Christine Sunderland

Okay, I admit it. I’m winging it.

I wrote Chapter Eight of my novel-in-progress this week, The Music of the Mountain, named (for today at least), “Fr. Adams’ Faithfulness.” I’ve come to look forward to the hours from three to five each afternoon, sometimes four to five, to find out what happens next. I put my fingers on the keys and the characters begin talking to one another. They are still in the basement, but there is hope for the next chapter that they will be set free from the damp and the dust. I for one am starting to sneeze.

In this chapter, the question of right and wrong is presented by the priest, Christian, to his co-worker, Dr. Norton, agnostic. How is it that she decides, he inquires, what is right and what is wrong? Where does she find the standards of behavior when she doesn’t believe in the authority that sets those standards? It’s just a question, a nudge from the old Vicar to stir the thoughts of the middle-aged Professor of Ethics.

Alongside the daily dose of writing, I have been reading Imagine Heaven by John Burke, a consideration of the many Near-Death Experiences over the last decades, how these witness accounts compare and contrast. The common threads, of course, are most intriguing, and above all, I have been fascinated by the industriousness of Heaven. Who knew?

For Paradise has a city in its center, the New Jerusalem. Paradise is so large, three times Earth they say (as I recall), many many many miles in circumference. And the city itself is gigantic, within the pearly gates and walls (that are the depth of a room). But what has really fascinated me, is that there is a great deal of activity. Each person is doing what they were intended to do, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, present in an intensely beautiful way. It is Earth reflected as it was meant to be. There is even a hill where you can watch the goings-on on Earth.

Also there are pets we have loved. I’ve often thought that love was the key, but evidently there are all kinds of beasts, lions lying down by lambs. Yay, my many cats will welcome me!

The colors and the light are nearly blinding, but the souls that inhabit Paradise have developed vision that can handle it.

And that brings me to the remarkable part. Our life on Earth is a rehearsal for Heaven. We develop habits of thought and action, habits of love. We live with Christ within us. We speak as Christ would have us speak. We allow his love to flow through us to others. We consciously work on being “little Christs.” And that includes suffering, if so be it.

This morning, in our little chapel, our preacher touched on this as well, and I always smile when dots are connected in my spiritual life. He described the drawing closer and closer to Christ, in stages, for as St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans:

“For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:19+)

Ah, the famous phrase, “the wages of sin is death.” So our preacher explained that the first thing we do as Christians is to try to speak the words and do the deeds we are told to speak and do by our Lord, i.e. the commandments for a start. We draw even closer by worshiping God together in church before the altar and the Real Presence of Christ, as Our Lord commanded. And the third step is to commune with Christ by partaking of the Real Presence, a moment when we are “made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.” (BCP p. 81)

Not sinning, I suppose, is a no-brainer, since sinning leads to death, and the slow dying is fed by sin each minute. For eternal life begins now, with a sinless life, yet as fallen creatures we can only step along the path of Christ, follow the light, repent when we stumble, and continue along the path following the light. Simple, really.

Returning to my reading: Imagine Heaven describes a reality that is intensely glorious, like Earth but fuller and more real. Some of the descriptions from the NDE’ers recalled C.S. Lewis’ description of the grass in Heaven as being too sharp and real for the shades from Hell to walk on, for these souls were too insubstantial, filmy. The saints – those of us (hopefully) who have grown more and more real in our lifetimes – are solid and can walk on the grass.

I have noticed this increasing reality in my own life of faith and life itself on Earth, bound by time. Partly, this is due to seeking and finding what I am meant to do, at least I think at this moment, that is, to write. For in the process of writing, novelists develop characters based on their observations of others. I’m not sure when I noticed it, but somewhere in the process of my novel-writing over the last twenty years, I realized I was observing far more than I ever had before. I was noting the color of the sky, the temperature, the breeze, and best of all, I noticed people. People became my greedy hobby, as if I was introduced to a new universe with each hello, and I fear I have become rather rude with all the questions I ask or want to. As one of my characters thinks in Angel Mountain, “I want to know everything about them, everything.” People are the ultimate realm of exploration, incredibly complex and beautiful.

And of course if you spend all your time thinking about people, real people, that is time spent when you are not thinking about yourself.

So with the writing I entered a new world here on Earth, one of infinite variety and wonder-ment and exquisite beauty. For I have also found that finding the word to describe something makes it more real as well. Why is that? We are words, ourselves, words spoken by the Creator at our conception. “In the beginning was the Word…” and that Word spoke others that spoke us into existence. We are the notes that make up the music of the mountains that touch Heaven.

Mystery and miracle. Just as Mary Magdalene (feast day yesterday) discovered at the feet of Jesus. There’s no going back. For we have known something so true, so beautiful, and so real we step toward the light. That’s what it is. Here on Earth and then in Heaven. And if we are on the right path, the path of Our Lord, the two overlap. Every Christian, every believer in Christ Jesus, knows Heaven already, and the experience will grow throughout their lifetime.

And so, I’m winging it, soaring high, dipping down, circling and singing before the throne of God, wondering what will happen in Chapter Nine.

Thanks be to God.

Ah, the power of the novelist!

I spent some time this last week writing the seventh chapter of my novel, The Music of the Mountain. My four characters (Molly Macrae, Winston Adams, Fr. Thomas Adams, and Dr. Patricia Norton) are currently in the basement of our student residence in Berkeley. What are they doing? Sorting books, of course. What else?

The setting is post pandemic and lockdowns (January, 2023), and the residence and chapel have been closed due to riots and vandalism and fires. The Berkeley DEI Squad (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has raided the upstairs library shelves and burned the “racist” white men’s studies of theology, ecclesiology, and history, not to mention music binders, literature classics, and much more, all titles on their list, with echoes of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Bibles and prayer books were at the top, naturally.

And so, in the dim light of the condemned building’s basement, my characters pack books in boxes to hide in a safer place than Berkeley. In the dim light, they work in pairs, and get to know one another as they work.

Many of my novels feature books and booklists and authors and libraries, for they offer a rich source of ideas about the human condition. Who are we? Why are we? Where are we? How and what are we? The refrain is constant today, as statues topple and schools are renamed, as fear locks down thought, as the virus of Communism blows through our towns, our schools, our homes, infecting hearts and minds. (But not souls.)

Christians are reminded to “be not afraid” and “fear not.” For fear paralyzes body and mind. One must ask, “Why are we told to be afraid?” “Why are we told to hide in our homes, isolate?” “Why are we told to silence our children with smart screens and propaganda?”

And so in my little novel I have gathered a band of revolutionaries (of stout heart) who are dedicated to the revolutionary proposition that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. My little group has suffered at the hands of the fearmongers. They have been silenced and punished by losing their jobs; they are going to act in the name of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

For the conservatives are now the revolutionaries, according to many. It is an odd place to be, one that causes acute discomfort, like shoes that don’t fit. Conservatives are not, by definition, proponents of change. They conserve the good, the true, and the beautiful. But it appears that the Left has taken control of the nation (major institutions) which makes the Right the protestors, those with the barricades and flags. Alas. We really just want peace, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. Simple stuff?

Yes, peace and freedom, the old rallying cry of Berkeley’s anti-war demonstrators in the Vietnam days has become the cry of my four characters – quiet, thoughtful folks who would simply like to read their books in a comfortable corner with a good light. So my characters don’t really cry out. They don’t really march (not yet) although there is a March for Life event coming soon. They don’t wave flags, unless you count the stars and stripes. No barricades either. And they wait politely for others to invite them in through open doors (January 6, 2020).

They represent the millions in this country who want to be peacefully free to worship their God of love, marry their prince or princess, give life to many babies, and teach their children to be virtuous citizens. They don’t want the State to kidnap their children, to control their minds or carve their bodies.

And so this last week my heroes and heroines spent time together breathing the dust of moldy volumes, stacked randomly in piles and double metal shelves. They will soon discover other miracles in this (barricaded!) basement – a large American flag hiding in a corner, chalices and patens, vestments, incense, candles, and tarnished candlesticks. Prayer books! Bibles! Treasonous materials! They hear mice scurrying in the walls and water drips from exposed pipes in this cold stormy month of January 2023. They are bold and brave, and they want to talk about what they read recently.

They have heard there is a mountain to the east – Angel Mountain – where a hermit once lived. They have heard there are caves suitable to bury the last, lost library of Western Civilization.

But in the meantime, they must act quickly and quietly to save the hard copies that they can find. The Internet libraries have been cleansed of so-called hate speech. It is time for them to act. For they know that without history, without words, without memory, without these exercises of the mind, a people cannot survive. Without books and words and literacy, we become slaves to the tribal chief who commands the most power. In many ways we are already there.

Several generations have become drugged with moving images on screens, unable to memorize or learn, incapable of debating ideas respectfully. It was prophesied in the ‘nineties, when higher education dropped Western Civilization as a requirement to graduate, that our people, our singular culture of freedom, would become unmoored. But the dumbing down gained momentum with the Internet and with the easy entertainment found in a handheld device called a phone.

It appears that I am writing the story as I go… so am quite interested in how it all turns out. No plot spoiler here (!): I have no idea. I listen and watch and pray. I think one of the characters should undergo an NDE (Near-Death Experience). But which one? I’m leaning toward Dr. Norton, the agnostic (atheist?) Professor of Philosophy and Ethics.

Ah, the power of the novelist!

It has been many years since my birthday fell on a Sunday as well as a Sunday when we were home and not traveling. And so it seemed fitting that I give thanks to God in our Berkeley Chapel for my life on Earth at age 76 and consider my life in Heaven (who doesn’t?).

It is also fitting that I was reminded of Heaven this last week in an interview with an author who has consolidated decades of Near-Death-Experiences (NDE’s) and come to some remarkable conclusions. These experiences involve dying, then returning to life, often in a hospital, resuscitated by technology. We have millions of witnessed accounts of these remarkable events.

John Burke began his study in 1989 and, while he hasn’t experienced this himself, he became interested in the commonalities of the accounts and how or if they relate to Holy Scripture. He was an agnostic to start but soon became a Christian and a pastor as well. I have read several witness accounts, ones by authors I trusted – Don Piper, Mary Neal, and Eben Alexander (the last two medical doctors). The idea of tracing common threads through these unique experiences fascinated me. You can see an interview with Mr. Burke on Amazon. He is also interviewed by Andrew Klavan of DailyWire.com.

Mr. Burke’s 2015 book, Imagine Heaven, Near-Death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You (Baker, 2015) is on my reading stack. After that I’ll go for his release this fall, Imagine the God of Heaven, Near-Death Experiences, God’s Revelation, and the Love You’ve Always Wanted (Tyndale, 2023).

That there is more to life than life on Earth we feel intuitively. We search for meaning, for justice, for order in our world, for peace in our hearts. We know we are far more than mere animals, but created for something else, something better. We yearn for intangibles – beauty, love, truth, goodness, Eliot’s “hints and guesses.”

I was blessed throughout my lifetime, in so many ways, but most of all in the joy of conversion at age twenty by C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, in which he walked me through my agnostic thinking to reasonable conclusions. He demonstrated, to my severe reason, that not only does God exist but that the Christian God exists. Once you arrive there, there’s no going back. One can only step through a forest of discovery and delight, learning and praying and receiving Christ in the Eucharist. There is only choosing this path, desiring to be the creature your Creator means you to be, and with each breath, enjoying his company and conversation along the way.

For every birthday is a reminder of who we are and who we are meant to be. Every birthday brings us back to those first breaths, when we entered the world of oxygen, having lived in the watery world of the womb. Every birthday takes us to our moment of conception, when we were conceived by God outside and inside time to love and be loved for all Eternity.

We are mirrors, I suppose, reflecting the love of our Creator, and not only reflecting that inexpressible love, but holding it within our flesh, becoming that love, incarnating love in our hearts, minds, and souls.

And so I step into my future, having stepped out of my past into this present. I follow the path through the forest of song, along with my brothers and sisters, in a little chapel in Berkeley, alight with the love and joy of God himself, made present in the Real Presence of Christ.

I grew up in the 1950’s pledging allegiance to the United States of America every morning in school, hand over heart, facing a large flag permanently hanging in each classroom. I’m grateful. My parents instilled a respect for the police as well. They often said we lived in the greatest nation on earth and we should be thankful to have been born here.

These attitudes added to our sense of community and nation. Without these common beliefs, what do we have? Without a common language what is America? Without borders and traditions and history can a nation survive? With each man or woman who has shed blood to protect America, we are bonded again, closer than before. We share common suffering in such defense. We are grateful to those who died to make or keep us free.

These aspects of patriotism came to mind today as we recited a set of beliefs that bind us together as Christians, the Nicene Creed. The creeds, recited together with others alongside, pull many voices into one voice, just as the Pledge of Allegiance pulled many voices together through our land as one voice. These rituals, whether they be religious or civic, unite a people. They unite children in a classroom, giving them a common identity and common set of beliefs.

These aspects came to mind naturally since Tuesday is Independence Day, the Fourth of July, the day we recall with gratitude the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Fourth of July, one of the few holidays not moved to Monday, respects the dating of this vital document. That we continue to celebrate it with barbecues, flags, parades, and even fireworks, is a good sign. That we don’t fully understand what we are celebrating is concerning.

And so, as I have mentioned many times in these pages, I am concerned our history is being forgotten for several generations have not been educated in what we used to call “Civics” – American History and U.S. Government. Even classic American authors have been banned, men and women who lived in their times and were influenced by their times. Their works also tell us who we are, where we have come from, what we have in common with our neighbors who live in our town, or shop in our markets.

We are a free nation, celebrating free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly. Hopefully, we will correct some of our wrong turns and steer a course into the future that will buttress these “civic” virtues.

We are a caring nation, offering our lives to promote liberty in other countries. We have big hearts and big smiles and big bear hugs welcoming the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free as our Lady Liberty proclaims in New York’s harbor. And because we care, we try to be just as Lady Justice proclaims with her evenly weighted scales.

These are Judeo-Christian values that continue to live in this land. We shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, heal the sick. At least we try to. And where we do not succeed, we feel guilty. A healthy Judeo-Christian guilt.

Guilt is good – it makes us sit up and take notice. It shows where we went wrong so that we can turn back and choose the better path.

But today we live on the leavings of Faith and all the virtues and ideals that Faith inculcated within us, inoculating us from the greater evils that enter vacuums.

And so we pray today and this week especially for our nation and all those in the world who desire to come here, who desire to be a part of this great experiment in freedom. We pray that God continue to guide us, that the Holy Spirit continue to breathe upon us, that Christ dwell in our hearts, remaking us again and again.

May God bless America!

We have had a number of changes in our Anglican Province of Christ the King recently, reminding me of the power of change, the movement of the hands of time and the fulfillment of human destiny.

Our Anglican body in the Body of Christ is a stalwart group, having left the mainstream Episcopal Church in 1977, a vital change in itself. We idealistically thought we could start anew and hold on to our traditional beliefs – the creeds, Holy Scripture, Church tradition and exegesis, the life-giving sacraments, the beauty of liturgy, particularly the weekly Eucharist, and we did hold on, treasuring these gifts of faith. All were threatened by the mainstream church, and we jumped ship, as it were, and swam to shore to renew and affirm the Anglican body of the Body of Christ. We needed to build from ground up, although we had clear enough plans as to what we were doing, indeed, what we were saving. We had a firm foundation.

Rather like the Puritan pilgrims fleeing persecution in England and arriving on our shores centuries ago, we knew things would change, and fixing our eye on Our Lord and following him through the wilderness to the Promised Land, we set out to do the job. We have never regretted it, only celebrated what we have built. We gave thanks to God for his benevolence toward us, sheltered by his canopy of love, fed by the great cloud of witnesses who testified to the reality of Christ and his redemption of mankind. We wanted to tell the world the good news, and still do.

Change. There can be bad change and good change. Change can be exciting, offering new frontiers. Change challenges us, forcing us out of our slumber to wake and look around again. Change stirs things up, within and without. But if change is part of the larger love of God, it may hurt, it may be inconvenient and costly, it may take effort, but the reward is great, for the faithful are filled with joy.

We traditional Anglicans, living lives of faith and practice as best we can, pleasing, we hope, to Our Lord, have structures that curate change carefully, modestly, sagely. We have bishops (the Episcopate) who shepherd the clergy, and clergy who shepherd us, the laity. We have councils and synods and elections and canons and by-laws. We have committees and boards and prayer groups. We have vestries and altar guilds and women’s associations. We have a great foundation going back to the Apostles that allows us to read the map and see the crossroads and make the choices necessary in our world today. And we have inspiring music, penetrating words, poetic chants, and… friendly coffee hours. We have riches that go beyond measure.

All the while we listen, watch, and move with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or try to.

All the while we are covered by a canopy of grace, knowing our shepherds, our bishops, will lead us where we are to go, as best they can, in humility and prayer.

All the while we are teased by joy, pulled along the path of life by promised delight, in a never-ending dance.

Of course, as my bishop of blessed memory often said, the most healing change is the change of heart, the admission of sin, repentance and penitence, and this fundamental change in attitude places us where we must be, in order to see the greater changes and movements in our world. And the more we practice change of heart and mind and soul, the more we sing and dance for joy. It is a curious paradox, that when we grow small, our hearts grow big. Our eyesight grows sharp and our listening more intense. We see others as sacred, unique individuals; we see all human life as holy and of infinite worth, infinitely complex and diverse. We learn to love as we are loved.

And so we welcome a new Vicar to St. Joseph’s Chapel, as well as a new Rector, who is our newly elected Archbishop (it’s the Archbishop’s Chapel). We have a new shepherd who must look out for sheep that stray and return them to the fold, return them to joy.

Today’s Gospel lesson was the parable of the sheep that was lost and found and the parable of the coin that was lost and found (Luke 15:1+). Our Lord speaks of the “joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” That, of course, is the mission of the Church, and as we live out our lives in the presence of God, doing what we are meant to do, we are here for those lost sheep. We welcome them into our fold, knowing that we too are often lost, and we can turn and change, and return to the fold. This is a blessed assurance, this promise the Good Shepherd makes to each one of us. He will find us and bring us home.

Today’s Epistle lesson (Peter 5:5+) was written by St. Peter, our brave apostle who jumps into the sea and swims ashore, who follows Jesus to his crucifixion, denying him and then repenting, who tries to walk on water but begins to sink, who witnesses the empty tomb, who leads the others in building the Church. Peter has been many times lost and many times found, so that he knows what he speaks of when he says “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour… ” And on Thursday we celebrate the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.

And so we watch and listen and cast our worries at the feet of Our Lord. There are many lions walking about today, roaring, looking for prey, looking for lost sheep that cannot find their way home without God.

It is good to know we are loved and cared for, indeed, treasured by our Creator. It is good to know we can cast our cares upon him. It is good to be among others in a chapel in Berkeley who are sheep like us; a family of God in a fold of Eternity.

Today is Father’s Day, a day when we celebrate our fathers, if we can. But many are fatherless these days; many never had a father growing up; many have missed something important, a father in the home.

Others, to be sure, can fill the role. Grandfathers, stepfathers, teachers. But what is the role of the father in the family?

I was fortunate to have grown up with a loving father. But when he lost his faith in God the Father around the time that I re-found my faith in God the Father, in a sense I became fatherless. For all that I had been taught, based on a Christian moral view of the world, was no longer a part of who he was. I had chosen a different path than he; at a cross-roads I turned toward God and my father turned away.

And so I gratefully turned to my Fathers-in-God in the Church.

A good father is a steady presence, reliable. A good father represents authority, in the Christian world, the wise, just, and merciful authority of God. He trains his children with patience and love to respect authority. He guides them, with the help of the Church, into righteousness, into living rightly. He provides shelter from storms and protection from the outside world, both literally and metaphorically. A good father keeps us safe on many levels.

Just so, we as a nation look to our founders, our history, to be protected from hostile enemies and natural disasters. For if we heed the centuries of fatherly advice, be it Church Fathers or Founding Fathers, successes or failures, we will thrive. We will have a way forward, a standard of measure – The Ten Commandments, the Rule of Law, the Golden Rule. We feed the hungry and heal the sick.

When we don’t measure up, we turn to the Church to be forgiven in the name of God the Father through his Son. And we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and rejoin the path through time to Eternity.

It must be said that any authority exercised by humankind will be imperfect. But in America we have created a nation that has shown the best version of authority in the world, structured around the family, the community, the state, and the nation. The family is the foundation. The family trains the next generation, for it is a micro-society. If fatherless, the State fills the vacuum, and tyranny reigns.

And so it is of interest to totalitarian regimes to remove the father from the family, to break up the Judeo-Christian way that fathered Western Civilization, that best version of society and culture.

How is the father removed from the family?

The “sexual revolution” begun in the ‘sixties provided easy contraceptives. It seemed innocent enough at the time, and yet its trajectory over the next fifty hears removed marriage from the family, nullifying the father. Government policies stepped in and rewarded single parents, so fathers stayed away and fathered other crippled families dependent upon the authority of the State to survive. The government became the father substitute to these broken families, an authority that authorized the killing of the unborn, the maiming and the indoctrination of children.

Through it all the Church has preached the vital importance of families, the vital importance of fathers present.

And so today I salute fathers who have chosen the more difficult path, one of responsibility, one of learning how to love. I salute the mothers who have encouraged fathers in their role as authority figures, as creators of the ordered background necessary for children to thrive, and indeed, for mothers to thrive.

It is said that with the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth – early nineteenth century fathers no longer worked at home as farmers, or as tradesmen in the local village, but traveled to cities to work in factories, removed from their families. Women and children followed. The novelist Charles Dickens who worked as a boy in a shoe polish factory, never forgot those times and wrote about families caught in these tragic situations. Better protective laws were passed, but the family structure was severely crippled.

We have found in the Western World that any movement that harms the father’s role in the family, harms the nation. Any movement that denies gender, that denies marriage between a man and a woman, that discourages commitment and responsibility, but encourages men to be libertines, harms liberty and freedom.

And so we see the fruits of these trends today. What is the answer? We must look first to the father of all mankind, God the Father and see what he says through his Church and his Fathers-in-God, his pastors that truly shepherd us with his Word. We listen to the lessons each Sunday, and we encourage our priests and pastors as best we can.

We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We know our clergy are not perfect (don’t get me started) but then we also know that their congregations are not perfect, including you and me. So we celebrate mercy and withhold judgment. We hold them close to our hearts and prayers. For they are today’s fathers of the fatherless. Or should be.

And to those fathers who support and love their families, may the grace of God go with you daily, hourly, minute by minute. Do your best and learn from your mistakes. But don’t give up. Don’t abandon those who need you. Be a role model of quiet strength. You are raising the next generation. We need you.

You, along with the mothers of your children, must forge a new foundation in our world, must celebrate our Founding Fathers as you worship God the Father. We are grateful. We are thankful.

We love you.

As the political rhetoric heats up in our country, it is so good to be present for an hour in a holy place, to rest from the “talking heads” newscasters, and appreciate being surrounded by Eternity, as we sing and pray and kneel and listen. The rest and renewal sends me out into the real world again, driving home on the freeway, dodging the weaving racecars, wondering if this will be the day of my entering Eternity, not merely visiting Heaven in a Berkeley chapel.

Today is a Sunday rich in celebration, to be sure. I learned about Barnabas, the traveling companion of Paul, who filled the role of helper and mediator with the other disciples, bringing Barnabas to them, a quieter role than the disciples we have all heard of. And as I listened to the lessons I could envision the scene in a new way, for we have been watching “The Chosen” TV series, a remarkable dramatization of the disciples chosen by Christ.

The series shows the real-life world in which these events occurred: the poverty, the challenges of walking the hills and setting up camp, the rivalries and battling egos natural to any group living in such close quarters. The Pharisees and the Sadducees. The lepers, the blind, the lame. There is much drama to portray, and they do it well. There are times when the filming can be too dark, without enough light to see who is speaking, but that seems to be the film fashion today. The Jewish characters have accents as well, adding to the difficulty in understanding the scene, but we have managed to become used to the way of speaking.

What has occurred to me today is how the episodes have given me such a gift, a rich background that comes to mind when I hear Scripture read. I can see it better now, Barnabas going to find Saul, Barnabas bringing Saul back to the others, Barnabas saying, Saul’s different now, do not be afraid.

For of course Saul persecuted the Christians in those early days, and his terrible deeds were known and justly feared. He was there at the stoning of Steven. But Barnabas linked the feared Pharisee with the frightened followers, mediated them, and with the addition of Saul, who becomes Paul, the first great Christian theologian is given voice. The Church owes Barnabas a great debt of gratitude, for Paul understood what had happened when the Nazarene lived and died and rose again; he understood the events within the framework of Greek philosophy, for he was Greek.

The story of Barnabas made me appreciate those of us who help, who assist, who clean up, who listen and watch for the next moment when we are nudged by the Spirit to do what must be done in that unique time and place we find ourselves. We are not famous. We do not bow to applause. We worry too much, to be sure, worry if we are in the right place at the right time and if we interpreted the spiritual nudge correctly.

But not to worry, as my bishop of blessed memory often said, usually in Russian (another story). Nothing is lost. All is gained. We need only be faithful, tithing, confessing, attending, singing, praying, listening and watching always. Like the young women in the parable, we keep our lamps trim, to be ready not only for the return of Our Lord, but what Our Lord desires of us now, today.

And over time, a pattern emerges, and we can see that we are a part of the pattern. We are threads among many, but together we weave a beautiful cloak of many colors for the world to wear. We give as we have received. And what have we received? Love.

And Christ himself. Each Sunday Eucharist. With every morning and evening prayer. And in the Gospel for today, the Feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle, Christ speaks to us today:

The Gospel. St. John xv. 12.
“THIS is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit… ” (BCP 241)

And so we leave our little chapel, fortified with the love of God, a love that will enliven our week until we return next Sunday to be enlivened once more.

Deos gratias.

I always look forward to Trinity Sunday, since we usually sing the majestic, awe-inspiring “Holy, Holy, Holy,” one of my favorite hymns, but I didn’t expect (although should have) “St. Patrick’s Breastplate,” another hymn to the Holy Trinity, a powerful hymn, robust, and commanding. To have these two hymns, accompanied by the magnificent melodic and thundering organ playing six feet behind us! I thought we might soar into the heavens: our little chapel burst with song.

I wrote of “Holy, Holy, Holy” in my latest novel, Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020). Toward the end of the story (plot spoiler!) Abram the hermit finds himself in Heaven, and the great vision of St. John on the Island of Patmos is described, the vision that became the Book of Revelation (some call it the Apocalypse) in Holy Scriptures. In his vision, John describes the angels and saints worshiping before the throne of God.

The hymn is a testament to the triune God – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the belief that God is One in Three Persons, the Holy Trinity. Reflected in Scripture, this dogma was written into the Nicene Creed with carefully carved phrasing, at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), an effort to clarify Christian belief.

The words to the hymn are more recent than the Council and the Creed, written in 1827 by Reginald Heber, an Anglican priest. He captures, using phrasing from Revelation, the glory and beauty of worship before the throne of God, and for a brief time this morning in a small chapel in Berkeley, we sang with the angels:

“Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;

Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty! God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee, Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! All thy works shall praise thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;

Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.”

So of course our Epistle for today was Revelation 4:1+, reflected in the hymn and the creed (BCP 186). And the Gospel, too, considers what it means to believe the Creed. In this scene with Christ Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus, their conversation explores being born again of the Spirit (John 3:1+, BCP 187). For Christ says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God… except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Christ has come to Earth and a new world has been born among men. We are invited to enter, to come and see, to glimpse Heaven from Earth.

Our Eucharistic liturgy also reflects the words of Revelation, when the priest prays before the consecration of bread and wine, “Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying (the people join in), “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High. Amen.” (BCP 77)

Holy Scripture is woven throughout the liturgy, and these sacred words are sung in the hymns chosen for the day. There is a satisfying sense of having partaken deeply of Beauty, embraced by Love, Truth, and Goodness.

In this sense we are born again in every Eucharist, every song, and every prayer. ^“For in him we live, and move, and have our being… For we are also his offspring.” (Acts 17:28). For the space of an hour of worship, we live inside this golden reflection of Heaven, fed by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

One would think that hymns to come would seem less, or even redundant, but no, we sang an ancient hymn attributed to St. Patrick (372-466 AD), a hymn of dedication (268). For we lived within God; we were given graces and joys. Now, in return, we dedicated ourselves to Him with the words, “I bind unto myself today the strong Name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three.” The hymn describes the great moments of our salvation in the life of Christ – His baptism, His death, His resurrection, our judgment and eternal life. Toward the end of the hymn, it shifts in tone to one of the greatest prayers, pleas, of any Christian, as the words and phrases march to the sounds of salvation:

“Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.”

It was a holy, holy, holy morning, full of Christ, filled by Christ.

My bishop of blessed memory, Robert Sherwood Morse, often said that we Christians are people of reality. We are unafraid and even eager to find and face the truth, or we learn to be so over time, with regular self-examination, confession, and absolution. This command to honestly examine one’s life, thoughts, words, and deeds, done and undone, is a blessing, growing us into who we are meant to be.

We also desire to build a life upon a firm foundation, not lies, not wishes, not fantasies.

To face reality we must practice observation. We watch, we listen, we sense. We taste, touch, smell. We use all the senses that we have been given to breathe in the world around us, a world created for us to live in and love one another. Today some call this mindfulness, but it is an old Christian virtue, a child of gratitude and grace. And when we train our senses, we also train our wills to step outside of ourselves to see better, to pay attention, and to abjure the opposite, the sinking into the despair of one’s own private world. It is a step toward learning to love.

Observe my cat, for instance. What an amazing creature!  Angel is a jumper (perhaps she has wings), able to leap tall bookcases in a single bound. She is in the American History section in this photo, for she has learned how to get my attention. Her next move will be to knock the nearby icons off the wall with her paw. If there is a small book she can maneuver, she will send it flying.

We adopted her at Christmas 2020, hence her name. We named her brother Gabriel. He looked after her in her new home, but tragically succumbed to a feline virus and is waiting for us in Heaven now. So we lavish lots of love on Angel.

We faced Gabriel’s early death, a reality we see too often in today’s world of violence. We are given a short span of life, making each moment precious. We hold close the living, remembering those who have gone before us.

And so memory is another gift of grace. As I wrote this I suddenly remembered that my bishop died on this day, May 28, in 2015. He lives in my mind and heart, and he touched me with this sudden memory. Memory brings him into the present. This is not to say he isn’t fully alive where he is now residing (a mansion in Heaven’s hill country), but memory bridges Heaven and Earth on this cold wintry afternoon.

Now, observe our recent outdoor visitors, beautiful creatures, young bucks, with magnificent fuzzy antlers to be worn off in the fall if not sooner. They are baby antlers, I’m told, and I’m not sure of their purpose, but they will be replaced by the adult ones later, perhaps like our baby teeth.

We are graced with a marvel-ous world, a world of marvels: all the world of the present and all the world of the past. We are textured by time, and the weave of years through our lives, hearts, and minds, teaches us how to live today and tomorrow. We learn from these remarkable threads of memory woven through the past into the present. We mourn our sins and celebrate our virtues. We reject the evil and embrace the good. How else can we grow without memory, without a true telling?

And so it is a tragedy today that reality is made up by those who wish power or are afraid to face truth, or both. History disappears, erased and rewritten. Statues tumble. Public names are painted over and renamed. Truth dies on the cross of modernity.

Yet this weekend we celebrate Memorial Day, a day of memory, a time to remember the true heroes of our world, those who stepped out with brave hearts and practiced courage to keep us free. Where are those heroes today? Those who face the truth of our world, our fallen world, and those who remember the past, both the unrighteous and the righteous. Where are the men and women who will keep us free, who honor faith and family and friendship, life and love?

Today we also celebrate the Birthday of the Church, Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples in Jerusalem, at a time of a major Jewish festival, bringing in faithful from all parts of the world who spoke many languages. The description of the event is dramatic, for “there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting… cloven tongues like fire, upon each of them… they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues…” (Acts 2:1+) They would speak to the many foreigners in their own language of the “wonderful works of God.” Christ Jesus had foretold this event, promising that “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost… shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you… Let not our heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:15+)

These are words worth remembering, bringing the past into the present. We fear not, we trouble not, we enjoy the peace of Christ. For with memory, the Holy Spirit fills us up, overflowing, with the love of God.

For as my bishop of blessed memory often said, “Do not worry. All is grace.”

We are in the octave of the Feast of the Ascension, the eight days following Ascension Day on Thursday, the end of the season of Eastertide, and the snuffing out of the fifty-day Paschal Candle.

The candle is no longer lit, but the Ascension fills us with hope, the hope of life, of living eternally in the love of God our Creator. And it is his love that makes life possible, to be sure, given the death all around us, Rachel mourning for her children, for they are no more. Life would be impossible without the love of God, the hope of Christ, and the comfort and power of the Holy Spirit. But we have all three in abundance.

By now the butchering of our children, born and unborn, is well known, for many of those who engage in this industry appear proud of their deeds, broadcasting their “rights.” Others call it evil and wonder how we arrived at such an impasse in America and the West. We look the other way. We hide, silent, in fear of reprisal, accused of hate speech. And those who mutilate and maim in the name of transgenderism or, in the case of the unborn, dismember living babies at the convenience of the mother, threaten our world with barbarism. No, I will rephrase. Barbarism is here. But there are saints and angels among us still.

And so, in this merry month of May, the month of mothers and Mother Mary, I was glad to be reminded of a heroine who is not afraid to speak out. I have mentioned Dr. Monique Robles, pediatrician and bioethicist, in these pages earlier. She is now offering consultations in addition to her earlier offer of serving as an expert witness in cases involving the rights of parents and children, defending them against those who hunt and haunt children both for their own political purposes and monetary gain (think hospitals and pharmacy companies). For more information, visit her website to become acquainted with this brave and articulate spokesperson for parents and children.

Heroes and heroines abound, and we must support their work in any way we can, so that in the final accounting of our lives, we hear the coveted words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” The door to Heaven opens and we ascend to be with not only loved ones but the angels and the saints and the Lord of Life himself.

My spirits ascended this morning in church. I experienced a moment of grace, or rather, many moments of grace. The ascension of Christ to Heaven, after his resurrection from the dead, lifts my spirits upwards, to be with him, to encounter him, right there in our little chapel on the corner of Bowditch and Durant. This happens, to be sure, in the Eucharist itself, but the ascending and soaring of our songs of praise, the cantor’s amber rising tones, the organ’s deep notes that flew high into the vaulted dome and out the clerestory windows above, out onto the busy streets of graduation and cars and boomboxes, all pulled me along. Surely I had wings to fly. Surely my feet were no longer touching the ground. I thought of Catherine of Siena and how she levitated during her devotions in her chapel, literally rose a foot or so from the floor. She too ascended in that moment to meet Christ and was given the stigmata, the wounds of crucifixion on the hands, unseen but no doubt felt.

We are heavy human beings, you and I. Our weight grounds us with gravity. To soar with the Holy Spirit and the angels for a few minutes each week reminds us that we are more than creatures of flesh. We know this deep within. We long for beauty, truth, and goodness, for love, for the intangible made tangible so that we may ascend to meet it. Our longings fill us with hope, and perhaps for some, with dread. Mystery and miracle, in the Incarnation of Christ, touch us, wound us. We know and understand, for we have the Mass, the liturgy of mystery and miracle. We know and understand enough to feel only joy. Fear and dread are vanquished.

Even so, we must live on this earth and help to redeem it with our love.

For at the end of the day, it is love – love of the unlovable, the unwanted, the undesired, the inconvenient – that calls the Holy Spirit to be with us. It is love that responds. It is love that swirls in our little chapel, linking our family of God, and joining us together in the bread and the wine, in the Real Presence of Christ.

We leave the chapel, knowing we are reborn once again, knowing we are stirred up and sent out to walk among the evil that we see and sense, to save those we can from the ways of death, both physical and spiritual.

We ascended today, then descended back into the world, feet firmly planted on the earth but with memory of Heaven.