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Thinking back upon last week in London and our very busy Laetare (Rejoice) Sunday, I have joyful memories of our chance to witness the historic 150th anniversary celebration of All Saints Anglican Church, Notting Hill.  And of course I carried with me a copy of my third novel, Inheritance, to give to the vicar, Father John Brownsell, who I thought might share some of my love of our Anglo-Catholic heritage.

This Victorian Anglo-Catholic Church calls people to worship from far away with its mighty stone steeple that stands high above the neighborhood of townhouses and shops.  Inside the balanced proportions, three naves lead to a sanctuary with an impressive stone altar lit by five large candlesticks.  Stained glass windows glimmer beyond and above in the apse.  All Saints is a light-filled church with white painted walls and gently pointed arches rising from the darker wooden pews.

We arrived early and were able to finds good seats, but the church was soon packed and great expectations danced in the air as folks greeted one another.  Sister parishes from the Caribbean joined in the celebration, with officials traveling from afar, and choirs sang, and a section devoted to the Mothers Union was ably represented in white, some with colorful sashes.  I could see that All Saints was a well loved parish, with a history of devotion.  There was even a group of former curates who had travelled to their “home” parish to be a part of the celebration, and they lined the side of the chancel.

The procession into the church was magnificent with all these folks taking part, with flags of many colors held high, and many generations represented.  The Bishop of London, the Hon. Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, presided from his episcopal chair and soon rose to the carved pulpit in the center of the nave, this sea of hopeful parishioners.  He preached on the historic stages of this church, and how after triumphs and tribulations we now faced a time of tempests.  Today, he said, it was the Church’s job to wait it out, wait out all the political missteps, the wars and rumors of wars as it were, to still be there with the truth when the world recognized its folly and turned about for answers.  I wondered, how best should we wait this day, how best do we preach the Gospel of Christ crucified?  Quietly or with gusto?

The Anglo-Catholic stream in the Anglican Communion, generally one of quiet gusto, has largely been marginalized in the Church of England.  Those of us in the international community of Anglicans who saw Canterbury as our historic Mother Church have cried as we parted ways.  Now we watch from America as those in England could face such a parting.  Many of these devout men and women have left the Anglicans and become Roman Catholics, and Pope Benedict with his Ordinariate for Anglicans has now provided a structure for bishops and clergy to join, smoothing the way further.

Faith and the practice of that faith, the interpretation of moral law, the nature of truth are not small things in the scope of man’s life on earth.  Many have been martyred for less.  So it was with great thanksgiving that I visited All Saints for their afternoon celebration of their stalwart history, of their holding fast to the truths of orthodox historic Christianity.  For without orthodoxy and without history, as T.S. Eliot would have agreed, we have nothing.

The love of God is immense, and I trust that he will guide us all through this present and coming tempest.  We shall emerge from the tunnel, a bit like rising from the Chunnel onto dry land, our feet firmly planted in the faith of our forefathers, prophets, martyrs, saints.

In the meantime, throughout the darkness, we shall celebrate God’s love among us as we sit together in the pews and line up to receive the Eucharist.  We shall celebrate God’s love and steadfastness in time, in this lovely church of All Saints Notting Hill, London.

After the Mass this Laetare Sunday, Father Brownsell gave out roses to the mothers for this was also Mothering Sunday.  As the line ended I gave him my little novel in thanks for his life and witness in London.  And I gave thanks to God for the lovely and light filled parish of All Saints.

http://www.allsaintsnottinghill.org.uk/

The Eurostar train is a “fast train” and it glided along the rails from London through the countryside to the coast and then dove down below the English Channel into the “Chunnel.”  I tried not to think about where we were, nibbling on my lunch, wishing we were on dry land without tons of water above us, soon to come crushing down for sure.  At home, our BART trains manage the same trick, slide underground, deep deep underwater between the East Bay and San Francisco, but the time is short, or so it seems.  But even at home, I’d rather take a bus or car on the bridge over the Bay than enter the cavernous highway underneath.

We glided onto French territory, safe and sound, and I watched the broad fields, killing fields at one time, slip past.  France is full of war memories for me although I was born after World War II.  Still my generation heard the accounts of our parents and grandparents.  We will not forget the horrendous slaughter in France, the boxcars of innocents sent to the camps, the cries of children and boy soldiers.  Here, in the north, some of the last battles were fought, as Americans stormed Normandy beaches.  Here lie many brave men, the white crosses growing in the fields of green.  They fought for us, that we might be free, and I shall always be grateful, shall always remember.

We soon neared Paris, leaving the distant villages marked by steeples nesting in low hills and entering industrial outskirts.  I could see in the distance spokes of windmills, and thought how we had hoped for wind power in the U.S. but with our consumption, it is a drop in the bucket, or perhaps one should say a whisper in the air, of energy technology.  Nuclear looked the most promising, and now this resource has been dealt a severe blow by the earthquake in Japan and the broken power plant.

The train halted as quietly as it started up, an astonishing feat, and we disembarked, loaded our luggage on a trolley, and headed to our hotel, one of the mega hotels with tour buses parked in front.  We worked our way through the lobby crowds and Reception and through the throngs gathered in the conference areas, to the elevators where we figured out the security system to get the elevator to move at all.  It was a long travel day for us, and after unpacking and having supper in the restaurant downstairs, we called it a day.

As I said my prayers, I wondered what I would encounter in this City of Light, so besieged by crowds and tourists and noise.  My second novel,Offerings, has many scenes set here, in the churches and restaurants, and it was a great blessing to write about these offerings of Paris.  I thought how the churches here are quiet sanctuaries in which to spend time amidst the chaos of the city, much like the silent train gliding through the fields of war.  These churches, like sanctuaries everywhere, offer another way of seeing, of being together on our journey through life.  Without them we would be lost.  I looked forward to Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre, to the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal on the Rue du Bac, to La Madeleine Basilica up the street.  We would visit Notre Dame where they have Lenten veneration of the Crown of Thorns on Friday afternoons.  Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, the great royal abbey, has high gothic stained glass and a stunning Lady Chapel.  Perhaps we will go there for Sunday Mass.

The weather seems balmy, low seventies.  If it holds we shall walk in the long Tuileries Park, past the historic Louvre, and along the Seine, past the animal and bird stalls.  We shall cross the river to the Isle de la Cite and cross once again to Left Bank and the historic English bookshop, Shakespeare & Company, carrying with us a few copies of my novel,Offerings, to offer to place on their shelves.

On Sunday, the Fourth in Lent, we worshiped at the home church of T.S. Eliot in South Kensington.

South of Royal Albert Hall and west of the Brompton Oratory, St. Stephen’s looks like a country stone church set amidst rows of white townhouses, a residential neighborhood in London bordered with busy roads and intersections.  The great poet and critic T.S. Eliot was church warden here for many years and a plaque in the south aisle honors his time, his life, and his work.

I speak of Eliot and some of his themes in my recently released novel,Hana-lani, in particular, the importance of history’s impact on the present day, the questions society must ask itself as it forms its cultural and political institutions: What is goodness, truth, beauty, love?  How do we define our authorities?  What makes a civilization civil?

So it was a great pleasure to return to St. Stephen’s and to worship with fellow Anglo-Catholics.  The church is redolent with time, another theme of Eliot’s.  Wooden floors are rough and unfinished, and we found kneeling cushions piled at the end of a pew to place before us.  I knelt, looking up to the magnificent golden sculpted reredos which rises in magnificence against a red backdrop.  It is this brilliant gilding against the royal red, in this stone and wood country church that is most striking.  The altar and tabernacle, draped in rose, today being Laetare-Rose Sunday, is thus enshrined, and the priest faces East, away from the people, representing them before God, in the traditional manner.

St. Stephen’s is known for its excellent music.  A sextet sang the Missa Brevis in D by Johannes Eccard (1553-1611), a lyrical weaving of voices, golden strands winding through the congregation, carrying our prayers to the tabernacle and to God.  I gazed at the many shrines about the church as I listened to the song-prayers – several shrines to Mary, to St. Stephen, colorful Stations of the Cross lining the side aisles. The walls are painted a warm brick red with white decorative trim arching aisles and carving spaces, and there is such a curious combination of English homeliness and ornate glory.  Candles burn before enthroned or canopied images, and flowers cluster in vases on small altars.   Above all, it is a warm and welcoming nave and sanctuary, with the pitched roof, the reds and golds, the sweet proportions.  There is a carved mahogany pulpit which rises from the nave like a ship’s prow from the sea, five pews back, and from this commanding and traditional place, our good Father Reg Bushau preached.

He spoke of the Gospel reading – the healing of the blind man – and of course such a story in Lent gives ample opportunity for metaphor and meaning.  He spoke of seeing, the ways of seeing, of the numinous in our world.  He spoke of Plato and the classical background for this kind of vision into another dimension, a truer dimension, reality.  As he spoke, as happens so many times when listening to a sermon, additional thoughts came to me, suddenly and piercingly.  I saw the sacramental nature of the blind man’s healing, as Christ touched his eyes with his saliva mixed with soil from the ground.  It was the touching, and the faith, that healed him.  Just so, I thought, as I glanced at the golden reredos and the red hangings, the tabernacle on the altar, just so the Church is Christ’s finger, and Christ himself touches our eyes through this finger of the Church, touches us physically as we partake in his Body and Blood, which is like the mud rubbed on the blind man’s eyes.  We need only allow the action to occur, allow Christ to touch us through the Eucharist, through the sacraments of His church.  When we do, when we say yes to this healing, to this touching, we will see, we will be given the beatific vision of God himself.  We will know love, be touched by this golden warmth, Christ.

T.S. Eliot wrote of some of these things, these encounters with the numinous, the transcendent, our deepest longings fulfilled.  As Eliot wrote in Four Quartets:

For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.

We received the Euchariston this Laetare, “Rejoice” Sunday, reflecting the Introit “O be joyful…”, also known as Rose Sunday in which we honor our mothers, our Mother Mary, and Mother Church.  We received the Incarnation, reborn for us again and again with each Eucharist, and I heard the music deeply.  I shall continue in prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.  I shall be happy to half understand this gift, this waterfall from the heavens.

It was good to be back at St. Stephen’s with my little novel in hand, celebrating in a small way this great man’s insight into our humanity and our dance with God.  As we chatted with the vicar afterwards, catching up on the state of the Anglo-Catholics in England, I gave him a copy and another for Mrs. E., a widow who attends only occasionally now, when she is able, considering her age, but nevertheless regularly.

I was thankful.

St. Stephen’s Gloucester Road, London:  http://saint-stephen.org.uk

We headed through St. James Park, past Buckingham Palace, and down to Westminster Cathedral, the Roman Catholic center of London, a place that has over the years touched me with its beauty and holiness, with its marble walls and arches, pillars and vaults of light and mosaic, a stunning Franciscan painted crucifix, the rood handing from the graceful chancel arch.  Looking beyond and above, dark cavernous ceiling spaces were sad reminders that the church, although begun in 1895, is sadly unfinished.  The Holy Sacrament Chapel in the northeast corner is a jewel of story, telling of the prophesied Lamb of God in the walls of mosaic, and showing the Real Presence-Lamb of God in the tabernacle on the altar.

I said a prayer for Christian unity in this truly Catholic cathedral in Anglican London, where these streams of Christianity appear to be weaving together into a future, that will hopefully somehow undo a bloody past.

The bloody past was recalled in the north aisle where the body of John Southworth lies, a dedicated priest who died at the hands of the English Reformers, those Anglican Protestants of the sixteenth century.  He was carried to Tyburn Gallows, today Marble Arch in the northeast corner of Hyde Park, where he was drawn and quartered and hung.  His crime?  Being a Catholic priest in a reformist country.  I shivered, for I knew he was one of many, and during Queen Mary’s time, many Anglicans were in turn burned at the stake by the Catholics.

We stepped outside into the cold grayness of the day and headed down busy Victoria Street, a straight thoroughfare leading to the Anglican Westminster Abbey, as though these two historic witnesses to English Christianity were set on the crossbeam of a cross.  Soon to be the setting of the royal wedding, this medieval abbey honors the graves and monuments of England’s great monarchs and statesmen, her writers, artists, musicians.  We followed the ambulatory around the high altar and under the white gothic vaulting, past the gilded shrines to Poets’ Corner and a small chapel off the side called Faith Chapel.  Here, in this rustic space, the Blessed Sacrament is reserved for adoration and prayer.  A French girl who refused to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods of the Roman Empire, Sainte Foi was tortured and martyred in 303 under Emperor Diocletian.  Her image rises above the altar in this cave-chapel of musty stone, the sanctuary lamp to her side.  We entered and knelt in the silence, alone this day, as the crowds milled on the other side of the thick wall of Poets’ Corner, and I could hear sounds of children playing in a schoolyard in the far distance.

I looked at Saint Faith, in her robes, her haunting image returning my gaze.  How appropriate, I thought, that a saint with this name is here in this humble chapel in this teeming city of unbelief, of slaughter, of terrible religious divisions, as though through it all we must be reminded not to offer sacrifice to the modern pagan gods surrounding us.  I prayed for unity, that the Roman Catholics would continue to welcome the Anglicans into their fold, and that the Anglicans would find a way to join the greater stream once again.  A trickle of Anglicans have joined with the Roman Catholics, have “swum the Tiber” as they say, but there remain difficulties for many, issues of theology, issues of history, issues of sacramental validity.  For some of us, we see our place where we are at present, ministering to those in our circle, our community, our parish.

I was full of the two Westminsters when we visited the Tyburn Convent, across the street from the site of Tyburn Gallows.  The Congregation of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, known as the Tyburn Nuns keep watch before the Blessed Sacrament twenty-four hours a day.  They also honor the Tyburn martyrs who died between 1535 and 1681.

We stepped into a simple, modern chapel, the nave divided from the chancel by a white grill.  A nun robed in white, knelt before the Blessed Sacrament raised over the altar in a golden monstrance.  One other person in the nave knelt in prayer.  Here too I prayed for unity in this time of fragmentation.  Where better, I thought, than this shrine of recollection of the disunity.  I gazed at the simple altar and the monstrance and the crucifix high above.  I knew that in time all would be redeemed by God’s love in us, and I was grateful for these women who had chosen a life of prayer, praying for us all.

We stepped out onto teaming Bayswater Road, walked silently along the edge of Hyde Park, through the corner clearing called Marble Arch, where today folks may speak their mind on any number of issues, be it religion or politic.  An appropriate transformation, I considered, and we headed back to our hotel, full of the history of this city of faith which today was so challenged by the doubts of the modern world.

www.westminster-abbey.org
www.westminstercathedral.org.uk
www.tyburnconvent.org.uk

It has been a fascinating few days in London.

We visited George Frideric Handel’s home, located on Brook Street in Mayfair.  The two-story townhouse was one of many built here in the eighteenth century.  In 2001 it became open to the public, and the Trust has done an outstanding job with each room, explaining not only Handel’s life, but his times, the English renaissance of art, poetry, and music.

I knew that these were days of horses and buggies and muddy streets.  I also knew these were days of exceptional refinement in manners, courtly etiquette (probably influenced by the court itself), attention to dress, hair, civility.  Again, they were rough days by our standards – no indoor plumbing so that one bathed in a tub filled with buckets of water heated on the hearth.  Many folks had lice, so they kept their hair short, some wearing wigs.  Food preparation was long and arduous, and it seemed that one either had servants or was a servant, at least in London.

Handel’s life was no exception.  Born in Germany to a court hairdresser, he met and worked for George of Hannover before coming to the English throne.  The king appointed Handel to be his Court Composer and with this appointment Handel was assured of a place in English society.  He rented this modest house in Mayfair, a growing neighborhood, a suburb of London.  Handel worked from his small rooms, giving lessons, selling sheet music, and most importantly composing the great operas, oratorios, and the glorious Messiah.

Handel, to my happy appreciation, was a deeply religious man. He was a devout Lutheran, and it was said that as the music filled his mind and heart, and the notes poured onto the scores, he would wept from sheer joy, amazement, love.  He was telling, of course, the great story of redemption, of God’s love for us, through the prophets, to the nativity in Bethlehem, to the Way of the Cross, the crucifixion and the resurrection.

I have long loved the Messiah, and it has become a tradition in our home to play the first half at Christmas and the second at Easter.  I grew up in a church that sang the full score once a year with great enthusiasm and fervent belief.  Handel gave, and continues to give, the world such hope, such glimpses of heaven.  Beethoven, living in the next generation, said (and I paraphrase) that Handel was such a genius, that he, Beethoven, would fall at his feet in admiration.  Beethoven said this!

I left the house on Brook Street having learned that Handel was indeed inspired by God, and gave great thanks for his life and his work, and for this moment of seeing.

We continued through Mayfair down to Piccadilly, through Green Park to Westminster Cathedral, a favorite church here in London, and a scene in my novel, Inheritance.

We arrived to steely skies and moderately cold temperatures (rather San Franciscan) and have settled into our hotel near Hyde Park.

This morning as we stepped into London from our hotel, I breathed in deeply and settled into a brisk walk toward the Mayfair public library, a copy of Inheritance tucked inside my bag.

Mayfair is a charming district of upscale shops and townhouses, hotels and picturesque pubs and eateries so that you almost don’t mind the gray skies.  In the center of Mayfair stands the Victorian Gothic church known as Farm Street Church, bordered on one side by a green park, now landscaped with beds of daffodils and tulips.  It may be rainy and cold, but spring is coming to London.

At one end of the wrought iron gates (what else?) stands the Mayfair Public Library, housed in one of the pretty brick townhouses, the white trimmed windows smiling upon us and the pretty porch and stairs beckoning us inside.  The doors were open and I found a friendly face at the Enquiries Desk.  The librarian was happy to accept a copy of my novel about London and England.  I left happy too.  Somehow, making these little connections is like the icing on the cake of this publication.  Inheritance came from a deep desire to share this inspiring city and historic country, to point to a few of the great gifts England has given Western civilization and the world, particularly in terms of faith.  Some of these gifts are today being squandered, and it is an inheritance I hate to see wasted.  So giving this novel, with its Glastonbury cover, to the young librarian was immensely gratifying, itself a kind of inheritance passed onto the next reader generation.

We returned to the sculpted gates and strolled through the park, past the carved chevet of the church, and out to the busy streets of Mayfair (hope to do another blog post on the church).  In many ways, the neighborhood hasn’t changed in the twenty or more years of our visits – the brick houses lining the roads, the steepled roofs with their chimney pots, the balconies and white flower boxes now with spring plantings.  The black boxy taxis still round the corners, and we still study the painted warnings on the pavement at our feet before crossing, Look to the left, Look to the right, for those of us who are startled by traffic rushing from surprising directions.  We are still the wary walkers in this city of speedy cars and rushed pedestrians with places to go and people to see, their phones close to their ears.  Probably like any other major city, the bustle carries us along as though we are swept by a strong current.  I study the faces as they flood past.  Skin of every color, faces of every race.  Old and young, but most middle-aged like me, part of the huge ‘forties and ‘fifties Baby Boom, before birth control and unwanted children.  Indeed, the young today are the wanted, the lucky, the chosen few, one could unfashionably say, the survivors.  I hear very little English spoken, but sudden bits of Russian, Arabic, French.  The English voices I hear are heavily accented with other lands.  London has become the Commonwealth itself, as the children of Empire returned to the Motherland, to be educated, to stay and raise their families in peace, and perhaps even still, in relative prosperity.

We continued through Piccadilly and down to St. James Square, Whitehall, where the police presence was noticeable and I recalled that meetings concerning Libya were being held there, including our own American Secretary of State Clinton, meetings that had filled the front pages of the papers this morning.  But also in this square was our next destination, not quite so newsworthy, but nevertheless just as important, the London Public Library.

There too, an eager and friendly young man welcomed my novel for the collection, explaining the procedures of acquisition, the hurdles of acceptance, and I nodded, for we do the same with our collections at home.  It is an era of increased pornography and gratuitous violence and sometimes a sensible oversight is necessary, particularly in reference to the written word.  Indeed, not all books are created equal.  I left the library, again with gratitude, for my little novel was birthed here in London, as the characters, much like ourselves, pounded these streets, visited these churches, historic sites, eateries and hotels.  Ah, London.

We headed back up to Piccadilly, and while my husband window-shopped Jermyn Street, I browsed Hatchard’s Books, est. 1797 according to the Queen’s Purveyor’s sign over the door.  As I climbed the central mahogany staircase I was happy to hear the familiar creak of the flooring, smell the sweet mellowness of the books (What is that smell? Expectation? Longing? Hints of leather bindings? Dust? All of this?).  I meandered my way through the rooms, for there are many separate spaces, nooks and crannies, past the novels, to the history titles, then religion, and finally the children’s to check out the wonderful picture books, still on the top floor.  My youngest granddaughter turns six next week.

Ah, London!  We headed outside into the greyness and bustle and traffic and back to the hotel as a light rain began to fall and umbrellas popped open suddenly everywhere.

Soon we will be in London.

As I said my prayers in church this morning, I pulled together the past week, the past month, the past year, and wove them into the present, to create a new cloth to become tomorrow.

For it has been a year of prayer and waiting in many ways, waiting on God.  I have known, as the Psalmist says, that God has “searched me out and known me” and as I repeat the lovely words of this psalm-song in my Lenten prayers morning and night I trust that his will for me, since he knows me, is good.  This trust has in turn given birth to patience.  So my waiting has not been too difficult.

One of my great desires has been to see our Children’s Chapel revived. This morning as I checked on the children in the back rooms, I heard the sounds of a piano and followed the notes.  Sure enough, one of our teachers was playing Hymn #61, “The Glory of these forty days”, upon our old upright piano in the newly decorated chapel.  Such joy to hear those sounds once again!

Light streamed from a high window upon the carved wooden altar, laid out with white linens and candles.  Many-sized chairs have been ordered and Stations of the Cross are framed and ready for the white walls. A lovely carved statue of a Madonna and Child stood on a pedestal in the corner.   I smiled as I looked at the children gathered today, noticing a former student of mine, now grown and married, who sat in one of the tiny chairs with her own baby Natalie.  Natalie was blowing kisses to our leader, and we all laughed.

Today the year came together in that small chapel.  Twenty years ago I prayed with the children in that same place, and today, once again we sang our songs of praise.  I thought how I would soon be leaving them for a short time, and I would bring this memory, this picture, with me: the draped altar, the golden cross, the flaming candles, the carved wooden frontispiece, the sweet Madonna and Child, the old piano played by my dear fellow teacher, and the children, aged one to twelve, the new generation.  I would travel with this picture in my heart, take it with me to England.

What will London show me?  What would God’s will be for me there?  What is his desire?  We shall return to T.S. Eliot’s Anglo-Catholic church in South Kensington, St. Stephen’s Gloucester Road.  We shall perhaps drop off a copy of Inheritance, my novel set in England, at the local public library. We shall drink tea in the afternoons and walk through the neighborhoods when weather permits.

And I shall wait on God.  I shall trust that he knows me, that I am truly searched out and known, and His will is good.  I shall be patient, and wait each day in wonderment as the minutes and hours unfold.

Lent is a time of watering.  A time of feeding and preparation.  A time of being watered and being fed.

The days are lengthening, the root of the term Lent, and as the sun travels in a greater arc, giving us more light in our day, we travel toward Easter, the source of all light.

Here in Northern California we have been blessed by an abundance, or so it seems, of rain on our green hills.  The land drinks, soaking the waters from the skies to create new growth, new green.  We too pause during this time of absorbing the meaning of God come among us, the meaning of our human condition, the meaning of our individual lives.  We pray and we fast, training and disciplining our bodies and our wills to lead truer lives.  Perhaps we watch less TV, engage in less Internet chat.  We consider what is important and what is not.  We absorb the words of God in our prayer life and our Sunday worship.  We seek His will.  We drink it all in like water in the desert, this time of nourishment.  We feast on this abundance of love found in the Church in this most penitential and holy season.

A new book was recently released about clouds, the many kinds, the many names, each bundle of moisture traveling at its own altitude, each having its own, if ever-changing, shape.  There is even a Cloud Appreciation Society, and I gather that they search for and identify clouds as birdwatchers do birds.  I recall many childhood summers, stretched out on the grass, looking up at the clouds, finding animal and people shapes, which soon moved into other fabulous creations as the wind carried them off.  I share with C.S. Lewis a love of “weather,” but would probably add, as long as I can be protected from its force.  Still, clouds are lovely.

The clouds today spun through the sky, opening and drenching us as we ran into church, then moved on to another landscape.  Soon the sun burned through the moist and freshened air, and the garden courtyard blinded us as we emerged from Saint Peter’s this morning.  Such drama.  Such a world of contrast, color, beauty.  Such a world of feeding and nourishing.

But nature hurts and maims as well.  We grieve for those affected by earthquakes and tsunamis, and we question why such things happen.  We are reminded that we are not in control of such simple things as weather.  And this reminder too is a part of Lent.  We move through our days thinking we are, but we simply aren’t.  This is the reality of our world.

And so in Lent we become humble, knowing there will be times of great suffering and sorrow, times of flooding or drought, times that reflect the changing shapes in the heavens.  Yet we know there is more than this randomness, we know that there is a greater order, a greater plan, and best of all, we know it is a plan of Love.  We move toward Easter, aware of our neediness, our hunger, our thirst, knowing we will be comforted, fed, and our thirst will be quenched.  The days lengthen, the storms pass over, and one day we find ourselves helping the children flower a large white Easter cross.

Soon, soon, the day of resurrection will come, and the land will blossom.  We too, rising from our ashen selves, from our feeding and watering, will rise like the phoenix.  We have this promise, as Christians, and we are glad.

Lent began this week on Ash Wednesday.

I have had mixed feelings about Ash Wednesday over the years, but have always appreciated the reminder of my physical frailty coupled with the glorious power of God.

It is on Ash Wednesday we are told “Remember o man, that dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.”  It is on Ash Wednesday we consider our falling aways, our errors, those times when we have not loved enough.  Ash Wednesday reminds us of who we are as though we looked in a mirror and really saw ourselves.

It’s not always pretty.  But then, God breathes upon us, stirs our hearts to life.  He breathes upon our dust as He did with Adam and gives us life.  We rise into glorious eternity.  We know joy.  We love again.

In this sense Ash Wednesday is one of the most meaningful days in the Church Year.  We see our bodies, turning to ash.  Then we see our new life in Christ, rebirthing us, resurrecting us with him from the ash.  We rise like the phoenix, from our own ash.  This is Lent.

We visited St. Joseph of Arimathea Seminary Chapel in Berkeley this year for the evening Ash Wednesday service and the experience still haunts me with its extraordinary beauty.  St. Joseph’s is not large – perhaps seats sixty if we squeeze in together.  It is built in the Byzantine style, simple with a high vault and an ancient sounding organ.  We took our places on one of the benches and listened to the organ play an introit.  Then the front door opened and twelve UC students processed in, two by two, robed and carrying candles in the dark.  A thurifer prepared the way with incense billowing, and the crucifer carried the crucifix high.  The students are the Cal Crew who reside on the adjacent property and join in the worship services from time to time.  The effect was stunning, in this grotto-like chapel, with the candle light and the medieval-sounding organ.

The acolytes and clergy took places in the chancel.  The ashes were blessed and we stepped to the altar to have the priest make a cross upon our foreheads, dipping his finger in the ash and saying the words Remember o man…  He painted our skin with this gritty black symbol of our joy, the reminder of God’s promises to us.  Soon, we knew, we would celebrate Our Lord’s resurrection, and also our own.  The Mass continued, through the lessons and homily and the offering of ourselves to this Lord of love.  We received our communions, communing with Him, and with each other as the Body of Christ.

We were a mixed group, from babies to ninety-year-olds.  Our Archbishop in his white robe sat in the chancel, gazing upon us thoughtfully, praying his love, as a shepherd cares for his sheep.

Soon we sang the recessional, (was it The Old Rugged Cross?)  and the acolytes and clergy moved down the aisle, holding the flaming candles and crucifix, lighting the way, into the dark of Durant Street and the boom box noise and exhaust fumes and confusion of Berkeley.  We said our prayers, thankful for this refuge of hope on this Ash Wednesday, 2011, and gathered together for lentil soup in the small house behind the chapel.

I was thankful for these moments, this time of beginning the season of Lent.  I was thankful that my topsy turvy world was righted by this beautiful ceremony, a liturgy that made sense of all the suffering, bickering, and trials of life.  For as Christ’s Body, I became new once again.  I was thankful to be a part of this making sense, this truth of our world and of the God who made me, breathed life upon my ashen dust.

It has been a week of finishing up my early draft of The Magdalene Mystery, a story which contemplates truth and lies and love.  Now I must choose what to add and what to take away, decisions I shall need help with, as I hone and refine and hope something ends up readable as well as challenging, a tricky task.

We are moving into Lent, and each year as I live these penitential days of the life of the Church I am reminded of my third novel, in which the time span is a Lent-Easter one, Inheritance.  As we drove to church today I thought of my characters and what they were doing on this day in London… Victoria escaping, Madeleine and Jack visiting Saint Mary’s Bourne Street Church, Cristoforo preaching in the wet countryside.  Each character has become part of me, as I am, to be sure, a part of them, and they give my life a lovely contour and extended family.

I’ve been thinking as well what my Lenten rule shall be, what I shall give up, and what I shall take on.  Psalm 139 is a given, one to return to, as well as the Lenten Collect, a prayer said in the daily offices during this time of preparing for Easter.  I shall return to the first fourteen verses of John which I tackled in Advent, for their beauty still haunts me, and I am grateful for the lingering.  I must choose another memory passage, and I’m thinking perhaps John 6 where Christ talks about the Eucharist.  I shallalso try to give up meats and sweets, always a challenge.  In this way I shall discipline my will so that I shall learn to love as God loves.  I shall be in training.

Our parish is reading The Way of a Pilgrim, a story of a Russian wanderer and the Jesus Prayer.  The Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner,” is sometimes prayed without ceasing, as Saint Paul tells us to do.  I find it on my lips and in my heart often during the day, not, I must admit, without ceasing.  But it is a lovely way to remain close to God minute to minute, hour to hour, or in moments of suffering, heartache, disappointment.  Someone once asked why this prayer doesn’t pray for others instead of oneself.  The answer was that the “me,” through love, becomes “we”.  I liked that, and when I pray it now, I incorporate all mankind, especially the Body of Christ, in the “me,” through love.

Love.  Ah, that difficult word.  That glorious word.  Today’s Epistle was the poetic and joyous passage, I Corinthians 13, Paul’s great hymn to love, or “charity,” caritas.  His definition of love is not popular today: love is suffering, kind, humble, meek, unselfish, patient, true, bearing, believing, unfailing, and greater even than faith and hope.

And the Gospel for today was the healing of the blind man.  He knew Jesus could heal him, and because of his faith, Christ heals him.  He can see. Because he believed.

So as we approach Lent we are called to love, to suffer, to be true to the truth.   In doing so, we also will be granted our sight.  We shall be healed.  We shall journey on to the time when we shall no longer “see through a glass darkly” but “face to face” with the God who is the source of all love, life, and truth.