Scattering Seeds on the Plains

Today Elizabeth and I are going to Omaha Nebraska.  We have two Covenant Companions there now, and one new covenant group member.  They want to see how to become a local community of CMA, how to deepen as a face-to-face community, and they want to know us more.  We are so excited to watch this seed grow.  I hope their story may inspire something in you.

It began with Dario, who attended one of  Elizabeth's retreats in 2015.  He then joined the second covenant group, and became a Candidate for Covenant Companionship in 2016 and a Companion in 2017.   With the priest and the deacon on his church, Dario tried to start a community in Omaha, but they didn't really find the way to get off the ground.  Dario told them about CMA.  Ernesto, his priest, joined the covenant group in 2018, and after six months he asked to become a Candidate.  The third covenant group member, Kaity, is a parishioner at St. Martha's who also wants a community for prayer and exploration.  So now they are three.  That's plenty to start something.

Without our commitment to online communication, this wouldn't be happening in this way.  We know that many people hear "online" and they think distant or lacking, but we have seen differently.  Another covenant group member, who will soon become a Candidate, told us last night of how surprised and pleased she has been with the depth of sharing and intimacy we can achieve.  "It's like we're in the same room," she said.

That's true, but it's still even better to be together in person.  Our hope is that over time other local communities will sprout, carrying and living the Charism in their own way in that place.  We've learned that it's the Charism, more than the details of the Covenant, that bind us to one another.  So we are letting the Spirit lead us, and them, into new paths.

We expect to begin another covenant group sometime this spring.  Prior to that we will have a "virtual open house" to let you see how easy and powerful the Zoom technology is.  Stay tuned for that, and pray for the Omaha seed to sprout in new and wonderful ways.  May you be blessed in all your communities, and all your searching for community.

Shane's Sermon, Epiphany 3, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Chester NY

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me!

Wow.  There’s something to shout about.  That’s not a whisper kind of statement.  That is a shout it from the housetops kind of statement.  

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

Who wouldn’t want to be able to say that?

I imagine any number of people, actually.  It’s a lot to take in.  It sounds scary.  

What does it mean for the Spirit to be upon me, to be anointed?  What do I have to do?  Who will I have to become?  

Really, I’d rather have my ordinary life.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.

Every baptized Christian has received the Holy Spirit.  You are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever.

You have been received into the body of Christ.

And well might you ask what this means for your life.  We make promises at baptism, or promises are made for us.  If we are confirmed, we have made those promises again.  It takes a lifetime to live into them.  But you are already in, regardless of how well or how poorly you fulfill these promises.  The Spirit of the Lord is on you.   You have been anointed and received into the body.

Paul tries to tell the Corinthians what that means.  The Church in Corinth was seething with dissension and division, much of it along lines of class and status.  Paul wants them to know that they belong together, they need each other.  To do this, he uses a metaphor that was well known to his audience.  Other thinkers had compared the community to a body - indeed, the phrase “body politic” reflects that.  But those other writers had used the image to keep the lower classes in their place, deferring to the well off and educated.  So the elite were compared to the brain, and the servants and manual workers were the hands that carried out the instructions of the brain.

Paul turns that upside down.  Well, Jesus does it first.  Jesus does not come to proclaim good news to the rich or ease for the already privileged.  He comes to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, good news to the poor.  He comes to announce Jubilee, the year in which inequalities are eased, debts are canceled, and everyone starts fresh.  The body he is inaugurating does not sanction privilege and status, but actively works against them.

So Paul follows Jesus.  His image of the body makes clear that all parts belong.  The weakest actually need greater honor, as a balance.  Those who have more, those who are more “respectable” as our translation puts it, are to let go of their privilege and learn humility.

The image of the body points to our diversity of gifts as well as our need of each other.  “Community” is derived from the Latin for “with gifts.”  Community is where our gifts are shared.  The passage we heard last week is precisely about the diversity of gifts.  But diversity is not enough.  We need to really get also that we need each other to manifest our gifts.

This may be especially hard for the well-off, the talented, the smart ones to get.  They are most likely to believe that they have all that they need, and so to try to go it alone.  Even in worshipping, they may still be relying on their own efforts.  They are the spiritually poor, cut off from the abundance of God’s love.  They - we - can become captives in prisons of our own making, even in church.  We may say, “I have no need of you.”  In so doing, I fool myself.  I cannot cut myself off from the body in fact, but I can cut myself off from the sunlight of the Spirit.  I can languish in a self-made prison.

Those who know their need of God and of one another are open to the Spirit working in and among them.  That means seeing that these others with whom I am planted are really, truly, also anointed by God and members of the body.    And in seeing that, I am empowered in a way very different from our common ideas of power.  

In 2000 I left my job in New Mexico.  I told people I wanted to become the left little toe of Christ.  Later I cut that down to the toenail.  I just wanted to be part of that great body, to know myself part of it.  I entered an Episcopal convent, where I learned that I had not the least idea how to be part of a diverse community.  I could be polite, but I could not truly respect those who seemed to me to be just wrong, or slow, or whatever I didn’t like.  I learned that it is hard work being part of that body.  I’m still learning how to do it.  I expect to spend the rest of my life trying.  But, like Paul, I press on for the prize.  I want to know Christ, and the only way to do that now is by encountering the body of Christ here.

Jesus was baptized, and received the Holy Spirit.  Then, Luke tells us, he went to the desert to face the devil.  He brings this message to Nazareth after that encounter.  This sequence is important.  It’s in the desert that he learns that his anointing doesn’t bring privilege but responsibility, not worldly power but the capacity to endure and stand for something bigger than himself.  

Like him, we are baptized and then we go into the world of temptation.  Through adversity and defeat we learn that our membership in the body is a costly gift.  But it is a gift.  It is our precious inheritance, the promise of full humanity.  It is, as the letter to the Colossians says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  And, like all gifts, it is best when it is shared.

The power of the Holy Spirit, the power received at baptism, is not something to brag about.  It’s not something to rest in.  As Jesus’ life and death show, God’s power is uncomfortable and costly, appearing as weakness and foolishness.  It calls us to let go of our privilege, our self-importance, our comparisons.  As we do, we find the glory all around us, shining through the cracks and holes of our lives.  That is something to celebrate.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.

Hide and Seek

I've been pondering Isaiah 45 these past two days.  Isaiah is naming Cyrus, king of Persia, as God's anointed.  Cyrus is called and armed "though you do not know me."  Cyrus will rebuild Jerusalem and set the exiles free.  Isaiah says that the nations will recognize God.

Then he says, "Truly, you are a God who hides himself (sic)."

I'm totally baffled by this.  If God hides herself, how do the nations know that she is the one responsible for what has happened?  Is it because Israel's fortunes have been restored, so therefore Israel's God must be the power at work?  But why should the nations believe that?  It could be that, just as Israel's God uses Cyrus, some other god wants to lift up Israel.  And if this is a God who hides, why is s/he proclaiming herself here?  The whole thing seems twisted somehow.

I'm not being irreverent.  I'm just curious.  I love that God uses even those who aren't seeking her.  I believe that, I see that, I delight in it.  But I don't believe it because the events make it so clear.  We are always interpreting, always reading through lenses.  I see and believe because - because I do.  The "evidence" that I find around me does not convince my atheist neighbor, or my Hindu one or my Buddhist friend.  It doesn't convince my Jewish or Muslim neighbor that Jesus is the Christ, part of the Godhead.  Isaiah in fact has to spell it out for people precisely because it's not so self-evident.  Isaiah hands us the lenses to see God at work in Cyrus, to encourage Cyrus to act as the Messiah of Israel.  God is indeed hidden, shrouded in mystery.

Here is where I notice another passage in chapter 45.  "Woe to you who strive with your maker, earthen vessels with the potter!  Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, "What are you making?" or "Your work has no handles?"  Well, no.  Whatever God is up to, it remains a mystery.  It is not up to me, or to anyone, to pronounce so definitively on God's plan.  I can tell you what I believe.  I can stand for it, stake my life on it.  I do.  But I can't "prove" it.  That's not my place.

Perhaps God hides so that we will have the delight of seeking, and God delights in watching us seek. I don't even "know" that, but I like to think it.  Perhaps rather than a desperate move toward salvation, our quest for God is more of a game.

Where are you, God?  Let's play.

Six Years, and Still Emerging

Yesterday was six years since Elizabeth and I declared our intention to begin as a new community.  We had a brief service in the chapel in Holy Cross Monastery.  A third woman joined us in this declaration, but decided soon after that she was on a different path.  (You know who you are, and you know we love you!).

Six years ago we were sure that we were the first of many women who would join.  We saw ourselves as an Episcopal community for women.  We didn't want to just follow someone else's template for a community, but we did carry expectations based on what we knew - monastic communities.  We wanted to be open to the guiding of the Spirit, but looking back I can see how fixed my expectations really were.  We wrote a covenant, like a rule, and tried to live by it.

That picture began to erode almost immediately.  Women started coming to events - and not all of them were Episcopal, or Anglican.  Some men and trans folk starting asking if they were welcome.  Many people said they wanted to live a covenanted life, but they were married or didn't feel called to monastic life.  In short, all our parameters got challenged.  And as we listened, we said yes.  Today we are a post-denominational community for people of all genders.

What didn't happen was that next person who would live in community with us.  Some expressed interest but withdrew.  But mostly, years passed with no one coming forward.  We began by saying, "Who knows?  Maybe it's just us, maybe we're tending a hearth for something bigger."  But as time went by, I got a little discouraged.  I knew the histories, that sometimes two people would hold a community for years before the next people came, but I feared it wouldn't happen.  And it felt wrong, somehow.  Yes, our extended community has grown and deepened, but I had my picture!

During this last retreat I got in touch with some of that, and I began to really begin at the beginning again.  I remembered that when we started all we asked for was someone to pray with, to share a consecrated life.  And I got that.  And out of that, I'm getting more: a wonderful circle of people who matter to me, to whom I can contribute and from whom I receive.  So what's the problem?

There is no problem except my expectations and pictures.  When I let go, I see that God is still not done with us.  In two weeks we will be with three people in Omaha who are creating community there.  Something is growing on the prairie, of all places.  Something is growing in our living room, where people come each Friday.  Something is growing among people who are talking online about what really matters to them.

So I'm giving up on destinations.  I'll look for direction and let the destination reveal itself.  This way I can enjoy the ride, enjoy my companions, and give thanks to God for the wonders being done among us.

And I wonder: Can you relate to this?  Where are you letting expectations and pictures blind you to the richness of your life?  Ask God to help you see and let go into the wonder.

Thank you for being on the ride with us.  It's wild, and sometimes scary.  But it's never dull!

Out of the Silence

Well, I'm back.  Our retreat was powerful, opening new doors for me to walk through.

Some people wonder, what do you do on a silent retreat?  Here's what I did.  Each day I went for a hike (we were blessed with good weather).  I listened to a CD of a retreat on Mother Mary given by Don Bisson, and read a little about Mary (preparing for a retreat I'll lead in the spring).  I prayed and sat with Mary.   I listened to music inspired by Marian devotion.  When it was my turn, I prepared meals.  I did a jigsaw puzzle.  That's about it.  I listened to my inner conversations, and wrote about what was coming up.

What made this retreat so powerful was the encounter with Mary.  I have never been devoted to her.  I've had an appreciation for her, but more for her personal human qualities than any archetypal divine access.  During the retreat I let myself fall in love with her, I let myself sink into the divine feminine that she embodies.  I can't say all of what that means for me, but I feel it.  A new door has opened in my soul, and I will be richer for it.

I was stunned to see how I have bought into the mainstream hierarchical theology about Mary.  We can have an all-male Trinity, we can have Jesus be human and divine, but Mary has to be kept securely out of the picture, on her side of the fence.  I've accepted all sorts of ideas and experiences, and kept a wall around the Marian ones.  But that is changing.

So: flowers and candles on the dinner table!  Back to drumming and dancing as prayer - practices I've let dwindle.  Back to celebrating the body, our bodies, the body of Creation.  Union with all that is, masculine and feminine.  Delight.

A door has opened.  I'm a little afraid, but I'm going through.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, hold my hand.

Into the Silence

Well, Christmas season sped by here!  Since Christmas we have led a retreat and also offered talks to the Holy Cross brothers during their long retreat.  There have been other commitments that go with the end of a year.  It's been too busy.  I never seem to learn; everything takes more time to prepare than I expect it to.  But we're done.  All is well.

Now we are beginning five days of silent retreat.  We do this every January, at the Companionary here.  It's a wonderful way to start the new year, even though I'd rather enjoy some warm weather!

I used to strive for balance between work, prayer, rest.  It's elusive for me.  But I'm finding a rhythm, rather than a balance.  There are periods of preparation for retreats, periods of intensive work, periods of rest.  Prayer is a daily return to the ground of being, but my experience of prayer is different depending on how I'm coming to it.  Judging my prayer takes away from my prayer; I come to it each day, each office, as I am.

Today's Eucharistic Gospel is John 3:22-30.  John the Baptist compares himself to the friend of the bridegroom who rejoices to hear the bridegroom's voice.  His message is humility, but as I begin this retreat I really got that I need to listen for the bridegroom's voice.  S/he will speak to me in the silence, if I will listen.  And s/he will speak to you, likewise.

Maybe a silent retreat doesn't appeal to you.  Maybe it does appeal, but you find it daunting.  Start today with a half hour.  Look out the window.  Read some Scripture and let it roll around in you.  Listen.  Your restlessness will teach you, and open the door to something deeper.  You will be renewed, and perhaps you will rejoice.

See you next week!