I love the band The Flaming Lips, so I was excited this morning to hear their lead singer on NPR's series "This I Believe." His essay was pretty darn spiritual, no surprise to me, given their music. I hope you'll read it.
One of my best friends, Emily, describes her best sermon theme as "Wake up and Smell the Kingdom." As in, you are already having experiences of the kingdom of God-- take a look. I believe it. And that's kind of how I hear much of the Flaming Lips' music, and its in this essay too. That's how I understand the title of one their great songs "Do you Realize?" Here is the gist of his essay:
"I believe this is something all of us can do: try to be happy within the context of the life we’re actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for, or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe."
The theme of his essay struck me as particularly relevant as I prepare to go to South Africa in a week from today. He describes choosing not to pity some people he sees on the street in the cold. This is one of the great challenges about being a privileged, affluent person, who wants to work for justice: to acknowledge the suffering of the world without pitying those who suffer, and with the recognition of how the poor and all people who suffer often create happiness. It is my experience that the poor and suffering sometimes realize much better than me that the kingdom is right here for us to smell.
All of this is not to glorify poverty or suffering. We must still work to eradicate these things. Suffering does not make for spiritual enlightenment. We must work to end suffering with empathy, rather than pity. Pity creates a dynamic of power across which it is very difficult to have friendships. And working for justice requires friendships and partnerships so that people who experience injustice offer their own wisdom as part of the solution. It solves nothing for people of privilege to swoop in attempting solve the problems of the poor without mutual relationship. Empathy will allows us to feel both happiness and pain alongside people who experience the brokeness of the world more deeply. And out the relationships empathy creates, we will know better how to do God's work.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Do You Realize?
Friday, February 23, 2007
Dinner Divas doing good
Last night I hosted a little dinner party for my girlfriends in SF. I got the idea for this on the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation website. All the ladies brought cash, in the amount they might have paid for dinner that night, and I provided food and wine. We ended up with $125. Which we turned into a microlending loan through an organization called Kiva. We made part of the $600 dollar loan to a woman named Margret, who has a small food production and sales business in Kenya.
I really liked the part of the evening when we had to make our profile, and write why we give. It was doing theological reflection with people who mostly aren't Christian, and I was moved by their desire to do good, and their expressions of generosity and gratitude for the blessings they have received. You can see our profile here.
When our loan gets repaid, or sooner if someone gets the itch, we'll lend more. We've chosen to lend specifically to women. Maybe the youth groups would like to do this?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Connecting with the Earth as a Spiritual Practice
I have had the chance to hear Bishop Marc speak twice about how important it is for Christians to care for the Earth. The first time was at the ordination retreat in December, when the Bishop spoke at length about how newly ordained people ought to care for themselves with regular spiritual practice, including spiritual direction, prayer and retreat. These practices are standard recommendations that help ordained people stay spiritually healthy so we can offer spiritual care for others. But he added another practice to the normal list: spending time each month connecting with the earth. He recommended that each newly ordained person should spend time hiking, or being outside, with the specific intention to connect with the Earth.
So my friend Will and I tried it later in December. He is a new priest like me, the Director of the Sojourn Chaplaincy at SF General Hospital. We found it hard to make time for a drive to Marin or elsewhere for a remote hike. But one of the blessing of the Bay Area is there is practically a hike outside everyone's back door. So we met in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco and started walking up-- up the hills towards twin peaks and the space-age red and white radio tower. It was a beautiful sunny and crisp day. And the views across the bay were stunning as we climbed higher. We climbed some of those great SF stairways that take the place of sidewalks, and looked out over the bay. To Will and I, it seemed like an appropriate connection to make with the earth-- to look at the beautiful intersection of humanity and nature that is the urban views of the San Francisco Bay. There we stood and prayed together that we, and all people, would know how live in a way that honors and conserves God's creation.
The following month, the Seekers and all the youth from the Peninsula Deanery were invited to a gathering with +Marc, where he told the young people about the first time he saw a picture of the planet Earth from outerspace. He reminded the youth that until he was in Elementary school humans hadn't been so space, nor had we seen satellite images of the entire planet. He told the children that being able to see the whole earth gave him and others a global consciousness: that we all live here together, that it's a small world after all. The bishop described how seeing the earth in that way can be to us like seeing the face of a friend. We must consider ourselves to be in intimate and personal friendship with the planet-- and all our actions should be in keeping with that friendship.
I have tried to take these teachings to heart and I offer them to you so that you might consider your connection and care of our planet to be a spiritual discipline-- perhaps one you would like to recommit to this Lent. May we all learn how to live in peace and friendship with God's abundant creation.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Notes from Liberia
This Sunday is World Mission Sunday in the Episcopal Church, which has gotten me thinking about what mission means to me now.
I just turned in my final grades for the semester. Today I had to tell a student that she failed my class, despite the extra effort she has made to bring up her grade. With an F on her report card, her sponsor will most likely stop sponsoring her college education. She sat on my porch and cried. Another student came by to collect a book which I promised as a prize to the high grade in the class. He was so excited he was dancing around. He took the book and said he was going to be a veterinarian. That hadn't been his dream before taking my Animal Husbandry lab. I am so proud of the effort some of my students have made, and for the ones who tried and failed, my heart hurts for them.
The students learned something, and I learned a lot. I thought, when choosing this path, that being an agricultural missionary would somehow feel different than "normal life". That I would be constantly aware of God's presence in the world around me, that I would feel inspired and fulfilled. But one thing I have learned is that life is just life. There are good jobs and bad jobs, fulfillment, and searching, regardless of the continent you happen to be on. I am learning many lessons, not the lessons I expected, but I guess we rarely learn what we expect. I'm getting better at saying no. I'm getting more confident. I'm learning how to not be busy in the face of too many things to do. And most of all, I'm learning that God is Love. When I fail all day long, and feel discouraged and empty, I am refilled by the love of and for my friends. My friends have been the love of God to me, the real presence of that love, and I have felt Love growing in my own heart. Liberia is a difficult place. There are no ATMs or credit cards, no telephone lines, no public utilities. There is no Mexican food, or salad bar. Everywhere you look there is poverty and need. There are children who are dirty and naked and hungry. There is so much hardship, corruption, abuse, disease, and death. One in every five children, born alive, die before reaching the age of five. Infant and maternal mortality remains one of the highest in the world. Everyone suffers from the trauma the war inflicted on them. And yet there are bright colors, music, and laughter. Children play with hoops and balls, and build toys out of garbage."
I never set out to be a teacher, but I made it through the semester. The students learned something, and I learned a lot.
I thought, when choosing this path, that being an agricultural missionary would somehow feel different than "normal life". That I would be constantly aware of God's presence in the world around me, that I would feel inspired and fulfilled. But one thing I have learned is that life is just life. There are good jobs and bad jobs, fulfillment, and searching, regardless of the continent you happen to be on.
I am learning many lessons, not the lessons I expected, but I guess we rarely learn what we expect. I'm getting better at saying no. I'm getting more confident. I'm learning how to not be busy in the face of too many things to do. And most of all, I'm learning that God is Love. When I fail all day long, and feel discouraged and empty, I am refilled by the love of and for my friends. My friends have been the love of God to me, the real presence of that love, and I have felt Love growing in my own heart.
May the peace and fire of Love be with you,
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
No Altar, no roof
In Washington, congregants of Street Church, one of a number of outdoor ministries for homeless around the country, gather in prayer.
By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: February 6, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — Homeless off and on since 1991, Rickey Robinson figures he needs to get close to God as often as he can. So on an especially icy Tuesday afternoon, as on many Tuesday afternoons, he bundled himself in a long black coat and joined a small group gathered in a corner of Franklin Square Park, where they prayed, sang a hymn and recited the 23rd Psalm.
Street Church’s services are led by the Rev. Anne-Marie Jeffery.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” the men and few women standing in a circle said. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
Some men could not bring themselves to look up from the grass. Others could not stand still. Most are homeless. They sleep at a nearby shelter and spend the daytime, when the shelter is closed, looking for warmth and food. They are the parishioners of Street Church, an outdoor worship service held on Tuesdays by the Church of the Epiphany, a downtown Episcopal parish.
“This gives me strength to deal with things,” Mr. Robinson, 49, said of the service and the meal that follows it. “I think God is with me. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I could survive all this.”
While churches have long provided meals, occasional shelter and indoor worship services for the urban homeless, a small but growing number of congregations now recognize that many homeless people will not attend traditional services indoors. So these congregations now go outdoors to bring church to the homeless and anyone else who happens along.
“When you become homeless, you become very aware of how people treat you,” said the Rev. Anne-Marie Jeffery, who runs Street Church. “It’s hard to walk into a church, and it’s even harder when you are homeless because you’re worried about how you will be received, or if you smell bad. Some people never go inside at all, because they worry that they can lose all their stuff,” as in shopping carts that must be left outside, “or be sent to a mental hospital or to jail.”
Street Church began last February. Though Epiphany keeps its doors open during the day for everyone, and offers breakfast and an indoor service for the homeless on Sundays, the rector, the Rev. Randolph Charles, had wanted to expand into some type of outdoor worship, Ms. Jeffery said. So Mr. Charles met with the Rev. Deborah Little Wyman, another Episcopal priest, who started an outdoor worship mainly for the homeless in Boston 11 years ago and who wanted to find a church in Washington to begin a similar service.
Ms. Wyman, trying to introduce outdoor worship elsewhere as well, says she is working with churches and other groups, about half of them affiliated with the Episcopal Church, in 40 cities in the United States and abroad. Already some such worship is under way in cities including Asheville, N.C.; Atlanta; Cincinnati; Portland, Me.; and San Francisco.
“Our theology is to love and not try to fix them and just to be present where they are,” Ms. Wyman said of the outdoor congregants. “We’re not trying to sell any one theology or denomination.”
If people do ask for help, Street Church, like others that work with Ms. Wyman, refers them to social service agencies. In addition, an outreach worker attends the Sunday indoor breakfast at Epiphany.
A small homemade sign hanging from a shopping cart announces Street Church to people at Franklin Square Park, and volunteers hand out fliers alerting prospective congregants to the service. In the summer, Street Church has drawn 40 or so people, in winter about half that.
The worship service lasts 15 to 20 minutes. People line up for Communion (expect grape juice, not wine) and then lunch on two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each, along with chips, fruit and water. Office workers sometimes stop by. Street Church volunteers hand out bulletins as they would to congregants at a Sunday service, and stay afterward to eat and talk with whoever shows up.
All this is not without considerable effort. Epiphany must get permits from the city, find and train volunteers, and withstand problems among the homeless that may cause some of them to ask for money, or a stay at someone’s home, or a date, or whose mental illness leads them to threaten and swear. As for the homeless themselves, they must sometimes walk for miles to get to the service. They must brave the weather. They open themselves to strangers and to God.
Billy Ray was sitting out Communion on a park bench the other day. His legs hurt from walking across the city that morning to get to Street Church. He has a hardness to him, which he admits to, but he said he considered the service a blessing.
“I was way out of touch with the Savior,” Mr. Ray said, looking at the Communion line. “This here keeps me in touch. Otherwise I’d be thinking devilish thoughts, and this helps me stay positive.”
Thursday, February 01, 2007
After 25 years
To celebrate our 25th anniversary we traveled to Jamaica and among other activites we took a rain forest canopy tour - zipping from platform to platform hundreds of feet above rivers and lush forest.
It was amazing - a little scary, perfectly thrilling, a sense of not wanting to step off into the unknown, and trying to remember to appreciate the ride and to enjoy the scenary. Much like an enduring marriage, I would say.
The following is from a book called, Psalms for Zero Gravity.
