Resurrection Resource

Thinking more about my last posting, it occured to me to share where I learned the practice of gratitude and loving kindness. I listened to these tapes (now CDs) by Sharon Salzberg on Loving Kindness Meditation. Loving Kindess is a core practice in Buddhism, which we have tried in Junior Seekers (Middle School youth group at Epiphany) with much success.

I consider it to be a very orthodox Christian practice also-- sharing much with mystical traditions of contemplating God's love. Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross-- folks that meditated on Christ's life and ultimate acts of love. Through meditation on the love we experience in our lives-- from our loved ones and for them-- we gain insight and access into God's love. We find our love for all of humanity and all of creation, including those people difficult to love.

Our practical and particular experience of love in daily life, when we contemplate it, points to that love that is the source of all love, God, whom we call the giver of all good gifts. To be in touch with the source of all love and all good gifts is to choose to live resurrection and practice abundant life, in the knowlege that death will not win, even as we experience danger, loss, and death in our lives.

Resurrection Sighting

Last week, a dear friend of mine fell off of a swing-- just goofing around in San Francisco. He fell 30 feet and broke wrists, ribs, and banged his head very good. He is in his 30s, and after I got the call from the ER, I laid in bed, thinking about the possibility of my lively and young friend being brain dead. I moved in and out of tearfulness and helpfulness for the next 18 hours or so, trying to do something useful, until the next afternoon when I heard he would probably recover completely.

What happened that night when I couldn't sleep was one of two things- either I fearfully thought about everything there was to worry about-- his costs (he has no insurance), my anger at him, that he might die or be severely disabled. Or I chose to think about my gratitude for having this person in my life. I remembered funny moments with a clarion precision. I felt so thankful he had been able to present me to the bishop for ordination last month. I remembered his support of me as I was learning to be a minister in my former parish. I realized how much I truly love this guy. Isn't it always the traumas that make us aware of what we take for granted? And I felt completely enveloped and comforted by my love and gratitude for this friend. I felt deeply that no matter what happened, that abundant love would prevail. Then I would forget and worry again.

As I described this sensation that love would prevail, my wise friend Steve said to me the next day, "Isn't that what it means to believe in resurrection?" That in moments of death, on some level we know there is also abundant life in God-- life and love bigger than me and my friend, bigger than my grief and fear.

So with this story, I apoligize for neglecting the blog. I can report the good news that my friend-- although he is stubborn about accepting how badly injured he is, and although he has not realized what a scare he gave those of us who love him, will recover fully. I look forward to him being well enough to fuss at-- although I have to say, one thing I realized I love about my friend is that he is playful enough to get on that swing in the first place. And I am playful enough to give him a stuffed monkey to remind him who should be swinging on vines, and who shouldn't.

Amber

Dementors

I had an email from a woman this week who told me she had quit her job because it had become a "soul sucking experience". She was willing to give up a high paying career she had worked many years to build in order to go to nursing school.
I was so struck by her choice of words. In fact I could have used that very same vocabulary about my own former career as an interior designer - yes, that is what I did for 17 years before I went to seminary to become an Episcopal priest. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with interior design nor with those who find satisfaction in pursing it. My sense of having my soul sucked out was more to do with the fact that God was calling me to do something else - take the big pillow that covered my ears with so I would not hear God calling - and probably little to do with interior design itself.
Just as an aside: I do think the seemingly endless shows on HGTV and other channels are giving people an overly-glamorous idea of what working in the industry is all about. There are precious few clients who have 10's of thousands to spend on a home maker-over and those who do come up with the bucks get cranky when there are discontinued fabrics and backorders up the wazoo.
I finally went to semainry in 1998 and in spite of the fact that we lived on hotdogs and beans for 3 years on one income, I felt like I was finally indulging my passion. No more soul sucking.
A few years back I took a road trip with my daughter, Emily, and her cousin, Lindsay. I got a book-on-tape for the 9 hour+ trip. The book was "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". The prisoners are guarded by a group called the Dementors. Their particular method of garnering obedience and implementing torture is to suck the souls from their captives.
The girls feel asleep in the backseat while I drove transfixed on the story. The theological implications seemed plain enough at the time. I could recall real physical terror at the thought of being alive but souless - which was the particularly demented nature of the terror for the Azkaban prisoners.
I suppose we're all prisoners at one time or another to something we feel we have to do but hate doing.
I am curious about your experiences with this.
Gail+

Next week I will make a quick trip to Oregon to help my parents move from their home in Sisters, Oregon (Central Oregon, over the Cascades) into the city of Portland. Their move is from a
single-family dwelling to a senior community where my father, who has mild dementia, can receive more "memory support" services. And my mother will get some caregiver support so she can resume some of her involvement in the church and the community.

I grew up in the Portland area. It is more efficient to have my parents in Portland because when I travel to see them I can also visit my sister and borther and their families. I have many friends who reside in Portland. It's all good - right? Well, I find myself with mixed feelings about this transition for my parents.

On the one hand, I am very glad that mom and dad will both have more support - medical, physical - and family than they could ever have in the rural community they have resided in since retirement some 25 years ago.

On the other hand, I recognize that this is the end of an era - a time when the extended family had a place to gather. Weird - I actually never lived in the home they are giving up. But I have moved or been transferred many times in the last 25 years and my parents home became that enclave of constancy and sureity that some things would not change or move on. Now that is coming to a close.

My family and I seem to have been existing on a steady diet of transitions. Our elder daughter graduated from college this year. My husband, Jim, and I are empty-nesters except when our other daughter, Emily, makes a trip home between semesters.

Change and transition have become spiritually challenging for me as I know they have been for many of you. Sometimes the speed with which things come at me takes my breath away and I feel exhausted. I have a hard time accessing any sense of joy or any sense of calm. Even meditative reflection on what is happening to me seems beyond my capacity at times. What to do?

I don't have too many answers. What I do know is that God didn't promise me a changeless existence. God promsied me that only God's love for me would be changleless. It's a place to begin.
I will update my spiritual progress after my trip to Sisters.
Gail+

We're live!

Well, it was a little unexpected to have this incipient blog project preached about today-- but as Gail says, announcing this thing will keep us honest, and writing. I thought we'd take a while to get the kinks out. And now the panic starts to set in...will I be able to keep seeing the world through sacramental eyes enough to have something to share? Will I be able to notice God in the tiniest of moments and profane things?

The panic is familiar-- I have already felt it today. Ah yes, during the 10 am church service, when I realized my microphone had been on for a long time... I wondered which whisperings had been amplified to the congregation-- like the one where, in the sacristy, I worried that I had given a too-large peice of communion bread to an elderly woman.

But as I think now I easily recall watching her frail, and a little clumsy, dip a big piece of pita into a cup of wine and then slurp it into her mouth without drips down her white blouse. The potential for mess, the real-food-ness, the "it's hard to swallow" character of this eucharistic moments stunns me. The beauty of this woman eating this bread and wine, opening herself up to this Jesus-in-the-world moment and all the difficulties it may bring. Maybe if having communion were that difficult, that potentially messy and complicated for all of us, we'd connect more with what it is about--

Ah, I bet you wish I would tell you what it's about, but I'd rather hear your ideas about that! I think is has something to do with this blog, and Gail's sermon about it (soon to be posted online). It has something to do with sharing the good news of God's love with others and being open to the growth and change that are inevitable if we really open ourselves up to those others, like Jesus who lives inside us-- because we put him there when we eat that bread and wine. And it has something to do with lots of other things, which I hope you will share as comments, if they occur to you as you read this!

Amber

Demons and new frontiers

Sometimes I get really great questions, like the one a young man asked me recently; “Do you think demons belong only to the biblical world or do you think they’re with us today?”

I said, ‘Well, that’s really an important question because I want to believe that all of what Jesus taught us is still valuable to us even if our understanding of the world has changed since Jesus’ day".

The short answer is: "yes, I believe demons are with us today”.

He thought about that for a while and then said, ‘How do you know?’

I said, ‘Because in spite of the work of doctors and psychiatrists and advances in medications, any honest practitioner will tell you that every once in awhile there is something so deep in a person they cannot touch it.
I think that’s my definition of a demon; something that wounds so deeply that all of our human efforts seem to be unable to reach it. But the power that God invested in Jesus was something that allowed him to hear and see and touch the thing that was so deep and so hurtful”.

My young friend said, ‘How can we get that touch today?”

“I think that's why we’re here, in community with one another. I think we invite people to come and to pray with us and for us.
We lay our prayers, sometimes even our hands on someone who is hurting.

And without really understanding what is happening we watch something deep respond to the touch. When we are open, God has the opportunity to touch them”.

You know, the frontiers of being disciples are changing.

I like to imagine myself as rather like my great-grandparents of a century, bringing their family across the plains in a covered wagon to the outposts of Eastern Oregon seeking a new life.
Maybe cyber-space is our new frontier; we’re pioneers reaching new life on the internet, reaching out and touching something deep in a mysterious way.
Cyber-space will probably remain mysterious to me but I can still be a pioneer.
Gail+

At Coventry Cathedral

In May, my family and I traveled to England, a trip in celebration of our eldest daughter's college graduation. Several people have asked me what was the most memorable part of my trip. There were many but a stand-out was Coventry Cathedral. It wasn't even a planned stop - we had a couple of extra hours and we out tootling around the English countryside when we saw the mileage markers for Coventry. Let me just say that by the time you have conquered your fear of driving on the "wrong" side of the road while handling a steering wheel on the "wrong" side of the car, managed to maneuver (somewhat gracefully) the various round-abouts that propel your car in one direction or another and then find yourself actually going in the general direction you wanted to go, you keep going!
So around dusk we found ourselves in Coventry following the signage to the medieval cathedral. World War II history buffs will recall that this cathedral was bombed by the Germans in 1941. It was virtually destroyed. What remains today is the shell of the building, a lacy fretwork of gothic windows with bits of stained-glass clinging tenaciously to the frames, the stone floor essentially intact, walls and half walls, and no roof.
When we arrived we were prevented from entering; there had been a fragment of stained glass fall (after 60+ years) and they were also attempting to set-up for a concert the next day. The woman who was about to send us on our way must have seen the disappointment in my face because she relented and let us come in. We had the place to ourselves.
As I mentioned, it was near dusk. It had been a cool, overcast day but as we begin to wander around a little bit of weak sunlight began to come through the grayness. Something about the light, the silence, the profound sense of sadness began to also permeate my senses. Tears began to roll down my face and I walked away from my daughters hoping they would see how upset I had become.
Before long I found myself before what had been the High Altar. Clearly, the original altar had been destroyed but somone has put another in its place. You can see the picture below. It reads, "Father, forgive". Above this altar are the charred remains of beams that fell in an angular Cross-like pattern. "Father forgive". These are the words Jesus speaks from the Cross. But he also says, " .... them ...."; "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do". And at Coventry there was no "them".
In the course of that war, and all wars, beautiful cities and beautiful cathedrals on both sides were and are destroyed. Both sides stand in need of God's forgiveness. Us and them. We have been both, the victims and perpetrators. Forgive, Father.
Gail+

All the hairs on this fuzzy flower

If you are the person that takes time to smell the roses, then maybe you have noticed these little beauties next to Church of the Epiphany in the Spring, on the Cedar side. They remind me of a sermon I preached in the fall-- that not only has God counted lovingly all the hairs on every single human beings' head-- but also adores every other fuzzy minutia of creation. When I am prayerful and attentive sometimes I can feel that kind of love in my life, and sometimes I can can even feel it for other creatures!

That is the point of this blog to me-- the effort to notice and share how God is breaking into our everyday lives all the time. And often in rather unexpected places. I am more likely to discover God's presence not in the reverence of worship, but in mundane moments of holiness. The holiness of moments like at Workcamp last week with the youthgroup, when we watched that guy clean out the exploded toilet. Some folks were disgusted, but I couldn't stop laughing. One more reminder that creation, in all its messiness, is ultimately good and beloved. Jesus pooped too, right? Isn't that what incarnation is about.

Amber