On the eve of disaster

In three days, I will no longer be typing at this desk set-up because it will be taken apart and put into storage in our garage (which now has most of my belongings). The movers come Monday morning to take the big stuff and whatever else is left over, I will still be packing.

I have been putting a lot of photos up on Facebook simply because I don't have to size them down the way I do here. The FB photo log has been a quiet but public grieving of what is facing me. The easy route would be to say it is all their fault but of course I could have done things differently, too. Nonetheless, given the reactions I have heard, it was only a few who wanted rid of me; the majority were content with what I was doing. So it is hard not to think that the whole decision on their part was horribly misguided.

It doesn't matter now. I have three nights left in the rectory and then I move into a six-month rental from where I will work assiduously to find another place that will call me.

It has almost been three months since I have been unemployed. I have missed Advent, Christmas-tide, Epiphany as a priest and preacher. It is harder than a lot might think.

My back is weary but I have boxes to go so back to packing. Just one photo to show the state of confusion in the house.... empty bookcases turned to the wall so that the cats won't tip them over when they jump onto them.

Down memory lane

Well, since I referenced my trip across the Atlantic on the QE2 and since the album of photos I took happens to be out, I snagged some shots. They are not high quality partially because the originals are not and partly because I took them with my iPhone. But they will give an idea of what it was to sail across the sea in 1977.

Comme j'étais jeune... this was the telegram that announced I had been booked passage on the ship for the student fare.

Blurry shot of the QE2, looking miniscule compared to the recent shipwrecked liner.

View of the QE2 before embarking (somewhere between 34-45th Streets, NYC).

The former WTC as we left NY harbor on 1 September 1977.

Looking toward Hoboken.

Our cabin somewhere way below. It was on the outside of the ship so we did have a porthole.

This photo makes the cabin look bigger than it was... but it was perfectly adequate for two people.

Above deck on the one sunny day.

Hoowhee, look at that exhaust.

Looking at the stern.

Somewhere inside...!

Our dinner table (we were assigned a table and ate with the same people every night). As you can see, this trip catered to the 20-something crowd.

Meanwhile, outside... this had to have been our safety drill. I do remember the watertight doors shutting behind us as we went to our muster station.

One of the better moments at sea when it was not pouring rain or going sideways.

I would go out just for the sake of going out, even though it was wet. I felt like some Hollywood movie star in this film of crossing the ocean to new adventures... and that is where the James Taylor song would come into play.

Tugboats greeted us as we approached Cherbourg, France.

All of a sudden, after five days at sea, we had disembarked and now were standing in France. My sea-legs stuck with me for several days; I was more dizzy on land than at sea.

Looking back at the good ship that had safely carried us across the Atlantic.

Last view of the QE2 before descending into la gare, and chaos.

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Surely it is because of this trip that I so appreciated working at the Seamen's Church Institute and visiting seafarers. They are the unsung heros in all this; cruise lines tend to treat seafarers as indentured slaves — I did not know that at the time but came to learn of it when I worked at SCI. I have far greater appreciation and respect for the stewards and cabin attendants than I did at the time.

So prayers for those who lost their lives while at work on the Costa Concordia.

Au sujet des naufrages

I have been trying to figure out why the Costa Concordia shipwreck has grabbed my attention so. It has to be more than disaster porn... finally, tonight I got it (I think).

In September 1977 two college classmates and I crossed the Atlantic on the QE2. Cunard wisely had a sale on fares for college-age students and so the ship was packed with 20-somethings, many of whom, myself included, were going to 'spend a year abroad'. What better way to get my grandmother's trunk from her cruises across the ocean for $400 than to take the QE2. Since my mother's mother had travelled the seas, I figured I could, too. Likewise, my French teacher's father had worked on the United States and she talked about crossing the sea many times, so seeing the seas intrigued me.

We left on 1 September 1977 at about 6.00 PM. Back in those days, it was saying goodbye to one's family for a year and so I left my parents, said grandmother and college friend at the quai. I had chosen the QE2 because my cousins crossed the Atlantic on one of its early trips in August 1970 when they were moving to the Netherlands. As we steamed out of New York, with the sun setting, we passed the newly-finished Twin Towers.

Our first night at sea was gentle; it was probably about four hours into the voyage that we no longer could see the shore. And, like the folks on the Costa Concordia, we had a late dinner and then went above deck to take it all in. Bedtime had us waaaay down; I don't remember what deck it was but a far way from the fancy parts of the ship.

The rest of the crossing was rough, very rough. It was September, after all, when there are many storms on the Atlantic. On top of it all, something was awry with the stabilisers so the ship yawed ever more than it should have.

We had our lifeboat drill the morning after we got on board when it was still sunny out. [Maybe my memory is faulty here and we had it as soon as we got on board but, in that case, I would not have been able to photograph the WTC and Hoboken and I know we had the drill in daylight so I honestly think it was the next morning.]

My sound track for the crossing was James Taylor's Terra Nova (lyrics below)*. Most fitting.

So I look at the QE2 in comparison with the Costa Concordia and think, 'How quaint... how puny!' But the ship was plenty big, I assure you. I cannot imagine being on such a gigantic ship as the Concordia. Yikes.

I remember how hard it was to go down the long, long, long hallways to get to the stairs (it was not wise to take the elevators when it was really rough). I can't imagine trying to do it in a badly-listing ship and in the dark.

So, having been on an ocean liner, I have a sense of what it is like to walk around inside, get above deck. What I cannot imagine is the chaos. And so my heart goes out to the people who were affected by this. (And, yes, I realise they had to have had money to be on this thing, but nonetheless, their lives have been changed by this event.)

* Oh end this day show me the ocean
When shall I see the sea

May this day set me in emotion
I ought to be on my way

We were there
We were sailing on the terra nova
Sailing for the setting sun
Sailing for the new horizon

May this day show me an ocean
I ought to be on my way

Ought to be on my way right now
Stepping on the boat
With a lump in my throat
On my way right now

I got a letter from a dear friend of mine
The story of a spiritual awakening
She spoke of her love
Returning in kind
She let me know that
She'd be waiting

And I should be on my way by now
Walking across the floor
Reaching for the door
On my way by now

But here I sit country fool that I am
My elbow on my knee
And my chin in my hand

And my eye on the street
Holed up in a cave of concrete

And I ought to be on my way right now
Packing my things
While the telephone rings
On my way right now

I miss my lovely mother
And I love my lonely father
I know I owe my brothers
One thing and another
I hear my sister singing

And I ought to be on my way right now
Moving across the land
With my heart in my hand
On my way by now
Ought to be on my way by now

Oh end this day set me in motion
Ought to be on my way

Out of the west of lambert's cove
There's a sail out in the sun
And I'm on board though very small
I've come home to stop yearning

Burn off the haze around the shore
Turn off the crazy way I feel
I'll stay away from you no more
I've come home to stop yearning

Here we go again

Just as I was beginning to let myself settle in here, I have to pull up stakes and do a six-month stint in a rented house with the hope that I actually will have a job before then. It all is unreal.

Living room bookshelves are empty. It was nice having the built-in shelves. Without them I am in trouble.

Three of the four cats supervise the downstairs packing. They are not amused.

Her face says it all.

Quid es tu?

In these desert days of not being a priest in community, I actually said out loud yesterday something about my being a lay woman. There is nothing inherently wrong in that; I have no intention of disparaging the faithful laity who have to endure clericalism in all its oppressive forms; after all, it is a different expression of saying that I am baptised like everyone else and baptism is the degré zéro from whence all ministry flows, but nonetheless, as one who was called to serve the people of God as a priest, it was an odd moment.

O Sacerdos, quid es tu?
Non est a te, quia e nihilo,
Non es ad te, quia mediator ad Deum,
Non es tibi, quia sponsus ecclesiæ,
Non es tui, quia servus omnium,
Non es tu, quia Dei minister,
Quid es ergo? Nihil et omnia,
O Sacerdos.

Haiti, mon amour

Ayiti, kenbe nan li. Haiti, keep at it.
Ou pa gen te bliye. You will not be forgotten.
Ou va leve vivan ankò.
Ayiti, kouraj.

Requiat, the Rev'd John Crocker, Jr.

Johnny Crocker, rector at Trinity, Princeton, while I attended, died on 30 December. His full obit is here.

Johnny had a profound influence on my understanding of how the church engages with the world. He was a civil rights activist, an anti-nuclear proliferation advocate and an advocate for the church addressing the wrongs of society rather than holing up inside the building in prayer.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Catedral Metropolitana

La Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador as I first saw it in 1994. It was not finished, nor was it open to the public. We were amazed to see the banner of San Romero de las Américas hanging between the two bell towers, as well as people up in the towers. We gathered for a FMLN rally before the first free elections to be held after the 1992 peace accords (16 January 1992).

When I returned to El Salvador in 1996, the façade still had not been finished and the cathedral was still closed.

It was not until 2002 that I finally got to see the entire cathedral, inside and out.

And ever since that trip, I have always returned to the cathedral to take in the environment: the bustle of the city outside, the people coming and going and the peacefulness that comes from spending time by Romero's tomb.

These surely are the most comfortable pews/benches anywhere. The cathedral is cool inside, an oasis on a hot afternoon.

The old tomb still speaks to me far more than the present one (2005), which is triumphalistic.

The people will always prevail... 26 March 2011, the people had covered the tomb with flowers.

People still pray at the former tomb. So do I.

Thus, I also am horrified by the stupidity of what has transpired: 26 December behind a huge white shroud, workers chipped away the façade tiles of Harmony of My People (Armonia de mi pueblo) by Dom Fernando Llort, the artisan behind the revival of the folk art that is commonly known as La Palma, from the town where he makes it, and from his workshop, Semilla de Dios, Seed of God. He spent a year of his life creating this work; it was paid for by donations from the people of El Salvador.

This is why so many people are up in arms that the Roman hierarchy decided to take down the mural with the feeble excuse that the tiles had faded, some of them had come unglued (why then did it take people with chisels to hack them away?) and might fall down on people. The apology consisted of the archbishop saying that he was sorry, he regretted not having consulted with the family and if they wanted, they could have a miniature of the façade in the cathedral.

In an article written by Episcopal communicator, Susana Barrera of the Iglesia Episcopal Anglicana de El Salvador, Bishop Martín Barahona of the same church comments on the recent artistic tragedy:

“Alabo la actitud de Monseñor José Luis Escobar Alas (Arzobispo Católico) de pedir perdón, pero le pido se repare el daño que se ha hecho a la cultura y religiosidad del pueblo salvadoreño”, demandó el Obispo Martin Barahona de la Iglesia Anglicana, quien ha dado seguimiento a los hechos.

"I commend the attitude of Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas (Catholic Archbishop) for apologizing, but I ask that the damage that has been made to culture and religion of the Salvadoran people be repaired," said Bishop Martin Barahona of the Episcopal Anglican Church of El Salvador, who has followed the events.And more from the same article: “Lamento la situación que se ha dado, no comprendo a mi hermana mayor la Iglesia Católica, con tanta sabiduría y no consultar, no meditar, y cometer una prepotencia de esa naturaleza… definitivamente es una falta de respeto a los seres humanos”, reflexionó Barahona.

“I regret the current situation. I do not understand how my older sister, the Catholic Church — with so much wisdom — it could not have consulted or mediated [this situation] and [instead] committed an arrogant act of this nature. Decidedly, it is a lack of respect for human beings," Barahona reflected.

How long would it take to restore what has been taken down, especially since the hierarchy destroyed the work so that some image of El Salvador, Our Saviour, can be painted there instead?

Instead of this work of art that some lovingly, others less so called, 'The Towel,' because many towels sold are of the same style, this is what remains.

This gringa de corazón salvadoreño joins with the Salvadoran people in lamenting the senseless, arrogant and stupid destruction of a national patrimony that belonged to all the people... of El Salvador in particular and the world in general.

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Four months

Four months ago, the worst of Irene had struck our beloved state of Vermont. These scenes had already taken place: Rte 4 had already washed out in Mendon, Rutland was flooded and there was so much we did not know.

Irene barrelled through Vermont a week after I resigned because I had finally extracted from the wardens that they would not call me as rector.

As Vermont Public Radio has had an update today on where things are for people affected by Irene, I realise that in my own way, I have been carrying all this stuff on my heart.

No wonder I am sad every time I drive into Plymouth Union and see the wreckage caused by Irene. I think of Sue, whose house was destroyed by the brook that ran by it [in picture; she put up the 'house for sale' sign as a joke]. I think of the elderly couple in the house two over whose house was condemned. And I think of the people down the road whose house still stands but the first floor needs total gutting.

My situation is so minor in the great scheme of things. But it is inextricably woven into the story of Irene. Thus, the retrospectives throw me back to those last days of August which were so crazy.

Christmas Day sermon

[Preached at Church of Our Saviour, Killington, VT]

I have been greatly amused and intrigued over the discussion that has ensued after the media got a hold of the story that the mega-churches decided not to have services today. The pundits and blogosphere have had a field day with the news. Mind you, the last time Christmas landed on a Sunday was back in 2005 and before that 1994, so things surely have changed a bit since then or have they?

Nope. I do find it rather astonishing that economics have trumped faith. I can understand the minute congregation whose supply priest has to drive 65 miles one-way to get to the church, perhaps pondering not having a service on Christmas Day. But when everyone lives close by? Apparently the humungous churches in Texas decided it would cost too much to open their doors on Christmas morning. A spokeswoman for one of the megachurches said that 500 volunteers, along with staff, are needed to run Sunday services for the estimated 8,000 people who usually attend. She said many of the volunteers appreciate the chance to spend Christmas with their families instead of working, although she said a few church members complained.

The way some of the churches are getting around not having services today is clever: one enterprising church is handing out a DVD it produced for the occasion that features, in their words, a ‘heartwarming contemporary Christmas tale.’ Their spokesperson said, ‘What we’re encouraging people to do is take that DVD and in the comfort of their living room, with friends and family, pop it into the player and hopefully hear a different and more personal and maybe more intimate Christmas message, that God is with us wherever we are.’ That church considers itself a pace-setter and one that reaches out to the unchurched. They figure that the unchurched are not apt to come to church on Christmas Day anyway, especially since there are plenty enough services the night before.

Some observers of church growth wonder at this decision, given that Christianity is an evangelistic religion. One professor mused: ‘What about the people in society without strong family connections? The elderly, single people a long distance from family, or people who are simply lonely and for whom church and prayers would be a significant part of their day?’

What about them? Is this birth of Christ an individualistic or communal event?

Meanwhile, the other counter-cultural faith groups, the Catholics, Orthodox, Episcopalians and Lutherans do gather on Christmas Day because for them Christ’s birth needs to be celebrated in community. It doesn’t much matter to these faith traditions whether Christmas Day lands on a Sunday or not; for us, it is one of our major feasts and, therefore, there is no question about holding a service.

The mystery of God coming amongst us in the incarnation, in Jesus, our brother, is way, way too large to comprehend on just one night… or even the next morning… and so we keep coming back again and again, Sunday after Sunday. Still, this Sunday is extra-special because it is our usual day of gathering and it celebrates Christ’s birth.

Whatever your reasons are for coming this morning, I am glad you are here. I am glad there are companion pilgrims who understand the necessity for coming to church today—not just because it is a feast day or Sunday, but because, yes, indeed, it is Christ’s birth and we need to break bread together and be fed and celebrate his birth together, not alone.

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The late Patricia Wilson-Kastner suggested 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 not simply the new male person, but 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.’ (1)

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 morning, 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. 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.

END NOTE
(1) Patricia Wilson-Kastner, Faith, Feminism and the Christ.

Christmas Eve sermon

[This sermon is not being preached anywhere but on the internet.]

No longer can I hear the story of the nativity with the same ears or see it with the same eyes of my imagination. For a long time, my heart has ached upon hearing the words, ‘O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie....’ Having gone to Bethlehem, no longer a little town, my vision of the place has changed.

The basilica, Christendom’s oldest complete and working church now devoted to Jesus’ birthplace, like so many other places in the Middle East, is a place of dispute. The Orthodox run the old part of the church where one gains access to the grotto that is the birthplace of Christ whereas the Franciscans hold masses in an adjoining church that is a smaller duplication of the older basilica. Elsewhere in the complex, Armenians worship.

The birthplace of Jesus is marked by a large star that most recently dates to 1717 and was also a source of dispute in the 19th century. Regardless of who wants the star in place and who does not, the star is clearly in a cave which was the typical place for animals to be kept as well as for women to give birth. Facing the star is the place where the manger was, just a couple of footsteps away. To venerate both, one must kneel down and stick one’s head under an altar and be careful not to bang one’s head against the suspended votives that surround the two spots.

The day I visited Jesus’ birthplace, things were not flowing smoothly in the basilica for the simple reason that Senator John McCain was visiting. He and his entourage swept past the long queue of people to descend the steep stairs into the grotto. The rest of us hoi poloi were left standing, waiting and waiting and waiting.

To leave Bethlehem to return to Jerusalem, one has to go through the partition wall, the thirty-foot high barrier that separates Israel from Palestine. It is forbidding, foreboding with its concertina wire up top, the gun turrets every so far, the huge sliding doors that allow army vehicles into the space between the two countries. Pedestrians walk through a cattleshoot-like tunnel to leave Palestine, enter the security area before exiting into Israel. The Palestinian side of the wall is covered by graffiti — exceptionally artistic paintings — whereas the Israeli side is barren.

Just as it is impossible to separate out the political from the spiritual today, so it was in Jesus’ day. Why should the Son of God be born into such a humble family, to an unwed mother who should have been cast off and rejected? Why should the Holy Family have had to scrounge for housing were it not for the census — a census dictated by an occupying force, the Romans. Then as now, the land where Jesus was born was under dispute. Most of all, why should God have chosen to irrupt into history at that point in time in that small person of a fragile baby?

Every year we come face-to-face with the mystery of the Incarnation, God-made-flesh, Emmanuel, in Jesus the Christ. Every year we have to grapple with the paradox of the splendour of God’s universe and the particularity of the crib. Every year we are reminded that the soft wood of the crib becomes the hard wood of the cross and that through this tiny infant humanity was redeemed. It is an awful lot to contemplate. In some ways, we avoid it all by the frenzy of shopping and preparing the household for guests and fancy meals. The mystery of the Incarnation is so mind-boggling when one gets down to it, that one chooses to focus on the candles and sentimentality of imagined perfect Christmas celebrations instead.

Underneath all the lights, wrappings, feasts, music and commotion, though, lies our simple human need to know that we are loved… loved beyond measure by the same God who created the universe and the Son of Humanity. That assurance is what we really seek. We yearn to hear God’s heartbeat under our ears, to know that God is as close as our breath.

Knowing that God loves us unconditionally and immeasurably will not take away the pain there is. God’s love won’t find us a job or housing or restore the ravaged hillsides and rivers of Vermont to their pre-Irene status. God’s love will not end cancer or improve the economy or bring back lost loves and friendships. Those sufferings are part of the finitude of humankind, they are the human condition. These limitations do, however, challenge us to make a difference — to bind up the broken-hearted, to heal the sick, to give water to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to give food to the hungry, to visit those in jail. For those of us who know and love God, we are called to change this world to one where God’s mercy and justice — God’s jubilee — break into this otherwise incomplete and shattered world.

By struggling to infuse our world with God’s grace, we continue in the spirit that brought us Jesus who, as God made flesh, showed us God’s love. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the source, the beginning — he, of the father’s love begotten.

We yearn for peace, we yearn for a healed world… and most of all, we yearn for God.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Come, fill our hearts.

Come, break down the walls that separate us.

Come, show us God’s love so that we might show it to others.

Come close once again.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

[pictures taken in February 2011]

IASCUFO communiqué

First of all, there has got to be a shorter name for this commission so it does not have such a long and bizarre acronym.

In the name of the Holy Trinity and grateful for the gracious guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order met in Seoul, Republic of Korea 2 to 9 December 2011.

In preparation for the forthcoming meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-15) in 2012, the Commission devoted its third meeting to consolidating its work in the five areas initially identified as falling within its remit in 2009.

These areas of work involve:

1. reflecting critically on the Instruments of Communion and the relationships among them. Our discussions continue to develop the potential of these in the wider contexts of Anglican and ecumenical ecclesiological reflection;

2. studying the definition and recognition of churches;

3. providing a variety of materials to assist in the reception of the Anglican Communion Covenant. The guide which we produced during the past year is being augmented by a short video presentation which will be made available from the Anglican Communion website;

4. assisting the Communion in its engagement with the complex processes involved in reception. This includes receiving from one another and embracing the fruits of ecumenical dialogue and of Anglican theological reflection at all levels in the Communion. In our work as a Commission, we have become increasingly and acutely aware of the importance of this task in the life of our churches;

5. considering the question of transitivity, that is, the way in which regional ecumenical agreements between churches which are members of different global communions in one geographical area affect or extend to other parts of the Communions;

Aware of our mandate to promote the deepening of communion between the churches of the Anglican Communion, we emphasised the importance of being a fully representative group, and we greatly regret that some of our members were not present. We re-affirmed the significance of the Anglican Communion Covenant for strengthening our common life.

[...]

They just keep hammering away at why the Anglican Communion needs this so-called covenant... this thing at which the Virginia Report hinted, then the Windsor Report, both of which dreamed of finding a way to rein in the wayward ones. Horrifyingly enough, even though these reports never were accepted by the General Convention, their ideas have gained far too much credibility and traction.

I feel as though this covenant is a hydra: every time we stamp it down, it grows another head.

Symbols

This spring I was given a typical Salvadoran aumbry, handmade by someone who used to work for the Fernando Llort taller in La Palma and hand-painted by the diocesan treasurer of the Episcopal Anglican Church of El Salvador. The giver, someone who went to El Salvador with me in March intended for us to use it this coming winter when we moved worship into the parish hall. But it was not meant to be and so the aumbry came home to live for the time being on the downstairs front hall table.

Once I had moved out of the parish office, everything associated with me came home. The bottle of water from the River Jordan, the blessed oil from Church of the Holy Sepulchre, incense from right around the corner from the church, my communion kit with reserve sacrament, ashes for Ash Wednesday — all those outward signs of the mystery found in the sacraments needed a place to reside. The Salvadoran aumbry was just the spot and everything fit.

Last night I opened the door to the aumbry to look at these symbols. I wonder how long it will be before I will once again be anointing the sick, putting the oil of chrismation on the forehead of the newly baptised, adding River Jordan water to the water poured into the font, taking the Sacrament to the shut-in or ill, burning incense and using all these outward signs of what it means to be a priest in community, a relational priest.

A priest without a community is nothing. At least that is how I feel right now. I know I am a priest but I am wandering in the desert, a pilgrim moving from church to church to church but not having a place to call home right now. I am truly in between places, trying to be still to hear God's still, small voice.

So this aumbry takes on more meaning than before because not only does it serve as a reminder of a wonderful trip to El Salvador but it also is a reminder of priesthood and the hope that once again some day these oils and incense and water will not be tucked away but in an office and church to be used midst the community.

What sort of an Advent message is this?

From the Archbishop of Canterbury's Advent message (snipped from ENS):

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has used his Advent letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion and moderators of the United Churches to reiterate that the "Communion matters" to its members across the world and to the mission of God.

"The communion is a gift, not a problem to all such people and many more. Only in such a mutually supportive family, glorifying and praising God in Christ together, can we truly make known the one Christ."

So far, so good.

The Archbishop's letter acknowledged the "numerous tensions" in the communion, but cautioned communion members never to say "I have no need of you" to anyone seeking to serve Jesus Christ. He also used the letter to appeal for "more careful and dispassionate discussion" on such issues as the powers of Primates' meetings as well as calling for "a sustained willingness on the part of all provinces to understand the different ways in which each local part of the Anglican family organizes its life."

Williams also commended the Anglican Communion Covenant "as strongly as I can," stressing that it would neither change the structure of the Communion nor give "some sort of absolute power of 'excommunication' to some undemocratic or unrepresentative body."

"It outlines a procedure, such as we urgently need, for attempting reconciliation and for indicating the sorts of consequences that might result from a failure to be fully reconciled," he said. "It alters no Province's constitution, as it has no canonical force independent of the life of the Provinces. It does not create some unaccountable and remote new authority but seeks to identify a representative group that might exercise a crucial advisory function." (1, see below)

He said the fact that the moratoria were being "increasingly ignored" was deepening mistrust "which is bad for our mission together as Anglicans, and alongside other Christians as well. The question remains: if the moratoria are ignored and the Covenant suspected, what are the means by which we maintain some theological coherence as a communion and some personal respect and understanding as a fellowship of people seeking to serve Christ?"

Out of 13 paragraphs, only paragraph 9 comes close to speaking to the mystery of Advent, the child in the crib whose gaze looks to the heavens.

I can't say that this letter is one I would hold up as particularly inspiring in regards to Advent.

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The letter states (direct quote):

(1) 7. This of course relates also to the continuing discussion of the Anglican Covenant. How it is discussed, the timescale of discussion and the means by which decisions are reached will vary a lot from Province to Province. We hope to see a full report of progress at next year's Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting. In spite of many assurances, some Anglicans evidently still think that the Covenant changes the structure of our Communion or that it gives some sort of absolute power of 'excommunication' to some undemocratic or unrepresentative body. With all respect to those who have raised these concerns, I must repeat that I do not see the Covenant in this light at all. It sets out an understanding of our common life and common faith and in the light of that proposes making a mutual promise to consult and attend to each other, freely undertaken. It recognizes that not doing this damages our relations profoundly. It outlines a procedure, such as we urgently need, for attempting reconciliation and for indicating the sorts of consequences that might result from a failure to be fully reconciled. It alters no Province's constitution, as it has no canonical force independent of the life of the Provinces. It does not create some unaccountable and remote new authority but seeks to identify a representative group that might exercise a crucial advisory function. I continue to ask what alternatives there are if we want to agree on ways of limiting damage, managing conflict and facing with honesty the actual effects of greater disunity. In the absence of such alternatives, I must continue to commend the Covenant as strongly as I can to all who are considering its future.

[end quote]

Obviously our Constitution and Canons does not seem to apply here. I don't know where he gets the idea that a province's constitution will not be altered. And I don't know why one should be speaking of 'damage.' All depends in the eyes of the beholder, methinks.

Still hanging in there

So, the herminator is still staying in the race. Oh well.

And I am keeping up with my photoshopping abilities or lack thereof.

Useful advice for clergy leaving cures

From the Episcopal Diocese of New York


Relating After You Leave

Arrange for change of address and mail forwarding.

After your last day, do not return to the office to check for mail, e-mail, or phone messages.

In all cases, the responsibility belongs to clergy leaving to make clear that the pastoral relationship has ended.

Never be involved with the search process including giving names or offering opinions about candidates.

Avoid getting triangulated with members of the congregation and your successor.

Be clear that it is not appropriate for you to discuss any parish business after you leave.

Make plans to worship with another congregation.

In the absence of a rector or interim pastor, the wardens are canonically responsible for the worship, finance, property, and administration of the parish.

Remember, you have no official or canonical role in the parish you leave and your priestly, pastoral, and administrative functions end on the effective date of your retirement or resignation.

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Some think the separation is 'shunning' but it is necessary. Check out the related article over at the Lead.

A new way of reading the land

Now when we drive around Vermont we have a new way of reading the land... not just where the brooks and rivers ate away their banks and caused all manner of trees and boulders to fall into the water but also the roads...when one sees the following, one knows that the floods post Irene caused this change:

mangled guard rails
iron trestle bridges smashed up against the river bank
gravel on the edge of the road
tilting electric/phone polls
white rif-raf (large gravel) on the edge of the road
newly paved patches or complete segments of the road

This all is going to cost a small fortune and it is absolutely amazing that as many of our roads are up and open again. This said, I still did not try 107 from Bethel to Stockbridge today.

Agatha

I will know more tomorrow when I pick her up, but Agatha has a mass on her right side (liver) and her gall bladder does not look normal either. She has been at the vet since Tuesday because she had not been eating last week. They got her eating, put vitamins into her so at least have stabilised her but we will have the conversation tomorrow about what next. I love my squawking, chirping, growling, meowing, insistent, funky paws Agatha and will do what is best for her. If only cats lived longer.

Advent 1B

The public sermon…

The move from the end of one liturgical year to the next is seamless insofar as the lectionary continues to maintain its focus on apocalyptic literature despite the change of gospel. So we move with little distinction from the Gospel according to Matthew to the Gospel according to Mark… from the longest to the shortest gospel. Despite this shift, we remain in a mood of apocalypse.

It is easy even these days to think in terms of apocalypse. Twice this year the world was to come to an end: first in May, then in October. But it did not happen and those who had literally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to spread the word of the demise of the world were left, not raptured up but holding the bag, an empty one of empty promises. These folk have taken words of end times literally, almost too much so.

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The first lesson for today features an extended outburst from Isaiah, in which the prophet decries the absence of God in both public and private spheres, when a sense of violation and the ache of meaninglessness strike deep within. Then we move to Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians in which he tries to persuade the Corinthians that their lack of collective identity is their fundamental problem. They are too busy building up their individualistic interpretations of life in the Spirit while neglecting their common life together. They have focused on the stronger members of their community while neglecting the weaker members of their congregation.

Then we arrive at the gospel. We stand in a funny place, looking ahead to the end, while circling back to our beginning of our story as Christians.

We look forward, we look backward, we live in the present and all time seems to collapse.

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The end of the story is also the beginning of a larger picture, like a huge Mobius strip. The end of the story is about the return of the Son of Mortals, the Christ. Jesus tells us about what will happen on that day and which signs we must notice.

In Mark’s ‘little apocalypse,’ Jesus’ warning about the times to come arrives as the last teaching he will give before he leaves for Jerusalem, the site of the Passion. The warning we hear this morning is not only about cataclysmic change in the world, but also for the lives of Jesus’ followers. Jesus is giving his followers and us a heads-up, watch out, here come times you could not have ever possibly imagined happening. The times that are a-coming bring cosmic change, times when heaven and earth will pass away, but the words of Christ will not pass away. The warning is so important that it appears not only in Mark, but also in Matthew and Luke. The end times are serious business — we cannot escape them so we had better be prepared. Jesus’ words remind us: Keep awake! Pay attention!

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That is what we are supposed to take away from this gospel reading. Not worrying about the end — that will happen in God’s time, whenever God’s time is — but keeping awake and paying attention. How? By watching, waiting and hoping.

Watching, waiting and hoping certainly are major themes of Advent, the all-too-short season that is sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (If I had my druthers, we would stretch it out another three weeks, starting the Sunday after All Saints’.) We, who live in two worlds, will hear from the merchants during this Advent: ‘Spend, spend, spend, buy, buy, buy!’ From the gospel we hear: ‘Be alert. Keep awake! Something big and important is about to happen, but it ain’t about Santa Claus.’ If it weren’t for Advent, we would have little incentive, perhaps, to slow down, pay attention, and be mindful of what is about to happen in our world.

There’s something terribly wrong and tragic that the big box stores opened at midnight Thanksgiving night despite protests even from their employees and that a woman pepper spray other buyers at a Walmart so she could get her X-Box holiday bargain. There’s something terribly wrong and tragic that a man collapsed in another Walmart and people stepped over and on him in their pursuit for bargains. Yet these two events happened this past Friday — Black Friday, as the commercial world calls it. Waiting was horribly lost in these events.

What if we were to watch with care and attention — reflecting on events in our life and in our world, thinking about the past, present and future? What if we tried to reflect on, rather than react to, events in our daily life? Doing so is extremely difficult in this day and age — only a select few seem to be able to live at a much slower pace. Perhaps one thing to try this Advent is to carve out a bit of quiet space and time, even as small as five-ten minutes a day, to watch and reflect on God’s action in our lives and overall, slow things down.

Waiting is another seemingly impossible task for a society that expects the turn-around of information to happen in nano-seconds. I think about how impatient I can get when my computer freezes or crashes, when my e-mail takes five seconds longer than usual to download. How poor is my memory — I used to have to wait a lot longer for things than five seconds. Hanging out, waiting around, just being is one of the hardest lessons gringos undergo when they go to El Salvador; yet when they finally let go of their calendars and their internal time-clocks and just be, they find God’s presence in the people and situations around them in ways that had they been rushing might not have seen.

What if this Advent we were to let go of our desire for instant gratification in all aspects of our life, including in our prayers, for wanting God to fix it (whatever ‘it’) is right now? What if we accepted willingly, not grudgingly, God’s invitation to wait — not only for answers to our prayers (answers that are not always cast in our terms) but also for the Christ child? God’s time is wondrous and mysterious, and often, the answers we seek are not immediately apparent but manifest themselves in surprising ways down the line.

Finally, living in hope (to me the opposite of living with apocalyptic thinking or even optimism; it is active engagement) is another Advent task. Our culture offers an odd assortment of hope — most of it material. How many of us live a neutral hope — a hope that is not filled with fear or dread per se, but that is not filled with joy?

What if, instead, this Advent we tried living in a joyful hope of Christ’s coming? Living in the assurance of God’s inbreaking into this world, even though the inbreaking is awesome and mysterious? Living and knowing that God is with us all the time?

What if by living this way during Advent, hopefully, reflectively and patiently, we could then carry that way of life into the rest of the year? What a marvellous thought!

If that seems like too much, for starters we can at least try to live this way for four weeks. Watch, wait and hope. And, as Jesus in the gospel of Mark reminds us: Keep awake! Pay attention!

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And the private sermon…

This Advent is a peculiar one because it is the first Advent since 1993 that I have not been involved in preparing, presiding at or preaching about the Advent mystery. All of All Saints’ tide I was caught up in the last days, my own apocalypse, of being priest at Trinity. Now, as Advent begins, I find myself in this liminal place where I revert to life as it was pre-1990, pre-seminary, when I am once again a member of a congregation, but I am not. I am a transient, passing through, worshipping as I am able (that is, as much as my broken heart can bear), before moving to the next congregation. I feel the ache that Isaiah describes.

This Advent is one that will take me far out of the consumerist race because I will need to save every penny I can for an unknown future. As far as consumerist culture is concerned, I will be a poor participant because this year I am totally opting out. I’d be a good candidate for the OWS movement.

Mostly, this Advent is one in which I need to let God do what God will do, yet not wait for or want God to fix my current life situation of being unemployed, without a parish in which to excersise the vocation to which I still feel called. I haven’t figured out how to heal my heart from the past six months so somehow Advent seems the perfect time in which to step back, be still and try to hear God’s voice (which, for right now, seems awfully circumspect).

This Advent is the time for me to live in hope, to believe in the words I have proclaimed so often to others in the past six months (and beyond): All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Yes, this is a very personal hope, though not entirely disconnected from the hope that God will interrupt our daily lives and wake us up. I chose to leave Trinity at the end of the church year so that this crazy period of transition could unfold during Advent, that marvellous period of waiting, possibility and hope.

I may have more than four weeks to practise Advent watching, waiting, listening and hoping but at least I can begin in a time when doing so is totally appropriate. Maybe along the way, God can wake me up in ways I never thought possible. And maybe I can once again be, relearn what it means to be a bearer of hope, that vocation to which I was charged when I was ordained a priest nearly 18 years ago.

Restore me, O God of hosts;

show me the light of your countenance,

and I shall be saved.

In God alone, I cast my hope. And for the Christ, I wait in hope.

Hands

Two totally different moments today...

Anointing two people for healing,
holding hands with eight other people
around the two who asked for prayers of healing,
looking at the wonderful weave of our hands
surrounding them,
holding them in prayer,
some hands touching them,
others connected through someone else's hands,
but all in all a tapestry of handful prayer.

Three hours later
alone in the sacristy
one of my last quiet times there,
taking the ashes of someone
who will be buried tomorrow
in the memorial garden,
gently pulling the bag out of the
cardboard box in which they arrived
at the church
so that I can put most of them
into the marble box that we
use for everyone
from which we pour the ashes
into the ground,
ashes to ashes,
dust to dust,
yet even at the grave we make our song,
Alleluia, Alleluia.

Healing.
Death.
Resurrection.

The quotidian life of a parish priest.

I am going to miss it
for this season
however long it is going to
be.