Blessed Community

Today is my first day home after being en-wombed in my blessed community of Friends. I am always glad to return home, to return to my quiet and gentle world. Inevitably, though, I must venture out to buy a few necessities and wants. I cringed when the clerk bagged my few things, watching the tender spinach leaves squished by the weight of the large sweet potato and the chocolate bars tossed carelessly into the bag, also in danger of being pummeled. Her mind was on other things: she and the supervisor were discussing the timing of her lunch break.

In truth, it was probably my own tender heart that was being bruised by the secular nature of the world. I had, after all, been living for four days among gentle F/friends. It was our seventh gathering and we have grown in trust and sense of community. The depth of our sharing, our ability to strip ourselves publicly of the most painful and shameful events of our lives, is breathtaking. And yet, we also share much laughter and joy, which lovingly cushion our more difficult moments.

I returned home to my sun-filled living room, grateful for the en-wombment of my home, grateful to have survived my brief adventure among those less attentive to the present moment. There was one sweet encounter, though. As I was leaving the ABC store, the clerk cautioned me to be attentive on my drive home, that I might arrive safely. Blessed be.

How Tea Candles are like Us Humans

Why TEA CANDLES are like us humans

I say my prayers in the early morning darkness, offset by the glow of a few tea candles. Over the past several months, motivated by too much wax left in the tiny cup after the wick has burnt itself into exhaustion, I have been distracted by the task of extending the life of these little light-bearers.

I’ll tell you what makes the candles last longer: replenishing the wax around the wick on a daily basis. It turns out the wick can last a long time when the fuel is regularly replenished. I use bits of old candles to fill the emptiness surrounding the wick. Several strategies work, but they are, of course, all short term. But it does take an outside source of wax/fuel to not only keep the candles burning but also to make the most of their lives.

How like humans these candles are. We humans often find our wells of sustenance empty, our spirits flagging, our personal light flickering/fading. Like tea candles, we need replenishment from outside ourselves. Our minds need intellectual stimulation, our bodies need organic nourishment & exercise, our hearts need love and our spirits need nurture. And to make the most of who we are, we also need help from outside ourselves.

These days we are urged at every turn to eat healthy and exercise. The reasons range from ‘improving health’ to ‘living longer’ to cutting health care costs. All worthy goals. But for the people of God, there are other reasons to take better care of one’s body, a precious gift from Our Creator. Phrases such as ‘my body is God’s temple’ and ‘the Kingdom of God is within me’ give us some possible motivators for healthy eating, exercising and getting enough sleep.

Daily prayer with the God who created us, redeems and sustains us is the spiritual food that fills that well around our wick, replenishes us when we feel empty and emotionally exhausted. God’s love is always available to us, if only we tap into it. When we do, our empty wells are filled and are hearts open to spill God’s love into the world. Prayer can happen anytime anyplace. God is with us in every moment. All we have to do is remember that, to notice that and to pour out our needs, our longings, our thanksgivings. God does the rest.

I CAN’T EVEN TIE MY SHOES….HOW CAN I POSSIBLY LOVE MY NEIGHBOR?

Sometimes the simple act of tying one’s shoes brings excruciating pain. That happens when a bunch of muscles are in spasm or joint surfaces grind with pain. We are humbled by our inability to complete this simple task and are metaphorically brought to our knees by our pain.

I heard a sermon today about a pharisee and a tax collector, one redeemed by his humility, the other walking off to continue “doing good works.” Shortly thereafter, the sermonizer spoke of the humbling experience of being unable to tie his own shoes because of back pain. I thought it an interesting juxtaposition of life & scriptural teaching.

How often are we metaphorically “brought to our knees” then miss or even resist the opportunity to seek God’s help in our lives? It is easy to nod in agreement about humility during the sermon yet overlook or dismiss the frequent opportunities in our own lives to seek God’s help, to turn our wilfulness into willingness, to put God at the center of our lives. The act of humbling oneself before God competes with our ego’s need to be in charge.

Jesus calls us to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Since most of us do not believe that we deserve God’s love it is difficult to turn to God for help and almost impossible to love ourselves ‘as you yourself are loved by God’. Is that the real reason why it is so difficult for us to both forgive and love our neighbors?

WHO’S MORE INCLUSIVE THAN….JESUS?

As Christians, Jesus is the guy we’re supposed to be following/worshiping/modeling ourselves after, etc, etc. Who was more inclusive than Jesus? Or, perhaps the better question is, what was Jesus’ ministry really all about?

We like to point to his miraculous birth, his raising people from the dead, his ability to heal the lepers, the blind, & the terminally ill, to support his being “the Son of God.” He was ‘sacrificed by God the Father’ and crucified, but rose again from the dead. Big stuff. Big drama.

But what about his day-to-day ministry? Jesus walked about wherever he was, speaking to and ministering to whoever came into his path. He had his criteria for a true believer/seeker and he eschewed the pompous & self-important, those fueled by hubris & manipulation. He didn’t turn away from the rich but he did counsel them. But those who had been marginalized by being poor or leprous or forced into prostitution…to .those people, Jesus offered hospitality and healing. In today’s world, we would probably call Jesus’ behavior “wacko” or….maybe….we’d call it compassionate and inclusive.

To my mind that was the whole message of Jesus. He is purported to have said “Love God and love your neighbor,” that these were the first and most important commandments of God. Jesus wasn’t about marginalizing people who were “less than” or “the other.” Jesus did challenge those whose behavior was not in keeping with those two big commandments; perhaps in Jesus’ mind these were “the other”.

Jesus, like the prophets chronicled in the Hebrew Bible, brought us a new message of the times: of a loving God, an inclusive God. And, like the prophets of old described, a God who is jealous and will brook no idols–not beauty nor sex nor money nor fame nor….(you fill in the blank).

We look for Jesus and what we get is the Christian church. Peel away all the dogma, all the liturgy & finery, all the wrangling and contention, all that we’ve jettisoned and what is left? A prophetic guy, walking about from town to town, spreading the message of a God who loves everyone (including you & me and the people we find it difficult to love) and expects no less from each of us.

Jesus was also purported to have said something like: leave the judging of others to God (who loves them endlessly). God forgives us every mistake we make. How can we do any less and think that we are being faithful?

What TEC might Learn from Quakers about Lay Ministry.

I am learning from un-programmed Friends about lay ministry. After all, they have no minister or priest to lead them. They lead themselves. Most of the work is done by committees such as “Ministry & Worship”, “Oversight”, “Religious Education”, etc. In the monthly “meeting for worship with attention to business”, Friends consider their needs and resources until a “sense of the meeting” occurs. Some Friends may “stand aside” when not in full agreement with a decision but not uncomfortable enough to block it. In this way all voices are heard, all voices are respected.

Quakers are encouraged to “identify their gifts” and put them to use in their meetings. One may have a gift for hospitality, another for “vocal ministry” (the giving of a “message” in meeting for worship), another for traveling in the ministry, another for eldering, another for teaching, another for prayer, another for spiritual direction and so forth. Friends believe that all the gifts needed in any meeting are present within the membership. Therefore, identifying and utilizing members’ gifts enriches the meeting.

The largest number of ministers in TEC is in the ministry of the laity. (The ministers of TEC are the bishops, priests/presbyters, deacons, and the laity). Have you discerned, named and claimed your gifts? Have your gifts been recognized and lifted up in your congregation? Is there an intention in your parish to identify and utilize gifts of the members?

It is often the case that a small proportion of the members do most of the work in any parish. How might your parish life be enriched by members’ gifts of the spirit? How might your parish community be broadened and deepened through the intentional use of the spiritual gifts of your members? You might be surprised at what unfolds through such a journey. I was. Never a more unlikely candidate was there than I for the gift of prayer. Through my work with Friends, I have discerned, named and claimed my gift for ministry through prayer.

Sharing Our Gifts: Anointing Friends

I’ve recently returned from living in community with 30 Quakers. Daily we gathered for “meeting for worship” where we sat in a circle in deepening silence…that’s quite a stretch for a noisy Episcopalian. Occasionally, a Friend would rise to give “vocal ministry”, also known as “a message”, thus breaking the silence.

This is my fifth gathering with these Friends. Not once have I been “led by the Spirit” to give vocal ministry. That changed on our last full day together when I found myself rising to my feet to say “I have holy oil in my pocket.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tiny silver tube which contained an even tinier vial of oil. “This oil has been consecrated by the bishop in my diocese, and was distributed to the clergy in my diocese.”

I went on to describe the three orders of ministry in TEC: bishops, clergy and laity. Members of the lay ministry were not given vials of consecrated oil by the bishop. I was given a tiny bit by a clergy friend to mark my entry into the healing ministry at my church.

I struggled with whether or not to share what I was carrying in my pocket. Was it appropriate to offer it to the non-liturgical Friends? Yet, I was led to stand to speak about it. And I know anointing to be a powerful ministry in the context of healing prayer. So I stretched out my hands and said “I offer you the gift of anointing.”

In the 24 hours that followed, more than half the Friends participated in the ministry of healing prayer and anointing. We gathered in circles for healing prayer, then anointed one another. The anointing was done from the heart, in the most sacred manner using the most beautiful words. One participant said “the oil becomes holy in that moment of contact.” Yes, and in that moment, joined by God’s grace, we are filled with and wrapped in The Light of Christ. Led to share my gift of anointing oil, I am the one who received the greatest blessing.

Where’s Your Integrity?

I’ve just returned from a BOL (Believe Out Loud) workshop sponsored by IntegrityUSA, the national organization dedicated “to be a witness of God’s inclusive love to the Episcopal Church and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.” And I ask, where is your Integrity? Are you a member? Would you like to have an active Integrity chapter/network in this diocese?

Integrity has been exceptionally successful working where big change occurs in the Episcopal Church…at General Convention. Integrity has worked to make the changes that make national headlines and gladden our hearts. Now, Integrity is working to change itself, to morph into an organization that is more responsive to those of at the grass roots. Are you interested?

If so, you might take a look at Integrity’s BOL campaign (http://bolec.integrityusa.org) that publicly welcomes and affirms LGBT people, then decide how to use it in your congregation. The goal of BOL is to help congregations move into the process that results in publicly welcoming and affirming LGBT people.

Some parishes are closer to these goals than others. Where is your congregation in this process? Do you belong to St. Cautious, St. Moderatus, or St. Adventurous? The “toolkit” includes excellent resources for assessing your parish then moving into the process in a way that offers inclusion to everyone in your congregation, a model for offering full inclusion to all newcomers….every single one.

It’s a great evangelizing tool.

The Daily Punch, with thanks to Joan Chittister

More like the daily “gasp”. Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun with a big prophetic voice (and author of 42 books, by the way), helps me begin each day. I read from “The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year” and “The Monastic Way”. Each month has a theme. Self-knowledge and joy are the themes this month.

This morning I read “Life is the vessel we have been given in order to find out what life is really meant to be about” and “ask yourself, are you contributing human hatreds or human community to the social environment?”

Each of those packs a punch. Sister Joan does not mince words, does not obfuscate with bluster. If you read Joan Chittister, you will be changed. She’s dangerous that way.

Recently she published a new book, co-authored with our very own ABC, Rowan Williams. Interesting pairing. The topic: gratitude (Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All There Is). There she is, contributing human community to the social environment, side-stepping the politics of hatred for shared interests in spiritual nurture.

Joan does not routinely sidestep politics. She was one of the nuns from 80 separate communities that recently supported a catholic hospital allowing a patient to choose abortion to save her own life. The Pope did not agree. Hundreds of strong women joined together with one voice to challenge the tradition of the church. Sister Joan is also one of the public voices speaking about the emerging/emergent church, sort of our very own reformation.

But her first love seems to be to write from her heart about her love of God, God’s love for the created, and to challenge each of us to lose our self-absorption/sense of entitlement/love affair with power & greed, and get busy discovering and using the gifts God has given each of us.

That requires that we step outside the dominant paradigm to divest ourselves of the violence that lives inside each of us and is our cultural soup. That we turn to God for guidance, give up trying to run each others’ lives and learn to be obedient to the One who created us and loves us more than we could ever imagine.

What I Learned about TEC from Walking on the Beach

I walked the three short blocks to the beach, enjoying the morning sun and gentle breezes, each predicting a hot day. I practically ran up the boardwalk protecting the dunes to feast my eyes on….OCEAN! Not just any ocean, but ocean at the turning of the tide. A beach difficult to walk at high tide had been transformed into a flat beach stretching invitingly into smoothly rolling waters lapping at the dry sand. I practically shouted with JOY! I stood ankle deep in the water, giving thanks.

The sun was already hot at 8AM. There were no clouds to block its blaze. I turned and walked at water’s edge, in just enough for my footfalls to land on firmly packed sand. The beach was filling up. Plenty of folks had arrived well before me, especially the fisherfolk and exercise crowd. I watched a couple of runners as they approached me: he was jogging along at a comfortable pace, she was effortful with ragged breathing It looked as though she was working hard to keep up.

I walked on. I slowed my pace. I was out here to enjoy a morning stroll on the beach,splash my feet in the water, not engage in vigorous exercise. Still, I paused long enough to turn halfway ‘round to examine my footprints. No point in passing up a good opportunity to improve my walking pattern. I noticed that my left footprint was not rotated out as it had been in the past (good news). I also noticed that the toes of my right foot dug a deeper footprint than the toes on my left foot (working news). I walked 25 ft down the beach and turned to examine my tracks. Better but still not symmetrical. At the next examination I nodded in satisfaction: my toes were digging symmetrically into the sand. I couldn’t remember ever having matching footprints. I wasn’t surprised that my left foot was making normal footprints. I’d noticed that the muscles on the side of my foot along with the muscles in my calf, thigh and hip had begun to complain in the face of this gait-correcting discipline. I had mused about my choices: ease up and exempt my muscles from this immediate discomfort or continue in the knowing that the discomfort came from strengthening muscles that had gone unchallenged too long. As I continued I had complaints from my sacroiliac joint, long back muscles and eventually the neck and shoulder muscles on my left side. Yeah, I was changing the balance of things. Tight tissues were being stretched, weak muscles were being strengthened and overachieving muscles were forced to behave normally. And my footprints still matched!

I thought about the running couple I’d encountered earlier. Was he her trainer? Did they have a method to their beach exercise? He had a few advantages. First of all, he was a he, his muscles were bathed in testosterone: he was stronger by virtue of being male. He looked to be in better physical condition than she. He was running on the hardpacked wet sand while she struggled against the looser dry sand. Who set the pace (that was comfortable for him)? Why did he have the better track for running? Was he really in better shape or did he just look better because of his advantages? How many of their choices were conscious, to meet a particular conditioning goal? How many were unconscious (punish her for not being in shape, superior track to the “real” runner)? Were they wearing shoes that supported each of them for optimal running? How many of their decisions were driven by outcome while details for optimum performance were ignored? What choices created more shame or guilt for one and feelings of superiority for the other?

Running on the beach early in the morning can be really good exercise for both mind, body and spirit. Done without attention to actual needs can do harm to all facets of self.

I returned to my tiny cabin in my friend’s back yard, strolling down the road flanked on one side by homes 40 feet high and on the other side of the road no more than 35 feet high. Was one town on this island smarter/bolder than the other? Was one town on this island giving in to the demands of the dominant paradigm while the other was making a statement of desires for the future? Was one decision better than the other? Made for “better” reasons than the other? Who decides what “better” is? What decisions are you making today?

The three “legs” of TEC are reason, tradition and scripture. Are any one of these getting more attention than another in your life? Is one “better” than the others, maybe just a bit more “important”? Where is God in your life? Or perhaps the question is “Who/what is God in your life? These are just a few of the questions I ask myself as I think about who I am in TEC.

blogging on the 4th of July: c/Chrisitian? Episcopalian?

On this fourth of July I went to church with my friends at Kure Memorial Lutheran Church in Kure Beach, NC. Today PG, the pastor, talked about the writers of the constitution and about how Paul declared that Christians no longer had to be Jews first. The two stories are not related but both were stories I wanted to hear.

PG talked about John Adams, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, about how they were Deists, devoutly and passionately so, but none believed in the divinity of Jesus. They all admired Jesus as a great teacher and prophet. But not one of them believed that Jesus was divine. Not one of them was trinitarian. Not any of them were Christians, he said. Wow! That brought me up short.

He was making a point, of course, that, contrary to popular mythology, the United States of America was not founded as a Christian nation. One nation under God, yes. A nation where the freedom to believe was guarenteed, but not dictated.

My mind went back to “…but they were not Christians….”. Does one have to believe in the divinity of Jesus to be a Christian? Is it not enough to be a devotee of Jesus the teacher and prophet? Who decides what it means to be a Christian? Is there a difference between a christian and a Christian? What’s the difference between a buddhist and a Buddhist?

I know many Episcopalians who, like me, struggle with the words of the Nicene Creed. We are a creedal church. If I don’t agree with The Creed, does that mean I’m not Episcopalian? What about my baptism 60 years ago? or my confirmation? My Member Letter? What does it mean to be an Episcopalian, to be a Christian/christian?

PG went on to speak of the gifts of the spirit Paul wrote about in Galatians…joy, peace, love, etc. And then there’s this one: “they shall know us by our love”. I rather like that as a description of a Christian….”they shall know us by our love.”