So i've been thinking...

So I've been thinking - a lot - over the past few days about ministry and my particular calling at this moment in time.  Doing three celebrations on Christmas Eve - and having my family here - helped put some things into perspective.  It always does my heart and soul good when I can simply rest in the music and liturgy and just be present with the people - and my family - and that happened over Christmas.

+ For example, between 4 and 11 pm about 275 people came into our Sanctuary for worship. All types of people - young and old, believers and those with more questions than clarity, Buddhists, Jews, tons of lapsed Catholics as well as the raggle-taggle faithful of our current renewing congregation.  Everyone came to the table when I offered the invitation (well, nearly everyone) because in addition to the quiet and the candles, the prayers and the carols, breaking bread together and sharing the common cup was a way of being part of a community of deep faith on this strange and mystical night.  Our differences were real - and obvious  and they won't easily evaporate or change- but they were far less important to all of us on Christmas Eve than God's embrace, so everyone came came to the table in grace.  That's a clue for me - it has been a hunch about this ministry since I celebrated my brother and sister-in-law's wedding in secular San Francisco nearly 20 years ago.  Even people who hate the church (and sometimes that includes me) ache to be a part of something profound, compassionate, real and rooted in the mysterious rhythms of creation. (Check out this from the NY Times @ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/opinion/a-prayer-at-christmas.html)

+ The whole night - the childrens' unrehearsed pageant as well as the post-modern lessons and carols worship (a la Brian Wren) with jazz and the candle light Eucharist - was bathed in gentleness.  Everything was informal but tender - and in a time like this tenderness speaks volumes about God's grace.  After the massacre in Sandy Hook I sense this to be a kairos moment for peace-making of the deepest kind.  Yes, many of us will rally to get some meaningful - and strict - gun control because no matter what anybody says when you limit access to semi-automatic weapons and an abundance of ammunition, the slaughter and mayhem goes down. 

But beyond that, this is also a time to start a deeper conversation about how do we rebuild the common good in the US.  Just looking out for number one is not enough and more and more people of every political hue is starting to sense the pathological side of our rugged American individualism.  I sense, therefore, that this year is the one God has asked us to embrace after waiting and watching and aching through the silence. And it will have to be done gently, playfully, carefully and oh so tenderly given both the wounds and brittleness of so many of our people...

Jim Wallis of the Sojourner's Community recently wrote: This quote dates back to the fourth century: This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good … for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for neighbors. (John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407) People long for a vision of the common good that includes us all. That is what our work is all about: an understanding that young people, women, immigrants, and people of color are not special interest groups. The common good means all are vital members of God’s beloved community.

+ Families - in all their varieties - are going to be essential to advancing the common good, too.  Not the NRA, not Move-On.com, not the Republicans, Tea Party or the Democrats but families:  young, old, same sex, traditional, wounded, whole and real.  Artists are going to be helpers, too in ways our utilitarian and pragmatic old world never imagined.  In what may be the best book about jazz ever, But Beautiful by Geoff Dyer, the author notes that "jazz has always had this thing..."

... having your own sound so all sorts of people who maybe couldn't have made it in other arts - they'd had their idiosyncrasies ironed out - like if they were writers they'd not've made it 'cause they couldn't spell or punctuare or painting 'cause they couldn't draw a straight line. Spelling and straight-line stuff don't matter necessarily in jazz, so there's a whole bunch of guys whose stories and thoughts are not like anyone else's who wouldn't've had a chance to express all the ideas and shit they had inside them without jazz (that's the key line, yes?)  Cats who in any other walk of life wouldn't've made it as bankers or plumbers even: in jazz they could be geniuses, without it they'd've been nothing.  Jazz can see things, draw things out of people that painting or writing (or dare I add business, politics and religion) don't see. (p. 42)

So I've been thinking that joy and grace - tears and families - the arts and a deep ecumenism that cuts beyond all the bullshit so that we can embrace the common good and compassion is what the next year is what next year is all about, yes?  I'm going to get some rest over the next few days - and use my new snow shoes, too (a storm is a'coming) and I'll get back to you son - because something is starting to break open.