Off to the 'rents

Off to the 'rental' unit... four hours down south.

As I pray for Mark's mother, Anne, who fell and broke her leg (at age 90) this past Saturday, I fret about mi madre, whose short term memory is getting more and more befuddled. I haven't seen my parents since September but the phone messages recently received say it all.

The photo is from May 2007, as she watched the Beloved Cat, Pixel, have her breakfast. Pixel is now 18.5 and mi madre 81 so they are sort of in the same age bracket.

Meanwhile, mi padre still holds the national hammer throw record for 80+....

As folks said in the comments at Mark's blog, this ageing process is tough.

Small progress

Finally, I feel as though I am making headway in this unpacking business. Sure, I have squirrelled a lot of stuff away but I can deal with that later if I have a clear area. And... once this all is settled, then I can start rowing again because for the first time in several years, I totally missed the Thanksgiving-Christmas row.


The bookcases are mostly full, though I keep discovering more books that should go here. I don't quite understand since I moved a bunch of books into another room (namely, the notebooks with all my sermons). I didn't quite know what to do with the pegs on the closet door so I hung Guatemalan belts over them. Evidently the previous inhabitant used this room as a TV room where he would also do embroidery so maybe the pegs were for yarn.


I haven't hung up the Salvadoran map or Romero poster but they may well end up in those spots. (Nor have I hung up the votive candles and cross that go over the boom box.) You can see my eBay purchase of the Boby tabouret. Things still look a bit bare here but once I hang up some more things, it won't be quite so barren.

It has taken this long to figure out this room because it is considerably smaller than my previous study and I have had to rethink a lot of placement of things. But, as you can see, La Doyenne thinks the rocking chair is fine. (No one has slept in the hammock/bunk bed yet for reasons I do not understand.)

Christmas 1B

For the past three days, now into the fourth, we have been immersed in the contemplation of the Incarnation. It’s almost a crash course in reminding us what the Incarnation means, since we often forget it during the rest of the year, despite its lying at the root of everything else we celebrate during the course of the year.

There are plenty enough things in life to boggle one’s mind without taking on the mystery of the Incarnation. There’s also that struggle within the soul the desire to know everything or not to have all the answers.

A silly example of that tension comes to mind. One morning this fall I picked up one of my cats to listen to his purr. I heard myself say: ‘I really wish I understood how you guys do that.’ I also know that not even the vets and scientists have quite figured out why cats purr and dogs don’t — they’ve gotten as far as determining that the purr has something to do with the blood circulating through the cat’s system but beyond that, they haven’t gotten too far. My next, almost immediate, thought was: ‘Yes, but if I know what makes you purr, then I will no longer consider it a mystery and some of my delight in hearing it will be diminished.’

So it is for the mystery and wonder of the Incarnation. We want to understand it, but at the same time, to parse it all out would then diminish the wonder it inspires in us. If we fully understood the Incarnation, for example, the artistic impulse to depict it might not have flourished for centuries and centuries. We might lose the genius of people like Hafiz, the Persian poet, who wrote: ‘God looked where in the world he might display his face. He pitched his tent in human fields, no other place.’

Would all those painters have tried to depict Jesus and his mother? The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC several years ago purchased for the astronomical sum of $45 million a 700 year-old painting by the Italian Duccio. The painting is no bigger than a sheet of typing paper, but as art critic Michael Kimmelman describes it, the painting is ‘a sweet and melancholy masterpiece buoyed by grace. Everything is in its eloquent details: in the curious gesture of the child lifting his mother’s veil to glimpse her face, his thumb hooking the heavy fabric, which bunches and falls to the side; in his chubby right foot pressing gingerly into her wrist; in the way she carefully supports his weight in the crook of her elbow, while staring absently off to the side, into the ether, oblivious of us, as if already in mourning.’ (1)

The artists of the centuries know how to capture mystery. And so do we if we open our hearts to it. We have daily encounters with the Grace and Truth that has come into this world.

Even so, it seems hard to believe — the tragic events of this past month in Mumbai, the continued war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bombardment yesterday in the Gaza strip — all underscore the struggle we have sometimes in recognising and believing that God has become incarnate amongst us to love us. We can believe in that desire when we look at a baby, but how do we find it in those who seek to do us harm? How do we believe in the Incarnation when faced with all the human frailty and brokenness that surround us — not just on a global level but as we look at one another sitting in these pews this morning and within ourselves? Where is God? Where is love?

Karl Rahner wrote: ‘God, you took up the very thing you wanted to discard. You began what we thought would end with your coming: our poor human kind of life, which is sheer frailty, finiteness, and death. Contrary to all our fond hopes, you seized upon precisely this kind of human life and made it your own. And you did this not in order to change or abolish it, not so that you could visibly and tangibly transform it, not to divinize it. No, you took upon yourself this kind of life, just as it is. You let it slip away from you, just as ours vanishes from us.’ (2)

That is the mystery — that the Word became flesh and lived among us, in all our limitations. In Jesus God took on our humanity, became a vessel of flesh so that we might understand and, in understanding, might be able to know and receive the love of God, which is this Word and Light made flesh in our silence and darkness.

God enfleshed, God present with us….

The Word, the Light from God, becomes flesh and lives among us, full of grace and truth, reminding us that we, too, are meant for grace and truth, and that on a more simple level, we are not alone. God is with us.

God in Jesus discovers our humanity, so that we may in believable ways discover our divinity, our holiness and worth — it works both ways. God’s holy word among us helps us to accept our first birthing as well as our dying to new birth.
Throughout our lives, we dance with this God of love, who became one of us in Christ. Sometimes we get it; sometimes we even see God’s love, sometimes we even see God in another person. It is in moments like these, that we understand that the Incarnation is God living a life, as one of us. We get that the human being is God fully alive. That living is love. And that love is eternal.

Fourth-century Prudentius, in his words that we sing in hymn 82, expresses this eternal love: Of the Father’s love begotten, ere the worlds began to be, he is Alpha and Omega, he the source, the ending he, of the things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!

To which I respond with deep awe and gratitude: Yes. Yes, O God, yes.

END NOTES
(1) Michael Kimmelman, ‘Duccio Gem Perched Between Artistic Eras,’ NYT, Monday 20 December 2004, B1.
(2) Karl Rahner, ‘The Divine Dawning,’ cited in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004; Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House, 2001), 71.

Christmas Day sermon

Even though I have been in this chapel before becoming Trinity’s priest, I hadn’t focused on the beautiful stenciling that surrounds the windows and creates a frieze around the apse. Nor had I remembered the opening verse to the prologue to the gospel according to John that lies above the trim. When Trinity called me, I all of a sudden paid attention to this verse, one that you and I can say by heart, and delighted that it would become a regular part of my prayer life and worship here.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The sheer poetry of the verse makes one stop and listen. After listening, then one has to unpack the depth of this one line and all the verses that follow it.

Just what is this Incarnation about which John speaks in his eloquent prologue, which we have now heard two services running?

Patricia Wilson-Kastner suggests that ‘Jesus became flesh so as to show forth the love of God among us, a love which is not merely an expression of good will, but the power of an energy which is the heart, core, and cohesive force of the universe.… Christ is the human expression of God to us, and thus we must try to understand what God meant in Christ… Christ is … one who shows all persons how to live. As a human he shows us what human self-possession and self-giving are. Thereby Christ shows us the link between divine and human, the cosmos and its conscious inhabitants.’

As though she had read the early 20th century Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, or Machado had spoken with her about who and what this Heart is, Machado’s poem, ‘Last Night’ puts into more concrete imagery who the Heart is that lies at the centre of our faith.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
O water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

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How is God-with-us, Christ, the Incarnate One, manifest in you? How are you aware of the Heart of Love that lies at the centre of our world, at the centre of the universe? Are there moments when you have a fiery sensation inside you? Are there moments when something moves you to the point of tears? How is God the aqueduct that moves through your soul and nourishes it?

How, also, do you respond to the wonder of God incarnate? For our faith is profoundly communal and part of living a life of faith is to reach out to those around us.

John’s prologue makes clear that in God there is communion, unity, love and light, and from this communion, all creation flows. And this movement finds its fulfillment as the Word became flesh to lead human beings into a new communion with God, to become one with God.

Just as water flows to keep the earth alive, and our hearts beat to keep us alive, so does God’s love sustain all creation. And God’s heart is more vast—for ‘the heart of God is unbelievably kind.’

On this Christmas Day, may we dream that spring is breaking out in our hearts. May we dream that our failures have been made sweet. May we dream that the fiery sun that dwells in our heart bring us light and tears to our eyes. And may we dream and then come to know that it is God we have inside our hearts which, as they joy in love, it’s because God Incarnate is our Joy, our Love, our Heart.

Christmas Eve sermon

Getting to Christmas Eve always seems as though we have been running a marathon (or gauntlet, depending on how one feels) full out, and now, finally, we have arrived at the finish line. We have survived endless piles of catalogues delivered daily to our doorsteps (though moving in November is a great way to eliminate that!), a zillion Christmas carols in the stores, concerts and pageants well before the moment, and all the demands and underlying craziness that the season so often brings on. If we’re not feeling a bit out of breath by now, we must have been living in some other place and time.

By the time we get to this holy night, we may have forgotten why we’ve been running so hard. Certainly it’s difficult to recall that we’re remembering the birth of Christ when even today with the slow economy, the prevailing messages have been: ‘Buy two for yourself and one for someone else.’ Perhaps even harder to grasp is that this entire feast centres upon the greatest mystery of all, the Incarnation, the fact that God became human, and lived and dwelled amongst us… by divine choice and desire.

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When I say ‘mystery,’ I suspect many think of those pot-boilers we read to while away the hours. I will make the true confession that I, too, will read mysteries when I need to let up a bit — they are good to haul in a backpack when walking the Long Trail. I’m not crazy about the ones with psychopathic killers — Patricia Cornwall’s wolfman has gotten a bit out of hand for my tastes — nor am I really interested in all the gore — some of the work of forensic pathologists get a bit graphic. I prefer those stories that explore the human soul, as the protagonist tries to piece together what events transpired to make someone overstep the boundaries that most of us respect.

Several years ago Stephen Kendrick, a Congregational minister, wrote in his Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes, ‘Not all is as it appears on the surface. It never is, in a proper mystery.… As Albert Schweitzer said, “Whenever we penetrate to the heart of things, we always find a mystery. Life and all that goes with it is unfathomable….”’

Kendrick continues, ‘[One] wonders why clergy are attracted to detective stories, which are always, so unlike our own experience, neatly solved by the last page. Perhaps… it is because clergy ‘spend most of their time with sinners of every conceivable variety.’ He hones in one reason: ‘Some years ago, several people in one week of counseling had asked me, “Where is God in all this pain/mess/hopelessness?” These are not easy queries, and it is easy to be weary when too many questions pile up on your soul.… Maybe people read detective fiction for the same reason they adopt religious doctrine. We all desperately crave both internal order and cosmic understanding: a sense that there is a hidden force operating through and beneath us that makes life not only sensible and just but, more importantly, reveals compassion at the heart of creation.… There are important mysteries beneath the surface of [our] lives, and that does not even include the more traditional questions of faith that people normally think to bring to their pastor: What is the meaning of life? Is there a God who cares whether I live or die? Is death the end of my story? And so we gently ask, “How are you doing? How are things going for you?” because the divine secret within each of us is indeed the greatest detective story ever written.’ (1)

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We’ve always known that life is a mystery of sorrows and joys, birth and death, questions and answers, change and stability and all those other combinations of emotions and experiences we share. So much of our faith journey is spent asking the questions: Does God love me? Does God care? Why is there suffering in the world? Why is there war? Why do people have to die? Why are we, as human beings so cruel to one another, when we also have the capacity to be so loving to one another? And on and on. Lastly, what does it mean that as humans we are created in the image of God?

Herein lies the greatest mystery of life—that we are created in the image of God and that it is a good thing indeed. Each one of us is a walking tabernacle or temple to God. Each one of us holds in our person the Holy One, the Christ.

Several years ago in another congregation, we baptised and welcomed as Christ’s own for ever two young men — cousins, one of whom had lost his 25 year-old brother in a mountain bike accident earlier that year, both of whose grandmother had died on Christmas Eve morning many years before. Maybe it was a paradox on Christmas Eve to enter into the Easter mystery that baptism so symbolises, yet it was fitting because it reminded us that Christ became one of us and walked with us. With Christmas, we remember Jesus’ first birth, so that we might have a second birth that comes with baptism and the ultimate birth that comes with the resurrection.

Between that first birth, which is biological, and the second birth, which is spiritual, ideally we spend our lives remembering what it means to be made in the image of God. Nelson Mandela said of us, ‘We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s within everyone. And as we let our light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.’

Why do we look again and again for the Christ child? For what do we seek in him? To have our burdens lessened? To come close to the Holy not because we understand why but because we are drawn in year after year because our souls instinctively yearn for mystery?

Do we come here because the pains of the world are too much to bear and we need to find some place to drop them, or some place, a larger reality to make sense out of them?

Do we come because we know that this yearly journey on this holy night is essential to our well-being?

For these reasons, for any other reason, know that you are God’s dearly beloved, too. Know that God holds you and cherishes you. God incarnate has many faces and yours is one of them.

This night when the veil between heaven and earth is so thin, as we inhabit that holy place of mystery, that space between the here and now and the unspeakable, the ineffable, let us give thanks for the encounter with God-made-flesh, Jesus the Christ. Linger for a moment in this holy place of wonder and beauty. Let those wordless and unspeakable aspects of God’s love touch you as so often the rays of sun bathe us. And remember the most awesome mystery of all, that God has loved us from before the beginning and always will.

END NOTE
(1) Stephen Kendrick, Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes (New York, Pantheon, 1999), 3, 13-14.

A Christmas message from Archbishop Martín Barahona

The Most Rev'd Martín Barahona
Bishop of the Episcopal Anglican Church of El Salvador
Primate of the Anglican Church of the Region of Central America (IARCA)
Vice President of Foundation Cristosal
Moderator for Mesoamerica of the World Conference of Religions for Peace

“Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to men and women
of good will.” (Luke 2:14)

My friends and members of the Episcopal Anglican Church of El Salvador, of the Province of the Anglican Church of the Region of Central America, of the Anglican Communion and, in general, to all who enjoy good will, peace and love in all their dimensions and consequences:

For us Christians, the birth of Jesus or the Incarnation of God in humanity signifies the deepest human expression and, at the same time, the divine expression that God has in God's infinite will of love and accompaniment to God's creation. The human being is especially the central axis of creation.

It is for this reality that, at the knowledge of this event in this moment of history, the Holy Scriptures mention there is great joy and the Angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men and women of good will.” This message is not only true for Christians; it is also valid for all, because in one form or another all people need to give glory to God.

All religions have expressions of praise and glory to the Holy as each one conceives it. We respect profoundly the ways and expressions of prayer of other religions. We know and are convinced that we are surely giving glory to the same God or the same Divinity that has infinite ways of self-expression with God's sons and daughters. We invite all to fulfill the most sincere expressions of glory to God, especially in these times when we are about to begin a new year, with new decisions and new intentions, that our future plans will be guided by the Holy Spirit.

The text that we have cited says, “and on earth peace to men and women of good will.” This is precisely what we have needed for the past several thousands of years - people of good will, governors, rich and poor… for all people in the world are asking with urgency that we make an effort to be people of good will, that there not be natural disasters, because all disasters are the consequences of the lack of men and women's good will. Unfortunately, we have created a mentality and structures that destroy God's creation.

It is for this reason that in this message, I respectfully invite us to begin to be people of good will. In this way, we will be able to change the injustices and inequalities that there are in the world. If one of these days we decide to give glory to God with the firm will to construct justice, we will have a world where there will be peace, unity and love between all human beings.

May this same God of life bless us and give us the strength to fulfill God's Holy Will, that “ we love one another as ourselves.”

The Most Rev'd Martín Barahona,
San Salvador, 22 December 2008

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Revdmo. Martín Barahona
Obispo de la Iglesia Episcopal Anglicana de El Salvador,
Primado de la Iglesia Anglicana de la Región Central de América (IARCA)
Vice-Presidente de la Fundación de CRISTOSAL
Moderador para Mesoamerica de la Conferencia Mundial de Religiones por la Paz.

“Gloria a Dios en las alturas, y
en la tierra paz a los hombres y mujeres
de buena voluntad” (Lucas 2:14)

Mis amigos y amigas miembros de la Iglesia Episcopal Anglicana de El Salvador, de la Provincia Anglicana de la Región Central de América, de la Comunión Anglicana en general y a todos y a todas que gozan de buena voluntad; paz y amor en todas sus dimensiones y consecuencias.

Para nosotros los cristianos, el nacimiento de Jesús o la encarnación de Dios en la humanidad, significa la expresión mas profundamente humana y al mismo tiempo divina que Dios tiene en su infinita voluntad de amor y acompañamiento a su creación, especialmente el eje central de esta creación, que es el ser humano.

Es por eso que al conocer en algún momento de la historia este acontecimiento, los textos sagrados refieren que hay una gran alegría y los Ángeles cantan “Gloria a Dios en el cielo, y en la tierra paz a los hombres y mujeres de buena voluntad”. Este mensaje no solamente es válido para los cristianos, si no también es válido para todos y todas; porque de una u otra forma, todos los seres humanos sentimos la necesidad de dar gloria a Dios.

Todas las religiones tienen expresiones de alabar y glorificar a la divinidad tal como cada uno lo concibe y en esta expresión respetamos profundamente las formas de orar que tienen otras religiones, sabemos y estamos convencidos que en definitiva, estamos dando gloria al mismo Dios o a la misma divinidad que tiene infinitas maneras de comunicarse con sus hijos e hijas; invitamos a todos y a todas a realizar las mas sinceras expresiones de gloria a Dios, especialmente en estos tiempos cuando vamos a empezar un nuevo año con nuevas decisiones y con nuevos propósitos, que nuestros planes futuros sean guiados por el Espíritu Divino.

El texto que hemos citado habla… “y en la tierra paz a los hombres y mujeres de buena voluntad” esto es precisamente lo que hemos necesitado desde hace miles de años; gente de buena voluntad, gobernantes y gobernados, ricos y pobres. En fin todos y todas en el mundo estamos pidiendo con urgencia que hagamos un esfuerzo por ser gente de buena voluntad, no existen desastres naturales, todos los desastres son a consecuencia de que no hay voluntad de nosotros hombres y mujeres; desafortunadamente, hemos creado una mentalidad y estructuras de destrucción de la creación Divina.

Es por eso que en este mensaje, les invito con mucho respeto, a que comencemos nosotros mismos a ser gente de buena voluntad, y de esta manera seremos capaces de cambiar las injusticias y desigualdades que hay en el mundo, si algún día nos decidimos a dar gloria a Dios, con la voluntad firme de construir la justicia; tendremos un mundo donde haya paz, unidad y amor entre todos los seres humanos.

Que el mismo Dios de la vida nos bendiga y nos de la fortaleza para cumplir con su Santa Voluntad, el “amarnos los unos a los otros”.

San Salvador, 22 de Diciembre de 2008
Revdmo. Martín Barahona

Under 24 hours

we'll be fully into the Christmas Eve business... with lousy, lousy weather forecast but that is so typical for Vermont. It sleets, rains or freezes on Christmas Eve and then it snows on Easter. Still, it is a bummer that after the beautiful snow of this past weekend it has to get all gummed up tomorrow.

Anyway, here are a few photos from this morning.


A former rector's wife made the lace frontal for the high altar from veils and wedding dresses of women she knew. It is an incredibly ornate and fragile altar hanging.


Here is one shot of the two altars and chancel. To the left just out of the photo is the furriest crèche I have ever seen: a parishioner comes every year and staples greenery to a wooden frame. The entire frame inside and out then is covered with pine. When asked if I wanted the light put inside, raised my eyebrows in the universal sign of, 'Are you crazy?' The administrator was quite happy with my response.


And here's a vertical shot of the same part of the church.


As a contrast and compare, here is where I was last year and how it looked. I suspect it looks pretty much the same this year though they don't have the mountain vestments because they came with me.


Meanwhile, here's the scene in the church office. The local florist dropped off that nice poinsettia and the flowers on the other table are left over from Sunday. Pretty good.

Yesterday's snow

It's snowing out right now; tomorrow morning I will deal with the driveway though the neighbour has an ATV to which he has attached a blade and when he's not at work, he plows out everyone's driveway so it may already be done.

Here are some photos from yesterday.


The chapel which is to the left of the main church. We'll use it for the 8.00 and 9.00 in January-Palm Sunday when we move out of the church into the parish house to save fuel and money.


There are six red doors to the church but the sexton, who is a genuine saint, only shovels the steps to four. This door is to the left of the main doors.


This is one big building. I've noticed there are already roof dumps and they make just as much noise as the roof dumps from my last church.


If you look hard enough, you can see snowflakes.


The church faces north so the sun comes through the side windows of the nave.


To the north east of the church, there is a memorial garden. I didn't attempt to get in there because the snow would have gone way over the tops of my boots.

Advent 4B

As we draw closer and closer to the Christmas festival, the Advent lessons take us to the brink of the Incarnation, the great mystery we will celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The whole series of the Hebrew prophecies, which we have been hearing since the beginning of December, culminating in John the Baptist and his message (whose words we heard the second and third Sundays of Advent), reach their fulfillment in the Christ event. The move from John the Baptist’s ministry to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the annunciation looks at first sight like a step backward, chronologically. But theologically it is not, for John sums up the entire Hebrew prophecy and announces the impending Christ event, and Mary is the appointed agent through whom Christ enters into the world. She brings us to the fulfillment of the Advent hope in her role in the annunciation.

What is the meaning of this annunciation? Namely, the history of Jesus does not emerge out of the on-going stream of history. No, it is that supreme moment when God comes to us in human form. It is a time when God’s descending road touches our ascending road and at that intersection we find Christ. It is a jolt, an unprecedented moment that bursts into our lives.

But we have not gotten that far yet. This is the Fourth Sunday of Advent, not Christmas Eve! We are still waiting for the birth of Christ. What we have this morning is the annunciation to Mary. We know the story well and could probably tell it to one another, getting most the details right as we went along. So instead, I want to think about Mary, who lies at the heart of this story, without whose ‘yes,’ we would not be here this morning.

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Needless to say, I have a deep love for Mary. Over the past fourteen years serving at a place named after Mary, I embraced her, knowing that to do so is well within the Anglican faith tradition. She became for me an icon of the possibilities for women to respond to God’s outrageous invitations. And she exemplifies the strength that some people can find in the face of horrendous moments.

I love Mary, too, because she connects me to the people of El Salvador and Central America where adoration of Mary is second only to Jesus. Just a few weeks ago, the Anglican Episcopal Church of El Salvador dedicated a new church building for Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of the Abandoned. The Anglican Church has also started a new congregation, the Virgin Mary of Guadeloupe.

Lastly, the medievalist in me delights in Mary because it is during that tumultuous time period that the worship of Jesus’ mother became prominent. Think of how many cathedrals in Europe are named after her.

Mary speaks to a lot of people from a lot of walks of life, even to those who have no connection with the church per se. One such person is country singer, Eliza Gilkyson. The only reason why I have ever heard of her is because of her song, ‘Requiem,’ which she wrote as her response to the 26 December 2004 tsunami in Asia. I heard an interview with her on NPR around the one-year mark and shortly after Hurricane Katrina, and the haunting music stuck with me so I downloaded her song.

Requiem’ is a poignant memorial to the victims of the 2004 tsunamis that has also become a song for Katrina’s dead. Based on the traditional Catholic remembrance of the dead, the song invokes Mary to protect and comfort the survivors.

‘“Requiem” is a vehicle by which people can grieve,’ she says. ‘Sometimes we don’t have ways to trigger the process of grieving. Music gives us a safe environment for grieving.’ While Gilkyson isn’t Catholic, nor were most of those affected by the tsunamis, she built the song around Mary because of her significance as a model of compassion.

‘Mary is such a strong, compassionate icon, one of the strongest female archetypes we have today,’ she says. ‘I researched all types of female archetypes — Muslim, Buddhist, and so on — and I kept coming back to Mary.’

The lyrics to her song, while sad, also express hope and confidence in the figure of Mary:

mother mary, full of grace, awaken
all our homes are gone, our loved ones taken
taken by the sea

mother mary, calm our fears, have mercy
drowning in a sea of tears, have mercy
hear our mournful plea
our world has been shaken
we wander our homelands forsaken

in the dark night of the soul
bring some comfort to us all
oh mother mary come and carry us in your embrace
that our sorrows may be faced

mary, fill the glass to overflowing
illuminate the path where we are going
have mercy on us all
in funeral fires burning
each flame to your mystery returning

in the dark night of the soul
your shattered dreamers, make them whole,
oh mother mary find us where we’ve fallen out of grace
lead us to a higher place

in the dark night of the soul
our broken hearts you can make whole
oh mother mary come and carry us in your embrace
let us see your gentle face, mary

‘When Gilkyson wrote “Requiem,” she had no way of knowing that this achingly beautiful song intended specifically for tsunami survivors abroad would someday have the same resonance for hurricane evacuees at home.’

And even if we aren’t hurricane evacuees or tsunami survivors, there is something about calling out to Mary to come , make whole our broken hearts, and carry us in her embrace when the going gets rough.

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Why do we turn to Mary? Because in all this talk about the Incarnation, it is helpful to think of the fully human one, Mary, who carried God incarnate, God-with-us, Jesus. She doesn’t just carry us, she carried Jesus. More than that (not to diminish the sheer mystery of that statement), in the midst of all the craziness, she believed and trusted Gabriel’s words, ‘Nothing will be impossible with God.’ She trusted and even more remarkably, found hope.

How do we find hope? How do we trust that Jesus will be one of us? How do we trust that, ‘Nothing will be impossible with God’?

Somehow it is this last line that is the most difficult for us to hang onto. ‘Nothing will be impossible with God.’ It is hard to trust that when the angel Hope comes to us; it is even more so when there is not some readily available sign that it is God in our midst. Maybe Mary had the benefit of the doubt since the angel was standing there before her. Somehow I do not think it was that simple. If anything, she should have run in the opposite direction, so great were the risks of bearing God’s child.

But Mary trusted. She trusted that ‘Nothing will be impossible with God.’ Hope. Raw hope. The sort of hope that defies all logic. The sort of hope that can manifest itself in areas of deep poverty when all logic says it should be dead.

Our task in Advent, in Christmas, and throughout the year is to trust… to trust in the angel Hope, to trust in the presence of Christ the Great Liberator, who is amongst us, walking with us, and in the words, ‘Nothing is impossible with God.’

Finally, we have to give thanks for Mary, who despite the risks that being the God-bearer involved, said ‘Yes,’ to God’s announcement that God would come to us in the form of a child. A ‘Yes’ that speaks of irrational hope. As Madeleine L’Engle writes:

This is the irrational season
When hope blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been full of reason
There’d have been no room for the child.


Sources
Eliza Gilkyson.com, This is Texas Music.com and buzzflash.com
Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season (Minneapolis, MN: The Seabury Press, 1977), 27.

Photo
statue of Saint Mary from my previous parish called Saint Mary's

Friday cat blogging on Saturday

OK, here are a few fotos of the felines in their house.


Even though it's snowing outside, YG is quite happy on his couch. Behind him is a feeble attempt at Christmas decoration.


The love seat is by the radiator so it is quite warm.


I think this is the first time MABFP has slept on the Thai pillows and the Love a Cat towel.


My favourite Orange Guy sleeps prayerfully on top of the radiator in the living room. I was concerned they wouldn't be able to look out the windows since the sills are narrower than in the other house but they have been enterprising and proven that when there's a will, there's a way.


This funny desk was in the upstairs hall and, for the time being, it shall remain. I just cleared it off so am glad that someone decided to try it out. The poster above him is one that was made for the first open presidential elections in El Salvador in 1994.


Did I put up this photo before? Well, it's worth repeating because it's a silly.


Whatever has juice on it is a hit. They all do a good pre-clean.


YG has sniffed out something interesting in the garbage can which is behind the cabinet doors. He is perched on a garbage can, appropriately labelled, 'poubelle,' French for, voilà, garbage can. If you look carefully, you can see OG up on the counter.

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Tomorrow, photos of the snowstorm. I am totally bummed to read in the forecast that we're supposed to have glazing or freezing rain on Christmas Eve. Oh c'mon. Why does it ALWAYS have to do that on that night? This will be my 15th Chrismas Eve in Vermont and more than half have had dangerous and crummy weather. There should be a special box on the parochial report to indicate whether one lives in the north or not and if Christmas Eve had bad weather. Otherwise, they just shouldn't ask for Christmas Eve attendance.

Contrast and compare

Anyone who has taken an art history course will recognise well the phrase, 'contrast and compare.' Two slides of similar architecture, sculpture, painting would go up on the screen and you'd have to write an essay on their historic background, the development in technique, the difference in style. I remember the exam wherein we had to know two dozen 15th-16th Italian century Madonnas, all of which looked the same to me.... So, here's your contrast and compare. It doesn't look like any progress but there has been some.


Here's where things were four weeks ago today.


The boxes by the stairs are all empty, just waiting for me to break them down or take them down cellar.

But the best news of all is that tonight, after exactly four weeks, I found my bathrobes! Hooray. They were in a box in the cellar, a box that never should have ended up down there. I also found a measuring cup. So where's my pepper grinder and salt seller?

Don't move unless you have to.

Does this make sense?

In today's news in Vermont... the state like everyone else is facing huge budget cuts. So here is one proposal that is on the table:

Cuts to transportation funding are also being considered. Reducing passenger train service – Amtrak costs about $5 million a year – is proposed, although in a different form.

Under the administration's new proposal, the Ethan Allen Express by Amtrak from Albany, N.Y. to Rutland would cease to be a train at all. Instead Amtrak would run a bus service on the route, saving about $400,000 while allowing service through Bennington, Manchester, Rutland and on to Burlington along the Route 7 corridor.

Just as Amtrak is announcing ridership UP because of gas prices, as Vermonters are considering 350 (our carbon footprint), we're going to cut rail service even more and replace it with buses (ugh) that will add on who knows how much more time to the trip. And if gasoline pops back up again (I don't believe this $1.66 a gallon is going to last for long), then how much will Amtrak/Vermont save? Vermont already has lousy public transportation so why not make it worse?

I was just thinking how much more civilised it was to take the train to NYC because no one pesters you, you can plug in right away (I know I wrote this last weekend) and you can get up and move. And it would be nice to have door-to-door (almost) service to NYC!

Grump. (I am not going to go into my comments about our guvnuh.)

Advent 3B (a day late)

The lectionary texts this morning provide many overtones — sounds that connect with other parts of our life of prayer. The beginning portion of Isaiah 61 is one of the selections for the burial rite; Psalm 126 is one of the appointed psalms for noonday prayer; the portion from First Thessalonians is an echo (or preview, as it was written first) of Philippians 4 (‘Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice’), and the mention of John the Baptist in the opening of the gospel according to John appears at Christmas. As happens so often, the readings weave a rich tapestry such that as we consider one passage, we hear the others at the same time.

As promised last week, this morning we will focus more on the reading from Isaiah. Not only is it appointed for the burial office but it also is cited in Luke’s gospel account of Jesus’ appearance at the temple where he unrolled the scroll and read from it. The passage unto itself is powerful and evokes equally Mary’s song, the Magnificat, which we will hear next week.

The Hebrew Scripture reading, from the third part of the large book of the prophet Isaiah (otherwise called Third Isaiah), echoes themes of Second Isaiah, that part wherein we hear of the Suffering Servant (most frequently associated with Holy Week). In both parts of Isaiah, the servant is anointed by the spirit for a ministry of mercy in a jubilee year of favour.

Leviticus 25, that portion of the Hebrew Scriptures that focuses so much on the way the people of Israel was to live, describes what a jubilee year looks like: such a year was proclaimed every fifty years for the purpose of having debts canceled, granting general forgiveness, and for recovering lost property. Third Isaiah reiterates these themes in chapter 61 of the book.

In all these activities, the prophet speaks of reversals of fate to those in various states of destitution and deprivation. Earlier readings this Advent from the Hebrew Scriptures have also referred to the afflicted; the difference with today’s text is that now it speaks of a person who will address these problems and take positive action. When the reversals have all taken place, those freed will have a new inner state of hope and joy.

The words of anointing that Isaiah speaks presage the words Jesus will later say at the beginning of his ministry, a ministry that likewise reflects concepts of jubilee. Both Isaiah and Jesus bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, provide comfort to those who mourn, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Isaiah moves from seeing his people as broken hearted and oppressed to those who now are free, now that they have returned to Jerusalem. However, for the people, it will take a long time because they have only known oppression. A lot has happened in the years of exile to break many hearts. ‘They still need liberty proclaimed to their inmost beings. Spiritually and psychologically, they are still prisoners. They are still in mourning, for years lost, a country lost, self-respect lost.

[So] ‘Isaiah walks among the people as he offers these next splendid and beautiful images. [He goes] to one person and say[s], “I want you to have a garland instead of ashes;” to another, “You should feel the oil of gladness instead of mourning”; and yet to another, “Do you know what you need? You need a mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” All the time he is speaking he is healing, comforting, encouraging, energizing, coaxing, persuading.… This is the kind of ministry we are called upon to exercise with each other today — a ministry of encouraging and healing each other.’ (1)

Isaiah’s prophecy is not just for long ago; it is for us now. It is you and I who are poor. We suffer broken hearts in those lives and loves and labours that mark our existence. As we receive this prophecy, we recognise our own truths. We too are captive, prisoners of fear, egotism, betrayals, misplaced priorities. As harsh as this list sounds, we know that we don’t have to remain stuck in those hard places. We can return from spiritual exile, too.

Psalm 126 accompanies well the reading from Isaiah because it speaks of this return from exile. The psalm looks to the past and what has taken place and injects a prayer for good fortune in the future. The dry river beds and the dusty gullies of the desert will flow with water again; life will again be abundant; new growth will emerge from that which was considered barren.

We, too, are called to be a people of hope and joy, bringing new life to barren places. We, too, are called to be those change agents in the world, people of jubilee, who will work toward release and liberty of the oppressed and disenfranchised. Each of us can make a difference in our daily lives and we must. We are already jubilee people by virtue of our baptism; now we have to figure out how to make that a reality in our daily life.

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The question lies before us today: how does each one of us engage in a ministry of encouraging and healing each other? How do we become a people of hope and joy, bringing new life to barren places, especially right now when things seem to be so hard for so many people? How does each one of us make a difference in our daily lives and those of others?

These are not merely rhetorical questions — they are the essence of what our life as the baptised means. What we do as the baptised, not just in church but also in our daily lives, can have a huge impact on others. Fundamentally, each one of us is called to reconcile the world to God in Christ. Each one of us will find the way to do so. As we find our unique voice, we can bring about healing and restoration for others. At the same time, to preach hope also means that we need to listen carefully to each other.

A caveat, however: it is hard to preach hope if one does not know it. Hope is not the same as optimism, which can often preach a false ‘things will get better.’ The optimist lives by the pretension of being able to control the present. People of faith live with the strength that comes from having a large vision of the God who promises liberation from all that binds and oppresses human beings. Hope in the Christian sense takes into account the real sufferings of the moment and places them into prayer. Hope gives us a broader view, one that always leads us back to God, whose mercy is never-ending. People of hope want to do the will of God the liberator, want to offer light and life to those who live in dark places, want to be a sign of a liberating future in a world that thinks only of the present and its unlimited possibilities for self-serving.

Perhaps that God-given, God-based hope is what a co-worker needs. Perhaps it is what the person in the hospital bed needs. Perhaps it is what the person sitting in the pew next to you needs. Perhaps it is what this parish needs.

During this Advent, we can begin in our hearts to explore what it means to listen to one another, to speak in clear terms and directly, and to find our own ways of articulating the hope that comes to us in the Christ child. Use the remaining precious time of Advent to pray about how you can find your voice of hope, to whom and how you might share this message of hope.

Like the prophets, we have a message and an action to offer this world… for ‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon us because the Lord has anointed us.’ May God help us to spread that urgent message of hope today, tomorrow and always.

END NOTE
(1) Herbert O’Driscoll, The Word Today, Year B, Volume 1 (Toronto, ONT: Anglican Book Centre, 2001), 23-24.

[photo: frozen cherry tree]

Bishop Ely on Vermont Public Radio

No matter where you are in the world, if you have a computer with a good connection, here is the link to Bishop Ely's interview on Vermont Public Radio today. You can listen to the half-hour interview without downloading it.

[Bishop Ely is the second person from the left in the top row. (c) Episcopal News Service]

Exuberance

The mail today brought me a fun surprise: a jacket from Burma. The Episcopal Church's missioner to/for/with Burma, knowing that I am a Princeton graduate (Ph.D.), saw this jacket in Burma and brought it back for me. It is fabulous.


Evidently there was enough material for the maker to create a matching bag in which the jacket arrived.


This is definitely a General Convention jacket in the tradition of deputy Charles Crump from Tennessee, GC's longest serving deputy (25 GCs starting in 1957). He has one jacket that he always wears at some point during GC (I'll try to find a photo of it, though GC deputies will know of what I speak). In any event, I have this exuberant jacket that I will wear with joy....

Meanwhile, a nice donation will go out to the Church of Burma: the funds for these items helps support schools for children of all faiths. Pray for our missioner for her safe travel and the solidarity she brings to us from the people of Burma.

Glaze and garishness

It is hard to ignore the screen but you can get the idea of the glaze that is covering all the trees and everything else. I took this from my study window (facing south). The carriage house behind this house seems close... my neighbours are a lot nearer than in my previous abode (it helped having a double lot on one side, a parish house on the other, and a play yard behind the house).

Things are still pretty crunchy outside.


Meanwhile, since the entire neighbourhood is all decorated up for Christmas, I decided not to be a total grinch (which I usually am) and bought some LED lights. Good Lord, they are garish with their blue light. When the holidays are over, I can put my hot peppers over them and light my bookcase (I have had this string of red pepper lights but they've never worked).

Yesterday

It is hard to believe that six months ago yesterday, half a year, have passed since Naomi died. It was a glorious June day and now we are in a world encased in ice. A year ago she was praying for hope, going in and out of the little and big houses and wanting so to be home for Christmas (which she was).


Here she is with a good friend during Christmas break last year, 'chilleaxing,' as she called it.

Naomi, I hope you are chilleaxing to the max now... in the Native tradition, you're halfway there to the eastern door. In the Anglican tradition, you're already there in the Communion of Saints... regardless, you are here and there and in our hearts.

This coming Monday

... for those of you who are near a computer and can stream this program, go to www.VPR.net:

Monday, 15 December 2008 at noon, Vermont Edition

Episcopal Bishop Thomas Ely

By Jane Lindholm

The split within the Episcopal Church in America intensified recently when conservative congregations took the unprecedented step of splitting away to form their own province. The division stems largely from a decision five years ago to ordain a gay bishop in New Hampshire. We’ll talk with Vermont Episcopal Bishop Thomas Ely about the future of the church.

Friday cat blogging returns

Here are a bunch of photos taken over the past two or three weeks....


Unlike in the previous rectory, there is no way to shut off the living room from the cats so they now have free access to all the antique furniture of my grandparents' and beyond. Despite boxes on the Empire sofa, La Doyenne finds the bolster to be quite comfortable.


So does MABFP.


Young Guy has excellent reading tastes, The Little Book of Archbishop Romero.


Even though the background is new, at least some close ups show familiar poses on familiar places.


Young Guy stretches out on some packing paper left on the dining room table, invading la Doyenne's space (that's her in the background to the left).


Orange Guy has found that the 1948 radiators make for great napping places. (The house was built then and then added onto in 1967. It is about 90 years newer than my previous rectory.)


I had taken YG to the vet's earlier this week; he seemed so unhappy that I thought something really was wrong. For two nights, I waited to find out if he is pre-diabetic. Today the news came back that no, he is not pre-diabetic (TBTG) nor does he have thyroid problems so I guess whatever is going on is totally environmental. Meanwhile, Orange Guy loves to sleep in the carrier so I kept it out on the kitchen floor for a while and YG stuck his face in the way to see what was going on.

Winter has arrived

In answer to Fran's question, we did have snow and ice but not nearly as badly as down state in Wilmington where most people are without electricity for the weekend. Here are a few photos from the first storm of the year.


A good glaze of ice covered the car, the type glaze that takes a fair amount of hacking at in order to get rid of it. The neighbour's car had frozen doors which made freeing it even more fun.


The stuff on the driveway was too crusty to use the snowblower so we shovelled it. To do so takes as long as doing the northern rectory driveway after a roof dump.


Downtown was pretty dead. The secretary lives 20 miles out so I phoned and said not to come in; I could do the bulletins (after all, I've been doing them for 14 years); the administrator had come in but since the electricity was off at his home, he left before I got in; the sexton, a wonderful soul, was there when I arrived and was still shovelling stairs and walks when I left. It was a wonderfully quiet morning.


None of the shrubs or trees in front of the church got busted by the ice, though I did see trees en route that had snapped or bent over from the weight of the ice.

Driving to the hospital late this afternoon to visit someone in the ER, I discovered that the roads were rather interesting since the temperature was dropping and whatever was left was freezing up. Next week, this all will have melted.

All in a day

The days now are very full such that by the time I get home, I don't have much left in me to blog or read blogs.

This morning we had a burial service and interment for a woman who died at age 92. She was the last of the line, had no survivors so it was a small gathering of about 20 people. Nine of us went to the snowy cemetery to inter her ashes. The burial may be the second to last for the season; the cemetery will close soon until spring.

When I arrived at the church, the sexton told me there was no heat in the chapel where the service would be held. Ay, the furnace gods (or demons) from my previous parish have followed me. No reason either for the furnace not working. It was 5 overnight so it was good and cold in the chapel. The administrator joked, saying that perhaps we should have our six-month performance review now. I said I couldn't believe the furnace wasn't working but we'd figure it out and at least there weren't any skunks. Oh no, said the sexton, there are a lot that like to root around the foundation.

>: Sigh. :<

Meanwhile, I took Young Guy to a new vets, driving in the mashed potato stuff that fell overnight. He howled the whole way. He is still there overnight for observation, though I am sure that the precipitating behaviour, marking the furniture and walls, can't happen in a cage. He is miserable with all the stress and, consequently, the rest of us are too. The house has been very quiet tonight without his hissing and walking around and I miss him.

And, I sat down and started reading minutes and such so I know a little more of the recent past of my new congregational home. Interesting material.

For now, however, it's bedtime.