Category Archives: observation

Advent2016, Biblical Reflection, observation, Prayer

Better suited?

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Readings: Psalm 21; Isaiah 41:14-20; Romans 15:14-21

…from Jerusalem and as far around as Illiricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ. Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.” Romans 15:19b-21

“Well, that is just sin.” This was the answer a retired pastor gave when the president of the seminary said that perhaps clergy from his denomination were called to serve educated, middle class and wealthy churches. In fairness to the seminary president, I think he meant that the training the seminary provided was geared toward those groups.

In fairness to the retired pastor, such a sentiment is just sin – sin as in missing the point in some crucial way, heading in the wrong direction even with the best of intentions. The point isn’t to find the most comfortable match between a pastor and congregation, or between the educational backgrounds of congregants and seminarians. The point is to share the astonishing truth that God loves us. The point is to encourage one another to live in that love, and to love and serve all of God’s beloved children. See God in Christ! Listen to him! Everything else is a side issue.

If I take the life and words of Jesus seriously, I have to admit that it was usually the strangers and foreigners and the needy and uneducated who recognized God-With-Us. If this is true, I suspect that those who shall see, and those who shall understand aren’t necessarily the ones who are familiar with church and its customs and leaders. If this is true, Paul served the ones best equipped to recognize Jesus when they met him. Perhaps he thought his the easier road…

Come, Lord Jesus, Come. Give me eyes to see you and ears to hear your voice. I don’t want to miss you.

Advent2016, Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation, Prayer

A Life of Quiet Aspiration

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Readings: Psalm 21; Isaiah 24:1-16a; I Thessalonians 4:1-12

But we urge you, more and more, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one. I Thess. 4:10-12

The world is a noisy place these days. It’s almost impossible to be in public without hearing a phone ring, sing, or yell. Motion sensitive holiday displays startle passersby in malls and on sidewalks. This external noise is often matched, sometimes even exceeded, by the internal cacophony of thoughts, feelings, and songs running through the mind. In such a world, to aspire to live quietly is as much a literal challenge as it is a lifestyle choice.

There is a big difference between lowering the volume and pace of life and muting or unplugging it. I don’t think this is recommending a life of silence or hiding. I think it’s a call to cultivating inner and outer quiet, keeping the stereo of my life at a volume that won’t frighten the neighbors or deafen me.

Living quietly brings with it blessings that a full volume life just can’t. I will hear what someone means, not just the words spoken. I will listen for God in the still, small voices of birds and crickets. I can pay attention to the inner voices of peace and compassion that often get drowned out by the louder voices of fear and worry. I can mind my own inner and outer affairs well enough to notice when others could use my help – and well enough to notice when my help is neither requested nor required.

A quiet life is a blessed life, and a life that can bless others. It’s something I aspire to. Quietly.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Advent2016, Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation, Prayer, Theology

Where Did I Come From?

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Readings: Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Isaiah 30:19-26; Acts 13:16-25

“I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.” Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised; before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. 

Acts 13:22-24

Candles lit, prayers said, Bibles read…the Christian community of faith approaches the manger through Advent practices that keep us on the dusty road to Bethlehem. Trying our best to walk in faith through a world that celebrates Christmas as a time to acquire new clothes and an excuse to eat and drink, some of us focus on keeping Christ in Christmas rather than on something altogether obvious but often overlooked: Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t Christian. God With Us was born into and fostered by an older faith – a faith he followed devoutly as a rabbi.

With every psalm I read, with the words of the prophets in my heart, in every New Testament account of Jesus, I inherit the blessing of a faith that gave birth to my own spiritual home. The Christian tradition didn’t spring fully grown from nowhere: it was birthed by the Jewish faith as surely as Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph.

May I remember where my faith came from this Advent, and honor those who keep it.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

gratitude, Meditation, observation, Prayer, Uncategorized

Things Handed Down

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Were he still alive, my father would be 76 years old today. With his birthday being so close to Thanksgiving, it’s a simple thing for me to remember him with deepest thanks. Because of him, I am a part of a loving family. I didn’t choose them and they didn’t choose me, but this unplanned life has been nothing but a blessing.

My mother is 76 years old. Because of her, I am a part of a loving family. I give thanks for such a blessing every day.

The same can be said of all those who came before me, unfamiliar names on a family tree that handed down my particular genetic pattern. How can I be anything but thankful  – to those with me, to those who came before me, and to the God who made us all?

Marc Cohn, The Things We’ve Handed Down, The Very Best of Marc Cohn, 2005

gratitude, observation, Prayer, Theology, Uncategorized

Thanks for the Inconvenience

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My husband and I were up late on Monday assembling our new Ikea bed. After measuring the room and trying several different models, we chose a Hemnes. We threw in the four large underbed storage drawers, making the bed a space saver as well as a comfortable place to sleep. All the boxes fit in the car, the directions were easy to understand, and we managed to get the whole thing together before midnight – quite an accomplishment for two spatially challenged individuals.

My husband was the first to notice the problem. While the bed fit into the space beautifully, there wasn’t enough room on the sides to pull the drawers out. Either we give up the storage drawers or we reconfigure the room for the first time in five years.

We haven’t decided what we’ll do yet. One way or the other, it hasn’t turned out the way we thought it would. It’s certainly not a devastating dilemma, just an inconvenience and an opportunity to choose storage or furniture placement status quo.

We’ve been laughing about the whole thing these past couple of days – an unexpected blessing courtesy of our spatial shortcomings. The chance to enjoy inconvenience together doesn’t happen so often that I don’t recognize its benefits.

Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul…

Prayer at the Beginning of the Day, A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991, p. 20

gratitude, Meditation, observation, Theology

Big Blue Marble

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The Earth’s a big blue marble when you see it from up there

The sun and moon declare her beauty’s very rare.

Big Blue Marble theme song

It’s a little over two miles from where we parked to the end of canal. With sunny skies and a brisk breeze at our backs, we set out for the farthest point on the Cape Cod Canal path. A few cyclists, the odd fisherman, and a handful of other walkers shared this extraordinary place and time with us.

A cormorant fanned her wings, standing on a seaweed covered rock; seagulls caught updrafts, skillfully hovering in place. Almost invisible sparrows emerged from the sea grass just a few feet away from us. We left the Sagamore bridge at a bend in the path before we could see the beacon that marked the path’s end. Spiderwebs filled the spaces between the breakwater rocks, sheltered from the ocean currents, blowing sands, and gusting wind.

We spoke a few words out on the breakwater, sharing a few amazing particulars in the vast beauty of ocean, sky, and land. Most of the time, we listened to the wind and water, two small creatures keeping silent before the mystery of nature.

On the walk back, we gathered up the pieces of our everyday life we’d left along the way. Lunch ideas, guesses on when we would get back to the car, and afternoon plans were reclaimed as the bridge and traffic sounds reappeared. The couple of hours spent walking settled into place, a piece of the day among other pieces. Time moved us along its path.

But our walk wasn’t just a way to get from one point to another, and it wasn’t just a photo opportunity – nothing so common as either of these. When the blindness that prevents us from seeing the beauty of this place is healed, when we know we are a part of Life’s story, and when we bow down in gratitude for our small and fleeting part in it? It’s a walk in Eden and a glimpse of heaven.

I am grateful beyond words.

gratitude, observation

In the company of friends

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All who live and visit here shall be friends.

Kindliness and harmony shall be the watchwords.

Welleran Poltarnees, A House Blessing (Seattle, Washington: Blue Lantern Books, 1994) p. 6

For the past few Halloweens, friends have come for dinner, relaxing, catching up, and enjoying the visiting witches and ghosts that brighten our door. There were ten of us this year. For some, it’s the latest in a long line of Halloweens spent together here or there; for others, the first time. But it would be quite a trick to tell them apart. It was a room full of good listeners and good storytellers, with a natural give and take among those who were meeting for the first time and those who’ve known each other for decades.

When the last friend headed home, I looked around the room with its candles, books, origami bats and pumpkins. I cannot say why, but I knew that something of God’s presence had come to dinner. The kindness of friends, a time set apart, a little something to eat and drink. Just your garden variety encounter with the love that binds the universe together found in the company of friends, family, and holy strangers at the door.

halloween 2015

Meditation, observation

How to begin?

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Mickey Cray had been out of work ever since a dead iguana fell from a palm tree and hit him on the head…

…”Me, too, Lucille.”

[Carl Hiaasen, Chomp, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 2012, pp. 1, 290]

Like real life, it’s full of secrets and sacrifice. Money and fame change people, but so do kindness and courage. The second rate reality star gets chomped by a long list of critters and insects and stumbles into helpfulness. A family faces medical bills and two young people become friends for life. Not too dark, not to sweet.

There’s an art to starting a story, and how we begin telling our own tales can intrigue or bore ourselves and others. If we think our lives are dull, we will use flat words written with broken pencils. If we see our lives as adventures, a dead iguana may start the whole thing moving. This goes double for our faith stories: how we feel about them will come across in how we tell them to ourselves and others. Are there a few dead iguanas, flashes of light and thunder, brave children foiling evil plots, something that we can’t quite tame that makes the heart beat? I certainly hope so!

How will you begin your story? How will you tell me all about your sacred life? I wonder. There’s no real beginning and no real end, but there are always places to start and specific chapters to end. If I were telling you my story, I’d begin like this:

Is an eighty-six year old man strong enough to get my head above water? I hope so, because Pastor Chase is taking a long time, and this is only the first of three dunks in my Merrymeeting Lake baptism…

Biblical Reflection, Education, Meditation, observation, Prayer, Theology

Also many other things…

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…

But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 1:1, 21:25

Whenever I teach, I end the last class with John’s final words about Jesus. No matter the age and stage of the learners, how short or long the class ran or subject studied, these words have the last word. It’s a beautiful way to end a gospel or close a class, this truth.

Jesus did so much that I never saw or heard about, bringing the grace of God to unknown people and forgotten places. This sentence reminds me that I will never know or appreciate all that God-With-Us did when he walked this earth.

Paired with the opening words, John takes me from God-before-creation to God-in-Jesus. That’s a cosmic trip lasting billions of years, spanning unimaginable distances. The world that holds me could not contain the books that could be written about the beginning of everything – much too much for words to convey.

These words were written after Easter, after Jesus sent the Spirit to be God-within-us, God-walking-with-us, God-everywhere-around-us. Jesus is now with me through the Spirit. Of course the world itself could not contain the books that would be written about Jesus: the story continues to unfold in me, in you, in all that is, and in all that will be. Once again, much too much for words to convey. Isn’t that extraordinary? Isn’t that wonderful?

Photo on 2015-07-13 at 10.10

Education, Meditation, observation, Theology, Uncategorized

The Bad Beginning of a Long Journey

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If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book…

The car drove farther and farther away, until Justice Strauss was merely a speck in the darkness, and it seemed to the children that they were moving in an aberrant – the word “aberrant” here means “very, very wrong, and causing much grief” – direction. (Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Bad Beginning (New York, NY: Harpercollins publishers, 1999)

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It’s the story of the Baudelaire orphans trying to survive the fiendish plots of Count Olaf with life, health, and inheritance intact. As the three children get older, they grow from seeing everyone as either all good or all evil to seeing everyone (themselves included) as a mixture of light and dark, good and evil. Along the way, some good people make costly mistakes and a few villains find the courage to do what’s right. There is a lot of gray, and not all the questions are answered.

Like most of us, the Baudelaire children gradually come to realize that not everyone is willing to do the right thing. Some lack courage, others can’t figure out what the right thing is, and still others prefer worldly gain over personal sacrifice. Not everything gets resolved, and the three children don’t get a clear happy ending. What they get are moments of decision and the strength to accept the consequences of their actions. They make mistakes, they cause pain, and they grow up enough to withhold snap judgements about the actions of others.

At the end of the series, the children face an uncertain future together, willing to help others even at their own cost. They accept the world for all the hurts it has brought, and they accept their own inability to create a perfectly happy ending for everyone they love.

There isn’t anything particularly religious in this book or the twelve others in the series, but moving from a child’s simplistic view of people as all good or all bad to a more nuanced perspective is a sure sign of maturity. If such maturity evokes compassion for self and others, it is a journey of faith. If it ends in the rigid condemnation of others and personal despair, it’s a glimpse of hell.

Thank you, Lemony Snicket, for the ethics lesson, and for all the big and small words that took me on the journey.