It's Here. The Way of the Cross Opens Before Us

 It's been three weeks since my last post.  When Lent began I planned to write at least every Sunday.  So much for plans.

Three weeks ago life got really complicated.  It's better now, but it took a while.  We've had medical issues of various sorts, and planning for Holy Week on Zoom.  And I had good news: my first piece of memoir writing was accepted, to be published in July.  In the midst of all that, I plumb forgot to post here.

Now it's Palm Sunday, and we're entering into the heart of Jesus' story.  Yes, his birth is important; without his incarnation, we wouldn't have the rest of his story, or of our own.  And yes, his ministry is essential, his teaching forms us today.  But his central teaching is this: there is no life without death, there is no new life without relinquishing the old.  There is no new possibility unless we are willing to die to who we have known ourselves to be, what we have "known" to be true, what we have held out as most important in our lives.

"Those who love their life will lose it; those who lose their life for my sake and for the Gospel will have eternal life."

Thomas Keating's Welcoming Prayer sums up this path of discipleship.  He welcomes all that comes to him, and he lets go of all that might obscure the way:

"I let go of my desire for power and control.  I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure.  I let go of my desire for survival and security.  I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself."

To call this a tall order is to minimize it.  This is the central challenge of our lives, to stare all of this in the face and mean it.

This is what Jesus did at the end.  He let go.  He "welcomed" this hard path, as he trusted that it was the only way forward.  He trusted that it was not the end.  In the garden he prayed to have it be otherwise; on the cross he cried out his fear; but he did not abandon his certainty that this was what God called for, and that God had promised new life would come.

As we walk with him, and with Mary Magdalene this week, take some time to reflect: where am I holding on to how I think things must be?  Where am I still clinging to some version of my life?  Where is God calling me to let go?

The challenges of this past month have planted in me the desire to let go more.  They were hard enough without my resistance; resistance just makes things harder.  So now I'm praying to let go, to welcome it all, to walk with Jesus and trust in Jesus' God.  Mary (all of them!)  is with me, with us, grieving and remembering and hoping against hope.

May you lose your life this week.  May you find the risen Christ at the end of the journey, offering you more than you can ask or imagine.  May it be so.

Cleansing the Temple

Ouch.

As I read today's Gospel (John 2:13-22), I felt the pinch.  I thought of Paul's words: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16)  So I had to look.

I looked in my heart, in my actions.  In my temple, I found lots of things beside the presence of God and the worship of God.  I found a money-changer, and someone selling doves.  I found myself putting my comfort in front of prayer.  I found places where I hold myself out as a woman of prayer, while I go to the mailbox looking for checks.  I found lots of times when I "welcome" people to the house of God, to the Companions community, without really seeing them.  I see the insanity of thinking I'm in a position to welcome others to a house that is not mine.  My temple is a mess.

This Lent has been powerful for me so far.  Even before it began I was being challenged to see the ways I cut people off or keep them in place.  I've seen more of my lack of trust in God, my compulsion to control others to feel safe, my racism.  I'm seeing more and more the cost of my perpetual haste - the sloppiness and lack of attention I can give to what and who is given to me to notice.  I'm daunted by the size of my mess.

I'm really not being hard on myself here.  I'm being honest.  Isn't that what Lent is for?  I'm actually excited, as I begin to face the mess in my temple.  I don't know what happens later, but I can smell potential, in the same way we can see possibility when we clean our homes.  What might I notice, and do differently?  How might I be a better of ally of BIPOC, a better Companion, a better friend and sister?  No, I'm excited.

So I pray: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

All the pictures of this scene, following John, emphasize Jesus' anger and violence.  It may be holy zeal on his part, but I don't want to think of God's cleansing in me as the act of an angry, violent God.  I think of God showing me the mess and giving me tools to get to work.  God is not angry, but God is also not co-dependent!  In answer to my prayer, God says, "Here you go."

What are the tools I'm given?  First, God gives me inner eyes to see the mess and the desire to clean up. These don't start with me; they are a gift in themselves.  Then God hands me the glass cleaner, so I can see myself better.  Now it's time for the dust rag of humility, letting me see others more fully.  God offers the broom of willingness to sweep away the distractions that get between me and God.  But a broom isn't enough.  To really clean, I need the mop: renewing my baptismal covenant, letting myself be washed again in my heart.  And not least, God shows me the door to take out the trash!  Prayer, more prayer.  Letting go of the dust, the dirt in my soul.

Then I can look again.  Better, I can ask a companion I trust to look with me.  Did I miss something?  Probably.  Just like cleaning my house, I do what I can see at the time.  But I also get to notice where the shelves are clean, the floor is clean, the mirror is looking better.  I can stop sneezing from my own dust and start breathing deeply again.  I can look outside.

I don't know; maybe this doesn't sound like a project you want to get into.  But I find that each time I do it, I'm happier.  Yesterday I gave the car its spring cleaning, and I like knowing that it will last longer and do better than if I had let it go.  My soul is infinitely more precious than the car!

If you think your soul is maybe in need of spring cleaning, go to it.  God be with you.

Take Up Your Cross

“If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me.”

Wow.  That doesn’t sound like good news to me.  

I want to follow Jesus.  I love seeing people restored to health, to soundness of mind.  I love his words of love and forgiveness.  I admire his union with God, and I want some of that myself.

But the cross?  To the people of his time, this is not a metaphor.  The cross is a daily presence for them, a brutal reminder of Roman power and cruelty.  I don’t want to even think that there’s a cross with my name on it.

I thought Jesus came to bring life.  Abundant life.  Is this a contradiction?  Or a test?  What is this?

It’s not a contradiction, or a test.  It’s a very challenging invitation.

In Jesus’ time, people watched him die this horrible death.  Many of his followers also died in this way.  But somehow, more and more people decided that what Jesus promised was worth the price.  Over the next years, thousands of people would die on crosses.  More would die in amphitheaters, torn apart by animals.  Over the centuries some would be drowned, or stoned, or burned, or or lynched, or shot.  Many would die at the hands of others who claimed to be following Jesus. 

In our time, people marched in Selma, in Birmingham, in Moscow.  People faced mobs and police and armies.  From poor peasants to archbishops, people faced into their fear and took up their crosses.   

No one forced this on them. 

The cross is not something other people put on us.  That is just suffering and oppression.  Jesus doesn’t want us to intentionally aim at suffering, or allow ourselves and others to be passive victims.  His is a message of empowerment and liberation.

The cross is the path to life only when we pick it up.  When we actively choose to face the danger, when we risk our comfort and safety to follow Jesus more faithfully, our lives begin to expand.  

There are lots of dramatic examples, but they are not the only crosses we encounter.  More commonly we face the cross in our daily lives.

When do I pick up my cross?  When do you pick up yours?

When I apologize to someone I’ve injured.

When I acknowledge my failures, either of omission or commission.

When I hold my tongue when I’d like to argue or offer advice

When I raise my giving toward a tithe, and give it to causes that Jesus would recognize

When I make consumer choices in line with care for creation

When I make time to pray, and serve, which limits my leisure time

When I speak out on a topic that might draw controversy or opposition

When I acknowledge my faith in the face of others who would disdain it

Some of these sound pretty tame compared to hanging from a Roman cross.  But they are actually more challenging.  I might hang on a cross with hatred in my heart.  I might curse my oppressors while they kill me.  And then, Jesus says, my bravado earns me nothing.  The goal is not to lose my life; the goal is to live, to save my life.

So what is this life that I’m promised if I pick up my cross?

“I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”

I’m not promised survival, a longer life.

I’m promised a full life, a life of meaning and purpose and joy.

That’s the secret.  That’s why all those people, past and present, picked up their crosses.  They had discovered what it was to be fully alive, to be the person God had created them to be.  And they had learned that backing down would cost them that fullness of life.

Perfect love casts out fear.

I’m not there yet.  

But I do want to follow.  

I want to go there. 

 

Jesus, hold on tight to me.  Yell in my ear, help me hear you over the roar of my fear.  Stretch out your arms and gather us all.  Amen.

Wilderness

 

Yesterday I was talking with someone who mentioned that he had always assumed that growth is about confronting things and making people change.  He is learning that that isn't true.  I need to learn that too.  I think Jesus can teach me about that.  Maybe you too.

When Jesus goes to the wilderness, he wasn't there to make anyone change: not himself, not others.  He likely knew that he'd be confronted by his "demons," his desires and fears, but he didn't go for self-improvement.  He was driven by the Spirit to allow himself to be cleansed of anything that stood between him and God, him and God's mission for him.  I'm certain he grew through that experience, he came out equipped for the ministry and the sacrifice he performed, but he didn't do that through his own power.  He prayed, he listened, and he obeyed the word he heard.  He didn't even make himself change!  He let God take care of that.  Anything that might be a barrier to his purpose would be purified by God, not by making himself change.

For me, growth is about letting myself be confronted, and letting God change me.  When I let myself be confronted by others, or by my conscience, I open a channel for God to work.  It usually involves grieving some relationship or opportunity that has gone awry, and forgiving myself and others, and waiting for God to show me a better way.  I don't like doing this work.  But I don't know an easier way; I don't know any other way that will take me back to God and myself.

As we enter into Lent, I'm praying to be open to God's word and love.  I know that will mean confrontation with myself, and perhaps with others.  Jesus did after all confront others, and Paul tells us to "teach and admonish one another in all wisdom."  But it's not up to me to change others, or even to change myself.  It's up to me to notice what is put before me, and to ask God for courage and strength to withstand the temptation to evade it.  

And then, it's up to me to let the angels minister to me.  They're all around.  Can you see them?

Blessed and holy Lent to you.

Silent Night

 

For me, music is the center of Christmas.  Music brings me to presence, it gets inside of me - or comes from inside of me, I don’t know which.  Or both.  In music, inside and outside meet.  

Just as music is the center of Christmas, Silent Night is the center of the music.  Silent Night marks the pivot point between Advent and Christmas, the time of quiet and stillness in which Christ steals into the physical plane.  

The service begins with full lighting.  The church is full of wreaths and boughs of pine and red ribbons, and maybe candles at each pew.  Sometimes there is incense, just enough to get the scent without causing too much sneezing. 

We open with a vigorous hymn:  “O Come All Ye Faithful,” usually.  Then comes “Angels We Have Heard on High,”  and the readings and the sermon.  There is another hymn before the Gospel, and an anthem before the communion.   As we move into the Great Thanksgiving and turn toward communion we keep singing, ancient words of praise.  Then, with a little quiet organ music, we go forward to receive the Body and Blood of this newly born Christ.  It’s all magical, capturing even the people who don’t really believe the official version; they can feel and hear that something special is happening.

But for me, the peak of the service comes after communion.  We each return to our pew and kneel in silence. The lights are turned down, or off.   In the quiet and dark, candles are lit.  We each received a small candle on entering the church, and now the flame is passed from person to person.  We hold our candles, and we sing “Silent Night.”  It is slow and gentle, moving up and down the scale, floating up and pausing.  It’s like holding your breath, only you’re singing.

“Love’s own true light.” “Radiant beams from thy holy face.”  “Sleep in heavenly peace.”  Light and sound come together.  I can see the light, as gentle as the sound.  I can feel the presence of God, within me and around me.  I could kneel here forever, but now it’s time to go.

  After Silent Night has been sung, the closing prayer signals a return to normal time.  Our breath is moving again now, as we prepare for “Joy to the World” and its busier descant.  There’s a place for all of these moods, all of these songs.  Send me out with joy and alleluias; but first gather me in with silence and peace.  I’ve had my moment, and I carry it in my heart until I can get home and be quiet again.

Sometimes I’ve been in places where they don’t sing Silent Night after communion.  It’s never felt right to me.  Silent Night is for this moment, this quiet and peace before we stand and prepare to leave.  Time stands still here.

When we don’t sing Silent Night after communion, I go home in peace anyway.  I stand out under the stars, and I sing it softly to myself, to the universe.  That’s the real moment of Christmas, where the stars and the song join together.  Heaven opens, and angels pour down.

Anniversaries

 I know I haven't been writing here very often, but I really need to today.  December 12 is a major feast for me.  It is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, She who watches over the peoples of the Americas.  This would be lovely in itself, but it's not the reason it's huge for me.  December 12 is the date of two major anniversaries in my life, the twins pillars of my vocation.

On December 12, 2020, I became a postulant at the Community of St. John Baptist in New Jersey.  This is the beginning of the monastic journey, as the entrant learns about the life and discerns whether this path might be right.  For me it was a moment of being embraced.  I came into the little chapel and stood before the Superior, and she led me through a short declaration of my intent and the community's reception.  The novice director led me to my new stall in choir, where I found my prayer book and a little card, handmade.  Beside an icon of Mary were the words in gold: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord."  On the back were my name, the date, and my postulancy.  I still have that card on my desk.  I see it every day and give thanks.

On December 12, 2009, I was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.  At that point I was living apart from the community, and a year later I was "dispensed" from my vows.  The Church could say that, but I knew that my vows were for life, to God; I just didn't know how and where I would live them out.  Eventually God sent me to Elizabeth and we built a new container.  But on that day in 2009, the Sisters were there along with my several church communities.

For years I've said that my monastic vocation is the deepest layer, that my priesthood is secondary to that.  But this year that has changed.  I'm sensing now that the whole journey is one thing, one big God arc.  When I entered the convent people said I should be a priest.  I said no, for many years.  And that was right: I had a lot to learn before I could even begin that process.  I still do.  But priesthood is not secondary.  It's just as much a part of me as my vows and my hunger for God.  It's all one.  

So I wonder: are there threads in your life that look disparate, even opposed, that might instead be one tapestry that God is weaving under your very nose?  Where does tension point to new integration beckoning?

I am eternally grateful to the CSJB Sisters, and to Phillip Wilson and the Church of the Redeemer, and to David Desmith and St. David's Church, to confessors and directors and mentors and everyone who walked with me on that journey.  And I give thanks for all those who continue with me now, and show me more when I think I'm done.  And I give thanks for Guadalupe, watching and guiding me.

May God bless you and keep you; may God make her face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; may God lift up her countenance to you, and give you peace.

 

Welcome to Advent!

 Here in West Park, we have been longing for Advent.  At its origin Advent was 40 days long, like Lent, beginning on November 12.  By the 13th century, however, the four-week Advent had become the norm in the West.  Over time the longer Advent became forgotten.  However, with the Revised Common Lectionary, the last three weeks of "ordinary time" do introduce the theme of ending and return.  There is a small but growing movement to restore this longer Advent.  We've decided to join.

One of the virtues of this shift is that we get a few weeks before the full cultural insanity of Christmas takes over.  Advent now is not only shorter than its origin; its meaning and power are eclipsed by the larger social context in which many of us live.  Beginning Advent early lets us begin to reflect and anticipate, and the longer season deepens our awareness of what is to come.

Of course, this is all hypothetical for us, as we begin this experiment, but it's our hope - an Advent word!  And don't we need that now?

So what does this mean?  We began our liturgical new year last Sunday.  We have begun using our office for Advent at Matins and Vespers, with appropriate antiphons and hymns and prayers.  We haven't begun to light candles yet; we just got started!  We are changing the altar colors.  We are pondering what other changes we might make to mark this time: not as penitential as Lent, but meaningful.

If you are curious about this shift and how to do it, here's a good place to start:  

http://www.theadventproject.org

It's never too early to pray: Come, Lord Jesus.