The Least of These

 

A Sermon preached on Facebook Live Broadcast

Sirach 26:10 The Headstrong Daughter

The Feast of Christ the King - Year A - November 22, 2020

Kevin Brown, (bishop of all Delaware), and I were having a conversation about the COVID pandemic earlier this week, especially in terms of the current surge or spike or whatever it is we’re currently in the midst of, which is bound to get even worse after the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Specifically, we were talking about the new restrictions being placed on us by the Governor – slipping us back from Phase 3 and into Phase 1.5 – as a way to help prevent the spread of COVID and provide early intervention to those who do test positive. 

I remarked to him that, throughout this pandemic, I have learned things I didn’t even know I needed to know. He laughed and agreed and said, “ministry never ceases to amaze me.” 

Today is The Feast of Christ the King. The gospel for today provides a very different image than the ones of royalty that are conjured by the term “Christ the King”. It is Jesus who provides the analogy of the King but does so in a way that is decidedly not kingly but needy – someone who is hungry and thirsty, a naked, sick, imprisoned stranger – and who is being tended to in his need. 

The disciples are understandably confused by this and ask him, “So, when did we see you in such need and tended to you?” And Jesus answers,  “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

“The least of these” – that’s what Jesus said. “The least of these who are members of my family.”  And then, true to Matthew’s style, he reports that Jesus underscores the point by talking about those who did not tend to the ‘least of these’. 

To no one’s surprise for those who have been reading Matthew’s gospel this past year – especially his parables – those who do not provide for those who do not have their basic human needs met there awaits “eternal punishment”. 

Which gives rise to an interesting question about ministry, which has to do with intent. Why do you do what you do? When you care for those in need, do you do it to make yourself feel good? Or, out of a sense of guilt? Or, fear of eternal damnation? Or, is it out of duty – because you’ve been told you have to? One more box to ‘check’ which will move you one row closer to God who sits on a throne in heaven? 

I hasten to point out that this is not what Jesus is saying. At. All. I’m betting he also didn’t say that stuff Matthew wants us to believe about being thrown into “eternal punishment”. That’s just absolutely antithetical to everything we know about the unconditional love and the abundant mercy of God as revealed in Christ, Jesus. 

Jesus is saying that ‘the least of these’ is ME – Jesus!. Whatever you do to ‘the least of these’ you do to ME. Jesus wants us to look at the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, those who are a stranger to us or who are sick and in prison and when we do, to see HIM. He wants us to see HIS face in he face of every person who has been denied a basic human right. 

Now, I admit, this is not an easy task. It’s much easier to act out of pity or to see ourselves as ‘better than’ this ‘poor unfortunate’ and tend to them as a sort of insurance policy to earn favor with God or that our ‘good deed’ will provide some protection in the future against our slipping into such and unfortunate lot. 

I learned this lesson from my field education supervisor when I was a seminarian intern at St. John’s, Bowdoin St, in Boston, MA. His name was Emmett Jarrett – “Fr. Emmett” as everyone knew him. A nose-bleed high Anglo Catholic who never read a psalm or piece of scripture that didn’t need to be chanted or saw a thurible that didn’t need another charcoal and an extra spoonful of incense. 

Sadly, Emmett died a few years ago of pancreatic cancer but he will live forever in my fondest memories which often return to bless me with the amazing things ministry has to teach us the things we didn’t even know we needed to know. 

St. John’s had a weekly ministry known as “The Thursday Night Supper”. It had started as a “soup kitchen” but had evolved into a full sit down dinner for those who were poor and/or homeless in that place in Boston where Beacon Hill rises to meet Government Center. It used to be a “blue light” district – filled with burlesque halls and bars, its streets lined with “ladies of the night” who were happy to take you upstairs and help you to forget your troubles. 

Many of the guests at the Thursday night supper arrived in what we referred to as ‘altered states of consciousness’. Some of it was drug induced, some in an alcoholic haze and for some it was both. One man I remember arrived that night in particularly bad shape. I can’t remember his name this very red hot second, but I’ll never forget his face. Or, the way he smelled. The pungent odor of the mixture of cigarettes, booze and filthy clothing and a body that had not been washed in weeks have a way of staying with you for the rest of your life. 

I want to say that his name was Ronald. Ronnie, seems to strike a familiar cord. Ronnie seemed always to be in a perpetual bad mood. Most of the other guests moved aside when he walked into the room. If you didn’t and if he was particularly cross that day, you might find his fist in your face. Indeed, that night, Ronnie looked as if someone had crossed him and he had lashed out but they struck back and he was much worse for the wear. 

Well, at least, I wouldn’t want to see what the other guy looked like. Ronnie’s face was covered with scratches and bumps and bruises and the places where streaks of blood that had been wiped away by the corner of his coat sleeve told the story of his recent round of fisticuffs.  

The coordinator of the Thursday night supper was a delightful man and dear friend named Jack Flaherty. Jack also had the weekly task of calling us all to prayer before our guests were served their meal. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he would begin. It was amazing how quickly the entire room was overcome by a hushed quiet, especially when they were being treated respectfully and with dignity. 

Jack would welcome everyone and then read off the menu for the evening, always adding, “And, for those of you who, for whatever reason, don’t want to or can’t eat what we have prepared or if your child prefers, you may go to the table in the back of the room where we have the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in all of Boston which will be assembled to your liking right in front of you.”

Jack would then invite Fr. Emmett to say the grace at the end of which there would be a quiet, orderly, table-by-table procession to the buffet table where volunteers would help prepare each guest’s plate. 

This one night, however, the guests had no sooner said “Amen” to Fr. Emmett’s prayer when a commotion broke out in the back of the parish hall. It was Ronnie, but this time, it wasn’t a fight. This time, Ronnie was in the midst of a violent seizure. 

I remember Ms. Conroy, who is a nurse, bounding over people, Emmett hot on her trail, over to Ronnie who seemed to be over the worst of the seizure. Ms. Conroy knelt down next to Ronnie and took his pulse. As soon as he stopped seizing, Emmett knelt down at Ronnie’s head, cradling him in his knees and wiping his brow with a wet cloth someone had thought to bring. 

Ms. Conroy pronounced Ronnie ‘okay’ and to ‘give him some space and some air’ and ‘someone call Mass General for an ambulance’ as Jack called everyone back to their places and for supper to proceed. Emmett stayed with Ronnie, humming softly to him, and tenderly wiping his brow, telling him softly and gently that the seizure was over and help was on the way.

I could barely stand the smell from where I was standing. Just as I was wondering how Emmett could stand being that close for that long, Emmett did something I will never forget. Emmett bent down and kissed Ronnie’s forehead. Sweat. Grime. Blood. And, who knows what else. Kissed him right there. On his filthy forehead. In front of God and everyone. 

And then, I understood the words found in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. “When you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” 

In kissing Ronnie, Emmett was kissing Jesus.  

Later that week, in my supervisory session with Emmett, we talked about what had happened with Ronnie. Emmett showed me the passage from Matthew and pointed out that the word that had been translated as “members of my family” was not an accurate translation. The word used was “anawim” which means “beloved”. 

Those who are “beloved of Jesus” are the “anawim” – the least, the lost and the lonely; the outcast who suffer hunger and thirst, who are naked and sick and locked out of homes and locked into a life of misery and suffering. 

Here’s the thing: I didn’t learn that in a book or in a classroom. I don’t know if I would have learned that lesson quite as well as I did by being in the midst of it. It’s a lesson that I didn’t even know I needed to learn but it has stayed with me, lo these more that 30 years later. 

That’s the thing about ministry. It never ceases to amaze. 

So, when you gather this Thursday for the holiday we know as Thanksgiving, I hope you reflect on this passage from the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. 

I hope you consider those things that make you grateful, yes, but I hope you also spend some time considering how to put your gratitude – not fear of eternal punishment – into some act of selfless kindness and generosity. I hope you consider how you might find Jesus in places and faces that might initially give you pause or repel you until you train your eye to see the face of Jesus; to see the anawim, the beloved of Christ. 

For this is the King we serve. Christ Jesus, the King of Unconditional Love who calls us into ministry that never ceases to amaze. 

Amen.

Celtic Advent - Day VII - November 21

 

Celtic Advent - Day VII - November 21, 2020

Seek

nayyirah waheed

you will find your way. it is

in the

same place

as

your love.

Halloween had just ended when suddenly, Christmas decorations appeared in the supermarket!

Along with that, there magically appeared two whole rows of plastic Christmas serving platters and cups and ceramic Santa Claus mugs and paper tablecloths and plates and napkins. And, another two whole section of boxes of Christmas cards. 

I don't know why, exactly, but I feel the need to point his out: Thanksgiving is Thursday. We haven't even gorged ourselves on turkey and pumpkin pie and people are already getting ready for Christmas.

I would join you in thinking that it's just the Madison Avenue marketing people who want us to get ready for Christmas but I saw people - several people, actually - putting Christmas stuff in their shopping basket, right next to all the stuff they were buying for Thanksgiving. 

I don't get it. 

I really hate feeling like *that* grumpy Episcopal priest (or organist or older gentleman or woman who identifies loudly as a "cradle Episcopalian" for no particular reason except they want to be certain that you know) who grinches and grumbles that there will be NO singing of Christmas Carols or Hymns during Advent. 

I'm really not *that* priest. Not that I can't be grumpy but, well, I guess I've learned to pick my battles carefully, there being so many occasions for them in the church.

Oh, I've been known to gently caution the organist and choir members that this is a "touchy subject" for many in the church so please "let's not give that fire any fuel," but beyond that, that's not a particular sword upon which I wish to fall.

Beyond the whole Madison Avenue PR campaign and arguments about "the evils of capitalism", however, I don't understand the need to rush things. It's part of our American culture, I fear. Everything's got to be better, bigger, stronger, faster.

It reminds me of Mandy Patinkin who sings my favorite version of "Coffee in a Cardboard Cup" from the Broadway musical "70, Girls, 70". Here are a few of the lyrics.

"The trouble with the world today, it seems to me

is coffee in a cardboard cup.

The trouble with the world today is plain to see

is everything is hurry up

There's Reddi Whip

Instant tea

Minute rice and my oh me.

There's coffee

I think she said 'coffee'

I know she said 'coffee'

In a cardboard cup'.

Is it instant gratification? Is that what we're after? Or, is it a result of overpopulation? 

I remember one of my first college courses in psychology. One particular psychological study, conducted over a twenty year period from 1950-1970, was getting lots of press. Psychologist John Calhoun's "mouse utopia" for the NIH was a study about the effects of population density on behavior. 

The work tapped into the era's feeling of dread that crowded urban areas heralded the risk of moral decay - and events like the murder of Kitty Genovese in NY only served to intensify the worry. A host of scientific works like Soylent Green and comics like 2000AD arouse and also inspired the 1971 children's books, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," which was also made into a 1982 film, "The Secret of NIMH" (one of my favorites). 

I suspect that 'feeling of dread' about moral decay has also contributed to dread about life in general. Life in these past four years, for many of us, have increased that sense of dread. The outbreak of COVID and racism and prejudice have served to intensify our sense of doom. 

Sometimes it feels to me that we, as a people, behave as if we have been caught in a rip tide - and, we're doing exactly the thing we're told not to do. 

As one who lives in a coastal community in a Midlantic State, we are made keenly aware of the danger of riptides. Riptides or rip currents, are long, narrow bands of water that quickly pull any objects in them away from the shore and out to sea. People often become exhausted struggling against the current, and cannot make it back to shore.

It's counterintuitive but the way to survive a riptide is to NOT swim toward the shore. If you do that, you will be fighting the current and, it is guaranteed, you will lose. There really is no contest. The riptide will always win. Some riptides can actually carry you hundreds of yards off shore.

Trying to swim against a riptide will only use up your energy; energy you need to survive and escape the riptide. So, the idea is to swim along the shoreline until you escape the current's pull. When free from the pull of the current, you swim at an angle away from the current toward the shore. 

Are you beginning to sense a spiritual metaphor here? 

I thought you would. 

I think of the rush to Christmas as a cultural riptide of sorts. It's so easy to get caught up in it and fight against it, exhausting ourselves and finally, ultimately, collapsing into its swirling waters, drowning in the cultural deep. 

Advent is a time to swim parallel to the Christmas Cultural Riptide or, depending on its strength and persistence, letting it take us a few hundred yards away from the shore until we can escape the current's pull. 

I suspect that is what the Celtic Advent offers us. Forty days and nights, as opposed to a mere four weeks, might just be the way to survive the Christmas cultural madness and keep us in touch with our spiritual core. 

Advent means "a coming into place, view or being; arrival". 

I'm quite partial to the idea of Advent being "a coming into place, view or being." There is no right or wrong way to do that. There is only your way. 

And, what it is that comes into place, view or being is unique to you. It may be the Baby Jesus, just as the hymns suggest. It may be to heed the many sermonic messages and "find the Christ in you" or "prepare a manger in your heart where Christ may dwell."

It may be a new, placental growth adhering itself to the wall of your soul, preparing to nurture a part of yourself that is yearning to find life and be born. 

Or, it may be the embryo of your authentic self which has had to remain hidden, terrified of judgment or consequence, but finally finding the right time to begin to emerge.

None of that can happen if you are fighting against the Christmas Cultural Riptide.

Here is a wee poem with deep meaning for tonight's meditation. May it be with you as you let the tide carry you away from the shore before you swim back home.

Home

nayyirah waheed (from salt, 2013)

there is you and you.

this is a relationship.

this is the most important relationship. 

Celtic Advent - Day VI - November 20

 

Celtic Advent - Day VI - November 20

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work with these stories from your life–not someone else’s life–water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. 

That is the work. The only work.” ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Luke is the only one of the evangelists to tell the story of the Annunciation. Indeed, his gospel is the only one which gives us much of any information of Mary's pregnancy and the birth of Jesus. (Luke 2:1-7, plus a genealogy of Joseph at Luke 2:1-7) 

In Matthew's gospel (Mt. 1:18-25)  an annunciation of sorts comes to Joseph when an angel speaks to him in a dream after Joseph had learned that Mary was with child not his own and had thought to "quietly divorce her". 

In his dream, the angel says to Joseph, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." (NIV) 

After Joseph woke up, he reportedly did exactly what the angel asked him and, in a stroke of TMI (Too much information), Matthew tells us that Joseph "did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."

Luke's gospel provides much more detail of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and yet, it has always left me with more questions than answers. Perhaps that was by design. Perhaps he only wrote what he knew - or had learned from the stories told by others. Or, perhaps, he only told us what he wanted us to know. 

I want to know more about Mary. I want to know more of her thoughts, her feelings. I want to know how a young girl, as she was reported to be, could come to such a life-changing decision without consulting another soul. 

Was that an act of courage or was that an example of adolescent rashness? I suppose it's no surprise that she doesn't talk with her parents but one wonders if she had sisters or brothers or close friends with whom she would consult. 

Yes, she reportedly traveled up to the hill country to talk with her cousin Elizabeth, but by then, she had already said 'yes' to the angel and was already "with child".

Then again, how intimidating and overwhelming must it have been to have an apparition - a point of light, an angel - in your room. And then, to have a voice coming from that point or light or angel, talking to you, telling you the unbelievable truth that you have "conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit."

I don't know what you believe about the Virgin Birth. That's not really the point of this meditation. The point is to use this story as an inspiration to know your own story. 

My parents met briefly at a mutual friends house. It was Sunday and what everyone in my family did on Sunday was to "take a ride" and "visit family and friends". My father says he saw my mother across the room and, he said, "I knew that I had just seen my future wife."

My mother says she saw my father across the room and thought he was "very handsome, too handsome for someone like me." (Please note; My mother was a very attractive woman but her self-esteem was always pretty low.)

She said she was surprised when the man that would be my father made his way over to talk with her. She said she was "certain it would end that afternoon and she wouldn't ever see him again," but, to her amazement, at the end of the afternoon, he asked if he could see her again.

They dated for a few months and then my father was drafted into the army to fight in WWII. They decided to get married right away, which they did, and then, three weeks later, my father was gone to fight on the Pacific Front for four years. 

And, didn't return once. 

They were married for three weeks and didn't see each other again for four years. I can't even imagine it.  

All they had as a means of communication were "love letters" which my mother kept for years in a shoe box under her bed. 

When my father finally came home, he was an injured war hero with a hearing loss, a lingering case of malaria and a Purple Heart. He also had what we now know was a serious case of PTSD. He said he had "suffered shell shock" but never talked much about it. They don't call men of his age "The Silent Generation" for nothing.

Well, except sometimes in the middle of the night when he would wake up screaming and crying as he relived a scene from the battlefield.

My mother, on the other hand, was anxious to being The Great American Dream. She had what I'm now convinced was a clear vocation - a very clear sense of a call from God - to have a family. 

"Four beautiful children," she often said, "two boys and two girls." 

She was close: Three girls and one boy. But, there was tragedy along the way.

And, when life hit its inevitable bumps and detours, when we each went through adolescence, one by one, I would often hear my father mutter to my mother, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "Four beautiful children. That's what you said you wanted. That's what you've got. Four beautiful children. Happy now?"

Her first pregnancy was a stillborn. A girl. She named her Nancy and we went to her graveside every year on All Saints Day. My mother got pregnant three months later - against doctor's advice - and had a miscarriage after five months. 

Devastated but determined, she waited the 12 months before, as she said delicately, "trying again." In the meantime, my grandmother organized the local church to begin novenas - a period of nine day or nine week focused prayer - so my mother would conceive a child. 

The promise made was that if she had a girl she would be named after their church - St. Elizabeth of Portugal. 

And, so it came to pass and so it was that I was named Elizabeth (although my mother preferred to say that I was named after the Queen of England). 

In the worst moments of my life, I held onto that story for dear life. When I came out to the fullness of my identity and rejected by my family, it was comforting to know that I was wanted and prayed for and called into being by a community of faith and named for the patron saint of that church. 

That story also helped me know something about myself. It gave me at least a baseline of understanding about the beginnings of my life. It allowed me to listen for what Howard Thurman called "the sound of the genuine". 

One of the things I love most about being a priest is being trusted with people's stories. I hear them, sometimes, for the first time anyone has ever said them aloud to themselves, much less when another person has been present in the room. 

Piecing stories together and watching patterns emerge is always a point of insight, often as startling as being alone in a room and watching a point of light emerge, speaking through the thin layers of time, illuminating a path to the future that could never have appeared any other way and listen for "the sound of the genuine". 

Scripture calls it "an angel". The ancient sanskrit word for "angel" is more accurately translated "point of light". I suspect that Mary, illuminated by that point of light, was able to listen to "the sound of the genuine" in her. So, too, did Joseph in his dream. Both Mary and Joseph were able to cut the strings that bound them to cultural and religious norms and follow what the truth had in store for them. 

What is the story of your nativity? Do you know the story that brought your parents together? Do you have a sense of having been called here, to them, to that particular family? What avenues of insight does that open for you about your life now? About where you may be headed on your journey? 

I hope the story of Mary and Joseph inspires a Heavenly Annunciation in your life. 

The Sound of the Genuine

There is in every person something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in herself. There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. Nobody like you has ever been born. And no one like you will ever be born again.

You are the only one.

If you cannot hear it, the sound of the genuine in you, you will never find whatever it is for which you’re searching. And if you hear it and then do not follow it, it were better that he had never been born. You are the only you that has ever lived. Your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all the existences. And if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls. 

-Howard Thurman

Celtic Advent - Day V - November 19

 

Celtic Advent - Day V - November 19

"And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humble and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home." 
The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge by Wendell Berry

If you woke me up out of a sound sleep at 3 o'clock in the morning and demanded that I name the one thing about me that most identifies me in the world, I would say, "Immigrant". 

For many years of my young life, that caused me a great deal of emotional pain. I felt an outsider. A foreigner. More than that, I often felt an oddity. A freak.

My skin tone, which my mother and aunts described as "olive complexion" with no small amount of affirmation was different from most of the girls of Western European descent - a factor which those girls did not hesitate to point out, especially after gym class when sweat and oil poured out of every pore on my face. ("Ewww. . . get her a towel before she starts to stink.")

My hair was "jet black" as the women in my family described it, as they slowly brushed and braided it or, in the evening, after a bath when we washed our hair and body with the same bar of Castile soap that was used to hand wash laundry, twisted my hair into "Shirley Temple" curls and tied it with strips of white cloth. My grandmother described the texture of my hair as "kinky" - something that earned me hysterical laughter from the "colored girls" (as they were known at the time) I went to school with when I repeated it to them. 

One of those girls took pity on me, recognizing that I was desperately trying to find a way to name a similarity so we might find a connection, took me aside and said, "Girl, your hair is coarse. Not kinky. It's thick and coarse. And, girl," she said, fixing a stray curl here and there, "don't be ashamed. Don't never be ashamed of what God gave you. It's beautiful. You are, in your own way, beautiful." 

Don't even get me started on food. The fragrant dishes that always - still, to this day - immediately remind me of 'home' only served to make me feel even more of an outsider. That was especially so the day after an evening meal of bacalhau, dried and salted cod fish which has been baked with potatoes, onions and whole cloves of garlic, lots of root vegetables,  olive oil and amazing Portuguese spices of saffron, hot paprika, and crushed red peppers.

It's a special dish - so special that you can always count on it being on the table for any holiday or birthday celebration - which suddenly and rapidly became a point of humiliation when the girls with blonde or "auburn" hair and blue eyes came by me and sniffed and then held their noses as they walked away, falling into each other, laughing uproariously.  

And then, there were my clothes. Hand-me-downs. All of them. Mostly from Judy, the daughter of my Godmother, Bella. Judy was a single child and much adored. And, appropriately well dressed. The honest truth is that most of the "outfits" as we called them at the time, were perfectly fine. 

They just weren't mine. Not bought for me. Not chosen by me. 

Wearing some other girl's clothes just made me feel that I walked around with a sign on the front of my body that said, "Immigrant". And, just so there would be absolutely no doubt, the sign on the back of my body said, "Different". 

There was one person, however, who helped me through those difficult early years. Mrs. Kelliher was her name. She was the "Special Needs Teacher" - a new feature at Brayton Avenue Elementary School in Fall River, Massachusetts, where the kids with handicaps and learning disabilities were sent.

I had not done well on my first grade IQ exams, mostly because we spoke Portuguese at home and my English was not good. So, when I was shown a picture of a bottle of milk and asked to name the first letter of its contents, I said "L". 

Of course I did. I knew that what was in that bottle was "leite". And, I knew it was "milk" in English. But, in my head, I went first to my "mother tongue" and I said "L". 

That earned me the first quarter of my academic year in Mrs. Kelliher's class. I was humiliated. My parents were furious. After meeting with my teachers, they came home and decreed that we were only to speak English. Ever. No Portuguese. Ever. 

Mrs. Kelliher knew that the only "special need" I had was a language barrier. She took it upon herself to teach me English, not only during class time but  creating "story time" so that I could read books to the other children. By the time that first quarter was over, I was speaking English just like someone who had been to the language born. 

Even today, when I'm feeling "other than" and an "outsider," I think of Mrs. Kelliher. I can't repeat anything she actually said to me. I can just see her face, her smile of pleasure when I succeeded, the affirmation and encouragement reflected in her eyes. 

What others saw as "different" she told me was "special". Eventually, I came to know that God loved me and had made us all "different" each in our own unique way and that, in God's eyes, we were, to a person, "special". 

Mrs. Kelliher made me feel safe. I learned to trust her. Slowly, I learned to trust myself and feel safe in my own skin, different as it was from everyone else. 

Psychologist Rollo May wrote, "A man or woman becomes fully human by his or her own choices. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day. These decisions require courage."

Mrs. Kelliher helped me to make a decision, to choose to embrace my "otherness" as a well from which I could draw strength in exactly those times when I felt at my weakest. 

Now, I couldn't have told you at the age of six that I had made that decision, but looking back, I understand that this is precisely what I did. I have come to see that that was the first step on the journey, the  pilgrimage, that is my life. 

The Latin root of the word 'pilgrim' means 'foreigner'. I have learned to embrace that definition and that identity. I have learned to embrace the words of Muriel Rukeyser, "The journey is my home."  

Courage? I'm still learning what that is. Right now, courage means feeling very afraid and walking forward, anyway. It means finding a home and feeling safe in the midst of the foreign and unknown. 

I invite you to consider the ways in which you have felt an 'outsider' and a 'foreigner'. If you have never felt that way, I invite you to find the courage to wonder why. What is your earliest memory of an act of courage you made - especially if you didn't know it at the time, in the moment? Where is it that you feel most at 'home'? How do you feel when you are in a place that is away from that which makes you feel safe, secure, known and loved?

Here's tonight's meditation

Walking Meditation Thich Nhat Hanh in The Long Road Turns to Joy 

Take my hand. We will walk. We will 

only walk. We will enjoy our walk without 

thinking of arriving anywhere. Walk 

peacefully. Walk happily. Our walk is a 

peace walk. Our walk is a happiness walk. 

Then we learn that there is no peace walk; 

that peace is the walk; that there is no 

happiness walk; that happiness is the walk. 

We walk for ourselves. We walk for 

everyone always hand in hand. Walk and 

touch peace every moment. Walk and touch 

happiness every moment. Each step brings 

a fresh breeze. Each step makes a flower 

bloom under our feet. Kiss the Earth with 

your feet. Print on Earth your love 

and happiness. Earth will be safe when we feel 

in us enough safety.

Celtic Advent - Day IV - November 18

 

Celtic Advent - Day IV - November 18

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you cant practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."  ~ Maya Angelou

I have always been fascinated by the tenent of Islam that every believer is called to make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca in her or his lifetime. The closest I have gotten to anything like - but nowhere actually near -  this religious expectation of pilgrimage is an annual tradition of my devout Roman Catholic family to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, MA.   

We actually called ourselves Advent Pilgrims. 

Sometime in mid-December, usually just as the street lights came on, we would pack ourselves into the car and drive up to Attleboro where we would begin our pilgrimage by feasting on hot dogs and french fries or a slice of pizza and a Coke at the cafeteria. 

I can not convey to you what a special treat this was, to have a meal - such as it was - outside of our home, away from our family table, in a place that was as close to a restaurant as we could afford eating food that bore no resemblance to the fare that usually graced our dinner table. It was a pretty heady experience for kids of a Portuguese immigrant family.

Once fortified with food, we would begin to walk around the grounds, going from exhibit to exhibit (called stations) which told the unfolding story of the Nativity of Jesus in 10 exhibits. At each station, we would stop and say a decade (10) prayers known as the "Hail Mary".  (Meaning, we would say that prayer 10 times.)

At the last decade, we would arrive at the mid point of the Shrine to Our Lady of La Salette. There, only for the strong of heart, the faithful pilgrim would fall to their knees on the cement steps in the cold December night and say a Hail Mary, on your knees, one on each step, until you arrived at the foot of the statue where you whispered your prayer petition and kissed her foot. 

If you didn't want to do the path of the Nativity Story, you could start at the bottom base of the Shrine and do an entire rosary, 10 rounds of 10 decades on the 100 steps up to the statue. 

In the New England cold. 

With your rosary beads in your mittened hand. 

On. Your. Knees.

That, my grandmother said, was for "Catholics of Courage," which she defined as those Catholics who had the strength to "put their faith to the test". 

Which I did. Every year. (Of course, I did.) 

I didn't know why I did it, exactly, except, I suppose to prove the point that I was a "Catholic of Courage". Besides, I would do it not for myself but for my grandmother who had gotten to an age where she could no longer walk around the Nativity stations much less kneel her way up the "Catholics of Courage" concrete steps. 

To be clear: This was not about the betterment of my character or the edification of my soul. To the contrary, this was a point of pride, a goal to be achieved, a service to be rewarded - usually with a trip to the Gift Shop where I would get yet another religious medal. And then it was back to the Cafeteria for a mug of steaming hot chocolate. 

The Shrine burned down in an unfortunate fire in 1999. One of the priests fell asleep smoking a cigarette, as I recall. They've rebuilt it, I hear, but I don't know if the 100 step shrine was replaced. When I googled pictures of La Salette, I didn't find any pictures of the Shrine I remembered from my youth. 

It made me a little sad. 

I've since learned that my first introduction to being a pilgrim was not at all what it means to be a pilgrim. That is not to say that one could not visit the Shrine of La Salette as a pilgrim and avail themselves of the same things I did as a child and still have a deeply spiritual experience. 

It all depends on intent. 

The word pilgrim has its root in the Latin word peregrinus or “foreigner.” I love that because it sums up for me one of the important aspects of a pilgrimage - that a person removes themselves from the familiar and intentionally places themselves in a situation or place which is foreign - or different - or, out of the ordinary. 

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance. It could be made to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion or to pay homage or a quest for purpose. It could also be the intentional search for the holy land of our souls. 

I have come to understand that my desire for pilgrimage is centered in what I think is a universal human longing for growth, for becoming more than we were by going farther than we ever dared.  

A pilgrimage honors your deepest values and invites you to discover your own inner wisdom by practicing deeper listening and wholehearted decision-making. 

It welcomes you to reflect on your vocation and life direction and allows you to get lost, to make mistakes and learn the lessons from those "failures" that you couldn't have learned any other way. 

And that, my friends, allowing yourself to get lost, to set a goal and fail but continue on your quest, takes real courage - whether you do that step by step on a pilgrimage to a holy place far, far away, step by step on your knees up to a shrine of a holy person, or step by step on a journey down deep into the center of your soul. 

I love this quote from R.S. Thomas: "The point of a pilgrimage is not to arrive but to return laden with pollen you shall work up into honey the mind feeds on." 

I offer this poem as a reflection for this fourth day of our pilgrimage into an experience of a Celtic Advent.

Detour

Ruth Feldman

I took a long time getting here,

much of it wasted on wrong turns,

back roads riddled by ruts.

I had adventures

I never would have known

if I had proceeded as the crow flies.

Super highways are 

so sure of where they are going:

they arrive too soon.

A straight line isn't always

the straightest distance

between two people.

Sometimes I act as though

I 'm heading somewhere else

while, imperceptibly,

I narrow the gap between you and me.

I'm not sure I'll ever know 

the right way, but I don't mind

getting lost now and then.

Maps don't know everything. 

And, this (of course)

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 

- over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Celtic Advent Day III November 17

 

Celtic Advent - Day III - November 17

"I felt in need of a great pilgrimage, so I sat still for three days, 

and God came to me."

~Kabir, 15th century Indian mystic poet 

Before we get into advent and what it means, I want to spend a little time on the idea of a spiritual journey or pilgrimage.

My first pilgrimage (of what, please God, will be many more), was to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. (The Way of St. James of the Star Field). In many ways it prepared me for all other pilgrimages. In other ways it spoiled all other pilgrimages. Ultimately and uniquely, it prepared me to know that all our lives are pilgrimages. 

There are over 200 paths – and four officially authorized ways: walking, biking, on horseback or sailing – to get to Santiago de Compostela through the northern part of Spain known as Galicia. 

I traveled from the city of San Sebastian in the Basque region of Spain, near France, following El Norte, the Northern route, which provides breathtaking views as you walk, the Atlantic Ocean often at your right, through quaint farm lands with sheep and goats, cows, cattle and horses, and many feral cats. 

Then, turning south, you walk through eucalyptus forests and farm lands, 106 miles total, to the city of Santiago De Compostela and the magnificent Cathedral there where the ossuary which reportedly contains the bones of St. James is kept and revered. 

I signed up for the pilgrimage as a birthday present to myself, placing my first deposit in April, 2018. Soon after, I began a period of preparation that would last six months until the pilgrimage began on October 8th. 

The pilgrimage was designed and led by Valerie Brown, a Quaker who was ordained by Thich Nhat Hahn in 2003, and staff member at Parker Palmer’s Center for Courage and Renewal. 

Little did I know that those two words – courage and renewal – would capture the spirit of pilgrimage. In order to even begin to hope to achieve those two goals, preparation was absolutely essential. It was to be my first lesson in pilgrimage. 

Valerie’s preparation involved body, mind and spirit. We were advised to follow the American Heart Association’s Physical Guidelines for Adults, and we were encouraged to begin walking 3 miles per week, gradually increasing to 15 miles per week. 

Valerie encouraged us to take an inventory of the foods we were eating and to begin, if we hadn’t already, to choose foods that are well balanced and support our body type. We were urged to eat mindfully, and, at least weekly, she suggested that we eat in silence without any devices to distract us from simply savoring the meal. 

We were encouraged to take a steam bath 1-10 times monthly and a weekly bath in Epsom salt. We were advised to swim, using, if possible, healing whirlpools and to stay well hydrated, drinking plenty of fresh, clear, unflavored, un-carbonated water daily. 

Additionally, we were to practice meditation for 5-20 minutes, three to five times per week, which included visualization and the creation of a “home altar” to celebrate the pilgrimage as well as journaling three to five times weekly for about 3-5 minutes about our hopes, dreams and fears. 

We were also encouraged to tell our friends and family about the pilgrimage and to ask for their prayers and support. Here’s the hard, second part of that advice: “Open yourself to receive that support.” 

I loved this final piece of advice for spiritual preparation: “Look at the sky every day. Expand your views. Notice how you feel. Do this every day for 30 seconds to one full minute.” 

When I was on the Camino, I was especially grateful for this preparation. It reminded me of the preparation of pregnancy, and I wondered if the women of Mary’s time had any similar preparation for their bodies and minds and spirits. 

As I walked the farmlands of Northern Spain and Galatia, it was hard not to notice that the people who lived close to the land and depended on it for their livelihood seemed to be in a perpetual cycle of living into their current reality while preparing for the next season, the next reality of abundance or scarcity, beauty and harshness, calm or storm. 

When I stopped to speak with some of the farmers – both of us fluent in a pretty hilarious form of Spanglish – there was an unmistakable spirituality that infused every part of their lives. 

I suppose dependency on the land inspires an understanding that even though they lived on the Camino, their lives were also a Camino – a sacred way or path or journey on which they were pilgrims. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, as my feet lifted from and then touched the ground, moving me step-by-step further along on my journey, I began to understand myself and my own life in the same way. 

 "You cannot travel the path until you have become the path."

 – Gautama Buddha (563-483 B.C.E.) 

It is important to take time, several times a year, for pilgrimage, to understand ourselves as "peregrino/a," a traveler on a sacred path we call Life. It is equally important, then, to stop and shift our focus on our lives. To look up from the path and look at the sky. To consider taking a different or side or parallel path. To gain a new perspective on our lives. 

The pandemic has taught me that while going to a sacred place for pilgrimage is wonderful and thrilling and challenging, it is not necessary. 

You can take a sacred journey right where you are, finding the courage and renewal to seek and to find the justice and joy that is in the very heart of God. 

It is good to begin to open to this awareness and understanding with a sacred journey into a 40-day Celtic Advent. 

I will be spending some time in the next few days on the ideas of courage and renewal as a way to talk about and move ourselves into Advent, but I want to stop here and encourage you to stop, now, and prepare your body and mind and soul for the next 37 days. 

Read over the preparation for the Camino and consider how you might prepare your body, mind and spirit for this Season of Advent. 

Perhaps you might consider one thing – making one commitment as a way to begin. Perhaps yours is a busy life, swirling with lots of people and chatter and noise. 

Perhaps, to you, a walk several times a week might be appealing, especially as the Fall Season moves into Winter. 

Or, you might chose to do an inventory of your diet and commit to making healthier choices about what you eat. 

Or, just maybe the idea of making a commitment to a time of meditation speaks to something in the core of your being. You might want to combine meditation with walking a labyrinth, if there is one near you. 

Choose to change one thing in your life as a way to prepare to meet Justice and Joy. 

Here is a poem for reflection as you consider. 

Invite Wonder 

Christine Paintner 

What if you bowed 

Before every dandelion you met 

And wrote love letters to squirrels and 

pigeons who crossed your path? 

What if scrubbing the dishes became an act 

of single reverence for the gift of being 

washed clean, and what if the rhythmic 

percussion of chopping carrots became the 

drumbeat of your dance? 

What if you stepped into the shower each 

morning only to be baptized anew and sent 

forth to serve the grocery bagger, the bank 

teller and the bus driver through acts of 

simple kindness? 

And what if the things that make your heart 

dizzy with delight were no longer stuffed 

into the basement of your being and allowed 

out to play in the lush and green fields? 

There are two ways to live in this world: as 

if everything in this world were enchanted 

or nothing at all. 

There is no in between, although you keep 

trying to live this divided life knowing deep 

down something is awry. 

You have lived long enough with this 

tearing apart. 

Come out into the wide world. 

And discover there, companions and guides 

at every turn, and even those who summon 

curses from your heart have a divine spark 

within them bright enough 

To invite wonder. .

Celtic Advent - Day 2

A 40-Day Celtic Advent

“Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6.16)

I want to begin with a disclaimer: While the next 39 days will be patterned after a Celtic Advent, it is not a “traditional” Celtic Advent. There are several models of that available. This is not one.

While I have great affinity and affection for Celtic Spirituality, I would not appropriate this cultural spirituality any more than I would Buddhist or Native American or African American Spirituality, or create a “Christian” Jewish Seder.

Please hear that I am not criticizing those for whom Celtic Spirituality is deeply meaningful and they use it, whole. I am simply saying what it is that suits me and my sense of conscience. That does not mean that I won’t be using prayers from Iona or Northumbria or Lindisfarne. I will. I will also use prayers and meditations from a wide variety of sources, from Howard Thurman to Steve Charleston, Julian of Norwich to Ann Lamott, Hildegard of Bingen to Nadia Boltz-Weber. And, many others.

In the next 9 days of this 40-day journey to Advent, we will focus on what it means to be on a spiritual journey – a pilgrimage, as it were, without walking – and the very idea of Advent. What does “Advent Spirituality” mean? What do longing and desire have to do with prayer?

The second part will be a 10-day focus on the incarnation, and we will explore with intelligent, open, spiritual curiosity what it might mean to the modern mind for God to be incarnate in Christ and for Christ to be incarnate in us. How do we as people who understand that the world is not flat and snakes do not talk embrace mystery and miracle – we who live in the midst of many “miracles” of modern science and medicine? What can we learn about justice and joy from the visit of Gabriel to Mary and her song?

The third quarter will look at what it means for “Christ to come again” – the “second coming”. Where might we seek to find evidence of the Parousia? What might we expect to find when we live into our Baptismal promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves”?

Finally, the last 10 days will look at the celebration of Christmas. We will explore what our “family traditions” tell us about ourselves and our theology, our principles and values. What things/practices/traditions might we want to keep – and why? What new traditions might we wish to start – and why? Where - how - might we find justice and joy?

I will not provide answers to any question. Neither will judgment of others be allowed. You may choose to share some insights in the comment section. Silence is also welcome.

Our world is a dark and broken place. The darkness is not only due to the time of year and the change of clocks. The Unholy Trinity of COVID, racism, and political toxicity has cast a deep spiritual darkness over almost every aspect of our lives. The isolation of quarantine, the obscenity of racism and the poisonous cocktail of misinformation and lies, distrust and cynicism have left many of us spiritually depleted and emotionally exhausted.

If ever we needed Justice and Joy - in ourselves and in the world - it is now.

What I hope to do is to create the luxury of space and time where these questions might be explored. I will post the meditations sometime in the early evening.

My hope is that these meditations will come as a wee bit of light at the end of the day in the midst of these dark days. My prayer is that that light will grow, slowly over these 40 days, so that the Light of Christ may shine brightly in our lives at Christmas and throughout the year as we find the Justice and Joy promised of the birth of Jesus.

I offer the following as tonight’s meditation and prayer as we begin this pilgrimage into A 40 Day Celtic Advent:

A Reading adapted from Psalm 80 in Psalms for Praying by Nan Merrill

Eternal Listener, give heed to your people,


You, who are our Guide and our Light.


You companion us through the wilderness,

through the shadows created by fear.


You plant your Seed into each heart.


You uproot the weeds of our sin,


You cultivate the soil of our goodness.

Truly, in You, we become like a tiny acorn,

holding the secret of a mighty oak.

You nourish us with the food of love,

with streams of Living Water.

Be our strength as we break down walls that separate and divide;


let not fear pluck away the gifts we would share.


Roll away the stones that become obstacles to growth,

to producing a bountiful harvest.


May we always walk and co-create with You;


receive the gratitude of our hearts, as we share in the Great Plan.

Reading (from The Black Book of Carmarthen)

My mind is set on a journey,


My intent is to put to sea.


A beneficial plan, a gift it will be.

My mind is set on a plan,


My intent is to put to sea.


A beneficial plan, O Lord, it will be.

During this time, pilgrims are invited to share in the comments section or in the silence of their own hearts, their prayers and intentions for the pilgrimage.

Closing Prayer (“A Prayer for Pilgrims and Journeyers” by Edwin Hays)

A journey once taken alone we now choose to take together.

Moving forward as one body into a future filled with possibility,


we walk without maps, but we walk confidently,

and we walk with hope,

because we have chosen to be lights for each other,

while on the way.

We travel forward along a way we have not gone before;

we travel those who are led,

arms outstretched,
as those who are called forth to life.

We travel in need, dependent on the Holy One for strength,

for assurance;

dependent on each other, God's instruments for love.

Leaving known paths behind us,


we choose to journey forward in faith and hope.


As the journey brought us here, so now we begin it anew,

in company.

Amen.