Saying yes and saying no...

About 10 years ago I started to reread and rethink the work of Dorothy Bass et al concerning "spiritual practices" that help us live into our faith.  (for more information go to: http://www.practicingourfaith.org/) For a small congregation, Christine Pohl, suggests four practices that resonate with my heart and experience:

+ Expressing gratitude:  In worship and acts of service, in our private prayers and public commitments, gratitude guides our words, thoughts and deeds rather than complaint or obligation. What a huge difference this makes for both pastor and congregation. It is so easy to carp and whine about all that is not working - or not working well enough.  So I have taken to challenging my own inclination to piss and moan and those of my church leaders, too as a spiritual practice. 

Pohl puts it like this:

Small changes in practice can shift the culture of a community. One pastor I met decided to devote a major portion of a church's annual meeting to thanking everyone who had made a contribution to congregational life... Every meeting should have "far more positive affirmation than negative confrontation' and should include talk about how we see God working in one another.  As Jean Vanier observes: "Celebration is a sign of the resurrection which gives us strength to carry the cross each day."

And little by little we are growing together in love and acceptance.  What's more, those who can't seem to grasp the invitation of Christ in expressions of gratitude are finding themselves isolated and disempowered.  Nothing holds back a congregation from becoming its best self like a mean-spirit and gratitude gives us a way of moving towards the Spirit better than anything else.

+ Keeping promises:  Sometimes it seems as if the wider church has been mortally wounded by breaking faith and betraying fidelity.  No wonder trust in the Church is at an all time low throughout the Western world.  That means, I think, that we on the local level must own this abuse and find small, gentle and effective ways of rebuilding trust.  It will take generations, of course, but it can be done.  "Betrayal is devastating to our trust and sense of justice - and sometimes to our faith."

So we can, for example, manage our shared monies in a transparent way.  We can take appropriate and compassionate steps when leaders violate their vows.  We can hold clergy and laity accountable for their commitments.  We can refuse to shoot our wounded when we fail.  And we must stand up to congregational bullies of all varieties so that the local church is experienced as a safe and open place of refuge and hope.  

+Living truthfully:  This is one of the hardest practices to put into action because sometimes we don't always know what is true.  And sometimes being truthful in love causes people to leave the community.  I bumped up against this again this summer as we are working at finding new ways to strengthen Christian formation in our congregation. 

For the next three years we are going to resource parents and families so that they act as partners in the "domestic Church of Jesus Christ" and support and strengthen what takes place on Sunday morning.  This will mean that every week we prepare written resources for use in the home, include children in worship more than segregated Sunday School classrooms and expect parents to pray regularly at home with their children.  One of our new basic goals is to encourage families to eat at least one meal together each week and use some of our resources for a family discussion. 

Most parents are excited albeit apprehensive given their demanding and often over-extended schedules.  But some find themselves resistant because, of course, choices are going to have to be made.  Saying yes and saying no will have to be practiced.  And in a consumer culture driven by unbridled desires, I suspect we'll lose a few families.  That will be sad - and some leaders who are great bean-counters will complain - but not everyone who cries, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of God, yes?  In an era of making hard choices, living truthfully into Christ's grace is an essential spiritual practice.

+ Offering hospitality:  And I mean radical hospitality.  When I first started speaking of this practice some people thought that it meant "anything goes..." or that the leadership of the congregation should live like "a quivering mass of availability" (to paraphrase Hauerwas.)  But radical hospitality is NOT about being used up, but by welcoming and nourishing those who are wounded, forgotten and neglected.  Mostly I find that it is more about finding time to listen everyday or bring rest to one who is overwhelmed.

Often the best gift we can give another person is our time and attention. People come to life when they and their offerings are valued. This means that communities and the folk within them must be willing to receive.  Only as we recognize our own vulnerabilities and incompleteness are we open to what others can contribute.

Radical hospitality, of course, has led us to become and Open and Affirming congregation within the United Church of Christ.  But it has also called us to simply open the doors of the Sanctuary every noon and offer anyone a chance a chance to rest in the beauty of Christ's presence without qualification.  It has meant that our meetings and church dinners have moved from being stuffy to hyper-family friendly - same, too with refreshments after worship and even worship itself.  Radical hospitality has taken us into cleaning up the river, welcoming into worship musicians of all stripes and varieties and styles and  has even come to mean that our staff lives and acts as ambassadors of grace rather than just church professionals - our leadership teams have been invited do this, too.

Even when our theology hasn't caught up to our image of God, and that happens from time to time, we are committed to erring on the side of grace and gratitude. Pohl concludes with words that are both being made flesh in our ministry while constantly challenging us to go deeper:

When we offer welcome or live with gratitude, when we make and keep promises or live truthfully, we are responding to the practices of God. Our experiences of community grow out of the practices through which we echo the goodness, grace and truth we find in Jesus. We are not called to create ideal families, communities or congregations. Building faithful communities of truth and hospitality, however, is at the heart of our grateful response to the one who "became flesh and lived among us... full of grace and truth."

Living into the truth...

Over the past few months I have quoted extensively from M. Craig Barnes in his book, The Pastor as Minor Poet, and today I will do so again.  You see, I've been thinking a lot about the role of the pastor during his/her own times of grieving.  Barnes is explicit in observing that while a wound that is healed creates gravitas - that gravity of soul that "is strangely attractive to a society that has tried too long to lack nothing" -  nobody in a congregation is interested in our open sores.  As I reflect on 30+ years of ministry, I must sadly confess that I have known times when I was not only unaware of my open wounds, but acted out from within them before they had healed.

I have also been blessed, however, by one of the most mysterious truths of grace: sometimes churches can embrace their pastor when we are at our worst and offer us a measure of forgiveness and acceptance as well as a loving kick in the ass towards healing, too. So let me say out loud that for all the bad raps churches are taking today, they are often the true body of Christ, too.  Especially when faithful, humble and time-tested leaders are at the helm.  They know, as Barnes puts it, that "God alone is whole and complete, lacking in nothing."

So it only makes sense that those who have devoted their lives to talking about God would have at least a small matter that is missing, imperfect or habitually humbling... (Wise leaders know that ) these flaws uncover layers of character. Nobody wants a perfect pastor. Those who sit in the pews may try to turn the pulpit into a pedestal, but that is only a projection of their own flawed aspirations to rise above their creaturely limitations... what parishioners really want is a pastor who knows what it means to struggle against temptation and despair, like they do. 

They want to be led by someone who has also stayed up all night fretting over choices, regrets and fear, but who then found the quiet grace to start over the next morning.  They want to see the Gospel incarnated in a human life that is still far from complete but has become more interesting because the human drama in now sacred.  In other words, they want a pastor who knows what it means to be them, but them in communion with God.  Innocence is precious, but it's the glimpses of redemption that truly compel.

Lord, may that be so for me as I seek to serve these gracious, wise, flawed and loving souls in our small New England town.  We share a quiet and reserved affection and respect - love - and they have embraced me in my recent grief.  Together we have said, "remember: we do not grieve and sorrow as those with no hope."  And I believe that in my core even when I wonder how that is at work in my sister's death.  We have also said:  now we see as through a glass darkly... Like the hymn says:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

So many people have said to me in their quiet ways that they wish they could take away some of the sting of this pain. Thankfully, they are deep and wise enough to also say that they know this is not possible.  So their embrace and prayers become food for the journey of living into the truth of this day.  Alleluia.

On my sister's death...

After being forced to take a break from our journey home because of Jersey Shore traffic, we arrived back in the Berkshires safe and sound on Monday. And during an ordinary, evening meeting at church, I received a call on my cell phone from my brother saying that Beth had finally let go and died quietly.  I am grateful that for Beth all suffering and sorrow are over. As our thanksgiving for a life liturgy puts it:

We thank you, Lord, for all that she was to those who loved her. We thank you that for Beth all sickness and sorrow are ended and death itself is past for she has entered the home where all your people gather together in peace. Keep us, we pray, in communion with your faithful people in every time and place, that at last we too may rejoice together in the heavenly family with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Amen.

Truth be told, Beth had a wounded and trying life - especially these past 20 years. There is much I might say about fear, addictions, denial and so much more but that would probably do more harm than good. Suffice it to say, from my perspective much of Beth's agony was self inflicted. She is, sadly, not unique in this and I grieve not only for her death but also for the truly horrible choices she made so often in her all too short life.

Some, no doubt, will be shocked that I even offer this much so soon after her death. But for the past 10 years Beth and I had been at odds because of her self-destructive choices. It didn't change our love for one another, but it did make it more complicated as those who have been down this road know all too well.  In so many ways, it was Beth who impelled me to pray the words of the Serenity Prayer and trust them.

On one of the nights that I sat in vigil before her death, I reread these words from Frederick Buechner about the tears Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus - and they struck me as true for my sister and myself.

Jesus wept. It is very east to sentimentalize the scene and very tempting because to sentimentalize something is to look only at the emotion in it and at the emotion it stirs in us rather than the reality of it, which we are always tempted not to look at because reality, truth, silence are all what we are not much good at and avoid when we can. To sentimentalize something is to savor rather than to suffer the sadness of it, it is to sigh over the prettiness of it rather than tremble at the beauty of it, which may make fearsome demands of us or pose fearsome threats.

Not just as preachers but as Christians in general we are particularly given to sentimentalizing our faith as much of Christian art and Christian preaching bear witness - the sermon as tearjerker, the Gospel an urn of long-stemmed roses and baby's breath to brighten up the front of the church, Jesus as Gregory Peck (or in our era let's say Brad Pitt.)

But standing beside the dead body of his dead friend he is not Gregory Peck (or Brad Pitt or even George Clooney.) He has no form or comeliness about him that we should desire him, and as one from whom men and women hide their faces, we turn from him. To see a man weep is not a comely sight, especially this man whom we want to be stronger and braver than a man, and the impulse is to turn from him as we turn from anybody who weeps because the sigh of real tears, painful and disfiguring, forces us to look to their source where we do not choose to look because where his tears come from, our tears also come from...

My deepest grief for Beth, you see, has to do with all the different ways she chose to nourish her fears and wounds rather than be open to the possibilities of life. I don't pretend to understand this process, but it breaks my heart because Beth was so full of life and joy as a child and young woman. Her smile was infectious and her love profound. In San Francisco she helped us take care of Jesse when she was a baby. She joined us and worked for the Farm Workers movement in DC. She cared for many small children and taught them love, manners and integrity in her prime. And then little by little at first, and then in torrents later, she gave up on hope. She quit trying to get better. She didn't go to a doctor so her illnesses just grew worse. She gave in to despair and pain until she was cynical and mean-spirited and defeated. And finally when her body shriveled and withered and simply shut down, it was just ugly and tragic with no possibility for sentimentalizing for any of us.

Fr. Ed Hays once wrote that when we hear about a death we should pause in the presence of the Angel of Death and give thanks to God for yet another invitation to live whatever life remains for us fully, passionately, creatively and with grace. Beth died a hard death that bore witness to her very hard life. I give thanks to God that her sorrow is over now and pray that those who remain might live into this prayer from the liturgy:

O God, whose days are without end and whose mercies cannot be counted:
awaken us to the shortness and uncertainty of human life. By your Holy Spirit, lead us in faithfulfness all our days. And when we have served you in our generation, may we be gathered with those who have gone before, having the testimony of a good conscience, in the communion of your holy church, in the confidence of a certain faith, in the comfort of a saving hope, in favor with you, our God, and at perfect peace with the world; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen.

Some times there are no happy endings, yes? Sometimes all that remains is sadness and relief that for everyone the suffering is over, too. And sometimes we are challenged to choose to wait for the light in the darkness... 

Please do NOT waste your time...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, August 19, 2012.  They are shaped by the recent death of my sister, the Lectionary texts for this week and the wisdom of M. Craig Barnes in The Pastor as Minor Prophet.

Introduction

As many of you know, I spent the better part of last week attending to my sister and family as we gathered for her eventual death.  Whenever possible it is our practice to gather with our dying loved ones and share our commitment by being present for one another in whatever way is needed in those final days. Not only does this bind us closer together in this life, but it joins the living with the dead in the next, too.  In fact, being present together in death allows us all to share a small portion of the mystery of God’s grace that is poured out whenever the dying cross over from life into life everlasting. 

It is a sacred albeit sometimes agonizing privilege – and thanks be to God that most of my family was able to share this blessing with my sister Beth in her hard but love-filled crossing over.  Like St. Paul said, “We do not sorrow as those who have no hope… for we believe that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We trust by faith that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and we know that everything works for good with those who love the Lord.  That is why we are certain that neither death nor life, angels nor principalities, things present nor things to come, powers, height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now each night when our watching and waiting for that day was over – or deep into the night when we took shifts sitting with Beth – I found myself thinking of Paul’s words as I read and re-read these words from a book about the work of the pastor by M. Craig Barnes.  He writes:  “As a pastor I have watched too many of my parishioners use up most of their fleeting years making choices that really don’t matter."

·    Do you hear the prophetic word of the Lord in that terse observation?  I have watched too many of my loved ones use up and waste most of their fleeting years making choices that don’t really matter.  Ouch!

·    Imagine my surprise, too, when I got home and looked at the appointed readings for today only to discover these words in Ephesians 5: 

Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It's a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see. Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ. Wake up from your sleep, climb out of your coffins; Christ will show you the light! So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times! Don't live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.

So let me share with you a few thoughts today about what it means NOT to waste our fleeting years on useless work or the barren pursuits of darkness.  You see, it is my conviction that when an idea keeps resurfacing in your life, showing up over and over, that is one of the ways God’s still speaking voice comes to us.  And we ignore these words at our own expense.  Specifically, let me try to share with you two broad insights today:

·    First, what is at the core of Christ’s controversial teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood?  In John’s gospel these are simultaneously fighting words and words of refreshment – sounds of challenge and solace – both paradoxically presented in the proposition that those who abide in Christ Jesus will be nourished forever in this life and dwell forever in God’s peace in life beyond death. 

·     And second, what I sense this means for us at First Church when it comes to our ministry of Christian Formation.  For when Jesus told the crowd NOT to waste their time just eating perishable food, but rather to feast on his Living Bread come down from heaven, he wasn’t kidding.  This was an invitation to live beyond the obvious, to go beyond the lowest common denominator, to commitment to a life greater than popular culture – and everybody needs helping doing this – because we don’t get it automatically.

Insights

The over-arching truth that John’s gospel teaches us is this:  unless we abide in the Lord, unless we are grounded in Christ Jesus, unless our deepest identity is born of God’s grace so that we know and experience ourselves as the Lord’s beloved:  our lives will be wasted.  We will run around looking for love in all the wrong places.

·    We will buy into the addictive obsessions of our consumer culture that lures us into purchase after purchase in pursuit of happiness.

·    We will work ourselves into exhaustion – and then the grave – thinking that what we do in our public and professional lives is the solution to our inner emptiness. 

·    Or “we will cling not to our dreams but to the hurts of yesterday – as if they could improve the past by holding it so tightly” – only to discover that at life’s end we’ve grown into mean-spirited, cynical and self-absorbed cranks who have pushed both people and God away.

The gospel of John, however, offers us an alternative:  we do not have to live as empty, obsessed, afraid, addicted, hungry, mean-spirited and exhausted human beings.  That is neither God’s will for us now nor is it God’s plan for our eternity.  No, we can be filled with the living bread come down from heaven so that our lives right now have meaning and depth and integrity – and our existence in life beyond death can be filled with grace – If we abide in the Lord.

You see, John’s gospel is one long midrash on the Old Testament:  he begins with the truths of the Old Testament stories and then creatively shows how Jesus sometimes affirms them but also sometimes offers an alternative, too.  Within the Jewish tradition a “midrash is a way of interpreting biblical stories that goes beyond the simple distillation of religious, legal or moral teachings.  It fills in many gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at” in the text and seeks to find practical ways of living the faith.

·    So, for example, the Old Testament begins with the story of origins in Genesis, right?  And it tells us that “in the beginning, God created…” all things out of nothing: ex nihilo.  That means that everything that has ever been created owes its existence to God.  We come into being – and have an identity – because of God.   

·    It also means that when we seek to claim or create an identity beyond or without God, there is not a different identity waiting to be discovered, there is only emptiness.  A void… a hunger and longing for without God at the core of our identity, we return to nothingness.

John’s gospel affirms that spiritual insight but also goes on to do something else, too, do you recall?  Once again the story begins, “In the beginning God created…”

·    Only now John adds some interpretation telling us that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Christians speak of Jesus as the Word so John wants us to know that from the very start of God’s creation the essence of Jesus Christ was at work, too.

·    That’s why he goes on to say that:  “All things came into being through him, and without him was not one thing that came into being.”  Then he wraps it up saying: In Christ, “what has come into being… was life, and this life was the light of all people… that shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Are you with me?  Do you have a sense how John was creatively playing with his Old Testament roots and insights?  Well, the same thing is happening in today’s lesson, too – but now John is playing with the story of Moses and the manna that God rains down from heaven to feed the frightened and complaining people.  Do you know that story?  It comes from Exodus 16 and describes a time when Moses and those who had fled the slavery and oppression of Egypt were wandering in the desert wilderness searching for God’s promised new home. 

·    The people were hungry – and as people are want to do when they get hungry – they were complaining – murmuring is the Biblical word:  grousing and carping about being uncomfortable and afraid and empty. 

·    So what happens?  Moses prays to the Lord, God promises bread from heaven and manna fell each morning with the dew.  Literally manna means “what is it?” So this story speaks to us of God’s daily gift every morning of a mysterious, honey-like bread from heaven offered in grace for the nourishment of God’s people.

Well, John builds on this Moses/manna foundation but offers an alternative, too.  Notice that in John’s story the people are still complaining – murmuring, carping and kvetching – for this seems to be the human condition when we are not grounded in God’s identity.  Whenever we live in a way that is disconnected from God’s grace, not only do we wind up hungry – or empty, anxious and dissatisfied – but our discomfort leads to complaining.

·    So first Jesus feeds the multitudes – fills their physical hunger with bread and fish – and then goes on to talk about a deeper hunger that can only be satisfied with living bread: Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last. 

·    And when the people ask Jesus about where to get this food that will not perish, he tells them that HE is that food – I am the Living Bread come down from heaven and made flesh and blood – so if you want to stay filled you will eat my flesh and drink my blood: The real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread. The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world." They jumped at that: "Master, give us this bread, now and forever!" Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life…

Do you see the connections John is making between the Old Testament story of Moses and the manna and the New Testament ministry of Jesus?  And let’s unpack something important in these words because if we just hear the literal sounds and not the symbolic truth of what Jesus is saying, it is horrible and cannibalistic and incomprehensible, right? 

·    You see, when Jesus talks about being the bread of life he does NOT mean he has become a loaf of bread, ok?  Rather, he is saying that without an identity grounded in God we will feel empty – hungry – without shape or purpose in the void of life – much like time in the beginning before God created.  He’s speaking to our longings and fears, our anxieties and hungers. 

·    So he goes on to say that the only way this longing and hunger will be ever satisfied is by eating his flesh and drinking his blood.  But remember:  Jesus is NOT being literal here either, ok?  This is a rhetorical tool for talking about his whole being – the totality of Jesus – his life, death and resurrection.  His teaching, his spirit and his purpose for coming down from heaven.  His totality, in other words, equals his body and blood. 

·    Am I communicating here?  Is this clear? 

You see, to eat flesh that still has blood in it is an abomination in Judaism – it is against the Law – so clearly by choosing these words Jesus meant to challenge his people into thinking and living more deeply and faithfully. 

That is to say, Jesus was teaching his beloved that if they want to be filled and nourished by the true bread come down from heaven, they would have to take the totality of him into their very bodies and hearts and lives.  The way they lived and thought and acted would have to be nourished by a radical trust in Christ Jesus as God’s bread come down from heaven.  Consequently the Apostle Paul said:  don’t waste yourself and your time making decisions about life that don’t matter.  Be fed and be nourished on Christ Jesus and you will have the best food of all.

Conclusion

And this brings me to why I think all of this matters so much to us at First Church at this moment in our ministry and life together.  We live in a time when almost nobody really believes and trusts in God – and I am not talking about what we say together on Sunday morning or what is printed on our money – but how we live.  For the most part, most of us are functional agnostics with a profound inclination towards superstition. 

Just consider how it is we pass our faith on to our children:  we teach them that they can be whatever they want to be – we help them get good opportunities for school and sports and music – and trust that they will know what to do with all of these options.  But the truth of the matter is that they won’t – and don’t – know what to do with all these options because unless they have learned to experience in their core that they are God’s beloved – unless that have been guided to cultivate an identity born of God’s grace – it isn’t going to happen. 

Professor Barnes puts it simply:  When we seek a different identity derived from anything other than God, we don’t actually become different, we only return to the nothingness that existed before God created our lives… so the truth is that if God is not creating our lives, then those around us are.”  The culture is, our hungers are as well as all of our fears and longings and anxieties.

·    So think about this:  our current model of Christian Formation for our children acts like 70 minutes of Sunday School each month can overcome and compete with our addicted, violent, sexually confused and greedy popular culture that saturates our children with thousands of seductive and tantalizing commercials every day. 

·    I’m not kidding – our model of 35 minutes of God talk every other Sunday – is what we offer our parents and children as a foundation against an identity born of emptiness and fear.  You can’t get away with that kind of minimalism in sports or music or school, right?  But we have the uncritical sense that this is acceptable to the Lord when it comes to shaping the identity of new people of faith. 

No wonder I keep hearing Jesus say:  Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides.  Or St. Paul: Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness.  Or M. Craig Barnes and the prophetic voices of Christ’s church:  I have watched too many of my parishioners use up most of their fleeting years making choices that really don’t matter.” 

To which I have to add my own voice saying:  me, too.  I’ve seen too many beautiful people making too many choices that really don’t matter and wasting the fleeting years that have been given to us as a gift.  And if you are wondering if I’m reacting to my own sister’s recent tragic death, let’s just say that it is all connected, ok? 

So let’s cut to the chase:  If you want to be filled – if you want your hungers to be satisfied – if you want to live beyond your longings and addictions and obsessions and fears – then you need to feed on Christ Jesus in his totality.  NOT from the lowest common denominator – NOT as an add-on to an already too busy life – and NOT as an incidental.  But at the core - the essence - the true body and blood.

That is why I have asked our Church Council and our Christian Education Ministry Team and all the parents in this community to rethink how we care for our children and help shape their identity as God’s beloved in the world.  This is life and death, beloved, for them, for us and for others. Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some of the specifics of this new commitment with you – so keep your eyes open for the updates – but for today simply know that they all emerge from the word that Jesus uses over and over again in John’s gospel:  abide. 

·     Abide in me he tells us over and again – rest in me – trust in me – live in such a way that everything you do is grounded in God’s grace.   

·    For then you will be filled – nourished and strengthened by the true and living bread come down from heaven – just as he promised:  In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. This is the Bread from heaven.

And this promise is not just for our children.  Maybe you, too, sense that in your life – in our church – in our culture or politics the time has come to be strengthened and nourished by God’s grace – maybe you have a deep longing to be nourished in the same way Christ was by the Lord – maybe in some way you are ready to stop wasting what little time you have on choices that don’t matter so that you can be fed by the bread come down from heaven…  if that is true, then I invite you to join me in singing this gentle but profound affirmation as a prayer that you, too might know all the riches of Christ’s grace.

All the riches of his grace, all the fullness of his blessing

All the sweetness of his love:  he gives to you, he gives to me.

Heading home...

I never thought it would take my sister's dying to get me to Springsteen's hometown of Freehold, NJ but... stranger things have happened and now we're here!  Beth is still clinging to life ~ ever so slowly slipping away ~ so with my brother, Phil, committed to the end we left to return home today.  It has been a very complicated time of grieving, working out hard and practical details that nobody wants to consider and the weirdness of some family dynamics, too.  I am so grateful that my siblings are so grounded and committed to compassion.  It has made this ordeal a quiet blessing.  Not so within the wider family, but my brother and sisters have been jewels and I am so grateful.

So after praying and saying my last goodbye to Beth, and working out some end-of-life medical details, we headed towards home.  But so was half of New Jersey, too and we got bogged down in Jersey Shore traffic.  Thanks be to God for credit cards and motels, because we got off the road and now have a room to chill and sleep for a whole night without interruptions.  (Cell phones, another blessing, will be turned off!)  The Holiday Inn was hosting a Jersey wedding in full regalia, so when the desk clerk said to someone on the phone, "It is 5 pm and all my rooms need to be cleaned..." we went next store to the Hampton Inn.

This continues to be a wild time and I pray that Beth can let go soon as her body is failing on so many levels.  But, once again, this is not under my control.  So I find myself saying over and over, "Not my will, by thine be done." 

And now for some dinner!

Watching and waiting...

I am sitting by my sister's bedside tonight at 3:20 am: watching and waiting.  And praying and thinking, too but mostly watching and waiting.  Beth is close to death.  She was taken off life support 60 hours ago - and for some reason is still just barely with us.  It has been an agonizing few days for her and those who love her and in so many ways we all pray that she leaves all this suffering soon.

At the same time, I believe that staying present with your loved ones through their death is an important act of love.  And just because it is hard or ugly does not mean it isn't also sacred.  More often than I can count, someone is blessed in God's mysterious way by being part of the journey through death so I never want to see it interrupted.  Now, I don't presume to know who or what the blessing in this hard death will be; but I trust by faith that it will be real.

Last night, on my watch, I prayed most of this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer  with Beth from memory:

Almighty God, look on this your servant, lying in great weakness, and comfort her with the promise of life everlasting, given in the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God the Father,Have mercy on your servant.
God the Son,Have mercy on your servant.
God the Holy Spirit,Have mercy on your servant.
 
Holy Trinity, one God,Have mercy on your servant.
From all evil, from all sin, from all tribulation,Good Lord, deliver her.
By your holy Incarnation, by your Cross and Passion, by your precious Death and Burial,Good Lord, deliver her.
By your glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and by the Coming of the Holy Spirit,Good Lord, deliver her.
We beseech you to hear us, Lord Christ: That it may please you to deliver the soul of your servant from the power of evil, and from eternal death,We beseech you to hear us, good Lord. That it may please you mercifully to pardon all her  sins,We beseech you to hear us, good Lord. That it may please you to grant Beth a place of refreshment and everlasting blessedness,We beseech you to hear us, good Lord. That it may please you to give her joy and gladness in your
kingdom, with your saints in light,We beseech you to hear us, good Lord.

Jesus, Lamb of God:
Have mercy on her.
Jesus, bearer of our sins:
Have mercy on her
Jesus, redeemer of the world:
Give her your peace.

Tonight, with Beth so close to death - but with all of God's darkness surrounding us, too -we decided that we could not let her pass alone. So Di took a shift, Phil took a shift and now I am up.  After 7 am Karen will take a shift if necessary.  Clearly, in death and is life, my sister is moving at her own time table and is working something out that in unknown to the rest of us.  This dying business is tough work for everyone involved.  Last night we gathered at Karen's house for a late dinner respite and then stayed up way too late going through family pictures and telling stories.   


I've seen good deaths and hard death's - and my sense is that this is a hard death that is surrounded with lots of love.  And that rings true to Beth's life, too.  When I prayed the Lord's Prayer with her about 10 minutes ago, her eyes opened for a bit before she drifted away.  My sister Karen has been singing hymns to her quietly, too whenever she is taking a shift.  Truly, now we see as through a glass darkly but trust by faith that later we shall see face to face.

For everything there is a season...

It would appear, dear friends, that my sister Beth is close to death.  We are making arrangements to leave this morning for Maryland.  Given the complexities of family - and grief - I am not shocked.  Sad, to be sure, and a little numb, but not shocked.  My dear old family is in deep transition.  Not surprisingly, too, it is Mary Oliver's words that come to heart this morning:

There are many ways to perish, or to flourish.

How old pain, for example, can stall us at the
threshold of function.

Memory: a golden bowl, or a basement without light.

For which reason the nightmare comes with its
painful story and says: you need to know this.

Some memories I would give anything to forget.
Others I would not give up upon the point of
death, they are the bright hawks of my life.

Still, friends, consider stone, that is without
the fret of gravity, and water that is without
anxiety.

And the pine trees that never forget their
recipe for renewal.

And the female wood duck who is looking this way
and that way for her children.  And the snapping
turtle who is looking this way and that way also.
This is the world.

And consider, always, every day, the determination
of the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles.

I know that I will wrestle with Beth's death for a long time when it comes.  She was oh so complicated - and wounded - and loving and wacked.  (So are we all, of course, but Beth has a certain style...)  For now though I am resting in the rhythm of the saints who have reminded others before me that:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

No more advocates for the devil redux...

My country's culture is sick: it is wounded, sometimes toxic and often infected with fear.  Our preferred solution to almost any problem is violence whether that involves the "war on poverty or drugs" or our "fight" against cancer.  Mostly what we Americans know how to do is overpower and destroy those things, people, places, events and realities that cause us pain or get in our way.  It was easy to pretend this wasn't so when the destruction took place on the margin of society - or the so-called frontier - but now it is mainstream and we're killing ourselves. 

There is another part of my country's culture, too - it is all about equality and finding common ground - but it has mostly been banished to shadows. It is feared and not trusted. So two thoughts haunt me tonight:

+ First, it will get worse before it gets better. That is why I am more certain than ever before that nourishing a small, tender, quiet and creative counter-cultural alternative in our faith community is part of the antidote to my culture's violence and fear.  For me, doing church is pre-figurative - it tries to live into a new reality while being fully present to this moment in history - for as the Taize brothers used to say:  It is a little bit of Christ's festival of grace amidst the suffering. And while what we do is always imperfect and broken, committing ourselves to the values and sustained practice of gathering beyond our isolation, reflecting on God's presence in our real lives, sharing acts of compassion and working for justice in peace is one way to bring healing and hope in these dark times.  It always has been.

Sometimes people ask me, "Why are you so committed to your musical events?" Or why do you care so much about bringing people together for potluck feasts?  Why do you saturate the Sanctuary with art?  Or invite people to make music and sing together whenever we gather?  Because we need to feel the change within us - we need to BE the change we are hoping for - and it starts within not beyond.  Art, music, prayer, silence, beauty, feasting and community are all embodied encountered with grace.  And so... things like Thanksgiving Eve or Fat Tuesday - or Sunday morning - or midweek Eucharist are all ways of meeting hope and revival at our most basic level.

+ Second, our people are weeping for a radical encounter with the gratuitous grace of beauty.  Popular culture is filled with zombies and vampires - the half-dead aching for life. M. Craig Barnes puts it like this:  "The primary symptom of a soul that has become sick is that it becomes blind to the poetry of life. This is not only because it can no longer see the beauty of the small miracles that fill a day, or that it has become so crazed with strategies that it can no longer enjoy the mystery of life's unfolding drama, but also because the soul has settled into its disappointments, which has left it angry."

And there is so much anger all around us - for a variety of good reasons - and a lot of bad ones, too.  Wade M. Page, the Wisconsin shooter, was livid - and afraid of people he did not understand or trust.  And like most Americans, he didn't have much experience in building bridges or going deeper in trust.  Who knows the effects of his PTSD, too? So he fed his anger with neo-Nazi hate songs and then acted with an automatic handgun to obliterate people he considered to be a problem."The problem with anger," Barnes continues, "is that it makes us lose interest in the blessings of life... We obsess over it and become intoxicated with the hurt we feel until it makes us sick."

That is why I am dedicated to opposing the fear, hatred and anger with beauty.  It is my deepest conviction that only artists can touch what hurts in a sick soul in ways that might move us from intoxication towards sobriety.  Not rhetoric.  Not agitation.  Not even organizing. For unless the soul knows it is loved - opened to the light of grace - we always remain addicted to our wounds. 

The mission of people of faith is to help us all "define life by something other than disappointment, anger and victimization."  This begins with beauty. This includes healing our civic culture. This means living into alternatives that are more creative than the destruction and more satisfying than the violence.

And little by little - from the Occupy prophets and ordinary citizens who can no longer tolerate the "Wal-Martization" of our towns to those whose hearts and families have been broken by the killing and fear - something is being awakened in the American soul.  It isn't ripe yet and will take a long, long time time to bear fruit, but if not now... when?

 (Thank you to my friend Philomenia for sharing some stunning art work on her blog of late for I borrowed it.  Check her out @ http://blueeyedennis-siempre.blogspot.com/)