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I’m not sure when the momentary recognition came. Was it opening the front door to family, welcoming them in from the rain, taking their coats and greeting them with “Merry Christmas”? Or perhaps it was when I took a photo of them sitting alongside one another, chatting and laughing, creating a sweet hum in the room? Or when we all posed in front of the tree for another photo, staged with a tripod and timer and me running into the group to edge in before the camera clicked?

In our house there was an absence of young children this year, and hence the presence of the young adults, the parents, and the grandparents (my husband and I)). It was quieter, for we didn’t need to orchestrate present-presenting by an older child with a Santa hat and watch the tumult as they ripped and peeked and shook the boxes and finally gasped pleasure or seeming pleasure or, in the event of a disastrous choice, dismay and disappointment.

I’m not sure when the moment came, when I began to recognize the gift that was peculiarly mine, but I think it was in the kitchen when two of our young adult grandchildren helped me with dinner preparations. We began chatting theology, of all things. The granddaughter, age twenty-three, was a newly converted Roman Catholic, living in Seattle, teaching children in a Christian preschool. The grandson, age twenty, was a fervent Orthodox Presbyterian, studying to become a pastor. I stood in the middle, the Anglican, the “via media,” and tried to referee flying missiles of absolute belief tossed back and forth, sola scriptura versus authority of Church and Tradition; errancy and inerrancy; translation and human fallibility. When it got a little heated, I would squeeze in a word or two, “but we all believe in the creeds, right? The Nicene? Even the more general Apostles Creed?” which would produce general nodding for a minute, and then they were off again…

I thought then, standing in the kitchen, trying to remember I needed to serve dinner, that this is my gift from God this Christmas, that two of my grandchildren are so committed to Christ that they are dueling theology in my presence (how wonderful!) in my kitchen, while stirring gravy and carrying turkey and mashed potatoes to the table. Their hearts had been open at the right time in their teen years – as had happened to me at age twenty (fifty-four years ago!) – and the Holy Spirit had entered the open doors to stir them up with Life itself. I was thankful they experienced the joy of Our Lord, as I do.

That was yesterday. But driving to our Berkeley chapel this morning in the rain, I rethought my gift. With pleasure, I listened to my memory of the moment, their animated faces, their deep convictions, their lived-out Christianity, their epiphanies, their discoveries. And as I listened to my interior musings, I realized this was not the gift after all.

The gift after all was Christmas, Christmas itself. Christ himself. God gave me – gave each one of us – Jesus, his son, a baby born to a mother who said yes, and a father who said yes too, into an impoverished and persecuted minority in an arid and dangerous land. The gift was – and is, and continues to be – nothing less than the Son of God, the redeemer of the world, the savior of mankind. He knocks on the door of my heart and I open the door and welcome him in from the cold and rain, bid him enter my soul. He is my Christmas present, ever-present, the Real Presence consumed in this morning’s Eucharist.

Christmas is a time when so many gifts – epiphanies, as it were – are showered upon us. We need only listen, watch, and pray, to be ready for Christmas Day. As I said in a poem long ago, “We need to be ready for Christmas Day, when God Himself came down to earth/ To love us, save us, with His birth.” Our open hearts form a garland of light that decorates the time, the Advent time of watching and waiting, the Christmas time of celebrating and proclaiming, the Christmastide time of reflecting and understanding what it all means.

There are those in our current time, a tumultuous and arid time to be sure, who think Christ is calling his sheep in to the safety of his fold. He is knocking on doors of hearts one at a time, before it is too late. He is offering himself one more time, the gift of life, of salvation. Some will not hear the knock for want of listening and growing deafness; some will hear the knock, open the door, only to close it upon the stranger before them or before the empty dark; some will hear the knock, open the door, and welcome the Son of God into their heart’s home.

Christmas is a time of giving. We give to one another our time, our talent, and the trinkets we think will bring them joy. But in the giving we tell a story of greater giving, cosmic giving, the gift of Eternity. In the giving we tell the story of Bethlehem again and again, year after year, so that those we love will hear the knock, open the door, and welcome Christ into their hearts to change them forever into sons and daughters of the Almighty God.

Merry Christmas!

I love our traditional Anglican (Elizabethan) liturgy, a true artform, but particularly appreciate the processionals and recessionals experienced at grand moments in our church’s history. Yesterday was such a day, a day of ordinations to the priesthood, a day when clergy from all parts of the Northern California assembled at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Oakland. In robes of red and gold and white, these clergy entered the nave of the church, processed up the central aisle, stepping grandly on the crimson carpet, up the steps to the chancel and the high altar. We all sang hymn #220,

“God of the prophets, bless the prophets’ sons; Elijah’s mantle o’er Elisha cast: Each age its solemn task may claim but once; Make each one nobler, stronger than the last.”

Standing in the pews and turning toward the open doors that welcomed the procession, we wove our voices together as one into this sacred event, the ordination of two deacons who had humbly served our parishes for many years. We were all announcing in this form of ritual theater, that a great event was to happen soon. The Holy Spirit was to come upon these men as they made their vows before their bishop. These moments often bring to mind how the Church speaks to us through art – through visual images, through poetic song, through the acting out of these immensely important moments.

The seven sacraments of the Church – Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Marriage, Anointing of the Sick, and Holy Orders – are these important moments in our lives. Therefore they are illumined by the dance of ritual, the steps we have learned through the centuries that create an artful rendering of the moment. Some sacraments are shared with others, but some also are more private, such as penance and anointing.

Holy Orders is the sacrament of ordination, witnessed yesterday at St. Peter’s.

In civic life we see the use of these forms in parades and patriotic ceremonies that bring the community of citizens together. Religious life does the same, with perhaps greater grandeur, providing a place in which we can join together to share the glory of God’s action in the sacrament celebrated.

Ritual allows many to become one. We all know the words and the responses. We know the familiar hymns. We know the creeds. We know when to kneel, to genuflect, to make the Sign of the Cross. This formal structure allows us to speak and sing with one voice, many bodies becoming one. We are a chorus, not unlike the classical Greek chorus.

The beauty of the morning – cold and windy here in the Bay Area – entered our souls. The sights and sounds lingered in our ears and memories. The motions of our bodies centered our hearts upon the actions before us. All of the rituals allowed us to soar together, a congregation of many races, skins, genders, and generations. We were one.

And the two men who lay prostrate before the altar, face down, arms stretched out in the shape of a cross – these ordinands – felt the power of the Holy Spirit descend upon them, as it descended upon us too, like Pentecost. We supported these men in this great offering of themselves. We, the Christian people in the pews, lifted our voices, holding these ordinands in a great wave of love, in offering to the sacred ministry.

And so we sang with one voice… “Come Holy Ghost…” (218). We renewed our own vows: “I bind unto myself today/ The strong Name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same,/ The three in One, and One in Three…”(268) We called upon the Holy Spirit and celebrated our commitment to Christ in the 6th verse of #268:

“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.”

Christ unites us as one. The Holy Spirit moves among us, giving us tongues of Pentecostal fire. Division and rancor and distrust has been burned away.

And so we moved to the end of the liturgy, actually two liturgies, Holy Orders and Eucharist, to the Recessional, framing the grand event, the beginning and the ending, allowing us the deep satisfaction of having been a part of its creation, having loved and lived in the harmony of the morning. We sang with all our hearts as the clergy came down the steps of the chancel, entered the nave and moved along the red carpeted aisle to the open doors of the world outside:

“Ye holy  angels bright,/ Who wait at God’s right hand,/ Or through the realms of light/ Fly at your Lord’s command,/ Assist our song, for else the theme/ Too high doth seem for mortal tongue…” (600)

It was a holy time, a time in which Our Lord came among us, intersecting time with eternity. It was a time reflected in the intersection soon to come, our celebration of the Birth of Christ, the Son of God, who came among us two thousand years ago. And today, we can say for sure, he lives and comes among us still.

Deo Gratias. Come Lord Jesus, come.

https://www.cacvideo.com/franzlongsworth

An icy rain has dampened the Bay Area today, and occasionally I wondered at the hail upon the windshield driving home from church. Would there be snow on Angel Mountain, aka Mount Diablo? The summit is covered in a thick cloud now, but perhaps later a white blanket shall be seen.

The rain taps my window as Christ sometimes taps my soul. It is a light sound, a delicate touch, a steady caress. It is somehow comforting, both the natural water upon the glass and the sacred water quenching my soul.

In this time of waiting for the Christ Child to be born among us, we linger in this desert of Advent, thirsty for such sacred water, longing for baptism.

And so the green hills grow greener in this land of drought, of pandemic, of masking. They drink in the waters from heaven just as we open our lips to receive the Eucharist, our souls baptized anew. We too grow greener in the drought of our hearts. We are inoculated by Christ, no longer fearing fear, fearing faces, fearing touch, fearing laughter, fearing community. We no longer fear grace, the immense love of God stirring us to live fully as we are meant to live.

And so I am stirred by these waters of grace. I am touched and tapped by Christ, a touching and tapping that is ever present whether or not I am awake to it. He knocks at the door of my heart, just as the rain taps the earth. He embraces us with grace continually.

Advent 3 is called Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday, named for the introit at the beginning of the Mass, “Rejoice in the Lord always…” It is also called Rose Sunday, a break from penitential purple, a day when the theme is Heaven rather than the earlier Death and Judgment, and the later theme, Hell. We light three candles on our wreathe, two purple and one pink.

Rose Sunday is a clearing of the skies, a break in the rain, as we glimpse Heaven through the parting clouds. Heaven is real, I am certain, for we sense it all the time as humans on this rolling planet we call Earth. We sense we were made for a better world, and this sense is often called our conscience. Our consciences must be educated, refined, and purified, but our sense of right and wrong, of judgment, has long been a pointer to the existence of God, a moral and loving Father-Creator who desires our good. Heaven is that good manifestly lived in Eternity and punctuated in our own time.

Worshiping together on a Sunday morning gives us a glimpse of that world awaiting us, where many of our loved ones have journeyed ahead of us. There are times when I think they are with me, watching and loving and encouraging, these friends and family so terribly missed. As Christians we are inheritors of this cloud of witnesses to the love of God. We walk among them, some angels, some souls waiting for the New Jerusalem, the Second Coming of Christ. As a friend recently said when asked if he believed in Heaven, “I’ll have a little nap, then enter Eternity.”

Advent is a little nap, a pause before the intersection of the eternal in time. We reflect and meditate upon this Christmas miracle, as we open ourselves to Christ within us.

We worship together on a Sunday, singing and celebrating the glory of Heaven. We say together the familiar words of the Mass, confessing and being absolved, praying for others, praying for our country, praying the consecration of the bread and wine to become the Real Presence of Christ. We stand before the altar, waiting to receive him. We are a row of penitents with the hope of Heaven, and soon we receive Heaven into our bodies. Our thirst is quenched by God.

We have been greened just as the California hills have been greened. The clouds part, and the love of God lights up the world just as the star lights up the stable, and eternity intersects time.

We rejoice always, singing and praising and giving thanks. For we have been given grace, grace to be what we are meant to be, to live and love as we are meant to live and love. We can claim with certainty in this time of Advent 2021, that, as our Bishop Morse of blessed memory often said, “All is grace.”

It is a curious thing when events collide, or fall into place, or compliment one another, or shed a light upon one another. I have been considering setting my next novel in the season of Advent. The downside is the season is usually too busy to attend to the manuscript first draft. But the remarkable upsides collided today, on this Second Sunday in Advent when the Church considers the final judgments, individual and general.

It is a subject most run away from, for good reason, for it is a painful thing to examine one’s life with the eye of our Creator. Scrubbing clean can sometimes hurt. And yet we are told there is a law, a standard, by which we shall be judged.

So what were the other events that collided with Judgment Day?

December 7 is the eightieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the themes in my novel-in-progress, Return to Angel Mountain, considers those who served in the Pacific Theater in World War II, with research based on my father’s experience in the navy on board the U.S.S. Phoenix, in thanksgiving or the service of these courageous sailors.

Another event this month is the Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which revisits the constitutionality of the Roe v. Wade decision (1972), opening the possibility that abortion law will be returned to the states.

And so, how will the Last Judgment judge this case? Especially considering the scientific knowledge we now have, unavailable in 1972, ultrasounds that show the child in the womb from conception. Will these children be allowed to live in the future?

I considered these things in our chapel today, as we heard Christ’s voice in the Gospel lesson:

“AND there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh….” Luke 21:25+, BCP, 93.

With redemption, comes judgment. With judgment, comes law. Do we have the right to take the life of an unborn child? Some ask, “What would Jesus do?” I believe he would choose life, the life he had created for a certain purpose, to live on this earth to his glory, each life loved to the death and into life again.

There are times when we must trust in God, his purposes, his love. There are times when we are pulled in two directions, or three or four. Many women know this, that they have been granted the greatest gift of all, to bear new human life within their bodies. Yet they also sometimes fear their own lives spinning out of control. Today we are told career comes first. We are told a house and financial stability comes first. We are told we have too many children already. We are scolded that the planet is too crowded. We are told to sleep with anyone and abort children conceived. Men are told they need not marry, need not commit to another. Why bother, the chorus screams, in this culture of self, of me, of un-love.

Sounds like the script from C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.

I considered today the drama of these times to come, described by Our Lord in the Gospel, and I considered the monumental events of the times today. I recalled those who fought for our peace and freedom, who gave their lives for us to live, breathe, form families, worship in church. They were brave, these men and women who fought for us, who answered the call to arms after Pearl Harbor. They kept us safe. They chose the right, to fight the wrong.

Judgment is all around us, birthed in every choice we make. To say our choices do not matter is to deny God’s everlasting love and lifegiving spirit among us. Every breath matters.

I recall my bishop, Bishop Morse, of blessed memory, often said that “nothing is wasted.” This can be gratifying when we do right with no one seeing, but it can be terrifying if we slip or slide or do wrong with no one seeing. And yet belief in a God who cares for us so much that he desires us to be good and to live with him forever in promised mansions, who loves us so he died for us and offers himself again and again to walk alongside, leading, guiding our every choice.

Bishop Morse also often said that when he finished his confession, he would complete the list with, “I have not loved enough.” For love is the root of all goodness, all right action, all righteousness. Love – sacrificial love – is the heart of the law.

And so as I considered Advent today, this season of silent valley fogs muffling our mornings in the East Bay, this season of cold winter, short days, and long nights, I thought of Angel Mountain where the hermit Abram lived, died, and lived again. I thought of the sound of silence, the quiet when words are no longer spoken, or songs no longer sung.

We are in the winter of our national life, here in America. We have seen our country fight again and again for right action, and the old demons rise again and again to try and trick our people into wrong action. Nothing changes on this earth, at least in terms of good and evil. But we can make a difference with every desire and deed that we own. For nothing is wasted.

Last Sunday we faced death and what that means. Today we face the judgment of our life. Next week we look to our final destination, Heaven, determined by our death and judgment. The last week, the fourth Sunday in this wintry Advent season, we look to Hell, the place of darkness, the place without God, without love, the abyss, full of meaningless chaos.

Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of the Son of God. We cannot prepare without being judged. We cannot be good without knowing what goodness is. We shall see one day what the highest court of America, of our land of freedom, will do with this monstrous evil that moves among us. How will they judge this thing that slithers and hisses in the dark? Will they say yes to life, no to murder? How will our nation respond to this judgment?

We await the coming of Christ in Bethlehem. We await the second coming of Christ in the last days. In this mean-time, we welcome the coming of Christ into our hearts to love us with his judgment and mercy, redeeming us out of our time and into his eternity by the wood of the Cross, by sacrificial love.

Come Lord Jesus, come.

The season of Advent has often been called Little Lent, for it is a penitential season, a time to examine our hearts and minds to see if we are ready to receive the Savior of the World among us.

Over the years I have used this time to memorize or re-memorize the Collect for today, an opening prayer that is repeated throughout Advent. And so as I listened to the prayer prayed before the altar this morning, collecting us together, the familiar words sang to me:

“Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to life immortal…” BCP 90

If I do nothing else this Advent, I shall endeavor to repeat this prayer daily, to forge the words into my heart and mind, my memory a golden home for these words, food for my soul.

For today we begin to think about judgment, law, and love. Paul writes to the church in Rome in the Epistle (Romans 13:8+) about how the law leads to love. “We owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” But there is more; it is not that simple. He goes on to list the commandments, for the commandments are the law of love, commandments against adultery, killing, stealing, lying, and coveting, all which harm others. How do we measure up against this standard given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, burned into tablets of stone?

And so we have our instructions for Advent: to examine, confess, and repent; to clean out our hearts.

Paul writes one of his most beautiful exhortations to his church in Rome, making his words appealing and encouraging, even beautiful:

“Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we  believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

It startled me anew, “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ becomes a garment worn over our souls. It is a garment of light and love, and also law. Christ himself is our armour of light. We wear him.

We don the holy, the sacred, the eternal. And by wearing Christ, a holy light of discernment, we see our way in the darkness of this world. He hallows us, covering our body and soul, protecting us from harm, from the dark.

I will admit, confess, that chambering and wantonness, rioting and drunkenness, are not my usual temptations. But I see them all around me, in our towns, in our schools, in our elections, in our lack of law and order, in the everyday shootings and lootings and chaos nearby. But strife and envying are always hovering, tempting, for it is easy to desire to be someone else, or covet what they have, to be ungrateful for blessings given, for life itself. So I admit to these sins that encourage the darkness and dispel the light, making it more difficult to “walk honestly.”

Tradition appoints four themes, the “last four things,” to be addressed on the four Sundays in Advent: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell, themes of darkness and light. For we all shall die and we all shall face judgment and our final destination. Considering these last things leads us to our means of salvation, Christ himself, born in Bethlehem. Considering these events, we cast our hope on this Child in the manger, the One who will carry us into eternity.

For if we don Jesus Christ, if we cover our souls with his armor of law and love, we need not fear the encroaching dark. We can see the morning light through the trees, as we follow the path through the forest, through the woods of the Cross, and to the river that runs by the throne of God.

In Angel Mountain I was glad to describe some of these events in our own end-times, our own lives on this earth. I was glad to echo the words of Paul and the words of the Prayer Book’s Collect for the First Sunday in Advent. I was glad to glimpse the glowing dawn of his glorious majesty when He judges us, when we rise to the life immortal.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Today is called “Stir Up” Sunday because of the prayer at the beginning of the liturgy, which “collects” us together as one body in Christ, hence called the Collect for the Day:

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, 1928, 225)

And we, the good people of St. Joseph’s Chapel in Berkeley, were stirred up, our wills swirling in a golden bowl, stirred by the Holy Spirit, melding into one single will, to glorify God on this bright Sunday morning.

Our deacon celebrated a deacon’s Mass, since our vicar was away. It was good to see Deacon Longsworth, who attended seminary here at St. Joseph’s and returned today, soon to be ordained to the priesthood. This happens from time to time – former students return to visit, to preach, to pray – and we enjoy the reunions, lovely gifts from God suddenly in our midst.

And so, as my will was being stirred up, I wondered if my creativity was too, if soon I would seek a moment to begin my next novel. Many of its parts are living in my brain, camped out, I guess, waiting. Some bits and pieces have left, probably ready to move on.

After Mass I stepped downstairs into the basement of our student residence next door to work for a few minutes weeding the books stored there for the last forty years. It is a project slowly taking shape. The process of the weeding, pulling dusty volumes from dustier racks, considering the title on the spine, and placing in an appropriate pile, has focused my fragmented mind upon books, libraries, and words.

Someone on the political left stated recently that words were a sign of white supremacy. Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal (November 13/14, 2021, “Democrats Need to Face Down the Woke”) recently quoted George Packer in his Atlantic article, “When the Culture War Comes for the Kids”:

“In New York City’s public schools, which Mr. Packer’s children attended, the battleground was ‘identity.’ Grade-school ‘affinity groups’ were formed ‘to discuss issues based on identity – race, sexuality, disability.’ The city was spending millions in ‘antibias’ training for school employees. One slide was titled ‘White Supremacy Culture’ and included such traits as ‘individualism,’ ‘objectivity’ and ‘worship of the written word.’ “

I’ve read that also under the white supremacy label is discipline, responsibility, and achievement. Other identity groups, the Left claims, do not think in these terms and thus students shouldn’t be held to these standards.

What really struck me was “worship of the written word.” Hence, books, libraries, and as we have heard, history. For how is history transmitted from generation to generation? Through words, written and oral. Will these folk let us keep oral words? According to cancel culture, speech is forbidden as well.

And so as I examined the dusty, faded, spines of these many volumes published over the last fifty+ years, I recalled that such basements full of books might indeed be banned one day. Would libraries be burned down? It was thought a remarkable and fortunate turn of fortune that the great Alexandrian library in North Africa was spared the looting and pillaging of the vandals in the raids of the fifth century. Libraries – of word, print, or mind – exist to share ideas and times, plottings and plannings between people and cultures and ages. Libraries attempt to ensure that we do not make the same mistake as our ancestors did, that we learn from history and not repeat the failures.

Indeed, these very words, my thoughts worked out on a keyboard, appearing on a screen, on a sunny Sunday afternoon after being stirred up in a sacred chapel a block from UC Berkeley, would be banned too.

So another idea for a theme in my novel emerged. Deep within the caves of Angel Mountain is the last, lost library. Far down, below ground, and farther down than that… where hidden wellsprings bubble and moisture seeps and drips through sandstone… are the last books of Man, his lost words, forgotten and abandoned and left in the dark during the terrible terror, the silencing of speech, writings, communications. It is a time when we no longer sing the song of humanity to one another, to the next generation. We no longer tell stories to children about life, death, and love. One character recalls church bells, though, and sings the tones as she goes to sleep. Another recalls poetry. Another recalls a mother’s lullaby. But these are deep interior memories, silenced by the great levelling, the equalizing of humanity into a gray stream of sameness.

At some point in the past, one character recalls, the lights went out, electricity fizzled, plugs were pulled, and the world went dark. Along with modern conveniences that depended upon the power grid, the internet shut down, for batteries needed feeding. It didn’t take long, he remembers, only a few weeks, maybe less. Fuel was banned to save the planet from climate change and cars sat still and silent where they were abandoned, or kept as museum pieces. The last-minute hording was ugly, with many dying in the crush of stampedes. Yet the hording didn’t last forever either, just extended the pain.

Another character recalls that at one time they heard news of other places and events. The news came through screens and phones, generally propelled by those in power in Washington using carefully scripted words. But now, with the silence mandate, which criminalized writing and most other communication as racist and therefore hate speech, and therefore a sign of domestic terrorism, news was broadcast once a month by a town crier, who read a carefully scripted and word-barren paper he unrolled in the village square. Some wondered if he was human, and perhaps he wasn’t, for he sounded like a digital recording from a bygone age. Others listened, but learned little about human affairs in other places.

It was said in hushed voices that at one time art was celebrated – pictures and stories invented by the imagination – but that the mind needed words and images to dream, and the desire to tell or draw or listen slowly disappeared.

But another whispered that Angel Mountain had a secret deep within, far below in the bowels of the earth. It was a secret library. They spoke the word library as if it wereZ precious gold, a gemstone of rare brilliance. What was a library, the young asked. Ah, the elders replied, you wouldn’t believe it if you saw it. What is believe, the young asked. Ah, the elders sighed, something from long ago, something bright and beautiful and full of joy…

And so I pulled books from the metal racks in the basement of St. Joseph’s student residence, Morse House. There were classic paperback novels, yellowing and brown. There were theological tomes from various decades. There were cataloging how-to books, that listed order and numbers and classifications that all librarians abided by. There were large glossy books of places and things with color photographs and few words that delighted the eye and fed dreams of travel. There were hymnals and prayer books and sheet music in binders.

And many others…

And so the libraries of my mind, those collections of images and words and ideas, loves and hates and dreams, were reorganized as I studied the spines and chose the destination of each book. The books and the words of my mind, those phrases and feelings that formed foundations of my life, joined and separated in a kind of dance, or a painting, or a poem.

The stirring up had stirred me up indeed. And I was grateful, even joyful, that I was a part of Our Lord’s faithful people plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, at least trying to bring forth such fruit. The fruit, I knew, lived in our words, in our hearts and minds. The fruit was ripe for the picking.

As I said farewell for the week to the others gathered around a table in the Clergy House in the back, I was grateful for this morning, this last Sunday of the Church Year. I look forward to next Sunday, our New Year’s Day, the First Sunday in Advent. For having been stirred up, I look anew to the season of Advent, the coming of Our Lord as a babe in a cave in the hills outside Bethlehem, surrounded by farm animals, adored by his mother, earthly father, shepherds, angels, and wise men. We shall sing of this with words that resound through the centuries. We shall tell the greatest story of all, the story of Christmas.

Today, Veterans Day, in thanksgiving for those who fought for our freedoms, American Christian Fiction Writers published Christine’s post, “Loving Righteousness,” how Christian fiction writers weave stories of righteousness, the foundation of American freedom and character. Angel Mountain, her seventh novel, opens on Veterans Day 2018 and closes on Thanksgiving Day, reflecting upon how America can remain free without righteousness.

A cold breeze pierced the air making way for the sun to light up our green hills in the East Bay, welcome after more light rain this week. For without light, colors fade into grays.

Just so, today we celebrated the saints and the light they have shone upon our world, turning the grays into greens, allowing us to see God and God’s heaven a bit more clearly.

Just so, parents across the land saw more clearly just what their students were being taught in public school – division, hate, and segregation all over again. They saw clearly, and they reacted with their votes. Numerous school boards were reshuffled. This was a victory for parents over the state, for freedom over slavery. Had it not been for the pandemic, these parents would not be any wiser. Somehow the clouds of lockdowns had silver linings, for parents saw with their own eyes through Zoom classes exactly what the teachers were teaching their children. God writes straight with crooked lines, as they say.

And just so, the unborn have been given a voice, a tiny voice, barely a whisper, but still light has been shone once again upon the genocide of the unborn. When I reach the pearly gates, what will I confess to St. Peter, or indeed Our Lord himself, about my silent role, my collusion, in this fifty-year genocide? Granted I have voted against this horror. I have supported those who marched against it. I have written and spoken. Will that be enough? It is a huge pandemic of life, of our nation, of the world, each day, each hour; a giant condemnation of America; a Holocaust, but of far greater numbers and time span.

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiologist, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal (October 29, 2021) how her “youngest patients are unborn babies, and today’s ultrasounds show they are fully alive and human.” At fifteen weeks they “have all the proportions of a newborn…major organs are formed and functioning… the digestive, urinary and respiratory systems are practicing for life outside the womb… the heart is fully formed.” The baby is active, kicking and arm-waving:

“I watch as babies plant their feet against the uterine wall and stretch vigorously. Sometimes a delicate hand – with all five fingers – approaches the face and appears to scratch an itch. fingernails aren’t visible, but they are present. We can see how the bones of the leg meet the tiny ankles and the many-boned feet… the brain’s frontal lobes, ventricles, and thalamus fill the oval-shaped skull. The baby’s profile is endearing in its petite perfection: gently sloping nose, distinct upper and lower lips, eyes that open and close.”

Is this child owned by the mother it inhabits? Yes, say those who desire to end the child’s life. No, say the pro-lifers – owning someone else is called slavery. No one owns another person, regardless.

These questions are increasingly being raised in federal courts, as more and more Americans begin to see more clearly what we have “legalized” in a more primitive time, before ultra-sounds, in 1973. Soon the Supreme Court will hear a Mississippi case challenging abortions after fifteen weeks.

How did we arrive at this place in our history? Many say the manipulation of language has effected huge changes, the use of euphemisms that prevent seeing the deed as it truly is. Many have said that the “Newspeak” of Orwell’s 1984 has arrived, where the meaning of words are changed and some words are eliminated entirely. And with the manipulation of language comes the rewriting or even erasure of history.

Are we en-lightened or are we barbarians? What has blinded us so? Can we turn around and embrace these little ones, embrace the light of truth about the human condition?

I thought about this and about the light of the saints, their shining a light upon us all, their examples of selflessness and sacrifice, their witness to seeing reality as it truly is – I thought about these things as I worshiped in St. Joseph’s Chapel this morning, and I gave thanks for the testimony of the majestic organ notes that danced into the dome above the white-linen covered altar, above the candles burning bright, above the white tented tabernacle, and above the crucifix itself.

And I gave thanks for the beam of light streaming through the high clerestory windows, piercing the wood of the cross.

The love of God was in that space, with us, leading us, and teaching us through his humble priest bringing Christ in our midst. I was thankful for this moment of clarity.

In our Anglican tradition, at least in the Anglican Province of Christ the King (traditional Episcopal), we celebrate the Feast (Festival) of Christ the King on the last Sunday in October. Others choose the Sunday before Advent, toward the end of November. This being our name day, it is particularly meaningful for us. For Christ is our King indeed – in deed, in Word, and in Spirit.

And so it is particularly touching that this year the Feast of Christ the King falls on All Hallows (holy ones) Eve, the day before All Saints Day, commonly known as Halloween.

Ah, Halloween! I have found that it is a curious thing that adults desire to dress in costume and pretend for a brief time they are someone else. I have heard that actors choose their profession for the same reason, a chance to be someone else. It is an exercise of the imagination, I suppose, and in this sense can broaden one’s ability to think outside one’s own skin, or develop empathy for others in this role playing. Children costume naturally, having been role playing through creative play their first years. “Let’s pretend… Let’s play… such and such…” It seems a natural part of growing up, and when adults continue to put on costumes, perhaps they are still growing up. Maybe to have a child’s enthusiasm and imagination isn’t so bad. When we enter stories, and live the lives of other characters, we are role playing, pretending to be and do something we are not and do not (usually).

When we act our parts in the yearly Christmas Pageant (and we have numerous adults participating) we costume ourselves in wings and halos and robes and mantles. We carry sheep and gifts to present to the Christ Child and a star atop a pole to raise above the manger – more role playing, telling a glorious story.

As for Halloween, I’m not so keen on children dressing as witches and demons, since witches do exist in satanic cults across the land and demons are fallen angels, unseen but scripturally evidenced. Both do enormous harm.

But best to laugh off all these darker powers, as C.S. Lewis advised (I think). 

Halloween is, I believe, or has become, a ritual recognition of another world, a way to grasp and deal with such a possibility, and perhaps through this scary fright, to face our deepest fears that things aren’t quite what they seem and there really is a Hell waiting for atheists and other deniers of Our Lord, Christ the King. There really is Judgment Day.

But in the darkness of this night we look forward for the dawn of the Feast of All Saints, a glorious, sumptuous celebration of those men and women who have gone before us (and will come after us), who were so filled with the love of God they obeyed his Son, Christ the King. The Catholic Church has named many such saints, and Anglicans reformed the number, simplifying. The names fill the squares on our Ordo Kalendars so we won’t forget: the Apostles and the martyrs who witnessed and died, the Doctors and Fathers of the Church who taught, the evangelists who wrote and preached, the clergy who gave of themselves wholly in holiness, the unsung heroes who fed and sheltered the poor. They populate our kalendars with dates going back over two thousand years.

We celebrate tomorrow, November 1st, this Communion of Saints, this river of love, rolling through time. We join them in song and in eucharist, the living and the dead. We are reminded that we are not alone, but a magnificent part of a great “cloud of witness,” witnessing to the Son of God coming to Earth as a humble baby, born into a persecuted world in a cave outside Bethlehem.

Today we identify with many of these great acts. We too, want to be saints, to know this love of God burning within us. We too, want to have lives of meaning, lives of purpose, lives witnessing to love, hope, and faith. And we too, are persecuted for these desires, for daring to preach the sanctity of life from the unborn to the aged, for daring to claim our inalienable right to freedom to believe the truth and speak that truth to lies. To that end, we protest the bullying and brainwashing of our children. To that end, we defend the family: the privileged and unique role of women as mothers who are able to give birth, to nurture within their bodies a life created by God; the privileged and unique role of men as fathers to protect those women engaged in such a holy purpose; the privileged and unique role of mothers and fathers to care for their children, to watch over them and protect them.

These men and women live among us, sanctifying our world. Thus, on Tuesday we celebrate All Souls, remembering those who have gone before us as faithful soul-soldiers. They may not have lived lives totally abandoned to God’s love and purpose, but they believed and they tried, they confessed and they repented. They reached for Our Lord’s hand and walked him, on his path, until the next stumbling and standing upright again, and moving on. All Souls is for the rest the believers, those who have gone before us in time, who followed Christ the King.

And we will not need costumes, for we will know fully who we are and are meant to be, each and every one of us. We follow the King to learn who we are, to live out who we are, and to love as we are created to love. For he created us, each one of infinite variety and complexity, each one loved by God and help precious in his sight. This is the great adventure, the great story, we are part of, a wholly holy one, to be sure.

Rain came to the Bay Area this weekend, and today it falls steadily straight down, pounding our parched earth and blown sideways by the wind, pulling branches and leaves with it. We are grateful for this downpour, in spite of expected flooding in the northern counties where fire has burned away nature’s protections against erosion. The rain patters and splatters, tapping the windows in a kind of dance, and I suppose I should retain some of the credit for its appearance, since we recently washed our windows. Today, they are getting rewashed by the heavens.

And so, this morning, we chose to join our chapel’s streaming Mass rather than attend in person in Berkeley. We did not want to dodge speeding, weaving drivers on the slick highway in this storm, for they know no shame or fear. So we settled in front of our little screen at home, hymnals open and ready.

It wasn’t the same as being there in person, of course. The organ sounded thin, the video was rough, the voice of our preacher not clear. But we sang and sang and made do. And now I appreciate all the more the gathering together in real space and time with my brothers and sisters in Christ, at St. Joseph’s Anglican Chapel. Still, the rain and the singing and the words of the Mass, so familiar to my ear, comforted me in these speeding and dangerous times.

It seems each week our country steps deeper into foreign and frightening territory, a place of coercion and violence. Now we have parents at school board meetings labeled domestic terrorists, of interest to the FBI. I wish I was surprised, but I’m not. Once heading into the dark, it becomes difficult to see the way, to see the road signs. Each step takes us further from truth, freedom, and America herself. Can we turn around? I’m not sure.

A former president, whom I supported and admired at one time, has recently compared the January 6 protest in Washington D.C. to Nine-Eleven. Shame on him! The demonstrators, while guilty of trespassing, continue to languish in jail without timely charges and due process, and the “murderous insurrection” has been found to be lacking guns, quite unlike the Floyd riots, looting, and burning that crippled cities, that went on for twenty weeks over the previous summer of 2020 with little accountability.

In the midst of all this, in the midst of the the waves of tyranny and lockdowns and mandates, I have been noodling my next novel, collecting stories and ideas and characters as though I were a bus meandering through town. The theme that rises to the surface of my distracted mind is silence. The silencing of speech. The silencing of thought. The silencing, at the end of the day, of music, of sound, of bells, church bells. There are few bells left in our area, few bells allowed to ring. The UC Berkeley campanile still chimes, however, a block from our chapel, and sometimes I pretend they are church bells. But they are not. They glorify the religion of academia, the religion of woke, the religion of silence. How ironic. There was a time once, not so long ago, when academia meant free speech and productive debate, diversity of thought as well as persons. Seems another era.

Communist countries to my thinking are gray countries. There is little color and lots of sameness. There is little music or poetry or art (which feeds on freedom) unless usurped by the state’s propaganda machine. But our Creator created light and within light, prisms of color, the rainbows of de-light that are given us when the sun shines through the rain, when we are reminded of God’s promise to Noah, and thus of God’s promise to us. Our Heavenly Father will not abandon us, if we do not abandon him. He will allow hard times to come, for we have made bad choices, embraced the dark when we should have looked to the light.

I was glad to offer with others this morning my prayer of repentance and glad to hear the happy words of God’s forgiveness in turn. We can change, we can re-turn, we can choose a new direction if we desire. America can too, with God’s direction, with his bright light shining on the path before us. But we must desire this. We must trust him.

The Epistle this morning was one of the most beautiful and heartening Scripture passages I know, found in St. Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus (today Kusadasi, Turkey). He writes that we must take on the whole armor of God:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, praying always and with all supplication in the Spirit…”

Ephesians 6:10+, Book of Common Prayer, 1928, 219

And this is why we go to church. This is why we develop daily rules of prayer and Scripture (BCP has several). This is why: to withstand the times we are in, the times that are to come, the times on our doorstep. We need to be armed with Christ, fully armed with the sword of the Spirit.

Christians have become soft and lazy, luxuriating in America’s freedom, for she was founded upon religious liberty. Americans have become decadent, unthinking, and unappreciative. We are ripe for devouring (remember St. Paul’s roaring lion seeking to devour?). Will we turn, change, repent, in time? Will we teach one another how to love as God loves? Will we teach that we are all precious in his sight, all made in his sacred image? Will we honor him by keeping the Sabbath – Sunday – holy? Will we do our part?

I’m not sure. But I can only do my part as best I can. I do indeed desire to be protected by the entire armor of God – truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and God’s word, the sword of the Spirit.

And I desire it for my family, and all of you, dear readers – as the rain continues to fall, quenching the brown grass, as we await the sun and a rainbow, and one day again, the sound of church bells.