receiving the gift with open hands...

"Gratitude" suggests Kisha James, a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe in New England, "is how we embrace beauty without clutching it so tightly that we strangle it."

To receive life as a gift is to acknowledge that we do not — and indeed cannot — hold our world together out of our sheer effort, will and strength. Most of the best things in life can only be received and held with open hands. (NYTimes)

About three inches of fresh, powdery snow fell on our retreat home today: the wind is blowing vigorously, the fire is now blazing, and the sky is a uniform gray preventing any sense of direction. Setting off for an artisan Christmas fair, we chose not to go up the mountain given road conditions and the possibility of freezing. Instead, we wandered the back roads for a spell before winding up at one of our favorite Benedictine monasteries. "Apparently," Di noted, "we needed to make pilgrimage." That felt right to me, too. In addition to an Advent candle for my evening prayer live-streaming tomorrow at 4 pm and some monk-made fresh cheese, we found a children's interfaith book that will become part of our grandchildren's Massachusetts library.

There is something meditative about watching the snow fall against pine trees, expansive dairy farms, and an opaque horizon. It is a gift that can only be recognized and then received with open hands. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer puts it like this in her poem: "Belonging."

And if it’s true we are alone,
we are alone together,
the way blades of grass
are alone, but exist as a field.
Sometimes I feel it,
the green fuse that ignites us,
the wild thrum that unites us,
an inner hum that reminds us
of our shared humanity.
Just as thirty-five trillion
red blood cells join in one body
to become one blood.
Just as one hundred thirty-six thousand
notes make up one symphony.
Alone as we are, our small voices
weave into the one big conversation.
Our actions are essential
to the one infinite story of what it is
to be alive. When we feel alone,
we belong to the grand communion
of those who sometimes feel alone—
we are the dust, the dust that hopes,
a rising of dust, a thrill of dust,
the dust that dances in the light
with all other dust, the dust
that makes the world.

from naivete to grief into solidarity: decolonizing thanksgiving

For some of us from the USA, this "Thanksgiving weekend" has been a time of quiet gratitude mixed with introspection, moments of grief, gratitude, and questions re: how to "decolonize" this holiday. For Di and myself, we chose to slip away from both the Black Friday madness and the cacophonous choruses of competing feast day narratives for a quiet time of solitude in a small country town surrounded by hills, trees, and rivers. Like the Celtic heretic, Pelagius, advised: if you want to know the Creator, spend time with Creation. Our banquet was modest - tourtière (meat pie), fresh veggies, and a crusty baguette - but our gratitude knew no bounds. 

Thanksgiving has been a holiday in transition for me. As a child coming of age in Congregational New England, the myth of noble Native Americans feasting with my Pilgrim ancestors - and saving these colonizing settlers from starvation - was normative: we made paper headdresses and Pilgrim hats for the annual Pilgrim Pageants, the story was told and retold in church, and the media informed how my parents explained the "why" of this feast day. For years I considered it to be an American Eucharist, the origins of the sacred melting pot where all types of people could find a resting place free from discrimination and fear. It was the driving reason for memorizing Hawthorne's 1855 epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha" in first grade. I was genuinely grateful to the Indians and wanted to know more about the people who literally made my America possible.

I didn't know otherwise for a full decade because in bourgeois white Connecticut and Massachusetts alternatives were not discussed. I grew-up water-skiing on Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, the sacred fishing center and unceded ancestral home of the Nipmuck Indians. I watched countless Westerns with my dad on our black and white TV and came to respect Tonto as much as the Lone Ranger. The trust built between Indian agent, Tom Jeffords, and Apache Chief, Cochise, on Broken Arrow showed me it was possible for an Anglo and an Indian to become blood brothers. Even my hippie inclinations romanticized First Nations realities by the counter culture's rip off of faux Native fashion. I still failed to grasp the lies of the dominant culture concerning indigenous people even after devouring Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee in 1970. I simply could not connect the dots linking the genocide of the American Plains Indians to what had occurred n my own backyard.

My hunch is it took Tom Hayden's 1972 book, The Love of Possession is Like a Disease with Them, to awaken me. The title was taken from "an 1877 speech by Sitting Bull (where) Hayden masterfully draws compelling parallels between the Vietnam War and the genocide of Native Americans." (Good Reads) As a conscientious objector to Vietnam (who was granted noncombatant status but was never called to serve) I was leaving the safe and sheltered world of white, middle class New England behind. I read feminist analysis alongside civil rights histories, the polemics of 20th century pacifists with the same gusto as the anti-racist jeremiads of MLK, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis, In time, I gave a number of years to the crusades of Cesar Chavez and finally completed my undergraduate degree in political science, writing my thesis on non-violent social change. And still I did not know the true story of Thanksgiving.

Langston Hughes took me to a new awareness with his poem: Let America be America again - it's never been America to me. Studying with Cornel West, Dorothee Soelle, James Washington, James Cone, and Walter Wink at Union Theological Seminary continued my awakening. But it wasn't until TV's Northern Exposure aired a Thanksgiving episode deconstructing the lies of our white dominant culture that I grasped why decolonizing Thanksgiving had to become a priority for me. 

An open-hearted and clear-headed dialogue between Edgar Villanueva and Hilary Giovale in YES Magazine is the single best articulation of what is at stake in decolonizing Thanksgiving. And I am of the opinion that this matters whether or not you have been shaped by the romantic mythology of dominant culture or not. Mr. Villanueva notes:

As a Native American, I’m often troubled by the way that (many) Americans approach Thanksgiving. By holding onto an idealized image of a harmonious feast between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag, we’ve overlooked the brutality that Native people have faced since the arrival of Europeans. For many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning and remembrance—a reminder of the genocide of our people, the loss of our way of life, and the theft of our ancestral lands. We cannot change the past––but by changing how we tell the story of the past, we can avoid repeating a history that erases the trauma Indigenous peoples have experienced. While traditional decolonization hinges on returning stolen land and autonomy to Indigenous peoples, today our lives as Indigenous peoples and settlers are so intertwined that decolonization is more complex.

Ms. Giovale builds on this stating:

European-descended settlers have unique opportunities to bridge the colonial gap. It can begin by simply changing how we introduce ourselves. The first time I said out loud, “I am a ninth-generation American settler. All my life, and ever since 1739, our family has been living on stolen Indigenous land,” my worldview started changing dramatically. Within White settler culture, our identities as settlers tend to be invisible to ourselves. We are entangled with systemic White supremacy and national mythologies designed to keep us comfortable and complicit. Many of us have developed multi-generational bubbles of denial and amnesia about the genocide, broken treaties, and stolen land that enabled us to stay. Our opportunity is to willingly pop those bubbles so we can collectively decolonize and make repairs.

Their dialogue goes on to suggest seven life-changing ways that settlers and indigenous peoples can live together as allies in healing: grieve, apologize, listen, relate, represent, invest, and repair. (You can read the full article here and I encourage you to do so: https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/ 2019/11/27/thanksgiving-colonial-gap-heal) In The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations a Wabanaki wisdom keeper suggests that one of the ways a person from an Irish settler background might begin to make peace with her family's legacy in real time is to first become grounded in her own roots. As she grew more and more comfortable in her own skin, she was able to move into solidarity with the still thriving resistant Wampanoag nation of Cape Cod. I find solace and hope in this story.  (Read more here: https://utorontopress.com/blog/2021/06/17/excerpt-the-gatherings/) If you're able, take some time with this You Tube overview, too.

This Thanksgiving, I find myself resonating with Kaitlin Curtice, a Potawatomie woman who finds the grace of God revealed in the universal Christ, when she confesses:

This, the universal Christ who, in grace and love, holds all things and all people and all creatures in that grace, is what gives me hope in this world. The universal Christ, who is not a colonizer, who does not seek after profit or create empires to rule over the poor or to oppress people, is constantly asking us to see ourselves as we fit in this sacredly created world. It is what my Potawatomi ancestors saw when they prayed to Kche Mnedo, to Mamogosnan, and is what our relatives still see when they pray today, a sacred belonging that spans time and generations and is called by many names. Today, it is what I continue to see in my own faith—not a Christianity bound by a sinner’s prayer and an everyday existence ruled by gender-divided Bible studies and accountability meetings but a story of faith that’s always bigger, always more inclusive, always making room at a bigger and better table full of lavish food that has already been prepared for everyone and for every created thing.

befriending uncertainty: praying "I really don't know..."

NOTE: Reflection notes from Sunday, November 14 @ "Small is Holy."
While talking recently with a former colleague about the ever-changing challenge of "doing" church in the 21st century, the words "I really don't know..." kept popping up from both of us. When I went home to rake leaves that afternoon, I kept thinking that THIS has become the refrain for our moment in time: I really don’t know. It rings so true with so much of our reality!

+ You may be aware that more and more objective data is being gathered concerning the dramatic departure from all types of public worship that continues to take place 20 months into our COVID pandemic. The Barna Research Group has quantified that nearly 22% of adults who once regularly participated in the life of a faith community quit doing so in 2020. That means one in five among us has given up connecting with their spiritual community virtually, physically, or in a reopened worship context for one reason or another.

+ Something similar has been documented in the staggering social fragmentation that’s now normative in our nation. A recent report from the Pew Research Center shows that what once was a fluid middle ground in our politics – the union of the ambivalent Right, the stressed-out side liners, and the non-ideological Left who combined make up 37% of the electorate – is now so disillusioned that they no longer vote let alone search for common ground.

+ And I can’t help but hear the words, “I really don’t know” in the confusion we experience try-ing to navigate the still unchartered waters of COVID some 20+ months into this mess; in the grief-filled divisions exposed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow where young and old citizens clash in their commitments and the gulf between developing and developed nation states on our one shared home seems greater than ever.

Even Jesus seems to be saying: “Hmmmm… I really don’t know either!” in the appointed gospel text for today where some in the early Jesus movement are leaving the Temple. In what Bible scholars now call the last extended discourse before the Cross, Jesus tells his friends that the change and healing they’re hoping for is coming – it is built into God’s grace – but nobody, including himself, knows when it will occur. Chapter 13 of St. Mark’s gospel, known as the Little Apocalypse, proclaims: The exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, nor even the Son. Only the Father. So, keep a sharp look-out, for we don’t know the timetable… and stay at your post and keep watching.

+ These days I want summarize this saying: I don’t really know. I don’t really know what’s taking place except wars and rumors of wars. I don’t really know when things will get sorted out. I have no idea how to fix the mess we’re in. And almost all the advice from the experts of our tradition is, at best, ambiguous. So, for the time being let’s say: I really don’t know.

+ Chapter 13 opens with this uncertainty, too: as Christ’s entourage departs the Temple, one of the disciples comments on the grand masonry work. “Master, LOOK at these stones – these buildings – aren’t they incredible?” To which Jesus replies: So now you’re impressed by grandiosity? There is not a stone in the whole works that is not going to end up in a heap of rubble.”

That puts an end to the conversation momentarily, but later Peter, James, and John pull Jesus aside while resting on the Mount of Olives and ask: Can you tell us when this collapse is going to take place? We want to know how and when it will happen so we can prepare? To which Jesus says: Watch out for doomsday deceivers who pretend to know God’s plan but are either confused or liars; it’s going to get worse here before it gets better. Eugene Peterson renders this verse in The Message as: Life will go from bad to worse, dog-eat-dog, with everyone at your throat because you carry my name. So, remember that you’ve been placed here as sentinels to truth. But more than that? I really don’t know.

This lack of a coherent action plan is why I interpret the Messiah confessions as: I

really don’t know. And his apparent comfort with this paradox can be unsettling because most of us prefer clarity to ambiguity. Certainty and order rather than the messy darkness of a compost heap that mixes both death and life into the renewal of Mother Earth. But Christ’s confusion is a reminder to me that I’m not in charge – nor are any of us – and that’s what apocalyptic literature strives to let us know. It is NOT about end of the world prophesies as popular culture would have us believe. Not at all. The term apocalypse is a compound Greek word joining apo – meaning un – with kalepsis – to cover – creating a word about a disclosure or revelation of great import that requires careful discernment. In this case, it’s a revelation about the loving but paradoxical and hidden nature of God’s presence in our lives especially in times of tumult.

Apocalypse asks us to make peace with paradox so that we can chill-out while saying: I really don’t know. It encourages us to slow down to watch, wait, and listen, cultivating a little more tenderness – and a little less judgment – towards ourselves and others. Try some more silence instead of sound it slyly whispers. Perhaps that’s why this poem by Andrea Potos felt like an epiphany.

When beginning the poem may there be a listening rather than a making
curiosity over expectation, lightness and ease,
no straining toward some glut of air.
May you step aside like a watcher at the meadow’s edge
as the doe finds her way to the center.

When I started to craft today’s reflection, it quickly became overly academic, wordy, and ponderous. I knew it was a limp biscuit right away but didn’t know how to fix it – and that’s when I stumbled upon her poem. It invited me to watch, wait, and trust that the doe shall find her way to the center of the meadow because the timing is hers and totally beyond my comprehension. Through the lens of this poem, I started to hear that Christ’s uncertainty was not just a mystery, but also an invitation to live each day with more curiosity than expectation. In this, the words, I really don’t know, become a mantra, a prayer, and even a spiritual practice because If Jesus didn’t know… well, that’s good enough for me.

Some of you know that I volunteer as part of the community of L’Arche Ottawa: a gathering of women and men with and without intellectual and physical disabilities. If these past 20+ months of COVID have been hard for you and me – and they have – imagine what the various lock-downs, social distancing, and medical costumes like masking, hospital gowns, and all the rest have meant to the core members – those with various disabilities – or the young people who have been locked down in community 24/7 as assistants. Sometimes it’s been agonizing. Exhausting and depressing, too. And while we gather virtually every Friday to pray and sing and tell stories, Zoom and Skype are NOT the same as physical presence and intimacy. I am grateful for the technology – and love seeing my friends – but two weeks ago when I was finally able to spend a week in Ottawa now that the border has been opened my heart was full to overflowing in ways that have been buried during this ordeal.

On the five plus hour journey northward, I wondered what I might do while in community again. I wanted to help and be useful. But you know what the core members wanted more than anything else from me? They wanted me to visit with them in person, with no specific agenda except to share a simple meal, sing a few songs live and up close and personal, and laugh together. Nothing grandiose. Nothing dramatic. Just the simple gift of being together. And I was able to make that happen in four of the six homes where we sang – and laughed – and prayed – and even wept a little bit as well. Being present without a plan spontaneously became holy ground and I felt the presence of Jesus within and among us. He showed up in small and hidden ways, but real nonetheless.

Terry, who is normally gregarious by nature, has long been frustrated by having to stay at home in various modes of solitude for nearly two years, so he reveled in the chance to do his Johnny Cash impressions with me and play some air guitar. Cecile danced and sang with delight when we sang “Felice Navidad.” Mark kept a killer backbeat with both hands and feet when I played Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.” And silent Eric smiled serenely and encouraged me to play a few of his favorite gentle songs. It was holy ground – I left each home feeling fortified and blessed – mostly because I waited and listened and trusted my heart that said: I don’t really know what to do right now so just show up. On the way home it was clear that my visits didn’t bring the pandemic to an end. It didn’t heal any of our political divides nor ease the mess in the environment. It was, in fact, a very small blessing – but a blessing nonetheless– that gave us all a little more strength to do it one more time, one day at a time.

When I got home from Ottawa a FB memory reminded me that last Christmas Eve I shared a homily on Zoom with the community while we were still struggling to get our heads around sheltering in place and what the solitude it enforced might mean for us. I said in part:

As I join you all in praying, wishing, hoping, social distancing, masking,
and hand-washing that this dark time of disease will be over soon, I am aware that in ways that are mysterious and far greater than my understanding, the contagion is showing me just how much we are like the vul-nerable Christ Child born this night in the city of David as our Savior. What I mean is that God came into the world for us as a baby – a small, helpless child born into a cold night to humble parents who were trying to make sense of life in a nation occupied by a cruel and demanding invading army – and this wasn’t an accident. For this infant to thrive, it was essential that some-one held and caressed him, loved and clothed him, changed his messy diapers, sang to him, fed and nurtured him because he couldn’t do it himself. The smallness of the one we call Messiah was not an accident…

God is telling us a surprising truth about the blessings and responsibilities of being real. You see, the Christ Child makes clear that God is found in what is small, what is weak, what is hidden. Fr. Henri Nouwen, who spent his last years in community at L’Arche Daybreak in Toronto used to say that most of us look for the Lord in big, impressive, and loud happenings that document power. We expect God to show up in “spectacles, power plays, significant and extraordinary events” that will change the course of history in their grandiosity. We, ourselves, are often taken-in by wealth, prestige, and sparkling things that glitter and shine. We can be so easily distracted. Perhaps that is why God chose to come to us as a small child of Palestinian peasants in an insignificant stable surrounded by animals and shepherds. This way we see that God’s kingdom is humble, simple, small, and very vulnerable. One of the gifts and surprises from Jesus is that he shows up for us in the most unlikely little places – and if we refuse to look for holy in what is small, Fr. Nouwen adds, we will likely give-in to despair.

Almost a year later it dawned on me that even back then I was hearing something of Christ’s blessing in the uncertainty of our confusion and anxiety. “I really don’t know” can be a liberating prayer – and here’s why. Do you recall what Jesus asked of his friends whenever he was confronted with uncertainty? Consistently he told them: abide with me. Stay close to me in prayer, stay connected to one another in tenderness, and trust that God is in charge so you don’t have to be. This became one of the Jesus movement’s charism after the Cross when one calamity that could not be changed followed another. Abide in me. Rest and trust in my love. Nothing grandiose. Just a humble call to hold one another in the moment and do so with love.

That’s what Jesus asked of his friends as he headed towards the Cross. That’s what St. John of Patmos wrote in the final book of the Bible that promises a new heaven and a new earth as we abide. That’s what Mary Magdalene taught the disciples in her extra-canonical gospel. And it is what I have heard from pastors in Syria during the bombing, from those who resisted the Nazis in WWII, the liberation theology Christians communities facing persecution and danger throughout Latin America, indigenous men and women confronting the genocide of our founders, coal miners and farm workers fighting to build a union, suffragettes struggling to win the vote, civil rights activists helping us all live into a more perfect union, peace-makers the world over, as well as my friends at L’Arche Ottawa: hold on to one another. Show up. Sing. Pray. Feast. Weep. Celebrate. And dance in THIS moment. Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount: Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Stay grounded in today – and that’s enough.

That’s all we can really do anyhow, right? Especially when uncertainty prevails. Jesus asks us to abide in him and hold one another in love.. St. Mary Oliver condensed Christ’s teaching like this:

you must be able to do three things to live in this world:
to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go

I’m thinking that one way we could hold on and abide as we enter Advent together would be to use a study guide based on the Advent texts and some of St. Mary Oliver’s poems? Last year, we did a Celtic series, and I would love to do another with you. Let me know if you like that idea. Send me a note because there is so much to love – and so much to relinquish, too. As I was finally finishing up these words yesterday, I saw that a rabbi colleague and friend wrapped up her Sabbath reflection like this:

I wonder whether we will look back on these years as the end of something, or the end of many things. The end of when we could have stopped the global warming juggernaut, the end of the myth that "red" and "blue" America actually understand each other – or even want to try. I think about climate grief and rising authoritarianism and mistrust. And I'm so ready for Shabbat, for 25 hours of setting worries aside. All I can do is trust that when I make Havdalah – (the ritual that closes Shabbat and marks the end of our intentional separation from work and worry) – I'll be ready to pick up the work again – and that the fallen leaves in these hills will sustain growth I can't yet know.

Right now I want to trust this spirituality of uncertainty, saying simply: “I really don’t know” as a prayer. It feels real and honest. Clearly, there will always be wars and rumors of war. There’s still work to be done so that our home on Mother Earth can be healed and respected, too. And God knows chaos and darkness continues to swirl within and among us. So, as the rabbi, the earth, our hearts, the autumn leaves, and Jesus tell us: it’s time to abide – to trust that for this day and this day alone – it is sufficient.

So, take off your thirsty boots and stay for a while
Your feet are hot and wary from a dusty mile
And maybe I can make you laugh, maybe I can try
I’m just lookin’ for the evening, the morning, in your eyes.

building an all hallows memory box...

The wise and prolific spiritual guide, Christine Valters Paintner, has led a variety of workshops on fresh and time-tested ways to renew the inward/outward journey. I have participated in two online courses with deep satisfaction. In one, the insights and presence of my ancestors as wisdom keepers was our focus in anticipation of the Celtic Triduum of All Hallows: the All Hallows Eve vigil as well as the feasts of All Saints and All Souls days. Her invitation was simple: prayerfully consider those who have gone from this life to life everlasting from that great cloud of witnesses of family and friends. Then find pictures or mementoes of these sacred souls and create a "memory box" as an altar.

This invitation came at the right time for me - a year before the pandemic lock down - and, after creating a list of my "saints," I eagerly explored boxes of old photographs. When I discovered I didn't posses a picture of a loved one, it was time to go online to consult obituaries, blogs, and FB pages. What a great search! A visual pilgrimage of sorts filled with memories, stories, and songs from those who have shaped my heart. I took a used-up wooden planter box, draping it with cloth and added candles and symbols of my journey: a jar of sacred soil from Chimayo in Northern New Mexico, a copper candelabra, and an interfaith decal.

Next came pictures: my siblings - two of whom are gone, and my mother and paternal grandparents - who likewise have crossed over. Our faithful old dog, Casey, who once annoyed me greatly but taught me something of patience. Four generations of Lumsdens including my great grandmother. The chapel of Chimayo where Di and I have prayed for one another and our families often. Dear Michael Daniels of precious memory who introduced me to AA. Mentors Sam Fogal from my home church and Ray and Jane Swartzback of my internship in Jamaica, Queens, NY. Dianne's mom and dad, my sisters, and maternal grandparents. Below, and not seen in this photo, were pictures of my Aunt Donna who was like an older sister to me. Candles graced both levels of memories.

This became my All Hallows altar of personal icons. As I sat quietly before it, memories and songs swelled up within the silence. There were times when I could feel some of these saints with me. And other times when there was just a holy quiet. It's a grand and simple way to reclaim this holiday - and who knows where it will lead.

preparing for the Celtic triduum: All Hallows Eve

Sunday, October 24: Preparing for the Celtic Triduum

In ways I’ve rarely understood, my soul reverberates with the rhythms of the ancient Celtic year – especially their sense that these are holy in-between days. My Scots Irish ancestors believed that “the transitions between the seasons” were liminal spaces akin to “the shores between land and water, the boundaries between political territories, bridges that cross streams of water, and the twilight between day and night.” (Llewellyn) They sensed that these realities “were neither one thing or another” – mystery more than certainty or both/and as I’m want to say – where physical-ity hugs spirituality in a sacramental way. The poet, Angela Bailey, sings:

Every moment is born from the death of the last moment:
Every spring is born from last year’s autumn, 

every leaf that falls nourishes new life
That will sprout when the earth is warmed again: 

So why do we insist on clinging?
Why do we not let go as easily as a tree 

Lets go of both its leaves and its seeds,
Letting one die so that another will grow? 

Why indeed? Fr. Richard Rohr suggests that part of the answer has to do with the way our spiritualities have been shaped more by ideas and concepts than God’s first incarnated word in nature. Most clergy “were trained for years by going away not into a world of nature and silence and primal relationships, but into a world of books. “

But that’s not biblical spirituality and that’s not where religion begins. St. Paul insists that spiritual formation starts with an encounter with nature: “Ever since the creation of the world,” he writes in the first chapter of Romans, “the invisible essence of God and God’s everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind’s understanding of created things in nature.” We know God through the things that God has made. The first foundation of any true religious seeing is, quite simply, learning how to see and love what is. Contemplation is meeting this reality in its most simple and direct form unjudged, unexplained, and uncontrolled!

The inward journey, as the mystics like to say, is taking a LONG, loving look at what is real. Not the words of Scripture, the study of doctrine and dogma, or even the recitation of liturgical prayer: it is gazing upon what is right in front of us with love. Christine Valters-Paintner, on of my favorite wisdom keepers, suggests that when Jesus sensed his call to an outward and public ministry of sharing love, renewing the prophetic tradition of Judaism, showing people a way to opt out of the status quo, and incarnating the love of God in human flesh: he went into the wilderness.

Why, after thirty years – a span of time when life expectancy in his era was about the same age – did Jesus wait another forty days to begin his public ministry? Where did he go and what was he doing for so long that was so important? NOTHING. Jesus wasn’t even eating… he was not doing a thing except being. He sought out the wilderness so that he could make time to read God’s first “book” of creation… One of the lessons Jesus gives by his example is that before action, contemplation must take place… outside the noise, confusion, and chaos that so often surrounds us… Spending time reading the original scriptures of nature shows us how to step back, truly rest in contemplation before rushing into action. (Earth: Our Original Monastery, pp. 24-25)

This is what I have been stumbling towards over the past 25 years – learning to read God’s first word in nature – and letting that word shape and inform my heart, my being, and my activity. Living consciously into a nature-based Celtic Christian spirituality, however imperfectly, reminds me that since I was a small child I’ve been enraptured with this time of year: mid-October through mid-November and into Advent. I cherish EVERYTHING about it – the sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and activities – even the oblique melancholia that creeps inside of me as the days suddenly shrink after Day Light Savings Time ends evokes a bit of quiet gratitude and has done so for decades.

Intuitively and sensually, autumn is about endings: “the harvest has been gathered indoors,” writes Gertrud Mueller-Nelson. “The garden’s excess has been turned under the earth one last time. And while we return to the earth the riches she shared with us and allow the rotting melons or the bright leaves to be turned back into the soil, we sense something of the interdependence” of creation built into this in-between time. How does the written word of God we often say in our funeral liturgies put it: from dust we came and to dust we shall return? In the beginning, we emerge from the earth and into the hummus we finally return to rest. Whether you garden or not, if you’re awake and watching nature – even in the city – the circle of life dances before us, inviting us to let go and be-come empty so that we might be filled by God’s grace. Creation, the ancient Celts, Christian liturgy as well as the Beatles are clear: let it be, let it be, whispered words of wisdom, let it be.

· This is what the autumnal triduum of All Hallows Eve, All Saints and All Souls Day asks us to practice: letting go in trust that the threshold of darkness will bring new life and light to us in God’s own time. It is a hallowing of our fears and anxieties, an inverted spiritual adventure that seeks to assure us that out of the darkness will come new light in the love of Christ. It is a counter-intuitive faithfulness of the highest order.

· “These three feasts,” writes historian Christopher Hill, “remind us that the roots and branches of Christianity are in the unseen, and that the trunk passes for only the littlest while through this daylight world of time and the five senses. These feasts are intended to be a remedy for our unease with the unseen, to teach us to get along with mystery” and be gentle with our-selves. Sadly, our culture has buried these feasts giving them little attention or significance – leaving only the “popular folk holiday, Halloween,” to do the heavy lifting. (Holidays and Holy Nights, p. 46) Hill adds that now our secularized vigil of All Saints at Halloween acts like “an impish little brother to the former great vigils, offering a small echo of their world-transforming mysteries.”

Once upon a time, however, in both Christian and pre-Christian Celtic practices, these three days of All Hallows Eve nee Samhain practiced living into all types of darkness and anxiety with far more trust than fear. The ancient Celts paid attention to the cross-quarter day of November 1st that arrives halfway between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. These moments looked and felt like in-between time as one season died and another struggled to be born. Meg Llewellyn notes that this experience was “neither one thing nor another, letting human beings step outside their rigid mental boxes to catch a glimpse of mystery… in the old days THIS was the most potent in-between time of all.” (The Celtic Wheel of the Year, p. 19) November 1st was celebrated as the start of the Celtic New Year she adds because:

It was a ‘hinge’ time, marking the transition between summer’s light and winter’s darkness. It was believed that during this “thin time” between the seen and unseen realms, the gate between these worlds swung open and remained so until the gate closed about November 16th… from late October to early November… the past, present, and future became intertwined as the dead walked among the living, the faerie folk danced visibly and solemnity and celebration embraced in festivals of bonfire light to drive back evil spirit while families communed with relatives who had already crossed… Samhain became a time to honor the ancestors, not as the dead and departed, but as the living spirits of loved ones who guarded the root wisdom of the tribe.

I like Christopher Hill’s insight when he writes: “In the more sensuous awareness of time that people had in the absence of precise measuring systems, it was apparent that at these moments, one time had ended. Time would start again, of course, but between the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next there was a gap – and in these gaps it was believed that the world reverted to the way it was before time began – at the creation – dreamtime – much like each day shows us the year in miniature at both noon and midnight suggest a smaller crack in time… where anything is possible. (p. 51) Hill amplifies this saying:

Such occasions are perilous, undetermined, turning points and even crises, where things can go one way or another. This human sense of time is so deep and apparently universal that it has found its way into al-most every religious tradition. It is the root of most holy days and the source of sacred time. The timeless, of course, can break through at any moment; holy days are simply our celebrations and sacraments of that fact.

That is why, in both the Christian and pagan manifestation of these celebrations, these vigils begin at night. Our modern addiction to efficiency has erased much of this practice except at Christmas in the West and Easter in the East. But organic spirituality that is not tamed, homogenized, or sanitized by practicality recognizes that “sacred work takes place in the middle of the night, when the way is open between eternity and this world.” Our Jewish ancestors still mark the start of a “day” when evening falls. And our written Bible tells us that Jesus was born at night, was transformed and resurrected in the darkness, and once told his friends that “what I say to you now in the dark you must share with the world in the light.” Small wonder Jesus taught the skeptic, Nicodemus, about the “mysteries of rebirth and the holy spirit… in that famous nighttime dialogue” in St. John’s third chapter.

It was only about 500 years ago that we in the West gave up night vigils. Those of us from the Reformed tradition know our obsession with rationality and order. Our theological ancestors mistrusted the darkness – metaphorically and literally – both because some post-vigil events became rowdy, but also because intuitively they were excursions into the imagination. And those stolid old Protestants sensed that the imagination was fundamentally pagan. The old vigils that started with All Hallows Eve, however, insisted that the sacred and the human MEET in the imagination in yet another in-between time and place where what was out there – on the border – came close: now we see as through a glass darkly, said St. Paul, only later shall we see face to face. Let’s also note that our Protestant elders were not much for sacramental spirituality either.

They were literalists not poets, shaped by an era which rejected the belief that what could be seen pointed towards holy mysteries that were unseen. That’s one of the reasons I continue to let go of more and more of my Reformed heritage: the baggage is just too heavy to carry. It’s stultifying, wordy, and fearful – heady and abstract without much grounding in the senses – so I find the way of the ancient Celts who reveled in this glorious in-between season much more satisfying. Indeed, in our recent review of St. Mark’s gospel from the Common Lectionary over these past few weeks, I’ve found the Celtic lens and wisdom of Mother Nature to be liberating as it offers us upside-down and in-between stories of Jesus sharing God’s grace with his friends along the way.

Perhaps you know this but each of the four gospels in our canon – and some beyond it, too – not only tell a spiritual story, but organize their tales in such a way as to help us grasp their unique spirituality. St. John collects seven wisdom stories using the I AM formula to link Jesus the restorative powers of the sabbath. St. Matthew describes Jesus as the new Moses utilizing ancient Jewish practices to show Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophetic liberation. And St. Mark shares a three-pronged spirituality that starts close to home with Jesus and the disciples in Galilee, expands along the road where insights and events ripen incrementally, and concludes with a journey to the Cross in Jerusalem where self-emptying and letting go result in resurrection.

Today’s text not only closes part two of St. Mark’s stories of Jesus on the road outside of Galilee, but it also dramatically contrasts two other stories we’ve considered. Two weeks ago, we heard about a wealthy man who kept all of the commandments from his youth -- an obvious sign of God’s blessings in first century Palestine – yet he was unable to let it go and follow Jesus. Today we meet a blind beggar – an outward symbol of sin and the absence of God’s blessings in first century religiosity – but he is able to throw off his cloak, perhaps his only possession, let it go, get up, and follow Jesus on the way to the Cross. Last week James and John, the Sons of thunder, showed up wanting Jesus to give them places of honor and power when he entered his glory.

Today we come upon one sitting in the gutter along the way – hodos – who cries out for mercy. You see the contrasts, right? What’s more, as Bible scholars point out, there are two healing stories about blindness that act as bookends to this second section of St. Mark’s text. The first finds Jesus touching a blind man twice so that he might see and then see more clearly in chapter 8; the second the healing of blind Bartimaeus in chapter 10. Two stories of Jesus healing the blind – one to open, one to close part two of this gospel – with both serving as transitions to the bigger story of what has happened and what is still to occur.

· Looking backwards these stories symbolically emphasize the multiple meanings of darkness: ignorance, fear, physical as well as spiritual blindness where Jesus asks: "Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? Do you not remember?" (8:18).

· They also point to a spirituality of being on the way – hodos – an incremental unfolding of God’s grace and presence. St. Mark wants us to know that rarely do we have just one Damascus Road experience that changes everything. More likely is a lifetime along the way where epiphanies and connecting the small threads of synchronicity add up to a new way of being. Over and over, section two of this gospel shows Jesus and his friends on a journey through the darkness into the light.

Pastor Brian Stoffregen wisely adds that the contrast between Blind Bartimaeus and the disciples: two of the closest allies along the way ask Jesus for positions of power and honor while the blind beggar cries out for mercy and illumination. “Those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus tells both, “While those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Looking ahead, today’s story solidifies its in-between status as Bartimaeus prophetically links Jesus with King David – the Messiah – whom the crowd will celebrate on what we know as Palm Sunday to cries of “Hosanna, hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Reading these texts through the lens of both the ancient Celts and the wisdom made visible by God’s first word in nature have helped me reclaim the new/old vigils of All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. I’ll use one of the oldest All Hallows Eve liturgies next week on October 31st to help get us in the groove and then emphasize a few simple ways to reclaim these forgotten treasures.

It’s been said that All Hallows Eve is like an autumn Carnival or Mardi Gras: playful about mystery, using wild costumes to give shape and form to our dreams and imagination; and like the ancient mummers who went door to door singing and begging treats in the dark, All Hallows Eve invites us to own rather than suppress our fears. Christopher Hill rightly notes that “when we fear and suppress the night, fear and destruction is what we get. When religion, old or new, suppresses the creatures of the night, it ends up chasing witches with horrible literalness – or hunting down perceived enemies – or searching for diabolical mess-ages in children’s books or pop music.”

And this isn’t merely an abstract, intellectual theory: in this weeks’ TIME Magazine there’s an article entitled: Why Everyone Is So RUDE Right Now. It’s a sobering story of Americans snapping and acting out in the worst possible ways towards restaurant workers, flight attendants, and others in the lower echelons of the service industry. 

“The combination of a contagious, life-threatening disease and a series of unprecedented, life-altering changes in the rules of human engagement” numerous studies have found, “have left people anxious, confused and, especially if they do not believe the restrictions were necessary, deeply resentful.” TIME goes on to document that this: “period of threat has been so long that it has had a damaging effect on people’s mental health, which for many has then been further debilitated by isolation, loss of resources, the death of loved ones and reduced social support. “During COVID there has been a marked increase in anxiety, a reported increase in depression, and an increased demand for mental health services. Lots of people, in other words, are on their very last nerve. This is true whether they believe the virus is an existential threat or not. “Half the people fear COVID – and half the people fear being controlled.” We are not a people accustomed to such staggering challenges. What’s more, our culture often refuses to name its fears and is far more practiced in denial than honesty. And lest you think this is an exaggeration, our trauma cuts deeper than manners for: “Impolite interactions are not the only thing that’s on the rise; crimes are too.”

“We’re seeing measurable increases in all kinds of crimes that suggests to that there is something changing,” says Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology and neural science, and co-author of a book on social harmony: The Power of Us. He suggests the reasons for the rise in both are structural and profound; America has lost sense of social cohesion, as a result of the widening gaps between the wealthy and working class. “The more inequality you get—which has gotten worse in the last few decades—the less of a sense of cohesion there are across socioeconomic classes. That’s something that if that’s not addressed is going to continue to cause turmoil.”

Culturally we have a lot of work to do in the spirit of healing – so why not reclaim the liturgically safe space the vigil offers us and start to name what truly terrifies us personally, socially, politically, and spiritually? No one knows exactly what the ancient Celts did at Samhain, but we do know that bonfires played a part – as did feasting and mumming – going house to house in a costume with songs and sometimes a simple drama. So, how might we name our fears, enter the darkness with the new light of illumination, and incarnate this vigil for our era?

I don’t know if children will be trick or treating this year: but if they are in your world, why not meet them in costume and playfully engage them in the night? Or maybe just illumine your home – I’ll use candles but that won’t work every-where – so you might try little fairy lights. And jack-o-lanterns? They can become illuminated gargoyles playfully lighting up the night. So, in this time of fear and uncertainty, let’s incarnate a bit of sacred creativity, yes?

You see, part of the charism of All Hallows Eve is radical hospitality: meeting our darkest fears with trust and light. If we welcome children as they reclaim their role as ancient mummers, why not playfully practice reaching out to them in the darkness as a sacramental act of sharing God’s love and light in a trying time? The two days following vigil, All Saints and All Souls Day, have their own charism. Maybe you could read about them before we regroup next Sunday for Small is Holy. But in anticipation, let me offer a simple sacramental act in making a picture box of your communion of saints – those who are public and important to you – as well as those who are private and a part of your family. It is a way to give shape and form to our prayers – and it can be a whole lot of fun, too.

· Two years ago, I did it: searching for pictures of grandparents, mentors, my mom and dad and two sisters who have gone before me; I also unearthed the secular icons Di made for me when I completed my post-graduate studies – pictures with a gold nimbus behind the head of Rumi, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklyn, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. King, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Marvin Gaye and many, many more.

· Both gathering the pictures and then setting them in a small box was a grand time of remembering those who have shaped and carried me on my journey of faith. As that old TV commercial said: Try it – you’ll like it! I want to close this reflection with an All Hallows Eve prayer shaped by the Celts as preparation for our Eucharist: 

Holy and gracious One, as we move from autumn towards winter, we know that the darkness can be sill and calm, or tempestuous and wild; it can be beautiful to behold, or harsh and frightening. In whatever may meet us on the journey, may we be drawn into your Divine Presence more fully. We pause to go deeper silently…

O God of stillness, ruler over the darkness, we pray for those places within our world which are dark and hurting whether through human actions or natural means. (Take a moment and call those places into your heart.) Now let us say: Lord, have mercy.

· O God of stillness, ruler over the darkness, we pray now for those places within our local communities which are in darkness in one form or another, whether through the actions of local people or broader governmental decisions. (Stillness…) And so we pray: Christ, have mercy.

· O God of stillness, ruler over the darkness, we pray for those places within your church which are in darkness in some way, whether through selfish stubbornness or the political decisions of hierarchy. (Stillness…) And now we pray: Lord, have mercy.

As the darkness of this season ripens and surrounds us, may we know your Divine Presence, O God of the day and the night, trusting that you will bring comfort near to us and sustains us for the journey. O Ground of our Being, may we also find ways to enjoy the rest of this season and enter into it fully. In your precious presence we pray: Creator + Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen. (David Hill, The Celtic Year)

CHECK OUT THE LIVE STREAMING HERE: https://fb.watch/8RwRyk5vYM/

 

 

 

 

a day of digging, poetry, CRT, and prayer...

On what appears to be the last genuinely warm day of autumn - a high of 71F - I: dug two more garden beds, read a collection of poetry by Scott Cairns, prayed for my brother's surgery, and wrote an honest and respectful critique of a colleague's concerns about critical race theory. By my modest standards, it's been a satisfying day.

+ I wanted to get the two additional beds started before the ground froze. We had such great luck with potatoes this year that one 4 x 8 bed will be devoted to spuds as befits this Scots-Irish gardener. Truth be told, however, it was my beloved Anglo-German-Huguenot partner who brought those tasty little suckers to life. The other bed will try to build on this years pumpkin and bean crop; at least two of the original three sisters will be returned to this once Algonquin/Mahican land. The existing three beds will be given to tomatoes, peas, wild flowers, and probably green leafy vegetables.

+ I wanted to reread Cairns to expand my "Small is Holy" poetry connection. While watching one of the countless European mystery shows we take-in after Di is finished teaching and I've prepared an evening meal, a very secular family found themselves confronted with having to hold a memorial service for a complicated relative. With no clergy available, and no defined spirituality, they turned to poetry and let deep speak to deep. It reminded me of what Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel lecture re: Dostoevsky's assertion that it is beauty that will save the world:

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three?

+ I prayed for my brother simply because I love him. He's been hurting for some time and needs a break. So does his dear wife. My prayer is both for his healing short term and over the long haul.

+ And I wrote my reflection on a critique of Critical Race Theory because I am committed to civil discourse. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. It is important to live tenderly and passionately into the truth even when that is uncomfortable. And in this fantastically frantic time of polarization, where opinion is treated like fact and incendiary words are always in search of an argument or fight, I have chosen the road less traveled. Not that I am always right. Far from it. But I want to advance my concerns with love and respect as well as reason an evidence. Here's what I came up with...

REFLECTIONS ON CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND ITS CRITICS
Once again in the United States, a social corrective is being portrayed as a force of national disintegration and mind control. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an analysis of America that highlights the empirical effects race hatred has built into our institutions and worldview since before the founding of our nation. It strives to balance the dominant “color blind” approach to political, economic, social, and spiritual realities that have defined US historiography.

+ CRT focuses on what is often overlooked, misunderstood, or intentionally excluded from traditional American histories: the pain, obstacles, policies, and injustices created by foundational racial discrimination. At its best, CRT avoids demonizing individuals while documenting the staggering costs that white privilege has inflicted upon people of color.

+ To be sure, some advocates paint with a broad brush and create ugly and untrue caricatures along with a shallow and divisive analysis. This is, per-haps, a natural consequence of leveling the playing field, but still deplorable and dangerous. History and social analysis are complicated, nuanced, endeavors as the best scholars – mainstream and alternative – affirm. Mainstream scholars like Arthur Schlessinger, Richard Hofstadter, David Halberstam, Perry Miller, and David Garrow know this as do intellectuals documenting the forgotten or shadow side of our history including Eric Foner, Dee Brown, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Isabelle Wilkerson, William Appleton William, and Howard Zinn. NOTE: I choose not to use the terms “revisionist” historians because it is divisive, inflammatory, and smacks of an implied communist agenda.

+ Demonizing white people, however, is neither the goal nor the desire of CRT and its proponents. Rather, like the young activists who gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement, it is to accurately document human truths that have long been denied and intentionally omitted from our self-understanding. It is to redress what is broken in America and form a more perfect union where equality is normative.

My daughter teaches in the NYC school system where a careful approach to inclusion rules the day: theirs is not the inflated charges of mind-control suggested by the City Journal article, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites.” (Please read it here 2 https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites?) But an age-appropriate introduction to the study of First Nations history and culture before 1492. Or the legacy of Jim Crow laws after Reconstruction. It is a corrective to the sanitized histories I grew up and incorporates the wisdom but not the style of James Loewen’s, Lies My History Teacher Told Me. My takeaway from the City Journal article is not positive. It is well-written albeit with a subtle snark that I find deceitful. Specifically, three things trouble me. 

+ First, it is shaped by the conservative ideology of the foundation who publishes it: The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. They are clearly bright and creative; they are entitled to their own analysis, too. I fundamentally disagree, however, and want to state that from the outset. 

+ Second, the author implies communist motives to CRT advocates which is not only untrue, but a manipulative red herring often used by social conservatives to discredit those they oppose. 

+ And third, the article is only mildly empirical while caustically anecdotal. I was reminded of how Ronald Reagan used this ploy to great advantage when facts did not support his narrative. To be sure, I grasp the discomfort that can be evoked among white elites when learning about what is at stake in repairing the historic wounds of American racism. But I trust the analytical integrity of these articles from mainstream sources more:

· Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/

· Why Conservatives Really Fear Critical Race Theory
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/26/why-conservatives-really-fear-critical-race-theory/

· The Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory
https://time.com/6079716/conservative-case-against-banning-critical-race-theory/

One last point re: spirituality: St. Paul said it best in Romans when he observed “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” He, of course, included himself in this judgment. He also celebrated the superiority of grace over judg-ment – or as Bono put it: “Grace trumps karma.” I cannot see how CRT denies grace nor am I able to grasp how shining the light on social and institutional sin prohibits change. To be sure, I comprehend the discomfort and even the grief. But such is a part of becoming a new being by God’s love: we must all repent – change direction – let go of self so that we might be filled with God’s healing presence. So, that is my take on this thus far. Like St. Paul notes elsewhere: “now I see as through a glass darkly, later I shall see face to face… Three things endure: faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.” Thank you for sharing with me your insights with care, intellectual honesty, and love.

entering the time in-between time...

When I walked out of the house this morning, 

it finally felt like fall: 47F, grey skies with yellow and brown leaves falling all around, and a seasonal transition silently taking shape as autumn slowly dies and winter struggles to be born. Oh, do I love this time of year! The ancient Celts grasped that this is an in-between time, that sacred liminal space that was neither "one thing or another" (The Celtic Wheel of the Year, ed. Meg LLewellyn.) It is the passage from one half of the year to another - and my ancestors in Scotland and Ireland trusted that all of these passages were pregnant with possibilities. 

(These) in-between places and times, whether they are shores between land and water, the boundaries between political territories, bridges that cross streams of water, the twilight between day and night, or the transitions of the seasons, are holy.

All of my life I've felt most alive when the leaves start to show their true colors, the air cools, apple cider flows freely, the pumpkins pop, and sun light shifts from direct to slant. It is Samhain, a cross quarter day, taking shape and form half way between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. "This is the Celtic end of the old year, the beginning of the new, and as such, it is a 'hinge' in time, marking the transition from light into darkness." (Llewellyn) William Palmer puts it like this in a Thanksgiving Prayer:

Lord of the changing seasons,

   of harvest time, frost, and hearth fire,

   I think you for this holy turning of the year.

A hard freeze on All Saint's Day morning.

The russet leaves fall thickly in the still, early light.

Like all men and women who have ever lived, they return to the Earth.

I thank you, Lord, for this moment in time,

   this moment of clear revelation.

I thank you for the faith of my ancestors,

   remembered this day,

   for Halloween candy and pumpkin pie,

   for the Communion of Saints,

   and cozy evenings,

   for the low-angled sun of an autumn afternoon.

I the name of the dead: I thank you.

I the name of the living: I thank you.

I the name of those to come: I thank you.

Two weeks ago, we gathered pumpkins and corn with our children and grand children. This past weekend, we went into the hill town and found mums and apple cider. Today, I finished putting the plants and paraphernalia of gardening away for another season just as a light rain began. I moved our fountain inside, too. Our home, our energies, and our lives are ever more directed by the ebb and flow of the sun and moon as Mother Earth speaks all around us. We are moving towards the inward journey. 

facing into the apocalypse...

Most days I do not write political posts. To be honest, life is too short and my time on this grand planet is increasingly limited. But let's be clear: these are days that exhaust our souls and break open our hearts. They are an ever-flowing cascade of grief and fear mixed with moments of solace and sometimes even beauty. I currently experience our four horsemen of the apocalypse as: the pandemic, the ongoing destruction of Mother Earth, political gridlock in our nation's capitol, and the current know-nothing venom of right-wing activists who hate people of color, creative women, and the LGBTQ+ community with an unholy paranoia.

PANDEMIC

"The coronavirus pandemic" notes the NY Times, "has affected our lives, our economy and nearly every corner of the globe. More than 3.74 billion people worldwide have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, equal to about 48.7 percent of the world population. However, there are stark gaps between richer and poorer nations. The United States has surpassed 700,000 known Covid-19 deaths, making the coronavirus pandemic the deadliest in American history. Diana Butler Bass sensed a connection between these incomprehensible deaths and a new NETFLIX show, "Midnight Mass." She writes: "Over the last few days, I spent seven hours watching "Midnight Mass" (which is) done in the genre of horror (which I generally eschew), Midnight Mass follows a group of (mostly) church people whose world is collapsing - and the choices they make when facing the last things. At its heart are questions: Is Christianity about a sacrifice for the life of the world or a sacrifice for personal salvation? Is it about the power of wisdom or the power of eternal life? And how do faithful people choose the right way when facing apocalypse?" 

MOTHER EARTH'S DESTRUCTION

Climate activist, Greta Thunberg, was recently interviewed by YES Magazine. Her take on the devastation of our planet was characteristically blunt and honest: I think that you can objectively say that the climate crisis is not being treated as an emergency, especially when you compare to COVID in many parts of the world. The climate crisis is not being treated as an emergency, and it never has... We need to change social norms, and we need to change what we perceive as the crisis, and what we perceive as being normal. But one thing that it will take is honesty. We need to be honest about what we are doing and we need to be brave in order to confront that, in order to be able to change things. And it will take the people who have a platform, whether it is media, people in power, or just people who are influential, that they use that platform to communicate that we are in a crisis. Because if we do not start to treat the crisis like a crisis, then the people around us will not understand that we are in an emergency. 

POLIGICAL GRIDLOCK (from Heather Cox Richardson's writing)

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told his colleagues that on Monday evening he plans to bring up the Freedom to Vote Act and to try to get it through the Senate. The Republicans are determined not to let Democrats level the electoral playing field. While Democrats in the House, where legislation can pass with a simple majority vote, have passed voting rights laws, Democrats in the Senate have to deal with the filibuster, which enables senators in the minority to block legislation unless the Democrats can muster 60 votes. Republicans are dead set against voting rights laws. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has called voting reform “a solution in search of a problem,” driven by “coordinated lies about commonsense election laws that various states have passed.” Republicans are trying to regain control of the government by making sure their opponents can’t vote, while Democrats are trying to level a badly tilted playing field. If the Democrats do not succeed in passing a voting rights law, we can expect America to become a one-party state that, at best, will look much like the American South did between 1876 and 1964. Our nation will no longer be a democracy.

RIGHT WING DOMESTIC TERRORISM (from NY Times)

The American flag became a blunt instrument in the bearded man’s hands. Wielding the flagpole like an ax, he swung once, twice, three times, to beat a police officer being dragged down the steps of a United States Capitol under siege. Other officers also fell under mob attack, while the rest fought to keep the hordes from storming the Capitol and upending the routine transfer of power. Sprayed chemicals choked the air, projectiles flew overhead and the unbridled roars formed a battle-cry din — all as a woman lay dying beneath the jostling scrum of the Jan. 6 riot... nine months removed from the mayhem, Republicans bound to former President Donald J. Trump’s unfounded assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from him have all but wished the day away: blocking the creation of a bipartisan investigative commission; blaming antifa, or Democrats, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and minimizing the overwhelming video evidence. Even so, a reckoning is underway, as prosecutors and congressional investigators seek to understand how a political rally devolved into an assault on the citadel of American democracy and those who guard it. They are drilling down on whether the riot was organized and what roles were played by far-right extremist groups, various Trump supporters and Mr. Trump himself.

At the close of the Dr. Bass article, she notes that people of faith often wonder what is the right way to face when staring into the abyss of the apocalypse? She writes:

Some Christians argue there is no choice. That our only choice is to turn our backs on a fraying, fractured, evil world and form an exclusive community of true believers - who can, when called upon, destroy the wicked and restore godly society. That’s the vision laid out by Rod Dreher in a book originally published in 2017, The Benedict Option, where he urges Christians to reimpose “Christian belief and Christian culture” to save the west. (Another choice exists, however as Patrick Henry reiterates in his book Benedictine Options.) It is the call to love and live here and now in a fully human way, “a world-embracing monastic spirit” of faith that is “experimental, rhythmical, communal, ecumenical, and ‘narrational.’” While Dreher sees ours as “a world growing cold, dead, and dark,” Patrick insists that “Benedictine options are for a world of many colors” - aglow with laughter and lightness and love. “What, finally, is the consequence of implementing Benedictine options? It’s the opposite of The Benedict Option’s withdrawal. . . It’s being alert to what God says in Isaiah (43:19): ‘I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?’ The ‘new thing’ appears in the world - the whole world - that Benedict saw in his vision. Benedictines are connoisseurs of surprise.”

Dr. Bass then notes what I have been advocating for the past few years: We can choose to turn away from the end of the world, in the process, turn ourselves into monsters - or turn toward it and see a loving, healing, forgiving, and hospitable God even there. When we fear we’ve reached the end. We have choices. Surprises await.

I rather like the way Carrie Newcomer puts this in a recent poem: "I'm Learning to Sit with Not Knowing."

I'm learning to sit with not knowing.

Even when my restless mind begins jumping

From a worried

What next?

To a frightened

What if?

To a hard edged and impatient,

Why aren't you already there?

I'm learning to sit and listen

To pat myself on the knee,

Lay my hand on my heart,

Take a deep breath,

And laugh at myself.

To befriend my mistakes,

Especially the ones,

That show me how

I most need to change.

I'm learning to sit with whatever comes

*Even though I'm a planner.)

Because so much of this life

Can't be measured or predicted.

Because wonder and suffering visit

When we least expect

And rarely in equal measure.

I'm learning to sit with

What I might never know

Might never learn,

Might never heal.

I'm learning to sit with

What might waltz in and surprise me,

Might crash into my days,

With unspeakable sorrow

Or uncontainable delight.

I'm learning to sit with not knowing.

So, as beloved Walter Croinkite of blessed memory used to say: That's the way it is: Sunday, October 17, 2021.