Daily Reading, May 1

The Cross is completely baffling both to the Greeks with their philosophy and to the Jews with their well-interpreted Law. But when one has been freed from dependence on verbal formulas and conceptual structures, the Cross becomes a source of “power.” This power emanates from the “foolishness of God” and it also makes of us “foolish instruments.” On the other hand, he who can accept this paradoxical “foolishness” experiences in himself a secret and mysterious power, the power of Christ living in him as the ground of a totally new life.

From Zen and the Birds of Appetite by Thomas Merton, quoted in Wisdom of the Cloister, edited by John Skinner (Image Books, 1999).

By Helen Thompson

Isn't it funny the way we connect with our past in our present, sometimes? Randomly? Like running into an old friend after many years, and being able to strike up a conversation as if no time had passed, and yet realizing that the entire context of the conversation has changed.

Around the time I came back to church in 2003, I rediscovered an old Japanese comic an ex-boyfriend had turned me on to. In this comic, you have a dysfunctional superhero, sorta like Batman, except she's a cyborg scraped together from junk and waste that gets cast off a floating utopian city. You get where this is going. She'd been tossed off the floating utopian city to rot in the junk pile, and of course someone comes along and sees her potential and brings her back to life, and off she goes to dispatch all the bad guys.

Psalm 40, made rather famous to my generation by U2 in its 1983 rock ballad "40," also talks about the theme of being lifted up, out of dark pits, to be set fast upon a rock. But for years, I had no idea what the song meant or that it even came from, much less was named for, a piece of scripture. It didn't stop me from joining in the chorus long after the band had left the stage, lighter aloft and shining, and singing the haunting refrain of "How long to sing this song," over and over and over again with hundreds of other people, voices resonating through inchoate chambers and punctuated by whistles and roars in an accidental worship.

Throughout those clueless years, I spent a lot of time in the scrap heap. But don't we all find ourselves there at times? Who is going to come rooting through all the mess to find us, put us back together, bring us back to life and fill us with a sense of new purpose? This was a point that I heard a charismatic preacher trying to make to an audience, to mixed receptivity, at a friend's wedding this weekend. But he was trying to get it across in that brimstone manner that I—and many of my peers—find off-putting.

We 30-somethings don't much grok the whole "getting saved" business, and when our more charismatic brothers and sisters in Christ start to tout its virtues, we tend to think we're getting sold, not saved. It's not until we're practically lifeless and emotionally bankrupt that we even can allow ourselves to be touched in that way, if we can, and then, it's not so much a preacher knocking us upside the head with Revelations as it is God, entering quietly through a side door, and, well, revelatin'.

It can happen at any moment. I sometimes think it tends to happen when we're in crisis mode because that's the only time we can be open enough to hear God tapping discreetly at the window. The charismatic preacher says he's always watching, but I don't know about all that. I think God is just always ready—an old friend, ready to pick up the old conversation in a new context.

Helen Thompson, better known among faith bloggers as Gallycat, has written for the Philadelphia City Paper, RevGalBlogPals, Geez magazine and others. Visit her on the web at Gallycat's Lounge.

Daily Reading, May 2

By becoming incarnate in Jesus, the Logos had enabled human beings to transcend themselves and, in a pregnant phrase of the New Testament, “to become partakers in the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). “The Logos of God has become human,” [Athanasius] would say, “so that you might learn from a human being how a human being may become divine.” The original creation in the image of God, in which true human greatness consisted, had been brought about through the Logos; that creation would now achieve not only restoration but consummation and perfection through the same Logos: his incarnation would achieve our deification. And the whole cosmos would have its proper share in that consummation; for “the establishment of the church is a re-creation of the world,” in which “the Logos has created a multitude of starts,” a new heaven and a new earth.

From Jesus Through the Centuries by Jaroslav Pelikan (Harper & Row, 1985).

By Derek Olsen

It’s the Easter season and we bask in the newly recaptured glow of the resurrection. Our services reflect the glow with mystical musings from the Gospel of John, dramatic stories of the earliest church from the Acts of the Apostles and—the Book of Revelation.

Wait a minute, how’d that get in there?!

Quite naturally, actually… Remember that we didn’t always have books with the really thin paper in today’s Bibles. Furthermore, getting a big stack of paper in the ancient world wasn’t quite as easy as it is today. Costs were literally calculated in the cows or sheep whose skins provided the pages. One complete Bible would require an entire flock! To keep the page counts and costs down, the biblical books were split up over a number of volumes: the four gospels were bound together, as were the epistles of Paul, and—according to some of the most common reckonings—Acts and Revelation were bound in a volume. In the monastic Night Office lectionary dating back to the eight century, Acts and Revelation were read together during the Easter season. The great lectionary revisions following Vatican II that resulted in the Revised Common Lectionary honored this ancient tradition by selecting the first reading during Easter from Acts and the second from Revelation.

And that couldn’t make me happier; Revelation is one of my favorite books. Yes, it can be strange and difficult; yes, it has provided fodder for some of the worst impulses of religion and yet—I find its poetry and cadences compelling. One image from the book that I find myself returning to again and again this Easter shines from its closing pages: Revelation 21:9–22:5, the vision of the New Jerusalem.

I love the detail and the dazzling description, the whirl of odd images joined together. I love that—but what draws me back is the glitter of light through stone. It’s the image of the city, the New Jerusalem, built of gemstones one to another, cleaving in a clash of light, colored and reflected as it plays through crystal. Truly, St. John has given us an image of rare beauty—but to what end?

Scholars of Classical Greek tend to turn up their noses at the prose of the New Testament—it’s a low-brow dialect, removed from the diction and rhythm of Golden Age Athens—but when they come to the Greek of Revelation, they throw up their hands in horror. The Greek of John’s Gospel, simple as the vocabulary might be, at least conforms to the basic rules of grammar and can contribute an interesting turn of phrase—but this? This is down right barbaric… It reads like a rude translation by someone for whom Greek was a second language. It reads like a work written by someone not steeped in the proper exempla of fine Greek prose. Or, perhaps, it reads like a work written by someone steeped in a rude translation…and so it is. For the language of Revelation, the terms, the turns of phrase, the images are not new—just newly recombinated. The language echoes, nay, inhabits the tongue of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, produced in the last few centuries before Christ, the translation that was the first Bible of the early church. This is not Classical Greek, nor is it trying to be; rather it is Bible Language, a dialect we recognize deep in our bones when a preacher suddenly lapses from words of cell phones and cell structures to thees, thous, forthwiths, and forsooths. The language of the book is our chief lead. Its meaning is indistinguishable, inextricable from, incomprehensible without the Old Testament.

The chief artform of jewel and light is the mosaic, where thousands of tiny bits of glass and gold and jewel called tesserae combine to form glittering vistas, haunting visages of emperors, kings, clergy, or Christ. This bejeweled city is nothing less than a myriad of scintillating fragments of Old Testament prophecy and praise forming a portrait writ in three dimensions of one indistinguishable, inextricable from and incomprehensible without the breath of the Spirit speaking through the prophets. The tesserae glisten and play: the liturgical garment of the Aaronic high priest, the city of hope for an exile people, the vision of a temple rising from desolation, the garden of God, the peerless bride of the great king, even the slain beloved of the Lord. And together they form an image where these fragments are bound and transformed, set one with another until their individual hues blend and blind and form a new image wrought of the old. It is truly a paradise, truly a city, truly a temple, truly a people. Composed of a myriad jewels, the city rests upon its twelve great foundations: jasper and emerald, diamond and chysolite, topaz and amethyst and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Lean close and I will tell you a mystery. This is the mystery of the gleaming city, the New Jerusalem. The twelve great foundation stones, they do not represent the apostles. They do not stand for the apostles. Rather, they are the apostles. And the soaring pinnacles of rubies, the windows of agates, the pavers of gold, who are these, you ask, who are these—but you and me? Lain with fair colors, living stones, builded one with another, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The company of all the faithful people—do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? For God's temple is holy, and you—all of you—are that temple.

At the center of the city, at the heart of the New Jerusalem, lies the Bridegroom’s bower, the throne of God and of the Lamb and the city has no need of light for the glory of God is its light and its lamp is the Lamb. The light shines forth in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. And our calling, our spiritual worship, is nothing less than to reflect and to refract. Our role is to allow the light to splash and play, to illumine and be illumined, to catch fire and be cast by our facets into the darkness. The light of the resurrected Lord blazes in and through us. We—we—are to spread that light into a dark world as it filters and shines and is hued by who and what we are and what we do. We are the people; we are the city. We are the beacons to spread the light of the dayspring who has visited us to shine upon them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. (Rev 3:12). Amen; Come, Lord Jesus.

Derek Olsen is completing a Ph.D. in New Testament (with a healthy side of Homiletics) at Emory University. He keeps the blog Haligweorc.

Only One
who knows
the heart
can be kind
to the ungrateful
and wicked.

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Daily Reading, May 3

It was Isaac of Nineveh who confirmed what I had supposed all this time: that the biblical phrase “the world to come” refers not to pie-in-the-sky by-and-by but to “the kingdom of heaven within you.”

Once you have reached the place of tears, then know that the mind has left the prison of this world and set its foot on the road towards the new world. Then it begins to breathe the wonderful air which is there; it begins to shed tears. For now the birth pangs of the spiritual infant grow strong, since grace, the common mother of all, makes haste to give birth mystically to the soul, the image of God, into the light of the world to come. . . . Then you will start to become aware of the transformation which the whole nature will receive in the renewal of all things, dimly and as though by hints.

Heaven is without beginning and without end. It’s when I’m not looking for heaven that heaven appears. It is by definition more than I can ask or imagine. It permeates all that I live, have lived, and will live, in weal and in woe. It suffuses the ordinary flow of our lives if only we will stop trying to cut it down to our size, to objectify it, to make it finitely less than it is.

From “Heaven Can’t Wait” by Maggie Ross, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY.

By Greg Jones

The Bible is not a magical instrument, but it has the ability to put the reader or reading community “in touch with the living God who can give you spiritual life just as he has given you natural life,” writes the English evangelist Michael Green. “The written word can put you in touch with Jesus the living word (or self-disclosure) of God.” In other words, by reading the Bible with an open heart, Christians believe that a revelation of Jesus Christ may be had, and a personal relationship formed and fostered.

In this way, like Eucharist, the Bible is spiritual food, a means of grace, being itself a revelation to readers of Christ. Moreover, outside the Bible we have no other reliable source of witness about Jesus in common. But what we all share in the Bible is a common portrait of Christ, which counts every testament, book, chapter and verse as necessary brushstrokes. As Green writes in his little book, The Bible for Amateurs, “by our Bible reading we study the portrait as a whole, the miracle happens and the figure comes to life. Stepping down from the canvas of the written word, the everlasting Christ of the Emmaus story becomes himself our Bible teacher, to interpret to us in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Green identifies seven necessary dispositions for transforming Christian engagement with Scripture. I have elucidated them here:

1. Humility

The first thing seekers and disciples of Christ must do in their approach to the Word of God in the Bible is assume a posture described by Jesus himself – we must approach humbly. St. Augustine of Hippo said that the Word of God in the Bible cannot be understood by those who come with pride. The Bible is a book for those who come to it humbly. An appropriate prayer before reading Scripture is this: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

2. Expectation

The desire to meet God in Christ through the written texts of Holy Scripture is another essential ingredient. Unless we come to the Bible deeply seeking after God, our engagement with Scripture can be quite a tedious affair.

3. Honesty

Reading the Word of God in the Bible is not really that easy. There is much in Scripture – whether in terms of content, language, style or story – that is intellectually and emotionally challenging. I liken the Bible to a box of nails – it really cannot be engaged with comfortably for long. When one delves into the box of nails, as with Scripture, one’s hands will be punctured or poked or scraped or contested in some painful way. Because there is much that challenges us in Scripture, we must be honest and accept that these challenges are real. We mustn’t deny those challenges, nor must we allow those challenges to keep us from continuing our active engagement with the Word of God in the Bible.

4. Imagination

As with all good stories, our truest enjoyment of them comes when we find ourselves in the midst of them. Unless we identify with the characters of a story, unless we find ourselves on stage and involved personally with them, unless we connect with the narrative in our imaginations – the stories really aren’t good to us. Green argues that the God-given imagination all human beings have is a gift we ought to use to help us engage with the Word of God in the Bible.

5. Attentiveness

Hurry may get us through the Bible faster, but it will not do anything to get the Bible through us. We must make time to read, reread, mark, learn and digest the Word of God in the Bible – as the Prayer Book teaches. The conviction here is that if we do—God will indeed show us something and make the text breathe into our hearts.

6. Obedience

My first parish church had a verse of Scripture written on the wall in big gold letters, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.” I always felt like that passage of Scripture spoke to me the essence of an incarnate Word of God. We must come before the Word of God in the Bible with an attitude of obedience for it to have any transforming power in our lives. As Jesus’ brother says in the Epistle of James:
“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.” (James 1.22-25, NRSV)

7. Regularity

As the Prayer Book emphasizes, the Scriptures are best consumed daily. Again, Green likens reading the Word of God in the Bible to the eating of food: “I do not have a massive lunch on Sunday and starve for the rest of the week. I like my lunch every day! Very well, then, I should make a regular daily meal of my Bible reading. It can have an enormous impact on our lives if we come to it regularly, and allow it to affect the way we behave. It is life-transforming, no less.”

The Rev. Greg Jones is rector of St. Michael’s Church in Raleigh, North Carolina and a member of the board of directors of the General Theological Seminary. He keeps the blog fatherjones.com

condemnation
proves lack
of connection

Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God. Colossians 2:16-19 (nrsv)

Daily Reading, May 4

Not long before the day on which she was to leave this life—you knew which day it was to be, O Lord, though we did not—my mother and I were alone, leaning from a window which overlooked the garden in the courtyard of the house where we were staying at Ostia. We were talking alone together and our conversation was serene and joyful. In the presence of Truth, which is yourself, we were wondering what the eternal life of the saints would be like, that like which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart conceived. But we laid the lips of our hearts to the heavenly stream that flows from your fountain, the source of all life which is in you, so that as far as it was in our power to do so we might be sprinkled with its waters and in some sense reach an understanding of this great mystery.

As the flame of love burned stronger in us and raised us higher towards the eternal God, our thoughts ranged over the whole compass of material things in their various degrees, up to the heavens themselves, from which the sun and the moon and the stars shine down upon the earth. Higher still we climbed, thinking and speaking all the while in wonder at all that you have made. And while we spoke of the eternal Wisdom, longing for it and straining for it with all the strength of our hearts, for one fleeting instant we reached out and touched it.

From the Confessions of Saint Augustine

Daily Reading, May 5

I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new! I have learnt to love you late! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you outside myself and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the lovely things of your creation. You were with me, but I was not with you. The beautiful things of this world kept me far from you and yet, if they had not been in you, they would have had no being at all. You called me; you cried aloud to me; you broke my barrier of deafness. You shone upon me; your radiance enveloped me; you put my blindness to flight. You shed your fragrance about me; I drew breath and now I gasp for your sweet odour. I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am inflamed with love of your peace.

From the Confessions of Saint Augustine

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe; you stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; you right hand shall save me.

The LORD will make good his purpose for me;
O LORD, your love endures for ever;
do not abandon the works of your hands. Psalm 138:8-9 (BCP)

Songs of hope
fly against
the storms of despair.

Daily Reading, May 6

Christians inherit two basic views of heaven. The popular Western version tends to be of the static angels-and-harps variety. I prefer the Eastern version. It has more of the flavor of dynamic continuity. We move “from glory to glory” right now, not simply after we’re dead. In the Eastern tradition, human beings long for the infinite. We are not fixed entities, but beings-in-process, defined by an infinite longing which pulls the soul forward in an infinite progression. We live out the questions, and it might take longer than a lifetime. For Christians, the best metaphor for heaven is a banquet. Heaven is not a place you go to when you die. Heaven is present now, all around us, a code word for where God is—in the music, in the feast.

So the question of heaven isn’t an intellectual puzzle which in principle has an answer. If there is life after death it begins now. At the moment, I find myself occupied by the question “Is there life after birth?” So, whatever heaven is, it isn’t about “the hereafter.” The danger of imagining heaven as a destination or a final resting place is that we miss the glory of the present. To quote the wise theologian N. T. Wright, if heaven is going some place it’s “going to be with God in the place where he has been all along.” It’s about presence or, better, Presence right now.

From “’I Tell You a Further Mystery’” by Alan Jones, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

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Daily Reading, May 7

My adventure into fullness of life (which I take to be the kingdom of heaven) involves reading, writing, and great conversation—preferably over a good meal. It is nourished by the arts, especially music. But there is a paradox here, one that the mystics might understand. What are virtues for the mystics are torments for many of us: alienation, loneliness, silence, solitude, interior emptiness, stripping bare, poverty, not-knowing, emptiness. The arts have, more often than not, given me an experience of being emptied. What we really need is often to be found in what we dread most—risk, not being in control, in the emptiness of the self. This doesn’t sound much like “heaven,” but how else can we make an inner space for living with ourselves and with each other? Cultivating gratitude helps us draw out the gold that is often hidden in the loneliness, the silence, the interior emptiness, the suffering, the poverty, and “the knowledge-that-knows-nothing.”

Emptiness, then, is indispensable to true enjoyment of the world because true enjoyment has nothing to do with possession. It is the kind of emptiness that encourages me to give myself away to others in love and service. Heaven isn’t a private possession, anymore than music, anymore than food.

Food is a delight. I love cookbooks and miss the times when the whole family would gather together to make bread. There was flour all over the kitchen and we loved to throw the dough around—especially the smooth oily dough of challah. There’s no pleasure quite like preparing and cooking a meal with the bounty of the earth. Where is the food for the soul? It is in the “useless” activities of music and play. We get a taste of heaven in the various ways in which we “waste” our time eating and drinking and delighting in one another.

From “’I Tell You a Further Mystery’” by Alan Jones, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading, May 8

God is the goodness that cannot be angry, for He is nothing but goodness.
Our soul is one-ed to Him, who is unchangeable goodness,
and between God and our soul is neither anger nor forgiveness, as He sees it.
For our soul is so completely one-ed to God by His own goodness,
that there can be absolutely nothing at all separating God and soul.

From A Lesson of Love: The Revelations of Julian of Norwich, edited and translated for devotional use by Father John-Julian, OJN (New York: Walker and Company, 1988).

By Kit Carlson

This coming Sunday (6 Easter) was known, in a softer and more agricultural time, as Rogation Sunday. Along with the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day (this year on May 17), these were days to "beat the bounds" of the parish, to make a grand procession along the boundaries of a church's parish territory, through the farms and fields, to ask God's blessing on the upcoming harvest.

Like many Christian observances, Rogationtide was a reworking of an older, pagan tradition. The Robigalia, a Roman procession, used to be held in the spring to propitiate the god Robigo. Robigo's special area of expertise was keeping mildew off the crops. If properly beseeched, he could guarantee a successful harvest. Another, separate observance also got glued onto the Rogation processions, when in 470 AD, Bishop Mamerus of Vienne, in Gaul, held processional litanies after a time of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

The medieval church continued to observe these rites, but in the first wave of the English Reformation, they were tossed out as too pagan. Elizabeth I, who always liked a good parade, reinstituted them when she became queen. You can still find them carried out in some English villages.

But in America, our sense of the fragility of the harvest has faded. We harvest our foodstuffs in the supermarket, where frost in Florida or drought in California might push up the prices on our produce. But there will always be Chilean blueberries in January and rock-hard tomatoes year-round to convince us that food comes not from the ground, but from a store.

We have distanced ourselves from the seasons of the earth, from her vagaries and willfulness. We do not fear that one good storm will ruin our season, that an unexpected frost will destroy our orchards.

Some churches have turned to Rogationtide as a chance to connect to Earth Day, to issues of environmental stewardship, to remind ourselves to take better care of "this fragile earth, our island home." And with the very real threat of global warming, this is not an issue to be taken lightly.

But I wonder if we have missed the point of Rogationtide in that case. The word Rogation comes from the Latin rogare, "to ask". It is essentially a lengthy tour of prayer and propitiation through the very sustaining places of life, one that acknowledges that in the end, we are powerless to grant ourselves all we need to survive. It is a season that does not ask us to exercise better control. It is a season that acknowledges that God has control.

And we do not.

So perhaps a better Rogation observance this Sunday might be to walk the borders of your land, the rooms of your home, the hallways of your office building, the sidewalks of your shopping center and pray that they might stay safe and whole. It might be a good day to remember New Orleans' Ninth Ward, the ice storms of the past winter, the tornado the leveled Greensburg, Kansas last week, and the thunderstorms that topple trees and tear up houses. It might be a good day to think about those we have loved and lost to cancer, or heart disease or HIV/AIDS. It might be a good day to remember the students and community of Virginia Tech, how suddenly their peace was shattered, how swiftly death and terror came upon them.

And remember that we do not have control, really. That there is much about our lives that is completely dependent on fair weather, on good health, on a kind of routine-ized and boring everyday safety.

Walk and pray, And ask. Ask for those things we count upon but cannot really give ourselves. Acknowledge God's providence, God's mercy, God's presence in each of those things we need and care for and take completely for granted.

Rogare.

Ask.

The Rev. Kit Carlson, is the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing, Mich. She played the apostle Paul on the world's first internet reality series, The Ark, a project of the Christian humor website Ship of Fools.

Daily Reading, May 9

The cell was a sacred space, a place in which a woman could be with herself and the divine Presence and listen. The cell was a place of divine encounter and of ongoing, daily experience of being immersed in God’s presence. Amma Syncletica’s counsel with regard to this uses a tenderly maternal metaphor—that of the mother bird hatching her young. Each woman in Syncletica’s community would have been formed by this teaching as it was repeated and handed down. The life of faith looks like a mother bird, sitting on her eggs. For all we know, that mother bird has moments when it seems like nothing is happening. There are moments when real boredom sets in and the temptation to leave the eggs and do something more interesting arises.

Amma Syncletica’s metaphor speaks directly to one of the dilemmas of the spiritual life—that of coming to terms with the plain old ordinariness of spiritual practice and the life of prayer, of the whole of life becoming prayer. Instead, we are encouraged not to sit, not to persevere, not to struggle with boredom. We are enticed by a variety of means to leave our “eggs” and simply move continually from one interest to another. The result is that we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to bring forth new life. The “eggs” die because they are not tended. We miss the deeper life of the Spirit because we are constantly moving from one interest to another rather than focusing on one thing.

From The Desert Mothers: Spiritual Practices from the Women of the Wilderness by Mary C. Earle. © 2007. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

The 23rd Psalm (Aboriginal Bible)

Yaweh, you are the best stockman. You care for me continually, and everything I have comes from you. I can’t want more.

You care for me just like the stockman who takes his sheep to rest in a quiet place with lots of grass and spring water.

Every day you make me strong. You show me the way to go because I trust your name to do what you have promised.

Even if I go through a very dark place where anything could kill me, but I am not frightened because you are always with me. You have your spear and long stick to always protect me.

To want you with all my insides

Peter Carroll, a linguist who worked on the translation, said the phrase “to love God with all one’s heart” was a special challenge. He said: “The Aboriginal people use a different part of the body to express emotions. They have a word that is, broadly translated, ‘insides’. So to love God with all your heart was to want God with all your insides.”

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side of the lake.' So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him and woke him up, shouting, 'Master, Master, we are perishing!' And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, 'Where is your faith?' They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?' Luke 8:22-25 (nrsv)

Terror:
Fishermen
asking a carpenter
about storms at sea.
Did the storm cease
or did they remember
how to sail?

Daily Reading, May 10

An African woman perceives and accepts Christ as a woman and as an African. The commitment that flows from this faith is commitment to full womanhood (humanity), to the survival of human communities, to the ‘birthing’, nurturing, and maintenance of life, and to loving relations and life that is motivated by love.

Having accepted Christ as refugee and guest of Africa, the woman seeks to make Christ at home and to order life in such a way as to enable the whole household to feel at home with Christ. The woman sees the whole space of Africa as a realm to be ordered, as a place where Christ is truly ‘tabernacled’. Fears are not swept under the beds and mats but are brought out to be dealt with by the presence of the Christ. Christ becomes truly friend and companion, liberating women from assumptions of patriarchal societies, and honouring, accepting, and sanctifying the single life as well as the married life, parenthood as well as the absence of progeny. The Christ of the women of Africa upholds not only motherhood, but all who, like Jesus of Nazareth, perform ‘mothering’ roles of bringing out the best in all around them. This is the Christ, high priest, advocate, and just judge in whose kingdom we pray to be.

From “The Christ for African Women” by Elizabeth Arnoah and Mercy Amba Oduyoye, in With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology, edited by Virginia Fabella and Mercy Amba Oduyoye (Orbis Books, 1988).

Daily Reading, May 11

Can we say it is God’s home? I prefer to perceive it “through a glass darkly” as what I might call God’s holiest of holies. What is my connection, if any, to heaven? I’ve seen glimpses of it only by eyes of faith. I’ve felt the presence—never in a merely logical way—in thin places or passages that I’ve encountered on occasion between the visible world and—what? Greater reality? God’s love and power? Awareness of the holy?

Ten days before her ninety-ninth birthday, my mother lay dying. I was with her in the convalescent hospital where she’d resided for the past four-plus years. Beatrice appeared to be unconscious. I held her limp hand in mine.

Suddenly, a change occurred. Her hand gripped mine with fierce strength. Now her eyes opened, staring directly into mine with a determination, even a passion, that was startling. I grasped her hand, held her gaze. Then, after a moment, her eyes closed. Shortly her grip wavered and let go.

I knew Beatrice had left and gone to heaven. I could almost follow her journey into what seemed to be light. Her departure was not passive, nor had her life been. In Beatrice there burned an intensity. Born in 1898, she had always lived in what used to be referred to as “a man’s world.” While accepting its Spartan rules, she kept inviolate a part of her life that was a “secret garden.” So, as a single mom who had to work, she did so during her days. But, in her private time, she painted and sketched and gardened. Fame did not touch her; she had no interest in it. Her honesty could be almost shocking in its directness. She remained open to life, clearly honoring the moment at hand.

Being with Mother on the occasion—at the very moment—of her journey’s end here, and the start of her journey to heaven, was a deeply touching revelation of God’s mercy, healing, and treasured gift of this thin place close to heaven.

From “Moments in Thin Places” by Malcolm Boyd, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading, May 12

Some of our mothers taught us what it was like to be loved. Some others of us grew up with mothers who couldn’t really teach us much about love, because they’d never really learned themselves. We tend to idealize mothers as the perfect dispensers of love.

Sometimes mothers do their best work by getting out of the way, or by leaving. After all, children need that to grow up, too. After all, even Jesus gets out of the way so we can try his way for ourselves.

When Jesus is getting ready to leave his disciples, he begins to tell them good-bye. It’s not so different from the speech a mother on her deathbed might give the kids: “Now children, I won’t be with you much longer. You are going to keep looking for me. . . but you can’t come where I’m going. I’m giving you some new instructions: love each other, just the way I’ve loved you. Everybody will know whose family you come from if you love each other.”

The kids get a remarkable challenge—now it’s time to put to work everything they’ve been taught. Love one another, as I have loved you.

What does love look like? Getting out of the way, so another person can try. Blood, sweat, and tears. Feeding one another. Above all, love liberates, love sets us free to be more than we thought possible. Love one another as I have loved you. Befriend the stranger. Engage your enemy in love. Challenge the unlovable. Go hunting for the unloved.

From “Mother Love” in A Wing and a Prayer by Katharine Jefferts Schori. © 2007. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

On View: Beggarwoman, Photograph by Diane Walker.

Ann Fontaine

“But I feel so betrayed” choked out, as Frank told me of the admiration and faith he had felt for his priest and rector, Jess, and the sense of loss from the current revelations about the priest’s activities. This priest had such a formative role in the man’s spiritual journey. Frank had wandered far from his childhood faith as he left home for college, married, and grew his business. His wife and kids went to church but he thought – that’s just for kids and people who are not able to make it in the “real world.” “ I’d rather play golf.”

One day, sorting through his mail, he saw the flyer from the church about a book study led by the rector. It was a book that had intrigued him. He thought, “What the hell, I’ll make Susan happy by doing something church-y. I want to read that book anyway.” That was the first step into a deep relationship with the study group, the rector and God. His faith and life were changed.

Today, Frank wonders, “Was it all a sham? Was I just conned? Did he use me? Or is it a vendetta by those who don’t like him?” The man, who had such influence in Frank’s life of faith, was being accused of things that seemed very contrary to the preaching and teaching Frank had heard from Jess.

Currently, there are news articles about a rector in Colorado and a Bishop in the UK. Allegedly, each has engaged in conduct that has resulted in heartbreak. There have been vigorous denials from supporters, and calls for prosecution by others. These are just the latest in a long history of what is called in the canons “conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.” The dynamic is the same whenever this occurs. The cleric is defended or vilified with very little middle ground.

What is it about humans that we cannot accept complexity in our heroes? Does it have to be all good or all bad? Are the ideas and faith gained in relationship to a person all worthless if the person is deeply flawed? Must we have idols that we then destroy when their clay feet are revealed?

I was talking about this with a friend who had been deeply betrayed. I was asking her how she was able to keep the good and let go of the bad in this person. She believed that the bad does not cancel out the good. Though the incident was terrible, it formed her and gave her understanding. The pain is always there in the midst of the good things about the person, but, for her, it is a reminder of the capacity in all of us to do good and to do evil. The choices we make for our futures are based on learning from all of what happens to us, not on forgetting parts of it. Cutting out the bad only results in pushing it down where it can come out in ugly ways. It takes on its own energy, instead of being robbed of its power in our lives. When we incorporate it, it loses its own energy.

I believe it is important to find the facts of the case and to pursue the case. When proven, it is important to restore the victims to fullness of life and important to restore perpetrators to fullness of life through the consequences and making amends. For each of us who have experienced the fall of someone we admired, we can learn more about our own capacity for good and evil, or we can make idols and scapegoats.

We seem to love making our heroes into idols. They fulfill what we perceive as lacking in ourselves. It is difficult to stay in complexity. It is easier to say that someone is all bad or all good. When we put people on pedestals and idolize them, we make them one-dimensional and often the reflection of our own needs. When they fall, we want to smash them and all that their brokenness represents for us. When we refuse to hear the full story, we go into denial and continue to prop up our version of that person.

In the Bible, the heroes are often very fallen. Jacob, the trickster; Rahab, the innkeeper prostitute; and David, the adulterer who has his friend murdered are just a three of these. It seems God is not one to make idols of people, but calls them beloved and uses their gifts for the furthering of God’s kindom.

For Frank, in this story, this can be the beginning of wholeness and healing, (the root meaning of the word salvation) or he can try to return to the Eden of earlier relationship. The angel with the flaming sword stands at that gate. In the story from Genesis – God makes clothing for the exiles and sends them out to journey in the world. It is hard work after the stroll in the Garden, but Jesus promises to walk the path with us, into fullness of life.

The Rev. Ann Fontaine keeps the blogs Green Lent and what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

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Daily Reading, May 14

Gardening within a monastery is both a task and an art, and it’s something we only gradually begin to fathom in the early years of our monastic life. The more experienced gardener monks teach us to start slowly. They instruct us how to improve our soil with compost and other amendments, knowing well that this will have a profound effect on the variety of plants we grow. I learned early, as well, to let Mother Nature be our guide. Her signals often indicate the propitious time for many garden chores. For instance, when the crocus is in bloom, we begin cleaning up the winter’s debris. When the forsythia begins to flower, we prune the roses, evergreens, and the plants that have been damaged by the winter. When the soil warms up, we begin to divide and transplant the perennials.

Spring gardening nurtures hope in the monk, then fulfills the promise of new life when all creation is renewed by the power of Christ’s Resurrection.

From A Monastic Year by Brother Victor Antoine, quoted in Wisdom of the Cloister, edited by John Skinner (Image Books, 1999).

Daily Reading, May 16

“Hell is other people,” according to a character in Sartre’s play No Exit, and it is difficult to imagine a more aggressive contradiction of the Christian vision. The doctrine of the communion of saints affirms that heaven is other people, and the hope of the resurrection of the body affirms that those other people are no wraiths and abstractions but fully alive. When most people talk of heaven, they tend to speak of reunion with certain loved ones and imagine encounters with a chosen few they want to meet. But those great artworks of the resurrection that stir me do not lie—Stanley Spencer’s resurrection paintings contain over seven hundred lovingly delineated figures. The resurrection of the body brings together everyone, including our unloved ones, the strangers. Heaven is the new embodiment of all, and our encounters will be with all, stranger and former enemy, as surely as our neighbor and kin. Our lives, transfigured within the memory of God and remembered by us in a completely new way in all their depths and meaning, will be gifts for sharing with one another. It will take eternity to exchange with one another—all of us—the meaning and fullness of our lives.

Meanwhile, heaven is in the making in this world, and I am one of its makers. My hopes mean little unless they lift the routine of today. So I want to live with the thought that my life is not only a gift now for other people, but that it will be in eternity. In my odd and short life, I take up into myself a certain time, particular relationships, just these parts of creation. They will rise in God with me. So loving what I see, and what I do, and those I meet, helps to get us all ready for surprise.

From “Bodies, Rising” by Martin L. Smith, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org.

Daily Reading, May 18

Most people I know seem to think of heaven as compensatory. Whatever is missing here will be present there. Those who have endured war will know peace. Those who have suffered want will have plenty. Those who have been broken will be made whole. In this sense, heaven is essential both for divine justice and compassion, for heaven is where God’s purpose will be fulfilled, and all people shall see it together. This is more or less what scripture promises, and what my Episcopal tradition teaches as well, yet it does not exhaust my curiosity about what comes next.

That something comes next seems likely to me, although I would gladly admit that I have no certainty about what it is. People I trust speak of seeing through the veil to the life beyond death. I have sat with dying people often enough to watch them become translucent toward the end. Plus, my sense of the communion of the saints is so strong that I have never in my life been lonely. Even when I cannot hear them speaking any language I understand, the very air is thick with their presence. This could be my imagination. What if God’s imagination is where heaven exists?

I suppose my greatest curiosity about the afterlife is whether I will continue to be me. I want to continue being me, of course. I want not only to see all of those creatures that I have rescued through the years; I also want to see the loved ones whom I have lost. I want to lay my head on Grandma Lucy’s lap again. I want to shell field peas with Fannie Belle and listen to Schubert with Earl. The problem with this scenario is that it turns heaven into my perfect version of earth, with a perfect me in the middle of it. As appealing as this is, it strikes me as an underutilization of God’s gifts.

Since ecstatic union with God is my best idea of heaven, I think I have to be ready to let myself go—literally, I mean. I think I have to entertain the possibility that joining God in heaven may mean surrendering everything I hold dear on earth, including my me-ness, in order to be made entirely new. In Christian terms, I think I really do have to die, and be willing to leave the rest to God.

From “Leaving Myself Behind” by Barbara Brown Taylor, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

By Derek Olsen

The center of the Daily Office is dwelling in the house of the Psalms. As the years turn, we wend our way through the pages of Holy Writ but our home, our abiding dwelling, is in the house of the Psalms. It has ever been so. Whether we recite them weekly with Benedict, monthly with Cranmer, or every seven weeks with the latest lectionary, it is their rhythm and rule that ultimately centers our spirituality.

Three truths confirm our choice of dwellings. The first truth is that the Psalter is a microcosm of Scripture. St. Athanasius once explained that if the various parts of Scripture—the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels—are like gardens that each bear a single fruit, the Psalter is a garden that not only bears its own but those of the others as well. There are those that tell of the wanderings of the children of Israel, those that lament the sack of Jerusalem, those that glory in the Law of the Lord, those that invoke the words of the wise. The creation of the world may be found here, the loosing of the waters, the firming of the land. Too—moving into mysteries—the Church has found the birth of our Lord, the Passion of our Lord, and—moving deeper yet—the very conquest of hell writ in figures deep. These are the rooms of the house—rooms of lament, rooms of praise, rooms of wisdom, history, and Law. Rooms through which we wander as we make our daily way through corridors and shadowed atriums, to smell its flowered metaphors, to partake of its edifying fruit.

And, the learning of the psalms is not just a journey through a microcosm of the Old Testament but the wellspring of the New. For how can the sacrifice of our Lord be grasped apart from Mark’s meditation upon the Psalter—“My God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”—or Luke’s: “Into thine hand I commit my Spirit…”? Indeed what is the letter to the Hebrews but an extended commentary upon the Psalter bathed in resurrection light? How can the riddles of Revelation be read without recourse to a fountainhead of its meaning and language: the cup of wrath, utterances from the throne?

The second truth to be told is this: the Psalter is a mirror of your soul. Look deep within it and study the reflection; see what attracts—and what repels. And know: that from which you recoil dwells in your own depths too.

To learn the psalter is to be confronted: can these thoughts and feelings really be in the Bible? How tragic it seems to move from elevated words of praise and thanksgiving to graphic thoughts about the ends of enemies—dogs lapping up spilled blood, hating with perfect hatred, bones scattered at the mouths of graves. Why must these songs be marred by these…infelicitous and offensive thoughts?

Do you really ask—O child of earth? Is that really repugnant wonder in your voice—or recognition?

For the truth is that these thoughts appear not only in the Psalter; they live in our own hearts as well. The psalms puncture the pride of a superficial piety that presents a smiling mask of religious fervor. Gaze into its words long enough and you shall find the pathway into your own soul too—behind the mask, behind the facades, behind how you think a Christian should feel. Gaze into the mirror and recognize yourself.

But a mirror does more than simply reflect—and the same is true of the Psalter. On one hand, it reveals to us the baseness of our own soul—our petty desires for success or revenge, our self-aggrandizement, our self-loathing. On the other hand, a mirror shows us—without apology—our blemishes and imperfections, not to condemn or drive us to despair, but to offer us the opportunity for correction. The mirror reveals the hairs out of place, the collar askew, so that these may be mended and amended. So too, it is with the Psalter.

Even when it comes to what we feel, we must be taught. Here too the psalms teach. They form in us pathways of religious feeling—the affections of the Christian life—teaching us how to feel and respond. For to be Christian is to be human—to feel the depths of woe and desolation as well as the heights of joy. And any piety that proclaims otherwise promises lies—not truth. Wave your hands and proclaim your constant state of heavenly bliss if you will; in the time of darkness a shallow chorus will fade, but the psalms will give your despair voice—if only: How long, O Lord, how long? Rebuke me not in thine anger nor punish me in thy wrath; out of the depths I cry unto thee… The words that make us in our sheltered chapels and shaded studies recoil from their rawness do nothing but speak the reality of a world entrapped in sin and our rage against the darkness that encompasses—yea, and touches—us. What experience of horror lies behind these words: happy—happy are we who recoil and do not understand…

Prayer, praise, lamentation, exultation, the soul quiet as a child upon its mother’s breast, all of these inhabit the psalms and more, providing us the words when we have none, and revealing the patterns of the Christian life; this is our emotional grammar. It is a grammar where we step through conjugations of praise and pain, righteous indignation and naked fear, despair and confidence. As individuals, as peoples, as voices in the great congregation, it exercises us to pray alone or in throngs. And as exercise it is a form of training. For the longer we dwell in the house of the psalms, the longer they will become the thoughts of our hearts, the words on our lips before we summon them.

Further now, a third truth I tell. Within the Psalter lies the paradox of pronouncement. The psalms give breadth of learning; the psalms providing training in the affections, the cultivation of Christian ways of feeling and being. But these truths are not the source of its power. The source of its power lies in paradox. These words that we read—these words are human. They evoke the deepest depths of human despair, heights of joy, human curiosity at the boundaries in which the soul is enmeshed. Historically these words are bounded: in the fugitive words of a bandit chieftain destined to be king—but not by his own hand alone; in the lamentations of a temple defiled; in the hardships of a people in exile—and a people returned home. These words are the concrete words of a concrete people, and yet… They are words, they are prayers to God, preserved though and over the centuries. And yet… They are also the words of the Spirit, breathed into human hearts, human minds, human lips by the Spirit that spake by the prophets. Words of humans they are also Holy Writ, the words of God that contain all things necessary for salvation. This is the paradox: the words of the psalms are human words to God—yet also Scripture, human words inspired by the very God to whom they are prayed. When we dwell within the house of the Psalms, we dwell not simply in a structure built by human hands—rather one breathed by God. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither… Come, eat of my bread, and drink the wine that I have mingled… These psalms, these prayers, are God’s words, returned again in prayer and praise.

One more dimension completes this truth. Throughout its history the Church has ever reminded and been reminded that the body does not—cannot—speak but through its head. The preeminent speaker of the Psalter is none other than Christ. The one who calls upon God to go out with his armies is the conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah, the innocent one silent before his accusers is the Lamb standing as if it had been slain. Who of us may speak of our righteousness before God? He alone… And as we take these words upon our lips—words of humans centuries old, words spoken by the Spirit—we speak them with the awareness that it is not only we who speak but that Christ in us speaks in them and through them, directing their way both in us and before the throne of God.

We who live by the Daily Office dwell in the house of the Psalms. Daily we make our ways through its corridors and rooms, building our lives therein. As we dwell, its character imprints itself on our character. As we open our hearts and minds to its gentle pressures, it works its ways within us. As we fit ourselves to its niches and courts, it too fits us for courts above.

Derek Olsen is completing a Ph.D. in New Testament (with a healthy side of Homiletics) at Emory University. His reflections on life, liturgical spirituality, and being a Gen-X dad appear at Haligweorc.

(This is a companion to a previous posting.)

On View: The Paraclete, a photograph by Chuck Kirchner, as seen Illustrated Word at Episcopal Church & Visual Arts.

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Daily Reading, May 19

One enduring sense I have is that everything will be revealed in the hereafter. In the words of the old Anglican collect for purity, heaven exists in the presence of the God “unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” I think of this when I say something disloyal about someone who is not present, or when I try to hide the truth about myself from people whose illusions flatter me. If all of this will be perfectly transparent by-and-by, why not prepare for that by practicing transparency now?

Of course I also harbor the hope that if I have managed to do or be any good for God, that will be transparent too. I am embarrassed to admit that, but as someone who has spent my whole life confessing my sins, the prospect of being allowed to discover what I might have done right in this world sounds like heaven to me.

If it is true that most of us give what we want to get, then in the end my highest hope for heaven is simply to be rescued when my time comes—plucked from the roadside where I have fallen, struck dumb by all there is to love and grieve in this world—and gathered into God’s own safety, whatever that turns out to mean. I am willing to forego the details, as long as I know whose lap I am in.

From “Leaving Myself Behind” by Barbara Brown Taylor, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading, May 21

There is a traditional saying of ancient wisdom: “A threshold is a sacred thing.” When I visited Japan I experienced the role of the threshold in a very simple daily experience. Before entering the house, the Japanese stand on the lintel in order to remove shoes worn outside in the street. Upon entering the house, they put on slippers placed inside the door. This forces a very deliberate and conscious way of standing still, even if for only a moment, in order to show respect for the difference between two spaces, the outer and the inner; the preparation for the encounter with another person, another household.

This is very similar to the traditional monastic practice of statio, which also pays homage to the threshold moment, and shows reverence for the handling of space and time. The monk or nun enters the church for the saying of the daily offices, but always leaves him- or herself time to stand, to wait, to let go of all the demands of whatever the previous activity had been, with all its concurrent anxieties and expectations. That stillness permits each one to enter into that space kept empty in the heart for the Word of God. By rushing, whether through a sense of duty or obligation, or to save a few extra moments for the task at hand, they may gain something in terms of daily work. What is lost, however, is the attention, the awareness of the crossing over into the time and the place for opus Dei, the work of God.

From To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border by Esther de Waal. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

On View: detail from Pentecost Installation at Trinity Episcopal Church, Bloomington, Indiana. Photograph by Susan Kinzer.

As they were going along the road, someone said to [Jesus], "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another [Jesus] said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." Luke 9:57-62

Digging holes of excuses
instead of plowing
Making nests of regrets
instead of flying
Will not plant and grow
holiness of life
the kindom of God.

Daily Reading, May 22

In his book Living on the Border of the Holy, a title that is itself significant, William Countryman writes of that border country that we all carry within us. He describes it as a kind of fault line that runs right down the middle of our lives. We can of course ignore it but it does not go away. We all live with it and we all have our unique experience of it, for it is part of who we are as human beings. It connects the surface or the ordinary reality with its deeper roots; indeed, he would actually claim that the border country is the realm in which human existence finds its meaning:

This border country is a place of intense vitality. It does not so much draw us away from the everyday world as it plunges us deeper into a reality of which the everyday world is like the surface. . . . To live there for a while is like having veils pulled away. In the long run we find that the border country is in fact the place we have always lived, but it is seen in a new and clearer light. Stay at the border, in active conversation with the holy and the everyday.

From To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border by Esther de Waal. © 2001. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.
Luke 10:8-12 (nrsv)


The sandbox
has room for all
or none.

Daily Reading, May 23

Recently when a nun in her mid-nineties sent me a note on my birthday, she quoted a line of Hegel: “The owl of wisdom flies in twilight,” and then said, “I like to think that as we get older we live in two twilights; the evening twilight of letting-go and the dawn of looking forward. In both, Christ is our Light.” This makes me think of “a kind of double vision in which we see both the light and the dark together and both sustain us,” words actually taken from a book significantly entitled Let Evening Come: Reflections on Aging.

Here is the giving up of the solace of certainty, for it means living with both/and. It is enjoying juxtaposition. It is embracing ambiguity. And if I recognize this poignant mix in my own inner landscape, ought I not let it shape my approach to the world around?

From To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border by Esther de Waal. © 2001. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading, May 24

Whatever name we may choose—the time between, the threshold, the pause—it is by naming it that we honor it and thereby honor change, movement, difference. When a book recently appeared in England written by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, it was significantly given the title The Dignity of Difference. In it Sacks wrote:

Truth on earth is not, nor can it aspire to be, the whole truth. . . . God is greater than religion. . . . Can I recognize God’s image in someone who is not in my image, whose language, faith, ideals are different from mine? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his.

The first step in listening, learning, and changing is to see that different is not dangerous; the second is to be happy and willing to live with uncertainty; the third is to rejoice in ambiguity and to embrace it. It all means giving up the comfort of certainty and realizing that uncertainty can actually be good.

From To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border by Esther de Waal. © 2001. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
Luke 10:30-37 (nrsv)

In the ditch
of my life
I watch.
You move
to the other side
offended by
my blood and tears.

Daily Reading, May 25 • The Venerable Bede

Bede’s industry and scholarship are generally acknowledged, but his most significant achievement lies in his inspired ability to select and integrate the vast mass of facts and traditions that he gathered into a single framework. He doubtless rejected much material as unreliable or irrelevant, but all that he retained he welded together into a coherent and eminently readable unity. Even a modern historian, with the advantage of greatly superior facilities and assisted by the researches of many generations of experts, faces a formidable task when compiling a history covering several centuries. And when we consider Bede’s limited facilities and resources, it is clear that his achievement is unique. For although Bede’s monastery at Jarrow possessed a library, it would seem insignificant by modern standards, and while it contained theological works of the Greek and Latin Fathers, there was little material useful for Bede’s purpose. Furthermore, in addition to the slowness and uncertainty of communications, the physical conditions under which the writers of that day had to work were extremely inconvenient and austere during the long northern winters. It is noteworthy that despite the many difficulties under which it was written, Bede’s History contains relatively few errors, and modern research has confirmed the accuracy of most of his statements.

From the Introduction to the Penguin edition of Bede’s A History of the English Church and People (Penguin Classics, 1968).

Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet. Ezekiel 34:18-19 (nrsv)

Closets fill
with more
than can be
worn in a year
while many
shiver with lack.
Food piles
in storage
until it rots
while bellies
stretch with hunger.
Houses multiply
across the landscape
while people live
on the streets.

On View: Burning Bush by Jan Neal, as seen in Visual Preludes 2006 at Episcopal Church and Visual Arts

Daily Reading, May 26 • Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine, Bishop of the Church of Canterbury, sought advice on certain problems. The Pope answered his enquiries without delay, and I have thought it proper to record these replies in my history. . . .

The second question of Augustine: Since we hold the same Faith, why do customs vary in different Churches? Why, for instance, does the method of saying Mass differ in the holy Roman Church and in the Churches of Gaul?

Pope Gregory’s reply: My brother, you are familiar with the usage of the Roman Church, in which you were brought up. But if you have found customs, whether in the Church of Rome or of Gaul or any other that may be more acceptable to God, I wish you to make a careful selection of them, and teach the Church of the English, which is still young in the Faith, whatever you have been able to learn with profit from the various Churches. For things should not be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. Therefore select from each of the Churches whatever things are devout, religious, and right; and when you have bound them, as it were, into a Sheaf, let the minds of the English grow accustomed to it.

From Bede’s A History of the English Church and People (Penguin Classics, 1968).

By Jennifer McKenize

A number of turtles are basking on a sizable log in the middle of a pond here. But I notice that there are gaps on that log - open spaces - and I see lots of turtles swimming around in the pond, their heads protruding just above the surface of the water. "So," I wonder, "how many of those turtles could fit on that log?"

Well, that depends I suppose. How many turtles can fit on the log depends upon how much room there is on that log. And, it depends upon how many turtles there are swimming around in this pond to populate that log. I wonder, given a large enough log and a great number of willing turtles in the pond, could you conceivably fill a log with turtles even in a small pond? The answer to this question is only marginally complex with just a couple of considerations.

First of all, it depends on the position of the log relative to the water and the attitude of the turtles already there. If the log is big enough and sitting in the water in such a way that there are many spots on the log that are easy for even a smallish turtle to reach directly from the water, then you can fill a log with turtles. This is not just theoretical. I know you can fill a log with turtles because I have seen it done - on more than one occasion. And from where I was sitting, the turtles even all looked happy to be there. Now the part earlier where I said, "...that depends..on the number of turtles there are in the pond..." was a trick. That was a trick, you see, because there are always way more turtles in the pond than could ever fit on even a huge log all at one time. So, in reality, you could fill a single log over and over again, as long as the turtles who found their spot on the log first are willing to move over and occasionally rotate off to share their precious log space.

The second consideration is this: Because turtles tend to move rather slowly and cautiously, moving over proves tricky and probably scary for most turtles. You see, just getting out of the water onto a log can be difficult for them in the first place, especially if the log is narrow-ish and only part of the log is touching the water in such a way that there is an entry point for them to climb on and find a place to sit. And to further complicate matters, I've noticed that very often a turtle will climb onto the end of the log - the only part touching the water and therefore the only easy access point - and then just sit there. That turtle will stop right where it got on and block the path of potential oncoming turtles. Now, I don't think these turtles are being mean. I think they just don't think - they just don't see that they are preventing other turtles from having a place on the log. "I made it on here just fine," they might muse, "so I don't see why others aren't here with me. What's their problem?"

On the other hand, I've noticed that when turtles are in the water, swimming around, they seem to move with great ease and agility, even rapidity, and they tend to congregate naturally. But when they are on that log, these self-same turtles appear to be afraid to move, afraid to renegotiate their initially assumed and secure position on the log even if by doing so they could make room for other turtles to congregate with them on that sunny log. And yet, as treacherous as they seem to find it to renegotiate their initially assumed position on the log, if something frightens them or upsets them, even a curious stranger from a great distance - they will not hesitate to dive right off of the comfort of their log into the water.

So the fear that turtles have isn't fear of falling into the water. Why should they be afraid of the water? After all, turtles live in the water. But it appears that turtles are afraid of two things: First, they are afraid of curious strangers approaching them from a distance; they feel innately threatened. Second, turtles are afraid of having to make room on the log even for their own kind - of having to renegotiate their position on it, even if the only real consequence is that more of their turtle friends could join them in the congregation of the sunny log in the pond. I find this silly and sad because I think all turtles need a spot on the log. They all - ALL turtles - need to have a space made for them so they can enjoy the healthy effects of the warm sun on their hard shells.

So, how many turtles can fit on a log in a pond? Never enough. What can be done about this problem? Well, that depends. It seems to me that far more turtles could fit on the log if the irrational fear and lack of insight of the turtles already there could be overcome. But in the absence of overcoming the inherent fear and lack of insight problem, the practical issue to address is this: Given the current conditions, there aren't enough spots on the logs in the pond - hell, there aren't enough viable logs in the ponds - for all the turtles who want to gather, to bask in the sun with their turtle friends, and even a turtle stranger or two, surrounded by but temporarily removed from their watery home. Why aren't there more logs? I think there used to be more great logs but many of them have rotted and sunk to the bottom because they became water-logged sitting there in the same position day in and day out for months and months and years and years.

I think it is too bad that so many turtles are stuck with having to think that sticking their necks out a little so that their heads are just staying above water is the best they can ever ask for or imagine. This is a problem that could be solved by looking for spots in the sun that are not on traditional logs in the middle of the pond, yet as far as I could tell, nothing is being done to move in this direction. Maybe there are new logs that will emerge after a storm. Maybe some turtles are keeping their eyes open in case one of the old logs rises to the surface again, fully intact with plenty of room for them. Maybe some turtle could take the lead and find a safe spot in the sunny grass on the edge of the pond. Maybe...but so far I've only seen one turtle that has set foot outside of the pond.

And that is why we are like turtles.

The Rev. Jennifer McKenzie, formerly assistant rector at St. David’s Episcopal Church, Washington, D. C., recently accepted a call to Christ Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Va. She keeps the blog “The Reverend Mother.

Daily Reading for May 27 • Pentecost

Being the living Christ today means being filled with the same Spirit that filled Jesus. Jesus and his Father are breathing the same breath, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the intimate communion that makes Jesus and his Father one. Jesus says, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10) and “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). It is this unity that Jesus wants to give us. That is the gift of his Holy Spirit.

Living a spiritual life, therefore, means living in the same communion with the Father as Jesus did, and thus making God present in the world.

From Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith by Henri J. M. Nouwen (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).

By Marshall Scott

Two recent coincidences illustrated a concern that I’ve had for some time. It is a concern about how we might support one of the blessings in the spiritual life of the Episcopal Church.

The Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains (AEHC) coordinates its annual meeting each year with the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC). Among the participants this year, new to both meetings, was an Episcopal sister in her habit. I asked about her habit, and learned she was a sister in a new Episcopal community, one which would shortly be applying for recognition by the House of Bishops. She had come to the APC conference because she was newly Board Certified as a Chaplain. We were delighted that she could join with us in the Episcopal activities there.

When I arrived home, I found the May issue of Episcopal Life. In it was the article, “Ancient monk, modern call” by Ron Beathard. (I’m haven't found it on line, yet.) Ron writes of an old friend who discovered for himself the power and the joy of a life lived following the Rule of St. Benedict. To express that for himself, this friend became an Oblate, a lay member, of St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. St. Meinrad is one of the more notable Benedictine foundations of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.

Now, I think these are good things for these individuals. I feel sure each will find life blessed and enriched in the rules of life to which they are committed. I feel sure the life of the Episcopal Church will be blessed and enriched by a new community.

At the same time, I find myself thinking of a corollary to these decisions with some regret. Part of the richness that I cherish in the Episcopal Church is the variety of existing religious orders and communities that are already a part of our life. The monastic tradition is alive and well in our midst. The web site of the Episcopal Church has links to connect to twenty-three religious orders and twelve communities through (respectively) the Conference of Anglican Religious Orders in the Americas (CAROA) ] and the National Association of Episcopal Christian Communities (NAECC). While many base their lives in the Rule of Saint Benedict, not all do; and each is a unique expression of the life of the Spirit in the Church, with a special charism, a spiritual gift to offer.

Within the Episcopal Church, the terms “Religious Order” and “Christian Community” are technical categories, defined in Canons. The essential distinction between a Religious Order and a Christian Community is that members of an Order live a celibate life in community, while members of a Community do not. Otherwise, they have much in common: lives of obedience to a common Rule, accepted in vows made “for life or a term of years.” In addition to professed members, Orders and Communities may have other categories of membership, usually involving a Rule of Life less rigorous than the Rule of the Order or Community, accepted but not vowed by participants and renewed annually. Such categories may be titled Associates, Companions, or Oblates. Their participants make important contributions to the life of the Order or Community, not least with their prayer and financial support. By the same token, the Order or Community offers to each participant spiritual companionship and direction, and opportunities to participate in the shared life and discipline of the professed Brothers and Sisters.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that this is a very important aspect of life in my own household. I have been an Associate of the Order of the Holy Cross , a Benedictine order for men in the Episcopal Church, going on thirty years. My wife is a professed Sister of the Worker Sisters of the Holy Spirit. Each of us has found a spiritual community within the life of the Church, and a Rule with which to order our spiritual lives, to find spiritual formation and, as St. Benedict wrote, “a school for prayer.”

And so, perhaps it’s not surprising that I might feel some regret that more people don’t discover the opportunities for a Rule of Life within the existing Orders and Communities of the Episcopal Church. For the individuals whose experiences began this column, I can believe that in fact this is how the Holy Spirit has led them, one to participate in forming a new Community and the other to make Oblation to a Roman Benedictine foundation. May each be blessed. Still, I wonder whether they were even aware of the resources of such lives that already existed within the Episcopal Church.

And many Episcopalians are not aware. One of the comments one hears at each General Convention from those attending for the first time is, “Who are those folks in habits? Are they ours? Are they Episcopalians?” It is true that our Orders and Communities are relatively small, and known better locally than nationally. However, that is to some extent the responsibility of us who are clergy. How well have we educated our people to the breadth of spiritual living within the Episcopal Church, including Orders and Communities? It’s all too easy to get caught up in the day-to-dayness, to become literally parochial in the lives in our parishes. One could, I think, argue that many of our troubles in recent years arose precisely because many folks couldn’t imagine that a church different from their own congregation was really Episcopal – or, in ecumenical efforts, how a church different from their own congregation was even Christian. Think how much there is to be gained when we hold up and celebrate the varieties of spiritual living that are found within the Episcopal Church, and within the Body of Christ as a whole.

I often wonder, too whether there is an opportunity here for bishops and Commissions on Ministry. I have watched as some sought the guidance of a diocesan Commission on Ministry. Both the applicants and the Commissions assumed certain limited possibilities: a call to ordained ministry or to lay; and if to ordained ministry, to the diaconate or the priesthood. For those in whom a Commission cannot confirm a call to ordained ministry I have rarely seen any guidance in ministry in lay life. That is often left, of course, to the local congregation and the local ordained leadership.

What might it mean, on the other hand, if the Commission saw its own vocation, and the opportunities for structured life in faith, more broadly? Could a Commission offer to an Applicant, “We cannot confirm in you a vocation for ordained ministry, and yet we hear your sense of vocation to a faith life with greater structure and discipline. Have you considered exploring membership in a Christian Community, or association with an Order of the Church?”

For some, albeit rarely, they might suggest exploration of vocation to an Order; for, after all, the celibate life is a special vocation of its own. That would require much of Commission members, including their own awareness of the Orders and Communities of the Church, and broader consideration of the ministries of the Church. At the same time, I have sometimes observed applicants exploring the diaconate when a Commission felt clear that the person had some vocation, but did not feel clear what the vocation might be. For lack of a clear call to priesthood, and lack of consideration of alternatives besides the life in the pew that is the call of most Christians, and life in ordained ministry, diaconal ministry is suggested by default. To me, this is not really respectful of the distinct ministry of the diaconate, nor of the real breadth of models for ministry of the laity in the Church. Perhaps for some life in a Community (and perhaps an Order), structured by a Rule and nourished by community life and prayer, would be a more appropriate vocation.

In these times, when some seem to work so hard to question and even deny the healthy spirit of the Episcopal Church, we are all called to awareness of the great varieties of ministries among the laity, the first order of ministry in the Church. Certainly, monastic life isn’t where most will find their vocation. At the same time, the Orders and Communities of the Episcopal Church are a wonderful resource for the Church for prayer and spiritual formation, and, for some, appropriate settings for ministry. We can celebrate and give thanks for our Episcopal Orders and Communities, and the rich spiritual tradition that they incarnate in our midst.

The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.

Daily Reading for May 28

There used to be parades in every town at this time of year in honor of those who died in the defense of our country. Old guys in uniforms they wore as young men marched along Main Street with the high school band and last year’s homecoming queen, and every fire engine the town had crawled through town at the end, blowing its siren. People along the route clapped and cheered. Some of them waved little American flags.

Some towns still have a Memorial Day parade, giving in to the odd human desire for a ceremonial walk to mark important times and feelings. Parades are pretty universal. We have them when people get married and when they die. We have them when people graduate, and years later we still choke up when we hear “Pomp and Circumstance.” We have them in churches, when people bow as the cross passes before them. We have them in synagogues, too, parades in which people dance with the sacred scrolls of the law.

Special walking happens in enough different places, and for enough different reasons, that it seems safe to say that it’s something human beings need to do. People need to have parades. You don’t necessarily need to be in the parade. But you probably need to see one from time to time. It gives you a place to remember. Unless there’s a parade, some kind of special occasion that demands our attention, we’ll just go on being busy. And soon we’ll forget that we owe a lot to those who have gone before.

From Finding Time for Serenity by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton. © 1994. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for May 29 • The First Book of Common Prayer (1549)

The 1549 Book of Common Prayer was as much the child of worship in the preceding centuries as it was a product of the Reformation. But there is an essential difference. Whereas the 1549 was intended to establish this new, universal relationship between every worshipper and the single, authoritative service book for the whole nation, the preceding era was different altogether. A number of different books were in use for different groups of people and different occasions. Each one started its life long before the invention of printing. In that sense, the Book of Common Prayer, provisional as it came to be, was also the child of the printing press, and its effects and legacy would have been impossible in other circumstances.

What were the original motivations behind the production of such a book? These were partly doctrinal – to embody a liturgy that put Reformation teaching into praying words – and partly social – to signal and spread the use of the vernacular. Above all they were liturgical, bringing together the main services of the (now reformed) Church of England under one cover and placing them in direct relationship not only with the clergy who presided at them, but the laity as well – few could read, but all could listen to and understand the English text. Even though not everyone could afford to pay for a copy (3s.4d. was the price fixed by law), the notion of having the same book in the hands of potentially anyone attending a service was a novel idea, reinforced by the new technology of printing and the new (but also very ancient) conception of the church as the baptized people of God.

From “Worship by the Book” by Kenneth Stevenson, in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey, edited by Charles Hefling and Cynthia Shattuck (Oxford, 2006).

On View: Transfiguration: Dwellings by Susan Tilt, as seen in Image and Likeness at Episcopal Church and Visual Arts

Daily Reading for May 30

The gift of the Paraclete is one of the most remarkable of all the promises in sacred scripture. Through the Holy Spirit God makes it possible for each of us to become one with him through love. This is no mere metaphor, but something quite real and quite palpable. By looking into the deeper parts of ourselves and by seeing love’s work there, each of us may glimpse God’s active, transformative presence. God already dwells within us, and by waking up to this reality we become one with him. Consequently, the chief way of finding a clear path through the desert is to follow the work of love within oneself. Whatever damps down this holy wonder is a cul-de-sac, and whatever fosters it points to our final destination. It is in this way that the Holy Spirit teaches everything.

From From Image to Likeness: The Christian Journey into God by William A. Simpson (Continuum, 1997).

Daily Reading for May 31 • The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

From the beginning, Christians have known that they were called upon to do the impossible. But when we look at Scripture and at the history of the Christian community, we can see a pattern in the way former impossibilities became subsequent realizations. The dynamics of the prophetic are in the creative imagination. A fundamental task of Christian spirituality is imagination. It is the task of breaking the process of interpretation wide open to glimpse entirely new and different possibilities of human life and relationships.

Imagination is exercised in influential ways through literature, through the visual and performing arts, through music, but also through human relationships, social structures, technology and science. Christian spirituality is related to all of these in two ways: it should inform them and it should be informed by them. Christians steeped in the Scriptures and deeply influenced by prayer and by the imperatives of charity should pursue the arts as a vocation, should engage in political process and policy, and should devote themselves to technological invention and scientific research. They need only be fully what they are and take the field seriously for what it is, and the redemption of the society through the expanding imagination will happen because the channels for redemptive grace run through us if we all them to be open.

From Christian Women in a Troubled World by Monika K. Hellwig (Paulist Press, 1985).

On View: Mary and Elizabeth by Margaret Adams Parker (Woodcut, 2004, 9" x 7") St. Mary’s Episcopal Church - Arlington, VA, as seen in Visual Preludes 2006 at Episcopal Church and Visual Arts

Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; *
do not be jealous of those who do wrong.
For they shall soon wither like the grass, *
and like the green grass fade away.
Put your trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and feed on its riches. Psalm 37:1-3


Abide in goodness
Not in what others
are doing
or not doing.