Eliacin Rosario-Cruz, a member of Mustard Seed House in Seattle, has recently launched a Ning network for Mustard Seed Associates: "a community of Jesus’ followers all over the world creating the future one mustard seed at a time." Coincidentally (?), this week I'm participating in some of the Benedictine Experience a the Bishop's Ranch while I get ready for BREAD camp here. Sr. Donald Corcoran, OSB of Transfiguration Monastery has included some discussion of the 12 marks of the new monasticim in her classes, and I've been very moved to see a village elder taking seriously the work and passion of the village youngers. I've misplaced my copy of the Sojourners magazine where Eliacin was interviewed as an emerging leader in progressive Christianity (with which I hoped to read up so as to not ask stupid questions. oh well.).
Dear Eliacin,
I figured this would be a bit long to write on your "comments" page, but I did want these questions and ideas to be available to others. So welcome to my blog!
To your questions first--I sat in my room at the Bishop's Ranch on Sunday trying to come up with creative and cool answers to the profile questions on the MSA page. I always feel a little proud and a little guilty when I talk about "my work"--I think because I like claiming a sense of mission, and I'm often confused about how to balance "work" that I do and don't get paid for. I'm currently living alone, which is good for awhile for growing up, but I hope to soon rejoin community where inspiration, ideas, and support can happen in person over coffee rather than through my computer. I'm currently employed as a part-time youth minister in one parish and one Latino mission, and volunteer/apprentice/intern with various community organizing, anti-racism, and multicultural ministry projects in my church and diocese.
So to communities: I have been deeply involved for many years with a secular intentional community in Palo Alto, CA, called Magic. In fact, it was a friend there who gave me my copy of the Rule of St. Benedict! Through them I learned about the work of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, their magazine, etc. In college I tried to force my happy little co-op into being more of a "real" intentional community, which didn't go so well, but I learned a lot. My housemates mostly laughed at the crazy hippies they read about in the Communities magazines I left lying around.
"Building enduring and discerning communities" is still a pretty accurate theme for the things I find myself doing and wanting to do. As I found my way back into the church at the end of college I recognized that the liturgy in my bones (in my Episcopal tradition) is a practice of intentional community. Pointing, of course, we hope, beyond itself (see ++Katherine's sermon at grace cathedral last year on what the word Mass means). What I'd longed for in secular community life was ritual: tools for reminding ourselves who we are together, listening to each other, turning around from mistakes and accepting forgiveness, figuring out our reasons for being and what work flows from our mission, etc.
The whole God part comes and goes--that is, liturgy (or ritual) for me is usually about the community first, and then, if we're feelin' it, about the holiness of God. I'm aware that may be bass-ackwards.
I think I was thinking about apprenticeship because some of my work now feels like "just go do it," and I haven't taken time to ask for teachers to help me think through how, or help me set goals and evaluate, or simply show me how. When I worked on tall ships, stages of learning and accepting responsibility were very clear (just like in some monastic communities): you have rank not to say you're more or less worthy but to know where you fit. I'm working through my church as a leader with an affiliate of the PICO network, doing congregation-based community organizing. Once I met with the ex-executive director, and he said, "who do you go to to help you figure out your strategy and what steps to take?" I was amazed that help was available and I just wasn't asking.
Thanks for asking the questions and I look forward to wondering and wandering together!
peace,
Liz
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
making a symphony
i'm thinking of one of the church songs i grew up with. it lay buried in my archive until i started thinking about this post. on my bike handlebars today i tapped out the bluesy rhythm as i rehearsed how i might teach it at camp this summer:
holy spirit, come down on me
make my life a symphony
take my blindness and let me see
holy spirit come down on me
i waited for the L train on my way to the airport at bedford ave around 6:30 sunday morning. my colleagues at home in california would be getting up soon for weekly celebrations of life and love in the example of jesus and in the company of spirit. i was shifting under the weight of my backpack and wondering about how my four-day pilgrimage back to new york had coalesced to such artistic effect. like a symphony.
at first it felt like time travel. JFK's terminal 6 still has the same weird concrete circles. nice old ladies still offer to help when you pull out a map on the subway, and sometimes share something of themselves (mine admitted that she journals on the train on loose-leaf paper, and it's okay that she can't read her handwriting because she never goes back to read these journals). i went straight to grand central, hoping to catch the hudson line train that would get me to beacon in time for clearwater's afternoon sail. i knew i wouldn't sleep much on the train: i still always wonder about sailors trying to navigate the strong currents at Spuyten Duyvil (spitting devil) at the northern tip of manhattan back when that was necessary, and my mind without fail plays the Weavers' song about Tarrytown as we pass that stop ("wide and deep/my grave will be/with the wild goose grasses growing over me").
i didn't recognize many of the faces when i hopped on the boat at lunchtime, but i did recognize their conversations, expressions, clothes, and rituals. i was disappointed to notice that i felt as competitive and snarky as ever, ungenerous in making new friends yet eager for everyone to think i'm a legend in the tall ship world. but this time, i shared my desire to become a better shipmate (generous) and sailor (humble, paying attention) with the friend who invited me. (see the description of this blog in the right margin!) then for the rest of the day he called me on it when i spoke or acted in ways that went against my intention. (thanks, Brian!) i jumped in at the part of the sail where the educator explains why we always include music in programs on the boat. i asked the kids what they thought singing together might help a group accomplish, as they had just demonstrated on the fishing net and sails. music makes community.
i arrived at St. Paul's chapel thursday morning to begin our music that makes community conference. i felt excited but not anxious, unsure but safe and at home. we began singing right away. here's one of the first songs we did (this particular video from another iteration of the conference):
i knew i was in the minority in this group, not a professional musician and not a musician who's ever paid much attention to music i made. i napped in the park at lunchtime. in our first small group meeting, marilyn taught us one of ana's songs. the clapping pattern featured a way to stay in time by flinging your hands out away from each other in between claps. that hit me because i've never paid enough attention to get the beat right when i'm singing. sure enough, i tried to teach the small group one of the songs i brought. i tried to conduct but had no idea where the beat was supposed to fall. hrrmph. i have a ways to go.
thursday night was laura's birthday party in brooklyn. i got to meet stephanie, the force behind party for the people, and learned that my new friend lou is working on boosting civic engagement through e-government. i liked that i could hook them up with others doing similar work. yes, networking is part of my calling. looking for the counterpoints in each of our songs.
back in the saddle friday. i got a little bolder. not sure if i worked any harder. i learned some more about how to practice and prepare, study and learn in this work. emily talked about how good it feels when in a musical conversation, someone else hears what you've "said" and bounces it back to you. improvisation takes more practice, not less, and certainly more focus. my friend suzanne mused when her son asked why he had to practice scales on the saxophone when he "already knew all the notes":
"you must practice scales now so that when the spirit stirs up its power and comes upon you, you can play what it tells you uninhibited, unhindered by the clumsiness of your fingers or breathing or bad habits. your sound must be so pure that you can translate the most divine secrets into a language other souls can understand, if g-d so wills it. you must prepare to be a servant to your scales now, so that later you will be able to play with more freedom than you can possibly imagine" (suzanne guthrie, grace's window, cowley 1996)
the heart-breaking and heart-opening doesn't come for free. but it's worth it.
check it out:
i approached my friday night with emotional energy high, but also prayerful and quiet. i couldn't have done it otherwise. see, i was having dinner with a friend from college whom i hadn't seen in three years. we had some reconciling to do. but the music had made me open and given me practice in listening without making it about me, and now i have my friend back. and like in the music, i have new tools to help me practice and listen. i just need to use them. he played piano and we sang the love duet from the fantasticks, "they were you."
my last day in new york was a very long one. i woke up before the alarm, buzzing and ready to get to work. we finished the conference with a eucharist and it didn't feel like goodbye at all, it's so clearly a beginning and continuing of what i was born to do. i went down to chelsea to see a performance of one-act plays, one of which was directed by my friend corinne. i was pretty sleepy but was a ways from home. back to Brooklyn (via newton's method; i could not for the life of me get going the correct direction on 14th st!) for one more college friend reunion. i marvelled at marc's new studio which will include a real black box theatre when he paints it. a marvellous dinner of greens and rice and wine with his building-mates, eaten with our hands indian-style.
i offered (maybe more like pleaded) to teach them a couple of the songs i had learned at the conference. singing together could be cool--these are artsy, spiritual folks. i said it could be like a grace after dinner. we tried "freedom come" and "open my heart" (i failed to explain about the dissonant major seconds) with limited success. i gave up. but then, downstairs in the other apartment, i asked marc to try with me an experiment we've done before: he beatboxes over (under) me singing one of my favorite ruthy songs.
it spread like wildfire. before i had finished the song, ethan was at the keyboard, jan on the drum set, and angie sprawled on a beanbag with a melodica. they kept playing when the song was over, and ethan tried again with "open my heart." i can't explain how great it felt to be singing my heart out and truly improvising, listening and responding to what my friends were offering. i wasn't tied to one song, i bounced between folk songs, church songs, freedom songs, and sanskrit chant (yep, all the words to the gayatri mantra came back to me). when we were winding down, it was just marc at the keyboard. i've never been able to follow marc's musical musings, any more than his academic ones. but i listened. what i heard was a melody that would go well with "they were you", so i sang that. amazing. we could complement each other in a new way.
i haven't mentioned that my reading for the trip was eat pray love (elizabeth gilbert, penguin, 2006). my journey home was much longer than intended since i missed the check-in cutoff time for my flight. it seemed clear early on that g-d just wanted me to be alone that day, my birthday, to contemplate and let all this begin to sink in. liz gilbert was good company for that. and every time i encountered breathtaking beauty: the mountains behind salt lake, the sunset over san francisco bay, the music started on its own in my head:
holy spirit, come down on me
make my life a symphony
take my blindness and let me see
holy spirit come down on me
i waited for the L train on my way to the airport at bedford ave around 6:30 sunday morning. my colleagues at home in california would be getting up soon for weekly celebrations of life and love in the example of jesus and in the company of spirit. i was shifting under the weight of my backpack and wondering about how my four-day pilgrimage back to new york had coalesced to such artistic effect. like a symphony.
at first it felt like time travel. JFK's terminal 6 still has the same weird concrete circles. nice old ladies still offer to help when you pull out a map on the subway, and sometimes share something of themselves (mine admitted that she journals on the train on loose-leaf paper, and it's okay that she can't read her handwriting because she never goes back to read these journals). i went straight to grand central, hoping to catch the hudson line train that would get me to beacon in time for clearwater's afternoon sail. i knew i wouldn't sleep much on the train: i still always wonder about sailors trying to navigate the strong currents at Spuyten Duyvil (spitting devil) at the northern tip of manhattan back when that was necessary, and my mind without fail plays the Weavers' song about Tarrytown as we pass that stop ("wide and deep/my grave will be/with the wild goose grasses growing over me").
i didn't recognize many of the faces when i hopped on the boat at lunchtime, but i did recognize their conversations, expressions, clothes, and rituals. i was disappointed to notice that i felt as competitive and snarky as ever, ungenerous in making new friends yet eager for everyone to think i'm a legend in the tall ship world. but this time, i shared my desire to become a better shipmate (generous) and sailor (humble, paying attention) with the friend who invited me. (see the description of this blog in the right margin!) then for the rest of the day he called me on it when i spoke or acted in ways that went against my intention. (thanks, Brian!) i jumped in at the part of the sail where the educator explains why we always include music in programs on the boat. i asked the kids what they thought singing together might help a group accomplish, as they had just demonstrated on the fishing net and sails. music makes community.
i arrived at St. Paul's chapel thursday morning to begin our music that makes community conference. i felt excited but not anxious, unsure but safe and at home. we began singing right away. here's one of the first songs we did (this particular video from another iteration of the conference):
i knew i was in the minority in this group, not a professional musician and not a musician who's ever paid much attention to music i made. i napped in the park at lunchtime. in our first small group meeting, marilyn taught us one of ana's songs. the clapping pattern featured a way to stay in time by flinging your hands out away from each other in between claps. that hit me because i've never paid enough attention to get the beat right when i'm singing. sure enough, i tried to teach the small group one of the songs i brought. i tried to conduct but had no idea where the beat was supposed to fall. hrrmph. i have a ways to go.
thursday night was laura's birthday party in brooklyn. i got to meet stephanie, the force behind party for the people, and learned that my new friend lou is working on boosting civic engagement through e-government. i liked that i could hook them up with others doing similar work. yes, networking is part of my calling. looking for the counterpoints in each of our songs.
back in the saddle friday. i got a little bolder. not sure if i worked any harder. i learned some more about how to practice and prepare, study and learn in this work. emily talked about how good it feels when in a musical conversation, someone else hears what you've "said" and bounces it back to you. improvisation takes more practice, not less, and certainly more focus. my friend suzanne mused when her son asked why he had to practice scales on the saxophone when he "already knew all the notes":
"you must practice scales now so that when the spirit stirs up its power and comes upon you, you can play what it tells you uninhibited, unhindered by the clumsiness of your fingers or breathing or bad habits. your sound must be so pure that you can translate the most divine secrets into a language other souls can understand, if g-d so wills it. you must prepare to be a servant to your scales now, so that later you will be able to play with more freedom than you can possibly imagine" (suzanne guthrie, grace's window, cowley 1996)
the heart-breaking and heart-opening doesn't come for free. but it's worth it.
check it out:
i approached my friday night with emotional energy high, but also prayerful and quiet. i couldn't have done it otherwise. see, i was having dinner with a friend from college whom i hadn't seen in three years. we had some reconciling to do. but the music had made me open and given me practice in listening without making it about me, and now i have my friend back. and like in the music, i have new tools to help me practice and listen. i just need to use them. he played piano and we sang the love duet from the fantasticks, "they were you."
my last day in new york was a very long one. i woke up before the alarm, buzzing and ready to get to work. we finished the conference with a eucharist and it didn't feel like goodbye at all, it's so clearly a beginning and continuing of what i was born to do. i went down to chelsea to see a performance of one-act plays, one of which was directed by my friend corinne. i was pretty sleepy but was a ways from home. back to Brooklyn (via newton's method; i could not for the life of me get going the correct direction on 14th st!) for one more college friend reunion. i marvelled at marc's new studio which will include a real black box theatre when he paints it. a marvellous dinner of greens and rice and wine with his building-mates, eaten with our hands indian-style.
i offered (maybe more like pleaded) to teach them a couple of the songs i had learned at the conference. singing together could be cool--these are artsy, spiritual folks. i said it could be like a grace after dinner. we tried "freedom come" and "open my heart" (i failed to explain about the dissonant major seconds) with limited success. i gave up. but then, downstairs in the other apartment, i asked marc to try with me an experiment we've done before: he beatboxes over (under) me singing one of my favorite ruthy songs.
it spread like wildfire. before i had finished the song, ethan was at the keyboard, jan on the drum set, and angie sprawled on a beanbag with a melodica. they kept playing when the song was over, and ethan tried again with "open my heart." i can't explain how great it felt to be singing my heart out and truly improvising, listening and responding to what my friends were offering. i wasn't tied to one song, i bounced between folk songs, church songs, freedom songs, and sanskrit chant (yep, all the words to the gayatri mantra came back to me). when we were winding down, it was just marc at the keyboard. i've never been able to follow marc's musical musings, any more than his academic ones. but i listened. what i heard was a melody that would go well with "they were you", so i sang that. amazing. we could complement each other in a new way.
i haven't mentioned that my reading for the trip was eat pray love (elizabeth gilbert, penguin, 2006). my journey home was much longer than intended since i missed the check-in cutoff time for my flight. it seemed clear early on that g-d just wanted me to be alone that day, my birthday, to contemplate and let all this begin to sink in. liz gilbert was good company for that. and every time i encountered breathtaking beauty: the mountains behind salt lake, the sunset over san francisco bay, the music started on its own in my head:
Thursday, April 17, 2008
brian mclaren and the prince of denmark
i'm getting into the heart of everything must change, brian mclaren's stunning book. i'm not being a cutesy critic by using that word, "stunning". i am stunned:
HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET
Why, right; you are i' the right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desire shall point you;
For every man has business and desire,
Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,
Look you, I'll go pray.
(Act I Scene V)
we need time apart to discern in order that we might respond instead of reacting. god keep us angry enough to keep at our work of kingdom building and reconciliation, and hopeful enough to bind our wounds, plan and pray our actions, not lash out.
the discussion of the second coming made me think of a central prayer in our rituals, what we call the memorial acclamation:
christ has died
christ is risen
christ will come again
thoughtful friends, seminary trained and otherwise, tell me what you think:
given the pervasive ideas of a second coming so violent that it wipes out the life-giving and revolutionary first one, how would it be if we changed the prayer?
christ had died
christ is risen
christ is all around
or "christ is with us now"
or "christ is within us now"
or "christ will return, in our hearts, as soon as we let him..."
thoughts?
if we believe that jesus came in peace the first time, but that wasn't his "real" and decisive coming--it was just a kind of warm-up for the real thing--then we leave the door open to envisioning a second coming that will be characterized by violence, killing, domination, and eternal torture...this eschatological understanding of a violent second coming leads us to believe...that in the end, even God finds it impossible to fix the world apart from violence and coercion; no one should be surprised when those shaped by this theology behave accordingly. (pg 144)my house is a mess this morning, as is my mind, as is my country and world. as i ponder, i'm remembering the first time i saw a production of Hamlet. i was also stunned then: i didn't speak for an hour after the curtain call, and i went back the next night. how did the prince respond to truth-tellings like mclaren's?
HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET
Why, right; you are i' the right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desire shall point you;
For every man has business and desire,
Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,
Look you, I'll go pray.
(Act I Scene V)
we need time apart to discern in order that we might respond instead of reacting. god keep us angry enough to keep at our work of kingdom building and reconciliation, and hopeful enough to bind our wounds, plan and pray our actions, not lash out.
the discussion of the second coming made me think of a central prayer in our rituals, what we call the memorial acclamation:
christ has died
christ is risen
christ will come again
thoughtful friends, seminary trained and otherwise, tell me what you think:
given the pervasive ideas of a second coming so violent that it wipes out the life-giving and revolutionary first one, how would it be if we changed the prayer?
christ had died
christ is risen
christ is all around
or "christ is with us now"
or "christ is within us now"
or "christ will return, in our hearts, as soon as we let him..."
thoughts?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
can't franchise wisdom
last night i rented the "peaceful warrior" movie, based on the novel the way of the peaceful warrior by Dan Milllan. the movie came out in 2006, but despite having a very strong connection to the book, i hadn't seen it yet.
i feel about this story the way my friend suzanne describes her relationship with Teresa of Avila's autobiography. important words, encountered at an important time in life, but i don't consult the book much anymore. in fact i've given all my copies away. it led me to other teachers as time went on. so what i had first expected to be a chill evening watching a movie with a friend became more sacramental than i was perhaps prepared for. going back to this teacher will, i hope, become a habit of gratitude.
i was not in the habit, when i first encountered the story, of seeing through the eyes of the church. but you can bet that last night i was full of ideas for church applications for this film, with youth and otherwise. one thing that struck me was how self-directed was dan's "conversion" to the discipline of his training with Socrates. it's a bit like a church camp veteran from Camp Stevens told me last week: if campers decide themselves, "hey you know what would be cool? to learn to crochet," and you find someone to teach them, you'll have some pretty darn engaged learners.
near the end of the movie, dan brings his whole gymnastics team to Soc's garage, do find that he's disappeared and hung a "self-serve only" sign. teaching a class, we've figured out by now, would certainly not be his style. we hear st. francis quoted quite a lot, you know, "preach the gospel, use words if necessary." it didn't work for dan to tell his friends about what he was learning. not until they saw the changes in him and asked.
i'll go a bit further. jesus was more like this Socrates than like Billy Graham. Alan Watts said, "Jesus had to speak through a public address system--the only one available--which distorted his words, so that they came forth as the bombastic claim to be the one and only appearance of the Christ, of the incarnation of G-d as man. This is not good news. The good news is that if Jesus could realize his identity with G-d, you can also..."
(from Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown, 1974)
i feel about this story the way my friend suzanne describes her relationship with Teresa of Avila's autobiography. important words, encountered at an important time in life, but i don't consult the book much anymore. in fact i've given all my copies away. it led me to other teachers as time went on. so what i had first expected to be a chill evening watching a movie with a friend became more sacramental than i was perhaps prepared for. going back to this teacher will, i hope, become a habit of gratitude.
i was not in the habit, when i first encountered the story, of seeing through the eyes of the church. but you can bet that last night i was full of ideas for church applications for this film, with youth and otherwise. one thing that struck me was how self-directed was dan's "conversion" to the discipline of his training with Socrates. it's a bit like a church camp veteran from Camp Stevens told me last week: if campers decide themselves, "hey you know what would be cool? to learn to crochet," and you find someone to teach them, you'll have some pretty darn engaged learners.
near the end of the movie, dan brings his whole gymnastics team to Soc's garage, do find that he's disappeared and hung a "self-serve only" sign. teaching a class, we've figured out by now, would certainly not be his style. we hear st. francis quoted quite a lot, you know, "preach the gospel, use words if necessary." it didn't work for dan to tell his friends about what he was learning. not until they saw the changes in him and asked.
i'll go a bit further. jesus was more like this Socrates than like Billy Graham. Alan Watts said, "Jesus had to speak through a public address system--the only one available--which distorted his words, so that they came forth as the bombastic claim to be the one and only appearance of the Christ, of the incarnation of G-d as man. This is not good news. The good news is that if Jesus could realize his identity with G-d, you can also..."
(from Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown, 1974)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
my kitchen is a sacred place
no news there, really. i've even blogged about it before. but it's like that line in "brown eyed girl": "sometimes i'm overcome thinking about..."
it's not thinking, exactly, when the sacredness of my kitchen or my home come over me.
once, when i lived in community, i was finishing a big batch of dishes late in the evening. as i wiped off the counters and stove top, the last step as my mother taught me, i was overcome with gratitude for those faithful counters. they'd served so well for so long, making possible some of the best moments of our life together.
last night i sat on the floor with a drink and my journal, curled up in an old throw blanket with pictures of Victorian little kids ice skating and playing with bunnies. i set my little fluorescent lamp in front of my wooden-wine-crate altar, and pretended it was a fireplace, hearth of my home.
maybe these at-home moments are when we're best at celebrating the kingdom of god already here, alive in our hearts. in the liturgy of the seder dinner, the community sings a litany of "dayenu", which means "it would be enough." testing our human tendency to think we never have enough, we sing, "if only ___, it would be enough."
meister eckhart said if the only prayer in your life is thank you, it would be enough.
it's not thinking, exactly, when the sacredness of my kitchen or my home come over me.
once, when i lived in community, i was finishing a big batch of dishes late in the evening. as i wiped off the counters and stove top, the last step as my mother taught me, i was overcome with gratitude for those faithful counters. they'd served so well for so long, making possible some of the best moments of our life together.
last night i sat on the floor with a drink and my journal, curled up in an old throw blanket with pictures of Victorian little kids ice skating and playing with bunnies. i set my little fluorescent lamp in front of my wooden-wine-crate altar, and pretended it was a fireplace, hearth of my home.
maybe these at-home moments are when we're best at celebrating the kingdom of god already here, alive in our hearts. in the liturgy of the seder dinner, the community sings a litany of "dayenu", which means "it would be enough." testing our human tendency to think we never have enough, we sing, "if only ___, it would be enough."
meister eckhart said if the only prayer in your life is thank you, it would be enough.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
episcopal tashlikh
this sermon from the first sunday after Christmas, St. Mark's Palo Alto on Isaiah 61:10-62:3 , Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7 , John 1:1-18 , and Psalm 147:13-21
“Time is an enormous long river,” says old-time storyteller Utah Phillips. The practice of reading and interpreting scripture gives us a glimpse upstream, a way to stand in the river and notice how we are changed by who and what has gone before. We should not be surprised that each of us receives these stories differently. According to one midrash, or commentary on the Jewish Torah, if there were six hundred thousand Jews present at Mount Sinai, there were also six hundred thousand versions of what happened.
Do you have a family historian? A person who tries to set the record straight, and resists any creative changes or artistic license in their retelling of family stories? There’s a story my mom loves to tell, and for many years I always corrected her, assuming the only right way to tell the story was the way I remembered it happening. I noticed that every time she told the story, she painted herself as less embarrassed, less the victim of a silly situation, and more mischievous and creative. I always thought this was blasphemy!
But what is setting the record straight, anyway? My version of the story was not the only one; maybe her memory of the day had changed. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, in his recent novel Kabbalah, tells about a man who notices his memory changing, and revealing new possibilities for his life. The man tells a friend, “A few weeks ago, I was recounting the story and I realized that some things might have happened differently. I’m sure if there had been a videocamera on the ceiling, like they have in banks, the tape would be the same each time it was played. But what those gestures and shadows mean changes with each new viewing. I’ll go farther: The holier the event, the more ways it can be retold.” (Kabbalah, 106)
St. John’s version of the holy Christmas event is very different from the one we read on Christmas eve, and much more difficult to act out. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. In our pageant this year, the Paschal candle appeared on the stage at the moment of Jesus’ birth, the light of Christ. The gospel of John was the last of the four canonical gospels to be written, many years after Matthew and Luke, which were themselves many years after Mark. Each successive story starts further back in time, further upstream in the enormous long river: Mark begins with the baptism of a thirtysomething Jesus, Matthew and Luke with a baby in a stable, and John way back at the beginning of the world.
Phillips described time as a river to say that our attempts to divide time are basically false. How were “the 60s” different from “the 70s” if the Vietnam War heated up in 1965 and ended in 1975? Is January 1, 2008 really going to be all that different from December 31, 2007? It is certainly true that each day is the first day of the rest of your life, but it’s also true you that you need a healthy relationship with the past in order to accept the gift of the future, of the world that is coming.
Since we each have a part in the world that is coming, it can be fine thing to set goals or make resolutions for our own growth. I tend, when making resolutions, to judge myself harshly for the habit I want to change. I try desperately to get away from a “bad old” self to a “good new” self, I guess because I’ve decided “bad old” self is uncool and unloveable. It is this habit of beating ourselves up that St. Paul is referring to in Galatians. “Now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian.” The disciplinarian is the judge within us who tries to get us to grow by force and rules. Christ has come to encourage our faith that God’s love is not conditional on our successfully meeting our goals. I have a bedtime prayer from New Zealand near my bed. It says, “God our judge and teacher, let us not waste time when day is done in guilt or self-reproach. Give us rather the courage to face whatever has been, accept forgiveness, and move on to something better.” We cannot grow from fear, only from love.
One response to the fear of not being good enough, of being unworthy of even God’s love, is to try to start over. I have always been tempted by offers of fresh starts, where I’m offered chances to go somewhere new, with new people, doing new things. I almost went to live and work on a boat instead of going back for my last year of college. And this year, I almost left you all and this community I love, to move to Kansas City. These offers are like chances to make-your-own New Years, a shiny new start within which you can pretend to be able to erase your past mistakes. And then, of course, wherever you go, there you are. Healing is important precisely because we can’t erase the past.
Looking back at those months when I was talking about moving, I’m reminded of another New Years ritual, a flipside to making resolutions. It’s done on the Jewish New Year, the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah. The ceremony is called tashlikh, which means casting off. You stand on the banks of a river or other body of water, and throw pieces of bread in the water to represent the sins you’re carrying with you from the past year.
Moving to Kansas City would not have been a sin. What I want to throw in the river, though, is the way I acted for awhile there as if I were already gone.
I went to lunch with my sister one day this spring. She was worried about my plans,
and asked, “What would you do if you changed your mind and came back?"
“Go back to St. Mark’s.”
“Why would they want to take you back?”
“Because they love me.”
“Do you love them?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you leaving them?”
I sighed. I said, “Good question. The only good answer is, because it’s time.”
It wasn’t time. I’m very glad I’m still here. I’m glad because here is home; not just because Palo Alto is my hometown, but St. Mark’s too is now part of me and there’s a lot we can be and do together yet. And because you’re teaching me how to forgive and love like Christ.
A holy relationship with the past, then, is a paradox. On the one hand you hold your sins with compassion, without judgement, and on the other hand you cast them off. You let them be food for fish. You stand in the river but you don’t let it drown you. Brian Taylor says, “We tend to think that we’re supposed to get rid of our dark side, our spiritual failure, our annoyingly habitual faults, and then present ourselves as pure and proper before God. But the Spirit needs us to be real. The manure of our lives should not be hidden from God; it should be dug into our souls so that its nutrients can help produce needed growth.” We don’t become righteous because we are perfect (or hiding something!), but rather salvation sets us free to be our best selves.
As you look back over 2007, what things are you holding onto? What things are holding onto you? What might you do to accept them and accept forgiveness? Would it help to ask for forgiveness, or ask for support?
What are you called to grow into this next year? How might you nurture that growth? How can we move forward together as a healthy and healing community?
May we learn to see the light of hope, the promise of healing, in all the stories of our lives this year. May we trust that God’s enormous long river is flowing towards the kingdom And may we come with joy to meet our Lord, forgiven, loved, and free. Amen.
Friday, December 28, 2007
christmas sermon from a wisdom christian
sung/said by me at st. mark's palo alto, christmas morning:
Oh, what a beautiful city
oh, what a beautiful city
oh, what a beautiful city
there’s twelve gates to the city, Hallelujah
I learned about singing old-time gospel and mountain music from a woman named Ginny Hawker. She led a gospel sing in a beautiful, small wooden building, a former blacksmith shop, at a music camp I attended. People at this camp were mostly spiritual-but-not-religious agnostic types. Someone asked her whether she believed in everything we were singing, naming an anxiety felt by many of us. Ginny said, “Good question. I don’t agree with some of these words. They’re all important to me, though, because they were important to my grandmother. When I sing these songs I’m honoring her.” I think we were also asking that day: “Is it okay to enjoy this prayerful space we’ve just created by singing these songs together? Don’t we have to have checked our minds and checkbooks into a religious community to get this benefit?” Are we hypocrites if we sing and pray along with words we don’t understand, or don’t believe are true?
No; walk on in and you’ll be welcome in the city.
A friend of my familiy has a similar approach to saying the Creed in church (the list of “we believe’s that we’ll get to after I sit down): he says it’s okay to hum along with the parts you can’t say. Humming along doesn’t make you any less welcome. This question is central to our Anglican tradition; Elizabeth I, on inheriting a country full of people killing each other over whether or not to be Roman Catholic, said, “Enough!” She helped to create a church more grounded in common practice than in common belief. Keep praying together, especially when you disagree. There’s twelve gates to the city, hallelujah.
So what is this city with twelve gates? It is the kingdom of God on earth, an idea that to me means we’re evolving beyond a theology of insiders and outsiders. In the heavenly city, in what progressive theologians in this century have called the beloved community, there are no chosen people. Or, perhaps more accurately, there are no unchosen people.
The prophet Isaiah, in today’s first reading, says “You who remind the Lord, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it renowned throughout the earth.” Maybe that’s a weird sentence to get excited about, but here’s why I got excited about it: Isaiah was among the first in the Hebrew tradition to push past the idea that God chose the Hebrews above all others. God’s love and acceptance can’t be limited to people who look like us, believe like us, or are in our family. So Isaiah isn’t recommending a military charge. Nor is the psalmist, even thought we just said, “a fire goes before him and burns up his enemies on every side.” Christ is the Lord who came to transform Empire, not to beat Caesar at his own game. Isaiah invites all the world to the heavenly city; no one will be brought there as a prisoner. The prophet is issuing a charge, a call to each of us to work at building that city. And more, a call to live as though it were already here, for in the deepest sense, it is.
This summer in the Catheral of Notre Dame in Chartres, France, I understood Isaiah. I also understood Mary. The cathedral was pretty dark inside, but when we turned a corner and could see the Mary chapel, it was all light. Hundreds of votive candles in red glass holders surrounded a 7th-century statue, the Black Mary. I sat in this chapel, more interested in feeling what this place was like than in walking around with my friends. I got out the Bible I had brought, my grandmother’s, and flipped through Luke. I was looking for the Christmas reading, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” I noticed old women going up to the statue, which rested on a big pillar, and kissing the pillar in devotion. I learned that the common name Pilar means Mary, the pillar of the church, the family, the community. Mary held the Christ child in her heart and in her body, and responded to God’s call to her with unbelievable strenth.
Coming from the warmth and quiet of Mary’s sanctuary, I responded to the rest of what the cathedral had to offer me differently. Images of the heavenly city appeared everywhere, carved and in windows. I began to see in them Isaiah’s hope for unity, Mary’s hope for her son, his hope for the world. The hopes and fears of all the years, all met in me. Oh, what a beautiful city.
I can see from all this two different ways for us to live into the Christmas story.
Some will be prophets and evangelists, like the shepherds and like Isaiah. The prophets, like teenagers, are often not politically correct. You speak the truth, and call us to our best selves. You’re also excited; the shepherds went and told everyone they knew about this child, not stopping to think how they’d be received. You yearn for the world to be made new, for the cleansing fire to burn away all that keeps us apart.
Others will prefer to play Mary. Your role is to treasure and to cherish all the miracles you can find, past, present, and future. It’s kind of an Appreciative Inquiry model; Mary makes more of what is good in the world by nurturing the good we already have. She’s also reflective, in prayer and stillness she uncovers important insights and connections.
As in a family, and as in our church, we need both of these characters. And we need to be able to learn from each other. The great modern mystic Henri Nouwen said, “No mystic (read: Mary) can prevent herself from becoming a social critic, since in self-reflection she will uncover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, no revolutionary (read: prophet) can avoid facing his own human condition, since in the midst of his struggle for a new world he will find that he is also fighting his own reactionary fears and false ambitions.” There’s twelve gates to the city, hallelujah.
salon.com recently featured an interview with theologian John Haight. The interviewer asked him if he believes God answers prayer. He warned against focusing too narrowly on ourselves, saying:
And may your hearts burn within you with joy.
Oh, what a beautiful city
oh, what a beautiful city
oh, what a beautiful city
there’s twelve gates to the city, Hallelujah
I learned about singing old-time gospel and mountain music from a woman named Ginny Hawker. She led a gospel sing in a beautiful, small wooden building, a former blacksmith shop, at a music camp I attended. People at this camp were mostly spiritual-but-not-religious agnostic types. Someone asked her whether she believed in everything we were singing, naming an anxiety felt by many of us. Ginny said, “Good question. I don’t agree with some of these words. They’re all important to me, though, because they were important to my grandmother. When I sing these songs I’m honoring her.” I think we were also asking that day: “Is it okay to enjoy this prayerful space we’ve just created by singing these songs together? Don’t we have to have checked our minds and checkbooks into a religious community to get this benefit?” Are we hypocrites if we sing and pray along with words we don’t understand, or don’t believe are true?
No; walk on in and you’ll be welcome in the city.
A friend of my familiy has a similar approach to saying the Creed in church (the list of “we believe’s that we’ll get to after I sit down): he says it’s okay to hum along with the parts you can’t say. Humming along doesn’t make you any less welcome. This question is central to our Anglican tradition; Elizabeth I, on inheriting a country full of people killing each other over whether or not to be Roman Catholic, said, “Enough!” She helped to create a church more grounded in common practice than in common belief. Keep praying together, especially when you disagree. There’s twelve gates to the city, hallelujah.
So what is this city with twelve gates? It is the kingdom of God on earth, an idea that to me means we’re evolving beyond a theology of insiders and outsiders. In the heavenly city, in what progressive theologians in this century have called the beloved community, there are no chosen people. Or, perhaps more accurately, there are no unchosen people.
The prophet Isaiah, in today’s first reading, says “You who remind the Lord, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it renowned throughout the earth.” Maybe that’s a weird sentence to get excited about, but here’s why I got excited about it: Isaiah was among the first in the Hebrew tradition to push past the idea that God chose the Hebrews above all others. God’s love and acceptance can’t be limited to people who look like us, believe like us, or are in our family. So Isaiah isn’t recommending a military charge. Nor is the psalmist, even thought we just said, “a fire goes before him and burns up his enemies on every side.” Christ is the Lord who came to transform Empire, not to beat Caesar at his own game. Isaiah invites all the world to the heavenly city; no one will be brought there as a prisoner. The prophet is issuing a charge, a call to each of us to work at building that city. And more, a call to live as though it were already here, for in the deepest sense, it is.
This summer in the Catheral of Notre Dame in Chartres, France, I understood Isaiah. I also understood Mary. The cathedral was pretty dark inside, but when we turned a corner and could see the Mary chapel, it was all light. Hundreds of votive candles in red glass holders surrounded a 7th-century statue, the Black Mary. I sat in this chapel, more interested in feeling what this place was like than in walking around with my friends. I got out the Bible I had brought, my grandmother’s, and flipped through Luke. I was looking for the Christmas reading, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” I noticed old women going up to the statue, which rested on a big pillar, and kissing the pillar in devotion. I learned that the common name Pilar means Mary, the pillar of the church, the family, the community. Mary held the Christ child in her heart and in her body, and responded to God’s call to her with unbelievable strenth.
Coming from the warmth and quiet of Mary’s sanctuary, I responded to the rest of what the cathedral had to offer me differently. Images of the heavenly city appeared everywhere, carved and in windows. I began to see in them Isaiah’s hope for unity, Mary’s hope for her son, his hope for the world. The hopes and fears of all the years, all met in me. Oh, what a beautiful city.
I can see from all this two different ways for us to live into the Christmas story.
Some will be prophets and evangelists, like the shepherds and like Isaiah. The prophets, like teenagers, are often not politically correct. You speak the truth, and call us to our best selves. You’re also excited; the shepherds went and told everyone they knew about this child, not stopping to think how they’d be received. You yearn for the world to be made new, for the cleansing fire to burn away all that keeps us apart.
Others will prefer to play Mary. Your role is to treasure and to cherish all the miracles you can find, past, present, and future. It’s kind of an Appreciative Inquiry model; Mary makes more of what is good in the world by nurturing the good we already have. She’s also reflective, in prayer and stillness she uncovers important insights and connections.
As in a family, and as in our church, we need both of these characters. And we need to be able to learn from each other. The great modern mystic Henri Nouwen said, “No mystic (read: Mary) can prevent herself from becoming a social critic, since in self-reflection she will uncover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, no revolutionary (read: prophet) can avoid facing his own human condition, since in the midst of his struggle for a new world he will find that he is also fighting his own reactionary fears and false ambitions.” There’s twelve gates to the city, hallelujah.
salon.com recently featured an interview with theologian John Haight. The interviewer asked him if he believes God answers prayer. He warned against focusing too narrowly on ourselves, saying:
Yes, but I have to…ask, what if God answered everybody's prayers? What kind of world would we have? I also have to think of what Jesus said when his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. What he told them, in effect, was to pray for something really big. He called it "the kingdom of God." What that means is praying for the ultimate fulfillment of all being, of all the universe. So when we pray, we're asking that the world might have a future.May God’s will be done, and kingdom come, the heavenly city.
And may your hearts burn within you with joy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
