Lent2016, Meditation, Theology

Sand Pail Theology

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I arise today

     Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,

     Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,

     Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,

     Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

                    Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, Second stanza

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time at the beach. Exploring tide pools was my favorite pastime – picking up starfish, jellyfish, barnacles, and crabs from the many pools of water hidden among the rocky coastline at low tide. I’d put some sand in my pail, fill it up half way with ocean water, then add whatever I living creatures caught my attention. I’d keep them for an hour or so, amazed by their beauty, sharing them with my parents and siblings. Then I’d return them to their rocks and pools, knowing that my bucket was way too small to keep them alive and happy.

Creeds and statements of faith remind me of my sand pail. They hold enough of God’s truth to let me explore life and hold it in my hands. But they can’t contain God or sustain life any more than my plastic sand pail could sustain the life of even a single starfish. Words and buckets give us just enough time to be amazed by this creation and the God who created and sustains it all. But the lives we hold and the truths we treasure only live when given back to the great big world and the infinite God who loves every single atom of every single thing that lives in its embrace. When I try to limit life or truth to my own little bucket and meager understanding, things suffer: whatever I’ve attempted to keep and the soul expanding grace that only comes when I am content being a child, standing by the ocean in a big, beloved world.

Biblical Reflection, Lent2016, Meditation, Theology

God given strength

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I arise today Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism, Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial, Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension, Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, 2nd stanza

Taken out of the rest of the poem, this looks suspiciously like something we might read in church. A creed of some sort. And it is, but not in the usual way. It’s not an “I agree with the general ideas or principles” kind of thing: it’s a “there isn’t a single part of Jesus’ life that was unrelated to God” proclamation.

Christ is born: God giving him to the world; Christ is baptized: Jesus gives his work life over to God for us.

Christ is crucified: this world of fear rejects him; Christ is buried: his friends and family give Jesus back to the earth and to God.

Christ is resurrected: Jesus reveals the face of God, his face, to his followers; Christ ascends: the humanity of Jesus is forever part of the inner life of God.

His descent for the judgment of doom: death cannot separate anyone from the love of God. Our small, partial, fragile egos are doomed because our true, whole, God given selves are too big and too holy for them to contain.

These things we read in poems and creeds were never meant to drag us down or punish us. They are our strength because they reveal the soul saving truth: no one is excluded from the love of God. We arise in this time and in this place through the strength they give us.

Biblical Reflection, Epiphany2016, Meditation, Prayer

Ash Wednesday: Saint Patrick’s Breastplate

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I arise today 


Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,


Through belief in the Threeness,


Through confession of the Oneness


of the Creator of creation.

The wonder-full arising – a daily blessing, miracle even, when I arise with God’s mighty strength. When I praise God for this day with my first breath upon awakening, the Creator of creation is known to me;

the one who became like you and me, who walked through History with dusty feet and showed us the Way, cementing salvation in our souls, is known to me; the one who is in me, nearer than hands and feet, closer than that first awakening breath, whose presence is real when I am truly awake, is known to me.

I have called these realities the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but they are the One. Whatever I say about God the Father – omnipresent, eternal, loving – can be said of Jesus and the Spirit. What a great God we serve who has pulled out all the stops to be known in this moment of awakening.

May I be truly engaged this first day of Lent, this Ash Wednesday, in this Presence – and throughout these 40 days be tuned in to the Frequency that is my life.

Offered by Bill Albritton, teacher, leader, follower of Christ.

 

 

 

Biblical Reflection, Lent2016, Meditation, Prayer

Brilliant Light, Gathering Darkness

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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. Matthew 17:1-2, NRSV

The season of Epiphany ends here on this mountaintop. The disciples see Jesus shining like the sun, and they are nearly blinded by the light. But this isn’t a story about Jesus having a supernatural transformation: he didn’t change on that mountain, the disciples did. Their blindness fell away and they saw Jesus as he always was: divine and human.

This is one of my favorite passages in the New Testament. It says something about who Jesus is (God’s son, real person), and something about who I am – capable of seeing the glory of God in this life and equally capable of closing my eyes to it in willful blindness. Even when I see the glory of God, I am as likely to misunderstand its meaning in my life as Peter did just a few short verses later. The glory of God is more than a brilliant light burning on a mountaintop. This light is the living, breathing, love of God who will leave the heights to bring light and hope to the darkest of places.

The shadows are darkening, and the road to Jerusalem beckons. The brilliance of this mountaintop transfiguration will shine into resurrection. But the days in between are dark, and I am afraid. I would not dare to walk this road alone. But I walk with all the faithful who have ever lived. Like Saint Patrick did when in danger, I will arise to walk the road, and I will bind unto myself the strength of God. I will dare to follow Jesus on this Lenten road…

[Note: A different part of Saint Patrick’s Breastplate will be the focus for each week of Lent. To read the full prayer, click Lent 2016:Saint Patrick’s Breastplate at the top of the page. Background information on the prayer and resources for further study can be found by clicking About Saint Patrick’s Breastplate.]

Epiphany2016, Meditation

Resolution: Stay Connected

I keep up with friends by phone, email, the occasional text, over coffee, and at the dinner table. Most of my friends and family keep in touch on phones, tablets, and computers – a few clicks and it’s done. What’s happening with the family, where everyone is meeting, and a review of the new local restaurant go to everyone as a group. Social media is an efficient way to communicate, and this month I’ll jump in – the last one in the information pool.

I’m not opposed to social media. I think it’s a great way to share information. But information isn’t connection. Pictures with captions and a few sentences about my friends’ latest adventures are life snapshots: better than nothing, but just a passing glimpse of who they are. To connect in a personal way, there has to be more. Social media can go both ways: lead to deeper connections or keep those deeper encounters away. Information instead of or for encounter, Oz hiding behind the digital curtain or Bastian Balthazar Bux moving through the words to save a world and reveal himself.

Deep encounter takes time. When I don’t take the time to move through pictures and blurbs on a screen to true connection, the best I can hope for is a passing familiarity with those I love. That’s the easy road, requiring little more from me than an occasional hello. But it doesn’t bring me to the home where they live. To get there is a different journey on a road that requires time, effort, and sacrifice to walk. To be at home with those I love is communion – the true purpose and destination of all communication. Social media puts me at the crossroads. I hope I choose the road that will make all the difference…

[Oz can be found in Baum’s The Wizard of Oz series; Bastian Balthazar Bux lives in Ende’s The Neverending Story.]

Biblical Reflection, Epiphany2016, Meditation

Resolution: Exercise

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nighttracksUnless I’m sick or the weather prevents it, I walk several times a week. My blood pressure and heart rate benefit from it, and it keeps me from gaining too much weight. Tidal bay waters are a quarter mile from my door, and the river is almost as close. Whichever direction I go, I can find these calm and rough waters, along with trees, birds, and squirrels in minutes. I can also find Tobey hospital, the library, and train tracks. It’s a pleasure to exercise by walking, so this is an easy resolution to keep. But is it possible to go home by another road? There isn’t really a way home that I haven’t already walked multiple times.

It’s an objective truth that I can never walk home the same way twice. The planet is in an different place, the weather changes, nearby houses are repaired or fall into ruin, and the neighbors I see today I may not see tomorrow. I no longer push a stroller or have a toddler holding my hand as I walk. Neighbors have come and gone, and the ones who remain grow older just as I do. Three of my relatives have died, two have been born, nine have graduated from high school, and two are now married. So much of my life’s reality has changed during these years that I’ve been walking from this door, from this home on this street in this town. I never return home the same way twice is my subjective truth because my home isn’t just the white house I live in – it’s the gracious, God-given life I live.

This year as I head out the door for my usual exercise, I’ll continue to enjoy what I see and hear. But I’ll keep in mind how the road that brings me home is different from the one I set out on. It’s not just my life story that’s lived out on these streets, it’s the holy life story of creation. I’m part of the great history of the universe, albeit a very small one. But even my small part, my dusty road, brings me to God-with-Us. So does yours.

 

Epiphany2016, Meditation

Resolution: Rest

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Rest is the space between notes that gives shape to melody and harmony. Without it, a song becomes unrecognizable. When a musician in the orchestra misses a rest, the entire symphony is lost until the rest is recovered. Pushing through won’t help; only a pause in playing can restore the musician’s place in the symphony. Rests are required for two or more to play together.

I think the same is true for my life. Pushing headlong at breakneck speed doesn’t improve my performance and it puts me at odds with everyone else. I can’t add anything meaningful without the pauses, and I certainly can’t play well with others if I’m too busy playing my own part at my own hectic pace.

I don’t think the point of life is to get to the end as quickly as possible, or jamming in as many notes as possible. It’s not how beautiful music is made, and it certainly isn’t how a beautiful life is created. If I want to sing a new song to the Lord, I have to honor the quiet spaces between the notes. Solo or as a single voice in the choir of all God’s creatures, it’s the rest that makes my life a song rather than a noisy cacophony.

Biblical Reflection, Epiphany2016, Meditation

Resolution: Get My Finances In Order

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...ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. Luke 2: 9b-12

I usually don’t spend a lot of time thinking about money, but recently I’ve been gathering tax forms, bank balances, mortgage payments, and retirement information as part of my son’s college application process. For the first time, I am looking at the Magi’s story in terms of money.

There is very little information about these visitors in scripture, not even how many came or where they were from. Traditions vary the number (3-12, with 3 the most common today) and where they called home (Persia, India, Yemen?). Were they kings or Zoroastrian priests? Astrologers/astronomers? No one knows, exactly, and traditions contradict one another. But whatever their names, whatever their number, wherever their homeland, these magi spent a considerable fortune to find the infant king. So much treasure just to kneel in the dirt in front of Jesus and Mary. What did they get in return? Only overwhelming joy and a chance to find God-with-Us in a poor house in a strange land.

I’m sure their finances would never be what they might have been had they just stayed home. I’m sure some of their neighbors thought they squandered their fortunes for nothing. But home in the biggest sense is where we find God, or God finds us. How much is it worth to be at home with God in an unknown town in a foreign land? Every penny they spent and more. Given the chance, I hope I manage my money just as wisely.

Epiphany2016, Meditation

Resolution: Watch My Weight

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This may not be the winter of my discontent, but it is the winter of my limited options for exercising. It’s also the season of bulky sweaters and filling meals. While I keep my weight within an acceptable range, January and February often find me at its top end rather than its middle or bottom. Eating slowly and mindfully will help, as will walking whenever the temperature is above single digits and the sidewalks passable. It’s nothing fancy or drastic, but it’s enough to fulfill a “watch my weight” resolution, in the usual sense of that word.

In the Epiphany sense, it’s my existential weight I need to watch. What I carry in my heart, mind, and soul that can cause damage. I can feast on anger or indulge in resentment until I get a soul or heart ache. Swallowing grief rather than letting it go will choke my spirit. So here is my plan:

I’ll do my best to keep my burdens to a minimum – grieving when I need to and letting go of hurts when it’s time.

I’ll see my work for what it is: a blessing, but not my life.

I won’t go it alone. There are so many wonderful companions on my life’s journey – family, friends, neighbors, strangers.

When it’s time to rest, I’ll rest – physically and spiritually.

I’ll trust that whatever weight I carry, if I offer it to God, God will take it. When God gives it back to me, it will be transformed into something that lightens my spirit.

Biblical Reflection, Epiphany2016

Resolution: Watch What I Eat

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On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. Luke 2:11-12

I’m not one for diets, and many of the ones promising quick weight loss are full ingredients I can’t eat, anyway. I enjoy cooking and have the time to make meals and snacks from scratch, so few prepackaged foods are in my cupboards. I read labels, support local farms, and do my best to buy meats and eggs raised humanely and organically. I do my best to avoid overeating. In the usual sense, I already watch what I eat.

But Epiphany is the season of going home by a different road – or watching what I eat as somehow related to my faith life. Food that sustains is more than proper sourcing and appropriate portioning. It’s a gift to have enough food, and a daily miracle when that food supports small farms that leave the earth enriched rather than depleted. It’s worth the higher price to know that the animals I consume didn’t live and die in dirty, cramped quarters. As my husband once said, isn’t the life of the turkey that provides my Christmas dinner worth much more than forty cents a pound?

This year, I’ll continue to do my usual shopping, cooking, and gardening. My family will say grace and waste as little food as possible. We will support Heifer International so others can do the same. But I’ll watch what I eat in a whole new way, too. I’ll eat slowly enough to savor my food and the company around the table. I’ll notice the colors and shapes on my plate. I’ll do my best to see the hand of God in each meal. I’ll watch what I eat because there’s grace in every bite.

Moving into God’s presence through words