Saturday, July 29, 2017

More Seeds, plus a few other images

Sunday Scriptures:
1 Kings 3:5-12; Psalm 119:129-136; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

When you've got this reading from Romans, who needs more?  But we get more.  Much more.

If you've been reading here lately, you've heard me talking to myself about putting aside ideas of success or impact in favor of being faithful and trusting.  If you got our newsletter yesterday, you might have heard a plaintive note: why isn't anyone else coming to join us?  Again the conclusion: not my business.  My job is to be faithful to this gift.

Sandra Schneiders framed her masterwork on the religious life around the parable of the treasure in the field.  It could as easily have been the pearl.  Those of us who follow this call know that we've found the big one, the treasure of treasures.  It's worth all we have.

Of course, there are other pearls and other vocations.  Someone called to family life might find that pearl in their spouse and children.  Others will find it in their work or ministry.  Blessed are those who find their treasure, and who do what it takes to claim it.

Pedro Arrupe, former Superior General of the Jesuits, wrote this about vocation:

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.  What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.  It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Mustard seeds that grow into huge bushes.
Leaven that makes a whole loaf grow.
Pearls beyond price, treasure worth our all.

That's what I'm after, for me and for you.

And, as Paul says, it's all there waiting for us.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  We can turn our backs and pretend not to see, but God is there.  Offering treasure in tiny packages.

What are you in love with?

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Why I Hike in Silence



One of the gifts of our location is proximity to beautiful mountain nature preserves.  Lately I've been hiking as often as I can, usually once a week.  We have several friends who also love to hike, but mostly I go alone.  I feel a little guilty about that, so I decided to clarify why I choose it.

It's not that I don't love my friends.  I love getting together over coffee or tea.  But I'm not so good at being aware of more than one thing at a time.  I can listen to you, or I can notice the world around me, but I can't really do both.  When I go to the woods (or meadows, or wherever), I am listening for God in the birds and the wind.  I'm clearing out my mind enough to notice the amazing world around me.  I hike as a way to God.

When I first set out I tend to move quickly.  My strides are full of purpose, or at least direction.  I usually have a chant or a hymn running around my brain, and it sets my pace.  I may spend an hour just burning off excess energy.  During that time I'm appreciating that I'm in a beautiful place, but I'm not fully there yet.

Then I begin to slow down, internally and externally.  I know it's happening because I start to notice the mushrooms and fungi, in their huge variety.  I see flowers I've never seen before.  I notice rock formations, and plants growing out of rock.  Time slows down, and I am present.  Wonder emerges.

If I'm working on an idea, a sermon or a retreat, this is the time when I start to have new ideas.  Some angle or connection shows up, like a play on words that reveals something about the topic.  That's another sign that I'm emptying out and letting in fresh spirit.

This is a precious process to me.  I have always had a walking practice as part of my writing process, for 30 years, though I didn't plan it at the beginning.  Later, walking became part of my prayer practice as well.  And sometimes writing is prayer for me, as I do this blog.  This topic came to me in the woods, as I thought about my desire to be silent.

It's not really that I need to be alone in the woods.  It's rather that I need the silence.  Sometimes Elizabeth and I will hike in silence, and that's fine.  I've led silent hiking retreats.  But most people like to talk and hike.  I just don't.  I feel like I'm missing the big show around us.  It's nice, but there's something bigger than nice waiting for me out there.  I'd rather talk to you when we aren't moving through amazing creation.

So to my friends, please believe: I want to see you and talk to you!  Just not here.
To those I don't know, dear readers, I pray that you find and return to the places and practices (including conversation) that give you access to God with us.  Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Friday, July 21, 2017

Happy Mary Magdalene Day!



We are in the throes of preparation for our annual celebration this afternoon, so this writing will be brief.  Each year, however, my gratitude grows.  Mary is the patron saint of converts, and that's me.  So many times!

On this day in 1985 I began my journey of 12-step recovery.   That was a conversion, a turning from life to death.  I didn't know it was Mary's day; I didn't know much about Mary.  But she was there.

I've had other conversions before and after.  There was the one at age 15 where I stopped doing drugs, when I realized I would die soon if I didn't stop.  There was the one where I began to seek help for the pain in me.  There was the one when I let Jesus love me, and let myself love Jesus.  There were so many others.

Our vows call us to continual conversion of life.  And  in this they are not unique to monastics; they are part of our baptismal covenant, in which we commit to turn to Christ over and over.  Likely if you read this blog you have experienced these conversions in your life.

As Mary reminds us, the root of conversion is love.  God loves us and calls us to life, and some part of us responds.  Our ability to love many be imperfect, but we are driven by the love we find to love more.

The result of conversion is deeper love.  Every new place turns out to be a way station.  There's another frontier of love waiting for us to say yes.  Mary likely thought that being with Jesus while he was alive was the ultimate gift, until she found him again in the garden.  Then who knows?  Who knows what deeper love she experienced after his ascension?  Legends abound, but the mystery of more is deeper than any answer.  "The love of Christ urges us on" (2 Cor. 5:14).

The love Christ has for us, the love we have for Christ - these never fail, never end, never diminish.  We can forget for a time and turn away, but Christ's love calls us.  Nothing can separate us from that love.

Give thanks this day for all your conversions, all the loves you have known, all the joy and the pain that have come to you on the way.  And give thanks for what is to come, for the deeper joy that awaits us.  God bless you all.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Making A Difference

Today I walked in the woods for two hours.  As I walked, I thought of the common request in nature preserves: "Leave no trace."  We are asked to leave the place as we found it, with no evidence that we have passed that way.  No garbage, no graffiti, neither adding to the place nor taking from it.  Leave no trace, for creation is just as it is and it is fine.

Then I thought of the advice so often given to young people setting out: "Make your mark."  In this case, we are urged to give evidence of our passing.  Leaving no trace is treated as a failure.

What are we to make of this contrast?  At first I thought about the difference between "creation," God's amazing ongoing art project, and "the world," which Jesus and the tradition caution us about.  "The world" is a human product (perhaps with some help from the downstairs bunch), which blinds us to God and to creation.  In fact, "the world" is often the destroyer of creation.  So perhaps we are meant to leave no trace in creation, but this fallen world in which we find ourselves needs our help?

I don't think this is wrong, but there's more than that.  When we are urged to "make our mark" it isn't always a matter of improving the world.  Sometimes it's just the ego trying to reassure itself of immortality.  I may die, but people will know I was here!  And before I die, they will assure me that my life wasn't in vain, that I wasn't ordinary, that I won't be forgotten.  And so I work and strive and strain, not to make the world a better place but simply to make it bear my imprint.  In fact, those who seek to make their mark, rather than working for a better world, will either actively distort and destroy or they will limit their impact by following the call of popularity or fame or reward.

I could go from here to a whole meditation on death and our inevitable fading from view.  In the woods that's just where I went.  Maybe for Ash Wednesday I'll go there.  Maybe you'll go there now.  But I want to look for the creative place instead.

I co-lead a workshop called Making A Difference, for people who minister and serve others.  It aims at helping people clear away the clutter in their minds that stands between them and the life they are called to.  One of the things we do there is help them to see that they already are making a difference, but that may be invisible to them because they've set up criteria for what counts.  And likely they've confused making a difference with making their mark.

Often when we make a difference we can't plan it and we can't repeat it.  Something we say or do simply lands with someone else and opens up new possibility or heals old wounds.  It's not a technique or a project.  And often we don't even know we made a difference, unless someone tells us later.  We may think we have left no trace.  But speech and action always leave traces, intended or not.  The traces may not have our names on it, they may never return to gratify our ego, but they are real.

If you are trying to make your mark, let go.  I speak as an old mark-maker on the journey to leaving traces instead.  Listen for what is needed, what you can bring.  If that is nothing, as in the woods, leave no trace and give thanks for the abundance of creation.  If you have a contribution to make, make it.  But no marks.  No graffiti, no litter.  Just gratitude and joy and compassion.  We will notice the difference you make.  God be with you.

For more on the workshop, go to Making A Difference.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Scattered Thoughts

Isaiah 55:10-13; Psalm 65:9-14; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23



I've always loved this parable of the seed, perhaps because there are so many possible ways to read it.  For years I thought Jesus was surely describing us as the seed, and I listened for how I could be productive seed.  I checked my soil and did what gardening I could.  Now, that helped a little, as I developed spiritual disciplines, but sometimes I was so busy checking my soil I couldn't rest and take root.

Then I heard someone say that we are the sower, not the seed.  Now, that opened up a whole new path for me!  As someone called to preach the Gospel I liked that.  I was to scatter seed everywhere I could.  Perhaps I was to be more selective than the sower in the parable, who wasted seed by throwing it every which way?  Surely many books and articles on ministry advised me how to "target my message" and bring in a rich harvest.  Once again I had something to do, something that might produce visible results.

I didn't even notice, in these reflections, that I was leaving God out of the picture.  I was acting as though I was the agent, whether seed or sower.  Where was God?  That's still unclear to me when I look back.  Perhaps God was the provider of the seed, the agent awaiting results like a judge at the county fair.

Then last Friday we had a great discussion at coffee table communion, begun when someone said she hated this parable for all the anxiety it caused the people at her church.  Someone else went through the parable line by line and pointed out that what happens to the seed in each case is not their fault:  the seed that landed on rocky ground didn't plan that, the seed that got eaten didn't plan that, the seed that landed among thorns didn't plan that.  Even the happy luxurious seed didn't plan to be planted in good soil, and deserves no credit!

We talked about being faithful, doing our best wherever we land, and trying not to judge the results.  I thought about how none of the seed is wasted.   The seed that is eaten nourishes the birds, who excrete it and create more soil; the seed that burns up also creates a first layer of soil for later seeds; the seed that dies among thorns likewise creates soil.  It may not bear in one generation, but it enriches the earth nonetheless.  It's not the job of the seed to decide where it appears in the cycle of life.

Then, as I kept thinking I wondered: what if we are not only the sower, not only the seed, but also the soil in which the seeds land?  Is it then our responsibility to make ourselves fertile ground?  That too seems a heavy burden.  If we've been turned to stone through abuse or other trauma, that calls for compassion.  If we are burdened with family or health or job worries, that calls for compassion and gentleness, not judging.  If we are enthusiastic but lack stamina, that may call for curiosity - and compassion.  For who wants a life of flitting from enthusiasm to enthusiasm, without real nourishment?  Such a life is sad, and likely under it is some rocky ground that can't be faced.

So how do we hear Jesus here in a way that doesn't deprive us of choice and agency, but eases the burden of guilt so deeply etched into Western Christianity?  I think we can start by reintroducing God into the story.  Remember God, source of grace?

In the first letter to the Corinthians Paul discusses his ministry and says, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.  So neither the one who plants nor the one what waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth" (3:6-7).  God is the sower, scattering the grain more abundantly than we can ask or imagine.  And God is the seed, the Word of life that sprouts wherever it finds room.  And God is the soil, the ground of all that is.  God is.

Yes, there is a part for me in this.  My part is to worship God, to point at God, to do my best to receive God's love.  What will grow will grow, because God's love does that.  All God needs from me is an open heart.  That means not diagnosing the state of my heart; that's God's business.  I just open as well as I can.  That sounds like enough for a lifetime.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

The Word of God?

Like many people, our Bible reading at daily offices has been structured by a lectionary - in our case, the Episcopal Church's two-year cycle of daily readings.  For years, for decades, we've each read these passages in their cycle.  But it's getting harder.  Now, at least for now, we're taking another road.

In the season after Pentecost we enter the grim history of Israel with.  This year we're in Samuel, and we will follow through the Kings, the exile, and the return.  This is important history, but we can't do it this year.  I won't speak for Elizabeth's reasons: here are mine.

First, the picture of God throughout doesn't mesh with my understanding of Jesus' Abba God.  This God remains quick to anger, jealous and demanding.   And though scholars today like to say that this God loves all of creation and just holds Israel to be an experiment in fidelity, a light to the nations, this history makes that perspective somewhat obscure.  You have to really work to get that.  And yes, it is a story of human failure and human striving, of God continually giving us another chance, but it is a story in which "we" delight in seeing our enemies (God's enemies) cut into pieces and fed to the dogs.  I know these stories.  I need some other wisdom right now.

The other reason this feels important is that the Christianity of the future has to meet other religions on another ground than exclusivism or triumph.  We need to learn from one another, and we need to learn to live together or all our traditions will vanish in favor of some insane, demented versions of one or another.  This summer we are reading a lot of work from other faiths or from the intersections; our shared book for this month is The Garden of Truth, about Sufi wisdom.

So for the season after Pentecost we are opening another way.  At Matins our first reading is from holy writing from many sources.  We began using Love Letters to God, a collection of writings from many traditions and times.  We're looking at the World Wisdom Bible now, and may start using that.  For our second reading we're reading the Epistles straight through.  Then at Vespers we read the Gospel appointed by the lectionary.

Again, this works for us because we have read the Hebrew Scriptures for a long time.  If you do not know these writings, don't pass them by.  They are your inheritance, they have shaped your faith in ways you do not know, and they must be encountered.  But if you have read them, if you want to broaden your understanding of God and of others, I invite you to find some other readings and make them your "lectionary" for the reason of the season until Advent.  And I'd love to hear what you decide to read!

If you share, please respond on the page here rather than email, so others can see what you recommend.  Thanks, and enjoy!

Sunday, July 9, 2017

trying to be read

I'm hoping that this will not be whited out.  I'm apparently having a problem when I cut and paste text into Blogger.  If you want to read posts that have been whited out, you can highlight them and they will show up.  Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for reading!

Saturday, July 8, 2017

July 9



Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145: 8-15; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

I'm torn.  I try to write about the Sunday readings each week, and these are perfectly good, but they aren’t where my heart is.  After my retreat, I experience Matthew as too prosaic, too ordinary.  But that’s a sign of how ungrounded such moments can make us.  I want the mountaintop, but I live here in the valley.  I’m reminded of the Buddhist saying: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”  A bit of grounding is just what I need.

Once I’m grounded I can see that Matthew actually links the mountain and the valley quite nicely.  He’s talking about the most daily activities, eating and drinking and being together, but he (and his critics) are clear that these activities are always full of meaning beyond the food or drink or particular people.  Context matters, meaning matters.  Here these daily activities, and the way we do them, are signs of God’s dream for the universe.  In that dream our lives here are not a “vale of tears” or a testing, but are a chance to draw near to the God who wants to draw near to us.  The point is not to measure up to a purity code, but to know God’s desire and live it by loving and welcoming one another.

This sounds clear, and welcome, but we do get so confused!  This is not just a matter of intellectual confusion; it’s about the impulses in us that don’t align themselves with our truest desires.  As Paul describes so well, and as every addict knows, we can “know” the good and still find ourselves choosing the bad.  And, so often, as we try to suppress the bad we find it strengthened and overpowering.  Truly, we need a gentle yoke.  I need a gentle yoke.

The Episcopal collect for today says that God has “taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor.”  And, it reminds us that this is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and not just something we can will.  God knows (and many others know), I can't do it well on my own!  Loving God, on the mountain and in the valley; loving my neighbor, in the valley through action and on the mountain in prayer: this is the work of a lifetime.



The glow has worn off.  I’m back in the valley.  But I have the memory of the mountain, and I have access to it through daily prayer and meditation.  Each day I take up the yoke as best I can, and I experience more joy than I could every expect or deserve.  May it be so for you as well.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

July 6



I’m finally back at my desk.  I returned Sunday from the most amazing retreat of my life, still in some sort of shock through Monday.  Then Tuesday and Wednesday i began the gradual descent/ascent (depends how you look at it) back into daily community life.  The “ascent” idea came from comparing the process to divers returning to the surface: you have to come up slowly or you get the “bends.”  

What made it so amazing?  I think I stumbled onto union with God, my heart’s deepest desire.  I took no devices, and very little reading. (I do wish I had pictures to share with you, but then I wouldn’t have had this retreat.)  I began each day at 4:30 on the beach watching the dawn, followed by a walk through the neighborhood of river and osprey nests.  After breakfast it was back outside until the sun drove me in for a few hours.  Then to the chapel for prayer before the Sacrament, then lunch.  Then a nap, then back outside in the shade until returning to the chapel before dinner.  Then a walk, a little reading, bed.  I need sunrise more than sunset, so I went to bed before dark.

This is not new; it’s pretty much what I do on long retreat.  But I’ve changed over the past year, I think.  I was more present, there was less junk in my head to clear out.  There were no problems to mull over, no big issues to discern (well, there was one, but it became clear on the first day!).  Just being with God in creation.  And finally, the last morning, I saw it.  

It’s all one.  We’re all one.  Nothing is lost, nothing can be lost.  I am a grain of sand in the ocean of God, and that is more than enough.  Wholeness and brokenness are false oppositions.  It’s all one.  Everything is here.  I have a preference for some shapes over others, but that is just a human thing.  God sees it all.  

I have searched for this moment for decades.  I’ve read of it, but didn’t expect to see it this side of death.  I knew the words, I had the insight earlier in the week, but it was still “I” realizing it.  And perhaps that’s the point: all week I let go of “me” as much as I could, turning off the ego mind and noticing the rocks and shells and crabs and skunks and birds and woodchucks and waves and wind.  “I” can’t get there, but something - soul, Self, I don’t know - that something is already there, waiting for “I” to let go.


Now I’m surfacing, or coming down from the mountain.  “I” am returning to the dense air of the flatlands, where other people, other parts of God’s creation, live.  And i’m letting this experience work on me.  It should be an interesting year.