allowed the shunning and firing of those who say the wrong words. We look away, as they did in Hitler’s Germany in the 1930’s. Our nation is moving closer and closer to silencing by force.

In the film, each person in the underground book world has memorized a book. In some sense, he or she has become the book, embodying the book. Just so, we must not forget virtues and vices and their importance to our lives of freedom. We must not forget the creeds, the psalms, the Scriptures that light the path for all humanity. We must learn these rituals and hymns and responses by heart, to be engrafted upon our hearts.

We must not forget how to love one another, how to form families, how to bear children, and how to gather together in faith communities.

We must not forget that we are words, spoken words, created in the image of God, our ultimate home.

One of the delights of being a Christian is that I am never bored. Or at least I cannot recall the last time I was bored, and given my memory and age, it may be true that I’m not to be trusted.

Nevertheless, I continue to marvel at the created world, including cats and people. And so that is my excuse for detouring into Ancestry this last week and allowing chunks of time to be happily offered to my relatives, living and dead. For each person is a work of art, a universe, a miracle and a mystery, and I am told by some folks who have returned from Heaven (near-death experiences) that we will see our family, at least those in Heaven. They even form a greeting committee in some cases. Only Heaven knows, as my grandmother, of blessed memory, would say, chuckling and grinning, tilting her head in an impish manner.

One way or another, life is certainly an adventure.

But I was able to write a few passages in The Music of the Mountain, filling in the character of my ethics professor, Patricia Norton, with a little more backstory. She has a secret, of course, and she has suffered for it. Such suffering haunts her, as suffering does to most of us, and while many seek therapy as my Patricia has done, I for one  prefer prayer and memorizing Psalms and other parts of the Daily Offices, highly effective at banning the ghosts of suffering. I have built a library, I suppose, in my memory bank, that I draw on now gratefully, reciting the Venite and the Te Deum and Psalm 100, Glory be to God… There are responsory prayers too, called versicles, I learned from an author I am editing, with a view to soon publishing his booklet, Praying the Daily Offices, with our American Church Union Publishing group.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20 ++ Artist is William Holman Hunt 1827-1910, United Kingdom ++ Title is LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

It is a richly textured life, this world of conversations with God. For I listen for his voice, and hear it in many ways, through other people, through thoughts that come to me suddenly, unbidden, that clearly are better than my own. So I invite Him in as often as possible, rather than leaving Him on the front porch knocking as seen in this image by by Holman Hunt.

I have come to believe that He needs an invitation. Having set up free will in order for us to freely love, He likes to be invited into our hearts and thus into our world. So I try each morning, with my first cup of coffee, to strike up a conversation with Almighty God. And see what happens. At least He knows that my door is open.

What if we all asked Him into our hearts, say, once an hour? Is this how He can see the world, only through our eyes? Residing within, He sees what I see and He knows my thoughts too. He knows me.

Some friends in Kentucky who run the retreat house, Nazareth House, and know something about prayer taught me to breathe the Holy Name of Jesus in and out, and I do when I remember. That is a kind of invitation too, and a jeweled tool to add to my treasure chest of hymns and prayers and eucharists. For the more we bring him into our bodies, the easier it will be to ascend that ladder to Heaven.

And so in the discovery of some of my ancestors, as well as some of my living relatives, I have been given a lovely gift, a necklace of diamonds reflecting many different facets and faces. It is hard to believe, really grasp, the marvelous intricacies of humanity, the genetic codes, the bits inherited and bits created in a lifetime of choices, all forming me. And you. And everyone everywhere, no two alike.

Animals too. No two alike. Plants. No two alike. How can such infinite variety be comprehended? That is one of the arguments recent scientists have made for the existence of God. The Discovery Institute is a good place to start that journey. And I have written about these things in my novels and in these pages, for the journey through our own time becomes more and more joyful, not less. There are always discoveries, always God noticing that the door is open, always God, the Creator of the Universe, loving us enough to become one of us, to enter each one of us, to live inside each one of us.

It only gets better, this river of joy.

So, as I think of this week, and the moments I shared with family living on Earth and family living in Heaven, I wonder at it all. It is so magnificent, and there are not words to describe this, the indescribable. Hence we try to paint pictures and tell stories and sculpt heroes and heroines. Hence we speak as best we can, speak the truth, once we have allowed our Lord to live within us.

Simple worship. Simple seeing. Simple love. It’s all quite simple, this trusting God to make all things right. We simply open the door and invite Him in. As often as possible.

I’m pleased to say I have finally found a few hours to return to my manuscript, the first draft of my eighth novel. I have found that as I age, I move more slowly with more aches and more pains and greater care not to trip and fall. And as this natural progression occurs, one that pulls me toward my final, eternal, and glorious destination, I am also caretaker for two others, my mother (103) and my husband (88, but I didn’t tell you). So oddly, there is less and less time for… playing around with words.

I’m beginning to think writing a novel is rather like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. This may have been said already (another loss, memory) in these pages, but it struck me this week that I can create the pieces to the puzzle, one at a time, and then fit it all together with plot and character. So I created a file of “bits and pieces”), paragraphs my characters are not yet ready for, to be used sometime in the future chapters and pages of the book. I may not use them at all. I have learned to part with 75% of what I write, when I give the finals a good scrubbing. Tests must be passed to achieve clarity and pacing. Chapters must be short to attract the general reader who, they say, reads at a fifth grade level. It’s probably 3rd grade now, with all the “graphic novels.” I used to think graphic novels were porn, but no, they are comic books. How did this happen to our people?

But those tests will be much later, after readers have read drafts and editors have weighed in. And at the end of the day, I won’t be woke enough to appeal to today’s publishers. But I’m happy to slip under the radar, in exchange for telling the truth as I see it, nothing but the truth, so help me God.

And I do need God to help me. He gave me some good ideas this morning in our little Berkeley chapel. I jotted things down as we sang and prayed and listened to our good vicar preach on healing of body and soul (hint: the Gospel was about the healing of the ten lepers). And the Epistle before that was the amazing St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians (5:16+). He likes lists, and so do I, since they are easy to understand, and even memorize. He gave us two lists today, the Works of the Flesh and the Works of the Spirit. He speaks of misuse of the flesh, against God’s law, and the rewards of the Spirit:

Works of the Flesh, those against God’s law: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like… they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

(Christians revere the flesh, the body, for we were created by God, but we understand we must observe those boundaries ordained by our Creator. These laws, when kept, help us experience the second list, the fruits of the Holy Spirit.)

Fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

This instruction was helpful, given my novel-in-progress involves a Professor of Ethics who assigns memory work. But she is not a believer. Where does she find her moral compass, the law? Is there a natural law some speak of? And so I look to the Moral Theology class I’m auditing on Zoom, taught by Bp. Hansen. While I’m not keeping up with the reading, I pray I will absorb some of the ideas in the class. I have always found the moral law fascinating, ever since I read Mere Christianity the first time, and followed Lewis’ argument that right and wrong were clues to the universe. At the time, at the young age of twenty, he offered enough logical proof for me to begin a faith journey that I am still enjoying, fifty-six years later. 

And today, in an increasingly secular world, many are concerned with moral law. If there is no outside arbiter or author of said law, can it govern a society? I’m not sure it can.

But I digress. I have found these readings to be good reminders of how the universe is, indeed, set up. Mankind is its own universe in a sense, and Christians have the magnificent means of understanding who they are and are meant to be. We do this through our sacred texts and rituals, words and song that form their own informed work of art.

Looking back to this morning, the experience of singing and saying and listening and learning together with others, where many voices become one voice, and many prayers become one prayer, I see a sculpted hour that is indeed its own work of art. It was an hour of our time, mine and other faithful, that became a creation of love, a song or symphony of praise, an offering of men and women to their Creator. And in return, Christ gave us himself. Pretty good exchange.

I can’t think of anything quite like it. Somehow this morning and many other Sunday mornings will work their way into my novel, for how else can you describe the indescribable? I think I shall have my Father Adams reminisce about the glory days when the chapel was open, before the pandemic, before the lockdowns, before the closures and the riots and the lootings. When he does, maybe reminiscing to Professor Norton, he shall describe what I saw and said and sang this morning.

And it is curious, that our liturgy developed when an illiterate people took part, many centuries ago. You don’t have to be able to read in order to hear and say and sing and see. If you go regularly you learn by heart, engrafted on your heart. It may be that this is the liturgy of the future, as we turn the clocks back to an illiterate time, a time of graphic novels, pictures, apps, and screens.

And this too may find its way into Music of the Mountain, set on Angel Mountain, a story of how we saved Western Civilization, one book at a time, one song at a time, one prayer at a time, one chapel kept open at a time of closures.

I’ve been thinking about time and the language we use to describe this remarkable, mystical, and mortal aspect of our existence. We see time as something tangible that we are given and that we spend. We have a limited amount, clearly, for how we spend it matters. We say time was lost, time disappeared, time passed. We hold an account of time, rather like a bank deposit, like coins paid out or hoarded.

I often have an urgent sense that life is short, and when I mentioned this to my bishop of blessed memory, a long time ago, saying, “I sense death nearby each day,” he replied, “That’s okay. It makes you religious. It is good to sense death, for then you value life even more. It’s the reality of our existence, and we are a people of reality.”

He was right. For the cloud that I sometimes find myself inside – this awareness – magnifies life all around me, making it intensely real and magnificently beautiful, like a crimson sunset.

We have many ways of marking time – calendars, seasons, festivals, birthdays, anniversaries, pilgrimages. I went on a pilgrimage once, a curious experience of procession, prayer, intercession, reflection, and time marked by my footsteps along the main street of a town, along with others, walking and singing toward a shrine of an Anglican saint in Fond-du-lac, Wisconsin, Bishop Charles Grafton.

It was a millennium pilgrimage, marking the end of a century and the beginning of another. It marked our own lives too, where each one of us was at that moment in time and where we wanted to be, where we wanted to go in our own lifetimes. It marked our setting out with purpose, traveling along the way together, and arriving at our destination where we found candles flaming and a sarcophagus of the saintly bishop, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was time spent together with other faithful, and our footsteps merged into a quiet river of time, a river of love.

A priest I knew often said that the person who is late is a thief of time, taking precious minutes or hours or days away from those who were on time. I’ve often recalled that, for my husband has a clock ticking in his head, and we usually arrive early everywhere (warning!), and wait for the thieves of our time to arrive. The idea of “being fashionably late” strikes me as a strange, unmannerly aberration, and reflects today’s culture of self. A member of our extended family was notorious for arriving 2-3 hours late for family dinners. Does one wait to serve the turkey or open the presents? Or does one ignore said family member? This was a recurrent theme at holidays.

Time. Because it is limited, time grows in value, in proportion to its scarcity, just as we learned in Economics 101. The hour glass is fast filling its lower half. As we approach our “gentle years” we think about it more, or perhaps we have more time to think about it. That is a blessing – time to repent, time to repay, time to learn to love as we are meant to love. Time to make things right before our time runs out. It is the right time to take stock.

I considered these things this morning in my time with other faithful (this time logging in from home) and listened to the Gospel about the Good Samaritan. Christ tells this parable in answer to the question, “If I must love my neighbor as myself, who, exactly is my neighbor?” We all know the parable – the man accosted by thieves and left by the side of the road, those travelers who pass by him, and the one man, a hated Samaritan, who stops to help him, bind his wounds, and take him to an inn to care for him. Clearly, Our Lord tells us, we must love and care for all. 

Most of the time, we identify with the Samaritan or perhaps those who pass by. And yet, I came across an icon of the Good Samaritan that showed Christ carrying the wounded man on his shoulders, as he is often shown carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders. We are the wounded ones here. We are the lost sheep. We are found in the ditch or on a precipice far away and lifted upon the shoulders of Our Lord God.

Christ is the Good Samaritan. And if that is the case, then we are the wounded who are rescued and taken to an inn, perhaps the inn of his Church, his Bride.

Of course the parable in its context explained how we should treat others if we are to obey the law of God. But I was glad to see the wounded man being carried on the shoulders of Jesus the Good Shepherd. For as we are wounded in this world by many slings and arrows, as we are silenced and surrounded and imprisoned for speaking truth to lies, it is only a matter of time before we will be found, raised up, and carried to the safety of an inn, to be healed, to be reborn, by Our Lord of love.

And so the clock ticks through our days, hours, and minutes. How are we spending our days, hours, minutes? Could our time be better spent? Are we burying our talents, spending our time fruitlessly? These are valuable, blessed questions to ask, to reflect upon, and find answers in the Inn of Christ, his Church. And this is how we spend our time on a Sunday, being lifted in the arms of Our Lord and carried upon his shoulders, to be healed.

As I recently read these words in Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, March 4, 1861, I was struck by the phrase “mystic chords of memory.” Our memory of America, what it means to be an American, the history of America, our life together in this great nation, will bind us in harmony, a mystic harmony, a part of a greater song we sing, many becoming one:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” (Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861)

We have seen discord before and will again. That is the nature of freedom. After all, the Civil War broke out shortly after President Lincoln made this speech.

That being said, the silencing of speech today is a dark trend that silences freedom. The silencing of elections and election challenges invites distrust in government. The silencing of instruction in Civics and American History in high school and college allows false histories to grow like cancer among our people, and is a death knell for democracy. The silencing of the rule of law is perhaps the most egregious, for political opponents are tried in show trials and imprisoned at the whim of the powerful.

And so we pray for our country. We pray for the better angels of our nature to touch the mystic chords of memory, if there is any common history left, and will swell the chords of the Union, the United States of America.

We pray for those who are persecuted for speaking out and pray that more will speak out in spite of the fearsome retributions threatened.

We pray that our many races and ethnicities from all over the world will re-unite and sing together, in harmony, as we seek peace in our cities and schools and communities.

And so as we sang together, many voices becoming one, in our chapel this morning, I thought of the mystic chords of memory, how we sing those harmonies that form a family from folks of varying backgrounds, varying ages, varying talents. We sang a particularly poignant hymn, #299, 1940 Hymnal, written by Percy Dearmer in 1933, a priest who has penned many. I did not recall these words (with my failing memory), but the hymn gives thanks for all those who have given us so much, all those we must not forget in these troubled times:

“Sing praise to God, who spoke through man/ In differing times and manners,/ For those great seers who’ve led the van,/ Truth writ upon their banners;/ For those who once blazed out the way,/ For those who still lead on today,/ To God be thanks and glory.”

And the final verse:

“For all the poets who have wrought/ Through music, words, and vision/ To tell the beauty of God’s thought/ By art’s sublime precision,/ Who bring our highest dreams to shape/ And help the soul in her escape,/ To God be thanks and glory.”

And so I gave thanks for Father Dearmer, a poet to be sure.

Without these mystic chords of memory, what do we have that will bring the truth to light in our present times? I am grateful that as of this writing we still can celebrate and sing these chords together, organ pounding, incense swirling, birthing one from many.

Thanks be to God.

It is only mid-August, and yet hints of autumn have teased us this last week, here in the Bay Area. Temperatures have dropped a bit, school has started, and the rituals and rhythms of summer’s end are dancing through our days.

A few spectacular sunsets in a week when the sun is setting earlier have renewed the soul, reminded me of God’s grandeur in the minute and the vast, in the embryo and the aged. The changing seasons alone are enough to inspire one to believe in a loving Creator. We take the skies for granted, I fear, and do not look up enough. The details of life – the shimmering light that silvers the olive tree; my cat’s remarkable fur coat, her giant green eyes, and her thundering purr; the breeze that teases the trees to wave their branches in happiness – surround us, often unnoticed.

I have found that Christ opens my eyes to these delights, at least when I allow him to. It is Christ who says, pay attention, trust me, let me show you where and what to do in the hours ahead of you, so you do not waste your time on Earth.

With my first cup of coffee each morning, I say to our Heavenly Father, “Good morning, Father. What do we have on the agenda this day? What will you show me? What do you wish me to do? To say? To think? To feel? Lead me through this day, a day that I think I own but don’t, a day of presumption that I have control, a day I give to you. Lead me every minute and hour with your love, lighten my load and enlighten my mind, let me see the world and your children as you do, with your love.” 

And so this morning, we (my husband, myself, and the Holy Spirit within us) headed for St. Joseph’s Chapel in Berkeley, a precious space of prayer, a special gathering of God’s children, for an hour of penitence and repentance and salvation. It was a sacred time, set apart from the bustle of the world, a family time of sharing the Eucharistic feast, Our Lord himself. We prayed the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments), beseeching God to incline our hearts to keep these laws and even to write these laws on our hearts. It is a good reminder, a simple reminder, of what is required of the faithful, and we as infirm irresolute human beings need reminders. For surely we desire to incline our hearts toward obedience, for then we will be happy. We need these laws written on our hearts too, so that we do not forget, so that we leave this hour of sacred space in our mortal time, stronger, with a more informed conscience.

Life is a time of molding the soul into what we are meant to be. We begin as early as possible, to sculpt our consciences and feed our minds with God’s word, chapter and verse, committed to memory, written on our souls, knitted into our flesh. We slowly grow into the person we truly are; we slowly recognize and can separate good from evil; we slowly open our hearts to the fire of God’s love that will soon burn warmly within us. This is done through ritual and habit, doing what must be done, singing what must be sung, creating what must be created. And when we find ourselves in the place where we are supposed to be, which happens more often as we are molded in time, we experience more than happiness, more than the good life. We experience joy.

The irony is that only by looking out of ourselves can we become ourselves. Only by looking up to the Heavens and forgetting for a moment our immediate desires, can we know our place on Earth. Only by seeing each person as precious, a divine creation, can we know that we too are precious and a divine creation.

In these simple ways, through ritual and habit, through repentance, obedience, and love, we are full-filled with the Holy Spirit. So that in this seasonal time, these glorious moments between summer and autumn, we give thanks for God’s grace, as he leads us by the hand to learn to fly. We soar with him to the Heavens, our mortal selves partaking of the immortal in a small chapel in Berkeley.

We pray for those lost in the fires on Maui and those survivors who must rebuild their lives.

The Lahaina fires this last week reminded me once again how fragile life is, how powerful nature is, and how deceiving the natural world can be. The Hawaiian islands are inviting with their mild temperatures, long beaches, warm ocean, and palms waving in the trade winds. But behind the seeming paradise lie active volcanoes, hurricanes, tidal waves, and fire fueled by the winds.

The islands, formed long ago from volcanic ash erupting through the Pacific Ocean, lure us into a trance of relaxation. Dancers are gentle, like the waving palms, their hands telling stories to the sounds of ukuleles and ballads of an earlier time, a seemingly more peaceful time.

Yet, of course, it is an illusion. Mankind is fallen, no matter the century, no matter the location. And the natural world will never be tamed, only entreated for a window of time.

I first realized the truth of this shaky truce between man and nature when we first visited the Big Island of Hawaii, where black volcanic lava from Kilauea covers much of the west side of the island. It looks like a moonscape. I wondered as we drove from the airport up the coast to our hotel, why we had come, and why anyone would want to come here, a place so barren and bleak. Yet, farther up the coast the lava rock had turned to lava gravel with greenery trying to sprout. Farther still, our hotel had carved out an oasis amidst this flat volcanic world, a water-fueled landscape of palms and hibiscus and white imported sand that met the blue sea, a pleasure to our urban eyes. Other resorts worked the same miracle by piping water in, landscaping with greenery, and creating beauty in a black lava desert.

And yet, it is all an illusion, dependent upon our constant vigilance. Nature will take over if we look the other way. History shows us this in castle ruins, today home to encroaching grasses and vines and scurrying creatures. In our own house the pigeons have nearly conquered our roof, and mice run in the walls and race through the attic. 

And of course in California we have had our own fires. We have not paid attention to forest management and electric grid safety. Winter storms and sudden floods have not alleviated drought, due to too few reservoirs. Like Joseph in Egypt, we must store for the lean times and shore up for natural disasters. Famine and flood are only a blink away.

Things are not always as they seem. Life and death are close cousins, even siblings. It is good to remember this, that we will not live forever on this earth, but can choose Eternity in Heaven. For Our Lord has given us hope in his resurrection, his conquering death, his command of the natural world. It is his life that lives within us (for those who believe and desire him) and it is his death that has given us life everlasting. He is the alpha and the omega, the only one who can and does free us from ourselves, from our own blindness. He is the one to whom we sing on a Sunday morning in a Berkeley chapel and in our evening prayers as the light dims and dusk falls. He is the one who lives in the prophets and their prophecies, about whom poets and playwrights write, and about whom the bards sing their ballads.

We have been given the truth to find the way in the light to the light. We need only turn toward Our Lord, take his hand and walk alongside, be present in church on Sundays and at the great festivals of the year, honor those who love him and speak truth, and obey his commandments. He has given us a lifetime and a library of help and vision. We need only say, as Our Lady Mary said, “Yes. Let it be done according to thy will.”

And so, on this Sunday in Trinitytide that falls between the Transfiguration of Our Lord and the Assumption of Mary we witness to the astounding news that God loves us. For he has shown us many things and will show us many more. He loves us. He is with us. Emmanuel. One day, we too will be transfigured, death turned to life, and we will rise to Heaven to be with our family and friends once again. One day, we will escape the fires and the storms and the twisting of truth about who we are and are meant to be.

One day, we will see God face to face.

And we pray for Maui.

I have become fascinated with the accounts of “Near-Death Experiences,” when a person dies and returns to life, having witnessed something resembling a route to Heaven, or Paradise itself. I have been reading a curated summary of findings over the last few decades in Imagine Heaven by John Burke, mentioned in earlier blog posts. I say curated, because he claims (and it appears so) to discuss only those accounts that have greater credibility, i.e., from doctors or others that would not have a reason to make these up. There are many common threads and many differences as well. There are children’s accounts that can only be truthful. There are atheists’ accounts that completely cure their unbelief, conversions that change them forever.

The interest has led me to a website, International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS) and their YouTube channel that collects these stories. In browsing through this wealth of information, I soon appreciated the curated version of John Burke, for their are millions. While I don’t think some are exaggerating or even lying (for whatever reason), some simply seem more about the life of the person telling it (video queens and kings, etc.) than the experience in Heaven or traveling there.

At the end of the day, and perhaps as I near the end of my life (no, I’m not sick, just 76), I have become greatly reassured that I will be taken in hand immediately, literally holding the hand of Our Lord or guided by his angels, so that there is no fear of losing one’s way or falling or disappearing… there is no fear at all, only delight and wonderment.

Through it all, and I am continuing the study (plot alert in terms of this blog…), I had a question I wanted answered. I finally found the answer(s). The question was, what about sin in Heaven? If we have free will, and we are told we must be free in order to love God and our fellows, then do we have it in Heaven? And if we do, what keeps us from sinning again? What protects us from other sinners? The problem of freedom and love was a nagging one. I found a good answer on an online site called “GotQuestions.org” a Christian (probably Protestant) compendium of answers by knowledgeable pastors and scholars, with Scriptural backing. The answer was enough for me not to worry about it, making perfect sense. (Hint – it’s all about sanctification here on Earth). Check it out.

I had been thinking about judgment as well. The NDE’ers (as they are called) speak of a “life review” but not so much a judgment. I came to the conclusion that it might be that we judge our own misdeeds as we see the review. We repent. For us to be sorry, of course, will require that we have educated consciences, know right from wrong, know the commandments, and then be humble enough to admit/confess, and say those key words, “I’m sorry.” With every sorry, the slate is cleaned and we become sanctified, able to live in Heaven with others who desire love and peace the worship of God Almighty.

That “life review” reminds me of the early accounts of “seeing my life pass before me”, always a curious description of dying. Why, I often wondered, did the brain and the memory paint such a picture at the end? Now I know. It’s way more than the brain and the memory. It’s God leading us to Heaven. He reaches for our hand. Our Lord Jesus says, “Fear not. Welcome home. Enter into the glory of Paradise.”

For we will be transformed and transfigured, just as Christ was on Mount Tabor with Elijah and Moses in today’s Gospel (Luke 9:28+, BCP 248) with the light and love of God. We will enter that “cloud,” be filled with Christ’s love, and be carried to a better world that awaits us. In the meantime on Earth, we experience a taste of that transfiguration when we worship together, when we sing and praise God. For in time we are transformed, sanctified, made ready for our final journey outside of time.

I did work a bit on my novel this week, The Music of the Mountain. Alas, my characters are still sorting books in the basement of St. Joseph’s Seminary, but fear not, they are getting to know one another and working hard to save the written word and Western Civilization. In the process, I considered my recent heavenly research, and may include a near death experience in the second half. We will call Part 1, Earth, and Part 2, Heaven. But which experience will I recount and make a part of my professor’s life in these pages? That remains to be seen. Probably a bit of many. A collage. Just like my characters, combinations of many friends I have come to know and love.

Fear not! Life is good. God is good. All is grace! Be transformed so you will be transfigured, and we will one day gather by the river that runs by the throne of God. Get thee to church and begin (or resume) your journey now.

Each year during the summer our Berkeley seminary, St. Joseph of Arimathea Anglican Theological College, offers a residential session for the online program to supplement the online program during the year. During this week or weeks at the end of July the deacons and postulants, as well as local clergy, laity, and students auditing, gather to worship in our chapel for Morning Prayer, Noon Mass, and Evening Prayer. The liturgies are open to the public. The seminarians live on the premises, encouraging a sense of monastic collegiality, and take classes mornings and afternoons.

I usually try to attend the noon Masses for I have found them astonishingly helpful to my life in this crazy world. Not only does regular Holy Communion center you on God our Creator, but the prayers and praise are rewarded with the reception of the Real Presence of Christ. I often joke that I’m trying to receive as many Eucharistic Presences as possible, in preparation for that meeting that draws closer and closer, that moment when I enter Paradise and the gates of Jerusalem.

The week went well. We missed some of our leading clergy due to illness, so that we were even more dependent upon the Holy Spirit to inspire from day to day, to tell us what to do next. Many students were online and not residential, a great loss to them, but understandable in this whirling and demanding world. But I have to say, the closeness of this group, this particular summer, was nearly tangible. These young seminarians had the opportunity to spend more time with their bishop and the local clergy. They were able to look through books in the bookroom where we are showcasing titles to be given away (a remarkable collection). They took meals together, they prayed together, they sang together. They were able to sense for an intense few days the glory of being a part of Christ’s Body.

The deacons learned how to say a Deacon’s Mass, something not possible online, and they had a superb instructor in Bishop Ashman. For our Bishop has aged grace-fully, and with the aging comes wisdom and knowledge, an innate sense of the liturgy, truly a part of him, an abundant love of others, and a joyful demeanor that I usually see in our elderly clergy, those who have prayed through suffering and born the scars of love as Our Lord showed us how to do.

So through the week, I showed up, noonish, lit the candles and prayed before our St. Vladimir Madonna and Child in our entryway. I took a seat in the back and watched and waited and wondered what God would show me, how he would feed me that day. And I left renewed, reborn, refreshed. After this hour in our chapel with my fellow Christians, I knew I had been given riches beyond measure.

And also through the week, I read about Heaven, learning more about what to expect. It’s a real place, for one thing. We will be souls without bodies until the Second Coming when we will be given perfect bodies. But even so, we will be with millions of others in Paradise, working and playing and singing. No more tears, no more pain, no more threats of censoring and silencing. Like our little chapel with its russet barrel-vaulting we will experience a world of joy, the world we were created for.

We see bits of Heaven in every Eucharist. In prayer, in praise, we see the heavens open for us for a moment and we feel Christ’s love shafting into our hearts. Of course we can pray and praise anywhere, but with others we form a chorus, and even better that, we sense we are a part of Christ’s Body, the Body of Christ, the fruit of our Baptism. But in corporate worship, we know this is true. This is the gift of God’s grace among us, when two or three are gathered.

In these reflections this morning, I was able to hear the hard words of Christ. There are many “difficult” sayings, and most are buried in our fear of encountering the truth. But we must hear the truth (especially at the age of 76). This particular passage is found in Matthew 7:15+ where he warns about fruit and fires.

“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Italics mine)

You can see why the Heaven reference caught my attention. And the cutting down of the barren tree or evil tree for that matter. And to add a little to the image he says not everyone will enter the Kingdom of Heaven but only those who do the will of the Father. Sounds like works over faith, rather than faith over works.

Of course it is both for one leads to the other. Nevertheless, doing God’s will appears to be pretty important in the scheme of entering Heaven. And this is not the only reference Christ makes to “the fire.” Those who disobey God will be entering a different place than Heaven, like it or not. Perhaps it is true that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. A holy fear, a fear of evil, and a love of the good.

Our Bishop Morse of blessed memory often said that most doubt (meaning lack of faith) was moral. There were rules that must be followed and if your life didn’t reflect those rules, you had to change your life. The saints through the ages have reinforced this message again and again. Worshiping God was at the top of the list of the Ten Commandments, and the others can be summarized by love of neighbor, love of all those who enter your life.

For when we worship regularly, I have found, we learn to love, or we at least learn more about how to love, through word and sacrament and the fellowship of the Family of God. We learn the importance of marriage and family and children. We learn more about who God the Father is. We bask in his love.

Without this, without the Church to lead us on the right path through the dark woods of our lives, we are left to the wild beasts, to be devoured by roaring lions, left, in the end, to miss that road to Heaven.

It appears that there will indeed be a judgment, a private judgment and a general judgment. Many Heaven books don’t like those words. They say we will see our life reviewed before us. We will see where we hurt others or didn’t love enough. This will give us a chance to say “I’m sorry” one more time. And with this cleansing of the heart, we will step into Paradise, not only redeemed by Christ, but saved by the salvation of our souls.