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December Journal, Second Sunday in Advent

Posted on December 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

The opening prayer that collected our small flock together on this brilliantly clear morning in a chapel in Berkeley was the “Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent”:

“Blessed Lord, who hast caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.”   —Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 1928, 92

These opening prayers, written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), introduce the Epistle and Gospel lessons for each Sunday of the Church Year. Written at an exceptional time for the English language, the Elizabethan period, we treasure these vivid and lucid expressions, the heart of the appointed – assigned – readings, part introduction, part summary.

Words. Today was all about words. Words in Scripture. Words in prayers. The Word – Christ – the expression of God in human form.

We are to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest Holy Scripture. These words feed us, both soul and body. For words recreate us, sculpt us. Our beliefs form us; our word-expressions reach out to others, connecting, loving. We make sense of the world around us in words, and if the world doesn’t make sense, we don’t make sense. The body informs the soul. The soul informs the body.

Who are we? What are we? Christ answers these questions, giving each one of us a vision of our own selves as we are meant to be, as His creatures, His children. And with this self-portrait, painted with words, His Word, we are able to live our lives to the fullest, to His glory.

Without these words to mark, learn, and digest daily, weekly, monthly, stepping through the feast of festivals and seasons of each year, we become chaotic creatures empty of meaning and sanity.

Advent’s daily prayer begins with “Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light…”. To memorize this prayer is to digest it, to send our words to God, expressing our need for re-forming, re-creating. And even as we pray the words, we become clothed in a protective garment, an armour of light, lighting the darkness.

Advent. Sculpting who, what, why, and where we are in time and place is no small thing. Advent prepares us for the next great things – the redemption of the world, the apocalypse. For today’s Gospel is Luke 21: 25+ where Christ describes the signs that herald His second coming, when “the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.”

Today is also the theme of Judgment.  We shall be judged. The world shall be judged. But Christ takes our part if we desire Him; we are forgiven if we repent. And so we return to words – words to instruct our conscience, learning right and wrong, law and love. Holy Scripture becomes the textbook that teaches us where we have gone wrong, returning us to who we are and are meant to be. We need merely pray our words to Our Lord to be changed, to be redeemed, to be saved.

And so we prepare for the first coming of Christ in a stable cave in Bethlehem. We hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Word of God, Christ himself, come to live with each of us, within us, feeding us, walking alongside, revealing who we are in this miraculous mystery we call the world, Heaven and Earth, now and forever.

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December Journal, First Sunday in Advent

Posted on December 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

The nights have been clear and cold here in the Bay Area. We can see the stars and I reach to touch them, they seem so close. Advent is the time of stars in the heavens. Advent is when we follow the star to Christmas. We reach and we follow the star.

There’s a good deal about light and dark in today’s assigned lessons as we leave behind thanksgiving and open the door to Advent. Light and dark, life and death, judgment. We are told the four last things are to be considered in these Advent Sundays: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. Indeed, these are the four last things we will face when we die, and it appears they are also the four last things to consider when we are alive, if we want to live life to the full.

And so in today’s Epistle, Paul writes to the Roman church (13:8). He speaks of the night being far spent and the day at hand. He tells us to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, walking honestly as in the day. He even tells us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” which I would assume means wear Him like a garment, a protection against the dark and the judgment.

These are big things, subjects we would rather avoid. Especially judgment. We define deviancy down and further down, so that we can deny judging anyone and thus not be judged ourselves. And yet we know deep within there is a moral law all mankind senses, reckoning that a standard has been set, a standard we don’t meet. And with law there is judgment.

What happens when we die? Where do we go? Will we be held accountable for our life on Earth? Christian theology answers these questions in ways that make sense and that have proved true. For in the last twenty years+ witnesses to Heaven have returned to give testimony to what happened to them there. A great deal of literature has been collected, depositions, great clouds of credible witnesses.

And so we face the light and the truth of who we are, in Advent. Today we face death, that it will happen to each one of us some day… today, tomorrow, in fifty years. We are told to live each day as if it were our last, to savor each moment, for these minutes will not return.

We light our first Advent candle in our Advent wreathe. It is only one small flame in the dark, but it will light the others, each week, until we see the light of Bethlehem, the light of the world, the light of Christ.

Our preacher said that yes, we are in the Endtimes. For Catholic teaching says that the Endtimes – the Apocalypse – began with the birth of Jesus. Each of us has a role to play, a job to do, a vocation assigned to live out fully. Each one is a precious bead in the great rosary of the universe, in the miracle of time itself. Each one of us is necessary to complete the picture of man’s salvation. What is your vocation, job, role? What is mine?

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s birth. He led the West into the light of freedom, away from the dark of tyranny. He was a great leader for he sensed his destiny was to act at certain times. He was unpopular often, as many leaders are, for he listened to what he thought was right and wasn’t swayed by opinion. They say he wasn’t a religious man, but I say he listened to his head and heart and the angels that hovered about him. He knew the road to take to win freedom back. He worked long hours and slept little. He was brave. Steady. True. Industrious. “Never, never, never give up,” he said. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” And some humor alongside: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something.”

Reminds me of a certain political figure who recently won the White House. And it is interesting that President Trump had an American mother and a British father; Prime Minister Churchill had an American father and a British mother. Both leaders were (are) brash and committed and decisive… and fearless.

It is good we practiced gratitude for our blessings this past week. Gratitude humbles us. Gratitude says, we owe something to someone else. Indeed. We owe much to those giants that have preserved the West, and fought for our freedoms through war and peace. We owe much to our local church, filled with good souls who try to love us. We owe much to our own families who try to put up with us. We owe much to Our Lord who gave us life itself and continues to breathe life into each day we live.

We open the door to Advent, to the advent of Christ among us, that we may be worthy of His gift of life. We light our little candle and watch it flame and flicker, knowing that we are growing green with each day of penitence and prayer, until we complete the circle of pungent pine and shine our little lights on the Light of the World.

We begin at the beginning, the first day of the Church Year. In this new year we open the gates of Jerusalem – and our hearts – to the Messiah as our Gospel reading describes. Today the story begins, and each one of us will play a vital part in the greatest drama of all, life overcoming death, eternally, minute by minute.

We follow the star and see where it leads.

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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.”

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Great Expectations

Posted on December 22, 2013 | 1 comment

Much has been written about holiday stress. I think it’s largely the excitement of great expectations.

America was founded as a Christian culture, and so Americans celebrated through the centuries the great festival of Jesus the Christ’s birth, the historic story of God becoming man. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enhanced Christmas with many rich traditions and glorious music, and it is this European Christmas (particularly from Germany and England) that provided us with wreathes, Christmas trees, and Saint Nicholas. When, in 1823, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem called “The Night Before Christmas,” Saint Nicholas became a marketing opportunity not to be missed. The Santa spin-offs are familiar to us today as gift-giving required gift-buying, a boon to the December economy.

It is also true that in our American religious melting pot, the Christian story became diluted, nudged gently into the background, to be increasingly adapted to other beliefs so that folks from other traditions could join our celebration of Christmas. The story of the holy child born in Bethlehem, the fearsome angels who sang to the shepherds, the bright star that led the wise men to the manger-cave, became replaced by Rudolf and Santa and other elfin tales, but Christmas was still a time of excitement. Hollywood helped keep this altered  (and stunted) version alive, to be sure. Sleigh bells rang, jingle bells jangled, and Frosty the Snowman took center stage. The Grinch stole Christmas. Even the charming Dickens story of Scrooge, while focusing on brotherly love and remorse of past deeds, didn’t tell the story of God becoming man in Bethlehem. Charlie Brown and his Peanuts insisted that even scraggly Christmas trees are valued, a true morality tale, even if the Christ story wasn’t actually mentioned. Santa received his mail in the North Pole; letters were carefully scribbled by hopeful children. Sometimes the Christian story – this story of God coming among us, revealing his love so tangibly and historically, almost too good to be true – is simply sidetracked with an emphasis on a children’s pageant gone wrong or right, or stories focusing on the rituals themselves, as though these symbols and mysterious behaviors appeared from nowhere.

My generation, those baby-boomers who grew up in the fifties, lived and breathed these traditions and all the excitement of waiting those twenty-five days in the cold of winter. We loved Christmas, and still do. We waited and we watched, and we wondered if we would get even one thing on our careful list. On my tenth Christmas Eve, I peeked out my bedroom window and saw my father carry a bicycle from the garage, into the living room. I grew up a little that night, but even so I still believed in the God of Bethlehem, being a pastor’s child. And even after the Santa let-down, we continued to love Christmas – the colors, the songs, the smell of fir and pine and apple and cinnamon. We loved the garlands and the glitter and joining with others from church to sing carols to the aged and the ill. It was magical. It was mysterious. It was holy.

In fact, we invested a great deal of ourselves into this holiday, unlike any other holiday during the year. Sure, Christmas marketing added to the hype over the last few decades. But every year we wanted Christmas to be, well, Christmas. We had and have today great expectations. 

Now grown-up with children of our own and grandchildren too, we bake and we buy and we decorate our homes. Our “to do” list has nearly buried some of us with deadlines and time challenges, and we say we are stressed. We buy more, wrap more, and eat more, borne on this powerful desire, or perhaps a needy greed, to make the joy of Christmas Day meet our great expectations. Even Christians find it difficult to find time to go to church, to visit the needy, to say their prayers. Even Christians forget the true meaning of Christmas, so distracted we are by meeting our own expectations.

It is no wonder folks feel stressed. But I think such stress, such excitement, such looking forward, is also a reflection of the huge importance of this holy day and of the looking forward to Heaven. God cannot be forgotten. The story of Bethlehem will not be buried by reindeer and sleighs. Indeed, the traditions and the seemingly secular stories reflect the Christian God-story. They remind us of this historic event, ask us to recall and re-member the hope of Heaven we are given in this child, Jesus, Christ the Lord. Candles burning are lights in the darkness. The tree is new life shimmering with the light of heaven and the color of joy in the ornaments and tinsel. Santa flying through the sky demanding we be nice not naughty reflects the God of the Ten Commandments, of the Second Coming and the Judgment, and Santa giving magical gifts reflects the God of mercy, love, forgiveness. He is a Santa who, as a reflection of God, lands on each individual roof, goes down each chimney, arriving inside the heart of the house, the hearth. Like God the Son, he comes to earth to give us gifts. He wants us to be with him in eternity, to climb onto his sleigh and soar into the sky. He wants us to know how much he loves each one of us, holding us in his huge heart, calling us by our Christ-ian names.

All of these rituals create mystery and miracle. All of these help us re-call God among us. We know in our hearts that God is Emmanuel, God-with-us. We know even in this fallen world of suffering and sickness and sin, that God will and does redeem us, if we want him to.

We have great expectations of Heaven. At Christmas we desire to recreate a little of that Heaven on earth, in our homes and gatherings. We open the doors of our homes to guests bringing in cheer, coming in from the cold dark into the warm light. We open the doors of our hearts to loving each other a little more. We open all these doors to God the Son, the Christ Child in Bethlehem, the one who makes Christmas for each of us come true.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.   (John 1:14)

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The Adventure of Advent

Posted on December 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

This morning in church I thought how rich a season this is, this season of Advent, this season of coming, these four weeks in which we prepare for the Feast of the Incarnation, the festival known as Christmas.

I continue giving thanks, thanksgiving that our culture still recognizes the feast of Christmas. There remains among us a spirit of giving, of love, of sharing. True, we are bombarded by ads and the commercialization of this pre-Christmas time, but even so, the ads enjoin us to give, to buy gifts for friends and loved ones. St. Nicholas with his bags of gold for the maidens who wanted to marry returns as Santa Claus in the malls to question children as to their gift lists. His presence (and presents) assures them this is a magical, a mystical, season.

True also, we as a culture seem to have lost the reason for the magical mystery that weaves through these twenty-five days. Yet weave into our hours and days it does, and we buy fir trees to festoon with lights and hang sparkly, memorable ornaments on bits of wire. We light our trees and stack our gifts, mysteriously hidden beneath wrappings and ribbons. These traditions pull us through an unbelieving desert, a parched time, hopefully to a time of belief once again.

Those of us who believe already in the Incarnation of God in Christ in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, a historical intersection of eternity with time, sometimes become impatient and critical of the mania that seems to possess the rest of us, according to the media, as though their madness pollutes our holy time. But perhaps we should be grateful that folks want to buy gifts for others, and that retailers offer discounts so that they can do just that.

Those of us who believe already in this God of love and joy and salvation and eternal life need not pay much attention to the crowds storming the stores. We begin a lovely and sensitive time, a delicious time, this time of little Lent, a time of waiting for the great Advent of Our Lord, the coming of this child born to a young virgin in a manger-cave. Today, on this first Sunday in Advent, we begin our prayers fitfully, each evening, saying the assigned Collect, a prayer that gathers us all together, collects our minds and hearts:

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, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

We wait and we watch. We put upon us the armour of light. We lighten, enlighten, our homes to prepare for this great coming of Christ. We teach our children the meaning of the twinkling stars on the sweet smelling branches and the four Advent candles we light in turn each week, as we count the days and wait and hope and pray for our redeemer to come to earth. It is a dark time in a sense, a time of watching for the greatest light to appear among us, a light to banish the dark, a glorious light.

We sing carols to tell the ancient story, a story renewed each year, one that settles into our souls like seeds planted in fertile ground, seeds sprouting from our watering. The carols are part of the watering. Worship in church in Advent is part of the watering. The seeds feed too upon our prayers and the words we commit to our minds and hearts in these holy weeks.

Advent is a great reminder. It is a season set apart from the rush of shopping and decorating, or perhaps a season overlaying this rushing busy-ness. Somehow Advent intersects our time, just as God intersected all time and became one of us. Advent reminds us of the great truth, the great reality, the great love of God for each of us. For a few days and weeks in the cold of winter and the long dark of night we are reminded that our lives have meaning, that each of us is a star in God’s heart. We are reminded that “he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, (and that) we may rise to the life immortal…” We are told once again that God loves us… that he loved the world so that he gave his life so that we might have everlasting life. And it all began in Bethlehem on that first Christmas night. It all began beneath a starry sky as angels sang and shepherds knelt and kings offered their gifts.

So too we offer gifts to one another at Christmas. So too we kneel before the manger and before the altar where Christ is rebirthed with each Mass. So too as we receive him in this purple penitential season, our hearts are washed clean and our souls watered anew. So too we sing our praises with the angels on high.

Some call these stories myths. But myths are true. They tell the greatest truths of all, who we are, who we are meant to be. They answer the great questions why and how? They tell of God our creator, of Christ our redeemer. They tell us of love incarnate. These myths tell a glorious truth.

We light our Advent candles, the single purple one this first evening. Slowly, as we learn our Collect by heart, engrafting the words onto our souls, we change into something slightly different than we were before, something slightly more glorious, something slightly closer to heaven, something holy, as we taste a bit of heaven in this holy season.

This is the adventure of Advent, the coming of Our Lord upon earth.

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Friends

Posted on October 6, 2013 | 1 comment

I am often struck by how unique each of one of us is, and the miracle of this truth occurring again and again and again…. into infinity. 

It is like the prism of color we find in light, the colors that aren’t actually colors, but merging into those on either side. Where is green? Where is red? Where is blue? And yet every shade is there, to an infinite degree. It is like the perfect note soaring into a blend with other perfect notes in a string quartet, notes creating melody creating song, a song that echoes in your minutes and hours and days. It is like beauty, this unique person in a unique body. 

And so when I gaze at my friends, ordinary folks chatting around tables and milling in our undercroft after church I am often stunned by the glory of God’s creative power. I heard in a sermon once that each person is like a universe with its own planets and suns and moons revolving around one another. And yet the universes come together at times to form society, to gather in gatherings, to befriend in friendship. 

Friendship, our preacher said today, is something one works on. It is also a key and valued component of a good marriage. In friendship we look after one another, we sacrifice for one another, we celebrate and mourn with one another. We are not alone when we have friends, and to have friends one must be a friend, one must be-friend.

In our Gospel reading today Christ heals the man with palsy, who is dropped through the roof on a pallet into the crowd. His friends organized this operation, having faith that the Galilean prophet would heal their sick friend. Somehow, they open up the roof of the house and lower him in. They have faith. 

They have faith that the Prophet will respect their friend’s presence, lying on the pallet. They know that Christ will see this man as beloved and unique. They know that Christ will, in effect, see him. They are right.

Christ does see him. He sees inside of him, all of him, every shadowy corner. He says, Your sins are forgiven. He sees the man fully for who he is, good and bad. He loves him. He redeems him.

I have a number of friends who are crippled, or palsied, or maimed in some way. For that matter, everyone I know is maimed in some way, be it spiritual or physical, including myself. Yet the love of God sees us and holds us close, each of us. For we are created in his image, unique and miraculous beings placed in our moment in time. And we are given the power to love as he loves, respecting and cherishing all human life, from the womb to the grave.

I have been watching the video, War and Remembrance, a TV drama which reenacts the horrible holocaust of World War II. Here we see individuals who did not respect human life, who did not cherish each and every person created by God. It is a chilling reminder of a slippery slope.

To say we are part of the human race is not enough. We are much more than that. We are brothers and sisters, befriended and cherished by God Almighty, and we go through our time on earth breathing his breath, the power of his Holy Spirit.

My sister, the poet Barbara Budrovich, sent me one of her delightful poems, which, while this one is about punctuation, it is also about friendship, for our language reflects our deepest desires:

Who Am I?
Barbara Budrovich
 
I’m Comma’s identical twin.
 
With s by my side
I make others multiply.
 
Like our Ellipses
I stand for the missing.
 
I dwell in the sky
And bring–to the lonely–companions
Worth holding.

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Fires and Floods

Posted on September 15, 2013 | 1 comment

We live at the foot of Mount Diablo, “Devil’s Mountain,” so when billowing smoke rose beyond the peak this last Sunday, we watched, waited, and checked Internet updates regularly. The fire raged on the other side, swallowing the dry brown grass, but only 10% of the fire was contained as darkness fell. It continued to grow, it seemed, far faster than it was being contained. By Monday the area burned had doubled to nearly 4,000 acres, and the containment figure was 20%. New crews arrived from distant parts, and planes and choppers flew overhead, dropping, we knew, waters to kill the inferno.

Horses were rescued, folks evacuated. Fortunately, no lives or homes were lost. And the fires never reached our home, never crested the mountain.

Not so fortunate were residents in Colorado along the Front Range this last week. As my son and his family were evacuated from their home in North Boulder by the National Guard, they watched a power station explode in the darkness. Roads were collapsing, bridges swept away. My son and family were safe, and the house too, on higher ground, is still there, at least so we hope and pray.

Fires and floods. No earthquakes yet, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. Mother nature isn’t always a nice or predictable mother. She can be ugly, brutal, uncaring. No matter what the Romantic poets thought about flowers and sunsets and ruins, nature is heartless. We build houses to protect ourselves from her wrath. We invent ways to light the dark when the sun no longer shines. We lay miles of underground pipe to allow easy access to fresh water that will miraculously arrive through faucets into sinks, tubs, and showers. We construct elaborate plumbing systems and dig septic tanks, so that with the push of a handle all uncleanness is flushed down a drain. Out of sight, out of mind.

We have watched other parts of the country suffer floods and fires and tornadoes, but this week, at least in California and Colorado, we experienced nature’s wrath firsthand. It is not the first time, for there have been floods and fires here before. But we are reminded again that we are little creatures. We think we are big, but we are small. In the twinkling of an eye, all can be burned, all can be flooded.

The fires have been doused here on Devil’s Mountain. But the folks in Colorado are not yet “out of the woods,” to use an apt expression. When we want to say we are safe, we say we are “out of the woods,” we are out of that natural wild world where danger and darkness lurk, where floods and fires threaten.

So this morning in church, as I fell on my knees before the sturdy altar and its sacred tabernacle, I gave thanks to God for God himself. There is nothing certain in this world but God and his great love for us in the midst of all this uncertainty. This certainty – this rock-solid faith – is the foundation of the Church, one not built on sand, one not swept away by raging waters or wild fires. And how do we know this? Because of a man who lived two thousand years ago who said he was God, and proved it by walking on water, healing the lame, giving sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, and life to the dead. And finally, conquering death with his own resurrection.

In today’s Scripture reading we listened to one of my favorite passages of Saint Paul:

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.  (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Rooted and grounded in love. Indeed, we are so rooted and grounded in God’s love that the natural world in which we find ourselves will not have the last say, will not, in the end, conquer.

The breadth, and length, and depth, and height… of the love of Christ… which passeth knowledge… filled with all the fullness of God. These are words of hope, words of certainty, rock-solid.

These are words that are super-natural, other-worldly, and of this I am glad.

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Transfiguration

Posted on August 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Summer seems to end early these days, with schools starting mid-August. Gone are the Labor Day weekends devoted to shopping for school supplies and school shoes. Gone, too, are the last few weeks of August when our sleepy, lazy days stretched on forever. 

This ending of summer, coupled with a chilly few weeks in the Bay Area, pushes me to think of fall and going back to school, of endings and beginnings. Trained as a child that when summer ended school began, I still think in these terms, although my school days are long past. My children’s school days are long past as well (except for the fourth-grade teacher, I suppose), but my grandchildren certainly are ending their summer days and beginning their school days this month. 

For many years the scents of the season, the chilly mornings and hot afternoons, triggered within me anxious dreams bordering on fears – being on time for class, finding my locker, and the worst of all, arriving in my pajamas.  I haven’t had such dreams that I recall in a long time, which shows time does heal and repair. But I recall vividly the anticipation of that first school day, waiting for the school bus with my books cradled in my arm (no backpacks then), balancing a bag lunch somewhere, not sure where. Did I remember my dime for the orange-aid machine? (no cafeterias, no sodas)

I remember the sound of the school bells ringing, not really sounding like bells, but more like staccato notes strung tightly together, shrilly stinging through the air, slicing, horizontal. They were a happy sound for the most part, an it’s-time-to-come-on-in sound, but they also carried a warning note so that the fear of being marked tardy added wings to my feet. Was that the five minute bell? Or the final bell?

I slid into the desk, arranged my things, watched the teacher and the broad blackboard (really dark green). I prepared my attention for what was to come. Oral reports? Pop quiz? Did I complete the homework in time? Did I remember to bring it? I recall the smell of the metal-and-wood desks with their attached seats and their sloping surface that opened to a compartment in which to place things. I don’t recall what I put in there (eraser? pencil? ruler?) or if I always had the same desk… it surely varied from year to year, grade to grade. We all faced the same direction – toward the front and the board and the teacher and the teacher’s huge desk, heavy and sturdy like a barge and command center rolled into one – and perhaps this arrangement instilled a reverence for authority. 

I liked the way the room was arranged. It provided security. I liked that the teacher could give me knowledge, as though on a platter, and I could receive it, feed on it. And I could trust the person who served me. She or he was, after all, a Teacher. She would change my thought processes, rearrange my words and ideas, she would fill me with images and solutions to so many problems. Reading, writing, arithmetic. California history, U.S. History, World History. Civics – the three branches of government and who we are as Americans. What freedom meant and why we fought wars to protect our freedom. She would explain my world, give me the tools to cast my vote one day. She would transfigure my thought processes, the workings of my mind. 

Transfiguration. Change of a miraculous and mysterious nature. We celebrated the Transfiguration this week in our Church Kalendar, a stunning moment in the life of Christ on earth. Peter and James and John go with Jesus to a mountain to pray. As Jesus prays, they see his “countenance altered, and his raiment white and glistering”. Elijah and Moses appear and they speak of what was to come in Jerusalem. When the two ancient prophets leave, Peter doesn’t really understand – he wants to build altars to the three of them as though they were equals. It is then that a cloud covers the apostles and they are afraid. They hear God speak to them through the cloud, “This is my beloved son: hear him.” Jesus is not merely another prophet.

Christ’s transfiguration occurred as he prayed. He opened the door to heaven, he broke the chains of time. He was in both worlds. Just so, when we pray, we open the door to another dimension. And when we think and learn and allow words and phrases to re-figure our minds and hearts we open doors to change, to a kind of transfiguration. What we do matters. What we think matters. Who we pray to matters. Who we listen to matters. For we will be transfigured. Nothing is lost, not one second, not one minute is lost in eternity.

So we choose our teachers wisely. We choose our reading wisely. We even choose our entertainment – media and games and events – with the thought to how they will reshape us. We join in weekly worship, so that we will be transfigured rightly and not wrongly. We listen to Scripture and sermon with the knowledge that the changes made inside us will be good ones, Godly ones. We are transfigured, changed, by the holy.

And so, on this edge of seasons, I wait with anticipation to see what shall enter my hearing, my sight, my heart and mind. A new season is near, approaching steadily, I can see it coming, it is in my view. I watch and wait, just as I did for the yellow school bus so many years ago. Where will God lead me? What are his plans? How will I be transfigured in the days to come?

I am certain that, as a part of the Body of Christ, the Church, I will continue on this marvel-ous adventure, in an ongoing transfiguration, and of this I am glad.

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Patient and Brave and True

Posted on July 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

My husband and I drove from one micro-climate to another this morning as we headed to our local church, from valley sun to coastal fog. I entered the Sunday School rooms, switched on the lights, and leaned the welcome sign against the front door.

I inflated balloons – red, blue, yellow, green – and tied them to white ribbon, making a Sunday School bouquet, and hung them next to the sign outside. The sign read, “Summer Sunday School, Saints of God, All Welcome.” I left the door ajar in spite of a cold breeze that had found its way through the July fog and into our church.

All was ready – the Attendance Chart with its stickers, the circular rug for Circle Time, the organ accompaniment downloaded into my smart phone for “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” Small pails, pink and blue, waited for seeds and soil, the beginnings of new life, one of our summer projects.

I Sing a Song of the Saints of GodThe teachers arrived, followed by the children. We sat around the circle and read the story about the Saints of God (based on the hymn).  I tapped my phone and the organ accompaniment began. We stood, singing and illustrating the words with hand movements and twirls. As we sang (and twirled) I pondered the words of this classic hymn (243):

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
 
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green:
They were all of them saints of God – and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
 
They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake,
The whole of their good lives long.
 
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
And there’s not any reason – no, not the least –
Why I shouldn’t be one too.
 
They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still,
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus’ will.
 
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too. (Lesbia Scott)
 

I love this hymn for it defines a saint as practicing ordinary virtues. Saints are patient, brave, and true. Saints simply love God and because they love him, they try to do his will. They are “just folk like me.” They may not always succeed (saints are not perfect) but they try.

Patience and bravery are clear enough. But true? The saints were true to the truth. They believed God became man and died for us, rising again. And they were martyred, rather than deny this vital truth. They were martyred for witnessing to it, for telling folks the good news.

Mary MagdaleneMy recent novel, The Magdalene Mystery, is about truth and its telling in the media, in academia, and in the Church. It is about the truth of Saint Mary Magdalene, who she was and who she wasn’t. It is about how we know what we know about the stunning events of that first century, events that changed our world, indeed, saved our world.

Tomorrow, July 22, is the Magdalene’s feast day, and we celebrate this woman who knew Christ Jesus, was the first to see the risen Christ, and preached his resurrection in Provence. With Bishop Maximin, she traveled the roads east of Marseilles, sharing the good news with this Greco-Roman culture. Some years later, she died and was buried in the area of Aix-en-Provence. Today, some of her relics rest in the cathedral in St. Maximin and some in the Grotto of La Sainte-Baume nearby, where legend says she lived her last years. Other relics are venerated in the Vézelay cathedral and some relics rest in her Paris basilica, La Madeleine. 

A group of American pilgrims are traveling to La Sainte-Baume for the annual Dominican pilgrimage from the town to the cave (Dominicans care for the grotto). They will pray for blessings, for patience, for bravery, for truth, and continue praying a novena, a nine-day prayer cycle. And, according to many, Mary Magdalene is a powerful saint and will hear these prayers. Paula Lawlor, a mother of seven from San Diego whose intercessory petition was answered some years ago, is leading the pilgrimage. She believes Mary Magdalene saved the life of her son, pulling him from an abyss. She believes this was a true miracle, and is now committed to witnessing for this saint. It is clear that Mary Magdalene changed Paula’s life.

Our Gospel today told of Christ’s warning against false prophets, “Ye shall know them by their fruits…”. We know the saints by their good fruits, by the lives they led, and lead among us today. As I sang with the children this morning, I knew Mary Magdalene would have done the same, teaching the next generation the truth about God and his mighty acts among men. She would have shared her love of God. She would have encouraged them to be saints too, to bring forth good fruit. Mary Magdalene was the first witness to the resurrection, and she witnessed throughout her life, just as we do today.

This morning at church, after coffee and conversation, my husband and I stepped outside. The fog was gone, the sun shone brightly, radiantly burning away the mist, allowing us to see the leafy greens and the blues of the sky. A dim curtain had been parted, lifted, burned away, just as it was parted two thousand years ago in that Easter tomb-garden when Mary Magdalene saw her risen Lord.

(To follow Paula’s pilgrimage, visit http://magdalenepublishing.org/blog/.)

 

 

 

 

 

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Palm Sunday

Posted on March 24, 2013 | Leave a comment

This week I completed the first draft of a reprint of  The Life of Raymond Raynes by Nicholas Mosley. I have been immersed in Father Raynes’s love and Father Raynes’s suffering, as he allowed God to work through his life to feed others with God himself, to help others know God.

He lived this life until he died a painful death at the age of fifty-five and entered the gates of his new life, his Jerusalem.

Raymond Raynes was a tall thin man, increasingly gaunt in his last years, a monk who ate little and slept little, but who loved a great deal, loved through his prayers and his time spent caring for others. He changed lives in the countryside of England and in the slums of South Africa, and he changed lives in Denver, Dallas, and San Francisco when he came to speak on his American missions. He wanted to stir up the Church, to wake up the Body of Christ. Why? So that they could see and know God.

Today, Palm Sunday, we re-member Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. He rides a lowly donkey, yet the people greet him as a king. Hosanna, they cry. Hosanna to the Son of David. Jesus will be their new king, they think. They learn differently in the following week. We tell this story, act it out even as we process, holding our palm fronds, around the nave and sing, All glory laud and honor… By telling the story we draw closer so that we may know God better.

It is a dramatic moment when the Lord of All Creation so humbly enters this city of man. Born in a stable to humble parents, Jesus of Nazareth lived among a persecuted people, a poor people. After his time in the desert, after his baptism by John, he gathered his followers and spoke the truth to the crowds. Often the truth was too harsh and they fled, and often the truth today is too harsh, and we flee. But, as our preacher said this morning, those who knew him stayed, and those who know him today, stay too. When he said that we must eat his body and drink his blood, many left. Just so, many leave today. But those who knew him recognized him as the Messiah, the long awaited one, the Lord of All Creation. Those who know him today, those who worship faithfully with sacrament and scripture week after week – those folks understand who he is, the long promised savior.

I have an icon on my wall that shows this scene at the gates of Jerusalem. The colors are vivid – golds and greens and reds. We re-member and re-fashion, re-creating the true glory of this humble scene, this moment in history. Our preacher today spoke of those palm branches. He said that in this arid land only the rich would have palm trees. The palm branch, with its green fronds, meant water was near. So it is particularly poignant and meaningful that children waved their branches of life-giving water and royal privilege, before this humble man riding on a donkey.

In church, as I gazed upon the purple-draped chancel – so much purple! – the giant green palm branches that rose twenty plus feet on either side of the altar filled me with joy, the hope of Easter. They arced gently, nearly reaching the purple cloths over the crucifix. They said, soon, soon, it will be finished. Soon, soon, all will be renewed, reborn. Soon, soon, we shall be resurrected.

How do I know this? Because I have tried to be faithful in Sacrament and Scripture. I have worshiped regularly, have received the Body and Blood into my own body. I have listened to the sermons and the lessons that help me know God. I have listened for God’s voice in prayer. There is no magic involved in any of this. No luck. Maybe some grace and a little blessing and some angels urging me along the way. But through simple faithfulness we can know him. There is no other way. There are no shortcuts.

My novel, The Magdalene Mystery, is to be released in mid-May. It is the story of a quest to find the real Mary Magdalene, the woman who was the first to see the resurrected Christ. She came to the tomb out of faithfulness, doing what needed to be done. She didn’t expect to find the stone rolled away or the the man she thought was the gardener speak to her. But when he called her name, Mary, she knew him. Because she was faithful.

Father Raynes was faithful, and he taught us how to be faithful, how to know God. Like Christ Jesus, he tells the truth and not everyone wants to hear it. Some of his demands are difficult, some are inconvenient. But truth is the only way to life. As part of the Body of Christ, the Church, I shall be ever grateful for his stirring up, for his call to be faithful.  For in being faithful, we know God, and in knowing God, we live.

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