Category Archives: Uncategorized

I have lived beyond my three score and ten years on Earth and yet I found myself desiring to refresh my education with an online course offered free from Hillsdale College: “The Great American Story: Land of Hope.” I have, of course, read numerous books over the years chronicling the American story and foundations, but it was probably in the 1960’s that I last took a class in American History. With all the talk today of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Founding Fathers, and freedom itself, this online course caught my eye. I wondered if I was up to it.

And I have to say, I am thoroughly enjoying it.

I also was drawn to this course because it is taught by Wilfred McClay, using his text. I had read the text and mentioned it in these pages (Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story; Encounter Books, 2019). Highly readable, the text reads like a story, the story of our nation, told honestly, the good and the bad, and why, when, who, and where. There was no apology or grievance, but a thoughtful discussion of what happened to create this great American experiment in democracy.

The book didn’t urge me to riot, or vandalize, or topple statues. It didn’t portray victims but heroes of every skin color. It made me hopeful. It made me proud.

And it sounded a few alarms for today: can we hold onto our great American story? Is the American experiment in democracy nearing its end?

In addition, I had a personal association with the soft-spoken Dr. McClay who has taught in the past at our Berkeley seminary, St. Joseph of Arimathea Theological College. His son at the time was a Cal student in Classics and a member of our chapel parish. When it came last spring 2020 to consider endorsements for the jacket of my novel, Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020), which considered the importance of history, our violent cancel culture, and threats to free speech, he was kind enough to endorse it:

“In Angel Mountain, Christine Sunderland has created a gripping and theologically rich novel, in which four remarkable people make their way through a shifting cultural landscape ringed with apocalyptic fire, revolutionary politics, and end-times expectancy.”

So when I saw that Dr. McClay was giving the twenty-five, twenty-minute lectures, I signed up. The course is part of a massive online effort by Hillsdale to educate the American people (yes, that’s you and I). The most recent course is on Dante. I look forward to the twenty minutes, the simple quiz, the supplementary materials provided, and the entertaining and colorful images adding drama and interest to the presentation. One doesn’t have to purchase the book (or anything else). You merely sign up and learn at your own pace.

And they say that it’s good to keep your brain active as you move into the last decades of life.  So I am trying!

I’m one-third through the lectures, in the 1830’s, and what has struck me is the drama and passion of our heritage, the vigorous debates, the efforts to form this more perfect union of disparate colonies founded for varied reasons. The effort and courage required to break off from Britain was immense: to fight this war of revolution and to forge a document to protect the fragile future, one that would prevent tyranny and ensure the voice of the people. (Just like today.) Both George Washington and Alexander de Tocqueville (Democracy in America) called it an experiment, for such a republic had never been formed before. The Founders looked to the Classical world for models, looking to the past in order to move into the future.

I thought how our current American troubles were placed in perspective. For today we need these same kind of leaders, leaders who lead, with passion and sacrifice, as did Washington, Jefferson, and many others. We have the same issues at stake – our freedoms threatened by tyranny once again, the experiment in democracy seemingly breathing its last. The control of our major institutions – government, economy, and media – by a single party should raise concern among all of us. Balance of power, a key element of the American experiment and forged into the Constitution, is clearly under siege.

I particularly appreciated the chapter on Andrew Jackson, a hero in the War of 1812, elected in spite of his rougher qualities. His victory against the British at New Orleans helped him gain the Presidency in 1824. He championed the average citizen, regardless of education and class, saying they have practical wisdom and should be allowed to vote, hence the term “Jacksonian democracy.” Many compared Donald Trump to Jackson, and I can see why. One could also compare Dwight Eisenhower to Jackson, since the general was elected after his leadership in World War II. And did you know that “The Star Spangled Banner” was written in the War of 1812, as Francis Scott Keys glimpsed from his ship the flag of victory raised over Fort McHenry, Maryland, after the fort was bombarded by the British? (seen in the painting above)

Our country is comparatively young, and yet we can see this river of reason and rights running from the first colonies into our present troubled sea. We reason that we have our rights listed clearly in our founding documents. We seek the truth. We seek freedom to speak, to assemble, to worship. We seek to be counted when we cast our votes, rooting out all fraud.

There is no other country in the world like America. She is the last great hope of civilized and civil civilization. 

And so today is Whitsunday or Pentecost, the great celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples in Jerusalem. The disciples were troubled too, their Lord having ascended to Heaven. But on this day the fire of the Holy Spirit, like a rushing wind, came upon them, giving them the ability to speak in many languages, to witness to the many ethnicities in Jerusalem at that time, to tell of the marvelous works of God in Christ, the salvation of mankind.

This Holy Spirit has never left us. This third person of God continues to breathe upon us, through sacraments, prayer, and scripture. He leads us where we must go, gives us the words we must say, lifts us up when we fall. He listens to our complaints, to our fears, in our darkest moments. He is the comforter, the strengthener. He guided the Founding Fathers in the creation of this more perfect union, establishing a new country, unique in the history of Man. He guides us today, as we seek to hold on to the good in our history and learn from the bad, celebrate the successes and mourn the mistakes.

Come, Holy Spirit, breathe upon America, re-awaken her spirit of freedom, her spirit of hope. Rekindle the spark that makes her a shining light upon the hill, a beacon to the world.

 

The mystery of life is the mystery of death and life again. We cannot live a life of meaning without facing our own death. Someone once said that our death begins with our birth, or one could say more accurately, with our conception. We grow but we also decline, and all of time is held in our palm, or perhaps God’s palm. Can we hold on to time? For how long?

It is a curious thing, this mystery of time, for time only matters if it is our own, if we live it, in it, through it. As I have journeyed in this world of time (toward my own death and new life) I have increasingly perceived through the veil of life, the thin film enshrouding us, the thin linen hiding, and perhaps protecting, the glories of Heaven. I perceive and I pierce the shroud through prayer, through the Eucharist, through love. And on the other side is glory, seen through a veil, through a dark glass, as St. Paul says.

Most of us, even agnostics and atheists, sense there is more to our own lives than the bodies that house our selves, the flesh incarnating our spirits. Unbelievers say that imagination or art or thought itself is something housed, a separate entity from the body. Beauty, truth, music, love, all reflect the spiritual side of Man. We recognize personality, that no two individuals are alike, that even twins are different in their own lives housed by flesh. Believers marvel at this extravagant and exquisite mystery, this infinite complexity of genes and cells and organisms, an ongoing festival of life borne by birth into the future, until the Second Coming of Christ and the end of time.

As a grateful Christian, I look forward to my new life, a better and more perfect life, the life meant for each one of us to live. Death is only for the body, a rebirth, an ascension. And in Heaven, in the New Jerusalem, we will be given new bodies, as promised.

I thought of these things as I visited our virtual Eucharists this morning – in Illinois, Arizona, and California. I celebrated the Ascension of Christ, with him, ascending into the light of Heaven. The last forty days I have walked with him on Earth, having risen with him on Easter morning, having left behind Joseph of Arimathea’s empty tomb, the linen cloths folded neatly. We were crucified that Friday, Christ and his creation, and the veil of the temple tore in two, the curtain lifting between Man and God. Since that historic day, 2,021 years ago, our chancels and altars are open to the faithful, the partition gone, the Holy of Holies no longer hidden, the sacrament housed in a tabernacle on an altar aflame with candles and bedecked with roses. Since that day we are able to see better, to pierce the veil between Heaven and Earth.

In Western Christianity, we take this openness, this vision, for granted. The Eastern Orthodox have retained the partition, as a wall of gleaming icons. I recall visiting the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice, today Roman Catholic, but retaining the Eastern iconostasis, the wall of icons. We could not see the action of the Mass, for the chancel was walled off from the congregation. We peered through a central open doorway to mysterious movement beyond. We could see and hear choirs high above on either side, not hidden by the iconostasis. The liturgy seemed to separate us from God, as though we were observers, tourists (which we were), visiting a hidden, private Holy One. It was more of a performance, and indeed, the music soared through the five gilded vaults, ethereal light glancing off the mosaic-tiled walls like fluttering angel wings.

There are as many ways of worship, I suppose, as there are believers, another wonder-full miraculous mystery. And so we gather together with those of similar aesthetic sense and, in some cases, similar theology. We gather to sing praises and partake of the body and blood of the Crucified One, today resurrected and ascended, each one accepting the invitation to the wedding feast, wearing our best garments, honoring Host and Creator. As members of the Church, his body, we are also his bride, and this is our wedding feast too. We are glad to be invited and we are happy to sit anywhere at his table and glimpse any or all of his glory. And so the Body of Christ over all Earth and possibly beyond is made up of unique individuals, yet who are claim membership in the Family of God.

Individuals being part of a group is an American foundation. America was founded on Judeo-Christian assumptions, this anachronistic teetering between individuals and groups, between freedom and common rule. She is built upon Christian precepts. The question today is whether the precepts, this delicate and vital balance between tribe and member, tribe and nation, can effect a peaceful society without Judeo-Christian belief. Put another way, can freedom and common consent survive without assent to outside authority, i.e. in this case, the Judeo-Christian God? Can human dignity and the sanctity of human life be protected without belief in the Creator?

The answer is not known, but many fear that the answer is “no.” Still, we work through the maze of these months and years, watching and praying as we are told to do, holding fast to love, to freedom, to faith, and to family.

We are Christians. We live on the rim of Earth, the edge of Eternity, the horizon of the heart of God. Each second, minute, hour, day, is a mystifying gift, an invitation from Christ to the festival of life. In the mean-time, we the Church wait for Christ’s next great gift, the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Today we ascend from Earth to Heaven with Our Lord. Next Sunday the Holy Spirit descends from Heaven to Earth to seize our hearts and minds with his fire.

We have been given so much, such treasure, such bounty, such joy. Our cups overflow with goodness and mercy and we live in the House of the Lord forever, now and in Eternity, on Earth and in Heaven.

Rogation means asking and Rogation Sunday was traditionally a time when folks asked for God to bless their harvest. The seeds were in the ground and sprouting. By the end of summer, crops would be ripe for harvesting. So too, a mother gives birth to life at the end of a time of protected gestation, pregnancy, within her body, fed by her blood. So we ask God’s blessing on mothers today, an especially poignant timing, a time when Rogation coincides with Mother’s Day. 

Mothers sometimes do not want their children, sometimes kill the baby in the womb. Mothers are not always good, but those who accept this great gift, the chance to nurture life, are especially blessed. Like all of God’s gifts, children can be challenges. But also, like all of God’s gifts, children can be a great joy.

We celebrate today the mothers who said yes to God’s gift of life, just as Our Lady the Virgin Mary said yes to Angel Gabriel with her fiat, “Be it unto me according to your word.” In our frail humanity, we look to Mary to see how to mother, how to love, how to nurture, how to guide the glorious flowering of a child into an adult. It is a delicate balance, freedom and righteousness, freedom and boundaries, freedom and duty.

We celebrate all mothers who rise to the challenge, who say yes to God. For those who say no to new life, we pray they repent and embrace the joy of this gift.

There are mothers who say yes and mothers who say no. But there are also those who mother children not their own, children who become theirs. We see this especially in the life of the parish where all women are called to be mothers to all children and all men are called to be fathers.

In January 1977 I was a single parent with a four-year old son, a rambunctious towhead holding onto my skirts and peering around them in both fear and fascination with his world. We arrived on the steps of St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Oakland, California and ventured inside. The beauty, the incense, the candles, the chants, the joyous hymns all called me to stay and we did. Over the years the women of the parish mothered my son and the men mentored him. I shall always recall those times, times of great difficulty, yet times of great love, love born in this parish. My son grew up to become a fine father to his own son and daughter, and now it was my turn to mother the children that arrived on the steps of the church. I taught Sunday School, some of the most delightful moments of my life.

And so I sing praises to mothers who mother everywhere in all times and seasons.

And we ask for God’s blessing on the crops, on the seeds and the newborn, those who were chosen and given life. We ask that God forgive our nation and its great apostasy in the killing of the unborn, the seed denied a chance to mature and live. It is a great evil, a great lie, that this is somehow freedom. For such denial of life is slavery, slavery to self, slavery to desire.

We ask God to turn our hearts and minds to honor mothers and those who mother. We ask God to save our country from this infant genocide. We beseech Our Lady, so full of grace, so blessed among women, so blessed to bear the fruit of her womb, Jesus: Dear Holy Mother, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Pray for us, Holy Mother of God, that we may be worthy of the promises of Christ, worthy of Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost.

Rogation Sunday marks the final days of Eastertide, culminated in Christ’s Ascension this Thursday. The next three days are traditionally days of fasting and prayer, and we offer all in the name of life. For Easter is the gift of eternal life, the gift of God the Son and his conquering death to give us life. We pray through these days, the culmination of fifty days, arriving at Christ’s Ascension to Heaven. He tells the disciples that He must go to the Father so that they may receive the Holy Spirit, the third person of God, on Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension.

It is such a rich, colorful time, these days of greenness and growth, these days of planting and prayer, these days of soaring under a sun lengthening the days, lightening our lives, these days of Mary’s month of May.

For the mystery of Christ is the mystery of God’s immense love for us. The mystery of the Holy Trinity, the three persons of God, is the mystery of God’s great bounty and his plan for each of us. In God the Father, He creates us and gives us life; in God the Son, He walks among us and shares his life with ours, dying and rising, so we can live with him now and forever; in God the Spirit, He enters our hearts and souls and minds, molding, nurturing, inspiring, leading. In all of these persons of God, we see an intelligence and a love beyond measure.

And so we pray our praises and our thanksgivings for the gift of life itself, and for all those mothers who mother.

It is as though the natural world were waking to spring, after a long slumber. The oaks are full and rustling in the breeze outside my window. It is as though they were saying “shush…” slowly and sleepily, listening to the breath of life blowing over the land. The branches dance and wave gently, their leaves absorbing the sun, raised open to the light. 

The world is waking up.

So too, we humans sense the change. We yearn for the light, for something greater than we are, for the good, the true, and the beautiful.

We are told to watch and wait for the second coming of Christ. Is it soon? The disorder in the world cries for order, for a loving order, one which frees us to fly. But the wars and the rumors of wars, the false prophets, the flippant lies told without care – all these things point to Christ’s coming. In our lifetimes? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We do not know and perhaps it is best we do not know but must be ready.

The borders of our nation are porous and illegals and the unvetted pour in. Prisoners convicted of violent crimes roam and threaten California communities. The borders of our lives, of our safety, are no longer holding.

Our children are taught to hate our country, to welcome its destruction, to agree silently to the silencers, to be afraid to be free, to speak.

And yet the breeze of life blows over our land. Parents organize. Truth-tellers publish. Freedom, so fragile, catches its breath in fits and starts as we the people awake to our imprisonment.

Pastors and priests preach truth once again, bolstering flocks with Christ. They feed souls with Scripture, Sacraments, and creeds. They heal minds with meaning, with the whys and wherefores, building strong arks of peace in our souls before the floodwaters rise.

And so, as we tuned into our virtual liturgies in Illinois (1), Arizona (1), and California (4), we were flooded by God, by his power, by His voice, by the song He sings to us.

We sang our thanksgivings for life itself, for the natural world awake around us, the planet that spins in a galaxy finetuned second by second to nurture and keep us safe. We marveled at the stunning nature of nature, its infinite complexity. We plunged into the sea of understanding that gives order to our daily crises. We were called to recall who we were, are, and ever shall be, uniquely loved by our Creator, individually and as a living part of Christ’s Body.

For a few hours this fourth Sunday in Eastertide, we considered the words of St. James: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” We learn that God made us by speaking a word upon the cosmos. We hear that we trust this Creator who is our Father and who is light, who is ever faithful in His care for us. We see that we are to “receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

It is all true, we think. It is truly true, that as members of the Body of Christ we are part of His vine, His taproot into life. We grow in this life eternal as the word is grafted onto us. We must be meek to receive; we must repent; we must love. We must listen to our holy ones who are true and good and be deaf to the unholy who are false and evil. The engrafted word in Scripture and Sacraments enlivens us to face the roaring lions eager to devour.

We wake to this Spirit that moves among and within us. There will always be troubles in the world, always be plague and heartache. We are the blessed ones, to understand what it all means, to choose a path through a forest of danger and doubt. The Lord is our Shepherd. We fear no evil. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

We sang with all our hearts the recessional hymn in the Berkeley chapel:

Praise, my soul, the King of heaven;

To his feet thy tribute bring;

Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,

Evermore is praises sing: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Praise the everlasting King.

Praise him for his grace and favor

To our fathers in distress;

Praise him still the same as ever,

Slow to chide, and swift to bless:

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Glorious in his faithfulness

Father-like he tends and spares us;

Well our feeble frame he knows;

In his hand he gently bears us,

Rescues us from all our foes.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Widely yet his mercy flows.

Angels, help us to adore him;

Ye behold him face to face;

Sun and moon, bow down before him, 

Dwellers all in time and space.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Praise with us the God of grace!

(H.F. Lyte, 1834, based on Psalm 103)

It seems at times, that time stands still, in this weary world of Chinese Flu, extreme lockdowns, and punishing masks. For children, the costs are horrific and ongoing here in California. For young adults, suicides are on the rise. For the rest of us, fear hovers and shades our every move, every social gathering, every event. We wonder if freedom is bound and captive, if speech is silenced, if elections are rigged, if justice is bribed or threatened, if truth is honored, if reality is real. We wonder if America is imploding, if churches will go underground.

And so I approach Sundays with gladness, being reminded that the illusions of our current state are just that: illusions. We the people need not fear. We the people will gather in real time and real space to once again worship God, boldly and mask-free, our faces open and loving and praising Him. Freedom is not yet bound by ties of tyranny, but as free flying as we desire. Speech is spoken to those who listen, who have ears and who hear. Elections are not always rigged, and we still have the power to ensure they are not. Justice is not always bribed, and we can make sure that justice is blind not bribed, blind to favor, blind to threats, blind to extortion and mob rule.

We the people must awake from our deep slumber. We must listen and learn and love. We must protect our peace, our communities, our children, from the violent hordes who believe the lies.

Today, Sunday, was especially blessed, and I was made especially glad. For from the dark jungle of the week’s rioting and untruths, I entered a space of peace and truth.

And even better, a space of hope for the future.

For this last week was our Anglican Synod, a yearly gathering that met in real space and real time. While I wasn’t able to attend, I learned much was accomplished and much celebrated. Two deacons were accepted for the next phase of their calling, the priesthood. A priest was consecrated bishop. Our faithful and steady Anglican Province of Christ the King is stronger than it was last month – stronger in faith, discipline, and vision. They are unmasked.

And today we heard the Gospel appointed for the Feast of St. Mark. Jesus the Christ says, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” (John 15:5-6) Mark traveled with Peter and wrote his Gospel account based on Peter’s witness. He was a branch sprouting from the vine, a branch from which we descend. We tap into the same source of life as the first apostles.

Knowing that we are a part of the Body of Christ, branches of the vine going back two thousand years and living today, gives us hope that we need not carry the world upon our shoulders. And yet, if we do not abide in Christ, if we are not a branch of His Vine, manifested in the Church, we will not bear fruit and we will be lost.

One of the preachers I heard this morning in our virtual liturgies said that in this world of threatening events, we need to remember that we are Christians first and citizens second. While we render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, we must uphold our Christian faith first and judge accordingly. Should the two come in conflict, our faith must direct our actions. For we are branches of the True Vine and can only bear fruit if we remain so. 

Recently I read a good summary of Critical Race Theory and the horrors this movement is inflicting upon our children through education at all levels. This Neo-Marxism, developed in the 1990’s, has produced its own branches over the last decades: “social justice,” intersectionality, identity politics, cancel culture, speech silencing, erasure of history, and white guilt, to name a few. These narratives inflame and divide and are based on lies. They cut off many well-meaning Christians from the True Vine. They deaden souls. Division, chaos, and anarchy result, all satanic deceptions.

It is encouraging that parents are now protesting this K-12 propaganda. We are called to tell the truth and to support those who are brave enough to tell it as well.

And so we pray and we praise and we read our Scripture. We open our eyes and our ears and bear fruit for Our Lord.  We call upon Him to lead us in all truth, in all love, with His vision in our hearts and souls, always remembering we are branches of His vine. He is our life. We need only look to Him first in all things.

As American democracy stumbles into the second year of fear and pandemic, we look to stable and true leaders. Thus, Prince Philip’s death has sounded a mournful note in the hearts of many.

Seeing the Queen sitting alone in the choir of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, masked and dressed in black, brought home the tragedy. 

Philip lived a long life of duty as the Royal Consort to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Duty is out of fashion today. Someone once said that duty is the discipline of love. Love is not free, freewheeling, or freefalling. Love must be molded by sacrifice and care-full attention to the beloved. Love demands discipline; love demands duty.

I have read that Philip was outspoken. So in his duty and obedience to Elizabeth he did not give up his opinions, his integrity. Within the framework of his position and duties to the people of England and the Commonwealth (and there were many such claims upon him) he grew strong in his own person.

He was a man of faith, we are told. He could do broad Church or high Church Anglican, but the one he preferred was short Church, according to the Bishop Chartres. (Most of us can identify with such a preference.) And so his funeral was a simple one by royal standards, designed by him and subject to those fearful Coronavirus restrictions. He was true to himself in death and life. He was trustworthy.

I have found that being able to trust a person, to rely that they are truthful and supportive and dedicated to the right action, means a great deal. Truth, like duty, has been downgraded today, and undervalued in both public and private spheres. This is a national and international tragedy. For without trust and truth, we are blind.

And so as I tuned in to our virtual Eucharistic liturgies this morning in our Anglican Province of Christ the King, I thought of Philip and England and the Anglican Church. I thought of the Queen sitting alone in that massive choir in the chancel of St. George’s, waiting, sitting in mahogany stalls lined with white lanterns in the gothic abbey style. I thought of her strength in the face of so many heartbreaks and challenges. And I gave thanks for the pageantry and ceremony her reign ensured and continues to ensure, an ordered beauty of holiness that has been passed down through the centuries, ever since Thomas Cranmer produced our Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

For it is this tradition of ancient liturgy that we as Anglicans in America embrace, an ordered beauty of holiness expressing the inexpressible: the being of God, the love of God, His nature, His sacrifice, His offering Himself to us. 

And today, Good Shepherd Sunday, we heard the powerful Gospel of Saint John, quoting Christ Jesus. Our Lord tells us that He is the Good Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep. He knows us, and we know His voice. He protects us from wolves who scatter us. One day, Our Lord promises, there shall be one flock and one Shepherd, for all those who know His voice will be brought into his fold.

It is good to be strengthened by these words in this time of scattering, sheltering, masking, and fear of one another, distancing ourselves. Hearing these words spoken by different readers before different altars molded these truths into my heart and soul.

And while the image of Christ the Good Shepherd is strengthening and comforting, one of our preachers extended the image by saying we must all take on this nature of Christ. We must become shepherds too, bringing in lost sheep to the fold of the Church. We sometimes treat our fellow faithful as a social club or even unwittingly a burial society, closed and close and comfortable. We must be like the Good Shepherd and look out for the lost and suffering, healing them with the words and liturgies of God made Man, in His Church.

How do we do this? We love our fellow man, in exercise of duty. We tell the truth, we sing the truth, and we hold the truth high for all to see. We are not ashamed of who we are. We do not remain silent in the midst of tyranny and lies. We mentor the next generations. We turn no one away.

We practice the ten commandments, the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and learn how to do this in weekly, if not daily, reading of Scripture, and with our own Baptisms and Confirmations and Eucharists in the Body of Christ, the Church.

Our Diocese of the Western States, Anglican Province of Christ the King, will be consecrating a new bishop this week. Bishops carry a crook, or staff, for they are shepherds, looking to bring in the lost, to teach the saved, to be pastors and priests to the clergy in their charge. They watch for wolves who devour and divide. They tell the truth about man and God, about who we are and who we are meant to be. They comfort us with historic, witnessed, creeds and doctrine. They give us opportunities to be shepherds. They teach us how to love as Christ Jesus loves.

And so, Prince Philip was laid to rest. Well done, good and faithful servant. The world will miss you and all that you quietly did and humbly were. Rest in peace until the trumpet sounds and we all shall rise again.

I recently read a remarkable memoir, Fish Out of Water, by Eric Metaxas. It is told in an informal conversational style, full of anecdotes of his growing up in the Greek Orthodox community in Danbury, Connecticut. One of the threads or themes particularly resonated with me.

His church life as a boy did not claim his love, did not call him to believe. When he does experience God, it is an answer to a yearning not fulfilled. Through a series of miraculous events, he finds his way as an adult to the evangelical stream of Christianity in America, for it is being born again that recreates him and claims him as one of Christ’s own. His joy in these pages is nearly tangible.

It often happens that established, successful churches dull our belief with their familiarity and routine, and we have to leave our childhood church and return to a different stream of Christianity. Probably like many things we do, ritual can become hollow and automated. Prayer can become words memorized and unfelt or even unheard. And yet ritual and prayer, when cultivated in love and adoration in the worship of God, add richness and beauty to a sacred conversation.

I was raised in the Presbyterian church. At some point in the 1960’s as a young adult I lost my faith, but returned as an Anglican, having been won back by the apologetic reasoning in C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. I was luckier or more blessed than many in that my time in the agnostic/atheistic desert (essentially my college years) was short, and God found me and claimed me again. I do recall those years, however, as painful ones, full of sadness and confusion, for life had no meaning without God.

God was everything, and I had lost him. But he had not lost me.

And with my return to the Church and to life in Christ, I returned to moral law and peaceful order. For only with an objective and true authority can we know what is right and what is wrong. This is the righteousness of God’s rule in our world and the universe, a righteousness we cannot own without the Resurrection. This righteousness I wrote about in my recent post at American Christian Fiction Writers, “Resurrecting Righteousness,” how Christian storytellers are called to remind their readers and the world that there is a better way, a righteous way, a way ordained by God, for us to live with one another.

With these thoughts running through my memory of the week, this morning’s Gospel sounded a sweet note. For as the resurrected Christ appears to the fearful disciples, he says, “Peace be with you.” This phrase is repeated throughout our eucharistic liturgy. In some Roman Catholic parishes the peace is passed one to another in the pew, with a handshake or a nod (maybe not presently with the pandemic). These words remind us of the great reward of being claimed by Christ and of our claiming Christ: peace.

And how we need more peace today. Perhaps our time is no different than any, but peace seems particularly illusory. We fear to speak or we will be demonized or cancelled by those who disagree. We fear rampant crime as police are defunded and defamed. We lock ourselves in our homes, fearful of virus, but also riots and revolutions.

Peace. I recall in the 1960’s folksongs with their call for peace, not war. They thought peace would come if we did not defend America in war; peace would come if drugs were plentiful and morality was ignored in the name of free love.

They were wrong. For it was a devil’s bargain, an illusion. Peace comes from righteousness, from heartfelt trying to act right, from admitting wrongs, from experiencing God’s will in our lives. Peace comes from the loving authority of our Creator, as found in Scriptures and the Church. Peace comes from Christ breathing upon us in our baptisms and our eucharists and our evening prayers.

The Epistle lesson today was almost harsh. St. John writes, “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

I have found that truth, if it is truly true, makes sense. One strand weaves into another to make a perfectly woven tapestry. This morning it happened again. Mr. Metaxas’ account of God speaking to him in dreams and through people and events, in miracles, bringing him home again, upheld and verified the righteousness of God, his goodness, his personal intentions for each of us in his moral universe. And this morning we received God’s peace, the result of rebirth and righteousness.

And so we pray that we all are reborn, again and again, redeemed again and again, returned to Our Lord to be remade, again and again. We pray that we know the peace that passeth all understanding.

And we pray for our country, that America once again be a land of peace, a land of rebirth, and a land of righteousness, that America will return to God.

I am pleased to announce that American Christian Fiction Writers has published my post today, “Resurrecting Righteousness,” how Christian writers redeem American culture in the choices they make in the stories they tell, as seen in my recent novel Angel Mountain. Thank you ACFW!

   

“Christ is risen!” the faithful cry.

“He is risen indeed!” the faithful reply.

Every Easter Christians throughout the world greet one another with this joyful announcement. It is a reminder of the empty tomb.

In many ways we have been entombed over the last year. We lived in the darkness of isolation during the threat of the Coronavirus. We hid from one another, fearful of contagion. Today, Easter 2021, many are vaccinated, and many look forward to their own resurrection from the cavernous and deadly lockdowns.

We have been deadened by this time, a time that has stood still. Some think of 2020 as the year that was lost. And yet no time is lost. No minute forgotten. No life unimportant to God.

And that includes the unborn, who also live in the shelter of the womb, a dark place, a tomb of life. After nine months, the child breaks into the light.

Hermits are also entombed, in their caves, retreating from the light, from the business of the living, to commune quietly with God, the saints, the angels. My recently released novel, Angel Mountain, is about such a hermit, an elderly Holocaust refugee who converts to Christianity and lives a life of prayer in a sandstone cave in the hills east of San Francisco. The story opens as he leaves the darkness of the cavern and steps into the sunlight, a moment when he speaks the words of repentance and baptism, when he speaks the words of God’s love for mankind, for each one of us.

In an odd way, I am grateful for this last year of darkness, isolation, and reflection, for I appreciate resurrection so much more. Yet surely the lockdowns were not worth their cost to human livelihoods and children’s growth, and so many other losses. The masks became hideous, dehumanizing, cancelling expression, cancelling love, cancelling touch, cancelling smiles, cancelling personal connection. The social distancing mandates separated us, divided us. And so the turmoil of the year was to be expected – the imprisoned energy escaping and vandalizing and raping our towns, stealing our peace, used and abused by the unscrupulous and the Machiavellian.

The virus fueled fear, and the fear spread faster than the virus. The fear fueled lies and manipulation and government control.

Each person became master of his own isolation, protecting himself from others who had become the enemy.

To Christians, the dark, demonic aspect of this year has been all too clear. And it continues today.

Yet today is Easter, a day when we celebrate resurrection and life, a day to rejoice in the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb so many years ago.

And so, when my husband and I tuned in to our virtual church liturgy, we were flooded with memory of a better time when we were present, kneeling and singing, in the nave of our parish church, a kind of ark-cavern. And as the memories returned, so too did the recognition of the words and hymns and actions of the morning. A union of past and present birthed a dove rising from the ashes of our lockdown, resurrected by joy. We sang,

“Jesus Christ is risen to-day, Alleluia!/ Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!/ Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!/ Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!” (#85)

We listened to the familiar Gospel lesson, in which Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb:

 The Gospel. St. John xx. 1.

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. (Book of Common Prayer, 1928)

We walk with Mary Magdalene in the dark before dawn to the tomb. We see the stone taken away. We run to tell the others. We too fear He has been stolen and we cannot find Him. We run with Peter and John who outruns Peter (a little pride?). With John, we see the burial cloths.

We do not know what to think… and they do not know the Scriptures.

But we know the Scriptures. We know the miraculous magnificence of this morning, Easter. We know the love of God made incarnate, His blood shed for us, His hand reaching for ours, pulling us out of the dark and into the light of eternity. We know. We believe. The testimony of two thousand years is abundant and convinces us that there is more to life than we can see; there is divine meaning to every minute.

And so we sang into our screens, the chapel organ booming,

“Welcome happy morning!” age to age shall say:/ Hell today is vanquished, heaven is won today!/ Lo! the dead is living, God for evermore!/ Him, their true Creator, all his works adore!/ “Welcome happy morning!” age to age shall say. (#87)

As we sang, our age joining with all the others, past and future, the priest set a wooden cross in the central aisle and, with the help of one or two others, gently placed flowers in the holes on the cross, resurrecting the cross of death to one of life, flowering the cross and flowering us as well.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. The simple truth of the risen Christ is enough. It is more than enough. For we have laid in the tomb all this year and happily emerge, like Lazarus, like Christ, from the dark. We take Our Lord’s hand, and He pulls us into the light of Eternity, today and always.

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week leading to Easter. It is a grand, serious, and holy drama in our part of the Body of Christ on earth, played out in liturgy, song, and prayer. We tell the story of Jesus the Christ entering Jerusalem to the cry of Hosannas and the strewing of palm branches as he rides on a donkey through the city gates. Our parishes once acted out this holy week with daily liturgies leading to the Triduum, the three days before Easter. Then on Maundy Thursday we celebrated the Last Supper, when Christ gave the Church the gift of himself in the Holy Eucharist. On Good Friday we mourned as Our Lord was crucified on the cross of Golgotha, the “place of the skull.” On Holy Saturday we prepared for Easter and the transformation of the sanctuary from purple shrouds to white lilies on the altar. Easter Eve was often a celebration of the first Easter morning, candles lighting the dark of the nave. Easter Day was resurrection day when children flowered a white wooden cross at the chancel steps.

Today, with Coronavirus restrictions and fewer numbers of the faithful, we enact a more abbreviated Holy Week. Even so, the liturgies are rich and beautiful, poetry distilled through centuries. We are a joyous people, and our liturgies embrace the transformation of mankind from despair to joy, from suffering to saved, from death to life.

I for one am so very grateful I came to the Faith early in my life so that I could experience these yearly festivals, beckoning me along my path to Heaven. It is a rich and colorful weaving of time and eternity, for with each Eucharist, eternity intersects time. Even today, from home, locked down and attending church virtually, I have experienced such grace, grace that demands immense gratitude. For grace abounds where faith, hope, and love intersect.

And so it was with particular joy that I realized my great grandfather Nicholas Nelson was a devout believer. I have inherited a number of anniversary mementos, silver with “N to C” engraved in swirling cursive letters. The most cherished of these mementos, however, is a plaque designed by Nicholas for Christine for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. He writes in careful printing, framed by leafy tendrils on parchment:

“The thoughts that fit a long life of happiness together have been said so well over three thousand years ago, that they are the best suited to convey all the meaning in my heart. And they are here repeated.“ (Here he quotes Proverbs 31)

Ending with:

“Golden indeed have been the years now registered by this Golden Wedding Anniversary, May 10, 1942.”

 

My grandmother’s notation can be seen at the base the frame, telling us her parents were married 56 years and 5 months and had three children: Helen Christine (my grandmother), her sister Armorel, and her brother Gilbert.

I had wondered about Gilbert who died at age 27 in Denver in 1922. In researching my Norwegian ancestors I learned from a news article that he died from appendicitis. An aunt of mine, today young at ninety-four, supplied another bit of story: Gilbert’s mother Christine was so grief stricken that she left Denver for San Francisco in the next few months. Why SF? It turns out that Nicholas’ brother Harry had a candy company there, just as Nicholas had founded one in Denver. Nicholas joined Christine in the year following and they made their way to Los Angeles.

My heart ached for Christine and Nicholas, losing a son at 27 years of age. Life was often threatened in those days, and perhaps more appreciated than today because of those challenges. Children didn’t always survive infancy. Surgery was dangerous. Infection was common. And yet they valued what was precious, life itself, family bonds that strengthened the trials.

And so I pray on this Palm Sunday 2021 that we do not forget our history, be it family or nation or world, that when the darkness settles upon us, shrouding our past, demonizing faith, scattering families, that we keep the light burning, keep waving our palms before Him as He enters the gates of Jerusalem.

For as we tell this old story of God incarnate two thousand years ago and His great acts of redemption, we remind ourselves and our world that this is an ongoing, present-day story of God incarnate. Each year we process and wave our palms and sing “All glory, laud and honor/ To thee Redeemer, King! /To whom the lips of children/ Made sweet hosannas ring.” (#61) Each year we act out the drama of His crucifixion and resurrection and His offer of salvation from death, His offer of eternal life to each one of us, His beloved children. Death is no more, conquered by the love of God.

In this way, each year we renew our own life in Christ’s life, weaving our story into His and His into ours. Our ancestors understood these magnificent truths of mankind and told the story too.

Just as we do, today, Palm Sunday 2021, as we enter Holy Week.