Hos"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple -- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward." (Matthew 10:40-42) ([NRSV]
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There is a scene early on in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird in which the young Scout Finch, in a state of general despair following her first morning of elementary school, is further provoked when her older brother Jem, always the gentleman, invites her classmate Walter Cunningham home for lunch. In Scout’s view, Walter has been the source of her troubles with her teacher, and she has retaliated by punching him out on the playground. Jem, humiliated by his little sister’s inability to comprehend schoolyard etiquette for girls, is hoping to make amends with Walter and, therefore, the three children find themselves at the Finch family lunch table with the lawyer father Atticus.
As Calpurnia, the housekeeper who makes life livable for Atticus and his children, places lunch on the table, Walter asks for a pitcher of syrup. Calpurnia supplies the pitcher withouta word, and Scout looks on in amazement as Walter proceeds to douse his entire plate with the stuff. Jem’s hopes for a truce are dashed when Scout, unable to contain herself, screeches, “Walter, WHAT IN THE SAM HILL ARE YOU DOIN’?"
Calpurnia dispatches Scout to the kitchen with that speed well known to women grimly determined that their hospitable overtures will not be destroyed by impulsive children. “But he’s ruinin’ it,” Scout protests with a whine. “That boy’s your company,” responds Calpurnia, “and if he wants to eat up the tablecloth you let him, you hear?” Thus is Scout introduced to one of the most basic tenets of hospitality: make generous provision for whatever your guests want or need, regardless of how unusual the request.
Most of us learn the basic lessons of hospitality in a more congenial forum. Long before we bring home children whose noses we have bloodied, we absorb lessons in creating a welcoming environment. In my case, those lessons came from my grandmother whose efforts I, as a young girl, of course took completely for granted. I knew that I could call her up anytime and slip down the gravel road between our houses to spend the night at hers, in a room freshly made up with clean sheets and towels, with a rose from her garden on the dresser. As I grew older and went away to school and college and law school and married life, I could still call her up anytime and announce that I would be coming for the night. I would pull up the hill to find her waiting on the brick patio under the maple tree with icy lemonade and chocolate chip cookies, and know that inside a delicious dinner was roasting in the oven and my bedroom awaited me. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I realized that all of that preparation entailed WORK on her part, and that it isn’t so easy to reorganize your day to include making up a new room and replanning your meals and probably making an unscheduled trip to the grocery. It’s not so difficult when you are accommodating family and friends, known quantities, as when someone completely unfamiliar drops by, but it still involves work –and attentiveness.
Sometimes it seems that the Bible reads like one long call to attentiveness to the presence of God in our midst, and today’s passage is no exception. It’s one of those long sets of sayings of Jesus, sayings probably culled from a variety of places and times in his ministry and pulled together to create a single scene, in which Jesus is about to send his disciples out to proclaim the coming of the kingdom. His instructions seem designed to instill confidence in men about to enter unknown and possibly hostile territory; he gives them to power to heal and cleanse, but also warns them that they are being “sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.” He tells them that they should make no mistake about the significance of their mission, saying, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” They go not as individuals, but as emissaries of Christ himself.
Consequently, those to whom they go, unaware though they may be, are also being called to participation in a relationship of deep magnitude. Some will, literally and figuratively, see the disciples as beloved family members, receiving them as my grandmother always welcomed me, with lemonade on the terrace and a rose on the dresser. Others will maintain the stance of a Scout Finch, seeing in the disciples baffling strangers with crude customs. In both cases, says Jesus, the welcome offered the disciples will result in the reward of a prophet. “Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteousperson in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous."
The language of that last sentence is arresting. Jesus doesn’t suggest that the person who welcomes a prophet or a righteous person in the name of a prophet or righteous person may earn a reward, or should offer his or her welcome in the hope or anticipation of receiving a reward. He says that such a person “will” receive a reward. The reward is inescapable. Is it possible that such a reward might bear little resemblance to what we might normally think of when we think of rewards? It wouldn’t be the first time, would it, that attentiveness to the presence of God results in immediate consequences neither hoped nor longed for? Abram and Sarai are not likely to have been thinking about picking up and moving their household to a distant land when they start listening to God. Moses is the first in a long line of figures who resist with every fiber of their beings the call of God upon their lives for as long as they can – and when he finally acquiesces, what does it get him? Forty years of leading an irritable and complaining people through a wilderness to a final destination that he is not permitted to enter. Mary listens to the call of God and finds herself a pregnant outcast. And Jesus himself, always listening for the guidance of his father, is executed as a political opponent of the Roman Empire.
I was curious about what specifically “the reward of a prophet” might entail, so I looked a few of them up. Isaiah, one of the most prolific and famous of the prophets, likely to have been a member of the aristocratic class, was instructed by God to walk about naked and barefoot for three years. Jeremiah, apparently of priestly descent, was, according to tradition, put to death in Egypt for preaching against idolatry. Micah, a favorite of many in this church for his insistence that all that God requires of us is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, does not, so far as I could find, merit even a mention as to the outcome of his life and ministry. I gave up looking after Micah. It was clear enough that the reward of a prophet or of a person of righteousness is not likely to fall into the realm of winning the lottery, or even a cruise or a car.
I always get a bit of a chuckle when someone not interested in the religious dimension of life points out to me with great authority that faith in God is nothing more than a crutch. Faith in God, as nearly every encounter with God in the Bible seems to demonstrate, is far more challenge than crutch. St. Theresa, the sixteenth-century mystic who traveled all over Spain to revive the Carmelite monasteries, was one day bumped from her ox-cart to land in a muddy stream. She shook her fist at God and exclaimed, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you don't have many!" It does seem surprising that with the examples provided by both the Bible and the later-day saints of God, most of which counter any image of God as a crutch, we yet continually try to reorient ourselves back to God’s ways and God’s paths, as Christ call us to do.
Of course, the reward is not all dramatic and deadly trials, or even muddy landings. The reward, as indicated by the need for welcome and receptivity, lies in attentiveness and in calling others to attentiveness. Attentiveness can be both a troubling curse and a great gift. I think that Nathan, the prophet called to make clear to King David that HE, the king, was the man guilty of so many heinouscrimes, must have felt the cursedness of prophecy. Those called today to issue the call to clarity and justice that so desperately needs to be heard in our land, must frequently be troubled by the reception their words receive. It’s not usually a comfortable feeling to make ourselves available to the values of the kingdom, and to place ourselves on the line for them. If it does feel comfortable, then we should probably be asking whether God’s values are indeed the ones being promulgated.
And yet, despite the discomfort created by God’s call to attentiveness, the other side of the coin, the gift of attentiveness, is one of God’s most profound. Probably most of us in this sanctuary have had the experience of seeing life, or some small aspect of it, revealed in a completely new light following a devastating experience. It is often just in the wake of a great loss that we see most clearly. Many of you know that my stepmother lost her brief and brutal battle with cancer this past spring. I stroked her hand as she died and, a few hours later as I walked down the woodland path to my father’s house, I was utterly saturated by the magic of an early spring morning that she was no longer here to witness. Two gifts born of attentiveness: the opportunity to bear witness to a beloved relative’s passage from this world to another, and the dazzling intensity of the passing of the planet from winter to spring on the cusp of the equinox.
For most of us, the call to attentiveness in the form of welcome comes in the small dailiness of mornings like that. Most of us are not called to become Isaiahs or Micahs; most of us are not even called to preach in theNational Cathedral. Most of us are simply called to be grandmothers welcoming granddaughters, Calpurnias welcoming grungy little boys, daughters helping women welcome the next life. Our rewards are a combination of hard work and discomfort mixed with the awareness of the presence of God, all brought about by attentiveness to the kingdom. It is perhaps for that “most of us” that Christ spoke the final words of today’s passage: “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple -- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
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I haven't been here for awhile, but I thought I would post this sermon, my first one ever, which I had the privilege of preaching at our service this morning. Before the reading I thanked the congregation for singing the opening hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy," which is the traditional opening for the Sunday morning services at the Chautauqua Institution. Today is opening day at Chautauqua and, as I told them, about 45 minutes after we got started, 5,000 people would be singing that hymn in an outdoor ampitheatre, so our singing it was a present to me.
Here are the introduction and prayer, after the reading and before the sermon:
I want to thank C. and J. for the opportunity to preach from the pulpit which they distinguish every week. I'm sure that when we called C. to the position of Director of Lay Leadership, no one was expecting her to go to this extreme. And you would know just how far she's gone had you known me in high school -- a religious high school, in which I frequently slipped out the back door of the chapel just after attendance was taken in order to pursue decidedly non-churchlike activities. But, here I am and here you are, and we have no choice except to work with the material we are given. In that vein, we should definitely begin this enterprise with a prayer.
Gracious God, we are present in gratitude for this magnificent summer morning. We have not forgotten that long, dark, damp, cold, and dreary winter, but we give thanks for the reality that the snow and rain of that season prepared the earth for the lush green respite of these summer days. Enable us to pause now to hear and ruminate upon your word. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Monday, May 16, 2005
More on the Highlands
I mentioned that week-end before last my dad and I participated in a guided hike on the Ka-Ma-Ma Prairie, a portion of the Highlands Sanctuary properties being preserved in southern Ohio. Our leader, Larry Henry, was a delight, with an autobiography that serves as an example of life's unending twists and turns. I can't do justice to his story, having heard it just that once, but I can offer the highlights:
Unable to afford college, Larry completed a two-year forestry program and ultimately found himself working in state natural resources. He had a successful career under Republican administrations -- he noted to us that Republicans used to stand for conservation of natural resources -- and, ironically, found himself out of work with the election of a Democratic governor. For the next 21 years he and his wife nurtured their love of growing organisms by operating a bakery, but eventually the wild lands of the Arc of Appalachia in southern Ohio issued their call.
Today, the Henrys respond to the challenges posed by the current version of the Republican party by running Highlands Sanctuary and purchasing magnificent pieces of property to preserve them from further development. They are not a second too soon -- southwestern Ohio, where I grew up and never expected to see anything other than farm after farm, is one of the fastest growth areas in the nation. Now it's development after development. My brother, whom I love dearly, lives in such a development -- he lives on a tiny plat of land on one of countless rows of streets characterized by an endless series of brand-new colonials and double locks his doors in the daytime, on land where wheat used to grow and quail once called and where, prior to the advent of the midwestern farmer, wildflowers proliferated and birds nested.
Larry Henry, seen here holding up an ash tree at Ka-ma-ma, is an eloquent advocate for lands that need him. I'm including his wife's most recent online newsletter piece -- she, too, is a passionately articulate spokeperson for the preservation of wild lands:
There is something about spring that soothes our soul in its deepest realms. Spring is the promise that we counted on last winter, when we endured the long winter nights and freezing daytime winds. Those barren trees, once black icey sticks clattering against a gray sky, are today glowing green and living beings, filled with birdsongs and flowers. If we ever lose our wonder for the miracle of life and the renewal of spring, it will be the greatest of losses.I traveled to the Ohio River yesterday to visit the Ohio River Bluffs property that we talked about last time; to seek support from the nearby village of Manchester -- a historic town perched on the mighty artery of the Beautiful River. The river was most comely on Friday, shining in the sun as it flowed past on its long journey to the Mississippi. The black locust trees were outdoing themselves. Every tree was completely shrouded in dangling cream-colored flowers, softening the landscape and filling it with perfume. Manchester, as it turned out, was thrilled at the thought of possibly having a nature preserve on its outer permimeter and gave us a warm welcome, gracing us with a half-day tour of its historic homes and businesses. It is really a lovely place on the river. I think all of us should be visiting the River more often. It defines who we are as a people, it holds our history, it keeps us humble, and it is undoubtedly Ohio's greatest natural feature, debatably second only to Lake Erie to our north. If you missed the pictures of the Ohio River Bluffs that we sent out last time and hopefully a preserve-to-be, see www.highlandssanctuary.org/1bluffs/ohio.river.bluffs.htm If we can raise the modest funds to buy this property (only $50,000), this spectacular Ohio river wildlflower display will be saved forever.On Tuesday I spent the morning in Hozho Canyon Preserve on the Rocky Fork Creek. It was its usual green and vernal self. Hozho is an Indian word for the dependable energy that renews and gives life, and so it was on Tuesday! The boulders that have tumbled into the bottom of the canyon made the water white as it swirled and rushed by -- each rock covered with dangling salmon-pink columbines. A mother wood duck glided downstream, with TEN little fluff-balls bobbing behind her in a tight cluster -- just a few feet away from where I sat upon a bed of sand. As she approached the rapids, she hesitated, then shot through. The ten babies streamed behind her in perfect single file as the water took them for a short but wild shoot through the rapids. For all you emotionally-reserved folks, I apologize for being so warm and fuzzy, but I think this must have been the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. To think these little babies had probably just jumped out of a 10-20 foot high nest cavity over the river is a feat worth pondering. Talk about feeling like you are leaping off the edge of a cliff! And then having to learn to swim on the first try -- all at the tender age of a few hours old!Last night two great blue herons flew high in the sky over my husband, Larry, and my heads. As we watched their slow wingbeats, I felt very deeply the idea-essence of 'stork' and all that storcks have meant to human beings over the milennia. Thank heavens Ohio still has its storks, even if they grace our treetops instead of our roofs. Suddenly one of the herons tipped its wings and dropped rapidly in altitude, like a hawk in a dive, then righted itself before it swooped above the canopy of trees. Its mate froze still in the air, an unmoving shadow in the sky. Then it too tilted its wings to catch the wind, and soared away on a tailwind. Larry and I were flabbergasted. We had never seen such raptor-like flight behavior from these normally heavy-flying herons, who are ususally identified by their slow steady wingbeats and their directional steady flight.
~~
Highlands Nature Sanctuary E-magazine, May 14, 20057629 Cave Rd., Bainbridge, OH 45612937-365-1600 www.highlandssanctuary.org
Unable to afford college, Larry completed a two-year forestry program and ultimately found himself working in state natural resources. He had a successful career under Republican administrations -- he noted to us that Republicans used to stand for conservation of natural resources -- and, ironically, found himself out of work with the election of a Democratic governor. For the next 21 years he and his wife nurtured their love of growing organisms by operating a bakery, but eventually the wild lands of the Arc of Appalachia in southern Ohio issued their call.
Today, the Henrys respond to the challenges posed by the current version of the Republican party by running Highlands Sanctuary and purchasing magnificent pieces of property to preserve them from further development. They are not a second too soon -- southwestern Ohio, where I grew up and never expected to see anything other than farm after farm, is one of the fastest growth areas in the nation. Now it's development after development. My brother, whom I love dearly, lives in such a development -- he lives on a tiny plat of land on one of countless rows of streets characterized by an endless series of brand-new colonials and double locks his doors in the daytime, on land where wheat used to grow and quail once called and where, prior to the advent of the midwestern farmer, wildflowers proliferated and birds nested.
Larry Henry, seen here holding up an ash tree at Ka-ma-ma, is an eloquent advocate for lands that need him. I'm including his wife's most recent online newsletter piece -- she, too, is a passionately articulate spokeperson for the preservation of wild lands:
There is something about spring that soothes our soul in its deepest realms. Spring is the promise that we counted on last winter, when we endured the long winter nights and freezing daytime winds. Those barren trees, once black icey sticks clattering against a gray sky, are today glowing green and living beings, filled with birdsongs and flowers. If we ever lose our wonder for the miracle of life and the renewal of spring, it will be the greatest of losses.I traveled to the Ohio River yesterday to visit the Ohio River Bluffs property that we talked about last time; to seek support from the nearby village of Manchester -- a historic town perched on the mighty artery of the Beautiful River. The river was most comely on Friday, shining in the sun as it flowed past on its long journey to the Mississippi. The black locust trees were outdoing themselves. Every tree was completely shrouded in dangling cream-colored flowers, softening the landscape and filling it with perfume. Manchester, as it turned out, was thrilled at the thought of possibly having a nature preserve on its outer permimeter and gave us a warm welcome, gracing us with a half-day tour of its historic homes and businesses. It is really a lovely place on the river. I think all of us should be visiting the River more often. It defines who we are as a people, it holds our history, it keeps us humble, and it is undoubtedly Ohio's greatest natural feature, debatably second only to Lake Erie to our north. If you missed the pictures of the Ohio River Bluffs that we sent out last time and hopefully a preserve-to-be, see www.highlandssanctuary.org/1bluffs/ohio.river.bluffs.htm If we can raise the modest funds to buy this property (only $50,000), this spectacular Ohio river wildlflower display will be saved forever.On Tuesday I spent the morning in Hozho Canyon Preserve on the Rocky Fork Creek. It was its usual green and vernal self. Hozho is an Indian word for the dependable energy that renews and gives life, and so it was on Tuesday! The boulders that have tumbled into the bottom of the canyon made the water white as it swirled and rushed by -- each rock covered with dangling salmon-pink columbines. A mother wood duck glided downstream, with TEN little fluff-balls bobbing behind her in a tight cluster -- just a few feet away from where I sat upon a bed of sand. As she approached the rapids, she hesitated, then shot through. The ten babies streamed behind her in perfect single file as the water took them for a short but wild shoot through the rapids. For all you emotionally-reserved folks, I apologize for being so warm and fuzzy, but I think this must have been the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. To think these little babies had probably just jumped out of a 10-20 foot high nest cavity over the river is a feat worth pondering. Talk about feeling like you are leaping off the edge of a cliff! And then having to learn to swim on the first try -- all at the tender age of a few hours old!Last night two great blue herons flew high in the sky over my husband, Larry, and my heads. As we watched their slow wingbeats, I felt very deeply the idea-essence of 'stork' and all that storcks have meant to human beings over the milennia. Thank heavens Ohio still has its storks, even if they grace our treetops instead of our roofs. Suddenly one of the herons tipped its wings and dropped rapidly in altitude, like a hawk in a dive, then righted itself before it swooped above the canopy of trees. Its mate froze still in the air, an unmoving shadow in the sky. Then it too tilted its wings to catch the wind, and soared away on a tailwind. Larry and I were flabbergasted. We had never seen such raptor-like flight behavior from these normally heavy-flying herons, who are ususally identified by their slow steady wingbeats and their directional steady flight.
~~
Highlands Nature Sanctuary E-magazine, May 14, 20057629 Cave Rd., Bainbridge, OH 45612937-365-1600 www.highlandssanctuary.org
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Birding Quickie
I had such a disastrous morning, one in which everything I tried to accomplish just crumbled to dust. But I DID make it out to the marsh boardwalk for a whole 20 minutes of birding, and here's what I saw (thanks to other folks for the photos):
Black-and-white warbler:
Yellow warbler:
Chestnut-sided warbler:
American redstart:
Palm warbler:
Northern oriole:
I tried to find a photo of an oriole that would indicate just how glorious it looks singing away in the sunshine from the top of a tree.
Not bad for a 20-minute walk, huh?
Black-and-white warbler:
Yellow warbler:
Chestnut-sided warbler:
American redstart:
Palm warbler:
Northern oriole:
I tried to find a photo of an oriole that would indicate just how glorious it looks singing away in the sunshine from the top of a tree.
Not bad for a 20-minute walk, huh?
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Well?
It is quiet around here, as another journaler has noted. So, some questions. If you feel like a week-end chat, post the questions and your answers in your journal and leave a link.
1. Do you know your next door neighbors?
2. Does your family have any interesting plans for summer?
3. When was the last time you saw your in-laws?
4. What is the first thing that you have to do at work on Monday morning?
5. What would I see if I were to walk up to your front door this week-end?
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1. Our neighbors to the west have been here since we moved in 21 years ago. Our combined seven children played together all the time for many,, many seasons. Now among us we have a financial services professional, a married daughter in Germany, a recent graduate back from Germany and looking for work, three in college and one headed that way. The couple to the east moved in few years after we did and eventually produced a darling child who is still in elementary school. We began our acquaintance with a huge squabble over an encroaching fence (ours), but I think we have all nonetheless turned out to be good neighbors to each other.
2. We have been humbled by four different school schedules. The older children have interesting plans -- Spain for one and architectural design classes for the other -- but the rest of us are lagging in the planning department.
3. I think it's been nearly a year! The kids went with their dad to see his family at Christmas, but my extremely limited vacation time and my ill stepmother's needs combined to keep me in-state.
4. Ahhh. I am the yearbook advisor and we are in a state of crisis. The first thing that I have to do is log on to the yearbook website and see whether there is any hope of a yearbook arrival before graduation.
5. You would see an unraveled hose, decrepit daffofils, and. . . Ta Da: (In my old journal, a photograph of a white tulip, gently unfolding).
1. Do you know your next door neighbors?
2. Does your family have any interesting plans for summer?
3. When was the last time you saw your in-laws?
4. What is the first thing that you have to do at work on Monday morning?
5. What would I see if I were to walk up to your front door this week-end?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Our neighbors to the west have been here since we moved in 21 years ago. Our combined seven children played together all the time for many,, many seasons. Now among us we have a financial services professional, a married daughter in Germany, a recent graduate back from Germany and looking for work, three in college and one headed that way. The couple to the east moved in few years after we did and eventually produced a darling child who is still in elementary school. We began our acquaintance with a huge squabble over an encroaching fence (ours), but I think we have all nonetheless turned out to be good neighbors to each other.
2. We have been humbled by four different school schedules. The older children have interesting plans -- Spain for one and architectural design classes for the other -- but the rest of us are lagging in the planning department.
3. I think it's been nearly a year! The kids went with their dad to see his family at Christmas, but my extremely limited vacation time and my ill stepmother's needs combined to keep me in-state.
4. Ahhh. I am the yearbook advisor and we are in a state of crisis. The first thing that I have to do is log on to the yearbook website and see whether there is any hope of a yearbook arrival before graduation.
5. You would see an unraveled hose, decrepit daffofils, and. . . Ta Da: (In my old journal, a photograph of a white tulip, gently unfolding).
Friday, May 13, 2005
Rural Cemetery
My mother is buried there, and my brother.
My grandfather, and someday my grandmother.
Other people gone a century ago,
and some more recently, but long after the county lost track of which bones lie where.
A cross made by a desolate child for World's Best Dog, crumbled decades past.
Trillium in abundance.
My grandfather, and someday my grandmother.
Other people gone a century ago,
and some more recently, but long after the county lost track of which bones lie where.
A cross made by a desolate child for World's Best Dog, crumbled decades past.
Trillium in abundance.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
America the Beautiful
Today is a holiday at my school.
So here's my schedule, with my daughter's court date for last month's accident as its focal point:
Yesterday afternoon: Suddenly remembered that my daughter might lose her license in court today, so raced to meet her at P.O. at 4:30 so she could apply for a new passport while she still has a picture ID in her possession. Informed by hassled employee that they only do weekday passport apps between the convenient hours of 9 and 4. Look at application and ask if she can use her old passport to prove both her citizenship and her identity. Am told no; she MUST have her license because her passport picture (which looks exactly like her) is too old and my presence is inadequate to verify her identity even though, since she is under 18 and obtained her first passport before age 16, my presence is REQUIRED. Get in car and read on app that she CAN use ME to prove who she is. I don't bother to go back in. I am remembering very clearly how they would not allow me to verify the identities of my boys when they got their first passports, despite the CLEAR instructions from the Department of State of the United States of America labeling such as a clear option.
Today, 8:30-9:30: Drive to courthouse of county where she had her accident.
9:30-9:45: Wait for officious bailiff to announce our presence.
9:45 -10: Court hearing. Magistrate is decent and recognizes that daughter made an error of judgment in a bad situation that might have been a problem for anyone, but still puts 2 points on her license and suspends it for 30 days. (In our county, where the judges recognize that points and license suspension for juveniles basically punish the parents, in the form of higher insurance rates and the need to drive said children around, the penalty for a first offense is to bring in 50 cans of food for the homeless after 6 months and, assuming no further incidents, the record is wiped clean. If said child gets another citation in those 6 months, they throw the book at her. MY child was, was, of course, approximately five feet over the county line when she made -- ahem -- a rather large mistake.) She is permitted to drive to school and senior project but we have to turn in her license and get paperwork indicating same. Magistrate agrees that we can hang onto the license for 24 hours so she can do passport application.
10-10:15: Wait for officious bailifff to let us see the clerk (right behind him) to pay fine and costs.
Interlude: Explain to daughter the old saying: "People often feel the need to insist upon demonstrations of authority in exact inverse proportion to the level of power they actually possess."
10:30-11:30: Drive to home P.O. for further demonstration of above maxim. Clerk says casually, "Oh, with you here and her old passport, she doesn't need her LICENSE." I mention that I had asked her about this yesterday and note that she has just added 2 hours of driving to my day. No apology or even blink of recognition forthcoming.
11:30-12:30 Get lunch, go home for a change of clothes, drive daughter to senior project site.
12:30-2:30 Drive back to county courthouse to turn in her license and collect papers saying what her restrictions are. We have forgotten to mention that she takes voice lessons outside of school. Clerk says too bad; you will have to petition the court or drive her yourself. Drive home.
3:30-4:30 Retrieve daughter from senior project.
5-5:30 Daughter has to drive to school for concert. Please God let there be no more traffic incidents.
7:00 I have to drive to school for concert. Another hour's round trip. Isn't this a great day off? Well, it's spring and there will be music at the end of it. And right now I feel an intense need for chocolate chocolate chip.
So here's my schedule, with my daughter's court date for last month's accident as its focal point:
Yesterday afternoon: Suddenly remembered that my daughter might lose her license in court today, so raced to meet her at P.O. at 4:30 so she could apply for a new passport while she still has a picture ID in her possession. Informed by hassled employee that they only do weekday passport apps between the convenient hours of 9 and 4. Look at application and ask if she can use her old passport to prove both her citizenship and her identity. Am told no; she MUST have her license because her passport picture (which looks exactly like her) is too old and my presence is inadequate to verify her identity even though, since she is under 18 and obtained her first passport before age 16, my presence is REQUIRED. Get in car and read on app that she CAN use ME to prove who she is. I don't bother to go back in. I am remembering very clearly how they would not allow me to verify the identities of my boys when they got their first passports, despite the CLEAR instructions from the Department of State of the United States of America labeling such as a clear option.
Today, 8:30-9:30: Drive to courthouse of county where she had her accident.
9:30-9:45: Wait for officious bailiff to announce our presence.
9:45 -10: Court hearing. Magistrate is decent and recognizes that daughter made an error of judgment in a bad situation that might have been a problem for anyone, but still puts 2 points on her license and suspends it for 30 days. (In our county, where the judges recognize that points and license suspension for juveniles basically punish the parents, in the form of higher insurance rates and the need to drive said children around, the penalty for a first offense is to bring in 50 cans of food for the homeless after 6 months and, assuming no further incidents, the record is wiped clean. If said child gets another citation in those 6 months, they throw the book at her. MY child was, was, of course, approximately five feet over the county line when she made -- ahem -- a rather large mistake.) She is permitted to drive to school and senior project but we have to turn in her license and get paperwork indicating same. Magistrate agrees that we can hang onto the license for 24 hours so she can do passport application.
10-10:15: Wait for officious bailifff to let us see the clerk (right behind him) to pay fine and costs.
Interlude: Explain to daughter the old saying: "People often feel the need to insist upon demonstrations of authority in exact inverse proportion to the level of power they actually possess."
10:30-11:30: Drive to home P.O. for further demonstration of above maxim. Clerk says casually, "Oh, with you here and her old passport, she doesn't need her LICENSE." I mention that I had asked her about this yesterday and note that she has just added 2 hours of driving to my day. No apology or even blink of recognition forthcoming.
11:30-12:30 Get lunch, go home for a change of clothes, drive daughter to senior project site.
12:30-2:30 Drive back to county courthouse to turn in her license and collect papers saying what her restrictions are. We have forgotten to mention that she takes voice lessons outside of school. Clerk says too bad; you will have to petition the court or drive her yourself. Drive home.
3:30-4:30 Retrieve daughter from senior project.
5-5:30 Daughter has to drive to school for concert. Please God let there be no more traffic incidents.
7:00 I have to drive to school for concert. Another hour's round trip. Isn't this a great day off? Well, it's spring and there will be music at the end of it. And right now I feel an intense need for chocolate chocolate chip.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Highlands of Ohio
Last week-end I went down to visit my dad for the first time since my stepmother died nearly two months ago. One of the reasons I had delayed my visit was our plan to visit the Highlands Sanctuary, which we had to decided to postpone due to the heavy, wet, and destructive snowfall two weeks earlier.
Because the preserves of the Sanctuary are private and managed with an eye toward preservation rather than human intrusion, a permit is required for hiking there, and we missed the one-week pre-registration deadline for our own trip. So my dad signed us up for a guided prarie hike instead, which turned out to be a completely different experience than we would have had on our own. We were with a group of about 20 people, many of them experienced birders and expert botanists. Since I can't recognize bird calls other than those most basic to our neighborhood and know absolutely nothing whatever about wild plants, it was a treat for me to be among knowledgeable (completely obsessed, actually) folks. I'm not sure that I would have otherwise noticed a single wildflower of the many we spent hours photographing.
Because the preserves of the Sanctuary are private and managed with an eye toward preservation rather than human intrusion, a permit is required for hiking there, and we missed the one-week pre-registration deadline for our own trip. So my dad signed us up for a guided prarie hike instead, which turned out to be a completely different experience than we would have had on our own. We were with a group of about 20 people, many of them experienced birders and expert botanists. Since I can't recognize bird calls other than those most basic to our neighborhood and know absolutely nothing whatever about wild plants, it was a treat for me to be among knowledgeable (completely obsessed, actually) folks. I'm not sure that I would have otherwise noticed a single wildflower of the many we spent hours photographing.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
A Perfect Day - Somewhere Else
I have been playing around with what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up questions, incited, no doubt, by my youngest's imminent departure for college, and I've been looking at websites focused on creating a life mission statement. I'm sure that many of us have done this; it's an excellent method for procrastinating the actual getting on with one's life. At any rate, one such site suggested as an exercise writing out your idea of a perfect day. I had a lot of fun with that one, although I only chose one perfect kind of day. Maybe I'll try another one in a week or so.
In my first perfect day, I live in a condo on the ocean in St. Augustine Beach. I have a particular condo in mind, because I've stayed there: it opens onto the dunes and has a huge deck from which you can see the ocean, and the master bedroom is on the ocean side.
I wake up to the sound of the ocean while it's still dark.
I take a sunrise 3-mile walk on the beach, come in and shower, and go back out to the beach to do yoga while my hair dries.
I spend the morning on the deck doing my own work -- writing, working on photos, preparing classes. I eat a light and healthy breakfast and lunch while I am doing those things.
In the early afternoon I go into town, where I teach a couple of classes or go to a meeting or two, and then meet a friend for an early Margarita on the porch of Scarlett O'Hara's or one of the restaurants on the bayfront.
I go back home (Imagine! "Home" is on the ocean!) and change and grab my gear and head over to the marsh for a little kayak trip to a tiny oyster shell-encrusted island so that I can shoot some sunset photos as the full moon rises over the Mantanzas River. I am particularly fond of moonrises over the river as pelicans and herons sail toward their evening roosting spots.
As it gets dark I am loading my kayak back onto my car rack and heading home for a late dinner and conversation with my husband. He's made the dinner, of course, since I am a dreadful cook, and we have become very European in our dining times.
We go out to check on the ocean one last time before falling asleep. It is, miraculously, still there.
In my first perfect day, I live in a condo on the ocean in St. Augustine Beach. I have a particular condo in mind, because I've stayed there: it opens onto the dunes and has a huge deck from which you can see the ocean, and the master bedroom is on the ocean side.
I wake up to the sound of the ocean while it's still dark.
I take a sunrise 3-mile walk on the beach, come in and shower, and go back out to the beach to do yoga while my hair dries.
I spend the morning on the deck doing my own work -- writing, working on photos, preparing classes. I eat a light and healthy breakfast and lunch while I am doing those things.
In the early afternoon I go into town, where I teach a couple of classes or go to a meeting or two, and then meet a friend for an early Margarita on the porch of Scarlett O'Hara's or one of the restaurants on the bayfront.
I go back home (Imagine! "Home" is on the ocean!) and change and grab my gear and head over to the marsh for a little kayak trip to a tiny oyster shell-encrusted island so that I can shoot some sunset photos as the full moon rises over the Mantanzas River. I am particularly fond of moonrises over the river as pelicans and herons sail toward their evening roosting spots.
As it gets dark I am loading my kayak back onto my car rack and heading home for a late dinner and conversation with my husband. He's made the dinner, of course, since I am a dreadful cook, and we have become very European in our dining times.
We go out to check on the ocean one last time before falling asleep. It is, miraculously, still there.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Water Not Ice
I am a bit overwhelmed by demands on my writing life: my honors history students are zapping me with e-mailed drafts of a paper due in a few days, and a speaker for next Sunday's adult education at church has landed in the hospital, necessitating a quick revision in plans. I have some good material to use, but I can't figure out where I put it down earlier today. Oh, and I just finished a one-page summary of that 15-page paper I wrote last week for a presentation tomorrow night. (OK, so I cheated; I can't fit it onto one page. I altered the spacing and font size just a tad. Think my ultra-compulsive prof will notice?)
Anyway, for journal purposes, let's just say that I don't have another written word in me right now, but I am very aware that the ice has melted and the grasses are growing in the marshes. Our tiny back yard's feeders briefly hosted a chipping sparrow and a white-crowned sparrow last night -- spring is here, the ice has gone, and the migrants are coming through!
Anyway, for journal purposes, let's just say that I don't have another written word in me right now, but I am very aware that the ice has melted and the grasses are growing in the marshes. Our tiny back yard's feeders briefly hosted a chipping sparrow and a white-crowned sparrow last night -- spring is here, the ice has gone, and the migrants are coming through!
Monday, May 02, 2005
It's finished -- over and out, done, ready to turn in tomorrow night: a 15-page paper on St. Peter's Dome, complete with 60-plus footnotes, a 2-page bibliography, and 14 images. The monstrosity that has dominated my life for weeks and weeks is behind me, and I'm off for a walk to enjoy springtime without the weight of that particular item monopolizing my "To Do" list.
This morning I also ran errands and managed to purchase a short term health insurance policy for one of my college sons, who announced last week that he plans to drop a course, which will relegate him to part-time student status for the remainder of the quarter. "Not so fast," I ordered, before going off to investigate and discovering that, sure enough, immediately upon his dropping said class, both our medical and dental insurance would consider him ineligible for coverage until he is a fulltime student once again next fall. (Not that one should assume that any such thing will happen... .). I could go into a long rant about the state of health insurance in this country and our President's misplaced obsession with Social Security, which might be better directed at the REAL funding crisis we face, the one for medical care for individuals not umbillically attached to a large corporate employer, but I've been muttering about that all week-end. So I'll spare you.
It's SPRING out there. A cold, damp, and cloudy but nevertheless post-equinox day. Things can only be looking up.
This morning I also ran errands and managed to purchase a short term health insurance policy for one of my college sons, who announced last week that he plans to drop a course, which will relegate him to part-time student status for the remainder of the quarter. "Not so fast," I ordered, before going off to investigate and discovering that, sure enough, immediately upon his dropping said class, both our medical and dental insurance would consider him ineligible for coverage until he is a fulltime student once again next fall. (Not that one should assume that any such thing will happen... .). I could go into a long rant about the state of health insurance in this country and our President's misplaced obsession with Social Security, which might be better directed at the REAL funding crisis we face, the one for medical care for individuals not umbillically attached to a large corporate employer, but I've been muttering about that all week-end. So I'll spare you.
It's SPRING out there. A cold, damp, and cloudy but nevertheless post-equinox day. Things can only be looking up.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Prom? Already? Already Over?
Prom? Already? Already Over?
A baby who always navigated the world in her own way, a scoot rather than a crawl.
A tiny girl with a white-blond cap of hair, standing underneath a newly identified crabapple tree: "Don't let the crabs out!"
A kid in elementary school, taking advantage of Montessori freedom to write cat stories with her girlfriends all day long.
A 10-year-old homeschooler, volunteering at the animal shelter.
A middle schooler, making a graduation speech in which she minces no words about the diappointments wrought by administrative changes.
A high school freshman, stiffening herself against almost unbearable loss and heartache.
A sophomore, realizing that she's "maybe smarter than I thought!"
A junior, reconsidering the above.
Friday, a senior going to her last high school classes EVER.
Last night, a girl with a prom dress and a date.
Tomorrow, back to the animal shelter, after an absence of five years, for a month-long senior project.
It was all too fast.
I love you, sweetie.
A baby who always navigated the world in her own way, a scoot rather than a crawl.
A tiny girl with a white-blond cap of hair, standing underneath a newly identified crabapple tree: "Don't let the crabs out!"
A kid in elementary school, taking advantage of Montessori freedom to write cat stories with her girlfriends all day long.
A 10-year-old homeschooler, volunteering at the animal shelter.
A middle schooler, making a graduation speech in which she minces no words about the diappointments wrought by administrative changes.
A high school freshman, stiffening herself against almost unbearable loss and heartache.
A sophomore, realizing that she's "maybe smarter than I thought!"
A junior, reconsidering the above.
Friday, a senior going to her last high school classes EVER.
Last night, a girl with a prom dress and a date.
Tomorrow, back to the animal shelter, after an absence of five years, for a month-long senior project.
It was all too fast.
I love you, sweetie.
Monday, April 04, 2005
A Laywoman's Lectionary: The Moon Sets at Easter - For the Second Second of Easter (4/3/05)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith--being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9) [NRSV]
*******************************************************
How extraordinarily fitting, that this particular passage from the first letter of Peter should be one of the texts for tomorrow, as Pope John Paul II, today's "Peter," the rock upon which Christ has built his church, passes from this world to the next.
I haven't been here for awhile. Life often catches up with me early in the year, and I tend to miss much of Lent as I contend with what seems like the endlessness of winter. I usually emerge from my mental cave just in time for Easter, and then retreat again almost immediately as the clouds and snow return (which they have done with a vengeance this morning).
This year has been a bit different. While winter made its inevitable journey through the northern hemisphere, my stepmother was making a pilgrimmage of her own as cancer invaded her body. One morning a few weeks ago, I sat with her for the last half- hour of her earthly life. It was the first time that I had been with someone at the end of this journey. There were no trumpets, no angels, no mists in the wee hours of the morning. Her face did not break into recognition as she made the transition, and the room did not fill with light.
But as I sat there, as she died and for quite awhile afterward, I was sure that I was in another dimension of existence, somewhere between this world and another one. It was a powerful experience of place and not-place, of time and not-time.
It was indeed a sense of an entryway into an "imperishable inheritance", a passageway under the "protection of the power of God." The Pope must be in that place now, "receiving the outcome of a faith" that has supported one of the strongest voices of our time.
In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith--being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9) [NRSV]
*******************************************************
How extraordinarily fitting, that this particular passage from the first letter of Peter should be one of the texts for tomorrow, as Pope John Paul II, today's "Peter," the rock upon which Christ has built his church, passes from this world to the next.
I haven't been here for awhile. Life often catches up with me early in the year, and I tend to miss much of Lent as I contend with what seems like the endlessness of winter. I usually emerge from my mental cave just in time for Easter, and then retreat again almost immediately as the clouds and snow return (which they have done with a vengeance this morning).
This year has been a bit different. While winter made its inevitable journey through the northern hemisphere, my stepmother was making a pilgrimmage of her own as cancer invaded her body. One morning a few weeks ago, I sat with her for the last half- hour of her earthly life. It was the first time that I had been with someone at the end of this journey. There were no trumpets, no angels, no mists in the wee hours of the morning. Her face did not break into recognition as she made the transition, and the room did not fill with light.
But as I sat there, as she died and for quite awhile afterward, I was sure that I was in another dimension of existence, somewhere between this world and another one. It was a powerful experience of place and not-place, of time and not-time.
It was indeed a sense of an entryway into an "imperishable inheritance", a passageway under the "protection of the power of God." The Pope must be in that place now, "receiving the outcome of a faith" that has supported one of the strongest voices of our time.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
A Laywoman's Lectionary: Scarcity and Abundance - For the First Sunday in Lent (2/13/05)
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. (Matthew 4:1-11) [NRSV]
Many of us have issues with food. Sometimes such difficult ones that we think that forty days without would be easier than going on Weight Watchers. People who struggle with eating disorders are sometimes heard to wish that their problem was instead alcohol, or cigarette smoking -- it seems that it would be easier to eliminate something completely from our lives than to have to monitor it judiciously. But the real truth is that we know that 40 days without food would be close to impossible and, definitely, impossibly dangerous. We know that so well that, unless we are really ill, we don't even entertain the idea. It's more likely that we'll respond as I did the other day, when entering a newly renovated bakery. The sign above the door says, "Man CAN live on bread alone!" But woman, I thought, needs a Margarita, too.
So why doesn't a hungry Jesus just turn those stones to bread?
How about testing God to care for us? How many bargains have you made with God? I started when I was a little girl, an incipient atheist in the making. "God, " I would say as I lay in bed at night, "prove yourself. Just move that table over there. Just a couple of inches. I need a sign!" As I got older and moved into the wretchedness of what passed for adolescence in my life, I gave up hope that there would ever be a sign. I threw myself repeatedly into the way of danger without ever a thought that there was anyone to protect me.
But Jesus had every reason to be confident. Why didn't he grab that opportunity to show off the power of God?
And finally, the big one. The whole world. Anything you want. I spend a lot of time thinking about things I want. A redecorated downstairs. Functional plumbing in the spare bathroom. A bigger yard. A hot tub. A entirely different yard for the hot tub -- one several hundred miles away where it's sunny ALL WINTER. My stepmother's recovery. My children's guaranteed health and safety. The Mastercard bill paid off. No more emotional trauma. A month in Italy and one in France. An organized basement. A full night's sleep.
So why didn't Jesus want all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor?
I've been taking a class on the 13th-14th century German mystic Meister Eckhart and last night some of our discussion revolved around issues of scarcity and abundance. What do we think we need? What do we cling to? Why?
The answer to the "Why?" seems to be a simply and yet terribly complex one: fear. We fear scarcity. We fear, ultimately, scarcity of love, of God's love. In a passage from a book called Beauty by an author new to me, John O'Donohue, our instructor read (and I have to paraphrase here): Unless we say "Yes" to God's love, we operate out of a sense of scarcity and begin to back off and protect ourselves.
What we do, it seems to me, is look for every opportunity to turn stones to bread, to prove that we are safe, and to take over the world -- as least as much of it as we personally think we need.
"Sometimes," says O'Donohue, " the urgency of our hunger blinds us to the fact that we're already at the feast."
That's what Jesus knew -- that he was already there. Hungry and tired and lonely and no doubt in need of a bath, he knew that he was in the midst of the abundance of his father's love. The things to which one would expect a king to be attached -- rich food, a show of power, command over all that lay before him -- were of no significance to him. They were nothing but signs of scarcity, of our eagerness to fill our lives with emptiness and overlook the abundance of the present moment.
It would be a good thing if, for Lent, I could focus on the abundance of the present moment. The honest truth, though, is that it's a clear night out there, with Orion and an exact half-moon starkly etched into the sky, and I wish there were a hot tub on the back porch.
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. (Matthew 4:1-11) [NRSV]
Many of us have issues with food. Sometimes such difficult ones that we think that forty days without would be easier than going on Weight Watchers. People who struggle with eating disorders are sometimes heard to wish that their problem was instead alcohol, or cigarette smoking -- it seems that it would be easier to eliminate something completely from our lives than to have to monitor it judiciously. But the real truth is that we know that 40 days without food would be close to impossible and, definitely, impossibly dangerous. We know that so well that, unless we are really ill, we don't even entertain the idea. It's more likely that we'll respond as I did the other day, when entering a newly renovated bakery. The sign above the door says, "Man CAN live on bread alone!" But woman, I thought, needs a Margarita, too.
So why doesn't a hungry Jesus just turn those stones to bread?
How about testing God to care for us? How many bargains have you made with God? I started when I was a little girl, an incipient atheist in the making. "God, " I would say as I lay in bed at night, "prove yourself. Just move that table over there. Just a couple of inches. I need a sign!" As I got older and moved into the wretchedness of what passed for adolescence in my life, I gave up hope that there would ever be a sign. I threw myself repeatedly into the way of danger without ever a thought that there was anyone to protect me.
But Jesus had every reason to be confident. Why didn't he grab that opportunity to show off the power of God?
And finally, the big one. The whole world. Anything you want. I spend a lot of time thinking about things I want. A redecorated downstairs. Functional plumbing in the spare bathroom. A bigger yard. A hot tub. A entirely different yard for the hot tub -- one several hundred miles away where it's sunny ALL WINTER. My stepmother's recovery. My children's guaranteed health and safety. The Mastercard bill paid off. No more emotional trauma. A month in Italy and one in France. An organized basement. A full night's sleep.
So why didn't Jesus want all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor?
I've been taking a class on the 13th-14th century German mystic Meister Eckhart and last night some of our discussion revolved around issues of scarcity and abundance. What do we think we need? What do we cling to? Why?
The answer to the "Why?" seems to be a simply and yet terribly complex one: fear. We fear scarcity. We fear, ultimately, scarcity of love, of God's love. In a passage from a book called Beauty by an author new to me, John O'Donohue, our instructor read (and I have to paraphrase here): Unless we say "Yes" to God's love, we operate out of a sense of scarcity and begin to back off and protect ourselves.
What we do, it seems to me, is look for every opportunity to turn stones to bread, to prove that we are safe, and to take over the world -- as least as much of it as we personally think we need.
"Sometimes," says O'Donohue, " the urgency of our hunger blinds us to the fact that we're already at the feast."
That's what Jesus knew -- that he was already there. Hungry and tired and lonely and no doubt in need of a bath, he knew that he was in the midst of the abundance of his father's love. The things to which one would expect a king to be attached -- rich food, a show of power, command over all that lay before him -- were of no significance to him. They were nothing but signs of scarcity, of our eagerness to fill our lives with emptiness and overlook the abundance of the present moment.
It would be a good thing if, for Lent, I could focus on the abundance of the present moment. The honest truth, though, is that it's a clear night out there, with Orion and an exact half-moon starkly etched into the sky, and I wish there were a hot tub on the back porch.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
A Laywoman's Lectionary: Thin Places - For the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Transfiguration Sunday) (2/6/05)
Thin Places - For the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Transfiguration Sunday) (2/6/05)
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.
Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"
When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." (Matthew 17:1-9)[NRSV]
It was September of 1981 and we had hiked all the way from Glenns Lake to Stoney Indian Lake in Glacier Park. According to the brief note in my photographic journal, the trek UP over Stoney Indian Pass was so challenging that we were too exhausted to take many pictures. I did manage to note, however, that we had seen a dipper -- a small mountain bird that walks upstream, bobbing up and down in icy mountain flows. Those of you who are birders and maintain life lists will recognize a dipper as something of a big deal, at least for someone from Ohio -- a state with no icy mountain rivers and, therefore, no dippers.
At the end of the day, we collapsed into Stoney Indian Campground, a spot so isolated that we had seen no other hikers all day and would see none until the next evening. Its loneliness was compounded by its treelessness, meaning that it offered no place from which to hang food packs out of the reach of bears.
When you pack into the Glacier backcountry, the presence of grizzly bears dominates your consciousness. You waiver endlessly between a hopeful longing to see one of those magnificent creatures with the silver-tipped fur rise from the ground (in the distance, of course) and a heart-thumping terror that one will choose your campsite as its evening dining facility, leaving no evidence that you were ever there. Needless to say, Stoney Indian, utterly devoid of human artifacts, was at once exhilarating and nerve-wracking.
Perhaps it was the isolation and tension of the place. Perhaps it was the exhaustion from the hike. Perhaps it was the joyful little dipper. But, trite as it seems, I think that it was the view from Stomey Indian that convinced me, maybe for the first time in my life, of the existence of God as Creator and Spirit. As the sun began to set, the puffs of white clouds cast long shadows across the granite mountains, which rise well above the tree line. The mountains stretched and reached and slid across the horizon in shades of purple and gold and gray. The air was still and the space was silent. A space wide and wild enough for God. God may have walked in a garden in the cool of one evening, but I think that God strode across mountains in the twilight of others.
*********
I originally wrote what's above for our church's Lenten devotional booklet last year.
"All things that rise must converge." So Flannery O'Connor titled a short story, although if she borrowed the title from someone else, I can't remember.
Last Sunday, our pastor began to preach on the "thin places." I was baffled for a few minutes, wondering why her theme sounded so familiar. Then she referenced Marcus Borg's description of the thin places, those places on earth where it seems, somehow, that God is much closer than in our usual experience. At that point I knew that I must have heard Marcus Borg himself speak about the thin places,at Chautauqua one summer. (Chautuauqa itself is often one of the thin places.)
Then Sunday evening I picked up the little book that's making the rounds at church for this year's Lenten season: Celtic Prayers from Iona by J. Philip Newell. Iona is a very small island off the west coast of Scotland, where Celtic Christianity was born for Ireland the sixth century. Iona has been described by George MacLeod, the founder of its twentieth century community, as " 'a thin place', in which the material realm is only thinly separated from the spiritual."
This entry represents my own first experience of a "thin place." It seemed appropriate for the day on which the story of the Transfiguration appears in the lectionary texts.
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.
Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"
When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." (Matthew 17:1-9)[NRSV]
It was September of 1981 and we had hiked all the way from Glenns Lake to Stoney Indian Lake in Glacier Park. According to the brief note in my photographic journal, the trek UP over Stoney Indian Pass was so challenging that we were too exhausted to take many pictures. I did manage to note, however, that we had seen a dipper -- a small mountain bird that walks upstream, bobbing up and down in icy mountain flows. Those of you who are birders and maintain life lists will recognize a dipper as something of a big deal, at least for someone from Ohio -- a state with no icy mountain rivers and, therefore, no dippers.
At the end of the day, we collapsed into Stoney Indian Campground, a spot so isolated that we had seen no other hikers all day and would see none until the next evening. Its loneliness was compounded by its treelessness, meaning that it offered no place from which to hang food packs out of the reach of bears.
When you pack into the Glacier backcountry, the presence of grizzly bears dominates your consciousness. You waiver endlessly between a hopeful longing to see one of those magnificent creatures with the silver-tipped fur rise from the ground (in the distance, of course) and a heart-thumping terror that one will choose your campsite as its evening dining facility, leaving no evidence that you were ever there. Needless to say, Stoney Indian, utterly devoid of human artifacts, was at once exhilarating and nerve-wracking.
Perhaps it was the isolation and tension of the place. Perhaps it was the exhaustion from the hike. Perhaps it was the joyful little dipper. But, trite as it seems, I think that it was the view from Stomey Indian that convinced me, maybe for the first time in my life, of the existence of God as Creator and Spirit. As the sun began to set, the puffs of white clouds cast long shadows across the granite mountains, which rise well above the tree line. The mountains stretched and reached and slid across the horizon in shades of purple and gold and gray. The air was still and the space was silent. A space wide and wild enough for God. God may have walked in a garden in the cool of one evening, but I think that God strode across mountains in the twilight of others.
*********
I originally wrote what's above for our church's Lenten devotional booklet last year.
"All things that rise must converge." So Flannery O'Connor titled a short story, although if she borrowed the title from someone else, I can't remember.
Last Sunday, our pastor began to preach on the "thin places." I was baffled for a few minutes, wondering why her theme sounded so familiar. Then she referenced Marcus Borg's description of the thin places, those places on earth where it seems, somehow, that God is much closer than in our usual experience. At that point I knew that I must have heard Marcus Borg himself speak about the thin places,at Chautauqua one summer. (Chautuauqa itself is often one of the thin places.)
Then Sunday evening I picked up the little book that's making the rounds at church for this year's Lenten season: Celtic Prayers from Iona by J. Philip Newell. Iona is a very small island off the west coast of Scotland, where Celtic Christianity was born for Ireland the sixth century. Iona has been described by George MacLeod, the founder of its twentieth century community, as " 'a thin place', in which the material realm is only thinly separated from the spiritual."
This entry represents my own first experience of a "thin place." It seemed appropriate for the day on which the story of the Transfiguration appears in the lectionary texts.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
A Laywoman's Lectionary: Poor In Spirit: For the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (1/30/05)
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:1-12) [NRSV]
************************************
That was quick. Last week Jesus was calling his disciples, and already he is immersed in his ministry of teaching. As far as the church year is concerned, there's no time to waste between his search for companions and his plunge into the substance of his work.
The first one is the hardest, and that's what I've been thinking about this week, as I tried to plan what to write here. For many years, I found the Luke version, the concrete "Blessed are the poor," was much easier to comprehend. Not that it's easy to understand why literal, monetary, material poverty should exist, either in God's plan or on a planet so rich in resources. But it is easier to talk about poverty as a concrete concept than poverty as a spiritual concept.
It does seem to seep into our consciousness though. I think that now, in my fifties, I can comprehend spiritual poverty in ways that were outside my grasp a decade ago. I can't claim advancing maturity or depth of understanding as the reason; I can only say that circumstances have required me to abandon certain goals and ideals that I thought were unshakable, as necessary to my existence as breathing. All gone now. Things that most other people in my small world have been able to take for granted evaporated for me, suddenly and with no warning. All gone now.
When hopes and dreams that you have worked for fall away, you get two choices. You can stand there, screaming and crying and begging to get them back, resisting with all your being the new path laid before you. Or you can wipe your eyes and set your shoulders straight and let the past go. We usually talk about this process as one of "detachment," although one of my sons, who has studied a bit of East Asian thought and history, tells me that "un-attachment" would be a more appropriate phraseology.
I'm not there yet. I can't talk about spiritual poverty with more than the most glancing acquaintance with the consequences it might bring. But even that glancing acquaintance is an expereince that we resist, as individuals who want what we want, and as a culture that wants more all the time. Perhaps most of us experience it only when it is thrust upon us, unwanted and despised.
When I realized that this passage was one that I wanted to explore but could barely understand, I started looking for what some other people have had to say. Sometimes, I just have no hope of conveying what I would like to, so I'm going to let them do the talking today:
And you must know that to be empty of all created things is to be full of God, and to be full of created things is to be empty of God. (Meister Eckhart)
The creative individual is particularly gifted in seeing thegap between what is and what could be (which means, of course, that he has achoeved a certain measure of detachment from what is. (John W. Gardner)
Can you cleanse your inner vision until you see heaven in every direction? (Laotzu)
The test of Christian leadership: What are we giving away? (Our pastor in a sermon this morning, on this very passage)
When one sees eternity in things that pass away and infinity in finite things, then one has pure knowledge. (Bhagavad Gita)
The desert is a place for learning to lower one's expectations almost to the point of absurdity, being content increasingly with less and less, giving up living ambitiously for lofty ends of any sort. One discovers there the importance of the simplest of means, ignoring everything else that doesn't serve the ordinary. That's how one comes, at last, to find strange comfort in the desert waste, only by embracing indifference, learning to delight in nothing so much as simplicity. Solace likes at the still point of emptiness-beyond hope, beyond proof, beyond consolation. Deliberately aiming the exercise of indifference(apatheia)at oneself, one releases little by little the anxious thoughts of the distracted ego. The false self is gradually starved by inattention. One learns also to be indifferent to others, ignoring surface impressions so as to open oneself to radically different people on the clean, level ground of unspoken humanity. No longer driven by short-lived feelings of sympathy or pity, one consistently, doggedly works for justice without thought of reward. (Beldon Lane)
He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment. (Meister Eckhart)
Serenity and purity do sound like blessedness, don't they?
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:1-12) [NRSV]
************************************
That was quick. Last week Jesus was calling his disciples, and already he is immersed in his ministry of teaching. As far as the church year is concerned, there's no time to waste between his search for companions and his plunge into the substance of his work.
The first one is the hardest, and that's what I've been thinking about this week, as I tried to plan what to write here. For many years, I found the Luke version, the concrete "Blessed are the poor," was much easier to comprehend. Not that it's easy to understand why literal, monetary, material poverty should exist, either in God's plan or on a planet so rich in resources. But it is easier to talk about poverty as a concrete concept than poverty as a spiritual concept.
It does seem to seep into our consciousness though. I think that now, in my fifties, I can comprehend spiritual poverty in ways that were outside my grasp a decade ago. I can't claim advancing maturity or depth of understanding as the reason; I can only say that circumstances have required me to abandon certain goals and ideals that I thought were unshakable, as necessary to my existence as breathing. All gone now. Things that most other people in my small world have been able to take for granted evaporated for me, suddenly and with no warning. All gone now.
When hopes and dreams that you have worked for fall away, you get two choices. You can stand there, screaming and crying and begging to get them back, resisting with all your being the new path laid before you. Or you can wipe your eyes and set your shoulders straight and let the past go. We usually talk about this process as one of "detachment," although one of my sons, who has studied a bit of East Asian thought and history, tells me that "un-attachment" would be a more appropriate phraseology.
I'm not there yet. I can't talk about spiritual poverty with more than the most glancing acquaintance with the consequences it might bring. But even that glancing acquaintance is an expereince that we resist, as individuals who want what we want, and as a culture that wants more all the time. Perhaps most of us experience it only when it is thrust upon us, unwanted and despised.
When I realized that this passage was one that I wanted to explore but could barely understand, I started looking for what some other people have had to say. Sometimes, I just have no hope of conveying what I would like to, so I'm going to let them do the talking today:
And you must know that to be empty of all created things is to be full of God, and to be full of created things is to be empty of God. (Meister Eckhart)
The creative individual is particularly gifted in seeing thegap between what is and what could be (which means, of course, that he has achoeved a certain measure of detachment from what is. (John W. Gardner)
Can you cleanse your inner vision until you see heaven in every direction? (Laotzu)
The test of Christian leadership: What are we giving away? (Our pastor in a sermon this morning, on this very passage)
When one sees eternity in things that pass away and infinity in finite things, then one has pure knowledge. (Bhagavad Gita)
The desert is a place for learning to lower one's expectations almost to the point of absurdity, being content increasingly with less and less, giving up living ambitiously for lofty ends of any sort. One discovers there the importance of the simplest of means, ignoring everything else that doesn't serve the ordinary. That's how one comes, at last, to find strange comfort in the desert waste, only by embracing indifference, learning to delight in nothing so much as simplicity. Solace likes at the still point of emptiness-beyond hope, beyond proof, beyond consolation. Deliberately aiming the exercise of indifference(apatheia)at oneself, one releases little by little the anxious thoughts of the distracted ego. The false self is gradually starved by inattention. One learns also to be indifferent to others, ignoring surface impressions so as to open oneself to radically different people on the clean, level ground of unspoken humanity. No longer driven by short-lived feelings of sympathy or pity, one consistently, doggedly works for justice without thought of reward. (Beldon Lane)
He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment. (Meister Eckhart)
Serenity and purity do sound like blessedness, don't they?
Sunday, January 23, 2005
A Laywman's Lectionary: Immediately? For the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (1/23/05)
Immediately? - For The Third Sunday In Ordinary Time (1/23/05)
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
"Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people."
Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them.
Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:12-23)[NRSV]
Immediately?
Do you do anything immediately? I don't even hit the off button on the clock radio immediately; I burrow under the comforter and wait for my husband to do it.
This passage has intrigued me for a long time. Did the disciples "immediately" leave their boats and their nets and follow Jesus? What about their wives, children, mortgages? Didn't they think about storing their nets, or selling the business? What were they going to do about their health insurance and 401(k)s?
A couple of years ago I served on a church committee to call a new associate pastor to our church. We began our meetings with prayers, readings, and discussion, and one night we spent quite some time on this passage. What did "immediately" really mean?" Did these disciples respond just as the story tells it? Any embellishment here? Or forgotten details? We knew that we wanted someone who would respond to our church's call wholeheartedly and without reservation, who would see it as Christ's call on his or her life -- but we didn't expect the response to come immediately, or overnight. In our church we talk a lot about discernment, and about the importance of understanding whether we are really called to a next step. What does "immediateness" have to do with it?
My best guess, taking the life of Jesus as a whole, is that circumstances, both external and internal, dictate our reactions. At times we are called to respond "immediately" and at other times we know that we need to wait and take stock. Certainly Jesus himself often took take away to pray before acting, and at times his own actions or words seem strangely delayed. The family of Lazurus criticizes him for not making haste to his friend's deathbed. He frequently tells his followers not to reveal what he has been up to. The events of his life unfold over time, as do ours, and the revelation of his reality continues to unfold, two thousand years later. Most things take time, at least in the universe as we humans experience it.
So what about the disiples and the immediacy of their response? For me, this year, that word, repeated twice, has to do with the attentiveness and awareness that is emphasized so strongly in the Bible. During Advent, the texts called for attentiveness to what was about to happen in the world. As Jesus' ministry begins, the same call is apparent, but the ominous tone of Advent is missing. No Jesus railing about end times to his followers,no angels appearing to young people who had thought they were just going about their daily business, no prophets ranting in the wilderness. Just a young man with an extraordinary charisma, standing on the beach and calling fishermen to a new task and a new life. I imagine the day as a sunny one, the water quietly lapping at the shore, the workers talking and laughing as the day is getting underway -- until they decide to respond to the young man on the beach.
What did they feel? A sense of urgency? A seriousness of purpose? An overwhelming internal insistence that they follow? A realization that new lives and new ends lay before them? Or were they relaxed and cheerful, thinking that they were going to pass a day or two with this new fellow and would be back at work by the end of the week? Who knows?
Perhaps it is only in retrospect that the emphasis falls on the word "immediately." Perhaps it was decades later, when the stories were finally written down, that the writers chose to emphasize the speed and completeness with which the disiples embraced their new lives, because they as writers saw what had come to pass as so dramatically distinct from all that had gone before or since. Perhaps it was only much later that the change in the circumstances of the human world was so vivid that it could only be relayed as a great drama -- because that's what it was, whether the disiples knew it at the time or not. And the call to us, with its immediacy and directness emphasized, is to be alert and aware, at all times. Regardless of what we are doing -- washing dishes, typing, writing on a blackboard, checking a heartbeat, washing down an animal -- and what we know, or don't know, we could be called elsewhere, to a new life, just like that.
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
"Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people."
Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them.
Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:12-23)[NRSV]
Immediately?
Do you do anything immediately? I don't even hit the off button on the clock radio immediately; I burrow under the comforter and wait for my husband to do it.
This passage has intrigued me for a long time. Did the disciples "immediately" leave their boats and their nets and follow Jesus? What about their wives, children, mortgages? Didn't they think about storing their nets, or selling the business? What were they going to do about their health insurance and 401(k)s?
A couple of years ago I served on a church committee to call a new associate pastor to our church. We began our meetings with prayers, readings, and discussion, and one night we spent quite some time on this passage. What did "immediately" really mean?" Did these disciples respond just as the story tells it? Any embellishment here? Or forgotten details? We knew that we wanted someone who would respond to our church's call wholeheartedly and without reservation, who would see it as Christ's call on his or her life -- but we didn't expect the response to come immediately, or overnight. In our church we talk a lot about discernment, and about the importance of understanding whether we are really called to a next step. What does "immediateness" have to do with it?
My best guess, taking the life of Jesus as a whole, is that circumstances, both external and internal, dictate our reactions. At times we are called to respond "immediately" and at other times we know that we need to wait and take stock. Certainly Jesus himself often took take away to pray before acting, and at times his own actions or words seem strangely delayed. The family of Lazurus criticizes him for not making haste to his friend's deathbed. He frequently tells his followers not to reveal what he has been up to. The events of his life unfold over time, as do ours, and the revelation of his reality continues to unfold, two thousand years later. Most things take time, at least in the universe as we humans experience it.
So what about the disiples and the immediacy of their response? For me, this year, that word, repeated twice, has to do with the attentiveness and awareness that is emphasized so strongly in the Bible. During Advent, the texts called for attentiveness to what was about to happen in the world. As Jesus' ministry begins, the same call is apparent, but the ominous tone of Advent is missing. No Jesus railing about end times to his followers,no angels appearing to young people who had thought they were just going about their daily business, no prophets ranting in the wilderness. Just a young man with an extraordinary charisma, standing on the beach and calling fishermen to a new task and a new life. I imagine the day as a sunny one, the water quietly lapping at the shore, the workers talking and laughing as the day is getting underway -- until they decide to respond to the young man on the beach.
What did they feel? A sense of urgency? A seriousness of purpose? An overwhelming internal insistence that they follow? A realization that new lives and new ends lay before them? Or were they relaxed and cheerful, thinking that they were going to pass a day or two with this new fellow and would be back at work by the end of the week? Who knows?
Perhaps it is only in retrospect that the emphasis falls on the word "immediately." Perhaps it was decades later, when the stories were finally written down, that the writers chose to emphasize the speed and completeness with which the disiples embraced their new lives, because they as writers saw what had come to pass as so dramatically distinct from all that had gone before or since. Perhaps it was only much later that the change in the circumstances of the human world was so vivid that it could only be relayed as a great drama -- because that's what it was, whether the disiples knew it at the time or not. And the call to us, with its immediacy and directness emphasized, is to be alert and aware, at all times. Regardless of what we are doing -- washing dishes, typing, writing on a blackboard, checking a heartbeat, washing down an animal -- and what we know, or don't know, we could be called elsewhere, to a new life, just like that.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
A Laywoman's Lectionary: Come and See - For the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (1/16/05)
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel."
And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.
One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter). (John 1:29-42) [NRSV]
Come and see.
We have to move, at least mentally, if not physically, to where Jesus is. Come.
We have to pay attention. And see.
Action and discernment.
I wish I had read this passage when I first joined my first church. As I've written before, I took that step without much forethought or understanding. Something moved me to suggest to my husband that we start attending a church, we chose one and went, and a month later were full-fledged members. It was kind of like joining a social club or organization. Nothing much was demanded, or even expected, of us.
Later, I felt critical of both myself and the church for that situation. As we were drawn into the life of the church, became part of a small group of like-minded church neighbors, served on committees and pursued educational offerings, I began to see that we were part of something huge. Something well beyond our understanding. Something to which nothing, so far as I could remember, in our brief membership classes, had even alluded. And so I was critical of myself for jumping in with both feet, and of the church for welcoming people with little knowledge of who they were or preparation for whom they were to become.
I took a long break from church. A really long break. Years. And when I returned, it was to a different church in a different denomination and, in reality, I was still taking a long break. I saw myself as engaged in a process of discernment, of spiritual awakening -- reading and writing and listening but not acting. I sat in the back, volunteered a little here and there, but mostly kept my own counsel and shied away from committment.
And then, one day, I had had enough of that and started taking the steps necessary to transfer my membership and become an active and engaged participant once again. And sure enough, as I realized to my chagrin somewhat later, I did exactly what I had done before: jumped in up to my waist without really paying attention.
In fact, I had paid so little attention to what I was doing that last fall I became highly critical of someone who had done the same thing. I was taking a graduate class on Spiritual Autobiography and one of our texts was Dorotny Day's The Long Loneliness. Dorothy Day is famous for her service to society's poor and discarded and her implacable pacifism. I didn't find much to like in Dorothy Day -- she struck me as a great lady, but not a friendly one. And I especially didn't like the way in which she converted to Catholicism, throwing herself blindly into it on the basis of a few masses and some tutoring by a nun, becoming confirmed in the church before she knew even a single Catholic layperson. My reasoning and lawyerly mind stiffened against the idea of an intelligent and insightful woman making such an impulsive and ill-informed leap into a life of faith.
Until I realized that I had done exactly the same thing.
(Not, I hasten to add, that I am comparing myself in any other way to Dorothy Day. I recognize genius when I see it and I'm not too worried that I have any hope of measuring up to hers.)
"Come," says Jesus. He doesn't "Think about it" or "Figure it out" or "Get a doctorate in theology first." He just says, "Come."
Quite and entirely by accident, both times I ahd joined a church, I had done exactly that. I had just come along, no differently than any of Jesus' orginal disciples. I had just come to where he seemed to be.
"And see." Once you get there, you have to be attentive to what you find.
And what is that, exactly? I'm stumped -- I don't know how to explain this. But when you begin to see with the eyes of Christ, things start to take on a different hue.
Don't get me wrong. I am no saint. In Catholic school we used to gossip about who was "holy" -- and I'm a realist, so I never had to contemplate being included in that group. As an adult church member, I know a lot of people who do a lot of good things for religious reasons, helping the poor, school children, the homeless. I know people who give away a lot of money. I know people who are active in politics -- in protests against the war, in the election, on behalf of gay rights -- as a result of their religious beliefs. I'm not any of those people. I am a totally average, overscheduled and overwhelmed suburban mom and teacher who can't manage to get either the Mastercard bill paid off or the kitchen floor washed. I have my fantasies about joing the Peace Corps when my children's college degrees are completed and their bills are paid, but I don't harbor illusions about experiencing a sudden infusion of energy and efficiency ten years from now any more than I expect it to happen this afternoon. So I can't talk about "doing" or "achieving." But I can talk a little bit about seeing.
Many years ago, I was out on a Christmas shopping marathon, charging down the aisles of a big-box chain toy store looking for gifts for unknown children, soon-to-be recipients of church largesse. Aisle after aisle of toy guns, military action figures, enough gear to outfit an entire National Guard Unit in plastic camoflauge and weaponry. That store looked very different to me as I contemplated celebrating the birthday of the Prince of Peace than it would have a few years earlier when Christmas was simply a major secular holiday for me. It felt like a poor place for me to be spending my money.
I have had to dig deep down into unknown territories to find a place of peace and forgiveness with respect to certain matters. (Actually, I'm lying. I'm not there yet. But I'm working on it.) Yesterday I was in a workshop in which we participants were asked to identify our favorite New Testament passage. I had no idea what mine might be and I was flipping through a Bible when it practically leaped from the page. "And Jesus said, 'There was a man who had two sons.' " The story of the Prodigal Son, the ultimate story of human forgiveness. Of course. When that story, or one like it, has come completely alive for you and you begin to understand what Jesus really meant by by mercy and forgiveness, you see things differently. Not comfortably, but differently.
As anyone who reads my other journal knows, my stepmother is very ill. Her battle against cancer has raised questions not uncommon in our society, questions having to do with quality of life, technology, and choice. Almost every person with whom I have discussed those issues describes one set of choices as "giving up." I don't see the decision to forego treatment that way at all. And I don't think that you have to have a specific religion or spirituality to conclude that the end of life, wherever it may lead, is a transition and that you are not "giving up" by coming to terms with that. You just need to see things differently. Not, perhaps, comfortably, but differently.
So, as it turns out, I was wrong to be critical of my former church for welcoming the delusionally innocent. I was wrong to think that Dorothy Day had moved too fast. I was wrong to think that you need to work out your faith before you get moving on it. You do not begin to see differently until you are in the midst of texts and preachers and friends who share that vision, until you are in a place where you can begin to practice it for yourself. Jesus know that; that's why he issued the invitation to follow him before offering a college course on exactly what that would entail. We begin simply by responding to the invitation.
Come. And see.
And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.
One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter). (John 1:29-42) [NRSV]
Come and see.
We have to move, at least mentally, if not physically, to where Jesus is. Come.
We have to pay attention. And see.
Action and discernment.
I wish I had read this passage when I first joined my first church. As I've written before, I took that step without much forethought or understanding. Something moved me to suggest to my husband that we start attending a church, we chose one and went, and a month later were full-fledged members. It was kind of like joining a social club or organization. Nothing much was demanded, or even expected, of us.
Later, I felt critical of both myself and the church for that situation. As we were drawn into the life of the church, became part of a small group of like-minded church neighbors, served on committees and pursued educational offerings, I began to see that we were part of something huge. Something well beyond our understanding. Something to which nothing, so far as I could remember, in our brief membership classes, had even alluded. And so I was critical of myself for jumping in with both feet, and of the church for welcoming people with little knowledge of who they were or preparation for whom they were to become.
I took a long break from church. A really long break. Years. And when I returned, it was to a different church in a different denomination and, in reality, I was still taking a long break. I saw myself as engaged in a process of discernment, of spiritual awakening -- reading and writing and listening but not acting. I sat in the back, volunteered a little here and there, but mostly kept my own counsel and shied away from committment.
And then, one day, I had had enough of that and started taking the steps necessary to transfer my membership and become an active and engaged participant once again. And sure enough, as I realized to my chagrin somewhat later, I did exactly what I had done before: jumped in up to my waist without really paying attention.
In fact, I had paid so little attention to what I was doing that last fall I became highly critical of someone who had done the same thing. I was taking a graduate class on Spiritual Autobiography and one of our texts was Dorotny Day's The Long Loneliness. Dorothy Day is famous for her service to society's poor and discarded and her implacable pacifism. I didn't find much to like in Dorothy Day -- she struck me as a great lady, but not a friendly one. And I especially didn't like the way in which she converted to Catholicism, throwing herself blindly into it on the basis of a few masses and some tutoring by a nun, becoming confirmed in the church before she knew even a single Catholic layperson. My reasoning and lawyerly mind stiffened against the idea of an intelligent and insightful woman making such an impulsive and ill-informed leap into a life of faith.
Until I realized that I had done exactly the same thing.
(Not, I hasten to add, that I am comparing myself in any other way to Dorothy Day. I recognize genius when I see it and I'm not too worried that I have any hope of measuring up to hers.)
"Come," says Jesus. He doesn't "Think about it" or "Figure it out" or "Get a doctorate in theology first." He just says, "Come."
Quite and entirely by accident, both times I ahd joined a church, I had done exactly that. I had just come along, no differently than any of Jesus' orginal disciples. I had just come to where he seemed to be.
"And see." Once you get there, you have to be attentive to what you find.
And what is that, exactly? I'm stumped -- I don't know how to explain this. But when you begin to see with the eyes of Christ, things start to take on a different hue.
Don't get me wrong. I am no saint. In Catholic school we used to gossip about who was "holy" -- and I'm a realist, so I never had to contemplate being included in that group. As an adult church member, I know a lot of people who do a lot of good things for religious reasons, helping the poor, school children, the homeless. I know people who give away a lot of money. I know people who are active in politics -- in protests against the war, in the election, on behalf of gay rights -- as a result of their religious beliefs. I'm not any of those people. I am a totally average, overscheduled and overwhelmed suburban mom and teacher who can't manage to get either the Mastercard bill paid off or the kitchen floor washed. I have my fantasies about joing the Peace Corps when my children's college degrees are completed and their bills are paid, but I don't harbor illusions about experiencing a sudden infusion of energy and efficiency ten years from now any more than I expect it to happen this afternoon. So I can't talk about "doing" or "achieving." But I can talk a little bit about seeing.
Many years ago, I was out on a Christmas shopping marathon, charging down the aisles of a big-box chain toy store looking for gifts for unknown children, soon-to-be recipients of church largesse. Aisle after aisle of toy guns, military action figures, enough gear to outfit an entire National Guard Unit in plastic camoflauge and weaponry. That store looked very different to me as I contemplated celebrating the birthday of the Prince of Peace than it would have a few years earlier when Christmas was simply a major secular holiday for me. It felt like a poor place for me to be spending my money.
I have had to dig deep down into unknown territories to find a place of peace and forgiveness with respect to certain matters. (Actually, I'm lying. I'm not there yet. But I'm working on it.) Yesterday I was in a workshop in which we participants were asked to identify our favorite New Testament passage. I had no idea what mine might be and I was flipping through a Bible when it practically leaped from the page. "And Jesus said, 'There was a man who had two sons.' " The story of the Prodigal Son, the ultimate story of human forgiveness. Of course. When that story, or one like it, has come completely alive for you and you begin to understand what Jesus really meant by by mercy and forgiveness, you see things differently. Not comfortably, but differently.
As anyone who reads my other journal knows, my stepmother is very ill. Her battle against cancer has raised questions not uncommon in our society, questions having to do with quality of life, technology, and choice. Almost every person with whom I have discussed those issues describes one set of choices as "giving up." I don't see the decision to forego treatment that way at all. And I don't think that you have to have a specific religion or spirituality to conclude that the end of life, wherever it may lead, is a transition and that you are not "giving up" by coming to terms with that. You just need to see things differently. Not, perhaps, comfortably, but differently.
So, as it turns out, I was wrong to be critical of my former church for welcoming the delusionally innocent. I was wrong to think that Dorothy Day had moved too fast. I was wrong to think that you need to work out your faith before you get moving on it. You do not begin to see differently until you are in the midst of texts and preachers and friends who share that vision, until you are in a place where you can begin to practice it for yourself. Jesus know that; that's why he issued the invitation to follow him before offering a college course on exactly what that would entail. We begin simply by responding to the invitation.
Come. And see.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
A Laywoman's Lectionary: Baptism - For the First Sunday in Ordinary Time (1/9/05)
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.
John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"
But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented.
And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:13-17)[NRSV]
What does it mean ~ baptism?
In my family, my nonreligious family, it apparently meant something of unvoiced significance, because we children were not baptized as babies in accordance with the usual practice of the Methodist Church. My father felt that people shouldn't get entangled with the church until they were old enough to know what they were doing, and babies weren't old enough. Young teens weren't either, as I discovered when I went through a period of wanting to convert to Catholicism while I was a junior high school student in a Catholic boarding school.
So I wasn't baptized until I was an adult, and had decided to become an official member of the Methodist church. Baptism was a prerequisite, so there I was, still pretty clueless, but doing it anyway. I can't say that I thought I was "saved" or "cleansed of my sins" or anything else approximating what people often say about baptism. I just thought I was taking the first step in a journey that was going to have a public as well as a private side to it.
One of our pastors articulated it well a couple of weeks ago when she said that baptism was an occasion for welcoming someone into the church family. I wish I had had that language on the tip of my tongue a couple of years after my own baptism, when we arranged for the baptisms of our first babies. I had hoped that my family would join us but circumstances got in the way. Months later one of my younger stepsisters, as cyncial and caustic as I had been as a teenager, asked icily, "Why would you have them baptized, anyway?" It was hard to respond in the face of her adolescent certitude that religion was for idiots, and I wish I could have just said something along the lines of what our pastor had said to me: I wanted them to be part of a church family, and baptism was the doorway. Jesus says as much, when he says that "it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness."
No doves, of course, for the rest of us. And no voice of God from the heavens, either. Or am I wrong about that? Jesus' baptism is apparently one of the few moments in the Bible when God as Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit are simultaneously present. Their concurrent appearance would seem to portend a momentous occasion, and maybe that is indeed what baptism is, even for those of us who don't recognize it at the time. Maybe it's a time when God in all of God's vastness drives a wedge into our lives and begins to take up permanent residence there -- quietly and unobtrusively, perhaps, but definitively there. Even defiantly there. God perhaps saying, "I am pleased with your existence, whether you like it or not, and whether you even know it or not ~ and this is your first step toward undertanding that."
In our church, our pastors emphasize, week after week, over and over, God's all-encompassing love for all of us. At Jesus' baptsim, at the outset of his ministry, we see God call Jesus "the beloved, with whom I am well pleased." At a baby's baptism, it's easy to see that love, too -- what could be more lovely than an innocent newborn in the arms of a parent?. But even those of us who are adults -- adults with long histories behind us -- even for us, God's love is there at baptism. Recognized or not.
John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"
But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented.
And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:13-17)[NRSV]
What does it mean ~ baptism?
In my family, my nonreligious family, it apparently meant something of unvoiced significance, because we children were not baptized as babies in accordance with the usual practice of the Methodist Church. My father felt that people shouldn't get entangled with the church until they were old enough to know what they were doing, and babies weren't old enough. Young teens weren't either, as I discovered when I went through a period of wanting to convert to Catholicism while I was a junior high school student in a Catholic boarding school.
So I wasn't baptized until I was an adult, and had decided to become an official member of the Methodist church. Baptism was a prerequisite, so there I was, still pretty clueless, but doing it anyway. I can't say that I thought I was "saved" or "cleansed of my sins" or anything else approximating what people often say about baptism. I just thought I was taking the first step in a journey that was going to have a public as well as a private side to it.
One of our pastors articulated it well a couple of weeks ago when she said that baptism was an occasion for welcoming someone into the church family. I wish I had had that language on the tip of my tongue a couple of years after my own baptism, when we arranged for the baptisms of our first babies. I had hoped that my family would join us but circumstances got in the way. Months later one of my younger stepsisters, as cyncial and caustic as I had been as a teenager, asked icily, "Why would you have them baptized, anyway?" It was hard to respond in the face of her adolescent certitude that religion was for idiots, and I wish I could have just said something along the lines of what our pastor had said to me: I wanted them to be part of a church family, and baptism was the doorway. Jesus says as much, when he says that "it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness."
No doves, of course, for the rest of us. And no voice of God from the heavens, either. Or am I wrong about that? Jesus' baptism is apparently one of the few moments in the Bible when God as Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit are simultaneously present. Their concurrent appearance would seem to portend a momentous occasion, and maybe that is indeed what baptism is, even for those of us who don't recognize it at the time. Maybe it's a time when God in all of God's vastness drives a wedge into our lives and begins to take up permanent residence there -- quietly and unobtrusively, perhaps, but definitively there. Even defiantly there. God perhaps saying, "I am pleased with your existence, whether you like it or not, and whether you even know it or not ~ and this is your first step toward undertanding that."
In our church, our pastors emphasize, week after week, over and over, God's all-encompassing love for all of us. At Jesus' baptsim, at the outset of his ministry, we see God call Jesus "the beloved, with whom I am well pleased." At a baby's baptism, it's easy to see that love, too -- what could be more lovely than an innocent newborn in the arms of a parent?. But even those of us who are adults -- adults with long histories behind us -- even for us, God's love is there at baptism. Recognized or not.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
A Laywoman's Lectionary: Exploring Wisdom - For the Second Sunday of Christmas (1/2/05)
Wisdom praises herself, and tells of her glory in the midst of her people. In the assembly of the Most High she opens her mouth, and in the presence of his hosts she tells of her glory:
"I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist. I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud. Alone I compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss. Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway. Among all these I sought a resting place; in whose territory should I abide?
Then the Creator of all things gave me a command, and my Creator chose the place for my tent. He said, 'Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance.'
Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me, and for all the ages I shall not cease to be. In the holy tent I ministered before him, and so I was established in Zion. Thus in the beloved city he gave me a resting place, and in Jerusalem was my domain. I took root in an honored people, in the portion of the Lord, his heritage." (Sirach 24:1-12)
I'm in new territory, at least for me, this week. The book of Sirach hasn't been included in the Jewish scriptures since the first century CE and didn't make it into the Protestant Bible, so I doubt that it's ever had a public reading in my church. But it's part of the Catholic canon, one of the wisdom books of the Catholic Bible, and apparently is utilized frequently in Catholic worship. This reading appealed to me because, like the one I chose last week, it takes our focus away from the nativity stories and into to the broader world into which Christ arrived.
I recognized the figure of Wisdom, which we Protestants usually hear of only through the Book of Proverbs, But, even in readings from Proverbs, our attention is seldom directed to the fact that Wisdom, in the Bible, is characterized as a feminine figure and presence. Most Christians, despite the popularity of The DaVinci Code, are unfamiliar with feminine imagery for the Divine, and struggle to meld it with our familiar masculine conceptions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It's out there, but we don't know the history, don't have access to the writings, and seldom hear about it from our clergy. You have to be pretty determined to dig deeply behind popular fiction in search of the feminine underpinnings of Holy Wisdom. And that's not somehting I've had the time to do.
I wanted to know more, though, so I turned to the two chapters on Wisdom in Marcus Borg's book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994). Borg writes about Wisdom in two ways: first, about Jesus as a teacher of alternative wisdom and then about Jesus AS wisdom.
In his chapter on Jesus as teacher, Borg distingishes between conventional wisdom and alternative, or subversive wisdom. I suppose that, whether we articulate it or not, this distinction is one of the first things that becomes apparent to us when we become serious students of the Bible. The conventional wisdom, the wisdom of our culture, the "this is how it's done" wisdom that tells us what to think and believe and do because that's what members of our culture think and believe and do, is what we expect to find, in church and in the Bible. What could be a more definitive and upstanding purveyor of how things "ought to be" than the local church?
And we have good reason to expect to find conventional wisdom in the church -- churches tend to reek of it. How well I remember the Valentine's Sunday when some friends of mine, mostly mothers in their thirties and in charge of the coffee hour after the service that week, decided to brighten things up with bright red tablecloths. Just before the service ended, one of the older women glanced into the parlor and reacted with horror. "What will the ladies of the church think?" she exclaimed, and within a matter of minutes had whisked china, silver, and coffeee pots off the tables so that she could replace the offending red tablecloths with the standard white ones.
Now that's conventional wisdom at work. My friends were so dazed by her dismay and speed that it was some time before one of them asked, "But aren't WE the ladies of the church, too?"
As Marcus Borg points out, Jesus stands as the purveyor of alternative wisdom. One of the first things that we notice, upon reading the Bible carefully, is how often things turn out differently from how we expect them to. And in case we don't figure out how things work, Jesus hammers it home repeatedly. The first are always last; the last are always first. The disdained and trampeled upon turn out to be the heroes. The learned are dense; the holy are, at best, confused. The right way is the way that we don't follow. Borg says that the cheif values of our culture are "achievement, affluence, and appearance," and I doubt that anyone would challenge his assessment. But those are never the values of Jesus.
And why not? Who, exactly, is Jesus? Borg offers one answer in the next chapter of his book, entitled "Jesus, the Wisdom of God: Sophia Become Flesh." Jesus is not just the purveyor of alternative wisdom; Jesus IS Wisdom herself.
I won't detail Borg's entire argument, but it's well worth reading for a better understanding of the early chuch's ideas about Jesus and of Jesus as understood by Paul and by the gospel writers. In a nutshell, Borg notes that in the Jewish wisdom writings, we often see the Wisdom Woman, or Sophia as she is known in Greek (and English). Sophia is the first of God's creations and is present with God for the rest (Proverbs). She is a creator herself, a source of life and of all good attributes of life (Wisdom of Solomon). In the gospels and in Paul's letters, Jesus is specifically connected with Sophia. Borg concludes, finally, that Jeses was "the Son of God, the logos of God, and the Sophia of God."
I'm sure, without knowing much about it, that Borg's reading is controversial. I've heard Borg speak several times, but I am sure that I have never heard a sermon on Jesus as Wisdom, or Jesus as somehow encompassing both the masculine logos and the feminine Sophia. It's interesting, though, isn't it, that a reading early in the Christian year, gives us Wisdom as God's first creation, commanded to dwell in Israel among God's honored people and heritage? The reading stands as a bridge between the nativity stories, providing an alternative view as to the identity of Jesus, and the stories of Jesus' teachings that are soon to come, in which Jesus himself will provide his alternative, subversive understanding of Wisdom. Something to think about.
"I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist. I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud. Alone I compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss. Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway. Among all these I sought a resting place; in whose territory should I abide?
Then the Creator of all things gave me a command, and my Creator chose the place for my tent. He said, 'Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance.'
Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me, and for all the ages I shall not cease to be. In the holy tent I ministered before him, and so I was established in Zion. Thus in the beloved city he gave me a resting place, and in Jerusalem was my domain. I took root in an honored people, in the portion of the Lord, his heritage." (Sirach 24:1-12)
I'm in new territory, at least for me, this week. The book of Sirach hasn't been included in the Jewish scriptures since the first century CE and didn't make it into the Protestant Bible, so I doubt that it's ever had a public reading in my church. But it's part of the Catholic canon, one of the wisdom books of the Catholic Bible, and apparently is utilized frequently in Catholic worship. This reading appealed to me because, like the one I chose last week, it takes our focus away from the nativity stories and into to the broader world into which Christ arrived.
I recognized the figure of Wisdom, which we Protestants usually hear of only through the Book of Proverbs, But, even in readings from Proverbs, our attention is seldom directed to the fact that Wisdom, in the Bible, is characterized as a feminine figure and presence. Most Christians, despite the popularity of The DaVinci Code, are unfamiliar with feminine imagery for the Divine, and struggle to meld it with our familiar masculine conceptions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It's out there, but we don't know the history, don't have access to the writings, and seldom hear about it from our clergy. You have to be pretty determined to dig deeply behind popular fiction in search of the feminine underpinnings of Holy Wisdom. And that's not somehting I've had the time to do.
I wanted to know more, though, so I turned to the two chapters on Wisdom in Marcus Borg's book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994). Borg writes about Wisdom in two ways: first, about Jesus as a teacher of alternative wisdom and then about Jesus AS wisdom.
In his chapter on Jesus as teacher, Borg distingishes between conventional wisdom and alternative, or subversive wisdom. I suppose that, whether we articulate it or not, this distinction is one of the first things that becomes apparent to us when we become serious students of the Bible. The conventional wisdom, the wisdom of our culture, the "this is how it's done" wisdom that tells us what to think and believe and do because that's what members of our culture think and believe and do, is what we expect to find, in church and in the Bible. What could be a more definitive and upstanding purveyor of how things "ought to be" than the local church?
And we have good reason to expect to find conventional wisdom in the church -- churches tend to reek of it. How well I remember the Valentine's Sunday when some friends of mine, mostly mothers in their thirties and in charge of the coffee hour after the service that week, decided to brighten things up with bright red tablecloths. Just before the service ended, one of the older women glanced into the parlor and reacted with horror. "What will the ladies of the church think?" she exclaimed, and within a matter of minutes had whisked china, silver, and coffeee pots off the tables so that she could replace the offending red tablecloths with the standard white ones.
Now that's conventional wisdom at work. My friends were so dazed by her dismay and speed that it was some time before one of them asked, "But aren't WE the ladies of the church, too?"
As Marcus Borg points out, Jesus stands as the purveyor of alternative wisdom. One of the first things that we notice, upon reading the Bible carefully, is how often things turn out differently from how we expect them to. And in case we don't figure out how things work, Jesus hammers it home repeatedly. The first are always last; the last are always first. The disdained and trampeled upon turn out to be the heroes. The learned are dense; the holy are, at best, confused. The right way is the way that we don't follow. Borg says that the cheif values of our culture are "achievement, affluence, and appearance," and I doubt that anyone would challenge his assessment. But those are never the values of Jesus.
And why not? Who, exactly, is Jesus? Borg offers one answer in the next chapter of his book, entitled "Jesus, the Wisdom of God: Sophia Become Flesh." Jesus is not just the purveyor of alternative wisdom; Jesus IS Wisdom herself.
I won't detail Borg's entire argument, but it's well worth reading for a better understanding of the early chuch's ideas about Jesus and of Jesus as understood by Paul and by the gospel writers. In a nutshell, Borg notes that in the Jewish wisdom writings, we often see the Wisdom Woman, or Sophia as she is known in Greek (and English). Sophia is the first of God's creations and is present with God for the rest (Proverbs). She is a creator herself, a source of life and of all good attributes of life (Wisdom of Solomon). In the gospels and in Paul's letters, Jesus is specifically connected with Sophia. Borg concludes, finally, that Jeses was "the Son of God, the logos of God, and the Sophia of God."
I'm sure, without knowing much about it, that Borg's reading is controversial. I've heard Borg speak several times, but I am sure that I have never heard a sermon on Jesus as Wisdom, or Jesus as somehow encompassing both the masculine logos and the feminine Sophia. It's interesting, though, isn't it, that a reading early in the Christian year, gives us Wisdom as God's first creation, commanded to dwell in Israel among God's honored people and heritage? The reading stands as a bridge between the nativity stories, providing an alternative view as to the identity of Jesus, and the stories of Jesus' teachings that are soon to come, in which Jesus himself will provide his alternative, subversive understanding of Wisdom. Something to think about.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
A Laywoman's Lectionary: A Great Light in the Darkness - For Christmas (12/25/04)
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness -- on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:2-7) [NRSV]
My favorite Christmas Story is probably Gian Carlo Menotti's little opera for children, Amahl and the Night Visitors. It was televised during my childhood, and my father once took my brother and me to a live production at the Cincinnati Symphony, when we were about nine and seven. That didn't work out so well, as my brother turned out to have intestinal flu and threw up in the middle, necessitating a return home, but I spent the rest of that December listening to the record and memorizing the score. I used to sing Amahl to myself, in my pathetically tuneless voice, as I wandered the sandy paths of a cottage resort in Florida the next spring, awaiting my father's return from his second wedding. Something about that Christmas miracle was sustaining to a child whose life was going to change yet again.
When I had children of my own, I introduced them to Amahl via a grainy VCR recording; today they, too, know at least bits and pieces of the music. And we did make it through an entire beautifully staged production a couple of years ago. Every Christmas I set aside a portion of an evening to sit in my quiet and candle-lit home and listen to the CD.
The operetta turns on the story of the Three Kings, journeying across a barren land in search of the meaning of a star. At its heart are the Amahl and his mother, living in isolation and need. He is cheerfully oblivious to the poverty that has taken from them sheep, goat, and food; she is increasingly irritated by his propensity for amusing himself with fantastical stories. She furiously sends him to bed after he has stayed out too late playing his flute, only to come inside with some of his biggest lies ever, about a star "as big as a window [that] moves across the sky like a chariot on fire."
Into the rest of the short production are packed the arrival of the kings (whom the mother at first believes to be another figment of her son's imagination); Amahl's humorous interactions with them; the musical and dancing entertainment provided by the local shepherds; the mother's longing looks at the visitors' display of wealth, which prompt one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of Christmas music in existence; her desperation for her son's circumstances; the revelation of the true character of the new king; and Amahl's innocent generosity, which leads to the first miracle of Christmas.
It's a simple enough story, full of whimsy, sorrow, and triumph. Overarchingly present are the great lights -- the light of the star which entrances a young child, puzzles his mother, and exerts a powerful pull on the three strangers, -- and the greater light to which it points. It is a children's opera, but it presents in an hour the entire sweep of Isaiah 9:2-7 as played out by the curious cast of characters who assemble in our imaginations each December.
"Have you seen a Child the color of wheat, the color of dawn? His eyes are mild, his hands are those of a King,As King he was born.
********
Have you seen a Child the color of earth, the color of thorn? His eyes are sad, His hands are those of the poor, as poor he was born.
Incense, myrrh and gold we bring to his side.And the eastern star is our guide."
You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:2-7) [NRSV]
My favorite Christmas Story is probably Gian Carlo Menotti's little opera for children, Amahl and the Night Visitors. It was televised during my childhood, and my father once took my brother and me to a live production at the Cincinnati Symphony, when we were about nine and seven. That didn't work out so well, as my brother turned out to have intestinal flu and threw up in the middle, necessitating a return home, but I spent the rest of that December listening to the record and memorizing the score. I used to sing Amahl to myself, in my pathetically tuneless voice, as I wandered the sandy paths of a cottage resort in Florida the next spring, awaiting my father's return from his second wedding. Something about that Christmas miracle was sustaining to a child whose life was going to change yet again.
When I had children of my own, I introduced them to Amahl via a grainy VCR recording; today they, too, know at least bits and pieces of the music. And we did make it through an entire beautifully staged production a couple of years ago. Every Christmas I set aside a portion of an evening to sit in my quiet and candle-lit home and listen to the CD.
The operetta turns on the story of the Three Kings, journeying across a barren land in search of the meaning of a star. At its heart are the Amahl and his mother, living in isolation and need. He is cheerfully oblivious to the poverty that has taken from them sheep, goat, and food; she is increasingly irritated by his propensity for amusing himself with fantastical stories. She furiously sends him to bed after he has stayed out too late playing his flute, only to come inside with some of his biggest lies ever, about a star "as big as a window [that] moves across the sky like a chariot on fire."
Into the rest of the short production are packed the arrival of the kings (whom the mother at first believes to be another figment of her son's imagination); Amahl's humorous interactions with them; the musical and dancing entertainment provided by the local shepherds; the mother's longing looks at the visitors' display of wealth, which prompt one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of Christmas music in existence; her desperation for her son's circumstances; the revelation of the true character of the new king; and Amahl's innocent generosity, which leads to the first miracle of Christmas.
It's a simple enough story, full of whimsy, sorrow, and triumph. Overarchingly present are the great lights -- the light of the star which entrances a young child, puzzles his mother, and exerts a powerful pull on the three strangers, -- and the greater light to which it points. It is a children's opera, but it presents in an hour the entire sweep of Isaiah 9:2-7 as played out by the curious cast of characters who assemble in our imaginations each December.
"Have you seen a Child the color of wheat, the color of dawn? His eyes are mild, his hands are those of a King,As King he was born.
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Have you seen a Child the color of earth, the color of thorn? His eyes are sad, His hands are those of the poor, as poor he was born.
Incense, myrrh and gold we bring to his side.And the eastern star is our guide."
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