A Pen and a Prayer – Moving into God’s presence through words

Awake

Daily Readings: Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; I Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

” But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, or the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his own work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” Mk. 13:24-37, NRSV

According to the pamphlet stuck under my windshield, the world was going to end on October 28th, 1992. There were diagrams and quotes backing up the claim – mainly from the books of Daniel and Revelation, but also from today’s reading. Like the Millerites in 1844, the 1992 end-of-days believers were not to see the end of days.

These apocalyptic passages, these end of days narratives, were never meant to be taken literally. They aren’t puzzles with chronological solutions: they are images pointing us toward two profound spiritual realities:

God is near.

We remain unaware of God’s nearness because we don’t really expect the presence of the holy.

Advent is our annual call to awareness and wakefulness, a time to look around and look within. And it just might change how we live the rest of our days.

May both shadow and light guide you to God-With-Us.

Happy Trail

I pulled the elf and snowflake mugs from their usual spot at the back of an upper shelf, and I set up a table for working on holiday themed jigsaw puzzles; hand and dish towels with snowflakes and winter scenes are in use since Thanksgiving day. Retail ads with jingly bells and twinkly tree lights are all over the television, and Hallmark Christmas movies are running 24/7. It’s the Christmas season already in one sense, and not quite Advent in another.

I’m keeping this week’s to-do list pared down to work and life essentials, giving myself the gift of time for reflection and quiet. Cookie making and shopping can wait a week, as can most of the planning and organizing for the yearly Advent devotional soon to begin. Right now, there’s time for a pause, a rest for body, mind, and spirit.

What do I hope to gain from this? Perhaps some clarity and perspective. I love the happy season of holiday decorations, music, food, and activities; I want to enjoy it at a reasonable pace rather than in a frantic rush. Even more, I want to remember that this happy trail leading to Christmas isn’t the same as the road to Bethlehem that leads to God-With-Us. That path is as full of darkness as light. It isn’t a happy trail: it’s the path to the joy that gives birth to the universe.

I hope you will walk with me…

Sustained Thankfulness

The big meal is twenty hours past, and the fridge is full of leftovers. Two of the eight around the yesterday’s table have already headed back to their homes and weekend activities. For the first time that I can remember, Advent isn’t starting three days after Thanksgiving – there’s a week in between that usually isn’t, and I’m at loose ends for its presence.

How to spend this week wisely? Instead of filling it up, I’ve decided to keep it open – keep the Advent activities at bay for the week and enjoy the time to reflect on what I’m most thankful for these days. It’s nothing grand, just the usual things. That’s okay; I suspect the same is true for most everyone else, too…

I hope your week is peaceful, your gratitude deep, and your life the richer for both.

Dimly

One of the wonderful things about a coastal town is the breathtakingly expansive nature of the ocean. Water stretches for miles in the distance, and I can see it all from where I am standing.

The same is true of the mountains.

I know I can’t see forever, even on a clear day, but it seems like I can.

But it’s the beauty of the other days that sticks with me, the foggy and cloud-filled ones.

This is High Street yesterday – a foggy morning that obscures everything that is more than a hundred feet away. I know what’s up the road – I lived just a few hundred yards from here for two decades – but I can’t see it.

Just across the street, Ladner Street was also wrapped in mystery:

There is beauty in the mystery of a partial view, just as there is a grandness to an unobscured view. I love both – one cannot be mistaken for the other, and seeing both is a glimpse of something more important and expansive than I can express in words.

Encounters with God, large and small, are more akin to the glimpses of life through fog or mist – beautiful, but in no way all-encompassing. This doesn’t mean that they are untrue or faulty, it just means that they are not complete. One person cannot behold God fully, and one person’s vision of God does not dictate or encompass all the visions of God that are possible. That’s not a problem – unless and until a beautiful and partial view is mistaken for a full one…

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.

I Cor. 13:12a

Emerson has a point. It isn’t easy to grow into the person you are rather than the person someone else – or society – wants and expects you to be. Other ways to put it: To thine own self be true; Be yourself: everyone else is taken. It requires courage, patience, and strength of character.

Being yourself is a Big Idea, but not a complete or sufficient one. It can easily become an excuse for selfish behavior and a disregard for the value of others. If I were to fill out this big idea, I guess it would be along these lines:

Be yourself – a unique gift to the world that is always connected to every other person. And remember to help others be the selves they were meant to be as well.

Big Idea: Common Genetics

If you enter the Hall of Human Life in Boston’s Museum of Science, you can check your vital signs, test your balance, see if your social network is strong enough to foster emotional and cognitive health, watch chicks hatch, check out a beehive, and see cotton-top tamarins. You will also find a display that shows how much of our own DNA is shared with other species. Just a few:

Trees: 50%

Zebrafish: 70%

Dog: 86%

Cats: 90%

Chimpanzee: 99%

We have a lot in common with the other life that inhabits our little blue planet. In an evolutionary sense, we are kindred, related by the common building blocks that govern our growth and traits. At the same time, we are a diverse bunch, having different needs and adapting to our home planet in different ways over millions of years.

I guess this shouldn’t be surprising. Painters have been using the same colors, creating wildly different pieces – Munch and O’Keefe. Musicians have done the same with sound – Simone and Bach. How could it be otherwise in creating life?

Going Around In Elipses

Plymouth Sunrise, by Donna Eby

In the 4th century BCE, the Pythagoreans proposed a radical idea: the Earth was not stationary, but moving. In the 3rd century BCE, Aristarchus of Samos proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system: the sun as the center point, and the Earth moving around it in circles.

Ptolemy proposed a geocentric model, and he worked out the math to accompany it. It was a complex system, but was the predominant one for hundreds of years. This was the model incorporated into theology – humanity as the focus of all creation, living on the unmoving center of the entire creation.

Fast forward to the 1500’s, and Renaissance mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus proposes the Heliocentric Model once again. Then come Kepler and Galileo. Based on what is mathematically simpler and more elegant, Kepler proposes elliptical orbits rather than circular ones; Galileo comes along with supporting evidence seen through his telescope. In spite of theological objections and suppression, the geocentric model is eventually rejected. In spite of preconceived notions, observational data and advanced mathematics displace Earth from the center of all things to its current position: orbiter around a sun, and one planet among billions.

Humanity no longer inhabits the immovable center of creation, and the universe does not revolve around humanity’s home. Such displacement isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new perspective on a much larger reality – one that incorporates our particular species on our small planet without pretending it’s the only reason the entire cosmos came into being. As a species, it’s similar to the shift that children have when they realize that their parents had lives before and beyond their own.

What a wonderful, big idea: that the universe is about more than just one particular part, and that its mystery and majesty are not limited to human knowledge or imagination. God’s creation is not governed by human preference for circles rather than ellipses, but governed by its own internal structure.

I think going around in ellipses rather than living on an immovable focal point is endlessly interesting. I love the fact that I am a part of something so big, something that has made room for me and every other life form. Just because the world doesn’t revolve around any one of us doesn’t mean we aren’t valuable – it just means everyone else is valuable, too.

Big Idea: Relativity

Einstein’s theory of general relativity didn’t mean that everything is relative – that nothing is sure, or that there’s no real way to value one thing over another. Einstein’s theory is that everything is connected, Related not relative. The Butterfly Effect and John Donne’s poem are both pointing to the same truth as Einstein’s theory: that everything is related to everything else.

One particular negative example comes to mind for me. Our friend Ben Suddard’s oyster beds were damaged by the run-off of all the chemical fertilizers used in towns twenty miles upstream from the bay. The connection wasn’t obvious, but it was real and powerful.

There are many examples on the positive side as well. But one of the most profound for me: nothing in creation is unrelated to the Creator. Perhaps that’s why one of the names for Jesus is God-With-Us…

The Big Idea

It’s the run-up to Thanksgiving, and a good time to think about ideas and people who have changed the world in amazing ways – philosophers, holy ones, scientists, artists of all kinds, healers, and keepers of our world.

For the next few weeks, I’m taking a page from Kobi Yamada’s and Mae Besom’s book, What Do You Do With An Idea? (Seattle, Washington: Compendium, 2013). I’m going to give it some thought, be open to new directions and actions, and see where it all goes.

You are more than welcome to join me…

Arriving

We have taken the road through the psalms of Ascent, and now we reach the end.

But it’s never really the end, is it? Because there are always places that call to us, that put our feet back on the road.

Even if where we go next is a familiar place, the road and the ascent has changed us. We aren’t really going back to who and where we were – we are walking into the wonder of a time and place that we see more clearly for having left.

Every place we call home is a temporary dwelling place; our time is limited and we move on.

But before we set out again, let’s dwell in the place that is the reason for our journey: the house of the Lord.

Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord!

Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.

May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.

Psalm 134, NRSV, A Song of Ascents

Bless the Lord for all the challenges we face on our journeys – they teach us patience and give us strength.

Bless the Lord for the everything-is-falling-into-place times: we see the beauty around us more easily for them.

Bless the Lord for the work we have been given to do – we appreciate rest more because of it, and we have the chance to honor creation through it.

Bless the Lord for the journey. Bless the Lord for journey’s end. Bless the Lord. Make us a blessing. Bless.