Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’
‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. -- Mark 9:33-37,42 (NRSV)

It is no wonder that this gospel lesson appears on the commemoration of William Wilberforce and Anthony Ashley Cooper, two who sought to heal the brokenness of the world by working to abolish slavery, return Jews to Israel and see to the welfare of children. Society, and even the church, had created stumbling blocks for many by denying the personhood and value of certain people and groups, and those stumbling blocks caused many little ones, beloved children of God regardless of size or age, to fall into hopelessness and despair. People like Wilberforce and Cooper worked to restore that brokenness and, years later, some of it has been healed.

There is still so much brokenness and so many stumbling blocks. There are still places where slavery of different sorts run rampant. The church has made strides to call attention to that wrongness and help to alleviate it, but the church also has remained silent in the face of other things that can and do make God's children stumble and fall.

How many children of God have been forced to their knees because of who or what they are perceived to be by others who see only rule-breakers? For centuries, African Americans were seen as not really full humans and that perception lead to their treatment as less than human. For millennia, children of any class lower than those of the rich, were considered not really human but rather to be put to "honest work" in factories that not only broke their starving bodies but their spirits as well. What now of women in the majority world countries who live on the edge of desperation because they are seen as sexual objects for men's pleasure or possessions to be used at will? What of GLBQTI folk who are no less fearfully and wonderfully made as any other children of God but who have lost faith in God and God's church because they are made to be slaves to the perception of "Christians" who "love the sinner but hate the sin." The Christians may be sincere in their belief, but so were the slave-holders, factory owners and brothel-keepers who claimed to be followers of Jesus but who put physical, mental and spiritual chains on those under their charge and care.

Love shouldn't hurt. We abhor physical violence against children, but why do we sit quietly while spiritual violence is done to those whose life and being are touted as "abominations" or whose physical body makes them vulnerable to power plays and violence?

What are we doing to keep God's children from stumbling and losing both faith and hope? Are we helping them heal --- or are we just handing them millstones in the name of God?

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Reading for the feast day of Paul Jones, Sept. 4:
Psalm 76
Malachi 2:17-3:5
I Peter 3:8-14a
John 8:31-32

Bishop Paul Jones, one of the fathers of modern pacifism, is not a universally well known figure in our liturgical calendar, but his story is of interest in light of today's highly polarized political messages in the news and on the Internet.

Bishop Jones was elected Missionary Bishop of Utah in 1914 as the outbreak of World War I ensued. Although the United States did not enter the war until 1917, Jones was publicly outspoken against the war, as well as war in general, stating that war was un-Christian, and that war could not be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus. He clearly opposed Germany and alternatively lobbied for other means by which to show this opposition. However, his views cost him his see. Despite the fact that many laypeople and clergy were on record defending his right to speak his mind on the topic, even if they disagreed, in 1917, vestry members from two large Utah parishes, allied with the District Council of Advice, organized a campaign against Jones. A convoluted investigation ensued, and the commission's recommendation was that he resign. Jones did indeed resign in 1918. This, however did not deter his zeal for the Social Gospel, and he was instrumental in the formation of what is now the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

Our reading from Malachi describes the refining effects of when we are called to speak the revealed truth. We may well have to endure the consequences of being unpopular, whatever the subject, but we are assured that we will live these consequences as a transformed person if we can only endure, with God's help. Our Epistle calls us to a spirit of non-retaliation in the face of evil--to avoid repaying evil with evil or abuse with abuse. Our Psalm reminds us that no evil is too great to be transformed into peace and reconciliation by God, and finally, our Gospel reading, short tidbit that it is, gives us words of assurance that the truth, no matter how unpopular, no matter how icky or painful, frees us to be unbound in the presence of God.

This message, and the message of the life of Bishop Paul Jones, is just as important today as it was at the time of World War I, and as it was in antiquity. The Internet has given any of us the power to be an instant pundit (and an anonymous one at that) through blogs, Facebook, and the comments section of news sites. How many times have we shied away from what we feel in our bones about the truth God has revealed to us about war, the Federal budget, poverty, or the right to hold unpopular opinions, because the majority voices surrounding us are so vitriolic or strident? How many times do we launch an attack on people who disagree with us that throws the issues in the ditch and goes straight for the throat of our worthy opponent?

In short, how many times, when discussing things of a political nature, have we disregarded our Baptismal Covenant, when we are asked, "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?" and "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?" Each of us can only answer that one for ourselves, with God's help, but on this feast day of Bishop Paul Jones, it's probably worth spending some time asking ourselves the question.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepsicatoid

Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there,

living things both small and great.
There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
These all look to you to give them their food in due season;
When you give to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;

when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the ground.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works—
who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
-- Psalm 104:25-34 (NRSV)

"The all-powerful and unutterable God, who was before ages but did not have a beginning nor will ever have an end, formed every creature in a wonderful manner with the creative power of willing and then placed every creature in a wondrous manner." - First Part, Vision 6:1*

I can't read the part about the "the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it" without smiling. My vision is that of a great three-masted clipper with sails fully set, dolphins riding the bow wave and a great whale sounding nearby. I'm sure that wouldn't have been Hildegard's vision as clipper ships hadn't been invented yet although sailing vessels certainly had. And my "vision" certainly doesn't qualify to be in the same category of Hildegard's either. Mine is merely an image while hers had greater import. Still, whether "formed to sport in it" or "placed...in a wondrous manner," I still see the flukes of the whale and the splash it creates.

But the Psalmist also speaks of "creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great." I wonder how he knew of all the things? Did the Psalmist live by the water? Did he know how to fish? Did he see the octopus and the skate, the tuna, goby and grouper?

What the Psalmist didn't know is that while God provides food for the sea creatures as he does the land creatures, man has upset the balance that was present in creation, and many species that were once plentiful in the great waters are now extinct or reaching extinction. Has God turned his eyes from the innocent and taken their breath away? It doesn't seem like the God I know.

I haven't read all of Hildegard's writings so I don't know whether she addressed a world so full of greed and selfishness that it causes the deaths of creatures placed by God in their proper places. I do think she would include something like this as part of the rebellion against God, the sin that caused Lucifer to fall from heaven and the unrighteous to find themselves in the same predicament as the rich man who refused the beggar Lazarus even the crumbs from his table (Luke 16:19-21).

May there never be a world without a leviathan sporting in the deep waters or dolphins riding bow waves. May there always be fish, cephalopods, crustaceans, brachids, and all the variety of life the Psalmist (and Hildegard) could never imagine. May humanity wake up to the diversity of life that extends so far beyond the species of homo sapiens.

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.
~Cecil Frances Humphries-Alexander

*Hozeski, Bruce, trans., Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias, (1986, paperback ed.) Santa Fe NM: Bear & Company Inc., p. 68

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the Feast of Edward Bouverie Pusey, September 18:

Psalm 106:1-5
Ezekiel 36:24-28
1 Peter 2:19-23
Luke 3:10-14

Several of us in the Episcopal Church self-identify as "Anglo-Catholic" and are not a bit embarrassed to admit that we are drawn to the bright shiny objects of "smells and bells" liturgy like magpies. We have Edward Pusey to thank for much of that. He, along with John Henry Newman, were two of the brightest lights in the Oxford Movement, the period of time in Anglican church history where we first began to grapple with the more catholic roots of our Angican theological heritage. Unlike Newman, though, who packed his bags for Rome, Pusey remained Anglican, despite some serious opposition within his own theological scholarly community.

The end result of his faithfulness in remaining Anglican is now reflected in our 1979 Prayer Book, when we moved to Eucharist, rather than Morning Prayer, being the norm on Sunday mornings. It's hard to conceptualize what seems routine to any of us who came after the 1979 BCP, as once being highly controversial.

Pusey had to feel, at the least, disappointed, and at most, betrayed, by Newman's defection to Roman Catholicism, yet he stayed the course in a time of theological upheaval within our denomination. His fidelity is reflected in the Collect of the Day:

Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know your presence and obey your will; that, following the example of your servant Edward Bouverie Pusey, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what you give us to do, and endure what you give us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The collect, as well as Pusey's story in relation to the Oxford Movement, is a good reminder that many things in the history of the Episcopal church started out as minority opinions but, over time, became the face of the church. Decrying slavery and ordaining women were just as unpopular notions at the time they were introduced. The "three legged stool" of Anglican theological process--scripture, tradition, and reason--is not the fastest way to move the direction of the church, but history has shown us that it is a reliable one. Most of us in 2011 can barely imagine Sunday worship without the Eucharist, but the people of the time of the Oxford movement (1833-1845) went to their grave never seeing what they had brought to the pulse of our denomination. As we moved from a more penitential theology to a more incarnational one, it opened the door for us to "live Eucharistically" in the world outside our red doors.

One of the more striking coincidences is our reading today from Ezekiel is what Claude Akins, as the Rev. Jeremiah Brown, quoted in Inherit the Wind, but with a different tack. He quoted parts of this passage in the scene when he was concerned about "saving" his daughter's soul from the perils of being in love with evolution-promoting Bertram Cates, and her refusal to believe the Stebbins boy died outside of a state of grace:

I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land.

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36:24-28 (NRSV)

The fictional Rev. Brown chose to use this verse to justify his self-righteousness, rather than to focus on the healing qualities of being bonded to each other in the waters of baptism. In contrast, Pusey never undercut Newman for his differences in opinion. Instead, he focused on Eucharistic worship being a unifying facet of our varied shared lives.

As we live in the tension of the newer struggles of our denomination with regard to controversies such as inclusivity, or interpreting the vagaries of the Bible in a popular culture that prefers a more literal interpretation of Scripture, let us remind ourselves to keep the focus on the transformational process of our own faith in community. Many a sermon delivered from an Episcopal Church pulpit points to the power the Eucharist can generate in both self and in community; because of the steadfastness of Edward Bouverie Pusey, we can celebrate that Eucharist more frequently.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepsicatoid

Psalm 87
Proverbs 4:1-9
1 John 2:15-17
Luke 8:16-21

When the Metropolitan Alexis felt his life was drawing to a close, he summoned Sergius to him, wishing to bless him and appoint him as his successor. Fearfully, Sergius declined. One of the symbols of authority worn by the Metropolitan was an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary suspended by gold chains. "From my youth up," Sergius replied, "I have never possessed or worn gold, and now how can I adorn myself in my old age?"

The excerpt in Holy Women, Holy Men states that Sergius was "simple and gentle in nature, mystic in temperament, and eager to insure that his monks should serve the needs of their neighbors." Our readings today remind us of several facets of what makes up a piece of the monastic lifestyle--love of God, a desire for wisdom over "stuff," and a charge in Luke's Gospel that we must seek to be active listeners in the process and to be mindful of what has been bestowed upon us--"Then pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away."

That part about "from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away" really sticks with me. I think back to the much more financially lean times of my life. It never failed--when my bank account was getting down to zero/zip/nada, it always seemed like I could always count on something like a flat tire, my furnace gasping its last breath, or a major plumbing leak to be foisted upon me.

In short, it's the mindset of scarcity. When our means feel scarce, we almost expect for things to become more scarce just to kick us to the curb even further.

When we live our lives like there is never enough, guess what? There never will be enough. One of the things I've mused about over the years is it never matters how much any of us make, we get to the end of the week or the end of the month and say, "Where did the money go?"

Yet when we look at the life of Sergius, this monk of very little means influenced an entire country and helped myriad people. The life of Sergius is counter-intuitive to everything our popular culture tells us.

Our culture seduces us with the delusion that our wants, are, indeed, our needs. It confuses us even when we try to do good and live more simply. We have so many choices in our society it's hard to discern what the "good" choice is.

For instance: I really don't care much for certain mega-chain stores. They fill their shelves with things made in places that I can't vouch for their labor policies, and I don't always agree with the labor policies of these stores themselves. But in little old Kirksville, MO, the big box store provides jobs for several people I know personally. It's all good to be high and mighty about our principles, but in small towns that can have tremendous local economic repercussions. My choice to stick to "green" or "fair trade" might cost my neighbor his or her job, because in a small town, I would have to buy those things online sometimes.

The impossibility of these kinds of choices brings us back to this business of "living more simply." What, really, are our needs? How many our wants morph into "needs?" Compared to the bulk of the world, we are the ones who "have," and are probably the ones to whom "more will be given." But why is it so painful to even think about what we could give up so that others can have 1/10th of what we have?

The answer, I believe, lies in that business of changing our life pattern from "a mindset of scarcity" to "a mindset of abundance."

Last time I checked, God's grace is not a finite quantity. God's mindset--one of abundance--frees us from the need to hoard. Hoarding our money, our time, our stuff, and our emotions only sidetrack us from the possibility we have enough. Once we admit what we have is enough, it actually allows us to be lavish and extravagant in our giving with few regrets--and living more abundantly, over time, makes us feel abundant.

What, in our lives today, can we risk doing without, in order to plant the seeds of a real sense of abundance?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

October 8 - Commemoration of William Dwight Porter Bliss and Richard Theodore Ely

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations. -- Isaiah 61:1-4 (NRSV)

Many passages of scripture that speak of God raining down punishment on disobedient people, individuals, families, tribes or nations. Depending on one's church's emphasis and theology, those might be passages that are heard often -- or almost never. Some relish those passages, particularly in times of uncertainty or disaster. It is proof to them that God is enraged at something and it's all the fault of those who are now experiencing whatever uncertainty or disaster that is going on at the time. Of course, if it happens to be themselves who are suffering, well, then it's God's test of faith and prayers go up for the strength to pass that test. It's all in how you look at the situation.

While it is necessary to look at the tough passages from time to time, it's always a relief to look at one that speaks of hope, reconciliation and restoration, especially in times of stress, anxiety or fear. Whether one is living in the ruins of a city destroyed by flood or earthquake, through a personal medical problem, a family crisis or the economic crisis of country and its trickle-down effect on individuals and families, there are definitely times when Isaiah's words are needed as a reminder of what God seems to have in mind.

Something I noticed about Isaiah's words, though-- they are not spoken to those who have much but rather to those who have little.. The words don't speak to the status quo or those who espouse a theology of limited resources and who are busily accumulating their own wealth and security while trying hard to fend off any attempt to even the playing field with those who have less and actually need more. There are no words here saying it is okay to look out for oneself and let the other guy take care of him/herself. When Isaiah speaks of "the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God," the vengeance will be on those who have laid the burdens, not on those who bear them.

There's one other thing about Isaiah's words. To me, it feels like they are not just words about what God has in mind or will do, but it is also an invitation for those hearing the words to participate in bringing all this about. If we all just waited for God to swoop down and, in the blink of an eye, right all the wrongs, we would have learned nothing except that we have no responsibility in the matter; we can and do make a mess and then someone else has the job of cleaning it up, including God. But is that the way it is supposed to be? Is that what we teach our children to do or do we inform them that they threw all their toys on the floor and now it is time for them to pick them up and put them away?

They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

God is inviting. What will be our response, individually and collectively?

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Psalm 107:23-32
2 Kings 2:19-22
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Mark 6:45-56

"The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not 'to have and to hold' but 'to give and serve.' There can be no other meaning."

"Theology is what one comprehends, religion what one does."

~Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

When one begins to look at the life of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, it becomes clear that he put both his theology and his religion to good use, and probably "paid his rent for his room on Earth" many times over.

Grenfell, a surgeon, qualified for both his MRCS and MRCP medical degrees from the London Hospital Medical College in 1886, graduating in 1888. One of his mentors in surgery was Sir Frederick Treves, most commonly known as the physician who cared for John Merrick, "The Elephant Man." In an era when surgeons literally collected patients as medical oddities and exploited the hospitalized poor as personal guinea pigs for innovative and radical surgical treatments, Grenfell chose a completely different path. He had the credentials and connections that could have landed him a lucrative Harley Street practice or a prestigious spot at one of London's famed teaching hospitals; instead he devoted his life to the care of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Early in his career, he joined the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen, both becoming a master mariner, and outfitting the mission's first hospital ship. He served from Iceland to the Bay of Biscay. In 1892 he traveled to Labrador, where he found the poverty and disease of both the English and native population astounding and troubling. A prolific fund-raiser, he used both his medical collegial connections and his social connections to garner money for the establishment of hospitals, nursing stations, schools, orphanages, and social welfare centers throughout Labrador, as well as a seaman's institute in St. John's, Newfoundland. Grenfell was clear that these facilities were to be available for not only the Caucasian inhabitants, but for the native Inuit and First Nations populations there, a move which often provoked criticism by his peers. In more recent years, however, the criticism has been that Grenfell's centralized services and emphasis on a static community changed the culture of Labrador's First Nations people, who were originally nomadic. Nevertheless, the Grenfell missions were well received by the residents of Labrador at the time.

Grenfell's theology was, to be sure, a practical one. He saw service to the needy as a form of faith that opened us up to greater moral power and freedom, as well as something that transcended dogma. He saw emulating the life of Christ as far more important than debating theological principles.

"Then, if you are 'losing faith in the Gadarene pig story,' you won’t miss that one miracle so much if you have to abandon it," he wrote. "For, if it is not irreverent to say so, you will have a dozen solid facts you could swear to in a court of law from your own personal experience, which will be ten times more helpful to yourself and to other men today than your final decision as to the fate of those unfortunate animals. If you have the evidence of 'that which you have seen and heard' to give, instead of being ruled out of court by the majority of men because they appraise your evidence as unconvincing and inadmissible as mere book knowledge, you will be the most valuable witness for the Christ, and the most dangerous foe to the devil of doubt.... If you are anxious to help others to retain faith, get out and do something for Christ’s sake." ~Grenfell

Our readings today reflect Grenfell's connection with the sea in three places--in the 2nd Kings reference to the "wholesomeness" of salt water, in Psalm 107's imagery of the power of the sea invoking us to call out the name of God, and in Mark's Gospel, where Jesus gets in the boat with his terrified disciples and calms both them and the raging wind upon the waters. Our Epistle reminds us of the myriad talents that can be used to exalt the name of God by doing the work of the world to bring about the manifestation of the Holy Spirit for the common good.

We are living in a time where nature bares her teeth throughout the world, through vicious hurricanes and tsunami-producing earthquakes--and can live out Grenfell's vision of spreading the Word of God by spreading human care and kindness to the victims of nature's wrath. God is, indeed, present in human form amidst nature's violence. How will you choose to be a slice of God's presence in the storm today?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Teresa of Avila

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. -- Romans 8:22-27 (NRSV)

I grew up in a faith tradition where saints weren't really a major deal unless they said something that the preacher learned about in seminary and it bolstered a point that he wanted to make in his sermon or lesson. I remember meeting kids from other traditions at school and being intrigued that they considered someone other than God and Jesus to kind of be there overhead to take care of all kinds of things. I remember Mama telling the story of going to school in New Orleans with kids who went to kiss the toe of the statue of St. Peter and request good grades on their tests and exams while she went home and studied. The saints, to them, were like part of the family - visited often and consulted frequently. At the time it did make me feel that my faith tradition was definitely lacking in something both interesting and important. Eventually I did graduate to a tradition where saints were a regular part of the faith, and I turn to St. Jude (my personal favorite) or St. Anthony (who has found my cell phone and car keys with some regularity) from time to time with no hesitation.

I'd never really considered Teresa of Avila, though. I could understand nuns and appreciate their calling to the religious life, but Teresa just seemed like one of those pious cards with a coiffed nun, eyes uplifted to heaven in an adoring gaze, hands precisely folded to indicate prayer and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Then I read James Kiefer's biography and found something interesting. When Teresa was ill she was very diligent and fervent in her prayers, but when she got better she sort of slacked off, sometimes being very "lukewarm." Now this is something with which I can identify.

I pray when I am expected to -- before meals, in church, in meetings/groups where prayer is part of the regular process and often in the middle of a sleepless night -- but when it comes to ordinary life, I'm a bit lax. Oh, I do remember to say "Thank you" (most of the time) when the light stays green just long enough for me to get through the intersection, a parking space opens up right near the door of the store or when something actually works when I don't particularly expect it to. Perhaps that's simplistic, but there you have it. I did it just this afternoon when I was running late to an appointment and that light stayed green just long enough for me to get through the intersection without stopping. But it's when I'm wading through stuff, especially the really deep stuff, that I tend to pray more and express it less clearly. I can't always come up with words to say what I feel I need to say.

I am grateful for the Book of Common Prayer which so often has something that covers what I need, but there are times when I don't have a BCP handy or I'm struggling just to breathe, totally unable to remember that page 810 holds the list of available prayers and page numbers. I believe I do pray at those times, but if you asked me to say what words I was praying or what I was praying for, I don't think I could tell you. That's one reason the passage from Romans seems so important to me.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of John Wyclif, October 30:
Psalm 33:4-11
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 43:26-33
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 4:13-20

John Wyclif was noted for his belief that believers had a direct relationship with God, with no requirement for the church or the priestly caste to act as intermediary, and this is most manifest in his translating the Latin Vulgate Bible into English. Through this contribution to the Anglicanism, he most personifies the opening words of today's reading from Hebrews--"Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12 (NRSV)

I first learned about the business of separating joints from marrow around age 10, when it became one of my household duties to "cut up the chicken." Now, this was one of my favorite tasks, because I was allowed to use large, sharp knives with very little supervision and very little admonishment other than "Don't cut your finger off." My mother, to save money, usually bought a whole chicken at the grocery store rather than pre-cut parts. I learned very quickly there was both a bit of skill and a great deal of satisfaction in learning to cut through the joints of a whole fryer.

One of the tricks I learned was to let the weight of the chicken help me. I quickly learned to hold up the whole chicken by the wing, find the joint space, and "pop" it through the dangling chicken, letting it fall on the cutting board. I also learned to cut the breast in such a way there would be a "wishbone piece" in it. Having the ability to get to make a wish every time we had fried chicken was a real treat.

Having a relationship with God through the living and revealed Word is not much different, really. We can sit in the pews on Sunday and have Scripture served up for us, like a plate of fried chicken, and enjoy a very fine feast, courtesy of the lector, the deacon, and the priest, but it's just not the same as when you are allowed to "cut it up yourself." Nothing opens up Christianity quite like taking up the Bible as a daily spiritual discipline, and it's pleasantly surprising how easy it becomes in a short time. The Episcopal Church's Daily Office allows us to go through the bulk of the Bible in two years' time (and the Psalms every seven weeks!)

Granted, our initial attempts at regular Bible reading may feel clumsy, and our ability to cut into it incisively at first might seem a little tentative, but a good commentary, study Bible, or study group can act as a whetstone for the knife edge of our spiritual imaginations. In fact, there are several sites on the Web that make use of the Daily Office readings. Help is readily available--there's no chance of "cutting our fingers off."

What we discover over time is once we stop worrying that we can't wrap our minds around the Bible in the same way a seminary graduate can, the words start miraculously wrapping around our hearts. Hearing the Psalms over and over causes certain verses and phrases to stand out, and hearing the familiar words of the Gospel begin to knit themselves to our own sinews. Suddenly, the stories are not about ancient people in ancient times, they are about us, in the present moment. There's something spiritually satisfying about popping through the joint of a parable and feeling the relief of the weight of the world drop from us, with a lighter heart. Most importantly, it becomes as much of a daily habit as brushing our teeth, and we will begin to miss it, if circumstances cause us to accidentally omit it.

Then, when we do hear these words on Sunday, they take on new meaning and allow us to become more discerning oracles in our community of faith. We start seeing everyone else's faults a little differently, forgive ourselves a little more easily, and begin to reach out to others in ways we could not imagine. Because we allowed the people of Biblical times into our imaginations, the people we used to think of as "the other" begin to look and feel more like "us."

Thanks to the life and efforts of John Wyclif, we can taste for ourselves the white meat and dark meat of the revealed Word, and live in the hope that there's always a wishbone.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 -- Week of Proper 26, Year One
All Saints

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 1000)
Morning Prayer: Psalms 111, 112; 2 Esdras 2:42-47; Hebrews 11:32 - 12:2
Evening Prayer: Psalms 148, 150; Wisdom 5:1-5, 14-16; Revelation 21:1-4, 22 - 21:5

And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green:
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
(Hymn 293)

I can remember singing this hymn as a child and thinking enthusiastically with the naivete of childhood, "Yes! I could be one too." Something deep inside me wanted to be good and noble, like the ones we read about in the heroes' biographies. Something like that urge still surges inside of me today. I want to live a real and authentic life, and to be open to whatever God may draw me toward that might help God's work in the world. As I live my sixtieth year, I certainly know a lot of my limits and many of my abiding faults, but I can claim some of my gifts as well. I also know, now that I am a grownup, and having read some of the more adult biographies, that many of those heroes I thought to model myself by also had some significant limits and faults.

To be a saint doesn't seem quite as exotic as it used to. It seems more about being who I am. It seems more about trusting God in each present moment, and detaching myself from those habits and distractions that always seem to draw me away from simply being.

Toward the end of Graham Greene's novel The Power and the Glory the Whisky Priest sits in his prison cell, the gallows that will hang him on the morrow outside his window. His has been an ambiguous life. With some courage he stayed behind to provide the sacrament to the people after the army arrived. Yet he had fathered an illegitimate child and drowned much of his fear in liquor.

Approaching his end, "He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all. It seemed to him at that moment that it would have been quite easy to have been a saint. It would only have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who has missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now that there was only one thing that counted -- to be a saint."

A little self-restraint and a little courage. Moment by moment. Trusting. I can do that.

Usually is takes a little bit of tenderness though. Tenderness toward God. Tenderness toward the other. Especially tenderness toward myself. When I think kindly of myself, I tend to relax enough to act more kindly toward others. If I live in an atmosphere of acceptance, something good seems to grow in me. The acceptance takes a bit of trust however. Acceptance of the present moment -- after all, it is the only moment I have, regardless of its particular shape. Acceptance of myself, for God has accepted me in God's immense grace. If God has accepted me, I can relax and accept myself. It is all love. And life is good. Hard, but good.

Relax. Be. A little self-restraint and a little courage is all it takes.

They lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still,
the world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.

Psalm 119: 97-104
Exodus 22:21-27
Ephesians 3:7-12
John 1:9-18

In recent days, as I've been following the "Occupy Wall Street" movement spreading across different cities in the U.S., I keep thinking William Temple would have something to say about it. In fact, were he alive today, he might have been in the midst of them.

William Temple was born in a setting of genteel Victorian privilege--his father served as Bishop of London, and, later, Archbishop of Canterbury--and he seemed destined for a similar kind of life. He was a sickly child, suffering from gout and bad eyesight (he became blind in his right eye by age 40,) and by all accounts, an excellent scholar. His road to ordination, however, was not entirely smooth. His initial application for ordination was turned down by the Archbishop of Canterbury because he had "unconventional" notions about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection

Turns out that was not the only "unconventional" notion he'd have.

Temple became president of the Worker's Education Association in 1908, while tutoring at Queen's College, Oxford. This organization was highly influenced by the philosophy of Anglican theologist Frederick Denison Maurice, the pioneer of the Christian Socialist movement. Temple also joined the Labour Party around that time. Over the next two decades, despite his privileged upbringing, he would become a champion for worker's rights, as well as social and economic reforms. In his famous book, Christianity and the Social Order, he outlined six propositions for a Christian society:

Every child should find itself a member of a family housed with decency and dignity.
Every child should have an opportunity for education up to maturity.
Every citizen should have sufficient income to make a home and bring up his children properly.
Every worker should have a voice in the conduct of the business or industry in which he works.
Every citizen should have sufficient leisure—two days' rest in seven and an annual holiday with pay.
Every citizen should be guaranteed freedom of worship, speech, assembly and association.

Our readings today focus on several elements that speak to reform as a nidus of spiritual transformation. Our Psalm speaks to the love of the law and the value of wise teachers. Exodus discusses the evils of abusing the more vulnerable elements of society. Paul's letter to the Ephesians reminds us of the virtues of servant leadership, and hearing the call in our Baptismal Covenant to seek and serve Christ in all people. Finally, John's Gospel proclaims the power of phos--the luminous power of the Light of Christ's grace to illuminate the darkness of a hurting, broken world.

The life and personal theology of William Temple calls us to our own self examination as agents of the Light of Christ, changing the world, one act of kindness at a time. How are each of us called to respond to the love of those who teach us about grace and tolerance? How have we personally stood up to the abuse of the powerless? How are we servant leaders in our parishes, our schools, or our communities? How does the life of William Temple influence us in our tasks to be bearers of this true Light?

Perhaps the answer is in one of Temple's more famous quotes: "It is a great mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion."

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Readings for the feast day of Edmund, King of East Anglia and Martyr, November 21,
Psalm 21
2 Samuel 1:17-27
1 Peter 3:14-18
Matthew 10:16-22

O God of ineffable mercy, you gave grace and fortitude to blessed Edmund the king to triumph over the enemy of his people by nobly dying for your Name: Bestow on us your servants the shield of faith with which we can withstand the assaults of our ancient enemy; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Edmund was an early king of East Anglia, which is in what we now know as England. Although most of what we know about him is myth and legend, the one thing we are told in vivid detail is his gruesome death at the hands of the Danes.

The Wikipedia description is what really caught my eye. Granted, some of this is rather legendary, and there's certainly a distinct attempt to connect this story with the Passion of Christ, but the short version goes like this:

The Danes had invaded England in 870, led by the brothers Hinguar and Hubba, and it appears their particular specialty was looting and plundering churches. When they get to East Anglia, they offer to cut a deal with Edmund, which really wasn't much of a deal. They'd give him a chunk of the loot if he'd admit the Danes were superior, forbid the practice of Christianity, and continue on as a figurehead ruler to keep the peace in the area.

Some sources say that Edmund's own bishops bailed on him and told him to accept the terms. But Edmund said no, he would not forsake Christ, which, of course, made the Danes furious. So they proceeded to torture and kill him--first beating him with cudgels, and then tying him to a tree and shooting him so full of arrows, as the account by Abbo of Fleury relates, "until he was all covered with their missiles as with bristles of a hedgehog." Even then he would not renounce Christ, so Hinguar ordered him beheaded. Edmond called to Christ throughout the beheading.

Now, the historical concept is to look at this in terms of his bravery and faith, but I became intrigued at the way Sam Portaro looked at this story in his book, "Brightest and Best." A more modern way to look at this story is to back up and see missed opportunity and a chance at reconciliation. Pig-headedly sticking up for our Christian faith at the point of a lance (or a gun) hasn't really gotten us too far in history--the Crusades being a major case in point--and in societies where church and state were intertwined, the dominant religion becomes an oppressive force, not a healing force.

But it was that image of Edmund being covered with so many arrows he looked like a hedgehog (or, in my mind, a porcupine) that stuck with me--mostly because my own life experience has been that every time I take my ego out on a limb and try to make people see "I'm right," I also end up covered with a slew of metaphorical arrows. Putting my ego on a pedestal usually only results in having a band of folks dead set on knocking me off.

Also, it's been my experience that, once covered with arrows, trying to reconcile with the other party starts looking like two porcupines mating. The two parties walk around each other with a cautious shyness, each afraid of the other's prickly barbs, both desiring to be closer, but not knowing how in the world to accomplish it without being stuck themselves.

So rather than see this tale as an account of Christian bravery, what changes when we see it as a reminder of our own pig-headedness? More importantly, where are the places we need to begin the prickly dance of reconciliation?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Readings for the feast day of Clive Staples Lewis, November 22:
Psalm 139:1-9
Proverbs 23:15-18
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 16:7-15:

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. --John 16:7-15 (NRSV)

Here's my confession: Really, I've never cared much for C.S. Lewis' work. I read The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy because I was friends with the geeky fantasy and sci-fi kids, but I thought Tolkien and Ray Bradbury were far better. I never thought his Christian apologetics held much water (and frankly, in that era of the late 70's I got tired of every hippy-dippy evangelical quoting him--Evangelicals quoting Anglicans? Made no sense.) I just kind of wrinkled up my nose at his trilemma as a false dilemma. But there's one thing on which C.S. Lewis and I are two peas in a pod--the notion that conversion to Christianity is the first step in a very long journey, not an end unto itself.

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night," Lewis wrote, in Surprised by Joy, "feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

I totally understand what the feeling of being a "dejected and reluctant convert" is like. I spent 20+ years outside the door of any church, convinced that I was, indeed a Christian, but one incredibly unwelcome in the church because of what I believed at the time to be heretical thoughts. Those thoughts included notions of our own slice of the Incarnation residing within us, inclusivity in a way most churches were not (and many still not) ready to accept, and my own formidable stack of doubts despite asserting I was, indeed, a Christian.

Yet, when I returned in my new incarnation of "Me, as a Christian," it was almost like being a precocious child in a new school. It was clear I had plenty of knowledge and "book learning," but I needed a LOT of formation. I had to reconcile "The way I used to understand God and rejected," with "The way I am now beginning to understand God and can accept." I could totally identify with Lewis' own statement about the beginning of this journey of conversion.

John's words echo this--"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."

When any of us first begin to "get serious about God," that feeling of not understanding, or of doubt, seems wrong somehow. "They're going to think I'm a heretic if I say I think this," was a constant thought for me early on. But it's important to understand it is not the end of the world with our relationship with God if we admit things like, "Ok, I am not so sure what the Resurrection really was or really means," or "I just don't really buy everything about the Nicene Creed." I don't think when we consciously begin life anew as an earnest follower of Christ, we will have all revealed to us as if we were struck by lightning. I think we grow into it, slowly. (Sometimes, so incredibly slowly we think we are going backward.)

The totality of how we become part of the kingdom in the "now" is hard to swallow when all we think we are doing in the beginning is hedging our bets for a slot in Heaven. We are not ready for the power revealed in the partaking of the Sacraments. We're not awake to the possibility that prayer is so much more than petitioning God in a dance where hopefully, our wishes are granted--that instead, being called into prayer is to be called into a deep and dangerous proposition. If we start listening to what God's will is for each of us, we will quickly discover we've been sent to do some rather unnerving work, and that we will be gnawed upon to get off our duffs and do something about it. We find that being sent deeply into our prayer places requires being lashed to the deck of a raft sent into the rapids.

At the beginning of this journey, we would not be able to bear these things if we knew they were coming. It takes time. The life of C.S. Lewis reminds us that there is no end point to learning in faith--that it is, indeed, a life-long pilgrimage. Even when we thought we were wandering around outside the church, we could never have borne the thought that our "time away" was not really time away at all--instead, it was ongoing formation.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Readings for the feast day of Clement, Bishop of Rome, November 23:
Psalm 78:3-7
1 Chronicles 23:28-32
2 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 6:37-45

"Our Apostles knew also, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife over the dignity of the Bishop's office." -from Clement of Rome's Epistle to the Corinthians

My bishop likes to joke that bishops are given two rubber stamps to use in the performance of their ecclesiastical duties in forming priests and deacons--one says, "Has a problem with authority," and the other says, "Has a regional accent."

I don't know if Clement of Rome had to use the latter, but he certainly had to use the former in the first century of the church. "Has a problem with authority" probably reared its head a week after the early church was born--I have no doubt it was the one of the oldest problems in the church and continues to be so today.

In Clement's case, a younger group of members of the church in Corinth had deposed the clergy unilaterally, without Clement's authority to do so. Clement had to put on his Big Bishop Boxer Shorts and tell the church in Corinth, "Uh, that's not how we do things around here." His Epistle to the Corinthians affirmed the ecclesiastical hierarchy and was read, not only to the church in Corinth, but to many congregations in the early church. It affirmed a framework of authority that we still use in various denominations, including the Episcopal Church.

"Authority" is a tricky business in the Christian community. There's a fine line between using authority and being authoritarian--a very fine line, and often subject to interpretation. This is a difficult balance, at times, when we are talking about a church full of lay people who see their authority as "from God" and don't always see as clear a set of rules regarding the ecclesiastical church, co-mingled with clergy who carry an additional definition of "obedience." Clergy, by virtue of Holy Orders, vow to obey the Bishop and live in accordance with the canons of the church; all of us, lay and ordained, by virtue of our Baptismal Covenant, enter into a covenant as sacred as marriage that we will engage in relationship with God, Christ, and each other.

In other words, it's too simplistic to see it in dualistic terms--which, unfortunately, is how most people see it. Lay people, in times of congregational strife, pull out the "I only have to answer to God--not you," card, and clergy sometimes hide behind shadows of the Bishop's coat tails or the church's canonical coat tails to push their own agenda, hoping the congregation is not savvy about the rules. I've seen parishioners claim the authority of "Jesus the rule-breaker vs. the religious authorities" in their quest to butt heads with a bishop's decision. I've also seen clergy attempt to play the same card.

It's a tricky dance. Are we, at times, called to question or resist authority? I believe we are. That calling, however doesn't come with a hall pass. The consequences of such a decision may ultimately end up being to figuratively die in a ditch--or literally die on a cross. Sadly, some of us are called to make that kind of a decision with God's help.

Today's readings give insight into our understanding of "informed consent" in such decisions--understanding the obligations of those chosen to attend to the temple, understanding the rules and obligations of right living as Christians, leaving judgment to God, and finally, our duty to tell the stories of these struggles. They bring up another "A" word--accountability.

It's been my experience and observation that mostly, authority steps in when there's been a breach in accountability somewhere--and once authority steps in, we run the risk of human judgment vs. God's judgment. It's safe to say we humans don't do it so well. Humans make mistakes from time to time--sometimes serious ones, which also have their own set of consequences.

All Christians are accountable to all of humanity, and this, I believe, is our highest calling in being accountable to God. Perhaps if each of us spent more time being earnest about our exercising accountability, we'd have less cause to confront authority and less desire to exert it.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Downtown Richmond, Virginia is gridlocked all this week. Steven Spielberg is here filming for his upcoming movie, Lincoln, due to be released in late 2012. The hub bub of this Hollywood presence even makes the evening news….

And today is the day to remember Channing Moore Williams, born in Richmond Virginia in 1829, ordained a deacon in 1855, and left Virginia as a missionary to China and Japan in the midst of the growing fever pitch that finally culminated in the American Civil War. It is an interesting thought to ponder --that while this nation was wracked in increasing political gridlock and friction and the threat to the Union regarding the boundaries of States' rights and equality-liberty-and-justice for all, Williams chose to look beyond the horizons of his nativity and set his sight on Asia.

Hollywood and missionary zeal come full circle in the first week of Advent.

Some claim that the 19th Century missionary efforts of the Episcopal Church (and other churches as well) are part and parcel of the expansionist and imperialistic policies of the secular state. Others might claim that Williams is a wonderful and godly embodiment of The Great Commission given to all Christians --carrying the Good News to the furthest ends of the earth.

How and for what reasons do we carry the Good News of God in Christ? This juxtaposition of mission impetus highlights certain elements of the readings today. The prophet, Amos, laments and admonishes, saying,

Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins- you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil, that you may live. (Amos 5:11-14)

And-- Jude writes, Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day. (Jude 5-6)

And-- Jesus tells us the story of the wedding feast, those invited walking away, ignoring or too busy to respond, so the king sends out the invitation to the streets of the realms, to the good and bad alike, and the wedding hall is filled --but one guy didn't wear a party suit, and the king said, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?" And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, "Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." For many are called, but few are chosen.' (Matthew 22:12-14)

There is an unmistakable thread of condemnation --beyond judgement, I'm hearing outright condemnation for those who don't care for the poor, who hear and know and don't respond to the call of God --to be ready, prepared for the unexpected invitation and feast. There are several possible responses a Christian might make to these calls to care, to respond, to prepare. Included among them are penance --participating in the Way of the Cross and engaging in bearing the sins of the world. Another way is to actively prepare in hope --prepare for the unexpected inbreaking and revelation of what awaits us all on the other side of judgement.

It is Advent --a time of active preparation and hope. With Channing Moore Williams in mind, it is the perfect time to lift our eyes from our local context, pressures, and conflicts --time to look beyond the horizons of our own nativity to the nativity announced in the skyline of the star --following its light, leaving our habitations and comfort zones, and do all those things necessary to prepare for the great Kingdom feast --not in fear of judgment (there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God which we have in Christ Jesus), but in hope and for the joy that is in us.

Margaret Watson is a priest in the Diocese of Virginia. She writes daily morning prayer reflections at her blog Leave It Lay Where Jesus Flang It.

Commemoration of Clement of Alexandria

All men are Christ's, some by knowing Him, the rest not yet. He is the Savior, not of some and the rest not. For how is He Savior and Lord, if not the Savior and Lord of all? — Clement of Alexandria

One thing I never heard of until I started doing Bible studies in the Episcopal church was the idea of "universalism" -- a belief that somehow, salvation will be attained by all everywhere through God's grace and persistence. It was a totally different thing from "You have to pray the sinner's prayer and accept Jesus as your personal savior before you can be saved and be baptized," which is what I was taught as a child. Even if I said the right things and followed the right procedure, it still seemed like my salvation could be snatched away if I didn't live up to the expectations of God and the church. It made for an uncomfortable relationship with the Almighty.

The church in which I spent my childhood and adolescence sort of went from Genesis to Revelation and then, with the exception of the persecutions and the Reformation in sermons and Sunday School lessons. It wasn't until I began EfM that I began to see the curtain rising on the years my former church had kept under wraps, in a manner of speaking. One of the people I never heard of before EfM was Clement of Alexandria. Once I started delving into church history, Clement was introduced, along with a lot of other philosophers, theologians, catechists, apologists and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. None of them made the most lasting of impressions on me at the time. Still, the more I continue to study the more I realize Clement of Alexandria is one of my spiritual ancestors, one of those who gave me the ability and the courage to set aside the certainties I'd had in my former church beliefs and embrace new possibilities, including the idea that the entire world will be redeemed, not just the ones who prayed the sinner's prayer and were baptized in the name of the Trinity. Clement's comment gives me the vision of that possibility.

God gave the model for parenthood. Does a parent stop loving, nurturing, protecting or caring for a child simply because it is disobedient, stubborn, aggravating or even turns their back on the parent? Some may, but I don't think God is that kind of parent. There may be some people or groups who enjoy special favor, but the remaining children are not forgotten, ignored or unwanted. All are God's children, even if some do not acknowledge it. Jesus told the Canaanite woman that he had come only for the Jews, but he had already begun reaching beyond the borders of culture and tradition and gender. Paul moved beyond ministry just to the Jews and into the cities and towns of the Greek and Roman world. Christianity spread and with it new and different ways to experience God, Jesus, the Spirit, baptism, the Eucharist and all the refinements. Like the veins on a leaf, the central belief grew offshoots that grew smaller with each refinement. Could not that refinement also include what to some is heresy while to others is orthodoxy? Could we not say that the Lord of all really is the Lord of all, even those who do not recognize the relationship?

Clement also said, " We can set no limits to the agency of the Redeemer to redeem, to rescue, to discipline in his work, and so will he continue to operate after this life." It fits with a statement I heard for the first time maybe a decade or so ago, "Either Jesus died for all the sins of the world or none of them." I don't know who said that, but I think if it could be traced back, the trail would lead somewhere in the vicinity of Clement. To me, it challenges me to get the Trinity out of the little box I had shoveled them into, based on what I had been taught, and allow that they can operate in ways I don't understand and don't really need to. It also makes me see other people, those I sit with in church as well as people on the other side of the globe who have very different images of God, as children of God and worthy of redemption, whether or not they have accepted that redemption or even knew of its existence. Their qualification for redemption is based on the foundation that they belong to God, born as God's creation and the child of God's grace. Whether they in fact are "saved" is a question well above my pay grade. It seems to me that a God powerful enough to create a universe (or a billion billion of them) doesn't need me to sort sheep and goats. It's laughable that I should even dare to think of doing that-- and it's also audacious to the n-th degree.

So, for me, I will not discount universalism nor the thoughts of Clement about salvation and redemption. I will simply be thankful that Clement of Alexandria and the great cloud of other theologically/philosophically-minded folk have left me a legacy of thought to be perused, studied, poked, prodded, stretched and my borders of understanding increased. I will simply trust, and let God, Jesus and the Spirit take care of the rest.

That is a great weight off my shoulders.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, December 6:
Psalm 145:8-13
Proverbs 19:17, 20-23
1 John 4:7-14
Mark 10:13-16

In reality, we know next to nothing about Nicholas. We know he was a bishop. We know he was tortured and imprisoned under the emperor Diocletian. We have modest evidence that he could have attended the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325. That's pretty much it.

We do, however have intimate knowledge of the modern permutation of the legendary Nicholas, in the guise of St. Nick, aka Santa Claus.

Most of what we attribute to our modern Santa comes from legend involving Nicholas--things that endeared him to sailors, pawnbrokers, and most importantly, children. Many of the stories involving him are about giving money to those in need. The most spectacular legend about him (and my personal favorite) is the one where he raises from the dead three boys who had been killed and stuffed in a barrel.

We say we know who Nicholas was, but really, we know his larger-than-life, legendary shadow.

Our readings today focus on the disenfranchised--the poor and children--in both our Old Testament reading and from the Gospel.

We certainly know some legends about poor people, don't we?

Poor people are lazy and don't want to work.

Poor women are promiscuous and have lot of babies by different fathers.

Poor men are irresponsible and can't be depended upon.

Poor people by definition, do drugs, and drink a lot. They smoke a lot, too. They are poor because they spend the money they have on drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. They go to the ER and have drug-seeking behavior.

Poor people really aren't THAT poor, because in the U.S. they are often fat. They have cell phones. Some of them have bigger TV sets than mine. Some of them drive nicer cars than mine. They're not poor.

Poor people will always be poor. They don't want to help themselves.

There are two things I know for sure about legends. One is that somewhere in the legend is a kernel of truth. The other is, legends are easier to buy into when I have never met or interacted with the people of the legend.

That's the problem with legends. Sometimes there's a lot of baloney wrapped around that kernel of truth that obscures why the kernel of truth got there in the first place. Unraveling the baloney is tiring, a lot of work, and the amount of work involved is daunting enough to discourage us from ever accepting the possibility that there are other ingredients in this roll, and that there is a possibility that by changing some of the ingredients, the lives of individuals trapped in the legend can change for the better.

Now, as it worked out, the legend of St. Nicholas worked out to be one mostly used for good. It's good to have a legend where generally, it encourages us to be kind and generous to others, and it comes at a time of the year where I always hope the generosity of the season sticks with all of us.

But there's a problem with the St. Nicholas legend. The world of St. Nick's evolved character, Santa Claus, is also a world where all we have to do is make a list of our wants, be nice for a little while, leave out some cookies and milk, and we will get what we want. After all, we were "deserving" because we could manage to be nice for a little spell, right?

Happy legends are comfortable. They make us feel better. We don't have to move much outside ourselves to exist within them.

We can get that way a little bit about Legendary Jesus, too.

Legendary Jesus--rather white and fair for a Middle Eastern kinda guy, in a clean white robe, and with more teeth than a person of that era ought to have. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Loves the little children. All the children of the world. Oddly enough, it's those truck stop gift shop prints of "Jesus and the children" that distress me the worst. Oh, these days those kids come in various colors on that print, but it's what is NOT in the picture that bugs me.

There are no mentally challenged kids. There are no kids with physical deformities. There are no kids scarred by abuse, no kids dirty from neglect, no kids fearful of Jesus because a man who looked a little like him sexually abused them. There are no kids with bruises because the other kids bullied them. There are no kids wondering about their sexual orientation. There are no visibly malnourished kids.

The obscurity of Nicholas reminds us that there was probably much, much more to his life that was real, that would ask us to go deeper to love him the way we love Jolly Old St. Nick. In that, we should be reminded there is much to following Jesus that goes deeper to feeling good as Christians about Legendary Jesus and calls us to get a little dirty searching for the truth of the message of Real Jesus.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

The banner headline at the Daily Office site I frequent reads: Frances J. Gaudet, Educator and Prison Reformer, 1934.

Prison reformer.... The week after The Feast of the Incarnation is usually festive --folks take time off from work, school, or travel to see family and friends and all the like. We still have another week to celebrate Christmas, Emmanuel, the mind-blowing and radical notion that God is not 'out there,' but is indeed With Us.

However, the liturgical calendar has been unrelenting this week: St. Stephen, Deacon & Martyr; St John the Evangelist; Holy Innocents; Thomas Becket.... --from being stoned to death, to the strange ecstasy of eagle vision, to the murder of innocents, to the betrayal of love and loyalty... and now, today, we are being asked to enter in to prayer and remember prison, prisoners and prison reform.

Unrelenting, indeed. My personal longing and desire to remember Christmas joy and the delight of Incarnate Love and Reconciliation seems drowned in blood... imprisoned in the remembering of our violent histories.

Is there not one day of just plain ordinary Christmas?

Frances J. Gaudet, Educator and Prison Reformer, 1934. Why? I googled the name. I half expected Frances to be a man... but she's a she --a prison reform worker and educator, was born in a log cabin in Holmesville, Mississippi of African American and Native American descent.

She has my sudden attention and respect. There are too many obstacles in her way before she even begins --in a world rampant with racism and gender bias. And yet, she persists. Pushing for help for juvenile offenders who also have the world of race and poverty built against them. Building schools. Helping prisoners of all stripes....

I have served as a volunteer chaplain at the Richmond City Jail. I enter the world of concrete and iron bars and am always humbled by the fervent prayer, the longing, the pain --the knowledge that even when one is released from the jail, the patterns of life that lead to 'the big house' are not so easily left behind. Families and neighborhoods reek with violence and poverty, and resources seem to be more liberally spent on incarceration rather than food, school, housing, job training... hope.

In this bundle of remembering the martyrs and the murdered, the coin suddenly flips. There is room here for joy, for rejoicing. Frances J. Gaudet, Educator and Prison Reformer, 1934. She took her own mortal and imperfect human flesh and worked to free the prisoner, to feed their souls and spirits with hope and love. Not with words, rhetoric or advocacy, but with her own life. Against all odds.

From the lectionary for the Eucharist (John 13:34-35)

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

May we all find the ways to respond to the call to love. There is no better way to celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation.

The Rev. Margaret Watson will soon be relocating from Richmond, Virginia to Eagle Butte, South Dakota to work on the Cheyenne River Episcopal Mission. She keeps a daily morning prayer blog at Leave It Lay Where Jesus Flang It.

Commemoration of the Ordination of Florence Li Tim-Oi

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;
save me, and I shall be saved;
for you are my praise.
See how they say to me,
‘Where is the word of the Lord?
Let it come!’
But I have not run away from being a shepherd in your service,
nor have I desired the fatal day.
You know what came from my lips;
it was before your face.
Do not become a terror to me;
you are my refuge on the day of disaster;
Let my persecutors be shamed,
but do not let me be shamed;
let them be dismayed,
but do not let me be dismayed;
bring on them the day of disaster;
destroy them with double destruction!
--Jeremiah 17:14-18

Jeremiah was getting it from both sides. His adversaries are scornful because his prophecies have not happened and God didn't seem to be too attentive to him at the moment. One can forgive Jeremiah for being a bit unhappy with the situation of the moment; however, he does remind God that he has been obedient, faithful and dutiful in proclaiming the message he was given to pass on, just like he was supposed to. Furthermore, God knew it because Jeremiah did his proclaiming to God's face, so there.

There was a woman, millennia later, who would have had every reason to ask why despite her faithful service, her ministry was limited and God didn't seem to be in too big a hurry to change that. Li Tim-Oi, "Much Beloved Daughter", was both a pioneer and a lightning rod. Ordained as the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion in 1944, serving as a priest in the Japanese-occupied colony of Macau (at that time, Maçao) when male priests were prohibited to travel from Hong Kong to Macau to bring the sacraments. She served quietly but effectively until, after the war had ended, her ordination became a cause célèbre around the Anglican world. She voluntarily gave up her license to act as a priest in the name of peace, but never relinquished her vows and anointing from her ordination. She served and suffered in China during some of the most brutal years of the Communist takeover, but was able to start again in public ministry when the churches in China were reopened in 1979, sixteen years after their closure. In 1981 she was able to visit family members in Canada where she later settled, and on that visit was licensed once again as a priest, this time in the Diocese of Montreal and later Toronto. She died in Canada in 1992.

As much as Li Tim-Oi suffered at the hands of the Japanese and the Communists, the rejection by her church of her priestly vocation must have been one of the hardest battles she had to endure. This time the adversary wasn't the armed enemy but those who were members of the same family. Jeremiah must have felt sort of the same way. It's hard to be a prophet, and it's hard to be the first. It's hard to face an enemy but even harder to face brothers and sisters of one's own spiritual family. Li Tim-Oi was the first but not the last. Two women were ordained in Hong Kong in 1971, eleven women in Philadelphia in 1974 and four in Washington in 1975. Canada approved women's ordination in 1975. Other provinces have followed but not all have yet accepted the ministry of women in the priesthood. For those early women priests, however, it was a struggle, and it still continues to be a struggle in some parts of the world. Florence Li Tim-Oi, though, was and is a beacon that will shine brightly wherever women are called by God and assent to that call. Like Mary at the annunciation, there is a choice to say yes or no to God’s call -- and the ramifications of an assent is life-changing. Jeremiah said yes and, even when whiny, kept his focus on what his job was. Li Tim-Oi had that choice and said yes in her turn. It probably would have been easier to renounce the whole thing when oppression came, but she never succumbed to that option.

Florence Li Tim-Oi never made a big noise in the world with powerful speeches and public appearances, but her faithfulness, dedication and grace in the face of hardship and suffering mark her as truly a "holy woman."

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Psalm 19 (Morning)
Psalm 119:89-112 (Evening)
Isaiah 45:18-25
Philippians 3:4b-11
Ecclesiasticus 39:1-10
Acts 9:1-22

"Saul/Paul and the road to Damascus" is very likely etched indelibly on the brains of most Christians, and honestly, there is very little I can say about this archetype of the Christian conversion experience that hasn't already been said, and by people far more erudite than me. In fact, the story of Saul/Paul's conversion, for many of us, is the polar opposite of our own experience of "encountering Jesus." It's probably the decided minority of us that have ever heard God actually speak to us and lead us to repent and change our attitudes and behaviors towards Jesus.

Really, the only conversion I know very much about at all, has to do with another of my passions--college football. In college football, one of the most exciting things (especially in the fourth quarter of a close game) is that a kicked point after touchdown is worth one point, and one that is run or passed across the goal line is worth two points. In fact, in the NCAA overtime format, once two teams have reached triple overtime, it's mandatory that the two point conversion be employed.

Various sources attribute the success rate of a two point conversion between 40 and 55 percent. The two point conversion, in college football, creates a risk/reward between the win and the tie, or the win and the loss. It has been so extensively statistically studied that in the 1970's, when Dick Vermeil was coach at UCLA, he actually developed a formula of when to "go for two" that is still cited and used in college coaching today.

Perhaps that is really the crux of the Christian conversion experience--when in our lives do we simply take the easy near-sure thing and "kick for one" rather than "run it for two?"

I'm afraid in the world of spreading The Good News In Christ, the institutional church in the past century, has been too complacent to "kick for one"--and the result is declining membership in the mainline denominations. The non-denominational megachurches, however, "run for two" at a rate far more than their mainline counterparts. The result is often increased membership. However, the flip side of that is recent studies show that this "increased membership" is often the result of shifting alliances rather than new converts. Megachurch attendees shop--and when they are no longer entertained, they move on.

Of more concern is the data in recent Gallup polls that show the numbers of people who attend church hovers at 30 percent year after year, but the number of people who never attend church continues to increase.

This is just a guess on my part, but it seems to me that a worthwhile strategy to explore in sharing The Good News In Christ and teaching people to desire that as a lifelong proposition is to first examine our own lives. When are the times in our lives in Christ that we risked "going for two?" What did we learn as a result of both our failures and successes? Did we use our two point conversion attempt wisely or foolishly?

Likewise, when are the times we really needed to kick for the relatively safe point after touchdown? Did we do that, or did we get impatient, risk going for two, and fail?

Perhaps then, we should extrapolate it into the lives of our parishes in terms of outreach and evangelism.

When is the last time your parish took a decided risk in "going for two" in terms of reaching out to the disaffected, the lonely, and the marginalized?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Psalm 62:6-9
Genesis 28:10-17
2 Corinthians 2:14-17
Matthew 6:19-23

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” ~Genesis 28:10-17 (NRSV)

Just as Jacob saw a window into Heaven and a means to provide a means for a flow of traffic between the realm of God and the realm of humanity via "Jacob's Ladder," Andrei Rublev devoted his life to creating a ladder between those two realms via iconography. His process for writing icons is outlined in Holy Women, Holy Men, page 196:

For Andrei, writing an icon was a spiritual exercise. It involved the ritual of preparing the surface, applying the painted and precious metal background and then creating the image, first outlining it in red. Throughout he would repeatedly say the “Jesus Prayer” (“Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me”). He was creating a window into the Divine which he knew was always before him but which was invisible to the human eye. He knew he was able to create such an image of God because he himself was made in the image of God. His object was to be totally focused on receiving God’s love and loving in return.

In 2010, I decided I needed an icon for my prayer corner in my house, so I turned to a modern iconographer, Luiz Coelho, to make that happen. What I had discovered by pondering many famous icons, including those of Rublev, was that sometimes the iconographer hooked the viewer to the icon via renditions of cities or places at the time the icon would have been written--creating a ladder between antiquity and the present. I was stunned that Luiz was able to do this by means of my Facebook™ photos, linking Mary as Theotokos, and the image of the young Christ as teacher, with iconic renditions of vast pasture, my church, and my red pickup truck drawing nearer to Mary and Christ on a ribbon of U.S. Highway 63. (click to enlarge icon)

What I've come to realize via using this icon as a window into the Divine, is that icons demand of us the same painstaking process Rublev used to create his icons. First, we are asked to strip ourselves to our barest wood and to imagine ourselves in divine terms--to imagine God's view of us as part of God's good creation, and to allow God the Iconographer create that image in the setting of a discipline of regular prayer. The hardest part, however, is to allow that image to be viewed by others, and to trust that they will see what they need to see when they view us. When we are icons of the Body of Christ, we aren't allowed the luxury of projecting what we wish others to see--it requires being comfortable enough to trust that the scratches and misplaced brush strokes are part and parcel of this divine icon. We don't get to force the image we wish, upon the hearts and minds of others. Instead, we are invited to trust that the image is a sufficient window, and allow others to make their own choices about that window.

What is God telling you, when you feel brave enough to pray through the holy icon of you, as God sees you in Divine Creation?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Readings for the Feast Day of the Martyrs of Japan
Psalm 16:5-11
Lamentations 3:46-48, 52-59
Galatians 2:19-20
Mark 8:34-38

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.
I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.
You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. ~Psalm 16:5-11 (NRSV)

It's absolutely horrifying to think that the story of the 26 Martyrs of Japan represents the focal point of the annihilation of a Christian community that, at least, numbered 300,000 (some scholars estimate it up to just under one million.) However, the more fascinating part of this story, to me, is "the rest of the story"--when the underground remnants of this community were re-discovered by Fr. Bernard-Thadeé Petitjean on March 17, 1865. (Actually, the covert Christians introduced themselves to Fr. Petitjean--but only after he and other missionaries had passed certain tests posed by the Japanese Christians, to confirm that these visitors, were, indeed, Christians themselves.)

For roughly two hundred and fifty years, the remnant of the original Japanese Christians, and approximately seven successive generations of their descendants had managed to keep the Christian faith alive, and relatively intact. Although a few documents and relics had been passed down, most of the faithful carried the tenets of their faith orally through snippets of remaining documents and the creation of the Tenchi hajimari no koto, a sacred book they created themselves that had an amalgam of Bible stories, elements of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, and Japanese folk tales. Many of them committed much of this to memory.

Another clever feature of their survival was that they had split among the community various sacramental duties that normally would have been under the scope of a single priest. They understood the Roman Catholic rubrics for emergency baptism and penitential rites in the absence of a priest, and divided these duties up among the community. Other duties overlapped among community members, such as the keeping of the liturgical calendar, the prayers and liturgies known as the orashiyo (from the Latin Oratio) and preserving various relics. Rather than worship as a large group, they created numerous roughly five-household cells, which interconnected to larger confraternaties or sodalities, that interconnected with each other.

But perhaps the most ingenious practice of these crypto-Christians was their creation of everyday objects indistinguishable to the eye from Buddhist tradition that were actually Christian objects of veneration. One example is a statue known as the Mariya Kannon. To the untrained eye, it appeared to be a female Buddha embracing a child--but to the faithful it was obviously the Blessed Virgin Mary and the young Jesus.

Although there were gaps in their understanding of some Sacraments (namely ordination and confirmation, since they required a bishop,) they still transmitted the knowledge of several Sacraments (particularly baptism) with amazing fidelity. When questioned by the missionaries upon their return in 1865, one woman remarked, "We celebrate the feast of our Lord Jesus on the 25th day of the month of frost. We have been told that on that day, about midnight, our Lord was born in a stable, that he grew up in poverty and suffering, and at the age of 33 he died for the salvation of our souls on the cross. Now we have the season of sorrow. Do you also have these celebrations?" (Fr. Petitjean remarked in his writings that, indeed, they were in the season of Lent at the time this story was told.)

It staggers the mind to see the complexity and detail these hidden Christians kept intact for seven generations. They re-wrote a rudimentary form of the Bible mostly from memory. They baptized their descendants. They created hidden objects of worship. They did what had to be done to keep the church alive--because their Christian faith meant that much to them. I doubt anyone would argue that even with their mistakes, gaps, and merging of Japanese folk tales into the tales of the Hebrew people, that these people were undoubtedly Christian.

As we remember not only these 26 brave martyrs, but the seven generations of crypto-Christians that carried on their legacy, let's participate in an imaginative spiritual exercise. If space aliens came tomorrow and began to wipe Christianity from the face of the earth, what would we believe were the most key aspects of our faith that we would be bound and determined to preserve? How would we disguise it? What pieces of our liturgy can you recite from memory? What are the stories in the Bible that matter most to you? Perhaps those are exactly the features we should be displaying to younger generations that are struggling to decide if the church--and God--has any relevance to their lives.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Fanny Crosby

Readings:
Ps. 108:1–6
Isaiah 42:10–12,16
1 Peter 1:3–9
John 9:35–39

I made acquaintance with Fanny Crosby long before I knew her name or her story. In the church of my childhood, there was plenty of singing, lots of songs of praise, comfort and hope featuring a loving God, a gentle shepherd, and the joys of redemption. There were plenty of songs about sin and the need for repentance too, sometimes even in the same hymn along with any of the other elements. Most were very sentimental and flowery of language, the usual poetry and prose of the Victorian era in which Fanny lived. Still, congregations loved singing them and even children could learn them by heart and consider the message they brought. They still do; my neighbor next door, a member of the same denomination in which I grew up, assures me they sung often and much loved.

One of the ones that I remember most clearly was one called "Blessed Assurance":

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood,

Refrain
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love. Refrain

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love. Refrain*

The music was credited to Phoebe P. Knapp and the lyrics to Fanny Crosby. Reading Fanny's biography, I found that the name I knew from the hymnbook I used in my childhood and adolescence was really quite a person. She wrote thousands of hymns, some of which are present in many contemporary Protestant hymnals (but not Hymnal 1982). Many of the most prominent composers of hymns of the day came to her with music already composed, asking her to fill in the lyrics. She would hear the music several times and, usually in very short order, would have a set of lyrics to go with it.

The hymns became as important to camp meeting revivals and the Holiness movement as they were to the Sunday morning services. Because of their quality, quality, quantity and endurance, Fanny was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1975, 60 years after her death. I'd never really considered her music to be "gospel", but the evangelical expressions and tone were unmistakable.

The readings for today, Fanny's commemoration, speak of many of the same things of which Fanny wrote so frequently: hope, faith, belief, praise, thanks, salvation and mercy. The readings also mention blindness and the release from blindness. Fanny may not have had a physical curing of her blindness but she truly seemed to walk in a higher light than the sun could provide. She walked unafraid in prisons and less-than-desirable neighborhoods, speaking and preaching the love and mercy of God. The glory wasn't for her but rather for God. Many were attracted to and acknowledged God as a result of her words.

Thou the Spring of all my comfort,
More than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Whom in Heav'n but Thee? **

* Accessed from the Cyberhymnal
** "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior", verse 4, lyrics by Fanny Crosby, accessed from The Cyberhymnal

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of Charles Freer Andrews
Psalm 113:2-8
Deuteronomy 15:7-11
Ephesians 2:13-22
Matthew 23:8-12

If we know of Charles Freer Andrews at all, we probably have an image of the rugged looks of Ian Charleson--"Charlie" of the movie Gandhi. A quick Google Images search, however, yields photos of a man who looks a lot more like a mad monk than the lean, handsome Charleson of Richard Attenborough's movie. Often pictured in traditional Indian garb, the real-life Andrews was noticeable by his moderately long beard and his intense, piercing eyes. The Mahatma himself claimed that Andrews' initials stood for "Christ's Faithful Apostle" because of his tireless work in India's independence and in the abolition of indentured servitude. Although the British Empire had abolished slavery, the practice of indenturing servants was alive and well in Britannia's empire.

Andrews never married--but what I have read about him led me to believe he was married to India. He was married to his sense of justice. He was married to the Christ-like notion of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. The British political hierarchy and the Church of England ecclesiastical hierarchy found him to be quite a prickly character in that regard--Englishmen who sided with the struggles of "the colonials" were generally thought to be traitors for questioning their motives and their methods. Some went to far as to denounce him as a traitor to the land of his birth and the church that had ordained him--even a traitor to the very faith he had been sent to preach.

It is surprising, in these precarious economic times, that his words and his prophetic words have fallen into relative obscurity--a quick search on Amazon.com shows several out of print (and slightly overpriced) works. He was a proponent of the Christian Socialist movement, which followed a very strict definition of the word "usury." Usury, if looked at in a biblical and historical sense, was defined by "the accumulation of wealth beyond what is required to meet the responsibilities of station"--not just as it applied to interest rates. He questioned the morality of his own Church of England's Western/Eurocentric view of Christianity, demanding it to fully embrace humanity, not just the "white races."

"If the desire of possession in a man is stronger than the sense of brotherhood," he wrote, "he may be a tyrant or a slave, or both in one. He in whom a sense of brotherhood is uppermost may suffer, even to death, but he will preserve society from destruction. Through that suffering he will surely rise to the conception of one common humanity, called into existence by one Father, redeemed by one incarnate Savior, quickened by one infinite Spirit."

Our readings today call us to truly embrace "the other," in a way far beyond money and lip service. Our Psalm praises a God who "raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people." Our passage in Deuteronomy reminds us "Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”" Paul, in Ephesians, exhorts us that we are "no longer strangers and aliens," but are "citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone." Finally, Matthew's Gospel calls each of us to servanthood, reminding us that "All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted."

Are we ready to embrace the radical discipleship of the Gospel as it was understood by the real Charles Freer Andrews, or is it easier to watch the dashing and likable Charlie in a re-run of Gandhi?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of John Roberts, Priest and Missionary (1843-1949)
Psalm: 90:13-17
Deuteronomy 31:30-32:4,32:6-12a
Acts 3:18-25
John 7:37-41

Growing up in Virginia, where history seems to ooze out of every molecule of air, water, earth and rock, it was hard not to know something about the Native American peoples who had populated the area and their relationships with the first English settlers who arrived in 1607. There was interplay in every phase of their mutual existence in that small area of green forest and sparkling water, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. When the settlers arrived, the Powhatan people did not realize that they were seeing the beginning of what became the general policy for most settler-native relationship: their own exile like the children of Israel, mutual warfare and massacres, and the end of their way of life on land they had occupied for centuries. By the time I came along, I knew there were Native Americans around somewhere, I just didn’t know where.

I found some in Phoenix when I moved here. There was a school set aside for them right in the middle of the city. Great, I thought. Give them a chance to get off the reservation, get a good education, help them get good paying jobs and make a better life than they would have had on the reservation. To my horror, I found later that I had bought into something called “forced assimilation,” a policy of the government that dated back almost to the founding of the country. Students at the Indian School, as it was called, were removed from their families at a very young age, sent to a totally strange, closed-in and frightening place, given a new name, a new hairstyle, new and strange items of clothing, different food. They were denuded of any artifact from their homes like small totems, fragments of rock, or anything else that would have connected them with their families. They were forced to speak only English, were regimented as surely as if they were in an army, and basically taught to be domestics and laborers with very little real education. The trauma of such treatment still has an effect on those who had to undergo it years ago.

Reading the biography of John Roberts, who we commemorate today, the thing that reached out and grabbed me was how different he was from probably almost every other white person the Arapaho and Shoshone people had ever seen or met. He treated them with respect, encouraging them to maintain their tribal languages, customs and traditions. He learned their languages and used those languages to preach, teach and even encourage harmony between two very different tribes of Natives Americans who were mutually antagonistic. In a sense, he was a man ahead of his time, educational philosophy-wise. Perhaps it was because he was Welsh by birth and did not grow up with the beliefs common among white people that Native Americans were savages, killers, and inferior in every way to the settlers, who had pushed them into reservations, appropriated their lands, destroyed their food chain and then tried to set them in a form of slavery. He earned respect by showing respect. In establishing missions around Wyoming along with his educational and missionary efforts on Wind River, he bridged the gap between the worlds of the non-Native Americans and the Native, doing his best to live the Golden Rule and, perhaps unwittingly, using St. Francis’ dictum to “preach always and sometimes use words.”

John Roberts, in his dual role of priest and missionary, asked to be sent to the most difficult place among Native Americans. His request was granted and he spent the rest of his very long and productive life among those he had asked to serve. I think the lesson I can take from John Robert’s life is that people are people, no matter what their outside appearance or perceived differences are. Treat them with respect and it will be returned.

Looking at Jesus among the different peoples with whom he interacted, he didn’t ask them to change their language, their location, their manner of dress or hairstyle or anything else other than their hearts. He didn’t force them, but by his words and witness he convinced them. He cured and healed them and they responded to him. John Roberts may not have done any physical curing, but I believe he did a lot of healing as he worked with people who had been sorely wounded as well as those who had done some of the wounding.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” I have a feeling John Roberts more than fits that job description.

Now where can I take his example and put it to best use in my life? I don’t think I’ll have to look very far.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of Emily Malbone Morgan, February 26
Psalm 119:137-144
Exodus 1:15-21
Romans 16:1-6
Luke 10:38-42

When I first started learning more about Emily Malbone Morgan, my first stop is almost always the Episcopal Church publication "Holy Women, Holy Men." At first, she didn't seem all that attractive an alternative to the "regular" Daily Office readings. In my mind was this image more like the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey, but with an American twist--some never-married moneyed do-gooder from one of the old, fine families of New England who went about flinging philanthropy all over the place, to the point she had even bought her way onto our Calendar of Saints. Honestly, I didn't want to be interested in her. It was only until I stumbled on another biography of her in Project Canterbury that I began to have an open mind.

What I discovered is that, although she is still a little obscured by history to me, there are parts of her life that might have more to do with 21st century realities of life than I thought. Her parents, were, indeed, from the more moneyed families of New England--but one wonders if the marriage of her parents was more about that than it was about their personalities complementing each other. Her mother was described as "otherworldly;" her father, a man of mercurial, volcanic temper outbursts--and it appears Emily's mother set out to "reform" her husband. Any of us who have lived under the shadow of alcoholism, drug abuse, or a family member with a personality disorder can perceive some recognizable patterns there. Emily and at least two of her siblings gravitated to the "helping professions"--she had a clergyman brother and a physician brother, and she devoted her life to philanthropy and prayer, creating Girls' Clubs and the Companions of the Holy Cross. Her dearest companion, Adelyn Howard had a "fatal hip disease" (which sounds a lot like chronic osteomyelitis to me, not so uncommon in the pre-antibiotic era.)

Our Gospel reading is the story of Mary and Martha, and the more I thought about it, the more I began to see that Emily Malbone Morgan was a woman with both streaks of Martha and Mary in her--and possibly constantly had to juggle the two roles in her own life. She saw visions. She was deeply committed to the value of intercessory prayer, and her companion Adelyn--an invalid who understood her own power as a dynamo of prayer even in her fragile condition--was key in Emily's understanding of these matters. Yet she was firmly a woman doing good works in the world, and used her wealth to discover places of holy wonder throughout the world. Emily shunned her own ability to provide creature comforts for herself at times, and was known to sleep on floors and in cupboards in her younger days. She chose the least attractive spot in her home, Adelynrood, for herself.

Suddenly, I began to see her life in a different light. At first, I couldn't see anything this woman had to offer me, because of the money. I grew up more or less running three steps ahead of poverty. But as I begin to read her family story (or should I say "hear" it?) I began to see who she was in the light of family dysfunction, and how many of us live lifestyles "below our means" at times, when we start to hear the call of living in Christ, and how many of us end up in the pull of the "helping professions" like the pull of a magnet. I thought of a key player in my own life in terms of learning to serve others with love--my late friend Ben, who had muscular dystrophy. I spent a good portion of my 20somethings accompanying him and chauffeuring him various places because he could not walk or drive. I used to push his wheelchair into amazing places in the pre-handicap-accessible world of the early 1980's, even goofing up a few times and causing him a few bumps and bruises, which he stoically bore as a result of my enthusiastic over-estimations.

Gender, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or lifestyle all begin to be less of a barrier the moment we begin to see things in others, that are like ourselves. Praying for others, praying for all sorts of conditions of humans and humanity, praying for those we don't even know all are gentle waves that lap at the seawall of what divides us. Instead, those prayers link us like gossamer threads to people and places that are beyond our capacity for reason or recognition--but without it, we become more Dowager Countess-like ourselves--it's all beneath us.

Is it possible--just possible--that the things we believe that we have changed our hearts and minds about, have actually been answers to the prayers of others, and it was never about "us" at all?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Psalm 97:1-2. 7-12
Ezekiel 36:33-38
1 Thessalonians 2:2b-12
Matthew 28:16-20

The commemoration of Patrick of Ireland is certainly one of the more popular saints' days on the calendar. Even people who aren't Irish by birth, marriage, adoption or the grace of God find something green in their closet to wear, have a craving for corned beef and cabbage, and go to pubs to drink green colored beer. Whole waterways turn green which, on any other day would cause great alarm, are treated as a lark on March 17th. Parades are held, special blessings given, little lads and lasses perform the steps they so carefully learned in their step-dancing classes, leprechauns pop up everywhere, and, in general, even if someone isn't really Irish they do something to celebrate. Sure and begorrah, 'tis a fine day, even if it's pouring rain, because it celebrates Patrick and all things Irish -- except, perhaps, those for whom orange rather than green is the color of celebration. But, I imagine, even they wouldn't turn down a glass raised in honor of Ireland's most notable adopted son.

While Patrick surely didn't chase the snakes out of Ireland, he did do a lot of traveling, preaching and converting. A Briton by birth, he was captured and sold into slavery by Irish pirates, being freed (or perhaps escaping) six years later and returned home to his family and to prepare to become a priest. In a way it seems ironic that he was sent to serve in Ireland, the place where he had been a slave. Still, he went to Armagh and went about his job as a priest and then as a bishop.

Patrick left us his story in the form of a confession like Augustine wrote and he left some letters. Best of all, he left (or folks attributed it to him) one of the most beautiful poem-prayers in Christendom, at least in my very humble opinion. It's included in numerous hymnals, including the 1982, and is usually sung when a very long processional hymn is needed (or at an ordination). I refer to Hymn # 370, generally known as "St Patrick's Breastplate." The congregation almost always groans when the bulletin or hymn board (or power point) indicates this is the hymn that will be sung, simply because of it's length and 90% minor key. Pagan friends refer to it as a binding spell, while Christians prefer to call it a binding prayer. In a culture where there's a prayer for everything from getting out of bed to going to bed and all the tasks and problems that might be encountered during that time, this would have been a morning prayer, speaking as it does of rising and girding and the request for protection from whatever the day brings. Not a bad way to start the day.

The one section that always grasps me is the one section in a major key, one of the oldest tunes in Celtic music.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

How reassuring it must have been to Patrick to have the confidence that Christ was indeed all around him, guarding and guiding, as well as the whole Trinity, the company of heaven, the communion of saints, the prophets, the scriptures, creeds, beauties and power of nature and, ultimately God leading it all. To a new ordinand, it represents all that they are taking on as they begin that phase of their ministry. Lay folk can sing it in the conviction that they don't need special chrismation or promises to claim what Patrick did. It is, in a sort of Irish nutshell, a binding prayer, a statement of faith and a memorizable way of linking oneself to all of creation both in heaven above and earth below. By its memorization, it goes inward, to be pulled out when necessary or desired, and retained for the next morning or time.

We have a lot to thank Ireland for, including Patrick and Patrick's Lorica, the Breastplate. Who needs green beer when they can have a daily dose of poetry, prayer and statement of faith, all in one shot?

Bail ó Dhia ort - the blessing of God be on you.

(Note: The Breastplate of St. Patrick with tune and lyrics can be found at the Oremus website.)

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of Cyril of Jerusalem, March 18
Psalm 122
Sirach 47:8-10
Hebrews 13:14-21
Luke 24:44-48

Although "Holy Women, Holy Men" makes special mention of Cyril's skill in preaching, teaching, and the development of catechetical instruction, particularly with regard to creating participatory liturgies for Holy Week, I was more intrigued about another aspect of Cyril's life--he got exiled a lot.

Mostly, it seems, his exiles were related to the fact that, although he, by all accounts, was essentially adherent to the Nicene orthodoxy, he had a little trouble with totally being on board with God the Father and Jesus being totally consubstantial--he had a hard time coming around to the concept of homoousia. This often put him at odds with people who were coming down hard on bishops who exhibited even a faint whiff of Arianism. Out of his multiple exiles, though, the most interesting one was when he was exiled in 358 for selling some of the church furniture to feed people during a famine.

Cyril's life and exiles are a reminder of something that still dogs any of us who recite the Nicene Creed each week and on occasion, feel a little itchy about certain parts of its phraseology. Cyril's own itchiness didn't stop him from doing what he felt God called him to do--care for the poor in his jurisdiction, and create liturgies for Holy Week that were accessible to people of his day through movement, color, expressive poetry, and beautiful hymnody. Despite his own edginess about a piece of the Nicene Creed, he kept coming back. He kept celebrating the Eucharist. He kept trying to think of new ways to invite people to embrace the Christian experience. He didn't let the constant charges of heresy stop him from preaching and living the Gospel. He's a lesson to us to hang in there, and no matter what, keep coming back to the Eucharistic table, and let the Sacraments change our hearts and actions, rather than wrangle with the inconsistencies in our minds to the point we would die in the ditch rather than worship together.

I think about Cyril sometimes in light of what seems to happen every time we get a pile of Anglican bishops together worldwide and it seems some of them want to exclude others of them from the table, or when they start having notions that two X chromosomes make someone incapable of balancing a mitre on one's noggin. Pretty soon, people start throwing the H word around--heresy. Cyril's life and ministry reminds us that some of us are called at times, to rub the status quo the wrong way, and to truly follow Christ and obey his teachings, we may well suffer exile for our faithfulness. Time might even show us we were wrong--eventually Cyril capitulated about that whole homoousia business--but even when we are on the wrong side of an issue, it doesn't have to be a deterrent to our going about our business as a person who builds up the Body of Christ.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Óscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, and the Martyrs of El Salvador

Readings:
Psalm 31:15-24
Isaiah 2:5-7
Revelation 7:13-17
John 12:23-32

If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities.
Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted on to Christ's life, his cross and resurrection.
That is a person's measure. - Óscar Romero

He stood behind the altar, lifting his eyes to the element held above his head. The prayer stopped suddenly when a shot pierced his heart and quelled the devotion to the crucified and resurrected one present in his hands. It was not only a death in the most sacred moment of the mass but a political assassination against a man who preached peace, justice and equality in a country where dictatorship, political power and terror among the people was the norm. He was a hero to the common people of his native land but had come to be viewed as an enemy, a communist and a turncoat by the rich and powerful, even those in the church he so faithfully served.

I don't think Óscar Romero sought to be a martyr, yet he became one in the space of a single heartbeat. He studied theology first in his San Salvador, then completed his studies and was ordained a priest in Rome. He then returned to El Salvador where he was seen to be quiet, bookish, conservative and a friend of the elite who supported the military government. After his elevation to Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977 and the assassination of a Jesuit friend who was an early practitioner of liberation theology, Romero became more and more aware of the misery and suffering of the oppressed poor who did most of the labor but reaped none of the rewards. He began to speak against the injustices, disappearances, terror campaigns and murders occurring every day across the country. Romero had no illusions of his safety, and not even his position in the Roman Catholic Church could provide a shield against the military. He stated, "If God accepts the sacrifice of my life, may my death be for the freedom of my people. A bishop will die, but the Church of God, which is the people, will never perish."

He became a voice of the people, an annoyance to the elite, including some of the bishops of his own church who supported the status quo, and a thorn in the side of the military government. On the day after an address imploring the army to cease killing innocents and follow the laws of God which would lead to peace, Óscar Romero was murdered as he said mass in the chapel of the hospital in which he lived. In less than a year, four Maryknoll sisters and nine Jesuits would be dead at the hands of the same army, and the slaughter continued until 1992. Romero's name, words and examples served as inspiration through those tumultuous years and continues today far beyond the borders of El Salvador. Romero's death and that of the Maryknolls and Jesuits finally caused the world to pay attention to the civil rights violations and the need for reform, including the proper allocation of aid from outside countries, including the United States.

Sometimes it takes a tragedy to open the eyes to something that is badly in need of fixing. That's what it took for Romero, but once he made the decision that he could no longer stand by and watch, he pressed forward with every ounce of faith he had. It is easy to stand by and watch when something happens, but so much harder to stand up and do something, particularly if that action could get you thrown in prison, tortured or even murdered. In his last breath, Romero said, "May God have mercy on the assassins." I wonder, would I have the grace to say that in a similar circumstance?

I didn't know a lot about Óscar Romero when I started reading the lessons for today, but after reading about his life and ministry, he is more than a name on a textbook page about liberation theology. His is a story of growth, something that is sometimes hard to recognize until viewed in the rear-view mirror. Growth has to begin somewhere, and in Romero's case it began with personal and professional sorrow. The result of that growth was a voice for voiceless people, a model of courage in the face of overwhelming odds, and a grace in the face of death.

Monseñor Romero, las gracias estén a Dios para su vida y al testigo. Ora por nosotros. (Monsignor Romero, thanks be to God for your life and witness. Pray for us.).

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of Gregory of Nazianzus, May 9:
Psalm 37:3-6, 32-33
Wisdom 7:7-14
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 8:25-32

Almighty God, you have revealed to your Church your eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like your bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for you live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.
--collect from Holy Women, Holy Men, p. 365

Although we remember Gregory today mostly because of his golden-tongued oratorical skills and his ecclesiastical duties as Bishop of Constantinople, it's actually one of his big failures in life that catches my attention--his falling out with his friend Basil the Great. It was a breach that never was repaired, from the time Gregory was sent by Basil to be Bishop of Sasima in 372 until Basil's death in 379.

Basil and Gregory had a great deal of history together, first as fellow students, later as co-ascetics and co-authors of the Philokalia, an anthology of Origen's writings. Their combined theological minds were a great force in the understanding of Trinitarian theology at a time Christianity was threatened by the Arian heresies. But despite Gregory's intellectual prowess in all this, he carried some serious wounds and some heavy resentments. All Gregory ever wanted was to be a simple monk. Yet, despite his wishes, his father insisted that he be ordained as a presbyter. One can imagine that these resentments he held towards his father "primed the pump" when Basil, by that time, Bishop of Caesarea, had Gregory ordained as Bishop of Sasima. This appears to have been a strategic move on Basil's part to put a heavy theological hitter in a spot that would strengthen his position against Anthimus, Bishop of Tyana, but it was definitely in the boonies. Gregory once described Sasima as, "an utterly dreadful, pokey little hole; a paltry horse-stop on the main road... devoid of water, vegetation, or the company of gentlemen."

Gregory never got over this slight, as he perceived it. The move irreparably tore their friendship asunder, and it was probably the theological equivalent to the breakup of the Beatles.

The story of their breakup is a reminder how old resentments and ego can create a never ending feedback loop of blame, where two people continually pace in a circle, eyeing the other, but never getting around to taking a step forward to break the pattern. What great theological truths might have been uncovered or what knowledge could have been revealed, had they patched up their differences well enough to collaborate again?

All of us, when we think back and allow ourselves to touch our own woundedness, can recall times of irreconcilable differences with people who once were very close to us. Ex-intimate partners, of course, quickly come to mind, but we are not exploring this fully if we only confine our thoughts to "those whom with we've shared sexual intimacy." It's ironic that our jargon these days talks about BFF's--"Best friends forever," when at some point, the truth is very few BFF's seem to be around a decade, let alone "forever."

How many times has a resentment towards another person or situation come out sideways in our present relationships? What great works could be accomplished if we could reconcile with those people again? How many times does our inability to reconcile seem bound up in our own feelings more than the slight that actually caused the breach? But more importantly, how do we take that first step towards the green grass in the center, when we've perfected pacing in a circle?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Columba, Abbot and Missionary
Psalm 97:1-2,7-12
Isaiah 61:1-3
1 Corinthians 3:11-23
Luke 10:17-20
These, O my children, are the last words I address to you - that you be at peace, and have unfeigned charity amongst yourselves, and if you follow the example of the Holy Fathers, God the Comforter of the good will be your helper, and I abiding with him will intercede for you, and he will not only give sufficient to supply the wants of the present life, but will also bestow on you the good and external rewards which are laid up for those who keep his commandments. -- last words attributed to St. Columba.

Ask just about anybody to name an Irish saint, you'd probably get close to 100% naming St. Patrick. There would be many who would also name St. Brigid, but only some would think of St. Columba. Oddly enough, Patrick was born in Britain, not Ireland, but he spent his missionary life in Ireland had has become their patron saint. Brigid was Irish and stayed there and is nearly as beloved as Patrick, but Columba was born in Ireland and, after working there and establishing two monasteries, ended up in Scotland where he converted the Picts and Scots, and founded one of the most famous monasteries of the period, Iona. Iona is still a great pilgrimage site, revered as one of the world's "thin places" where heaven and earth are felt to be separated only by a thin veil rather than a concealing one, and where the nickname "Holy Isle" seems to be a common description as much as an identifying title.

His last words seem to be a summation of good advice not just for his monks but for those who read them centuries later. Instructions to live in peace and charity, follow the example of holy people, trust in God to guide and believe that their beloved Columba himself would intercede with God on their behalf was not only a statement of utter faith but a concern for their future wellbeing, a condensation of the gospel message and an instruction in living a holy life. It's the kind of thing that strikes me as very sagacious advice even in these modern and much less monastic-minded times.

There must have been something about Columba that strangers and friends alike would recognize as a touch of the holy about him. I once met a man, a Russian Orthodox priest, who struck me as such. He spoke no English and I no Russian, yet I, blind to auras and that sort of thing, was almost dazzled by the sense of God in this man. It was as if I could see the hand of God resting on his head at every moment. Perhaps for the Irish, the Scots and the Picts, Columba had that same sort of impact.
There must be something, too, about the Holy Isle of Iona that people can sense a more immediate and tangible presence of God. Perhaps it was the prayers of Columba and his monks, followed by those of all the pilgrims who have visited since that time. Perhaps it is the remembrance of the creativity and dedication that produced such as sacred treasure as the Book of Kells. And maybe, just maybe, it's because God has a more-than-usual fondness for the place.

Columba's challenges to his monks probably weren't easy to follow, but then, the monks were more accustomed to attuning themselves to many of them than we are today in the material world. Still, there is a roadmap there for us to follow: live in peace and charity, follow the examples of the holy who lived among us, trust God to be a comforter and helper, and follow the commandments.

It probably wouldn't hurt either to remember that Columba promised to be an intercessor, a sort of ecclesiastical and celestial amicus curiae before God on our behalf. One can never have too many of those.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of Enmegahbowh
Psalm 129
Isaiah 52:7-10
1 Peter 5:1-4
Luke 6:17-23

Almighty God, you led your pilgrim people of old with fire and cloud: Grant that the ministers of your Church, following the example of blessed Enmegahbowh, may stand before your holy people, leading them with fiery zeal and gentle humility. This we ask through Jesus, the Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.
--Collect for the feast day of Enmegahbowh

Our readings today center on the act of being a messenger of God's peace, even when everything about human nature tells us we have every right to be righteously angry. The life of Enmegahbowh serves as a reminder of that virtue.

John Johnson Enmegahbowh was set aside at an early age to be a healer in the traditional Midewewin fashion (the secret society of healers among the First Peoples of the Great Lakes and Maritimes,) yet he embraced Christianity, ordained in the Episcopal Church as a deacon by Bishop Kemper in 1859, and a priest by Bishop Whipple in 1867. His last name literally means, "The one who stands before his people," (In some translations, literally, "The one who stands and prays before his people,") and as serendipity would have it, did that in amazing ways.

Enmegahbowh was a deacon in Crow Wing, Minnesota at the time the American Civil War commenced. In those days, it was common practice for young men of means who had been conscripted, to pay someone as a proxy to be enlisted into the Army. Some of the whites in the area took a "Why buy it when you can get it for free?" attitude and started tricking young Ojibway men to accompany them to St. Paul, whereupon they would get them drunk and sell them to other white men looking to avoid conscription. Some parents of the Ojibway youth came to Enmegahbowh from Leech Lake and told him of their plans to kill a Mr. Horn, the whiskey trader behind all this. His response to them was, "I am glad to hear you think me worthy to make known to me your object in visiting Crow Wing. My friends, I presume you all understand what it will bring about. If you kill the white man, you will cause a general warfare and the whites will drive us away from our country and perhaps will eventually sweep us away from the face of the earth." He begged them to give him seven days to reach General Sibley to obtain the support and paperwork to end the practice. Enmegahbowh made good on his promise, traveling by foot to St. Paul in three days.

Enmegahbowh's life as a missionary deacon and priest was far from peaceful. He was frequently involved in peacekeeping when the First Nations people had every right in the world to be angry and retaliatory. Two of his children died of exposure. He fled for his life more than once. Despite his efforts, the natives of Gull Lake were removed from the area, first to the Leech Lake reservation and later the White Earth one. Constant tension was the norm--not only tension between the Sioux and Ojibway, but religious tension between the mixed race French-Native Americans (who were mostly Roman Catholic) and the Native Episcopalians, as well as tension between natives who converted to Christianity and natives who, sick of political abuse, returned to native religions and warrior societies. He suffered from depression, and his memoirs reveal great angst and sorrow--rightly so, I believe, given what we now know through the lens of history and the treatment of Native Americans, the residue of which persists, yet today.

Yet wherever Enmegahbowh was stationed, his churches, by accounts, brimmed to overflowing, and he forged the beginnings of what we now consider "a given" in indigenous ministries--the ability to incorporate and nurture native values within the scope of the Christian experience. It's a reminder that the seeds of hope can still flourish amidst the storms of despair and angst.

None of us, as individuals, can ever fully make reparations for the cultural "sins of our fathers" that dog the American story and the story of the church. Yet God always calls to us in hope, and time and time again, we are given do-over after do-over to get it a little more right than we did before. Where is God calling each of us to put our own righteous indignation aside and hear the teachings of Jesus to spread the Gospel message, not just by words, but by a humble and contrite spirit?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of [George Berkeley &] Joseph Butler

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ And he said, ‘Go and say to this people:

“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.”
Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds,
and turn and be healed.’ -- Isaiah 6:6-10 (NRSV)

Isaiah was an advisor to King Ahaz, a real rapscallion who was determined to undermine all the religious tradition, worship and laws his grandfather, Uzziah, had followed so devotedly. If there was a commandment, Ahaz seemed bound and determined to break it. That must have kept him quite busy for a while, so it was a good thing to have a wise advisor like Isaiah to help keep an eye on things, even if his advice wasn't particularly welcome or even worthy of having attention paid to it.

The passage today is a two-parter, the first one dealing with Isaiah's call to be a voice of prophecy with God's stamp of approval on him. Isaiah was a righteous man, capable of seeing all the wrongs that were being done and being able to draw a straight line between those wrongs and the eventual result of them. Still, God could call and Isaiah would have had the opportunity to practice free will to say "No, thank you." Had that been the case, we possibly would have had the words of some other prophet in the Bible instead of Isaiah, which would have been a loss for all of us. Luckily for us, though, Isaiah was willing to undergo a trial, a burning coals on his lips, in order to be purified and perhaps even to make him take time to think about his words before he spoke them to make sure they were 100% truthful and 100% God-inspired. He passed that test, even to the point of answering God's question of "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" with the same response heard over and over in the Old Testament, "Here am I."

The second part was God's message for Isaiah to note and to pass along. It's funny, but it feels like that message was written for this time as well as for Isaiah's. Newscasts, magazines and newspapers, conversations among people, all seem to reflect the same things spoken of in the message from God. It's impossible not to read the passage and not remember the Holocaust, surely a case where eyes were blinded, ears were stopped, and minds were carefully and skillfully diverted from the atrocities that were happening right under their noses. Germany was not the only one guilty: genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Argentina, Bosnia, and Darfur, and the list keeps growing because they still keep happening. Evidently we haven't learned enough yet to see much less eliminate genocide. Newscasts, newspapers and magazines may fit them into soundbytes, but it feels like we're more interested in which celebrity or which legislator got caught doing what with whom. We seem to want diversion, not challenge.

One other thing I've noticed and that is that people are willing to be led. I look at the current economic problems and what I see are elected officials and others saying, in effect, "Vote for me and I'll take care of you" or "Trust me, I am looking out for your best interest", especially if it means the status quo remains the same or grows while the widows and orphans of whom Jesus spoke and the prophets prophesied are increasingly marginalized and the hope of the poor is taken away. Like the scribes and Pharisees, the whited sepulchers conceal corruption and decay while the exterior looks pristine. By focusing our attention on issues like gay rights and abortion which are important issues, yes, but not the only issues on the table, we have been distracted from the real problem of the economy, the increasing marginalization of the working-class poor and the uncertain employment picture. We're busy reading about Khardassian kapers while the family down the block reaches the point where they quietly close the front door and walk away from a house they bought in good faith just a few years ago but which they can no longer afford to pay for or even live in. We are busy hearing about the latest scandal on Capitol Hill while starvation runs rampant, gang rape is widespread and children are forced to become terrorists elsewhere in the world. What is wrong with this picture? What would Isaiah say to us and about it?

The main question in my mind is how would I answer the question put to Isaiah, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" I wonder if I would have his courage and his determination in the face of knowing that what he says would fall primarily on deaf ears? Could I, would I answer "Here I am, send me"? Even if I were not a recognized prophet or felt an overwhelming call from God to do this, could I still make some effort to be mindful of the things happening around me and speak out about them, hoping that even one person would see the message and answer in turn, "Here I am"?

Prophets tend to meet nasty ends, or at least periods of real trial. Today we have prophets, but our concern is more with profits. What can I do to help change that? How can I unstop my ears and eyes, open my mind and allow truth and rightness to be the guideposts?

I hope I don't open the door one morning and find a seraph on the front step with a hot coal in a pair of tongs...

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of Walter Rauschenbusch, Washington Gladden, and Jacob Riis, Prophetic Witnesses, July 2:

Psalm 72:12-17
Isaiah 46:8-11
James 2:14-18
Matthew 7:7-12

Out of the three people commemorated in this feast day, the one that I was most drawn to was Jacob Riis. Although his photography exposing the realities of slum life in the ethnic neighborhoods in New York City of the late 1800's made him one of the most famous men in America (particularly his book How the Other Half Lives,) the early years of his life were marked by extreme poverty and periods of homelessness. Rather than make his fortune in America, say "I've got mine," and go on his merry way, he devoted his life and his craft to the hope that exposing the unhealthy and unsanitary conditions of New York City's tenements would plant the seeds of change.

Because of the darkness of the alleys and tenement dwellings (court cases at the time regarding living conditions in the tenements ruled, interestingly enough, that people did not have a right to fresh air or light) he ended up being one of the pioneers of flash photography. Indeed, one of his most popular and often shown work is the photo Five Cents a Spot. Judging from the looks on the faces in the picture, the light generated from Riis' magnesium flash powder may well have been the most light the walls of the flophouse had ever seen.

Rather than carry on with words, instead I invite you to, after reading today's readings, simply browse the photographs in the links (here and here) quietly, thoughtfully, and prayerfully, inviting the Light of God to define the shadows and borders of how "the other half" in today's America lives.

What words come to mind as you view the photographs?

How is God asking you to throw light onto the darkness of poverty and despair?

What is God calling you to do in bringing God's realm closer to this realm in our broken world?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Benedict of Nursia, (480? - 547?)
Founder of Western Monasticism
Psalm 119:129-136
Proverbs 2:1-9
Philippians 2:12-16
Luke 14:27-33

Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times, at others, in devout reading.

He who labors as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands.
-- St .Benedict of Nursia

Years and years ago, I found a book by Rumer Godden called In This House of Brede, a novel whose main character is an important, respected and, admittedly, worldly person but who gives it all up to become a Benedictine nun in a cloistered monastery. The chronicle of her struggles to live up to the rules of the order and to fight her personal demons intrigued me, but so did the extended periods of silence and the ordered life of prayer and work. I was ready to sign up except for a few details --- I wasn't Roman Catholic, didn't really want to be Roman Catholic (despite loving much about the faith and practice of that church, not to mention the music), and the thought of having to get up at 3:15 every morning! Still, I loved and still love the book, getting from even the work of fiction a small sense of the peace that the holy lives of those who follow Benedict's rule in community and in practice. Still, 3:15am ---

Benedict of Nursia didn't invent monasticism, rather he molded it through his own sense of dedication to living a religious life and in his writing of the Rule, a book of short chapters that is read through in every Benedictine house and by those practicing a Benedictine way of life several times a year, year in and year out. The term Rule seems a bit harsh, like an unbending set of regulations or dogmas that must be followed and, in a sense the Rule is a set of regulations. Every year, at the very outset of an EfM group's first meeting of the term, members establish norms, rules that they agree to follow for the coming scholastic year. If there is something a person can't live with or feels they cannot subscribe to, that proposal is either reworked or removed. Ultimately, what we end up with is an agreed-upon set of guidelines which we revisit when necessary and hold ourselves to live within. The Rule is sort of like that; a person seeking to enter the Benedictine order must know what they are in for, and the rule gives them those guidelines. The Rule applies to each member, from the abbot/abbess to the oldest member to the newest novice alike. Still, there is wiggle room in parts, giving the abbot/abbess and the community a bit of leeway in enforcement when circumstances require a bit of elasticity. The rule St. Benedict wrote in the early 6th century is still the guiding force for many who embrace a life of prayer, work, service and study in the Benedictine manner.

Benedict believed in balance. He made sure that there was time during the day for the work of prayer, meditation and study, but also times for the body to be active in work that benefited the community and could provide a necessary service for the surrounding village or villages as well as bringing in income for the monastery's needs. One thing that speaks most strongly to me is that at the beginning of Lent each year, each member is given a book to read, selected by the abbot or abbess, and they are expected to read it as part of their Lenten observance. Frankly, I would have a horror of being given something weighty and ponderous, maybe like something from Augustine, but then, it might be not just a good practice for Lent but also something I would find I needed to read, whether or not I really wanted to. It seems it would be an exercise in trust, trust that what I was given was not a whim but a considered decision given in love rather than given as punishment. It would also be an exercise in obedience, something Benedict stresses many times in his Rule.

Balance. Now there's something the world could stand to learn from Benedict and his followers. Out in the world we are so busy, busy, busy -- trucking the kids to ballet and soccer, rushing to work, rushing home to cook, clean and mow -- it's no wonder we are always exhausted. Even on vacation we're rushing from activity to activity, place to place, museum to amusement park to whatever we think we can't afford to miss or have the children miss. Benedict knew that it was necessary for the body to do something manual, something physical, to keep it running efficiently and also to do a share to provide for the needs of the community as a whole. He also understood, though, that there needed to be time to sit, to pray and meditate, to listen and learn, to study and exercise the mind as much as the body had been exercised. Even in work, however, there should be a spirit of prayer included, a listening of the heart as the hands were busy cultivating, mopping, cooking, caring for an ill member, or tending to the laundry. I need a bit more balance in my life, and I'm not always self-disciplined enough to do it alone.

I will, though, try to take Benedict's words about laboring while praying to heart. I notice that he doesn't say "Pray while laboring," which makes work the main focus with prayer as just a sort of add-on. I think of my iPod, my lifeline and "white noise" that I use at work. Usually I have Baroque church music on (with an occasional nod to the joke, "I can't believe it's not Rutter!") and I find myself mentally reciting or singing the words along with the recording. I think of it as a sort of Buddhist prayer-wheel that keeps sending prayers heavenward even after the last person to pass by them has gone. Maybe, in a very small, very odd way, I have at least part of Benedict's lesson right. Now I just need to reverse the order and let my work be as much a prayer as the music is now.

Maybe I could make better use of the 3:15-3:30 A.M. awakening I usually have. The boys usually start getting antsy for breakfast about then, and once they have me awake I seldom get fully back to sleep. Perhaps that's a nudge to use the time more profitably than merely pounding the pillow and turning over with a deep sigh. I'll have to give that some thought.

And maybe I just need to follow one rule of Benedict's, "Listen and attend to the ears of the heart." That's an internal cultivation that I think would be most profitable -- at any time of the day.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Psalm 11
Joshua 2:1-21
Colossians 3:1-4
John 19:10-15

Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” John 19:11 (NRSV)

Although this feast day actually honors the 23,000 known individuals who helped relocate Jews in Nazi-occupied countries during the Holocaust, five particular people are set apart on this day by example: Raoul Wallenberg, Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV, Carl Lutz, Chiune Sugihara, and André Trocmé, who in many ways emulated Rahab the prostitute in our Hebrew Bible reading today. Like Rahab, each was an unlikely ally in a subterfuge where the end result was the sparing of many lives.

Out of these five people, I find Chiune Sugihara's calls to me most. Sugihara (and his wife Yukiko) somehow found within themselves to generate, by hand, a month's worth of paperwork a day, for 29 days, in the form of transport visas, that would save the lives of roughly 40,000 Jewish refugees. It's an amazing story that illustrates the paradox between a call to obedience vs. a call to righteous living--and how a single life can possibly hold the trump card in the balance.

"Obedience" had most likely been ingrained in Chiune Sugihara's maternal DNA for generations. He was from a samurai family who adhered to the code of Bushido, which stressed loyalty to country and family above all else, and ritual suicide for acts that shamed either authority. Yet, even before he became the Japanese consul general in Kaunas, Lithuania, he had experienced several tests of that loyalty. A brilliant student, his father wanted him to pursue a career in medicine. Sugihara went against his father's wishes and studied literature, English, and later, Russian. While studying Russian, he once again displayed an individualistic streak and converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. He rose high and fast in the ranks of the Diplomatic Corps as a result of his disciplined, obedient character. Yet, when faced with a crowd of Jewish refugees, desperate to flee the Nazis, at the consul gates in July 1940, he chose to disobey his superiors and help them.

Three times he wired Tokyo for permission to issue transit visas. Three times he was denied.

Sugihara, after discussion with his family, decided to issue them anyway, and issue them he did. He and Yukiko filled out visas by hand and registered them, over 300 a day, for 29 days, barely eating or sleeping, hands aching from cramps and spasms, until the consulate closed. He was still filling out visas from the train window as it was pulling out of the station, and in a final gesture, gave his visa stamp to a refugee who used it to save even more refugees.

What tipped the balance for Chiune Sugihara, between obedience to worldly authority and obedience to a higher authority? Historians believe it may well have been an eleven year old boy, Zalke Jenkins (also known by the anglicized name, Solly Ganor.) He met the boy in a chance encounter at his aunt's store, and had given him two Lithuanian lit (two Lithuanian dollars) as a result of overhearing his desire to go see a Laurel and Hardy movie. The boy was so touched he invited Sugihara's family to celebrate Hanukkah with his family. The Sugiharas were so delighted and touched by the celebration they became good friends with the family. Ironically, when Sugihara started issuing visas, Zalke/Solly and his father could not use them--they were Russian, not Lithuanian, citizens. They were sent to Dachau, and, in another twist of fate, survived--moving to Israel after the war.

As a result of his actions, Sugihara and his family did suffer disgrace. He was unceremoniously dumped by the Japanese Diplomatic Corps in 1947, and worked many tedious and menial jobs for the remainder of his working days, even selling light bulbs door-to-door for a spell. He never regretted his decision, and said so publicly many times. Although he was granted the honor of "Righteous Among the Nations" in Israel, at his death, his neighbors had no idea what he had done until a large Israeli contingent showed up at his funeral.

Sugihara's story is a reminder that any of us may be called at any moment to obey a higher authority. Are we open to that possibility? Are we also open to the possibility that what we often dismiss as "chance" is not chance at all, but Divine intervention? Finally, are we open to the possibility that we might be the agent of change, the one who tips the balance, in someone else's moral dilemma, when we act in a spirit of truth?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Thomas à Kempis, monk, priest, and writer
Psalm 33:1-5, 20-21
Ecclesiastes 9:11-18
Ephesians 4:32-5:2
Luke 6:17-23

Man proposes, but God disposes.

Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.

Out of sight, out of mind. The absent are always in the wrong.

All men commend patience, although few are willing to practice it.

Wherever you go, there you are.

Do not be angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

-- Thomas a Kempis

Thomas à Kempis was one of the quiet men of the world whose name is more familiar now than perhaps it was during his lifetime (ca 1380-1471). He was born in Kempen, Germany, a town with which Thomas Hammercken was to later be identified (Kempis). He attended a school run by an order called Brothers of the Common Life, and was so drawn to the life of simplicity, prayer and community that at age 19 he entered the monastery of Mount St. Agnes, under the auspices of the Brothers and whose prior was his own brother, John. He remained there for the remainder of his life, immersed in prayer, priestly duties and books -- reading them, copying them, and finally writing them. It is through one of his books that he is best known today; the Imitation of Christ is a compendium of wisdom in how to become more Christ-like in one's daily life. It is still one of the most-read and loved classics of religious literature.

What I didn't realize about Thomas à Kempis was that he reminded me of Benjamin Franklin. Although the two were as different as chalk and cheese, both men had a way of putting a lot of wisdom in a few words, culled from the larger works in which they appeared, and which bring to mind the same kind of sayings found in the wisdom books of the Bible, notably Proverbs. All deal with life, living, relating, doing, thinking and becoming, whether a quip from Poor Richard, a saying from Solomon (or another writer in Proverbs) or a bit of wisdom from Thomas. The difference is focus -- the life in the world, the life of the world, and the life of God.

Thomas's Imitation of Christ was and is a rule of life, a spiritual discipline, through which a follower becomes more attuned to God and in so doing becomes more Christ-like. Francis, Benedict and others wrote rules of life for those following their spiritual paths, but like Thomas's, they were more guidelines than straightjackets, quite often the kind of approach that Mama referred to as "the iron hand in the velvet glove.". They are rules of community and there are penalties for disturbing that sense of community, but punishment is to encourage growth, much as pruning a rosebush produces new growth, with more and bigger blooms. Rules of life give a structure in which the soul functions and stretches toward God. All the rules of life and community, though, have a strong foundation upon which the rest of the rule is built and that foundation is prayer. Prayer provides the direct connection with God and the opportunity to not just have petitions heard or thanksgivings expressed but to hear what God is saying.

Thomas provides us with a beautiful prayer:

Grant me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know,
To love what I ought to love,
To praise what delights thee most,
To value what is precious in thy sight,
To hate what is offensive to thee.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes,
Nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant men;
But to discern with a true judgment between things visible and spiritual,
And above all, always to inquire what is the good pleasure of thy will.

To me, that sounds like a rule of life all by itself. The thing to do now is to pray it and then consider it in light of what God wants. I would add one thought to it, though. To Thomas's "To hate what is offensive to thee" I would add, "What is really and truly offensive to thee, not what I think (or even someone else thinks) is offensive to thee." In short, I need to ask that I never substitute my opinion for God's. Hmmm....sounds a little like something paraphrased from Dr. Phil.

I've never read Imitation of Christ from cover to cover but I think I should put it on my reading list -- right near the top. I have a feeling I may find more pearls of wisdom in it than I can find by Google or even by Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. I think I'd find Thomas a Kempis a whole lot less intimidating than many of his spiritual brothers like Aquinas or Augustine. Besides, Thomas was devoted to books. I have a feeling he understood that a good book is not just something that improves you or entertains you but keeps you company, even when you're alone or living in isolation.

Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying, or meditating, or endeavoring something for the public good. Sounds like good advice.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel and Henry Purcell

Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.
-- Psalm 150 (KJV)

There are some times I read the lessons for the day and wonder, "What's that all about?" Today, though, with the commemoration readings, I don't have that problem -- mostly. Today I just couldn't read the psalm from even such a clear and well-loved source as the NRSV. Today I had to go back to the psalm I learned as a child in the KJV version, a version with which at least two of the three musicians honored today would have been familiar.

The first "adult" recording I ever asked for as a child (I was about 10) was Handel's Messiah. I had read about it in a book and wanted to hear it so I asked for it as a Christmas present. In it I found not just a familiar story but a kind of music that touched me in a way the familiar hymns and songs of the church of my childhood just couldn't reach. It sort of puzzled my family, who thought Lawrence Welk was sublime (and which sort of made me gag), but they went along with me. It began a love affair with music of that period that sticks with me today and is my music of choice.

For me, Bach, Handel and Purcell form a sort of almost-holy trinity, perhaps "a little lower than the angels" but certainly not far from them and definitely a step above a lot of folks. Of course, I'd add others -- Byrd, Tallis and a few more -- to that level, but the church has chosen these three for this day and that works for me. Each of them has a niche in the realm of church music that is theirs alone, yet together they represent a part of our church tradition that is still, in some places anyway, still practiced today. The tunes might not be as catchy as some (like some of the Taizé chants or contemporary praise music) or things you might hear being whistled on the street or hummed while doing housework, but they are like a banquet of sound rather than a drive-thru Happy Meal, in my humble opinion.

As has happened so often before, we are again in a period where we are looking at how we "do" church, how tradition meets the modern world, how we appeal to the youth and young adults and draw people to the community and faith that we have found within our parishes and missions. We look at tradition, the "why we do what we do and believe what we believe," and decide that since our numbers are declining and this other church over in the next street is growing like wildfire, we therefore must clean house and adopt what they have found successful, whether or not it really fits or is comfortable for us. We must build new buildings if they do or appear to the rest of the community to be unsuccessful, offer services at the times they do so we don't infringe on other activities planned for that day, add more variety to the way services are done to make them more "relevant" and appealing, and, in short, copy what seems to be working for them, whether or not it works for us. While progress is inevitable and change is often necessary, sometimes it is as cathartic as creation -- or as painful as death.

There are parts of the tradition that do need to be challenged - like the role of women, equality in marriage and ability to answer God's calling to ministry or the episcopacy, challenging faith and encouraging thinking about what it really is that we believe and why. What does our faith say about us and how we perceive the message of Jesus and, more importantly, how it affects what we do and how we pass along that message? What parts of tradition, though, are the cornerstones or the keystones of the arch? What does tradition offer us that we can't find anywhere else? What needs demolishing, what needs to be spruced up a bit and what needs to be build afresh?

It's hard these days to know what parts of tradition to keep and which to ditch. There are parts that are definitely needing change. Those parts are the ones that limit or demean parts of the Body of Christ while elevating others at the expense of those being limited or demeaned. There are also parts of tradition that, I believe, need to be retained, not just seen as nice little artifacts to be trotted out periodically like Mama's good china on holidays, Sundays and special occasions. For me, the music of Bach, Handel, Purcell and others fit that category. They need to be out there and heard, not necessarily only at royal weddings or coronations, Christmas or Easter. We are so much in the world -- the exposure to a little heavenly stuff can only be a good thing now and again.

My playlist for today: B Minor Mass (Bach), Coronation Anthems (Handel) and Te Deum and Jubilate Deo (Purcell). That should keep my ears (and heart) busy and raised heavenward for this morning. Maybe the afternoon as well.... Now where did I put my timbrel?

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Psalm 36:5–10
Ruth 2:5–12
Romans 12:9–13
John 11:1–7, 17–44

John 11:1–7, 17–44 (NRSV:) Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go."

Sometimes I wonder if we don't look at Mary, Martha, and Lazarus too doggone piously. What seems clear is that Jesus had a relationship with them that was more like...well...buddies. BFF's. His peeps. Mates, had he been Australian. One gets the distinct feeling that when Jesus hung out with them, he could just "take his collar off," so to speak, and just be Jesus. He didn't have to bother with his professional role as Son of God. He could burp loudly at the dinner table, scratch his butt, and fart, and they'd laugh and harass him good-naturedly. I'm sure it was a little tricky at times. It was probably one of those things that psychologists and sociologists call "dual relationships"--something many professional folk have to work through in small towns or close-knit communities. The boundaries are there, but they're a little hard to see at times. When we know a professional in a non-professional setting, we sometimes forget who that person really is in the eyes of others. When we're the professional, we long for people in our lives that treat us like regular folk, but we still have to be careful to preserve certain boundaries and limits. We mess it up more than we'd like to admit.

It's irritating that some of the people who write commentaries dump on Martha in this story, sometimes inferring that Martha was behaving sinfully or self-servedly. I think she was just deeply in shock and grief, and recognized she didn't need Jesus their buddy, she needed Jesus the Son of God. But she was used to talking to Jesus her buddy. I suspect when Jesus was having dinner at Martha's house, she told him things like "Get up, so I can clean under that chair. Stop bothering me while I'm fixing dinner. Go sit down and read the Torah and get out of my hair. I know you're hungry--but this stuff doesn't cook itself. If you wanted to be a real help, why don't you take this stuff and turn it into dinner like you turned water into wine at Cana! What good are ya, anyway?" She probably bossed him around a bit in her house. After all, it was HER house.

More than likely, she was just hurting and it came out sideways, much the same way we accidentally come off mean or hurtful to those closest to us. We tend to launch on the ones we love the most--after all, they're supposed to be able to read our minds and understand intuitively, right?

Add to the mix that Jesus has also seemingly lost one of his best friends to the reality of death. He wept over Lazarus' passing. I suspect this was not a brave sniffle or two but real heavy-duty wailing and waterworks, because it got the attention of the looky-loos that tagged along. One can just imagine them going, "Hey, he's really crying about this!"

It's a story that most of us can find ourselves endeared to everyone in the story, if we choose to hear it from the point of every character in it. Martha? Wounded and grieving to the core and angry? Been there, done that. Jesus? Losing one of the few people in this world who probably really understands us, not a spouse yet an intimate friend, but surrounded by people who expect him to behave like "the professional Jesus?" Yep, we can go there too...and Lazarus? Dead to what's going on around us and bound and waking up without a clue? Oh yeah!

It's a great story to remind us of the power of love in the middle of the messiness of love--and whatever boundaries separate us in our common life toghether, God has a way to work with them.

Our culture rewards love--but only to a point. We tend to think of love only in terms of romance, marriage, partnership--"that special someone"--and the extensions of it via our progeny. I've always thought it a shame that we use one word for where the Greeks used three--filios, eros, and agape--love like we have for siblings, romantic/sexual love, and the kind of love that is just plain awe for things bigger than us. We act like eros has the trump card--but in reality all three are equally powerful and help us understand the kind of love God has for us. What we see in the Lazarus story is the power of filios and agape. We sell our ability to love short when we ignore these two at the expense of eros.

What happens in our lives when we admit the depth of the love we have for our friends? What changes for us when we love despite the boundaries that confuse it? How does admitting the power of filios and agape change us in our life journey as followers of Jesus?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Ignatius of Loyola - (1491-1556), Monastic, theologian, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
Psalm 34:1-8
Proverbs 22:1-6
1 Corinthians 10:31 - 11:1
Luke 9:57-62

Act as if everything depended on you; trust as if everything depended on God. -- Ignatius of Loyola

Growing up a good little Southern Baptist girl, we didn't hold much truck with people who had "Saint" in front of their name. Ok, the gospel writers were big names, as were the disciples, Paul, occasionally Mary, Jesus' mother, and Mary Magdalene (in the role she was assigned in the 5th century, not the 1st), Valentine and, of course, Saint Patrick. In fact, I think Patrick was the only one I ever heard of referred to with the name "Saint." Likewise I never heard of Benedict, Francis, Dominic, and Ignatius who were all monastics and whose words still touch the world today. I've come to begin seeing the saints, including the monastics, as friends and guides and I'm glad I've found them.

Iñigo Oñaz López de Loyola was born in privilege and followed the path of many of his contemporaries by joining the army. At age 30 he was critically wounded in the leg and returned home from the wars. During his convalescent he needed to keep his mind occupied so he asked for romance novels to read but the only books available were religious ones. He read them and reached a crossroads that changed the whole focus of his life. Over the next years he studied, made friends, preached, was a prisoner of the Inquisition twice, and finally, with the approval of the Pope, formed the Society of Jesus, known familiarly as the Jesuits, as an order devoted to poverty, chastity and obedience and with a focus on mission and education.

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius are the foundation of the Jesuit order, just as the Rule of St. Benedict guides the Benedictines and the rule written by Francis does the same for the Franciscans. The Spiritual Exercises are a four-week series of meditations, reflections and practices that encourage the person to perfect their own life and mold it to more completely to reflect the true image of Christ. One exercise that I find particularly interesting is the one where I imagine myself in the middle of a piece of scripture, see who is standing where and saying what, who is responding, who is acting and how. It's not just about seeing the scene, it's finding insights and asking God where the lesson is that I am supposed to learn from the story and the insight I gained from it.

The quote from Ignatius sounds like some pretty good advice, particularly in light of reflecting on life and mission. "Christ has no hands but ours," as Teresa of Avila, another monastic, once said. Ignatius was getting at the point that one person can--and should--make a difference, acting as if fixing the world's problems depending solely on them, but with the caveat of believing that God can be trusted to give all that is needed. I'm sure Mother Teresa didn't think she could solve all the problems of the world, but even in her darkest moments, she acted as if helping the poor was her job, making life better for them was her mission, but trusting that God would help to accomplish all that needed to be done. Ignatius seems to have invented the "act as if" statement long before it became a slogan and a way of describing a path to follow.

I think the lesson I learn from Ignatius is that imagination can lead to insights, insights can lead to understanding, understanding can lead to action, and action can be built on trust. I can also pray a prayer attributed to Ignatius:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me. ~Amen

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Commemoration of St. Clare of Assisi, nun
Readings:
Psalm 63:1-8
Song of Solomon 2:10-13
1 Peter 4:1-2
Luke 12:32-37

What you hold,

may you always hold,

What you do,

may you always do and never abandon.

But with swift pace, light step, and unswerving feet,

so that even your steps stir up no dust,

may you go forward securely, joyfully, swiftly,

on the path of prudent happiness,

believing nothing

which would dissuade you from this resolution

or which would place a stumbling block

for you on the way,

so that you may offer your vows

to the Most High

in the pursuit of that perfection

to which the Spirit of the Lord has called you.
-- St. Clare in her second letter to St. Agnes of Prague (1235)

Clare (1194-1253) was the daughter of a wealthy family. She was eighteen when one day she heard a local friar preaching in the marketplace and was moved to not only take his words to heart but to follow in his teaching of following Jesus in a life of poverty, prayer and service. Of course, her family did not approve and forcibly brought her home, but she escaped with a companion and fled to the preacher whose name was Francis. Together they founded a convent for an order of women following the rule of Francis. The order, called the Order of Poor Ladies and finally the Poor Clares, attracted young women from well-to-do homes despite the rigorous life required by the rule that Francis had established and Clare strengthened. They were strictly cloistered although they nursed the sick, wore homespun brown robes, went barefoot, ate no meat, slept on pallets of twigs, prayed for the world and practiced silence except for necessary speech. Of all the sisters of the order, none was more rigorous in her observances than Clare. She wrote to other abbesses as the order spread beyond Assisi and some of her letters to Agnes of Prague, a correspondence lasting over twenty years, are still in existence. In the last months of his life, Francis, now blind and ill, came to her convent at San Damiano and Clare cared for her long-time friend and mentor until his death. She herself died in 1253 and was canonized two years later. St. Clare is considered the patron saint of goldsmiths and those who work with gold, those with eye diseases, laundry workers, embroiderers, telephones, television, and television writers.

What would make a young woman give up a life of luxury to live in a manner every bit as dire as the poorest of the poor, as Mother Teresa called them? Most of us today would scramble to live a life where the food was good and plentiful, clothes were rich and fashionable, houses large and roomy (although without indoor plumbing like we know it) and parties, dinners and entertainment were frequent. It's hard to understand but then, many young women today give up everything to enter the religious life, work hard, pray often, sleep rough and own nothing (or next to it). Many try, not all succeed in following the vocation that they believe God set before them, but enough do that religious orders still exist, still follow the rules set down centuries and more ago, and still make a difference in the world. It's a call from God to do something special -- and anyone who answers a call from God whether to the religious life, ministry or even as a committed lay worker shares in that specialness.

Religious orders have rules for living and practicing their faith, rules that are binding on each individual within or seeking to become part of the community. Rules are often seen as restrictions on freedom, telling what may be done and what is not allowed. The more rules, the more restrictions. Yet rules sometimes offer freedom itself. When the boundaries are firmly understood and accepted, it can free up the mind and body to go about life, doing what needs to be done and serving where service is needed. We often chafe at restrictions on what we consider our freedoms, but if we think about it, without rules we would have anarchy -- and nobody really wants that (except anarchists, of course).

I seem to live in a world where people are concerned with themselves and their possessions/entitlements. It's a world of having to have the biggest, newest, fastest, most expensive or most fashionable. I have to stop and remember that also there are nuns who are in this world and yet removed from it. They don't acquire, they serve instead of demanding to be waited on, they spend their lives taking care of the people most others would either ignore or try to keep out of their neighborhoods, and they pray often for those who, for some reason or other, cannot or will not pray for themselves or others. The lives of nuns used to be not so different from how they lived in the world, but today, religious life is a very different thing. That there are still young (and some older) women who voluntarily choose to live a communal life and one that demands poverty, chastity, obedience and often un-Godly hours is, in my humble opinion, more than just a ministry or just a vocation. It's living Jesus' teachings and dedicating oneself to the work of the kingdom, whether enclosed behind monastery walls or living in a community outside.

Clare and her sisters in religion, regardless of the rule they follow or the order to which they pledge themselves, show me what it means to really be willing to empty oneself and be filled anew. They give me an example that the young man who could not sell all and follow Jesus couldn't do, and yet they do gladly and willingly. They show courage and strength, and many, like Clare, weren't and aren't afraid to stand up to authority when necessary. I have a feeling that if she were here today, Clare might not be on a bus but she might be encouraging her nuns to do what they believe is right and God's will for them as women, as religious, and as citizens of a broken world that needs more healing and not more fractures. Whether behind monastery walls, walking about a busy city or standing up for what they believe God wants them to do, there is something admirable and, yes, compelling about them. It isn't always easy to follow God because sometimes God leads in some pretty non-traditional and unworldly ways.

Sometimes I almost wish I had the call and the strength follow their path.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

When the girl [i.e., the blessed Virgin Mary] is greeted as “full of grace” by the angel, she is afraid. It casts a light on her own essential nature that she had never reflected on. “Poverty of spirit” (or, what is the same, humility) is not some verifiable virtue—capability, suitability, competence is something one can be conscious of—but the unconsidered awareness that everything that one is and has is God’s loan and gift and is only there to bring the giver into the spotlight.
~Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary for Today (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 69.

What would change if we took the example of Our Lady to heart? We would become transparent to God by putting ourselves at the Word’s disposal. Body and soul we would be given over to God, without thereby becoming conscious of any special virtue—infused or acquired—of our own. The saints, and Mary first among them, are not particularly self-conscious, certainly not self-absorbed. Rather they are filled with the “unconsidered awareness that everything that one is and has is God’s loan and gift.” Like her Son, in whom she has her very being, Mary exists from and for the Father.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as rector of Emmanuel Parish, Shawnee in the Diocese of Oklahoma. His new parish blog is Emmanuel Shawnee Blog

Jesu that dost in Mary dwell
Be in thy servants’ hearts as well,
In the spirit of thy holiness,
In the fullness of thy force and stress,
In the very ways that thy life goes
And virtues that thy pattern shows,
In sharing of thy mysteries;
And every power in us that is
Against that power put under feet
In the Holy Ghost the Paraclete

To the glory of the Father. Amen.

Oratio Patris Condren: O Jesus vivens in Maria in Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works (Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 95.

This poem captures, in a powerful way, the sense that Mary is a model for the Christian indwelt with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is a prayer that the same Son and the same Spirit that were in our Lady might also be found in us.

The Spirit is the spirit of Christ’s holiness that will bring us into full conformity with Christ. He also subdues every hostile power.

And all “to the glory of [God] the Father.”

Commemoration of James Chisholm, priest (1815-1855)
Psalm 116:5-9
Sirach 38:9-17
2 Corinthians 1:3-11
Matthew 24:1-8

I wasn't born in Virginia, but I always consider myself a Virginian. I remember the saying, "To be a Virginian, whether by birth, marriage or adoption, is an introduction to any state, passport to any foreign country and a benediction from the Almighty God" and, smiling a bit smugly to myself, often say, "Yes, it is." It's got its faults, lots of them, and it's got its cases of inhumanity, bigotry, racism, class-ism, sexism and quite a few other -isms, but it's still home. When I see something about a Virginian, I prick up my ears -- was it someone from an area I knew? A name that was familiar? Possibly even a relative, no matter how distant? I saw that the Rev. James Chisholm was part of a Virginia history I knew nothing about but it was in an area was close to home so I started reading. What I read was about a quiet, scholarly man who, even though grafted onto the Virginia tree, was a man, a priest of the Episcopal Church (although he would have come up short at the name "priest") who showed the meaning of Jesus' message of "love your neighbor" even unto death.

The Rev. Mr. Chisholm was a scholar, a studious man of gentle demeanor, shy in social situations but a stirring preacher and gifted teacher. Born, raised and primarily educated in Massachusetts, he came to Virginia as a teacher, was exposed to the Episcopal church and found in it a home and a vocation. He served in several parishes, the last being St. John's in Portsmouth. His congregation rapidly grew fond of him and respected his dedication to the gospel that he preached and lived. The city too grew to love and respect him as one who practiced what he preached and who cared less for the state of their wallets than the state of their health and well-being, both physical and spiritual.

James Chisholm, a recent widower whose wife had died in February of 1855, had two small sons left in his care. An epidemic of yellow fever began in Portsmouth in July of that same year. He sent his sons away for safety's sake (one was already in poor health as the result of the effect of measles), but he stayed at his post because that was where he believed his Christian duty lay, caring for and consoling the healthy as well as committing the souls and bodies of those who had contracted and suffered from the pestilence. He received word that his sickly son had taken a turn for the worse and was likely to die imminently, but he would not leave Portsmouth and the suffering people there. He was tireless in his service to God and his fellow human beings. He wasn't alone; in all seven ministers representing different denominations remained in Portsmouth and four of them died of the fever, most contracting it during their care of and ministry to the sick.

In September, 1855, Just a few days after the death of his younger son, James Chisholm himself succumbed to yellow fever, one of the approximately 3,200 deaths in a place where the pre-epidemic population had been about 12,000, of whom about two-thirds fled when the epidemic began. His death was mourned by those who had survived, and, it is said, approximately 20 people attended his internment which was conducted by a Baptist minister, one of the few remaining clergymen. Most burials were accompanied only by the grave digger and the hearse driver and maybe a clergyman to read the service over the body, so 20 people was a great testimony to the respect and love Chisholm had garnered although his earthly wealth amounted to the a few hundred dollars which were left to his surviving son.*

Sometimes it isn't the great acts that are remembered when someone dies. I once knew a Baptist preacher who, like James Chisholm, would go where he was needed, whether or not the person were a member of his congregation or someone he even knew. All he had to do was hear that someone's Aunt Mabel, a third-cousin's mother-in-law or a neighbor's child was ill and in hospital and, day or night, he would jump in his car and go there to visit, pray and do what he could to bring comfort. He did a good job at that. He would have liked James Chisholm, even if their theologies weren't identical. What was identical was their belief that following the gospel required this of them, a God-sent mission not just to preach sin, but to show love and compassion. That's a very big deal, then as well as now.

What I learn from James Chisholm is that it doesn't matter where I was born or where I will be buried but how I live while I am here. It doesn't matter how much money I have or don't have in the bank, it's how I spend myself serving others with humility, respect and love, no matter their status or anything else that society or hierarchy says separates me from them (or them from me, for that matter). I can read Jesus' words and understand them intellectually, but until I see someone like James Chisholm (or my Baptist preacher friend, may he rest in peace) and really take in what it means to put those words into action, they are just words. I needed that reminder.

A history lesson from a state rich in history and a new understanding of what gospel living is about from another transplant by the grace of God. That's a very worthwhile thing to think about today.

Bibliography:
*Conrad, David Holmes, Memoir of Rev. James Chisholm, A.M., Late Rector of St. John's Church, Portsmouth, Va., with Memoranda of the Pestilence Which Raged in That City During the Summer and Autumn of 1855. Originally published by the Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge, January 1856.

Lon Wagner, The Virginian Pilot, "The Fever." Originally published July 10-23, 2005.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr of Carthage, 258
1 Peter 5:1-4, 10-11
Psalm 23
John 10:11-16

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.” -- John 10:14-15

The Good Shepherd captured the hearts of the early Christian community living in Rome. There are images in the catacombs under that city of a beardless young man dressed in a short skirt and high boots. He stands in a meadow, surrounded by sheep, a lamb slung across his shoulders. This is Jesus. He is not shown hanging on a cross; there are no depictions of the crucifixion at all in the catacombs. Nor is he sitting on a throne surrounded by angels.

I imagine the Romans, a cosmopolitan people whose gods are distant, heartless and constantly demanding of sacrifice. It is not the idea of the death and resurrection of Jesus that gets them out of their warm, safe houses and leads them to the dangerous underground community of followers of The Way. At least, it isn’t that directly. No, what speaks to them is a relationship with a God who cares deeply and compassionately, always, for them. Jupiter and Juno and the Emperor of Rome sit far away on their golden thrones. The Good Shepherd is a hands-on working-class laborer, and we know his voice in the very heart of our being.

Following the Way of Jesus means pursuing our own heart’s deepest truth. Something familiar, that we would recognize anywhere, lays itself across the doorsills of the soul to keep away the wolves – that’s God. The Holy One is as near as the next breath or its absence and always attuned to us in the most intimate of ways. It is the presence we can always home in on, the Beloved.

The muttering of the gods of the 21st Century on their high, unattainable thrones – Beauty, Success, Power, Impeccable Parenthood, and all the rest – deafen us with their constant demands. If we worship them, we sacrifice endlessly. Like the Roman Christians, we, too, need to sneak away. We need to slink away from our busy lives, sidle down the alleyways to a dangerous underground of the spirit. Through moments of silence, or in prayer, or while journaling or taking a walk we may come to that place within where we meet the Good Shepherd.

Oh Holy One lying across our threshold, help us recognize you in all our quiet moments, and understand that we are called by you even as we call to you. In your name we pray. Amen.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. She will soon manage a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries.

Readings:

AM: Psalm 8, 148
Job 38:1-7;
Hebrews 1:1-14
PM: Psalm 14, 150 or 104;
Daniel 12:1-3 or 2 Kings 6:8-17;
Mark 13:21-27 or Revelation 5:1-14

Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones,
Raise the glad strain, Alleluia!
Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,
Virtues, archangels, angels’ choirs:

Refrain:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia!

O higher than the cherubim,
More glorious than the seraphim,
Lead their praises, Alleluia!
Thou bearer of th’eternal Word,
Most gracious, magnify the Lord.
Refrain

Respond, ye souls in endless rest,
Ye patriarchs and prophets blest,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Ye holy twelve, ye martyrs strong,
All saints triumphant, raise the song.
Refrain

O friends, in gladness let us sing,
Supernal anthems echoing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One.
Refrain

--- Lyrics by John A.L. Riley

Angels-- heavenly beings with wings, haloes, maybe harps, certainly pious faces except maybe the cherubs which we tend to think of more as chubby baby-type angels with some mischief in mind although nothing more sinister than a simple prank. Many people believe that they have guardian angels around them, watching over them and protecting them from snares and pitfalls if not outright danger and impending doom. The Jewish people do not believe in guardian angels, so to speak, but their sages have taught that that for every mitzvah (good deed) they do, they create another guardian angel who serves to protect them and will speak on their behalf before the throne of God. Most Christians who recognize personal guardian angels limit themselves to a single one, but sometimes call on one of the stars of the angelic world -- the archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and/or Uriel--for assistance in particular times of trouble. Somehow it's comforting to think of having something flying about my head, acting as a headlight in the darkness, a searchlight if I'm lost, a candle burning when I need hope, and a shaft of light when I need the protection of it around me.

James Kieffer's excellent piece on Michael and all angels* gives a wealth of information on angels, both specific and generic angels. In reading it, my mind started playing the hymn whose lyrics are printed above. It's one of those ear worms I get from time to time, this time, though, much less irritating than the mindless advertising jingle or bit of an annoying song that gets stuck like a wheel in a rut. At least this one gives me some scope, some information and some theology, like the names of the seven ranks of heavenly beings - seraphim, cherubim, etc. I doubt that if I got to the Pearly Gates I’d be required to be able to answer that, still somehow it's one of those bits of information that is comforting to know even if not immensely useful. Each of the ranks has a job, a duty in the heavenly cohort, but all of them are part of the group surrounding the throne of God, leading the praise and carrying out God's orders and desires and bringing messages from God to human beings.

There are people about whom we could say, "Oh, they're such an angel!" and mean it most sincerely. They come at unexpected moments, offer advice, instructions or a way out of something, perhaps just bring a moment of beauty and grace into life then seemingly fade back in to the background (or the normal role they play in our lives) until the next time.

When I was a teen, I was given the book Angel Unaware by Dale Evans Rogers. It was the story of Robin, the daughter of Dale and Roy Rogers, childhood heroes of mine. Robin was born with severe handicaps and Downs Syndrome. Her life was brief, only a couple of years, but rather than being a burden to them, she was truly a blessing, hence the title which came from the scripture “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). It impressed me and I’ve never forgotten that book. It made me more conscious of angels coming in unexpected places and ways. For me, I feel I have quite a few angels, most of them watching from heaven but some on earth as well. Some of them here never darken a church door, some attend church regularly, but whether they espouse a traditional Christian belief or not, they show me what good news is about: caring, compassion, support, occasional chiding, advising, and the like. I have a feeling just about everybody can name at least one person in their lives or whom their lives have touched, no matter how briefly, that fills that bill. I can think of dozens of times when those angels have brought me some sort of message I needed to hear or feel, even when they didn't realize they were doing it; they simply acted in a way that helped me in some way, and definitely convinced me that God was indeed present.

I wonder what would happen if I actually started actively looking for angels in strange places -- on street corners, at work, in a store, at a park, or almost any place where two or more people occupy the same space, even if it is cyberspace. Does it have to be an announcement on the order of Gabriel speaking to Mary? There were angels who announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. Did Jacob wrestle with God or with an angelic representation of God? There are lots of examples in scripture and tradition of angels being and doing things that in some way touch the lives of human beings. As the Psalmist puts it:

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. (Ps.91:11-12)

Heaven knows, I've had experience with angels in my life who have borne me up when I was falling, gave me a word when hope was flagging, and even now and again pulled me out of messes I'd gotten myself into. Those angels, very human angels, didn't preach good news, they lived it and showed it. They weren't awe-inspiring, haloed, winged beings shining brighter than the sun, they were regular recognizable human beings who, I am convinced, God sent at that moment when I needed them most. Knowing God is there is powerful and wonderful, but sometimes a human pair of arms is what I need.

In thinking of implications of angels in my life, I wonder if I’m really tuned in to spotting the work of angels, even and especially incognito ones. Small random acts of kindness can be angelic, as can giving a word of encouragement or warning. Simple things, but nonetheless things that point not to the person but to the God beyond the person. I wonder, where can I look for angels, not just for me but for others and the world itself? What if I could pass on one bit of good news today what would it be and how could I do it? Would I even recognize the opportunity when it came?

I can say I will try today to look for angels and to try to be one myself. It's a goal for me to live in the intention of sharing good news either by word or by action. Perhaps that is the key -- intention, mindful intention. to think seriously enough about something to actually try to do it in an awake, aware state of mind. Sounds like a tall order, but then, angels do simple things as well as mighty ones. So now it’s up to me.

Perhaps there's only one way to find out the answer, isn't there?

* found here

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

When I went to my first Arapaho Sun Dance it was at the invitation of a good friend. As did all the families participating, her clan had constructed a shelter on the grounds where this sacred ritual would take place. It was a big open tent with a roof of tarps and blankets thrown over a frame made of lodge poles. I’ll never forget what was inside. They had brought beds, dressers, a huge dining room table and even some sort of stove on which they were preparing the feast. They had made a real home away from home.

I would never have thought of putting my furniture in the back of a pickup and taking it with me camping. To my friend, descendant of nomads, this seemed the most natural thing in the world. After all, what’s the point of owning something if it can’t be carried with you from one place to another? “You have to be flexible,” she told me gravely, “not chained to your house by your stuff.”

When Francis of Assisi laid his luxurious clothing at the feet of his bishop, renounced his family’s wealth and land, and became a poor friar, he chose to be free of all encumbrances except one, his commitment to Christ. His vow of poverty made it possible for him to answer whenever God called him and to go where he was led.

What would it be like to be a spiritual nomad, following the wanderings of the Spirit like the Arapaho Nation once followed the bison herds? We could go where we were called, showing up with hands empty and ready for helping, embracing, teaching and learning.

God, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
--Prayer attributed to St. Francis

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. She will soon manage a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries.

Philip, Deacon and Evangelist
Acts 8:26-40

Philip was just a bit fey that day -- following a whim, blown by an angel. He could have been murdered or worse, out there all by himself on the lonely wilderness road.

Instead he met a most strange and mind-boggling entourage traveling in a carriage. Perhaps there was an umbrella to keep the principal occupant from the sun. Maybe a few servants waved fans made of palm fronds. The esteemed one might have been dressed in flowing robes of luscious color, might have been adorned with gold jewelry of flawless perfection, might have worn just a touch of exotic scent, might have spoken in a rich soprano. All the carriage’s occupants would have had skin the color of figs.

Philip was a Jew. The eunuch in the carriage was to him, despite his finery, someone not whole, grossly deformed, distastefully unclean. But that particular day, nudged by his fey angel, Philip came up alongside the carriage, heard the Ethiopian speaking Hebrew, and asked him, perhaps a bit incredulously, if he understood what he was reading.

The Ethiopian could have become offended. A bearded, less-than-tidy Jew was trotting along beside his carriage, sandals flapping, and had dared to eavesdrop on what he was doing. But he had just come from a very heartbreaking time in Jerusalem. He had come all the way from Ethiopia to hear the scholars teach the Hebrew scripture. But no one would speak to him. He was ritually unclean, doubly, maybe triply so. And the most essential element of his state was that he had been castrated. You just can't do much about that. “How can I? No one will teach me!” he exclaimed.

So Philip hopped up into the carriage. When he hopped down again it was to perform a baptism. Ethiopian and Philip together invoked the profound symbolism of cleansing and being born of water and spirit, of death and resurrection. A powerful fresh understanding of who and whose each of them were was born.

Where will your road lead you today, I wonder? And who do you suppose you'll encounter on it? Wherever you go and whatever you do, may the God of eunuchs and fey Jews bless your journey.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. She will soon manage a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries.

Readings for the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, October 17:
Proverbs 22:1–6
1 Corinthians 10:31–11:1
Luke 9:57–62
Psalm 34:1–8

Luke 9:57–62: As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “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 he 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.”

It's kind of an interesting proposition that the Gospel reading for the feast day of the person who taught us a new way of looking back--Ignatius of Loyola, via his Examen--talks about about the danger of looking back. One might think a better person to match this reading would be Satchel Paige ("Don't look back--they might be gaining on you.") In today's Gospel reading, Jesus tells the man who wishes to say goodbye to his family that "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." Perhaps the key thing in this statement is not about looking back in a general sense, but looking back when we are ready to break ground going forward.

However, "looking back" in itself is not a bad thing if we go about it the right way, and in that sense, the Ignatian Examen is a long time-tested way of doing that.

Ignatius' "Examen of Consciousness" has five parts. It can be done anywhere, any time. You don't need to be in a formal prayer space unless you want to be there. I tend to do the Examen at bedtime, in that time when I'm trying to drift off to sleep. Here's a brief overview of it:

1. Become aware that you are in God’s presence. For me, what seems to work is to quietly remember I am a piece of God's creation, not something outside of it.

2. Review the day with gratitude. What happened during the day that I can see reasons to give thanks?

3. Ask for awareness of the Holy Spirit, so the day's actions can be looked upon with honesty and patience. It's important to pay attention to any emotions that bubble up as the day is reviewed, rather than suppress them. Name those emotions and feel them, rather than trying to suppress them or be numb to them.

4. While reviewing the day, examine your motives and the context of your actions. What worked? What didn't? Out of the things that didn't work out, what is my part in it? Did I do my part, or is there more work to be done? What did I receive during the day? What did I give? What were my hopes? What were my hesitations? Sometimes, what I do as a result of this is choose one feature of the day and pray through it.

5. Pray words of reconciliation and resolve, looking towards tomorrow with hope. An important feature of this is being compassionate toward yourself. I sometimes remind myself, "If I am in the presence of God, I should have the same compassion upon myself that I would hope God would have for me."

The Examen is a great way to train our spiritual selves to release ourselves with God's help from guilt or regrets, let go of our unhealthy leanings, and put our hand on the plow, looking forwards, rather than back, which leaves us spiritually inert. How might Ignatius' formulaic way of prayer change your ability to share the Good News in Christ through your life and actions?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Feast Day of St. Luke

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

I remember once having to sleep alone in an icy cold building under blankets that did not keep me warm. It was a long, wretched stretch of darkness. Wearing all the clothes I had brought with me: two pair of socks and my shoes, jeans, a shirt, a sweater and a windbreaker, I had wrapped the blankets around me and hoped for the best. I would doze for awhile, then wake when the cold seeped in. Rolling over and repositioning the blankets, I’d try again. The cold kept bleeding through, again and again. Getting up and walking around brought the feeling back into my extremities, but as soon as I lay down again I was miserable. I finally gave up and went outside to await the dawn.

The building was on a little highway in the California desert. It was colder outside than in, but not by much; there was no wind. Not knowing the landscape, I paced back and forth for what seemed like hours along the road, wrapped in my blankets and all my clothes. Finally the sky began to lighten.

When I see the street people here in Fort Collins make their way early in the morning from the hard, bleak places where they made their beds to the Mission, where they can get warm and have something to eat, I remember being cold. It is painful, demanding, and it changes all priorities. Good news for them would certainly mean that they could be warm, dry and fed. But there is a larger, deeper issue for any of us who find ourselves poor, captive, blind or oppressed, and that is whether we are valued.

I came out of that desert experience back to my life of privilege, where my talents are valued and my voice is heard. For the most part I do not have to endure a condescending altruism on the part of the community in which I make my home; I am respected. There aren’t many people who wonder what is the matter with me that I am living as I live. The majority of my interactions do not involve being either ignored or tossed a coin. On a regular basis I do not have to beg.

The good news of Jesus to the poor and oppressed is the news of esteem and belonging. This includes having warmth and food, but is not limited to those things. When he walked the planet Jesus was always reconnecting people to their community. “Go show the rabbis that you are clean,” he would say, meaning, “Go and reclaim your place in society.” “Your sins are forgiven,” he would say, and that carried the implication, “You are no longer an outcast, an undesirable.”

An ancient monastic practice is to look for Christ in everyone you meet. It’s a simple thing to try, but difficult to actually carry out: seeing past the circumstances of the people we run into to ask, “what could this person teach me if he or she were gracious enough to offer her or his wisdom?”

Though the sun came up a sort of watery yellow color in a perfectly empty sky on that desert morning when I was so cold, there has never been a more beautiful sunrise. The distant reaches of the desert turned mauve and russet as light crept toward me from the rim of the world. At first it didn’t make much difference to my misery, but then it touched me directly and began to warm me where I stood.

The kingdom of heaven is like this. It appears first in the distance as a glimmer of hope. Then slowly it takes command of the landscape, turning what was drab vibrant, creeping across the surface of the world, until finally it reaches each one of us and embraces us where we stand. We know in that moment how much we are loved, and how valuable we are.

Good news to the poor: release to captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed – the year of the Lord’s favor – this proclamation is the sun lifting into the sky. This reality is the kingdom of heaven. We are that kingdom’s heirs, filthy rich in every way that counts. We are the sons and daughters of the vastest, most opulent estate that exists, and God is the owner. Let us recognize one another as brother and sister in this inheritance, share our tables and our shelter, and above all value one another as God values us, as unique and irreplaceable children.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. She will soon manage a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries.

Gospel reading for the Commemoration of William Carey, Missionary to India

When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.’ Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.’ And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’ - Matthew 17:14-20

Many of those who came to Jesus came as desperate people. Lepers, paralytics, apparently possessed, hemorrhaging -- these were people who had only the tiniest bit of hope left and that was Jesus. As much as we empathize with the adults seeking help, how much more can we identify with parents of young children who are sick and/or dying? It's lovely to think of Jesus with a lap full of laughing, healthy children, but even in our own time not all children are so fortunate. Even among those of us who have had children but without the fear and helplessness of severe illness or potential death, we can still feel the pain of the father who begins this story. I have a feeling that anyone, parent or not, who loves children can feel some of his pain if not all of it. It's one of those "You can't unless you've been there." They're right; but that doesn't mean we don't feel deeply and with anguish.

Parents generally will do anything for their kids. What we heard from our parents was that they worked hard so that we could have more and better things than they had when they were children. When my generation started raising children, we had pretty much the same ethic -- make it better for the children than we have it. There are times when I think we as a generation did it wrong - or maybe for the wrong reasons. We loved our kids like our parents loved us, we just loved a bit too unwisely and too well, beginning a cycle of gotta-have-more-gotta-have-better-gotta-beat-the-Joneses. We invented vaccinations, car seats, seat belts, pool fences, pool alarms, kid-proof locks, all sorts of things to try to keep them safe and they still get sick and they still get hurt. Still, almost any parent will do almost anything for their kids, including begging for help when there seems to be no other alternative.

The man and the child became lessons for Jesus' disciples. "Why couldn't we take care of that? We tried!" The disciples seemed a bit daunted by their inability to do something they were sure they should be able to do. It was like knowing the principles but not knowing the application of those principles. The disciples undoubtedly knew the mechanics of how to do what they felt they should be able to do, they just lacked the main ingredient. They probably could have learned something from the boy's father in the faith department. He had no hesitation, no ego involvement, no nothing except an overwhelming need to help his son and trust that Jesus was the one to accomplish that. In short, the disciples should have trusted more, believed harder and looked more to the source of the healing rather than thinking of themselves as healers.

Since Jesus introduced the mustard seed as a size comparison for true faith, then I would guess the disciples were somewhere around the size of a celery seed. The father was probably closer to the mustard seed and Jesus himself could have used a pumpkin seed as a comparison. I have to ask myself, though, what size seed is my faith? How would I stack up if I were in this story? Now that's a question for pondering.

I love my son dearly. I'm glad I've never had to go through what the man in the story did, although he has had bumps, bruises and a couple of serious accidents from which he still has some slight scars. I have to wonder if I were in that parent's shoes (or rather sandals), would I have had the faith he did? I don't know, but I have a feeling I wouldn't have just taken "No" for an answer and brought him home to quietly live his life under the cloud of his disease. After all, there are times when a parent has to say "There's nothing I won't do for my kid to give him the chance to grow up and be the best he can be."

I don't plan on trying to heal anybody or measure my faith against a shelf of seeds of various kinds. I don't plan on moving any mountains although there are a few molehills I wouldn't mind shifting somewhere other than where they are. I think, though, that I need to concentrate on a message I seem to be getting from God, "Hey, pick up the hurt and diseased parts of yourself and bring it all to me. If you believe, I can make you whole because I am your parent and I want the best for you. You just have to believe that you are worth it, not that you are worthy of it. Remember, I am God -- and I don't have any grandchildren.*"

That's something to think about -- what God won't do for God's kids.

*adapted from Eli Stanley Jones.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the feast day of St. James, October 23:

Morning:
Psalm 119:145-168
Jeremiah 11:18-23
Matthew 10:16-22

Evening:
Psalm 112, 125
Isaiah 65:17-25
Hebrews 12:12-24

You know, it had to be tough being James, the brother of Jesus. Although miles of manuscript have been written debating just how James is the brother of Jesus, and where he'd go on the family pedigree chart have been written, that part doesn't really matter. What matters is that it's never easy to have well-known kin. Any of us who attended the same school as an over-achieving relative would get this. If it turns out we are not of the same caliber of the family over-achiever, there are always subtle ways other people slide equally tall expectations onto us, and for many of us, the self-expectations are even worse. More than one person in that situation has secretly simultaneously wished they could be like that person, and that the other person had never been born. There's always tension, no matter how much we love "the golden child in the family." That tension is often unwritten and only spoken in hushed tones. So we don't really know how much that tension existed in James' life, but I think any of us with a "golden relative," or who ever worked in the family business, or helped carry a family legacy would say it is highly unlikely it never existed.

Scripture and history reveal to us that James was neither slacker nor coward in his own right. He was Bishop of Jerusalem and met his death by stoning--and even if he wasn't perfect, he was virtuous enough to earn the moniker of James the Just, as used in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. Paul's epistles point out James was one of the early apostles that was willing to minister to the Gentiles. All that we know of James... well... he did all right. He was brave in the face of his own death--a death that was really probably a political murder orchestrated by the high priest Ananus ben Ananus. One historical account states that the fatal blow in James' own stoning was a blow delivered to his head with a staff while he knelt praying for those who stoned him. James, I suppose, could have instead carried along a life full of resentments, knowing he could never be as good as Jesus, and aged into that person we've all seen sitting on a barstool, crying "I never had a break," into his beer and to anyone who'd listen. But he didn't. He somehow figured out that God was calling James to be the best James he could be, and he lived a life answering that call.

For me, James is a reminder that every one of us has something in life has at least one circumstance that can be the source of much tension, and recognizing that who we are as God's own, is enough. We don't have to depend on the family name, or the name of the school printed on our diploma, the last name of our spouse's family, or the company brand to have worth. We already have worth for who we are in the sight of God.

What is the tension in your own life circumstances that, at times, gets in the way of understanding who you are as God's own? How are you called to minister to the person whose life circumstances has made them feel less beloved by God?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

The holy men and women of God form a community with us that spans the ages. The Feast of All Saints is a good day upon which to ponder the stories and connections which have been important to us, shaping our lives. Here are some of my favorites from the Christian tradition.

St. Perpetua and her companions (March 7, 202), who died as martyrs in Rome in the very early days of the church, remind me to be truthful about my convictions. Even though she had a nursing child, Perpetua would not renounce her affiliation with the followers of Jesus. Imagine such a steadfast proclamation.

St. Bridget of Kildare (Feb. 1, 523) is another favorite. She was the daughter of a druid and heir to an estate. She vexed her family by giving their possessions away to anyone who needed them whenever they asked, and she is reputed to have scarred her face so she wouldn’t have to marry.

And then there is St. Hildegard of Bingen (September 17, 1170), a woman with a facile mind and lyrical spirit who had so many talents she didn’t know what to do with them all. She wrote music and poetry and learned the medicinal powers of herbs, wrote about them and applied them in healing. In addition she taught, traveled and turned her considerable administrative skills to running a monastery. I love her images of God.

St. Francis of Assisi (Oct. 4, 1226), who turned away from a life of wealth and stature, casting his garments at the feet of his bishop and vowing poverty, lived with lepers, taught and healed, and spent time communing with animals, most notably a wolf. I, too, love to listen to our four-footed and winged brothers and sisters.

St. Teresa of Avila (Oct. 15, 1582), is known for her raptures, profound mystical experiences which included among other things being pierced by a sword wielded by an angel. When she wasn’t immersed in visions she founded the Carmelite order and seeded numerous monasteries. I love her for her frank conversations with Jesus.

St. Sergius of Moscow (September 25, 1392) lived as a simple peasant while inspiring everyone he met to an intense awareness of the love of God. In icons of him you can still hear the echo of his teaching.

St. Ignatius of Loyola (July 31, 1556), was a soldier who became a nurse, then a hermit, then a lay preacher and finally founder and supervisor of The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). But for me he will always be the author of wonderful writings on discernment.

And then there are the saints of my personal life, people significant to my faith formation and spiritual journey. They include, among countless others, an old fellow who used to bring me cigars every Sunday so I could smoke with him at coffee hour; a visionary wild life painter who showed me how to live as an artist; a group of young mothers who met once a month to talk about what was important to them, calling their group Ladies’ Lunch; a recovering alcoholic potter who showed me how to practice the presence of God; and a couple of self-styled hobos who taught me to paint trim, sing when you’re down, and play gin rummy.

The stories of the saints we love are good; they warm our souls and remind us we are related to one another through this Way of Jesus we are following. Let’s honor all of the tales today with gratitude for what they have given us, collectively and personally, that has helped us to grow into men and women of God. Let us honor the people in our own lives who have inspired and taught us. And as we do that, let us also listen. Let us attend within, in the place where we stand in relationship with God, for the ways we ourselves, in our exquisite uniqueness, are crafted to be saints.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. She will soon manage a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries.

Readings for the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls'):
Psalm 130 or 116:10-17
< a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Wisdom+3:1-9"> Wisdom 3:1-9 or Isaiah 25:6-9
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 or 1 Corinthians 15:50-58
John 5:24-27

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain. -- 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 (NRSV)

All Souls' Day is always sort of a quiet day after the whoop-la of All Hallows Eve, better known as Halloween, and then the actual day of All Saints' (a celebration which may now be moved to the closest Sunday). It sometimes seems a bit confusing to think of every Christian as a saint and then celebrating a day where only the "biggies" are recognized as saints -- Peter, Thomas (several of them), Augustine (both of them), Joan of Arc, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Patrick, etc., -- while relegating the rest of the "saints" to the lesser celebration of All Souls' or the Day of the Faithful Departed. Still, it remains on the calendar, is part of the liturgy of the day and on the designated day, and a day when we think of those loved ones who have, as we say, have passed through the vale and into a greater light.

We have a wealth of readings appropriate for this day, but the one that stood out for me, or rather began a recording in my head, was the one quoted above. I read it and my mind immediately began hearing an aria from Handel's Messiah, an oratorio I've loved since the first time I heard it at age eight. While I'm usually more into the choruses than the recitatives and arias, and the higher voices rather than the lower ones, part one of the bass arias stick in my mind, "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." It's a triumphant piece of music, solemn yet hopeful, and therein lies its probable attraction for me.

Like everyone else in this world, I have lost people dear to me, people who I consider saints even though nobody outside their immediate circles may have heard of them. They lived their lives, did their jobs, and subsequently left the world a little better for their having been here. Some were fervent church-goers, some seldom if ever darkened the church door, but on the whole, they preached the love of God louder than many a televangelist with a high-priced sound system, TV franchise and a following of thousands. They loved where they didn't have to love, cared when many simply passed by, were honest and fair in their dealings, practiced mercy and compassion, suffered sometimes with diseases and disabilities, and sometimes took unpopular stands when the rest of the world was going a different way. They were very human human beings, each with a set of their own faults and flaws, but each one made an impression on me at some point in my life and impacted my life from that time onward. Each one came to the end of their lives and departed it, taking a piece of my heart with them. I would never see them again, at least, on this side of the second coming. If it weren't for my faith, sort of summed up by the words of the aria, I wouldn't have been able to go on, at least with any joy or hope or enjoyment. The thought that "...the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised..." sustained me as, I am sure, it has many others.

On All Souls' Day the veil between heaven and earth is, to me, a bit thinner. While I remember my loved ones throughout the year at different times and places, on November 2nd they all seem to be a lot closer than usual and in greater numbers than usual. I sense their presence and think of them with love. I know that before I die, there will undoubtedly be more of my holy souls who will leave this life and that my list of departed loved ones will grow longer. Still, one day, the trumpet shall sound and we shall all be changed into what God intended for us in the beginning -- incorruptible, immortal, transformed.

Treasure your own saints. Remember them and thank God for their presence in your lives. Thank God for them and their witness, and have faith that for you and for them, one day the trumpet shall sound.

Deo gracias.

(In loving memory of A.B.O., Feb. 6,1905 - Nov.2,1960, a saint among saints.)

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Commemoration of Richard Hooker, priest and theologian (1553-1600?)
Readings:
Psalm 19:1-11
Sirach 44:10-15
1 Corinthians 2:6-10, 13-16
John 17: 18-23

...Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. ...

...There will come a time when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive a far more blessed reward than three thousand volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit. But the manner of men’s writing must not alienate our heart from the truth, if it appear they have the truth... -- quotations from Richard Hooker

Among the stars in the crown of Anglican theologians, Richard Hooker certainly merits a rather large, bright one. His most famous work is a multi-volume treatise called The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, an in-depth discussion of law and good governance (both ecclesiastical and civil) and how these derived from the natural laws God established and are viewed by humanity through the lenses of scriptural authority, tradition and reason with a large helping of experience thrown in. The Laws was an exposition of what we call the via media, the middle way, of Anglicanism as opposed to the Calvinist congregational form of government (each church was autonomous) and the Roman Catholic model of top-down hierarchy. Although Hooker never referred to the "three-legged stool" (scripture, tradition and reason) by that particular metaphor, that is probably the thing most Anglicans associate with Hooker.

Hooker walked the middle way in a time when both church and secular politics were precarious. The Reformation was going full-tilt with Calvinists insisting on their interpretation of how life should be lived and how their laws and government should be done while Roman Catholics on the other hand struggled to maintain their position as the prevalent church and ecclesiastical (and sometimes temporal) authority. It was a time of change, an uncomfortable time since no change is ever totally comfortable, especially for people caught between two very strong and opposing forces. Still, there must have been something civil, polite and memorable about his writing because Pope Clement VIII, against whose church Hooker pitted his own church polity, stated that his Laws "...has in it such seeds of eternity that it will abide until the last fire shall consume all learning."

In this season of elections here in the United States and the campaigns, some more or less ugly than others, I wonder if perhaps Hooker would have responded as he did in his own struggles between the Roman Catholics and the Calvinists. I find it hard to believe that any candidate for any office in this election can say something similar about their opponent that the Pope did about Hooker's words. We've come to a time when sharp wit and sharp words make it look more like a verbal brawl than a debate and an crusade more than a sharing of good news. I wonder -- what would Hooker have said about sound bytes, media spin and campaign war chests? While debate has always been about scoring points against an opponent, it has traditionally been based on one topic, extensive research and knowledge and an ability to refute the arguments of the opponent with facts and citations, not with rapier-like slashes and personal attack. Most of all, it has been about answers, not the raising of more questions. That's something there doesn't seem to be a lot of in this election period.

Hooker is right about change, and he is also right about words of charity and meekness. They would be a welcome change from sharp words and sometimes biting attempts at wit, not only in politics but in so many areas of life. I have a feeling I could come up with half a dozen in our own life if I thought about it for thirty seconds or so. There are some areas where I would welcome change -- in others as well as in myself -- but how to accomplish that?

I guess it is sort of like the old saw about how to get to Carnegie Hall, not by taking bus or subway or taxi but practice, practice, practice. I can't change our political system, make politicians speak more kindly or honestly, even get a co-worker to stop using all capital letters in notes and emails. Ultimately what I am left with is that the only person I can change is me, and even that change has to be the result of kindness and charity rather than mental flogging or cutting thoughts and words.

I can hope that somehow we can have a kinder, gentler campaign this election year, but somehow I am not all that confident. I wonder -- what if before embarking on a campaign, a potential candidate was required to read Hooker's Laws? What if they had to have the quotation about three words spoken with charity on the wall in front of their desk where they would see it a dozen or more times a day? What if we, as constituents, demanded that our potential representatives (whether for the Presidency or the local vestry) model civility, charity, kindness and concern for and toward each other as well as for the constituents they will represent? What if we demanded that of ourselves in our daily encounters?

I have a feeling there would have to be a whole lot of changin' goin' on, and it wouldn't be fun or pleasant, but what it might do is bring the kingdom just a bit closer. And that is what it should ultimately be about, isn't it?

So now to give myself a polite but firm talk. I wonder - do I dare even think of challenging our candidates to do the same? Nah, but I can always hope (and pray a lot!). On his commemoration day, perhaps Richard Hooker can give just a little nudge, purely as an amicus curiae, as it were? Now that might be doable.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, Bishop (1729-1796)

Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified. -- Acts 20:28-32

The commemoration of Samuel Seabury, often celebrated with Sunday services which include extra goodies like the Kirking o' the Tartan and bagpipes. On November 14, 1784, just three years after the end of the Revolutionary War, Samuel Seabury was consecrated in Scotland as the first bishop in the new Protestant Episcopal Church in the new country. While he had been sent by the people of Connecticut to England to seek consecration in the mother church, the Church of England, the CofE refused the consecration since Seabury could not and would not swear allegiance as required to the King, the same King against whom the colonists had fought a long and bloody war to gain their independence. So Seabury moved north to Scotland where the Anglican church was not connected to the crown as the Established Church, where there were bishops willing to do the deed and who had the credentials to do it so that Seabury would be part of the apostolic succession. Somehow I think Jesus would have approved of the Scottish non-Jurors who actually laid hands on Seabury at his consecration since, after all, Jesus was against swearing allegiance to any king other than God.

The epistle reading for the day sort of sums up what Seabury's charge was: to protect the church as a shepherd would protect his flock, not in the sense that David had to protect his father's flocks from predators but rather from those who would splinter the young church with false teaching either through ignorance or arrogance. Seabury had to answer a few questions, things very similar to the same questions asked today of a bishop-elect at their consecration and straight out of the 1979 BCP. Included was the bishop-elect's belief that all things necessary for salvation was contained in the scriptures and that nothing not essential to salvation would be taught as essential by the bishop-elect, that there would be adherence to the governance and laws of the church, fellowship and working together with fellow bishops, etc. They are important parts of the promises a bishop-elect makes, just as it was for Seabury.

Over the past few years, there have been several times when a bishop-elect has not been given approval by the majority of Standing Committees and bishops of the Episcopal Church and new elections have had to be undertaken. There have also been several times when there has been discomfort with the choice a diocese has made as to their new shepherd, but they have been approved despite the discomfort because, after all, the people of the diocese surely chose the person they felt most closely reflected their belief and understanding of scripture, mission, and place in the diocese and the greater church. Several times, despite promises to the contrary, bishops have decided that they really didn't like what they'd promised so they and their diocesan committees and officials have declared that they as a diocese were withdrawing from The Episcopal Church. The result has been to divide people in the diocese between those wanting out and those wanting to stay in TEC, hurt and confusion among people outside the diocese who don't really understand what the problem is and why it requires such drastic means, and sorrow but resolve on the part of the national church to maintain the properties and ability to minister to those who wished to remain with TEC . I wonder what Seabury would have made of it.

Just like marriages, sometimes diocesan relationships break down. Sometimes spouses -- or shepherds -- want to head for what seem to be greener pastures. Accusations of unfaithfulness get thrown back and forth like hand grenades in a game of hot potato, and the word heresy gets lobbed more often than a tennis ball at Wimbledon. Shepherds charged with guarding the flock now build walls around them with strong drawbridges that could be raised at the first sign of change. The rallying cry became "the faith once delivered" as if over the course of 2000+ years the church had never changed and the faith had remained exactly the same in teaching and understanding. Oddly enough, what seems like a modern problem undoubtedly happened in Paul's day and at other times in all the centuries between then and now. We don't seem to have learned much, whether we are laity or the most exalted bishop. The via media sometimes seems to be a very narrow track between very large rocky crags.

Samuel Seabury remained faithful to the promises made at his consecration, and set the example for those who have followed him. There have been a number of exceptional shepherds (and a few to whom many wouldn't give a passing grade) in the years since, reminding us that bishops, like the humblest lay person in the pews, are human beings. None of us is perfect, and neither is any church. It's a natural thing for both humans and churches to grow and change as time goes by. Still, on this one day we celebrate the life and ministry of a man who stood his ground as to what he honestly felt he could affirm and what he couldn't. He said no to acknowledging the authority of the crown and the Archbishop, and yes to the authority of God, scripture, pastoral duty, teaching and passing on the succession.

The epistle lesson is a common thread between Seabury's consecration and that of the newest bishop in TEC. Just as Seabury heard it, so his successors also hear the same exhortation. Most of all, it is there for us to read and digest as we learn what it is we believe and why as we grow as Christians. They are words of warning as well as blessing, and they are for all of us, lay and episcopal, individual and church-wide.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Saint Andrew’s Day

Almighty God, who gave such grace to your apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give us, who are called by your Holy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

It seems so easy in the Bible for Jesus to call people and they immediately follow him. That’s not been my experience. It took me time to believe that either a woman or a lay person could be called to a ministry. Yet in my life I have been called to live and serve various people including the Australian Aborigines, Kenyans, Southeast Asians and Native Americans among others. I’ve made peace with what a call is like for me but it is difficult to explain it to others.

“So what does it take to be one of those deacons?” asks a Native Young Adult who has just participated in the baptism of one of our youth. He is already a Lay Eucharistic Minister, a lay reader, and an acolyte. He takes our ministry to the homeless seriously.
Taking a deep breath I talk about being called by God to a ministry. As usual, I stumble around multiple words and metaphors that cannot contain the enormity of being called.

I resort to storytelling that might be able to convey the depth and width of the experience of being in the presence of God.

“Remember when we were handing out coats to the homeless and we asked one to pray for us. He prayed in his traditional language and blessed us all. The other homeless men and women looked at him in amazement. We were all grateful that we were giving each other a gift. When we got back into the van, one of the youth said, ‘That was awesome. We were on Holy Ground, weren’t we?’”

We all agreed that something profound had happened to us.

Returning to the question of being called to a ministry, I ask the youth gathered around me, “When have you experienced that God is asking something of you?”

They answer with things like being presented with choices or learning something that is not easy or even to help someone else in their pain.

“Okay,” I continue, “God, the Great Spirit calls to us all the time. We don’t go looking for holy encounters. God comes to us in profound experiences and we can respond. Sometimes we feel that we are being pulled to a particular ministry, like serving as a deacon or helping the homeless. It is something we can pray about and stay open to whatever evolves. Being open to the holiness around us is the most important thing we do.”

“So, break it down for us. What is a call?” asks a persistent youth.

I try to get my theology straight and in language that communicates. “We live in ordinary moments. Something extraordinary enters our moments and we find ourselves looking below the surface at whatever is going on. Maybe we are faced with some injustice, or something that needs to be forgiven or something that is more meaningful than the direction we are now taking. That’s God talking. We get moved by something awesome. If we listen, take time to think about it, we are responding to God calling us. God calls us for many things. We may be called to forgive someone or to let someone go. We may be called to see a person in a different light. We may be called to go in a different direction. If a ministry in the Church is something you are thinking about then a lot of praying is in order, mainly to listen and think about yourself in that role. Either quickly or over a long time, you begin to be pulled toward one decision. For me the call pushes me to live a kinder, meaningful life, filled with beauty.”

Feeling like I am going nowhere I tell them the story of Andrew. “There is a story about one of the Disciples of Christ in the Bible. His name is Andrew and we don’t hear a lot about what he does except that he hears a call to follow Jesus. But before he did that, he ran and got his brother to tell him that holiness is open to us all, that the Messiah has come. He is known for that most of all. I think a lot of you are like Andrew. You hear a call and you go tell your best friends that there is a better way. God calls. You respond. That’s about it.”

“That’s a big responsibility—all that listening and praying,” one of the Native youth responds. “Does everyone know about this?”

We laugh a little at this but I go inside and think about my journey. In this conversation, I remember the times when I am pulled in a specific direction and I do choose and am blessed by it.

Thanks Saint Andrew for adding that dimension of pulling in others as a part of that call.

Kaze Gadway has worked with the emerging leaders of the Episcopal Church within the Native American community of Northern Arizona as a volunteer for eleven years. They are youth of promise from ages twelve to twenty-four. The Spirit Journey Youth is an outreach program of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona with forty young people. She is on Facebook and blogs at infaith's posterous

What would have happened, I wonder, if St. Nicholas had died in June instead of on the sixth of December? Would we have invented the strange red-and-white clad elf with the sleigh and reindeer gifting children world wide in the middle of the night before Christmas? Or would St. Nicholas’ feast day have been about putting presents in shoes or stockings while the Christian midwinter celebration was solely about the birth of God into the world?

I’m sure Bishop Nicholas would be horrified to learn what a long shadow he cast simply by the act of giving gifts to the children of his see. He wasn’t thinking at all about Christ’s birth when he did this; he did it all the time, all year round. And he didn’t try to meet each secret longing with the perfect present. He just put something in the children’s shoes that was a surprise and a delight – a little thing. And he started with the poorest.

There is something about midwinter itself, though, that provokes in us the desire to give. In the natural world the supremacy of darkness and cold gives way and new light is born. It’s a time for celebration and joy. With this change comes hope, and with hope comes the recognition of our connections and the inclination to somehow honor them. And so we send notes and gifts to family and friends. It’s natural.

We tend to blame the desperate madness of Christmas buying and giving on the focus we place on Santa Claus, but, truth be told, we are the ones who buy into the hype – into the need to get the perfect present. Why can’t we learn – and teach our families – that our longings aren’t met by getting (or giving) the absolutely right stuff? The longings are for love – and magic – and most importantly God.

Sometimes we give to unlikely people. We hear the neighbor kids say Santa won’t be coming to their house this year, and we buy some things we know they’d like and leave them on their porch in the middle of the night before Christmas. Or we hear about a town in Haiti where the children need shoes or school uniforms, and we send money to organizations who buy those things and who can distribute them properly. We buy the guy ringing the Salvation Army bell a cup of coffee, send money to the Food Bank and to the Heifer Project, make a special card for the janitor at our children’s school, and leave a plate of cookies all wrapped up with a bow in the park where the street people hang out.

These are the sorts of gestures that St. Nicholas would understand. Sneaking around in the middle of the night to bring joy, delight and necessary relief to people in need was what he was all about. He did it as anonymously as possible so those receiving the gifts would credit God. Let’s carry on his legacy this Christmas season – and in the rest of the year as well. Happy giving!

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. See her work online at Everyday Mysteries With others she manages a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries: Fresh Expressions Colorado

Today is the feast day of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist. It is fascinating to realize how little we really know about John. He was one of two brothers who were probably fishermen, partners with Simon Peter and his brother Andrew. They could very well have been disciples of John the Baptist before they began to follow Jesus. Jesus named them the Bullroarers. Why were they called this? Were they fighters? Quick to anger? Loud and opinionated?

One story the Gospels record is how they came to Jesus, possibly with their mother, to ask to be seated at a place of honor right next to him when Jesus came into his kingdom. Jesus told them they didn’t know what they were asking. The other disciples were quite indignant, and the incident spurred Jesus to talk about servant leadership.

We know John was often part of a smaller group of disciples who accompanied Jesus on special occasions: up the mountain to witness Jesus’ Transfiguration, to the healing of Jairus’ daughter, to the Garden of Gethsemane to witness Jesus agony on the night before the crucifixion. With this small group John was given the power to cast out demons and to heal all manner of infirmities.

The Gospel of John doesn’t mention him often at all. Instead it talks about a nameless disciple “whom Jesus loved”. Was this the same man as the John of the synoptic Gospels? Was he in fact the author, either directly or through dictation, of the fourth Gospel and of the letters of John? We do not know. Did he write the Book of Revelation? Probably not, but again we do not really know.

All these bits of information are so very tantalizing. I have always been frustrated by them, yearning to learn more. I have wanted to understand John, this fellow who was so intimately a follower of the God who “tented among us”. I have wanted to see into his heart. I have wanted to know more about where he came from and what he was like. Out of what life experiences did the beautiful poetry of the prologue of John’s Gospel spring, and was it the same life in which there was a moment of standing beneath a cross and being asked to care for a dying man’s mother? When the beloved disciple leaned against Jesus’ breast, what did he hear? What did he experience? Did John go to Ephesus with Mary? Was Mary of Magdala with them?

But the writings of the New Testament are not meant to be the biographies of the followers of Jesus. They tell us almost nothing about the particulars of those lives, not even the particulars of the life of Jesus himself. They are testimonies instead of something different. They all talk about the transforming moments of relationship between Christ and humanity, one person at a time. They are not so much about history as they are about an ongoing, ever-available affiliation, here and now, in this moment.

So the honoring of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist might most appropriately be expressed as a remembering not of that man, that person, but of the fact of God alive in our midst, a God who forms relationships with each one of us, not just with his first disciples. John the man is a witness to the always present possibility of relationship with Jesus Christ. This witness is more important to him – and also, ultimately, to us – than the circumstances of John’s life, more important than his own wisdom or teaching or anything else.

Our own exquisite, personal relationship with the living God is what is being pointed toward. It is a story alive in the present moment, not a story of the past. The writer of the fourth gospel, the beloved disciple, the man about whom fragments are written in the other three gospels – whether they are the same man or not – all point beyond themselves to the story that never ends, never dies. It is our story. Most particularly it is our story, one person at a time.

God of life and love, incarnate and available to all of us, we welcome you and celebrate you with St. John and all the apostles, today and always. Amen.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. See her work online at Everyday Mysteries. With others she manages a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries: Fresh Expressions Colorado

The Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi was made a priest in the Diocese of Hong Kong and South China on January 25, 1944, almost thirty years before any other woman would be ordained in the Anglican Communion.

It was the church’s need that led to her ordination. In the Sino-Japanese war people could not easily travel through occupied Japanese territory, and the parish she served was isolated. As a deacon and the only clergy person in her community she was already performing most of the duties of a priest. But her bishop went beyond the simple recognition of this fact to an understanding that she was at heart a priest.

This was Bishop R. O. Hall of Hong Kong. He compared the ordination to the priesthood of Reverend Tim-Oi with the baptism by St. Peter of the first Gentile, Cornelius. He said that in the same way St. Peter saw that Cornelius had already, at God’s hand, received the baptismal gift of the Spirit, he perceived that Florence Li Tim-Oi had already received the gift of priestly ministry.

Reverend Tim-Oi listened to her heart and to God and understood that she was called to the ordained ministry of the church. Bishop Hall looked with the eyes of the heart and understood that she was a priest. Both reached beyond the mindset of their culture to hear God’s dream and make it a reality.

It was an experience of naming. There were four parties involved: the woman who knew her calling and yearned for it to be recognized, the bishop who did recognize and understand it, a supportive and welcoming community, and God. Her true name included this fact: that she was a priest in God’s church.

Sometimes God’s desires for us are scandalizing to those around us. They don’t fit with the general understandings of who we are supposed to be. It is difficult in those situations to listen well and honestly, to countenance the strange impulses that rise up in us. It is hard to recognize them as part of our God-given name.

It is even more demanding to manifest them in our lives. Then it is literally a Godsend to have someone who can validate what we know to be true and a welcoming community in which to bring what we know to birth. Every act within the church which has been a breakthrough to a deeper level of understanding has had all four of these elements. They have been communal responses to a name that God has already given.

Where do you see God moving you or your faith community to the cutting edge of new understanding? Are there people in your midst who embody this? Let us pray for the wisdom to see what is true in God’s eyes and for the courage to stand by it, bring it to birth and speak aloud its name.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. See her work online at Everyday Mysteries With others she manages a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries: Fresh Expressions Colorado

Psalm 46
Joel 2:28-32
Romans 8:15b-19, 38-39
John 15:9-14

John 15:9-14 NRSV: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.

The Dorchester Chaplains--Methodist minister George Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Dutch Reformed minister Clark Poling and Roman Catholic priest John Washington were all aboard the troop ship Dorchester when it was attacked by a German U-boat.at 12:55 a.m. on Feb. 3, 1943. The Dorchester ended up sinking in 20 minutes and only there was only time to lower two of its 14 boats into the 34 degree water. The four chaplains quietly distributed life jackets (including their own) to the panicked, fearful soldiers, and preached courage to the men in order to convince them to jump in the icy water and have a chance to be saved by other ships in the convoy. Only 230 survived the sinking--many were killed in the initial explosion of the torpedo blast--but far fewer would have been saved had it not been for the chaplains. However, the four chaplains were not to be on the list of survivors. They went down with the ship, refusing to leave those men already dying. Survivors recall seeing the four of them linked arm in arm, offering prayers.

The story of the Dorchester Chaplains is one that takes us to a place that probably several of us have postulated in that "What If?" way--what I call the "Titanic spiritual exercise." I remember as a child seeing the old black and white British movie, "A Night to Remember" on late night TV, and thinking, "who would I be on a sinking ship?" I suspect many of us has watched various "sinking ship" movies, or heard the story of the Dorchester Chaplains told in church or at a Veteran's Day or Memorial Day event, and wondered who we'd be. Of course, we all probably postulate that we would be valiant and heroic in some way, but truth is, we never really know unless fate gob-smacks us in a place where that aspect of our personalities is put to the test. Some of us may have already displayed glimmers of our potential in already lived-out life events. Just as possible are the simultaneous realizations of our own acts of cowardice or self-preservation at the expense of another. One image gives us peace; the other haunts us. Perhaps the only ultimate peace is to trust that God makes all things right in the end, somehow...and we can't possibly know what "the end" is. I suspect that a tension among those chaplains themselves is that they had to know that, encouraging scared soldiers to jump ship was also adding to the reality that some of those soldiers would freeze to death before they were plucked from the water. Yet they simultaneously understood all was in God's hands.

The other important message in the story of these martyrs is it brings a harsh reality to our delusions of "Christian behavior." Rabbi Goode's actions were identical to that of the three Christian chaplains. I imagine that had one of the people in this story been Muslim, or Hindu, or Buddhist, or secular humanist, they would have done the same thing. Although we as Christians attribute that kind of selfless love to the Cross, this story is proof that belief in Jesus is not a prerequisite for behaving nobly and selflessly. We have no right to co-opt selfless love; we only have a model in Jesus we can readily point to and say, "This is why I do it." In fact, The ability to display selfless love at great personal risk may well be the thing that links us to our brothers and sisters outside our Christian faith traditions.

How does the story of the Dorchester Chaplains call you to a greater faith?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Commemoration of Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr of Smyrna (d. 156)

The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, ‘Return to Balak, and this is what you must say.’ So he returned to Balak, who was standing beside his burnt-offerings with all the officials of Moab. Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying:

‘Balak has brought me from Aram,
the king of Moab from the eastern mountains:
“Come, curse Jacob for me;
Come, denounce Israel!”
How can I curse whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?
For from the top of the crags I see him,
from the hills I behold him;
Here is a people living alone,
and not reckoning itself among the nations!
Who can count the dust of Jacob,
or number the dust-cloud of Israel?
Let me die the death of the upright,
and let my end be like his!’

Then Balak said to Balaam,
‘What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but now you have done nothing but bless them.’
He answered,
‘Must I not take care to say what the Lord puts into my mouth?’ -- Numbers 23:5-12 NRSV

Balak was in a spot. The Israelite army was advancing on Moab and Balak was a bit perturbed. Picking up the local paper, he looks in the classifieds under "Prophets" and finds the name Balaam of with a "Curses are our Specialty". Just the man, it seems. So Balak, using his power as king, summons Balaam with the express intent of having him lay a powerful curse on the Israelites and save the kingdom. Balaam finally showed up (after a harrowing episode on the road featuring his talking donkey) and Balak told him what he wanted, namely curses, lots of potent curses. Balak did this three times, each time taking Balaam to a mountain peak to show him the imminent danger but each time Balaam blessed the Israelites instead. Balak was confused. His prophet for hire turned out to be a dud. "Why?" he wonders. Balaam had a simple answer, "Hey, God told me what to say so what else can I say?" Balaam must have been impressed, because he, a non-Israelite, not only heard but obeyed the God of Israel.

There is the common thread between the reading from Numbers and Polycarp, the subject of today's commemoration. Polycarp refused to worship the authorized gods, the Roman pantheon and Caesar himself, and as such was considered an atheist. Given the chance to save himself, he was urged to renounce Jesus but, like Balaam, he had refused the pressure, saying, "For eighty-six years I have been his servant and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who has saved me?" Polycarp was martyred without renouncing the Lord in whom he had fully put his trust.

Two different men, two different outcomes. Balaam eventually walked away while Polycarp paid with his life. Balaam was not Israelite but obeyed God when God spoke. Polycarp was from what is now Turkey but obeyed the call of a Jewish preacher from Galilee. With God there is life and there is death, just as surely as there is without God. The shoes (sandals) of both men could have been on the other foot: Balaam could have cursed Israel and been richly rewarded by Balak but he could have been put to death had Balak ordered it. As it was, he seems to have gone back home to his people. Polycarp could have renounced Jesus and lived, but at what cost to himself and his faith? There's always a choice -- and there are always consequences of the choices.

I don't think I'd particularly want to be in the shoes/sandals of either man, not because I doubt God but I don't know how brave or strong I could be when facing what could be my death for my refusal to stand by my belief. It's really easy to say that I'd be willing to be martyred for my faith, but the instigator of martyrdom, persecution, seems to be a cheap word these days. Lots of people claim to be persecuted because of their belief when what really happens is that other people disagree or oppose those beliefs (or the insistence that they are the only right ones). In some areas, people are literally standing their ground for their faith at the risk of their lives, so just being verbally opposed doesn't seem like much of a threat, in my opinion. The Polycarps of the world die without renouncing their faith, often unheralded by the greater world and even by the faith they share and profess. The Balaams speak the right words but then go home to their families, having done what they believe they had done all that God required. Maybe so -- I'm not God so I can't say for sure. I can say, though, that there are probably a lot more Polycarps in the world than Balaams.

Today I will think of those Polycarps of all faiths who die because of what and in whom they believe but who will be considered atheists by others who hold different beliefs. Maybe I should restrict myself to Christians (such as the real Polycarp), but I can't. Maybe I'm too much of a -- what's the word I want to use? -- believer convinced that God loves all, no matter by what name, if any, others use to speak of, speak to, or speak about God, even atheists who must have some image of a God in whom they do not believe.

Hopefully I'll never have to face burning at the stake or a king who would chop off my head (or some other gruesome means of dispatching me from this world), but if I do, I can hope to be as brave as Polycarp, or as strong as Balaam. Meanwhile, I think I'll practice thinking of opposition to my beliefs as something to build up my strength, like resistance training, but not as a path to martyrdom. Practice makes perfect, I hear.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Commemoration of Chad of Lichfield

O come, let us sing unto the Lord;*
let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving;*
and show ourselves glad in him with psalms.
For the LORD is a great God;*
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are all the corners of the earth;*
and the strength of the hills is his also.
The sea is his and he made it;*
and his hands prepared the dry land.
For he is the Lord our God;*
and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
-- Psalm 95:1-7 (KJV, with markings from the BCP 1928, p. 459)

I grew up singing hymns: "Amazing Grace," "Onward, Christian Soldiers," "In the Garden," "At the Cross" and, most frequently, "Just as I Am." We sang them all so often that it was easy for me to memorize them. Even 60+ years later I can still probably sing many of them (at least in my mind since the voice has gone to pot) without too much difficulty.

I remember the first time I walked into an Episcopal Church. It was a brick church, rather than the wood and plaster Baptist church across the street from my house. The service was read from the prayer book in gorgeous, plummy King James English, like the Bible we read at home and church. And the music, well, that was the clincher. It was rich, some of it familiar foursquare harmony and some of it totally different with lots of words sung on the same notes but with changes of pitch at the end of the line. It was my first exposure to Anglican chant and, for me, it was one of the things that said, even at that first visit, that the Episcopal Church was going to be a big part of my life in the future. I fell in love on that visit, and even now, almost half a century later, it's been an enduring love. Sometimes it's been a painful relationship but something that has always drawn me back to it.

When I officially became an Episcopalian we used the 1928 prayer book and the 1940 hymnal. At the little Episcopal church overlooking the river where I worshipped when I was at home, we did Morning Prayer three or four Sundays of the month and Holy Communion once, so we used to sing the Venite, exultemus (Venite, for short) nearly every Sunday. What with singing it so often, it didn't take long for me to learn it, as well as the Benedictus es and the Jubilate Deo, the other two standard canticles we sang every week. You know, I learned a lot of scripture as a Baptist, but as an Episcopalian I learned that chanting was one of the easiest and most reliable ways of learning scripture, as well as enabling me to pull them out of my brain even years later when I needed the comfort of familiar words and encouraging phrases in a way that evoked happy and prayerful experiences.

Reading the lessons for this morning, I was overjoyed to run into an old friend, but something was wrong. It wasn't long enough. I remember more verses being sung before ending with the Gloria. So I dug out my 1940 hymnal and, sure enough, there was more.

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness;*
let the whole earth stand in awe of him.
For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth;*
and with righteousness to judge the world, and the peoples with his truth.
-- (Ps. 96:9,13)

There, now that's better. It seems to complete the thought so much better than the verses that follow the first seven in Psalm 95:

Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts*
as in the provocation, and as on the day of temptation in the wilderness;
When your fathers tempted me,*
proved me, and saw my works.
Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said,*
It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways.
Unto whom I sware in my wrath,*
that they should not enter into my rest ( 95:8-11).

Not quite so easy to chant, much less fit in with the exquisite praises that went before, but then, that's how psalms seem to go, almost bipolar in their composition, a mixture of joy and sorrow, praising and cursing, confidence and fear. I think that's one reason Psalms are such an important part of our liturgy. For many, they're the best (and possibly the easiest to understand) parts of scripture because they tend to speak to the human condition in all its goodness and its rottenness as well. Many folks can recite very little scripture off the top of their heads, but I venture to guess most of them have the 23rd Psalm down pat if not a paraphrase available at a moment's notice.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of the psalms, but when I remember bits like the Venite, I am a believer. Maybe it is being in touch with history and tradition both scripturally and musically, maybe it's just because music has always been such an important part of my life and the church feeds that part so beautifully, but this is one of the psalms and canticles I hold on to in my mind and my heart.

So much has changed in the nearly 50 years since I my confirmation, my official birthday as an Episcopalian. I'm glad to say that music is still a very great part of the service. Even though we still on occasion sing the psalms in Anglican chant, we don't do the familiar ones like the Venite. We've seemingly moved on to different kinds of music and, yes, we sometimes sing "Amazing Grace" and "Just as I Am" like we did in my Baptist church but we also do Cwm Rhondda (in several incarnations such as "God of Grace and God of Glory" and "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah") and Hyfrydol ("Alleluia! Sing to Jesus" and "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah"). We may perversely use the name given to the tune rather than always using the first few words of the hymn, but we sure don't mind re-using a great tune more than once! Still, each hymn has a focus, the same emphasis of either speaking of or a direct appeal to God, and isn't that sort of the same thing the psalms do? And, like the psalms, the hymns seem to have human emotion and character inserted in them from time to time. Perhaps that's what makes them memorable and accessible.

This morning I will probably have the canticle and the tune I learned to chant it (Walter) running through my head. I can think of a lot worse pieces of music, and perhaps it will be like a more-or-less constant prayer rising, even if I'm not totally consciously thinking about it. Come to think of it, isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing anyway, living in prayer? Aren't we all?

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

“Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name.” – Matthew 24:9 NRSV

Perpetua and her companions were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their belief in the Way of Christ. They were slaughtered in the coliseum at Carthage in 202. Perpetua in particular was wealthy enough that she could have “beaten the rap”. Her father came to her cell on more than one occasion to beg her to recant. She had her family to think of, and an infant child who surely needed her care. Her answer was no. She and her slave, Felicity, died together in a public shaming, wounded by wild animals and killed by sword-wielding soldiers, leaving their children to be raised by others.

In this day and age, in the United States, martyrdom for being Christian is almost nonexistent. We live in a milieu in which religious attitudes of any sort are seen as rather primitive and pitiable. While this acidic atmosphere can make us reluctant to speak about our faith, it isn’t generally life threatening.

My personal martyrdom has not been life threatening either. When it is true to my relationship with Christ, it is a very quiet, inner thing, something that very few people know anything about. It has happened bit by bit over the decades in a sort of crumbling away process. It involves the death of the ego.

Among the sorts of moments I remember as little martyrdoms are forgiving someone who hurt my family badly – a person who did not believe he had done anything wrong. There was also a time of standing up for someone who was being badly treated – and being ostracized in my turn. Or there were incidents when I sat still and listened deeply while someone viciously attacked my character, so that I could try to ferret out the grains of truth amidst the vitriol. Trying to live in the way I believe God calls me, I have sometimes let go of my dreams of wealth – and also, more tenuously and ambivalently, my dreams of power. These sorts of moments when I put myself on the line, with sure clarity that what I am doing is what I need to do to follow the Way of Jesus, are little sufferings. They demand I let go of something valued. It is a kind of stripping away and realigning that put me closer to my own center, the place where God and Love abide. But, nonetheless, something dies.

Of course for every one of those moments there have been dozens, maybe even hundreds, of moments when I didn’t get to that point of knowing what I needed to do and doing it, when the ego ruled the day. And so it feels corny and self-aggrandizing to call the first incidents martyrdom. But I’m going to stick with that way of describing them anyhow. It’s the fact that they cause inner deaths that makes me want to do this. Our suffering needs to be claimed and offered as a gift in order that it lead us to God.

There is about the moments when we make it to clarity and do what we are called to do the knowledge that this is really the most important thing. The instrument we are meant to be gets calibrated this way. We are better able to go forward in service and in love.

O, Holy One of Blessing, make me more and more your instrument as I come to that center within me where I know what you mean. Amen.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. See her work online at Everyday Mysteries With others she manages a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries: Fresh Expressions Colorado

Commemoration of Cyril of Jerusalem
In all that he did he gave thanks
to the Holy One, the Most High, proclaiming his glory;
he sang praise with all his heart,
and he loved his Maker.
He placed singers before the altar,
to make sweet melody with their voices.
He gave beauty to the festivals,
and arranged their times throughout the year,
while they praised God’s holy name,
and the sanctuary resounded from early morning. -- Sirach 47:8-10 NRSV

My late husband and I had a number of discussions about church over the course of our marriage. He was staunchly pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic, I was Episcopalian. I sincerely tried to go along and be a good Roman Catholic wife, sitting by her husband's side at mass on Sunday, but there were so many things I found I just couldn't buy into wholeheartedly. One of the biggest was music in the church. The local masses (indeed, most of the ones I'd attended in various places) either ignored music altogether or used something that was considered perhaps "new" and "relevant." For me, it was neither. My husband told me, "You don't go to church for the music," and my response was, "For me, I can't really go to church without it."

Reading the passage from Sirach, it sounded very much like the kind of worship that I am not only accustomed to but need. The previous passage of Sirach identifies David as the motivator of the actions in today's reading and just about everybody knows how important music and praise were to David. He threw a bit of liturgical dance into the mix as well, something that caused some great friction in his home life with his wife, but he also composed psalms and songs that were part of the worship of God. David needed music; his need and ability led to his introduction to the life of Jewish royalty with Saul and eventually his own kingship. Music was David's response to God, just as it has been and continues to be for many of different faiths and traditions. Although the attribution is often debated, whoever came up with the saying "Who sings, prays twice" definitely had a very strong idea that music added another dimension to the words and intent of prayer and praise.

Churches all over have choirs behind, in front of or flanking altars, just as Sirach describes, and scarcely a great ecclesiastical event or festival (and quite a few completely civic ones) is held without bands, orchestras, ensembles, soloists, massed choirs or small vocal groups to help mark the occasion. Over the millennia, there have been literally millions of pieces of church music ranging from simple chants to works as complex as Bach's B minor Mass or Tallis' 40-part motet, Spem in Alium ("I have never put my hope in any other but in you, God of Israel"). Every year new songs and hymns are written to add to the repertoire, seeking new ways to connect the spirit of the human to the worship and praise of God in new and greater ways.

For my husband, words were the vehicle to God, but for me, I need music to add that extra something that connects me with the holy. I can pray in silence or even worship via the spoken word, but even then in the back of my head there's usually a hymn or a piece that I've sung running somewhere under it all.

I can draw two conclusions from my contemplation of the reading from Sirach. One is that each person has a kind or style of worship that works for them and that is as it should be. It would be a boring world if we were all the same, even in church. The other is that it is less important how one prays and worships than the fact that one does actually do both. If music is a vehicle, then let it roll.

Now I've got that hymn "To God Be the Glory" running through my head. I guess, really, it's better than a jingle for laundry detergent or some fruit-flavored drink for children. Yes, definitely much better, but I just wish it weren't so difficult to have Spem in Alium playing though.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Readings for the Feast of St. Joseph, who chose to be father to Jesus

I often think that today would be a good day for the church to celebrate Fathers' Day rather than going along with the Hallmark™ date. There are not many stories of Joseph but to me they tell of a man who was a dreamer and who listened to his dreams but who was also very practical and able to see what is needed in the moment. James Kiefer gives a good summary of all the passages about Joseph.

Joseph was the first person Jesus probably called "abba" and perhaps Jesus learned about the love from a father from his childhood. Once Joseph got over the shock of Mary's pregnancy he gave his whole heart to the mission God had given him: providing, protecting, and parenting. According to what we can discern from the Gospels, Joseph did not live to see the terrible events of Jesus' later life but gave his all to give Jesus a good start in life.

I wonder who is or was Joseph in our lives? How can we be Joseph for all those who never had someone to nurture and provide and protect them? In this day there are so many who feel like orphans - never knowing a Joseph.

J. Barrie Shepherd, Faces at the Manger

“The hardest task
The most difficult role of all
That of just being there
And Joseph, dearest Joseph, stands for that.
Don’t you see?

It is important,
crucially important,
that he stand there by that manger,
as he does,
In all his silent misery
Of doubt concern and fear.
If Joseph were not there
There might be no place for us,
For those of us at least-
So many- who recognize and know-
That heartache, for our own,
Who share that helpless sense
Of lostness, of impotence
In our own lives, our families, our jobs
In our fearful threatened world this night.
Yes, in Joseph’s look of anguish
We find our place;
We discover that we too
Belong beside the manger:
This manger in which are met
God’s peace and all our wars and fears....
Let us be there,
Simply be there just as Joseph was,
With nothing we can do now,
Nothing we can bring-
It’s far too late for that-
Nothing even to be said
Except, ‘Behold- be blessed,
Be silent, be at peace.’

Joseph, son of David,
‘Do not fear,’ the angel said.
And Jim and Alice, Fred and Sue,
Bob and Tom and Jean and Betty too,
The word to you, to all of us
Here at the manger side,
The word is also, ‘do not fear.’
Our God, the Lord and Sovereign,
Maker of heaven and earth,
Time and eternity,
Of life and death and all that is
And shall be,Has joined us in this moment…,”

The Rev. Ann Fontaine is the Interim Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Astoria, OR. She lives on the coast of Oregon and is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

Commemoration of Julian of Norwich

Psalm 25:5-11
Isaiah 46:3-5
Hebrews 10:19-24
John 4:23-26

In this little object I saw three truths. The first is that God made it; the second that God loves it and the third is that God keeps it. – Julian of Norwich*

I'm fascinated by Julian of Norwich, a medieval English mystic and anchoress. Her biography is somewhat sketchy -- we don't know the name given her at birth or anything about her background. We really don't learn anything about her until she is about thirty and following an extreme illness. During that illness she had a series of sixteen visions or revelations which she wrote down twice, the first and short form right after the visions and the second long form with greater depth and reflection about twenty years later. As an anchoress she did not leave her cell which was attached to the church of St. Julian of Norwich, from which her name was derived, but it did not mean that her wisdom and influence did not extend beyond those four walls. She was much sought after as a woman of wisdom and great spirituality, something that we can still feel today when reading her words.

Hers is an amazing voice, a woman's voice from a time when the voices of women were seldom counted for anything. The message she brings to the modern world is one that both women and men can hear and take comfort in, namely that God made everything, God loves everything and God keeps everything, just as Julian saw in her vision of the “little thing” that was no bigger than a hazelnut. It was a tiny ball yet it represented all that exists. What a great metaphor. Instead of making us work for a metaphor to represent something so immense it can hardly be imagined, she hands it to us and explains it in such a way that we can catch on fairly easily. I bet Julian would have been a great facilitator of theological reflections.

Her theology was a gentle one, rooted in God's love and care for all of creation. She often referred to the motherly characteristics of God and Jesus but always used the masculine pronoun for them. It's an interesting juxtaposition, but for Julian, and for many of us, it works beautifully. It's also a reminder that God is not always the stern judge (a very masculine figure) but also a nurturing mother figure. I think that is something we need to be reminded of from time to time.

Another of Julian's revelations contains one of her most notable quotes, "... but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Prefacing it, however, is the acknowledgement that Jesus is speaking with regard to sin. "… sin is the cause..." Really? When I think about it, maybe it is. How else can we know the love and care of God unless maybe if God sent us a Hallmark card or personal note? The only way we can truly experience the depth of God's love is to realize that it is tied to our sins -- my sins, your sins, -- and the forgiveness of those sins before we even ask for that forgiveness. In the story of the returning prodigal son, the delinquent stammered his repentance but the father, embracing him in what I imagine was a great bear hug, ignored it as if it were unnecessary and immediately called for a party instead. I know I often forget that even though it is a parable, the truth is there and written large for me to see: I ask forgiveness for myself, but God's already planning a party for me before I can even form the first word.

In Julian's revelations, the suffering and death of Jesus were for a purpose and that was to prove God's love for us, not God's need or demand for a sacrificial victim to atone for the sins of the world. Atonement plays a part, but undergirding everything is love. I wonder why that is so hard a concept to grasp? Maybe it's easier to think that we deserve punishment from God when I miss the mark, and certainly I grew up with enough of a belief that it was because of my sin that Jesus had to die on the cross -- substitutionary atonement, to use big words about it. But Julian's "most courteous Lord", even in his suffering, exemplified pure love. It was all done for love, and her writings emphasize that fact. I think it's a theology I could work my way into very easily.

"... and all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." That's something to hang onto. Oh, and would you believe, Julian is sometimes depicted with a cat. I knew I liked that lady for more than her theology!

*Parke, Simon, ed., Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich, (2011; Kindle ed.) Guildford, UK: White Crow Books.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter