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The rain descended in torrents as we drove to church this dark morning, the Sunday before Christmas, a wonderful Sunday for it was the day of the annual Christmas Pageant.  Saint Peter’s welcomed us like an ark in stormy seas, and we headed toward the front door held open by Father Hauge, standing like a white-robed angel, greeting us.  We collapsed our umbrellas, grateful for the dry refuge of the narthex.

I headed to the Sunday School, following the sounds of the children’s high excited voices as they fitted into their costumes, and joined the joyful confusion of pins and ties and wings and head veils, adjusting here, shortening there.  Soon, soon, these young actors would process up the red carpet and take their places in the chancel.  Soon, they would tell the story of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God.

And they did.  Each child, solemnly in turn, stepped up the long aisle, small figures in a large high-pitched nave, moving steadily with folded hands (pointing toward heaven, our director explained), toward the steps leading to the chancel and the purple-tented tabernacle.  There, before the altar, the children told the story of Mary and Joseph, the journey to Bethlehem, the birth of the Savior of mankind.  One of the young adults sang solo, her haunting soprano dancing into the sacred space, coloring it.  The choir sang from the loft at the western end of the nave, beneath the fiery glass of the Pentecost window, festooning the organ’s rich notes with their voices, weaving a tapestry of story and song.

We told the story Jesus’ birth.  We told of Adam’s disobedience, of Isaiah’s prophecies, of Archangel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, the maid of Nazareth.  We told how Mary said yes, let it be unto me according to thy word, of her journey with Joseph to Bethlehem.  We told about the stable, and the shepherds keeping watch and the heavenly host appearing in the night sky, and how they came to Bethlehem to see this great thing which had come to pass.  We told the story, a miraculous, stupendous story that still, after two thousand years, is sung throughout the world, in every continent, nation, town.  It is a story that is danced and prayed and celebrated.  We tell the story in hushed voices at bedtime to our children with pictures in large books with shiny pages.  The story is told in a jumble of ringing steeple bells, in concert halls with trumpets and choirs and orchestras.  We tell the story as we gather around a twinkling tree and give one another gifts, parts of ourselves, recalling God’s gift to us, his own Son, born in a manger.

We are a people who journey through the rainy world in our warm and dry ark of the Church.  We gather and tell our story of God’s great love.  Soon, soon, we will tell the second half of that story, why he came in such great humility, why Jesus came among us, his great sacrifice.  We will leave this warm place in front of the burning hearth and the starry tree to learn love’s truth, true love, as we journey through Lent to Easter.

Today at St. Peter’s we moved easily from the glory of Bethlehem into the liturgy of the Eucharist, and, as the Body of Christ, we prayed this great prayer of the Church.  We offered the story to God, and ourselves in that story, and he offered himself back to us. We left a richer, fuller, more glorious people, ready to return to the rainy world.

But before heading outside, we gathered together in the parish hall for champagne and cider, sandwiches and an amazing cupcake cake, thankful for this time of celebration, this time of glorious telling, this time of Christmas.

Today is Gaudete Sunday.  Today, at home and at church, we light the rose candle in addition to our two purple candles as we wait for Christmas, and the coming of Christ into our world.  Gaudete comes from the Latin “rejoice” and it is taken from the Introit for this Sunday, Gaudete in Domino semper, in turn taken from Philippians 4:4-5, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  It is a Sunday carrying a lighter tone in this season of quiet penitence and preparation.  Of the four themes of Advent – Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell – today we consider Heaven.

And for those of us who were present at the ordination yesterday, we were still floating in Heaven.

Yesterday we gathered to witness one of our members take his vows before our Archbishop Provence to become a deacon.  It was a day of great rejoicing, for Peter has been serving the parish faithfully for many years, and his sacrificial sanctity has grown visible in time.  These occasions are also ones of heartwarming unity, as clergy and out-of-town guests join us in the warm red nave and chancel before the tabernacle.  In some ways it is like a great re-union of fellow faithful from other parts of the diocese and I was thankful to see them once again.

We sang the bracing and embracing hymn, St. Patrick’s Breastplate, “I bind unto myself this day the strong name of the Trinity…” as the clergy, acolytes and our ordinand, robed in white, processed up the wide red carpet, parting the sea of pews, and took places in the chancel to the left and right of the altar.  Attributed to fifth-century St. Patrick, this song to the Trinity was a true warrior’s battle hymn, binding us to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and to one another as Christ’s Body.

As Anglo-Catholics, we act out our belief through liturgical drama.  As we moved through the service, the acolytes and deacons and priests assisting the archbishop in the sanctuary, we arrived at the moment for the singing of the Litany, a time of deep commitment.  Peter prostrated himself before the altar, his arms outstretched, his body forming its own cross on the red sanctuary carpet.  He lay before his Lord as the litanist chanted and we responded, “Lord have mercy…”  We prayed for Peter, who would soon receive the apostolic laying on of hands, and we prayed for ourselves, all connected to Peter in this moment of time, in this ark, the Church.

Soon a chair was placed at the head of the central aisle and Archbishop Provence took his seat, wearing his miter and holding his shepherd’s staff.  Peter would soon be one of his flock in a special way, for deacons belong to their bishops historically and so it is today.

Peter knelt before the archbishop and answered with a clear voice.  The archbishop instructed him in his duties as deacon: to assist in the Divine Liturgy, to distribute the Eucharist, to read Holy Scripture and homilies, to instruct the youth, to baptize in the absence of the priest, to preach with the bishop’s permission, to care for the sick, poor, and helpless of the community.  The archbishop then laid his hands on Peter’s head and gave him authority to do these things, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our new Deacon Towle donned his deacon’s red sash, worn angled from left shoulder to right side, then took his place in the chancel.  The liturgy of the Mass continued, our greatest prayer of thanksgiving, in which we offer ourselves to God and God offers himself to us, and we received this eucharistic incarnation given to us by Christ.

As the clergy recessed, the torches burning, the crucifix raised high, Archbishop Provence made the Sign of the Cross over our heads in blessing.  We sang “The Church’s one foundation /Is Jesus Christ her Lord; she is the new creation by water and the word: from heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride; With his own blood he bought her, And for her life he died.”  Fighting words, I thought, words of strength to conclude the service which bound this soldier, this new Deacon Towle, to the Trinity, gave him the power to teach and to serve the Body of Christ the Church.

We gathered in the parish hall downstairs to share a meal, to congratulate our new deacon, and to give thanks for God’s many blessings to us, especially the gift of Deacon Peter Brown Towle.

Today was a true Gaudete Sunday, for we continued to rejoice in yesterday’s celebration, this moment of Heaven, as we witnessed the Sacrament of Holy Orders, a kind of incarnation in the Body of Christ.  And we continue to ponder Christ’s coming at Christmas, the historic incarnation of God among us.

The fog had drenched the garden, leaving puddles on the patio, cocooning the house.  We bundled into the car to go to church this morning, watching the skies part to reveal patches of blue.

It has been a week of excitement and of waiting and of prophecies, apocalypse, and Christ’s early ministry in Mark’s Gospel, reading the lessons of Morning and Evening Prayer.

The excitement in our house has been the release of my fourth novel, Hana-lani, a story which, as OakTara’s press release says, is compelling literary fiction, “A poignant journey that unravels T.S. Eliot’s permanent questions, what is goodness, truth and love?”  This short novel set in Hana, Maui, about the definition of love, was a joy to write, and to see it in print, holding it in my palm, was nearly like seeing a child born, certainly a child born of my heart.  On December 3 it appeared online on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and will be available in other venues soon.

Surrounding this birthing-joy is the waiting of Advent, this time of prayer and penitence, this time of reflection as the great festival of the Incarnation nears.  I have found that reading the Morning and Evening Offices in our Book of Common Prayer, while difficult at first (there is always something else to do), has renewed me as though I have gone on a restful retreat.  Setting the time aside (a mere 15-20 minutes) to move in the worlds of Isaiah’s fierce warnings and John’s apocalyptic answers has pulled me, in some way, outside of time, for this short time.  It is as though I have paused in my temporal life journey to inhabit another world, a world softly enshrouding and nourishing me.  I emerge from the cocoon of words and prayers, to see the blue sky.

It is like the Collect for Advent: give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life…, a prayer I am trying to memorize.

And it is like the first chapter of John’s Gospel, which I am attempting as well, after my meager success last Lent: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.  In him was life; and the life was the light of men.  And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Darkness and light.  Advent is a dim time of partial darkness, the fog swirling about us, obscuring our vision, but we grope, we pray, we see Christ face-to-face in the Mass.  St. Peter’s today was like an ark, carrying us through this fog and dark, safe on the seas of this strange temporal world we live in.  The nave was warm with its oak pews and red carpet, the sanctuary welcoming with its purple altar hangings, the Advent wreath with two of the four candles burning brightly to the left, the Gospel side.  We sing together in this great ship of the Church, as the Body of Christ, O come o come Emmanuel… ransom captive Israel.  And as we journey through these few weeks before Christmas, we re-enact the great story of mankind, man’s own captivity, his own need for saving.  His own need for light, life, love.  We journey together, bound together by the love of God in his Church.

After Mass I watched the children rehearse the Christmas Pageant, their clear voices ringing through the nave, their small hands holding black binders with great intent.  The organ played and I knew this quiet gathering was only a rehearsal for the glory to come.

That first chapter of John’s Gospel, I had forgotten, is the assigned Gospel for Christmas Day.  An appropriate passage for Advent, I thought, as the fog cleared and a blue patch of sky showed me a bit of the heavens, as the light shone in the darkness…

Deo Gratias.

Our Thanksgiving was quiet but thankful, thankful for another year, another month, another day, another meal together celebrating the life given to us on this good earth, the passage of mortal time as we move toward eternity.

We were thankful to be home again too, safely, after airport scanners and pat-downs, which, while disconcerting, I do not mind.  I believe major threats to our freedoms warrant these minor infringements to our freedoms.  For the most part, I prefer less government intrusion simply because it is not efficient and often unworkable, but this is an exception, falling into the realm of public safety, national defense, and educating the electorate through excellent schools.

So this morning we left for church on this First Sunday in Advent with full hearts, driving through crisp cold under blue skies here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  After checking on the Nursery and the Sunday School, I entered Saint Peter’s nave and stepped quietly up the red-carpeted aisle to our pew, falling on my knees in thanksgiving for the simple freedom to worship God.

The altar and tabernacle were vested in deep purple satin, and the richness caught the light from the windows in the pitched roof above, the light that shone on the large medieval crucifix on the brick apsidal wall.  The sanctuary, in the light like that, glowed with royalty, and I smiled as the Gospel was read, the account of Christ entering Jerusalem on a donkey, entering as a King, the people praising him, waving their palms in laud and honor.  Purple is both penitential and kingly, I thought, two aspects not always paired.

Our preacher mentioned that this scene, the riding into Jerusalem, was the only one in which Christ allows himself kingly accolades.  He went on to answer the question we all ask on this Sunday: What does this Easter passage have to do with Christmas?  Why do we read a Palm Sunday scripture for our Gospel on this first Sunday of the Church Year, this First Sunday in Advent as we prepare for Christmas?  Indeed, it is his kingship, our preacher explained, that we are to recall as we greet him as a newborn in Bethlehem.  During Advent, we consider who he is, how he comes to us, this King of Glory, riding in humility.

Advent is a time of penitential preparation in our Church Year.  We prepare for the great festival of Christmas, the Incarnation, the coming in flesh of the Son of God.  Such humility to become a helpless baby, a humility we are called to as well.  It is a time to reflect on the meaning of this incredibly credible event, this intersection of time with the eternal, this love song sung and sent to us from God.

We call him the Savior, for before Christ, we had many rules and warnings and prophecies but could not see God’s face, could not speak his name.  After Christ, we see his face, we speak his name, we know him, and are intimately known by him.   The great chasm has been breached, that caused by Adam and Eve’s disobedience so long ago in the Garden.  No longer are we in the dark, but now walk in the light.  We are saved.  Our wrong turns, our sins, are forgiven and we can look upon the face of God.

During the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent I try and take on a memory verse, adding words to my mind and heart that will lighten my darkness and prepare me for the days to come.  This Advent I shall work again on the Collect, the special opening prayer that collects together the faithful, for this Sunday:

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

And I shall try to read the Morning and Evening Offices, including the Psalms and Lessons. A half-hour each day to prepare for the Incarnation seems only fitting, following the admonitions of Isaiah and the coming of Christ in Mark’s Gospel.  I shall examine my conscience against God’s law, asking continually, is his will being done?  I shall consider the four great themes of Advent: death, judgment, heaven, hell.  Our preacher explained that we have no choice about death and judgment, but we do have a choice about heaven and hell.  I am glad I have such a choice, a choice given to me by a loving God who never turns away from us.  But have I chosen to turn away from him?

We returned home and I wedged my three purple candles and one rose candle into my Advent wreath holder, snipped some greens from my garden to weave around the plate, and lit the first candle, a purple one, to begin our season of Advent.

I shall prepare for Christmas, for the Incarnation, the coming of God as a babe in Bethlehem, for his coming at the end of time in judgment.  In this way my heart shall be ready to receive him too.

Soon it will be a national day of Thanksgiving, but for Christians every day is such a day.

It’s lovely to say Morning Prayer watching the waves of the Pacific Ocean wash against the rocky shores of this coast.  And I always include the Te Deum, that powerful prayer of praise and thanksgiving attributed to fourth-century Saint Ambrose when he baptized Saint Augustine of Hippo in the Milan cathedral.

It’s been a productive week, in spite of the tendency to gaze out to sea and be mesmerized by the undulating waters off the coast of Maui.  My husband and I are in our gentle years, as they say, and our activities are somewhat circumscribed by age, fatigue, and illness, but we’ve taken slow walks along the coast in our thick-soled trainers and felt the heat of the sun burning through our shirts and hats.  It’s been warm here, surprisingly warm for November in this region of Hawaii, and there has been little rain.  We look for shady places and read and write and ponder this brief passage of time in our lives.

My fourth novel, Hana-lani, is in its final editing stages with my publisher, OakTara, and I have hopes to see a copy by Christmas, and further hopes to have the book available to the public in January.  Hana-lani is set on Maui, in the village of Hana.  It is a love story and deals with themes of American culture, particularly the definition of love, the role of tradition, the importance of family in society.

Also in very early progress is my fifth novel, The Magdalene Mystery, set in Rome and Provence.  Just finished the first draft, and now for the fleshing out, the deleting, the next fifteen-plus drafts reworking these sixty-four thousand words.  It is a carving process in many ways, a whittling down but also a building up.  And, as in my trilogy of Western Europe, there are Chapter Notes and facts to be hunted down and verified.  Sometimes I think writing a novel is like a great puzzle, and since I love words, it is also a great deal of plain old fun, figuring out where to put them.  I also love ideas, and the perplexing nature of faith, and novel writing gives me the chance to swim in these seas as well, these pools of theology and history and art, considering the nature and purpose of man.  In short, the meaning of life.  No small task I suppose, but nevertheless riveting.

So we walk and we read and we write, watching a few puffy clouds move over the vast expanse of ocean, hearing the distant roar of the waves as they crash on the beach and onto the black rocks of porous lava, spewing foam into the moist air.

And I say my prayers of petition, intercession, confession, thanksgiving, and praise, listening to the sound of the surf.

God is full of surprises.

He’s surprised us by the weather the last few days, for there has been little rain and a good deal of sun.  We settled in to a room overlooking Hanalei Bay, the home of Puff the Magic Dragon (remember Peter, Paul, and Mary?) and before that, Lumahai Beach, the setting for the filming of South Pacific.

I am always stunned as well by Kauai itself, for it is the most dramatic of islands, and the Princeville-Hanalei area one of the most dramatic of Kauai.  With the heavy rainfall, the terrain is a lush rain forest, and the coasts are rugged with high cliffs that plunge into the sea.  Hanalei Bay on the north shore is a quiet finger of a bay that slides into a white sand beach, bordered by mountains and cliffs ringing to the east and west.  We are in a hotel that has been built into the eastern side of the bay, and we look out to what I believe are pali, the vertical ridge-like canyons that rise into the mountains.  In good weather, the green crags with their peaks and bluffs stand silhouetted against the blue dome of a sky, the sea below spread out to the horizon.  The sun sets this time of year behind these cliffs, and turns the white puffy clouds orange and crimson.

We drove into Hanalei one day and to the end of its narrow road where a State Park welcomes visitors.  Along the way is the Post Office and general store, and a historic church, green shingled, with stained glass and belfry, pitched roof and red doors called Wai’oli Hui’ia Church, once Congregational (founded 1834) and today United Church of Christ.  A plain interior, but solid, and remains I am sure a witness in the neighborhood.  I picked up a bulletin from last Sunday and saw some familiar pieces of the service – the Gloria, the Lord’s Prayer, the Doxology in Hawaiian (wish I could have heard that!), Psalm 139, the wonderful hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”  They once ran a mission school for the neighborhood although I’m not sure they need to now with the public school in operation.

The road to Hanalei is lovely, with green and lush foliage, and single-lane bridges that discourage too much traffic and encourage a sharp eye.  Flooding often closes the road, but it has not rained much lately so it wasn’t a problem, but then again we have not seen the myriad waterfalls we recalled from earlier times when it poured and the water streamed down the cliffs, white ribbons falling through the lush green, plunging to the sea.

There was a time when Hanalei was a hippie center, and the drug culture rampant, the bearded folks picking up their checks at the post office.  The area has moved on it seems, and folks have upgraded their properties and become staunchly middle class, possibly proletariat.  We learned lessons from those years – the immense risks, often deadly, of “free love” which meant of course “free sex,” and of addiction itself in all its forms, the deadening of the mind, soul, and body, an early death for many.  Some folks experimented and moved on and others stayed, lured by the good vibes of the slow colorful drug infused life, a life full of self and no responsibilities to others.  Friends of mine were participants and victims in that culture of death which was so camouflaged at the time to seem so full of life.  Those that survived, now in their sixties, continue to drift, unable to connect the dots of daily living, of planning, of setting goals, of becoming a creative human being.  Some sort of synapse in the brain simply burned out.  They have lost their families and in some cases their minds.  They have grown obese and continue the minor addictions of alcohol and tobacco.  One friend is severely diabetic and schizophrenic.

I dropped off a set of my Trilogy at the local library and spent many hours this week reworking my first draft of The Magdalene Mystery, my novel-in-progress.  I also heard from my publisher that my fourth novel, Hana-lani, set in Maui, will be available by the new year, a sudden surprise.

I say my prayers each day, read and write, and wonder how God will surprise me next.

We walked along the coastal path toward the Beach House restaurant and back, the sun warm and intermittent, burning through the heavy moisture and humidity.  Some rain, and sporadic wind bursts that carry the aromas of sea and flowers, swirling about us, but it is warm and we don’t mind the wet as we watch the skies change again and again.  We have been walking along this bit of coast for nearly thirty years, a shoreline reshaped by hurricanes, houses toppled and swamped, streets re-aligned.   The Beach House was there in the first days, and I recall the hippie-style restaurant with the cats and the questionable sanitation.  It was rebuilt after the big hurricane (eighties?) and recreated into an open airy sunset-facing restaurant.  Clean now, with a broad promontory of grass that juts into the sea.  Excellent grill as always, but the crowd has changed, faster, louder, and there is the sense it has become a tourist stop.  Time passes, nature has her way with this island, and we reach back and touch those moments of our past, amazed.

We returned to sit on our shady balcony and stare at the pounding surf.  Now the sun is out, and we wonder for how long, but the sea is blue green, laid before a swath of grass spread along the curved half moon of Poipu Beach.  Green cabana lounges face the crashing waters.  The sea roars in my ears and, indeed, we hear it sleeping carried through the window on warm breezes, and waking with all our senses open, and I drink the sound in as though it shall restore some balance, somehow wash my being, a baptism of sound.

Kauai seems to me to be the most dramatic of the Hawaian islands.  Here the winds play with the palms, sliding up and down the fingered stems, tossing them in a dance of air and light and moisture, and the sun glances off the fronds where the always-recent rain has polished and quenched them.

The roar of the sea drowns human chatter and busy-ness, as though greater events continue regardless of our witness and participation, regardless probably of our recycling and conservation efforts.  Here on Kauai we humans are smaller and humbler, bits of life surrounded by the powers of weather.  We glimpse briefly in a moment now, then, later, the grandeur, beauty, and indeed, the terror.  This island is a watered island, where rain forests drink from waterfalls tumbling from cliffs, and hurricanes and floodwaters reshape the land, destroy and rebuild.  The island is nature’s huge canvas, a recreation by elemental forces of water, fire, air, and earth.  Dramatic with giant players, intense colors, rushing movement, the creation of the world again and again.

Here man’s building man has been slow, often thwarted by these forces, and the villages of Kauai reflect these fits and starts.  The crossroads of towns still revolve around the general store, post office, churches and schools.  Shopping centers and hotels rise and fall with the economy, and are appreciated as job providers, catering to the tourists who come to escape their cities, their mainland mania of desire and speed.  Escape they do, for the humidity, the floral air, the sweet sea, the majestic palms dancing in the skies, all work their magic.  Folks sit and stare from lounge chairs, from black lava outcrops, from towels in the sand.  They stare at the tremendous waters rising and swelling as far as the eye can see, out to the slim curving horizon, the whitecaps pushed by the wind, the surf crashing and spilling its foam on the black fingers of reef and rock that stretch from the edges of the cove.  As they stare, holding a bestseller open to the first pages, the roar of the sea slides into them, and they nod slightly, drifting off for a moment of surprising escape.  They have become one with the canvas of greens and blues, of surf soundings, of aromas of hibiscus and plumeria, and a part of a greater life.  They become renewed.

A line from Psalm 95 said in the Office of Daily Morning Prayer (TheVenite) rings in my ears again and again here in this land of sea, sky, earth, air:  The sea is his and he made it and his hands prepared the dry land, O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our maker… 

Deo Gratia

They had forecasted rain but our green earth was covered in a dome of startling blue.  It was that piercing blue that winter moisture seems to bring, an indescribable clarity, the haze stripped away.   So as we headed for San Francisco to visit our sister parish of Saint Thomas’ I felt especially blessed, driving up the curved span of Bay Bridge into the sky, descending to the idyllic city, watching the skyline of spires stretched along the water’s edge crystallize in my vision.

Saint Thomas’ church is the size of a Romanesque chapel with white walls, green marble tiles covering the floor, a gentle dome over a slab stone altar and French tabernacle.  The acoustics are remarkable, the choir talented, the organist superb.  Indeed, I believe they have become known for their music.  Through skylights the sun shafts upon the sanctuary brightening the whites and in this light space we sang hymns about the saints, for it is All Hallows Eve, or as is commonly known, Halloween.

For Halloween derives from the vigil of All Saints, the great feast that we celebrate tomorrow, the festival of saints, past, present, and future, joined in time.  In pagan cultures, October 31 represented the end of the summer harvest and, with the coming of long nights and short days many believed the spirits of their dead roamed the earth this night.  They left food out for them and lit bonfires to scare them away.  With the rise of Christianity and the promise of heaven, they were no longer afraid of such ghosts.  As the Church did with many other festivals throughout the year, it baptized the pagan with the Christian by making the following day a celebration of all saints, and the day after that, November 2, a celebration of all souls.  It is thought that trick-or-treating evolved from the poor walking from house to house asking for food, carrying a candle in a hollowed-out turnip to light the way.  One can see how costumes were part of the old idea of scaring the ghosts away.

We sang For all the Saints… and the lovely children’s hymn, I sing a song of the saints of God… and Archbishop Provence, standing thoughtfully in the center of the aisle, spoke to us about the costumes we wear to hide our true selves.  Since that fall from grace in Eden, we desire to be what we are not, to hide behind what we think we want to be, should be, are told to be by our culture.  In our confusion, we wear our masks and Christ peels them away, layer by layer, until we truly know ourselves in his love.  How does he do this?  Through the Church, through the sacraments.  Through baptism which grafts us onto his body, the Body of Christ, the Church.  Through confession of sin, the many falling-aways from the rule of love, the rule of God, in the days, hours, minutes, and seconds of our lives, and God’s forgiveness. Through the Eucharist, where we unite with Christ and are nourished in body and soul.

Who are we?  Who am I?  It is a question we ask from the moment of birth, and as we journey through our span of time we struggle to make sense of our world, our lives. With the coming of Christ, we begin to learn the answer.  We are made in the image of God.  But our wrong turns take us away from him, and as we distance ourselves we hide his image within us.  We cover ourselves and try to become something we are not.  Just like Adam.  Just like Eve.

I have found as I move from Sunday Mass to Sunday Mass with occasional weekday ones as well, that the sacred liturgy pulls me into a kind of clarity, a self-knowledge, as though meeting Christ in the Bread and Wine shows me more of who I am meant to be.  It is a delirious feeling, to be loved like that.  So I return again and again, meeting him in this way.  No costume, no mask, just me.  And I pray, thank you, Lord, and thy will be done.  And I begin my list of intercessions for those I love and those I have trouble loving.

Certainly the saints know themselves in this way.  For they are men and women filled with God, and his love runs through them, pouring out to others.  For, as our preacher said this morning, we cannot love God without loving man first.

We left Saint Thomas’ and stepped into the crisp mid-day, the dome of blue arching in its stunning clarity, and I gave thanks for a glimpse of who I am meant to be.  Someday, in heaven, I will be that person.  In the meantime, I give thanks for the saints, and for All Hallows Eve, a reminder of who we are not meant to be, a reminder to peel away our masks, to know God, and thus to know ourselves, to become sanctus, holy.

And tomorrow I shall go to Mass to celebrate the great Festival of All Saints.

The temperatures dropped last night here in the Bay Area, and our Indian summer turned abruptly to a rainy autumn.  The trees and foliage, still full-leafed, are quenching their thirst, open to the skies in thanksgiving.  Soon our golden hills will be rolling greens.

In the Church Year we are still in the Trinity Season, marked by the color green in vestments and altar linens.  The seasons change and time passes.  Each of us ages another day, another month, another year.  What is our accounting?  What have I done right?  What have I done wrong?  How can I make my paths straight?  Or at least straighter?

Saint Peter’s Anglican Church felt warm this morning, a womb-like sanctuary, safe from the cold and wet outside.  The altar was alight with the flames of tall tapers, the tabernacle draped in a soft green, the celebrant in his chasuble of green.  As I watched and waited and said the prayers of the Divine Liturgy with my fellow Christians, my family of God, glimpses of the week past came to mind, sudden, unbidden, like glimmering stained glass.  Our visit to Boulder and my son and his lovely wife sitting in camp chairs on the field of green, the children running its length chasing the black-and-white ball, fast as the wind, flying.  The Rocky Mountains rising from the field to the west, the broad plain stretching out forever to the east.  The crystal blue of the dome of sky.  Sunday worship together in the Presbyterian Church, sitting in the polished pew, praying and singing.  The drive into the bleak scorched forests, the black sooty trunks screeching, mourning, one house standing, another gone, the random jumping of the holocaust. Hiking in to Gold Lake where my son was married thirteen years ago, now returning with his children, with his family.  So I gave thanks here in Saint Peter’s, as I watched our priest move about the altar, the altar where my son once served as acolyte in his greener years.

Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians (5:15+) was lovely, full of color and song, “See then that ye walk…as wise, redeeming the time…singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord…” but the Gospel was full of “hard sayings,” those words of Christ that we don’t want to hear, this one taking the shape of a parable.  In this story (Matthew 22:1+) Christ describes how a king prepared a wedding feast for his son and how, when the invitations were turned down, the king sent his servants to gather folks from anywhere and everywhere.  The story portrays an angry king, one who destroys and replaces, one who, at the end of the story, casts out a guest for not honoring the occasion with a proper garment.

We do not want to hear of a God of justice, of moral imperative, of rules and regulations, and certainly not of a God demanding honor and respect.  And yet, this is the Judeo-Christian God.  While loving and healing and redeeming, he also keeps track, just as any parent would do with their children.  For love entails just that, keeping track, keeping us on the right track.  Love involves justice.

Time passes.  Am I redeeming it?  Can I account for it?

Of course the wedding feast for the son is the Eucharist.  God the king provides this feast of his son, the Christ, and I am invited.  What is my response?

The celebrant raised the host.  “Behold the lamb of God, behold him that takes away the sins of the world.”  Indeed, I would come to the feast and be healed.  I would redeem the time.  In so doing I would know how to redeem the hours of the week ahead.  For God is just and God is good.  He loves us.  He redeems us over and over again, showing us the path, the way we are to go.

(I would also wear garments that would honor him.)

We stood for the final blessing, preparing to leave the warm sanctuary and enter the drizzly world.  We opened our hymnals and sang, making melody in our hearts to the Lord.  Indeed, we would redeem the time.

I have recalled again and again this last month the old adage, “Ninety percent of success is just showing up,” or something to that effect.  Faithfulness.  Doing what must be done.  Doing one’s duty.

We modern folk are impatient.  We want results. With decreasing attention spans, we want immediate gratification, immediate connection, immediate response.  I love my email and the many gadgets that allow me to stay in touch with friends and family.  But studies recently are questioning the habits those instant connections foster.  The habit of the now.

Faithfulness.  Duty.  Submission to authority.  Not popular concepts in an age of me, of self.

Athletes understand these things, as they train and discipline their bodies. What we seem to be losing as a culture is the training of the will, of the mind, of the heart.

Saint Peter’s was warm on this cold and rainy Sunday morning.  I checked on the children in the Sunday School and all was well. The Primaries and Juniors were making saints costumes involving a good deal of glitter.  The babies in the nursery were watched and waited on and loved.  I returned to the warm red-carpeted nave and knelt before the tabernacle tented in Trinity green, the altar aflame with tall tapers.  I considered my week, rooting out my sins.

A tragedy struck a friend of mine this week.  Her daughter’s newborn was admitted to hospital for neurosurgery.  I began my prayers as soon as I heard, and emailed friends to pray.  I prayed for the parents, the grandparents, all those involved in the care of this tiny life. We wait and we pray.  We love.  And we trust God that, no matter the outcome, he will pull his grace from the material of our suffering.

For this, I knew, is what he does. Adam and Eve initiated sickness and death with their rebellion in Eden.  They allowed evil into our world.  But God wins in the end.  So I watch and wait and pray with every ounce of my being.

The Epistle today (Ephesians 6:10+) was that wonderful passage about putting on the armor of God to withstand evil.  To prepare for these tragedies of life, this battle with sickness and death, we must train, we must show up, we must be faithful.  Saint Paul lists those pieces of armor necessary to our training: truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, Scripture, watching with perseverance and supplication to the saints.  In this way, Paul insists, we make known the mystery of the Gospel of Christ, the good news of life.

It’s not always easy or exciting to be faithful, faithful to those around us, faithful to God.  But the rewards, the graces poured upon us, are infinite.  At times in the last weeks this juxtaposition of steady going and delirious happiness has made me dizzy with joy.  I recall those moments as I pray for this infant and his family, pulling them into the love of God.

This morning, the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, I knelt before the tabernacle housing the Real Presence of Christ and quietly, faithfully, said my prayers.