Category Archives: Uncategorized

Darkness no Darkness

Posted on March 2, 2014 | 3 comments

It has struck me lately how separate we human beings are from other creation. And we are so small. The world was here before I came, and it will be here after I leave. We have little impact upon nature, although we like to think we control it and even harm it. In the end nature shall have the last word, and we can see its random and unfeeling power in hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, drought, fire, tornadoes. But man is proud and self-deceiving.

We anthropomorphize the natural world  giving flora and fauna human qualities. We think of a lion as a big sweet cat, yet he mauls and destroys. Nature gives us joy; we love the mountains and the seas, and we want our love to be returned. But it isn’t, except for, of course, by some domesticated animals, and it is uncertain what sort of love they have for us.

That I find myself in this world, so foreign and so lovely and so dangerous, points to a master of design. That I delight in its beauty and power, its awe-fullness, is not by chance. That I long to walk its forest paths and sleep under its stars and feel the sun on my skin is not by random design. I think we love creation as a reflection of the Creator. We are drawn to him through his works; we yearn, we long for him, and thus his world. The good news is, of course, with the coming of God the Son among us, we know that our Creator loves us in return; he yearns and longs for us.

Sometimes I sense another, an “other,” world alongside ours, as though separated by a sheet of glass. St. Paul writes that he sees God “through a glass darkly,” glass thought to be more a mirror or reflection as well as a window to God – not our kind of glass window. We do see, sense, God around us, if we have eyes to see. We are children, and when we grow up we shall see clearly. But for now, God is here, present, and I know that his spirit, through my Baptism, dwells within me.

But he is not just a God within, an idea that grew into heresy in the last century. He is outside us as well, working in our world. He exists apart from me. He is not conjured by my imagination, my desires, although he has planted such desires in my heart. 

But seeing and knowing isn’t everything, and the Epistle for today, St. Paul’s definition of love, says it perfectly, poetically. I tried to shorten it, but just couldn’t, every word being of immense importance and beauty:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (I Corinthians 13)

St. Paul brings me back to the heart of the matter: love. We long to know, to see, but we are nothing without love.

Today’s Gospel, on this Sunday before Ash Wednesday, Quinquagesima, tells how Christ healed a blind man who was begging on the side of the road. The man had great faith, and he cried out to Jesus to have mercy upon him. Jesus healed him because of his faith.

There is a link between faith and seeing through the glass, seeing the reflection of God in the world around us. In Raymond Raynes’ Darkness no Darkness, hopefully our next American Church Union release, he speaks of giving oneself up to Christ, allowing him to remold and redirect us. It is this kind of free-fall faith that allows us to be healed. We stand with the blind man on the side of the road and we cry, Lord have mercy upon me. Our Lord turns and heals us because of our faith. When our eyes are opened, what do we see? We see love.

The title of Father Raynes’ book of meditations, Darkness no Darkness, comes from Psalm 139, one of my favorite memory passages: 

O Lord, thou hast searched me out, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine up-rising; thou understandest my thoughts long before.
2   Thou art about my path, and about my bed; and art acquainted with all my ways.
3   For lo, there is not a word in my tongue, but thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether.
4   Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
5   Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain unto it.
6   Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit? or whither shall I go then from thy presence?
7   If I climb up into heaven, thou art there; if I go down to hell, thou art there also.
8   If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea;
9   Even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
10 If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me; then shall my night be turned to day.
11 Yea, the darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as the day; the darkness and light to thee are both alike.
12 For my reins are thine; thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
13 I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.
14 My bones are not hid from thee, though I be made secretly, and fashioned beneath in the earth.
15 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book were all my members written;
16 Which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
 

Again, I could not condense this, for here the Psalmist so long ago saw that knowing and loving are linked together by God in his love for us, in his intimate knowledge of each of us. He knows and loves us in the womb. He sees our hearts. Darkness is no darkness, for the night is as clear as the day. And we see. We see Love.

We approach the ashes of Lent, the burning of the Palm Sunday palms and the marking of the charred cross upon our foreheads, a cross that will burn our minds and hearts for forty days. We recall that our flesh came from dust and will return to dust.

This Lent 2014 I shall try to memorize Corinthians 13, engrafting the words onto my mind and heart. Hopefully, faithfully, I shall sound less like a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Hopefully, faithfully, I shall see through the glass to Our Lord himself. Hopefully, faithfully, I shall be healed and shall see… God.

3 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On Sowing Seeds

Posted on February 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

I’ve been researching Beethoven since I’m including his Piano Concerto No. 5, the “Emperor Concerto,” in my novel-in-progress. I learned Beethoven studied with Haydn to master the skill of “counterpoint.” The lyrical second movement in the concerto is a perfect tribute to his mastery.

The melody haunts me. It lives, dancing in my aural memory, much as Beethoven must have experienced as he composed it, for he was losing his hearing in this year of 1809. He never performed the concerto, but left it to be performed by others. The notes are tender, calling one into their beauty. I thought it was sad that he didn’t hear it performed, but then, I suppose, he did in a way. I also learned that he didn’t name it “Emperor,” that others named it, and that he would not have appreciated the title. Alas.

So it was with great interest that I read in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal a review by T. J. Reed of Not I, Memoirs of a German Childhood, by Joachim Fest (1926-2006). The complacency of good Germans during the rise of Hitler has troubled many: If it could happen in Germany, why not anywhere? After all, Germany was “a culture that produced Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Beethoven.” Hitler’s rule, was, to many “good” Germans merely a “Nazi phase.” Things would change soon, surely. They had great pride in their culture, great faith in their own people.

But of course, we know things got worse, a lot worse. As I listen to Beethoven’s piano concerto and am filled with such exquisite joy, I understand how some Germans slid into complacency, thinking they could wait it all out, because of their strong culture. But “high culture,” art for art’s sake, brilliance, excellence, man at his greatest and most noble will never tame the beast within each of us. We shall always have a dark place, a shadowy corner, where something isn’t quite right, where cancer grows. For what happens in a society, happens first in each person’s heart.

Joachim Fest’s family were Catholic dissidents. How did they read the times? What gave Joachim’s father the vision to see what was happening as early as the 1920’s, when his Catholic Centre Party joined with Social Democrats against Communists and Nazis? By 1933 the father lost his headmaster’s job; soon the four children were removed from school; soon friends deserted them. And even with his vision, what gave Joaquim’s father the strength to risk everything to not be complacent, to not look the other way?

I believe (and I hope to find out more in the memoir) that the answer was his faith, his God. The title, Not I, refers to St. Peter’s reply to Christ, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” Just so, Joachim’s father refused to go along.

Excellence, perfection, talent, beauty, accomplishment, achievement. We all want these, whether we are born with talent or not, whether we are born with beauty or not. But their price is often pride, a natural (and deserved, we say defensively) flowering after a budding success. And a great pride means a great fall. As is often said, the higher you are, the farther you fall. Perhaps this pattern occurred in 1930’s Germany, and in the appeasing nations of the West as well, who didn’t want to risk their own peace, and trusted in their own “civilized” European world.

The glories of man – Michelangelo’s sculptures, Rafael’s paintings, the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, the stunning canvases of the Pre-Raphaelites, the poetry of Shakespeare, excellence in sports, theater, finance, medicine, or any other human endeavor – all carry the temptation of pride, the temptation to sit back and congratulate oneself, a temptation to be complacent. What corrects, prevents this? What pulls us down from the that peak in time?

Only God can correct, prevent, protect our world, humankind. Only seeing ourselves through our creator’s eyes. Only looking deep into our own hearts and shining a light into the shadowy places to see what lurks there. It is a good exercise of the soul – daily self-examination. What was my attitude today? Was I thankful or complaining? Was I judgmental or forgiving? Was my anger turned to love? Was I lazy? Was I envious? Was I gossipy and perhaps worse, enjoying the gossip?

The list goes on, a well-known catechism of sins the Church helpfully provides from Scripture. And today, on this Pre-Lenten Sexagesima Sunday, we are reminded, through the parable of the sower and the seeds, of our many choices each day, hour, minute. Is the soil of our hearts rich enough to receive a single seed of goodness (Godliness), from God? If yes, do we choose to water the seed with worship, Scripture, sacrament? Do we allow the seed to take root in our lives, in our families and communities?

And when the seed flowers, reaching for the light, and we see that it is good and beautiful and Godly, do we credit ourselves? Do we credit our culture? Or do we credit the sower of the seed? Do we admit our dependence, our powerlessness without the sower?

I think that Joachim Fest’s father knew the sower. Joachim’s father could see into the heart of man just as his creator sees. His heart was rich, loamy, a bed to receive the gifts of vision, strength and courage.

It is tempting, with even the smallest success, to preen like a peacock, feathers in glorious array. But such a temptation is the perfect and necessary time to reflect on sowers and seeds and fertile ground. This is the time to examine, confess, and repent, before climbing any higher. This is the time to conquer false pride with true humility.

We draw closer to Lent. We pray for humility so that we may truly see who we are and who we are meant to be.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

True Love

Posted on February 16, 2014 | 1 comment

It rained this last week, alleviating only slightly the California drought. More rain is promised for later this week, more watering our dryness, the ground drinking thirstily and thankfully.

But the sun broke through today, Sunday, bluing the sky and glistening the land, and a hesitant, wondering, breeze nudges the silvery leaves of the olive tree outside my window as I write. The oaks are greening too and the grassy hills are waking up to new life hesitantly here and there. The cherry trees in our neighborhood blossomed their Valentine’s gift of big pink bouquets, giving us far greater hope than any February groundhog. 

The incredible beauty and the horrible devastation of nature continues to astound  me. Blizzards kill in the East as sun shines in the West. Yet the four seasons repeat regularly, we count on them, and we assume spring will one day replace winter. Just so we yearn that the darkness in our hearts will be enlightened, that hate will turn to love, that judgment will be banished with forgiveness. We yearn for peace, yet we cannot pacify ourselves.

We look to spring and we hope for love, and perhaps this is why we embrace Saint Valentine’s festival in mid-February, a season of reaching for the greater light of Easter, the longer daylight of April. It is thought that Valentine did truly exist, that he suffered martyrdom for his witness to the love of God. But the many legends of the many Valentines woven into present day are not as verifiable. The medieval court of love loved St. Valentine, defining this love as the romantic sort, and it is this Valentine that we recall with hearts and flowers and romantic dinners. 

The secular has adopted the sacred, for all people recognize truth, the core and kernel of truth, of who we are. We desire to love; we desire to be loved. Courtly love, with its rituals of honoring and respecting the woman for her womanhood, for her ability to carry and birth life, for her female beauty as dazzlingly different from rough masculinity, tried to tame the bestial nature of mating. Courtly love grew and flourished through the years, fed by Shakespeare and sonnets and the Romantic poets. It has faded in our time and our world, but still we yearn to celebrate the love between a man and a woman, to celebrate something more than the power of lust, to remember true love on St. Valentine’s Day.

It is fitting that such a day in February points to spring, to hope, to love. Such a day reminds us to honor one another, regardless of race, gender, creed, handicap, temperament, age, whether in the womb or near death. Such a day points to Easter, for resurrection day is the ultimate holiday of love, when God the Son, the crucified one, gives us the grace, indeed the ability, to love one another.

This last week I wrote another scene in my novel-in-progress, a story about the coarsening of love in our culture, the jungle encroaching upon the civilized world. Mankind has striven for centuries to civilize the jungle, to tame his own animal within as well as the wilderness without, but we seem to be undoing all that has been done. The working title is The Fire Trail, that boundary between the civil and the uncivil, between safety and danger. It is a love story searching for a way to love in a world of un-love. My recently released novel, The Magdalene Mystery, sought the truth that Mary Magdalene saw in the garden that first Easter morning two thousand years ago. The Fire Trail considers what that vision means to us today.

Today is Septuagesima Sunday, three weeks before the beginning of Lent, the forty days in which we prepare for Easter, April 20, 2014. Today we look into our hearts to root out all un-love. We pray, “Lord, show me every sin, every particle of un-love, that darkens my heart. Show me each time I dishonored or disrespected others, when I coveted, lied, stole, killed, in thought, in word, and in deed. Lighten my dark places, so that I may see, repent, and learn to love.”

Like the breeze nudging the leaves outside my window, my heart is nudged too. With Lent and its lengthening of days, I shall grow towards the light, toward the sun. The dry places shall be watered and my heart shall blossom.

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Living the Christian Year

Posted on February 9, 2014 | 1 comment

I love the Christian year. Many have written about it and for good reason. Living out the year, Sunday to Sunday, season to season, orders the chaos of our souls in the same way secular rituals gather together, and perhaps heal, communities. 

Human beings are creatures of liturgy, ritual, and ceremony. We use these means to express who we are as a people, not only as a church but as a nation. States, cities, clubs, all manner of civic and social gatherings use these means to define themselves, to organize their times together, to ensure justice and democracy, to ensure free speech, to create order. We “call the meeting to order” with a gavel meant to silence the many, so that the few – the single speaker, one at a time – may be heard in an orderly manner. 

Both secular and sacred bodies create time liturgies which we call seasons and calendars. Within the twelve months organized in our solar Gregorian calendar we celebrate winter, spring, summer, fall. 

Inside each season, Americans gather to honor national heroes, presidents, soldiers, peacemakers, the birth of our nation. We reflect on each old year and celebrate the beginning of each new one with New Year’s Eve and Day. We parade, marching and trumpeting down Main Street, we give speeches, we fly flags, and we sing songs we learned by heart so that we could sing as one. In school we once pledged allegiance to the United States of America, one nation under God… a ceremony that bound us together. At ball games we sing our national anthem and place our hands over our hearts. We memorize words and actions, by rote, by ritual, so that we may say and sing and do these things together. We form a national circle and dance America’s story through the year. 

Sacred bodies, churches, also express themselves through seasons and calendars, through song and dance, through processions rather than parades. The Christian liturgical year has, over time, been divided into nine seasons in which the life of Christ and its meaning for each of us is acted out. We step deeper into this meaningful life, immerse ourselves in the love of God in these seasons. Christianity is sacramental, meaning that God is involved in our world, his creation. He desires an intimate conversation, face to face, and we call this prayer. As we portray his mighty acts in history, he acts among us in our own time, drawing us close to him. God responds to our song, and we call this Grace. So it is natural that we act out our faith through the year; it is natural to use all of our senses to express who we are; it is natural that we follow the music of the spheres, both heavenly and earthly. 

The Church Year begins with the purple (penitential) season of Advent, which prepares us for the coming of Christ in Bethlehem. Then we live out the white season of Christmas, particularly rich with symbol and song, announcing the incarnation of God in human flesh. Epiphany trumpets, manifests, this good news to the world, lighting the darkness. 

Soon we enter Lent, a time of self-examination and penitence, to follow the Way of the Cross to Golgotha, acting out Christ’s last days and his crucifixion. Easter morning we walk with Mary Magdalene to the empty tomb and share her wonder and awe. The following weeks, Eastertide, reflect the resurrected Christ’s appearances to many before his ascending to Heaven on Ascension Day. Ten days later we join the Apostles as the Holy Spirit descends upon them (and us), birthing the Church on the day of Pentecost. 

From the beginning of December (Advent) through the end of May (Pentecost) we have acted out the greatest drama ever told. These six months, half the year, tell of God’s redemptive acts among us, two thousand years ago, in the ancient lands of the Middle East, the land of Israel. From Pentecost to Advent, June through November, the second half, we enter the long green season called Trinity, a growing time, a season of learning what all of this means to us, a time of celebrating the many mysteries and miracles only touched on earlier, a time rich with saints and angels and transfigurations, a time of growing, a time of pondering our three-in-one God, the Trinity. 

The colors we see in the church reflect the seasons: purple for penitence (Advent, Lent); white for purity (Christmas, Easter, saints); red for fire and blood (Pentecost; martyrs); green for growth (all other times). Vestments and altars coverings reflect these colors and these seasons. The songs we sing, the hymns, reflect the seasons as well, as do the processions, pageants, and even plantings. We bake pretzels (praying hands) and hot cross buns. We form processions, waving palms. We flower the white Easter cross. We light candles to witness to the light lighting the darkness, and we swing sweet incense up the aisle to remind us of heaven and the winging of our prayers. The words we hear in the readings tell the story too; the sermon amplifies those readings. 

As with all ceremony, these rituals can be greatly gratifying, artful, poetic expressions of our hearts and minds. But they can also be empty and dead. We must choose whether they be full or empty, alive or dead. Liturgy is the “work of the people” and the Liturgical Year is our great dance through seasons of darkness and light, penitence and resurrection. We weave God into our years, our months, our weeks, our days, our hours. As we genuflect,  as we bow, as we make the Sign of the Cross over our heads and hearts, we intersect eternity, kneeling in our Sunday pew. As we step to the altar, we receive more than bread and wine; we receive body and blood; we are fed, filled by God; his time is one with our time.

Today is the last Sunday in the season of Epiphanytide. Next Sunday we begin three Sundays (“Pre-Lent”) that usher in Lent, a season that prepares us for the great festival of Easter, a time of spring and rebirth, resurrection and new life.

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

The Light of Candlemas

Posted on February 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

It was with some surprise and great thanksgiving that I received word yesterday that my novel The Magdalene Mystery received First Place in the Feathered Quill Book Awards for 2013. 

I was surprised again when I woke this morning, recalling this bit of news, and when I saw that it was raining, however lightly (our first real rain in California for months), I became deeply grateful, thinking that perhaps the drought was lessening. But later as I entered the warm sanctuary of our parish church, leaving the cold outside, and stepped up the thick red carpet of the central aisle, I sighed in wonder. 

I knew today was the Festival of Candlemas, the celebration of the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem. I knew it involved candles and I even recalled we in the pews held white tapers that would soon be lit by acolytes, and we would light our neighbor’s, fire catching fire. But I wasn’t prepared for the brilliance of the candles on the altar as I entered: two large candelabra, each bank holding seven flaming white tapers, framed by eight giant candlesticks aflame. I had entered a holy home, this bright house of God and his fiery love. I was cradled by the warmth and light of the space, as the clergy and acolytes processed in, swinging incense and holding the crucifix high before the burning torches, the celebrant gliding royally toward the high altar with his royal gold and white cope. We sang with many voices joined together as one, “As with gladness men of old/Did the guiding star behold; As with joy they hailed its light, Leading onward, beaming bright; So most gracious Lord, may we/Evermore be led to thee…” (52).

The nave and sanctuary shimmered in the candlelight, a contrast to the dim and wet cold outside. And so we celebrated this moment in history, when God the Son moved from the private space, the home, and entered the public space, the temple. The light of heaven entered the darkness of our world. And thus we celebrated with light, the flame from the altar lighting our tiny wicks, the candles held so carefully, so hopefully, and we turned to light the next. 

We held our flaming candles as the Gospel was read from the central aisle. In this passage, Luke 2:22+, the elders Simeon and Anna witness the appearance of their Messiah. They had waited and prayed; they had been promised this moment. Simeon took the child in his arms, blessed God, and said, 

‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel…’

These words, “Simeon’s Song,” have become a treasured part of our Evening Prayer Office. We re-affirm that we too have seen this salvation, we have seen this light that enlightens, we too know this glory that came to us from the People of Israel.

Today we ended the season of Christmas, forty days after this most holy birth-day, a time span set by Jewish law, the “law of the Lord.” Today we re-affirmed that the light of the world has come and continues to dwell among us, with us, enlightening us.

The Magdalene Mystery is largely about affirming that light. How do we know this remarkable God-story is true? How should we treat those first-century documents we call the Gospels? How do we know that the account of the empty tomb is an accurate witness? Did Mary Magdalene even exist, let alone see the risen Christ?

From Dan Brown to the Jesus Seminar to the “New Atheists,” folks have spent a good deal of time and energy trying to prove the Incarnation and the Resurrection did not happen. There must be much at stake. And there is. 

My little novel has been roaming the world since June 2013 when it first was released, when it was born. As an author I feel like a mother who has given birth and sent my child, my words, out into the world to fare one way or another, to hopefully provide a flickering flame to lighten some of the darkness.

So it is a sweet moment of delight that I experience this weekend, a time in which The Magdalene Mystery has been honored on this weekend of Candlemas, when Mary presented her son to the temple, and thus to the world. 

And now, as I glance out my window, I see the sun has burst upon my watered garden, turning the grays to greens. And I believe I see a dusting of snow on the top of Mount Diablo. 

Deo Gratias.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

On Life and Death and Flowery Graves

Posted on January 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

My husband and I picked out our grave plots this last week. 

We have not been diagnosed with terminal illness, nor do we expect to die suddenly. Either of course might happen, but so far God has blessed us with many years of life on this earth and our ailments are part of natural aging, my sixty-six years, and my husband’s seventy-eight. 

But I wanted to know where my body would be lying. I did not want cremation, although many do and I respect their choice. It’s cheaper, to be sure. But I wanted “full body burial” as the Family Service Counselor described it at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Lafayette, California. I wanted to give witness, after I was gone, to the sanctity of life, even my little life; I wanted to join the many other believers who lay under this flowery field in the East Bay hills. Their graves lay neatly in rows, some with flat headstones, some with upright blocks of granite or marble that caught the light from the morning sun. 

It is curious how long I have put off this trip to the cemetery. It was always something I could do another day, another week, another year. But I didn’t want to leave these decisions to my sons and daughters; I wanted to personalize my sacred journey from earthly life to heavenly life. The word “cemetery” comes from the Greek, “sleeping place,” and I would give witness to eternal life and the immense love of God as I lay sleeping, awaiting the final resurrection. 

We followed our counselor, a young, endearing, and informative guide, across the broad lawns that were browning slightly from California’s drought and the wintry air, up the paths that parted the graves. As I stepped carefully, meditatively, I was reminded of other graves I have visited, in particular that of Raymond Raynes in the Mirfield Monastery in northern England. The monks’ graves in the garden of the Community of the Resurrection had been marked with simple wooden crosses bearing first names. We found Father Raynes’ grave and said a prayer of thanksgiving for his saintly life. Now, walking through the Queen of Heaven garden, I recalled other cemetery gardens: one beloved collection of graves on a hilltop on the Island of Lanai, where Cook pines rustled in the breeze high above, the sea far below; English headstones in the yard of St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford, untended, with high grass obscuring the stone slabs; the many churches we visited in Europe surrounded by their living dead, who waited for that last resurrection.

Here, today, in this country, it seems that churches do not sit amidst their dead, sheltered and sheltering their own past, but send the bodies to be buried elsewhere. There is a fear of morbidity, of corruption, of dying. Gravestones identify our birth-day and our death-day, with our lifetime equaling a long dash. We must admit, in a cemetery, that we are mortal. We must admit that the young and the good die and leave us far too soon. We must admit that cancer ravages and war maims and we mistreat one another. We must admit that we do not love enough. These are hard admissions in a world that values self-esteem, self-obsession. 

Queen of Heaven Cemetery sits in a gentle valley. I looked up to the low January sun and to the hills holding us so sweetly in the cool breeze. We needed to choose our gravesites, and I prayed for guidance even in this simple choice. We had seen the gravesites available and had weighed this and that – the sun, the hills, the trees, accessibility to the path. Should we face north, south, east, west? Do we want a bench? I gazed over the flowery field, the reds and pinks and yellows dotting the grass, the headstones seeming a comfortable and welcoming congregation of hosts.

Where should we be? Which plots? My eye rested finally on a statue with raised arms commanding the heavens and blessing the flowery graves. It was the Risen Christ. I bounded across the grass and stood before it, looking up to the powerful face that looked further up to the blue skies. Yes, I thought. I want to be under the arms of the Risen Christ. If anyone should visit my grave, they would see the Risen Christ alongside and over me and raising me to heaven with him.

And so it was that we found two plots a few feet from Christ’s right arm. And when visitors, if any should come, sit on the bench nearby they will see the Christ silhouetted against the blue sky and the golden hills.

I’m glad I didn’t put this cemetery visit off any longer. A curious peace and delight has settled over me since we drove away, having made the arrangements. For me, my own death makes my life even more meaningful, for the numbered days are just that – numbered. It is tempting to live as though this will never happen and many of us do this, acting as if today will last forever. But this is not reality. This is not the true way of things for humankind. So I am glad to have bracketed my days with this visit to Queen of Heaven so that each moment given me between now and my final visit is not wasted, so that each moment counts, just as it is counted. 

The field of flowers and their stones, winter’s grass waiting for spring’s greening, and finally the Risen Christ, his arms at once embracing heaven and earth, has entered my mind, unbidden, from time to time since then. The scene is a reassuring visitor, a happy moment that colors my days. It is a sudden, surprising burst of grace. For because I am a believing Christian, trying to be faithful, those arms, as they embrace heaven and earth, also embrace little me, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, forever.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shadowy Borderlands

Posted on January 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

I’m setting my next novel in Berkeley, California. Folks ask me, “What is it about?” and I am challenged to give a coherent, short answer. “It’s a story about a girl who witnesses a murder…” I begin. But then, of course, it is so much more, and where do I truly begin, I wonder.

In some ways the theme is about borderlands, the edges of civilization. I believe our own culture is slowly returning to a wilderness state, with the borders of law, manners, social behavior redrawn each day, shrinking. We have been living in a darkening age for some time, a twilight time, but the night seems to be falling swiftly.

Berkeley is a perfect setting for a discussion about borders, for it sits between parkland wilderness and bay waters. Fire trails protect the townspeople from the dry hills above and hopefully break a wildfire’s path. The hills have known devastating blazes that devoured communities, so fire is no small threat. But other threats lurk as well, with a rise in crime in the civilized cities that form a necklace around the San Francisco Bay. Berkeley shelters its share of crime with lenient laws that encourage drug use, theft, and other violent means of self-expression.

Berkeley is also set in a landscape of intellect and passion, of mind and matter. Here the University of California, one of the greatest schools in the world, has birthed major scientific discoveries. The arts thrive as well, those expressions of our thoughts and beliefs and deepest desires. And yet traditional core curriculum is crumbling, no longer requiring a study of the past to understand the present. Gender and racial studies replace history, as though a narcissistic self-examination of skin and sexuality will throw light on civilization and what it means to create and foster civil society.

Berkeley’s early beginnings were Ohlone Indian, then Spanish, then Irish Catholic, having been settled by an Irish farmer (James McGee) who gave land to the Catholic Presentation Sisters for a convent and school. The city was named  in 1866 after an Irish Anglican bishop, George Berkeley (1685-1753) because of a line in the following poem:

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four Acts already past,
A fifth shall close the Drama with the day;
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.

from Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America

The first line became shortened later to the cry “Westward ho!”  The line also became the title and subject of a mural by Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutz (1861), which can be found in the House of Representatives behind the western staircase. The phrase and painting represent the idea of manifest destiny.

The “course of empire,” of course, was thought to be at one with the advancement of civilization. The British Empire was and is a civilization built upon classical and Christian traditions, laws and values. As these authorities lose their power and persuasion, civilization loses as well, and cracks and fissures give way to a crumbling.

This week is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, when “time’s noblest offspring” – America – legalized the killing of unborn children. Since that day, 41 years ago, 56,662,169 unborn babies have been killed by abortion. And we continue the killing, with 1,382 lives – daughters and sons, nieces and nephews – lost yearly. January 22, 1973 was a watershed moment in our history, a time when we turned in upon our own people, to feed upon our own humanity.

It has been said that when we do not respect human life – the unborn or the aged, the infirm or the ugly or the handicapped – we encourage a culture of crime. We look out for ourselves, not others. We take what we can when we can as long as we can. Moral parameters become defined by legal boundaries; individual conscience does not matter. Soon it does not exist.

January 22 hits me by surprise each year, like a slap in the face, and I join in the crying of those who march upon the capitols of our land. I cry with them to return civilization to our once great and generous and loving country. I suppose the surprise comes to me each year because this memorial anniversary arrives so soon after the birth of the Christ Child in the humble manger, the child that would love us no matter our abilities, looks, health, age, no matter if we breathed outside the womb or not.

So we are as a nation in a shadowy borderland, a shadowland, between civilization and the jungle. A fire trail runs around our cities, but can’t always protect us from the blaze, the inferno of self. When such a trail becomes God’s fire of purgation, a cleansing of these sins through repentance and forgiveness, only then can we love as we are meant to love – love even the unborn, even our neighbors, even, even, even…

May God have mercy on our people, and may all victims of violence be comforted and redeemed by his great love.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Epiphany Life

Posted on January 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

I was sad when I took the Christmas tree down this last week, so I played familiar carols as I climbed the ladder to reach the glittery star. The star came down without a fuss, but the garlands refused to go, remaining stuck in the brittle and sharp needles, so I worked them out gently. By the time I was finished, my hands and arms were scratched with the dead bits of gray-green, bits that once breathed life. I stacked the assorted boxes now filled with decorations in the garage and marked them “2013 Christmas.” I reached for a broom and began sweeping up, looking to Epiphanytide. 

Epiphany in our culture is largely lumped into Christmas and forgotten. Most folks don’t wait until January 6 to celebrate the visit of the Wise Men who followed the star to the manger. Most jump to New Years and now buy cards (according to the stores) for Valentine’s Day. 

But I have always loved the season of Epiphany, which bridges Christmas and Lent. Epiphany is the shining star itself – it is a time of discerning what Christmas means to us, what the full implications are of this extraordinary event in time. One of the most beautiful and concise statements of this illumination is in the Epistle to the Romans, the Anglican reading for this morning, the First Sunday after the Epiphany. St. Paul writes to the church in Rome:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”  (Romans 12:1+) 

I have been recently praying for discernment about a certain challenge in my life, and St. Paul reminds me that discernment only comes when the door is open to God. We present ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, for God’s service. We are told that this might mean something uncomfortable, non-conformist, even counter-cultural. For we are transformed, not conformed. We have opened the door to God with the offering of ourselves. Now God is able to transform us, for he can enter in. How does he do this? By the renewing of our minds. And when our minds are renewed – through Scripture, prayer, worship – we are given discernment. We begin to know the will of God.

Knowing the will of God is, I have come to believe, pretty much a ticket to happiness. The problem most often is not knowing, not seeing through the haze of our blurred vision, a fog created by our own blocking of God’s entry into our lives. We call this, of course, sin – the lists of ways we close the door, blur the vision. But we can clear the haze and open the doors. The first step is offering ourselves to God so that the light of that Bethlehem star can shine into our hearts and minds.

I don’t want to be like my dead tree. I don’t want my faith, my spiritual life, my life itself, to be brittle and sharp. I want the beauty, warmth, and love of Christmas – God coming among us, taking on our flesh – to stay with me. I want to continue the transformation that began in the manger. I want to renew my mind again and again so that I can discern God’s will, so that I can know happiness.

I was thinking about this in church this morning. The nave and sanctuary were like my fresh tree used to be, full of color and light and sweet fragrance. The red carpet led to the altar where candles flamed amidst red poinsettias. Light streamed down from skylights onto the medieval crucifix and tented tabernacle. As I returned from receiving the Eucharist, stained glass transformed the sunlight into jewels that danced upon the oaken pews. I had entered Christmas, was inside the Incarnation, inside the beating heart of God.

Christmas, I knew, would always be with me, but only if I chose to open the door, chose to be part of Christ’s Body, chose to be transformed with the renewing of my mind, chose to be living and not dead.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , ,

The Light of the World

Posted on January 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

My Christmas tree is falling in upon itself. The branches no longer reach out. They bend down, spilling an even deeper sweetness into the room. As I gazed upon the tree last night, with the mini-lights still multicolored and twinkling, it was as though the tree had become solid and whole, no longer made of many parts, many decorations. The tinsel garlands had merged into dim shadowy beds of green needles. The miniature Raggedy Anns that I had strung across the apron of the tree, slept silently in their soft nests. One ornament had been batted down by one of our cats and its shards long ago swept up. But the others had sunk further into the dark hollows and had moved in. Even the star with its sideways tilt seemed happy with this home. The tree was nearly alive. 

I have become used to the Christmas tree occupying a corner of the room. My evening routine included lighting the tree so neighbors could see it through our arching windows. But the Twelve Days of Christmastide are nearing an end. I shall have to take the tree down soon. I shall have to remove the mini-churches dangling precariously from bits of wire, the red and gold balls with their fine filigree, the cut glass baubles with their Victorian fringe. I shall pause over each one, thinking when and where it was found or who gave it to me. The tree holds much of my family history, much of my past. 

With the turn of the year, as we round the corner and find ourselves in 2014, we turn our hearts and minds as well. We have pondered the old year and now embrace the new. We look ahead; we resolve to be better. We put away childish things, as St. Paul says, and don garments that bear the weight of adulthood, the resiliency of responsibility, the solemnity of choice. How shall we spend our numbered days in 2014? 

Those days grow longer, as the thin piercing light of winter takes on the mantle of spring. Already I’ve noticed the extra light, and it’s only been two weeks since the solstice. But the sun is still low in the sky, blinding in the beginnings and endings of the day, as though accusing me with its circle of seeing. I cannot hide in the shadow of winter. I must face the light of Epiphany and the new New Year. 

Shadow. Light. In the thin piercing light of the New Year, in the brightness of Epiphany’s traveling star, I resolve to watch and pray. I resolve to listen with greater care to hear God’s voice, discern his will for me. I resolve to begin my day with the aid of prayer and end it with the light of confession, to peer into my heart and expose the shadow. The wise men followed the star because they watched the heavens. They found the manger with its hosts of angels and dazzling light. They fell on their knees and worshiped, offering the Christ Child gold for his kingship, frankincense for his priesthood, and myrrh for his burial. I too want to follow that blazing star to Bethlehem. I too want to offer gifts. 

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) wrote in her poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter”:

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.
 

Epiphany means “manifestation,” a revealing, and this visit of the gentile kings to the newborn Messiah enlightens the entire world of mankind, embraces all nations and all races. God is made manifest. Now one of us, he gives us a way to partake in his divinity, if we choose to do so. As one of us, taking on our flesh, Christ pulls us to him. With him we rise. With him we open Heaven’s door. 

As I take down my Christmas tree, I know that I have been once again reborn in that moment in Bethlehem. Christ is the star that lights the dead tree of our dying world, so that when our own flesh falls in upon itself on the last of our numbered days, we shall “rise to the life eternal.”

Yet what can I give him as I enter this glorious Epiphanytide? It’s so simple. I can give him my heart.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Christmas Choices

Posted on December 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

It often seems when our family gathers at Christmas that the many activities, the many foods, the many gifts, the many reunions of cousins and brothers and sisters, fill the rooms to bursting, leaving no room for the story of the Incarnation. So, unhappily, on the birthday of Our Lord we are pulled away from him, away from the story of the Word made flesh, and God’s still small voice is muffled by the loud chatter of Christmas.  So I tried something new this year at our family gathering.  The grandchildren (age 12 through 20) read the nativity story aloud as we sat before the twinkling tree and the crèche figures arranged to the side.

The tree was bright and shimmering against a window of foggy sky, but the crèche – the fired clay figures of Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child, the shepherds, the wise men, the sheep and cows – was dim and gray-blue, almost shadowy, set upon the river-rock hearth. The rough clay figures seemed more real than the fir tree, as though they were earthen, solid, but somehow eternal.

Our readers began with the words of St. Luke, “The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary…” These words tell of the great event we call “The Annunciation,” when Gabriel announces to Mary that God has chosen her to be the mother of his son. It is a precious and fabulous moment in history, for while Mary was chosen, she still had to choose.

Sr. Mary Gabriel Whitney OP of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, relates this pivotal moment in a charming ballad included on the CD, Mater Eucharistiae: 

And so on that day
The whole human race
Held its breath to hear the answer
Of the Queen of Grace.
 

The whole human race. Indeed, we all held our breath.

My grandchildren continued St. Luke’s account. We heard how Mary visited Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, and how Mary sang the song we call The Magnificat, magnifying and rejoicing in God her savior. We learn of the historical census decreed by Caesar Augustus, how Mary and Joseph went up from Galilee to Bethlehem, the City of David, how she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. We then see the bright angels appearing to the shepherds and bringing the good tidings of great joy… that a savior has been born, who is Christ the Lord, and they would find him wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. We learn of the wise men from the East who follow a star to the manger where the young child was. Finally, we hear how all fell down on their knees and worshiped the Child.

It was a short reading, but the story of the Incarnation settled upon our souls, warming us. For a few minutes we recalled why we were celebrating on this 25th of December, 2013. For a few minutes we re-called the Lord of Hosts and his awe-full act of love, coming among us as he did.

I often think how God chose to come to his people, in this moment in time. I think of Mary and her choice, her answer. I wonder at the choices we make minute to minute, day to day, the power each of us has to shape our world by what we do or do not do. In a way, the whole human race holds its breath to see what choices each of us will make this day, this hour, this minute. For every choice creates our future as the People of God and as the people of the earth.

This morning I worshiped at First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley with my son, his wife, his son (11), and his daughter (8). My father, my son’s grandfather, Carl Thomas, was youth pastor there in the early fifties (I was five), and today my son attends a Presbyterian church in Boulder. So I sat on the long cushioned pew with my son and his son, and thought of my father and his charismatic, loving ministry. The pastors today no longer wear the long black academic robes my father wore. The building from the fifties had been replaced by a modern one in the eighties. But the cross stood strong and present before us, and the simple service echoed my childhood memories.

Thick candles burned and large tables of sand stood to the side. Long white tapers were laid out nearby. The pastor asked us to consider the old year, the ways in which God had answered our prayers and the ways in which we thought he had not. He asked us to pray for the new year, one in which God would be present in our choices. Earlier, a speaker had said he had gone on a mission with open hands and had returned filled and transformed. So we prayed into the silence, reaching deep into God’s heart, and then, one by one we rose, lit a taper and gently shoved it into the sand. Soon hundreds of candles burned before us, each one reflecting a prayer to choose with open hands and hearts. I lit my candle off my grandson’s and shoved it into the sand alongside my son’s. 

As the Twelve Days of Christmas bridge the Feasts of Incarnation and Epiphany, they arc New Year’s Day. It seems a fitting cluster of events: the Word made Flesh, dwelling among us; the old year turning into the new, and our consideration of past and future, our choice-resolutions; and finally, the manifestation of the Word to the world, the light banishing all darkness.

Each of us plays a crucial part in this pivotal time. We are part of the greatest drama on earth. We look back to Christ’s coming in Bethlehem, and we look forward to His second coming to earth, this time in judgment and glory. We make our New Year’s resolutions, choosing his light, opening our hands to be filled with good things, so that we may be transformed, so that we may magnify the Lord. 

Like the Queen of Grace, we pray, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,