Gifts: A dream of a new church

Good Tuesday morning, good citizens of the Cosmos. Today is the seventh day of the miracle of light celebrated during Hanukkah. It is also the seventh day of Christmas.

The symbol of the seventh day of Christmas is the seven swans a-swimming, which represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

The seven swans are also said to represent the two great sacraments and five sacramental acts of faith, which are rites that signify the grace of God: Baptism, and Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.
Swans are considered a symbol of spiritual gifts because they are graceful and beautiful.

Today is also the sixth day of Kwanzaa, when the sixth or Kuumba candle is lit. Kuumba is a Swahili word that means "creativity". It's a day to celebrate creativity and how it can be used to improve the community.

Meditating on the gifts of light and spirit and sacraments led me to consider church as a gift of Christmastide and the last day of the year 2024.

By noon on the 20th day of the year 2025, some of us will need to find a place to strengthen our spiritual core. Others will need to find one.

Some of the things we are about to witness, done in the name of some people's idea of Christianity, will make Jesus weep when it won't cause him to take out some whips and turn over a few tables.

Violence and cruelty so casual and commonplace, inflicted with impunity on the weak and the lowly, and anyone who dares to object to it, will become so commonplace that it will be greeted with a shrug of the shoulders because it will seem to have become "just the way things are" now.

Most of our present churches are not prepared to spiritually nourish much less sustain the souls of their flock for what is about to come.

We need a new vision of church for a new year. Indeed, we have needed a new vision of church for many years, but never have we needed one more than the church we'll need for the next four years.

Quinn G. Caldwell wrote this vision in 2014. We didn't listen then. I hope we listen now.

If we don't, well, we can light all the candles we want for whatever reason we want and sing lovely songs that cheer us with their familiar nostalgia, but who and what we will become will have nothing to do with the dream of God for us as human beings who are made in the image of God.

And that's the vision we have lost sight of - that we are all, each and every last one of us - made in the image of God. If we believed that, our vision of the world would surely change, and with it, our vision of church.

Here's that vision of church. If it makes you either uncomfortable or excited, then maybe lighting all those candles and remembering all those ancient stories and celebrating all those principles and symbols may have had the desired effect.

Let's dream of a new church for a new year.

"If you came to this place expecting a tame story,
you came to the wrong place.

If you came for a story that does not
threaten you,
you came for a different story than the one
we tell.

If you came to hear of the coming of a God
who only showed up so that you could have a
nice day
with your loved ones,
then you came for a God whom we do not
worship here.

For even a regular baby is not a tame thing.

And goodness that cannot threaten complacency
and evil
is not much good at all.

And a God who would choose to give up power
and invincibility
to become an infant for you,
certainly didn't do it just so you could have dinner.

But.

If you came because you think unwed teenage mothers
are some of the strongest people in the world.

If you came because you think that the kind of people who work third
shift doing stuff you'd rather not do might attract an angel's
attention before you, snoring comfortably in your bed, would.

If you came because you think there are wise men and women to be
found among undocumented travelers from far lands and
that they might be able to show you God.

If you came to hear a story of tyrants trembling
while heaven comes to peasants.

If you came because you believe that God loves the animals
as much as the people
and so made them the first witnesses to the saving of the world.

If you came for a story of reversals
that might end up reversing you.

If you came for a tale of adventure and bravery,
where strong and gentle people win,
and the powerful and violent go down to dust,
where the rich lose their money but find their lives
and the poor are raised up like kings.

If you came to be reminded that God loves you too much
to leave you unchanged.

If you came to follow the light
even if it blinds you.

If you came for salvation and not safety,
then, ah, my friends,
you are precisely in the right place.

So what are you here for?"

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

- Quinn G. Caldwell, All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Abingdon Press (2014) You may order it here:
https://www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781426790171.
 

Christmas gifts: Integrity

 Good Monday morning, good citizens of the cosmos. It's a good thing I do these morning reflections. They help to reorient my sense of time, which can get completely discombobulated between December 25th and January 6th — celebrating Christmas, the New Year, and the Epiphany.

Lord, have mercy!

It's the sixth day of Hanukkah and the sixth day of Christmas when every true love gives their true love six geese a-layin'. The number of geese—six—reportedly represents the number of days of creation. The goose was also seen as being a “sacred” bird. The expression “silly goose” is not slanderous, but pious in origin. It means blessed, happy, innocent, and gentle.

It's the fifth day of Kwanzaa, the day to observe and consider Nia, or purpose. "To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community to restore our people to their traditional greatness." It can mean the purpose for your own future, the financial purpose of your family, or the collective purpose of your economic community.

In my meditation this morning, I've been considering the gift of this day of Christmastide. I keep coming back to the gift of the life of former President Jimmy Carter.

Conservative political pundit, George Will, wrote a scathing review of Carter's life. It was, unfortunately, the first thing I read after I learned of his death, as if he had written the piece after Carter entered Hospice care two years ago in anticipation of Carter's imminent death. George seemed ready to pounce as soon as Jimmy Carter's death announcement was made.

The headline of his opinion piece should have been enough of a warning to me not to read it.

I blazed ahead anyway thinking, surely, George knows, despite what has happened in his not-so-grand anymore but still old party as well as in our culture, that one ought not speak ill of the dead.

George did, anyway. Here's that headline:

"Jimmy Carter was the president who made Ronald Reagan necessary: Richard Nixon made Jimmy Carter tempting; Carter made Ronald Reagan necessary."

What a jerk, right?

Never mind about the abysmal records of Nixon and Reagan. No, let's use the death of a 100-year-old man, the longest surviving former POTUS who was married for the longest time (77 years) to the same woman; a man who embodied and lived his life in the Christian values he purported to believe; the only former POTUS to win a Nobel Peace Prize; the Camp David Accords he brokered that reshaped the Middle East; the work he did to diversify the federal judiciary, including nominating a pioneering women’s rights activist and lawyer named Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the federal bench; the environmental reforms he put in place, becoming one of the first leaders in the world to recognize the problem of climate change - let's take all of that goodness and blame him for the necessity of electing a crook and a scam artist to the White House.

Some people have become so normalized to corruption and deceit that they wouldn't recognize integrity if it lived for 100 years in the same person.

Integrity is a spiritual gift. We are born with the seeds of it when we enter the world, red and yowling and shivering with anxiety, protesting the cold and the blinding light of our new reality.

For some of us, that will be our most honest reaction to the harshness of the world into which we are born. We are then carefully tamed to behave, to not make others uncomfortable with the truth, to adjust and acclimate and fit it.

Some of us never do and spend our lives as misfits and ne'er-do-well. Some try their whole lives to dull the pain of human existence and recreate with drugs or alcohol the serene happiness and comfort they knew in utero or as newborns.

Some become artists who do their truth-telling with the gift of their artistry using words or music, paint or sculpture, telling the stories of our lives with visual or audible or creative images and symbols. Some are activists and work to bring about cultural or political change and transformation.

Still others look around and are determined to improve the human condition, to change the world for the better - through science, medicine, the law, social sciences, and education, or through trades like carpentry, plumbing, and electricity.

And then, there are those who think that the only way to improve the world is to serve themselves - no matter the cost or who pays for it or who gets hurt.

Greed is one of the greatest tempters of integrity. Greed, I think, is an adaptive strategy to the anxiety with which we are born that never really leaves us.

We're about to see unprecedented levels of greed and avarice in the days ahead. The result will be that our individual and cultural anxiety levels will rise in direct proportion to the amount of the corruption and greed and cruel narcissism we will witness in our elected leaders and replicated in our employers, neighbors, friends, and family members.

In the days to come, it will be important to remember the gift of integrity that each of us is given as part of entering the enterprise of being human. It's a costly gift, one that needs attention and care and sacrifice in order to grow strong.

It will be good for us to remember the lives of Jimmy and Rosalind Carter, and the work they did together both while in office as well as after they left the White House.

In the years after their "retirement" the Carters were involved in monitoring more than 100 elections around the world; helping virtually eliminate Guinea worm disease, an infection that had haunted Africa for centuries; and building or repairing thousands of homes in more than a dozen countries as part of Habitat for Humanity.

Oh, and attending church and teaching Sunday School. Most every week. At their beloved place of worship, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia.

History will probably not remember Jimmy Carter as the best POTUS. And, that may be fair enough. I think he will be remembered as a decent man who lived his life and led this country with integrity.

No small thing, these days.

As he lies in his grave, Jimmy Carter stands as a reminder of St. Paul's exhortation to the church in Philippi, that, "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. " (Phillippians 4:8-9)

In the days to come, as the normalcy of our lives becomes even more discombobulated than it does during "the holidays," we're going to need that reminder.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Gifts: Mystery

Good Sunday morning, good citizens of the cosmos. So, the calendar holds lots of really rich material for my morning meditation.

Today is the fifth day of Hanukkah. It is also the 5th day of Christmas, wherein every true love gives their true love not one but five gold, not silver, rings. The rings are said to symbolize the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch,” which gives the history of "humanity's fall from grace" in the Garden - well, that is if you believe in "original sin".

It's the fourth day of Kwanza which is devoted to Ujamaa, or Cooperative Economics, which urges Black communities to invest in themselves financially by operating or supporting Black establishments and creating ways to earn profits together.

Today is the feast day of the martyred St. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in his own cathedral on this day in 1170 by four knights of King Henry II. When Henry said, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome cleric?" the knights believed it was Henry's wish that Becket should die.

It was also on this day in 1890 that federal troops killed almost 300 Lakota men, women, and children in the massacre at Wounded Knee.

One of the survivors was Black Elk, the famous medicine man, who was 27 years old at the time of the massacre. He wrote:

"I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, - you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."

Between all of that and John's Gospel for the First Sunday after Christmas, I've been thinking about the gift of Mystery.

The first verses of the first chapter of John's Gospel always make me wonder what was in the incense when he started to write down, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

It's the Nativity Story - not of Jesus but the birth of Christ. It's a mystery because it is about the Nativity of Love Incarnate and love is the greatest mystery of all.

I'm not sure who said it, I only know it's true: "The mystery of Love is greater than the mystery." Love has nothing else to explain it. It often makes absolutely no sense.

It can be both sacrificial as well as jealous. It can lead people to amazing acts of courage but it has also been blamed for heinous acts of cruel, cowardly violence. "Love of country" has led some to do both in the same act.

Love can lead to acts of generosity but it can also be the impulse to hoard and covet. Love can set free and love can enslave.

It has been said that you will know the greatest love when you can stop waiting for a deserved apology that will never come and forgive a wrong that can never be made right.

I don't know where Broken Dreams go. I don't know where the dreams of the Lakota went after the blizzard stopped and the bloody mud dried. Neither do I know what was in the hearts of the four soldiers when they realized that they had killed Becket for naught.

Indeed, I don't understand why people - good, so-called Christian people who say they have read the Bible and know the Ten Commandments and love Jesus - kill other people - especially a whole nation of people - because they don't believe what they believe and they want what they have.

I'll never understand it. Not any of it.

All of those things are a Mystery to me, but the greatest Mystery is not the birth of Jesus but The Birth of the Christ.

Which is why John is right: the only way to tell the story is through great word clouds filled with poetry and metaphor.

I'm heading into church to deacon for the 8 AM Mass and then will stay for the 10 AM to be present for the Blessing of the 99th Birthday of my dear friend, Hendie. I'll meet up with Ms. Conroy and some dear brothers at church and then, after the service, we'll head on over to Bob Evans for breakfast.

Ah, the things we do for the Love of Jesus.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Gifts: Martyrdom

 

Good Saturday morning, good citizens of the cosmos. Today is the fourth day of Hanukkah, celebrating the miracle of the fourth day of light in the darkness, and the third day of Kwanzaa, which is devoted to the principle of Ujima, collective work, and responsibility: "To build and maintain our community together and make our community's problems our problems and to solve them together.".

In the song "The 12 Days of Christmas," the fourth day is remembered with four calling birds, which represent Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (I always thought it should be John, Paul, George, and Ringo.)

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents also called Childermas or Innocent’s Day, which follows the feasts of St. Stephen, the first martyr, and St. John, the Beloved Disciple who died in exile.

Today is held in remembrance of the children who were put to death by King Herod following his decree that all male infants in Bethlehem aged two and under be killed (Matthew 2) This was Herod’s attempt to destroy the Christ child after the Wise Men seeking “the newborn king of the Jews” did not return to tell him where the child could be found.

The children are remembered during the Christmas season as they lost their lives because of Herod’s fear of the Christ child. They are considered martyrs.

Tradition has it as a day to bless your children for protection and intercede for the protection of all children especially those in danger. When I was a young Roman Catholic kid, we would get dressed up and trouped off to church, to receive a special blessing from the priest. Then, home again for a special lunch of Fish Stew and hot, crusty Portuguese bread.

I don't know if there was symbolism to the meal. It was tradition. At least, in my grandmother's house.

Finally, it was also on this day in 1945 that Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance. It was written in 1892 by a minister and Socialist named Francis Bellamy, who was eventually forced out of his position because he preached too many sermons about Jesus and socialism.

Another patriot and martyr for Jesus.

So, it's probably no surprise that I find myself meditating on the spiritual word and meaning of martyr. When I was a kid, the nuns would read us from The Book of Martyrs during lunch. That was to accomplish silence during lunch as well as a way to "strengthen your faith by the example of the martyrs."

I suspect the nuns maintained that practice in the convent and then just carried it over to us kids because "it's good for your soul." It didn't take too long to figure out that what was "good for my soul" was always, always, always going to be something that was at least unpleasant if not sacrificial.

It was years and years later, however, that I was able to figure out that, in an ancient, middle eastern culture that was shame-based, sacrifice was a logical and reasonable way to holiness.

Suffering in this life - especially that which was inexplicable and senseless and unmerited - was explained as an elevation of status in the life to come. I remember the nuns saying that those who earned a place closest to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in heaven were those who had suffered the most on earth.

That made absolutely no sense to me, especially when we were also carefully taught that God is love and those who know love know God. Then again, we were taught lots of contradicting things as Roman Catholic kids.

Like? Like "Sex is bad. Save it for someone you love." (This was code for celibacy outside of marriage.)

Like? Like "Holy Friendships are formed in God's love. Particular Friendships are of the Devil." (This was code for homosexuality.)

There was a lot of clarity in their contradiction. You just had to understand that it was all code - and usually code for something that had anything to do with sex.

The one thing I learned about martyrs is that they have a lot of power. I mean, some of the people who died a hideous, torturous death for their faith centuries and centuries before were still being remembered in readings and masses said in their name.

The strength of the martyrs is probably best summed up in the poetic saying used by Mexican activists to protest the previous administration's immigration policy regarding the separation of families, “They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds,”

Martyrs are sometimes considered fools because of the sacrifices they are willing to make/have made for what it is they believe. The POTUS-elect infamously noted that the soldiers who had died in battle were "suckers and losers". He also doesn't want to ever be photographed next to veterans who had lost limbs in battle. "It's a bad look," he said.

I have learned that there are martyrs who have not lost life or limb on the battlefield or for patriotic or religious purposes. There are "everyday martyrs" who are not willing to sacrifice their integrity for the benefit - usually financial but sometimes reputational or social advancement - of others.

There are those who stand up for what they believe is right in small, seemingly insignificant battles that will never make the Nightly News. Some people walk away from a battle because they want to win the war, setting their sights on the bigger picture, the longer-term goal.

And, there are those who are willing to sacrifice everything to achieve their passion in life, or for what or who they understand themselves to be, whose sacrifices are sometimes not understood until long after they have died.

I'm thinking now of artists as well as activists.

I pray for the strength to always be able to take a stand for what it is I believe - even if that means that I walk away from a lucrative opportunity.

I pray for the wisdom to know when to raise my voice or still it for a higher purpose, to help an individual someone, or a particular, greater cause.

I pray for the courage to do or say what's right; when it doesn't seem to matter, or when no one is looking, even if it means that I may tarnish or lose a friendship or an essential part of myself.

I think the greatest sacrifice is innocence, which is why the slaughter of the Innocents of Bethlehem feels so heinous.

Because it is.

It's important to remember especially now, four days after Christmas, during the inconvenient time when we'd rather wax romantic about a baby born in poverty to a teen mother who conceived out of wedlock and born to refugee parents who were unable to find hospitality and had to flee to a foreign country to save their lives and the life of their newborn from political unrest.

In the next four years, that scene will no doubt be repeating itself, played out on the TV screens in our very living rooms. It won't be anything approaching romantic. It will be heinous.

Will I be willing to stand up and speak out, even if it means being an "everyday martyr" with the potential to lose status or friendships or an essential part of myself?

I suspect many of us - many good, devout religious folk who love God and Jesus, our country, apple pie, and Chevrolet - will be asking the same question of ourselves.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Gifts

 

Good Friday morning, good citizens of the cosmos. It's the third day of Hanukkah and the second day of Kwanzaa. It's also the third day of Christmas, being the Feast of St. John, apostle and evangelist, son of Zebedee, one of the Sons of Thunder, and the self-proclaimed "disciple whom Jesus loved."

It is no small thing for me to say that I am still being transformed by the experience of being in his cell - a cave - high above the waters of the island of Patmos where he was exiled. I can't explain the experience, except to say this: Standing there, surrounded by the hard rock, there was no doubt in my mind that this was a "thin place" where he experienced the visions recounted in the Book of Revelation.

It is said that John probably died there, in that cave, an "extremely old" man, the only one of The Twelve who did not die a martyr’s death. Well, not on the cross. But, he was in exile and lived a very sparse existence, alone with his memories and his visions and, perhaps, his faithful scribe Prochorus.

To have been spared that suffering was a gift of sorts, as well as the gift his visions were to The Church. So, perhaps he was, indeed, the "Beloved Disciple," although it's hard for me to think of God doling out or withholding torture and suffering depending on one's status in the "inner circle" of the disciples of Jesus.

I've been thinking a lot, since Christmas Day, about gifts. I am overwhelmed by the generosity of my beloved as well as our friends and neighbors. I'm at a stage in life where I really don't need too many things. Material gifts are lovely and appreciated but my needs are fewer these days.

I'm remembering something Jack Spong repeated that a retired bishop had once said to him. "The older I get, the more deeply I believe but the fewer beliefs I have." That seems to apply to my faith life and lots of other things in my life, across the board.

The things I believe, I believe deeply and strongly and they sustain me. This is most especially true about the sacraments - not so much the sacramental rites but the Two Great Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist.

It seems to be en vogue these days, in some circles, to play fast and loose theological games with The Sacraments. I am discovering that holding onto a mystery is a strange, wonderful gift that becomes more precious as one faces more nearly into the mystery of life and death.

It was a real gift to be able to visit with our guests and have a conversation at the Christmas table after dinner. That's because I planned a menu that was pretty basic and simple and didn't require too much tending. In the past, I've spent more time in the kitchen than in the living room and then felt resentful after everyone left, and Ms. Conroy filled me in on all the "news" from everyone that I missed because I was, well, in the kitchen.

Experience is a gift if you can learn from it and use it, and not let regret or anger or resentment cloud your ability to see with "the eyes of your heart". You can throw your hands up in the air and say, "Well, I'm done with that. Never again." Or you can ask, "What can I change that will make it better, so that doesn't happen again?"

I guess I'm a slow learner because I still make mistakes. I still get baited in conversations that should not happen. I don't stop them before they make me angry because (1) it's beyond being just a disagreement, it's stupidity and (2) it's not an appropriate conversation for a "mixed-church-non-church" gathering.

But, I'm learning to listen more carefully to my gut and not allow myself to get hooked by certain people who seem to love to bait an argument. I think those are the moments when I return to the kitchen for just a few moments to tend to the carrots or put the bread in to warm. Or, just change the subject.

I'm finally learning to be a responsible guest. How about that? It's a little gift I'm learning to give myself, which, like St. John's revelations, turns out to be a gift to others.

The thing about some gifts is that they don't often look like gifts when they first arrive. I'm sure St. John didn't consider his cave, deserted, sparse, bleak, desolate, and very high up on the windy hill, to be anything more than a place of punishment where he could live out his last days. Alone. Exiled. Not able to evangelize and tell The Greatest Story of Jesus and His Love to anyone.

Except, he turned his barren, isolated cave into a spiritual haven and was able to evangelize through his visions and words in print form in order to build up the church he could not see, which was yet to come, in part because of his visions.

As Carrie Fisher once said, “Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell.”

She also said, "“Happy is one of the many things I'm likely to be over the course of a day and certainly over the course of a lifetime. But I think if you have the expectation that you're going to be happy throughout your life--more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time--well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.”

I think Ms. Fisher's experience is a real gift. Someday, I'm going to grow up and be more like that. And, it will be a real gift.

Off I go then, into this beautiful, cold, crisp new day. I'm trying to ignore the sounds of the duck hunters off the marsh. I don't have any wisdom about what to do with my distress about that.

I'm choosing to rejoice that some of the ducks seem to be smarter than the hunters and have found refuge in some of the places in front of people's homes where they seem to know the hunters can't shoot.

It's a great gift of practical wisdom for the Third Day of Christmas, the Third Day of Hanukkah, and the Second Day of Kwanzaa. I suspect it even brings a smile to St. John's lips.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

The Universal Light and Truth

 

Good Thursday morning, good citizens of the cosmos. The day has dawned clear and bright on the second (of 12) day(s) of Christmas, the second (of 8 day(s) of Hanukkah, and the first (of 7) day(s) of Kwanza.

And, of course, it was just five days ago that we celebrated the Solstice - the day the earth turns on its axis and we begin to celebrate the increasing presence of light.

Anyone notice a theme here? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

This is for Bueller: Christians celebrate the birth of The Light come into the world to overtake The Darkness. The White Christ candle is lit in the center of the three blue/purple and one pink Advent candles on the Advent wreath, celebrating the gifts that Jesus brings into the world: hope, peace, joy, and love.

Jews celebrate the Miracle of Light that lasted even though they thought there wouldn't be enough oil in the lamps. On each day, a branch of the nine-branch Hanukkah menorah is lit with the shamash ("helper" candle), which sits on the middle branch.

Hanukkah is the Hebrew word for dedication, and therefore Hanukkah is also called the Feast of Dedication. It celebrates the rededication of the temple by the Maccabees, but also the rededication of hearts to love and worship God.

Kwanza celebrates and honors the culture that had been erased by the slave trade and brings the light of the African heritage into the darkness of continuing, modern manifestations of racism. A candle is lit each day for each of the seven principles.

There are seven principles of Kwanzaa, known as Nguzo Saba:

Umoja (unity)
Kujichagulia (self-determination)
Ujima (collective work and responsibility)
Ujamaa (cooperative economics)
Nia (purpose)
Kuumba (creativity)
Imani (faith)

In faiths throughout the world, there’s power in the metaphor, the imagery, of light. Hindus have their own festival of light, called Diwali, celebrated on October 31st. On the night of the new moon, Hindus light diyas, which are small oil lamps made of earthenware, to welcome Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Homes, workplaces, and temples are cleaned and decorated with lights and candles. Devotees perform puja, or devotional offerings. Families share sweets and gifts at feasts

The Buddhist day of enlightenment is Bodhi Day, which was celebrated on December 8 this year. Fiscus trees are strung with beads and lights, to symbolize Buddha's enlightenment. Buddhists may spend time studying the Dharma and may perform acts of kindness and generosity to improve their karma.

Carl Jung spoke of the "collective unconscious," the part of the unconscious mind in every person that is derived from ancestral memory and experience and is common to all humankind, as distinct from the individual's unconscious.

Jung included in that collective unconscious dreams, archetypes, myths and legends, symbols and motifs, rituals and rites, art and expression, moral codes and ethics, along with phobias, instincts, and intuition.

I love that this time of year when things are cold and hard and dark, there is the warmth of a light that connects our common humanity.

If we allow it. If we are not blinded by our own light.

Each light has its own integrity. We ought not to reduce things to their lowest common denominator. That honors no one but the simplistic impulses of a lazy mind that has tricked itself into thinking it is being somehow kind.

There are universal truths and symbols to represent that truth but the unique understandings and expressions of those truths serve to deepen and enrich our individual and collective experiences as humans.

If we let them. If we don't let our competitive human impulses try to order them in rank of importance or significance. Let each one be true for each person and culture and time.

All too soon our life on this plane will be over and we will stand before The Truth which I imagine as the Unbearably Beautiful Light of Truth which expands the mind and warms the soul throughout Eternity.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

PS: Happy Boxing Day and Feast of St. Stephen to those who observe.

The Way of Mary: Bethlehem

 Good Wednesday morning, good pilgrims of The Way of Mary. We seem to have arrived in Bethlehem to find a Palestinian infant, wrapped in bands of a Keffiyeh on the first day of Hanukkah amid the ravages and rubble of war. All things considered, the infant and his parents are doing well. And now, it's over to us.

Happy Birthday, Jesus! Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukka!

An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ
descendent of Abraham,
and son of Mary the daughter of Anna:

Sarah was the mother of Isaac;
Rebekah was the mother of Jacob.
Leah was the mother of Judah;
Tamar was the mother of Perez.

The names of the mothers of Hezron, Ram
Amminadab, Nahshon, and Salmon have
been lost.

Rahab was the mother of Boaz;
Ruth was the mother of Obed.
Obed’s wife, whose name is unknown, bore
Jesse;
the wife of Jesse was the mother of David.

Bathsheba was the mother of Solomon;
Naamah, the Ammonite,
was the mother of Rehoboam.

Maacha was the mother of Abijam
and the grandmother of Asa..
Azubah was the mother of Jehoshaphat;
the name of Jehoram’s mother is unknown.

Athaliah was the mother of Ahaziah;
Zibiah of Beersheba was the mother of
Joash.

Jocoliah of Jerusalem bore Uzziah;
Jerusha bore Jotham;
Ahaz’s mother is unknown.

Abi was the mother of Hezekiah;
Hephzibah was the mother of Manasseh.
Meshullemeth was the mother of Amon;
Jedidah was the mother of Josiah.

Zebidah was the mother of Jehoiachin;
Hamutal was the mother of Zedekiah.

Then the deportation to Babylon took place.

After the deportation to Babylon,
The names of the mothers go unrecorded.

These are their sons: Jechoniah, Shealtiel,
Zeurubbabel, Abiud, Elliakim, Azor
and Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan,
Jacob,
and Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.

Written by Ann Patrick Ware.
Published in Frank Henderson’s “Remembering the Women”

Oh, and a reminder: If you buy one of those Advent calendars the day after Christmas when they are heavily discounted, you can count down 25 days until the inauguration with chocolate, which might make it a bit easier.

Wait a minute. No, it won't. Never mind.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia!

The Way of Mary: Eve

 Good Tuesday morning, good Advent pilgrims who walk The Way of Mary. Today is the last of the O Antiphons: O Virgo virginum, (O Virgin of Virgins)

"O Virgin of Virgins, how shall this be? For neither before you was any like you, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel at me? Because the thing that you behold is a divine mystery."

It is the Eve of the Nativity of Jesus. We are at a spiritual crossroads, our souls are perched on a precipice where the Spirit opens what Steve Charleston calls "a portal of possibility".

Eve. I can't help but remember her. The first woman. Traditional theology has held that, since Adam, the first man, sinned, Jesus, the son of God, had to come into the world to redeem him through the pain of his suffering. And Eve, since she followed the Serpent and led the first man to sin, had to be redeemed by the pain of the labor of Mary.

No, I don't buy that particular version of the story. It's way too tidy and logical and left-brained. And, in this specific case which is out of character for me, I don't care much about the word etymology of 'eve'. Still, I do love that the day when the Spirit opens "a portal of possibility" is called Eve.

Redemption, like beauty, as Madonna sings, is where you find it.

I don't care how old you are, what you've been through this past year, or your current psychological, emotional, financial, or spiritual state, there is something about Christmas Eve that is undeniably magical.

The proof of the magical nature of Christmas Eve is found precisely because some people spend so much energy either resisting or denying it, or ignoring it or trying to prove it is impossible and beyond all logic and reason.

Once, years ago, I was actually - seriously, genuinely, honestly, earnestly - asked if I would "pray for a light dusting of snow to begin just as we were leaving midnight mass."

I laughed softly and asked, "Do you really think I have that kind of power?" She ignored my question, looked off into the distance where her memory lived, and then started to tell her story.

Once, as a teen, she said, she had attended "midnight mass" and, after singing Silent Night while holding lit tapers with the lights in the church dimmed, she left the church with her parents and found that "someone" had placed luminaria on the sidewalk leading up to and all around the church.

"And then," she said, "a light flurry of snow began and it was just so . . .so . . . magical."

There was something in her eyes, in the far-away look on her face, that made me ask, "What was going on for you at that time?"

She kept talking to that far-away point in her gaze and said,
"I knew my parents were headed for divorce. I just knew it. My brother was home from college and his transformation was so shocking I hardly recognized him. I was having trouble in school, distracted as I was with boys and parties and all the changes going on in my life as well as in my body. My father's job was suddenly tenuous. My mother had taken a part-time job. My parent's relationship was buckling under the strain of it all. Our whole family was falling apart. My whole world was caving in."

"And then," she said, "we all went to mass and when we came out, there was the moon and the luminaria and the snow flurries and, we - silently, so silently and without speaking - took it as a sign that there was hope in new life. And, just like that, we were okay again. Well, not okay but we had hope that we would be okay again."

She kept looking away, at that far-away point, still caught up in that memory. "And, so, what's going on for you right now," I asked, gently, carefully.

Those words seemed to break her gaze and she finally looked at me, full face. It took her a few moments to re-enter her present reality and, as she did, her eyes filled with tears.

Finally, she took a deep breath and said, "Let's just say that history has a way of repeating itself, and I need a little Christmas miracle right now, myself."

I think we all do. I think we all carry around impossible burdens that are invisible to the naked eye. Ancient wounds covered by thick scars. Old fears which come to haunt new anxieties. And the undeniable, strong craving - the deep longing and unspeakable desire - to suspend belief in the harsh realities of the present and fall hopelessly in love with the magic of the hope of incarnational love.

There is such hope in love. Real. In the flesh. Human. Tender. New. Unconditional. Love.

Everything and anything is possible. Stars announcing the birth of a human being. Angels singing to hillside shepherds. Virgins who conceive and give birth. The savior of the world lying in a trough meant to feed animals, wrapped in bands of cloth, held in the arms of young, refugee parents in a strange town, far from home and family.

There is such hope in all of that as to mend that which is tattered and strained and falling apart and to make whole again that which is broken.

Hope is magical. Hope is, as Ms. Emily once said, "a thing with feathers." It is also in quiet singing in a dark church with lit tapers and soft luminaires on hard, cold sidewalks and light snow on a dark night, and the first full moon of winter.

And that's what we have tonight, perched as we are on the eve of the miracle of hope. And, in that place of hope, there is an abundant, life-giving, soul-nourishing joy that surpasses all logic and reason.

As Pascal said, "Love has reasons which reason cannot understand."

I believe that with all my heart. Preposterous, I know. Absurd, to be sure. Foolish, no doubt.

Guilty as charged, but, as that verse goes in "Crazy After All These Years," I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers.

I hope you find some of the magic of hope this night. And, if you don't or can't find it, make a little of your own. Light a candle in the darkness. Hum the tune of your favorite Christmas carol. Fashion some luminaires out of some lunch bags and sand/dirt and tea lights and line your sidewalk with them.

Bundle up and take a walk at midnight and feel the cold night air enter your lungs and chill you to your spine. Take it as a sign that the universe is reminding you that you are alive. That just may be enough of a miracle to carry you through to the miracle of hope.

Tonight, the spirit is opening up a portal of possibility. Like Mary before her, let us follow Eve, as well. Let us ask, "How shall this be for me?" and then know that what we behold is a divine mystery.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia!


Image: Streetcar Madonna, Boston Athenæum by Allan Crite, a Black artist and devout Episcopalian who set many of his paintings, even his religious ones, on Boston’s south side.

The Way of Mary: Joy

 

Good Monday morning, good Advent pilgrims on The Way of Mary. Today is the 7th Day of the O Antiphons. O Emmanuel: O Emmanuel, our King and Giver of Law:come to save us, Lord our God!

Sr. Joan Chittister has some wonderful thoughts and prayers on the Antiphon:

"Jesus Emmanuel has already come. It is not a matter now of Christ’s being where we are; it is a matter of our being in the consciousness of where Christ is in life and where He is not as well. Where is Christ for you? Is there a place in your life that you know down deep is not in the spirit of Christ at all?" https://www.eriebenedictines.org/

I love that meditation the most, I think. Christ has already come. We are celebrating the coming of Christ, the fact that Christ has come and is with us in the newborn child named Jesus, first of his name, breaker of chains, maker of miracles, challenger of tradition, son of Mary and Joseph, Palestinians from the House of David, born in Bethlehem, who lived in Nazareth.

Emmanuel means God with us. Think about that for a minute. It really does help to put things into better perspective.

Christmas is about being in the consciousness of where Christ is in life and where he is not.

The question of Christmas is not what to buy for whom or what you might get for Christmas. The question of Christmas is where Christ is and where Christ is not in your life.

And note, please, that now, we are talking about Christ, not Jesus, per se. We are talking about the spirit of the Resurrected Jesus, which is The Messiah, the Christ.

Game changer.

So, as I walk The Way of Mary, the word for me, today, is JOY.

I found this quote from Brene Brown in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection:

“Twinkle lights are the perfect metaphor for joy. Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments. . . . A joyful life is not a floodlight of joy. That would eventually become unbearable. I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude, inspiration, and faith.

Because true joy—biblical joy—does not sweep tensions under the rug. It tolerates doubt and sadness; fear and loss. It is a celebration of God’s presence with us, even—especially—in the darkest of days.”

One of the places on that string of twinkle lights where I find joy is my friend and colleague, Stephen E Moore, who is one of my absolute favorite church nerds. He’s brilliant with a wicked sense of wit and humor. This morning, noting that the liturgical calendar for today is empty, Stephen set out to fix that, reporting a long list of events to be celebrated on this day.

Like? Well, like today is Festivus – the Seinfeld holiday for the non-religious, it is touted as "a Festivus for the rest of us."

But, here’s my favorite. Stephen writes, “The 23rd of December is "Christmas Adam." It is so called because, according to the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis, the first two humans were Adam and Eve. The 24th of December is called "Christmas Eve" because "eve" is a variant of a Middle English noun meaning a period before a holiday, event, or occasion.

Genesis makes it clear that Adam (2:7) was created before Eve (2:21-22). Therefore it is correctly said that "Adam came before Eve." If Christmas Eve is 24 December then Christmas Adam must occur on the eve of the eve of Christmas Day. It is the proper moniker for the day before Christmas Eve. The absence of this term from encyclopaedias and dictionaries should not be at all dispiriting nor dissuasive of its proper use. Today (23 December) is a fitting day on which to wish someone "Happy Christmas Adam," then tomorrow "Happy Christmas Eve," and then December 25th "Happy Christmas Day."

Those who disagree may look forward to a weighty lump of lignite coal in their stocking -- filthy, high residue, polluting, sulphurous, and ashy -- on the night after Christmas Adam, which is Christmas Eve.

I. Love. This. I think it’s hilarious.

You can’t see it, but my little heart strings are twinkling with joy. I think this festival of “Christmas Adam” ought to be lifted up and celebrated just for the joy that silliness brings to the adult heart, hardened as it has been over the years, after carrying the weight of so many burdens and healing as often as it needs to, from heartbreak.

In this new addition to the Book of Occasional Services, we would, of course, need to include the biblical passages which set right the order of the creation – Adam first, then Eve, which also provides a special nod to soothe the fragile male ego. That reading would be followed by The Quaker Version of “Silent Night” which, of course, contains no notes and is, in fact, silent.

We might light a few candles during the silence. Episcopalians love to light candles, in proper left to right order. Of course.

Our Christmas Adam Service should also include a rendition of “Hark, the herald angels sing,” during which everyone is required to tilt our heads back and look up while we sing the “Glory to the newborn king” part. My friend, Rosemary says she does this every year. “Can’t help it,” she says.

Neither can I prevent the giggle of joy that dances in my throat at the mere thought of a whole congregation looking like a gathering of the characters in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Except, of course, it would be the Christmas Adam Service. Which, of course, demands, the playing of “Linus and Lucy” by Vince Guaraldi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6zypc_LhnM)

Christ has already come. So, to answer Sr. Joan’s question, “Where is Christ for you?” I look for the small moments of joy, especially those in unexpected or forgotten places.

You could miss them, because they tend to twinkle ever so briefly and sometimes, in the darkness of the moment, can seem fragile and frail.

You’ll know because a small giggle of joy will dance in the back of your throat when you tilt your head back as you did when you were a child singing your favorite Christmas hymn.

I hope something good happens to you today.

 

Bom dia. (Oh, and Happy Christmas Adam!)

 

Photo credit:

Jamilia Jean Photography and Designs

Advent IV: Holiness Happens

 

Advent IV - 12.20.24 - Year C
The Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist
Milton, DE

Well, that went fast, didn’t it? Here we are, the the fourth Sunday in Advent and three days from Christmas. I believe this is my third time to be with you, but who’s counting, right? If I’m lucky, it won’t be the last.

 

If you’ve learned anything about me, it’s that I’m a storyteller. I love the Gospel stories and I love the stories of our lives that reflect the ancient stories of Good News – and the way the people of today reflect the ancient characters in the Gospel stories.

The Nativity stories in this cycle are just chock-full of stories inside of stories that simply tell themselves and, in so doing, strengthen our faith.

I especially love Luke’s story of The Visitation which gives us the beautiful song of Mary we know as “The Magnificat”. Scholars tell us that this song affords Mary the most words said by any woman in any piece of scripture anywhere. It’s also easily recognizable and cherished by many Christians as part of the Christmas story.

There’s a children’s Christian education program called “Godly Play,” which is based on the Montessori approach to teaching children. As the scriptural story is introduced, the teacher often says, “You may have heard this story before, but you have changed since the last time you heard this story. I wonder if the way you’ve changed, changes the way you will hear this story.”

 

What I hear this year in the story of the Visitation and the Magnificat is that there are so many stories within that story. The story looks to me like the word equivalent of one of those Russian Nesting Dolls where one doll fits into another and then another fits into yet another until you get to the baby.

Now, I'm really excited to get to all the stories in the stories, but before I begin, let me address something that always dances in the mind of at least one or two people in a congregation like this. Someone always wants to dismiss this story because of The Virgin Birth – which they consider so much hocus-pocus or poppycock. 

 

I love what author and Presbyterian minister, Frederick Buechner says about that:

“ . . . .many Christians have made it an article of faith that it was the Holy Spirit rather than Joseph who got Mary pregnant. If you believe God was somehow in Christ, it shouldn't make much difference to you how he got there. If you don't believe, it should make less difference still. In either case, life is complicated enough without confusing theology and gynecology.

In one sense anyway, the doctrine of the virgin birth is demonstrably true. Whereas the villains of history can always be seen as the products of heredity and environment, the saints always seem to arrive under their own steam. Evil evolves. Holiness happens.”

Evil evolves. Holiness happens. With all of the changes this past year has brought, that phrase strikes me in a deep place of understanding. Evil evolves. Holiness happens.

The story of the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth and the Magnificat that Mary sings is one of those moments when “holiness happens”. 

It has a great deal to do with the word “blessed” – which is the word Elizabeth uses to greet Mary: “Blessed are you among women.”

Hold that thought because I’m going to come back to it in just a minute.  Or, two. 

I say that this is one of those moments when ‘holiness happens’ because on the surface of the story it may look like only Mary and only Elizabeth are present in this story. 

But, if you open the Nesting Doll of this story, you’ll find other women present, as well, all having to do with Mary having been greeted by Elizabeth as “Blessed”.

The first is the Song of Miriam - the sister of Moses - a biblical song of praise that celebrates the Israelites' deliverance from the Egyptians as the Red Sea parted for their escape. Miriam song begins, "Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea"

The next is the story of Hannah. I’m sure Mary knew both songs of Miriam and Hannah. Indeed, she may have even learned it from her mother Anne, who learned it from her mother, who may have sung the song around the house as she went about her work, as ancient mothers often did. 

Found in the second book of Samuel (2:1-10), Hannah gives thanks to God for the birth of her son Samuel. It is very similar to Psalm 113. In Judaism, the song of Hannah is regarded as the prime role model for how to pray and is read on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. It begins:

 “My heart rejoices in the Lord; my strength is exalted in the Lord. I smile at my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.”

But, there is yet another story in this story – the song of Deborah which we find in the fourth book of Judges (4:4-5) – her song is in Judges 5.  Deborah is described as a prophet, a judge and a warrior – a mother of Israel. Her story comes at a turning point in the history of Israel as the people cross over to reclaim Canaan. It is a time of violence and war when men and women are called to battle to save the nation of Israel.

Deborah’s song recalls the heroine Yael who kills Sisera, a general hellbent on destroying Israel. Yael offered him milk and kindness and hospitality and then, when he becomes drowsy with satisfaction, drives a peg through his skull and kills him. For this, Deborah sings the praises of Yael and says she is “blessed among women.”

 

I know, right? Who knew such violence was in scripture? But wait! There’s more.  There’s another nesting doll to be uncovered. Yael is not the only woman thus invited into this holy moment. 

Perhaps you may have heard the story of Judith, another strong woman in the stories of our faith during the time of the Assyrian attempted take over of Israel. In the 13^th chapter of the Apocryphal Book of Judith, Judith is praised in similar language for killing Holofernes: 

"O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth, who has guided you to cut off the head of the leader of our enemies."

So, there is a multitude of women present in the Magnificat. Mary and Elizabeth are joined by Miriam and Hannah, Deborah and Yael and Judith. All of these women are in that sacred space with Elizabeth and Mary. All of them are “blessed among women” because Mary carries within her womb the embodiment and the redemption of all of their stories. 

The promised redemption and salvation of God are themes in every song of each woman which now becomes incarnate in the babe in Mary’s womb. No wonder John the Baptist leaps in utero when Elizabeth greets Mary.

To understand this, to understand how ‘holiness happens’, you have to know something about the word “blessed”. That story is the final nesting doll in the nesting egg of stories about the Magnificat.

 

Several years ago, I was curious about the word “blessed” so I looked it up in the Old Oxford English Dictionary. I grew even more curious as I discovered that the root of the word ‘bless’ is ‘blood’. 

I mentioned this to my spiritual director at that time, Martin Smith, who was, also at that time, a brother in the Anglican Order of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA where I attended seminary. You may know them as “The Cowley Fathers”. 

Martin explained to me that most of our words in the English language came to us from St. Gregory who founded a monastery where the monks wrote down most of his sermons.  Prior to that, not many sermons were written down. Gregory’s favorite preaching topic was the stories of Jacob. He especially loved preaching on the story of Jacob’s wrestling with an angel.

Gregory said that, when Jacob and the angel began to wrestle, in that moment, time stood still. It’s a holy moment, Gregory said, when the past and the future fold into the present and become one.  In that moment, Gregory preached that the blood of the cross splashed on Jacob and he was “blooded”. 

Jacob, Gregory said, was ‘blooded’. 

When the monks wrote down the sermon, they wrote in the script of their day, of course. To eyes that came to read that sermon later in time, their letter ‘d’ looked like an ‘s’. Thus, ‘blooded’ becomes ‘blessed’. 

Jacob was blessed.

When you open the nesting egg of the story of the Magnificat and begin to hear the echoes of all the other women who are singing with Mary in that holy moment – all those warrior women who fought for the freedom of their country which did not fully grant it to them – you begin to understand the blessedness of Mary, and why Elizabeth greets her as “Blessed among women.”

You begin to understand that in the holy moment when Mary wrestled with the words of an angel – as Jacob before her had wrestled with an angel – and had to suspend logic and reason, the past and the future folded into the present and the blood that had been shed in the past and the blood that will be shed on the cross has splattered on Mary. 

St. Gregory would have said that Mary is blooded – or blessed.  

You also begin to understand why Mary spoke about the “strong arm of God” and “casting the down the mighty” and “lifting up the lowly”. Perhaps you can understand why she sang about “filling the hungry with good things” and sending “the rich away empty”. 

And, you begin to understand just how much of an influence Mary had upon her son, Jesus as well as his cousin John who leapt in her womb when he heard Elizabeth say to Mary, “Blessed are you among women!” 

 

In his first sermon in the Temple, Jesus says,

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Do you hear it? Can you hear the echo’s of the songs of all the other women in the genealogy of the line of Jesus? Perhaps you can hear it more clearly in his second sermon, known as The Beatitudes. Jesus says, nine times, “Blessed are you . . . “

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who weep and mourn. Blessed are the merciful and pure in spirit.

In two days, we will be celebrating the Nativity of Jesus. We will be asked to participate in a story that defies logic and strains reason. 

 

And for one night, one Holy night, we will be asked to suspend logic and reason and belief and participate in a story that requires an act of faith.   We will be asked not just to receive Jesus, but also to conceive Jesus in our hearts and souls and minds.

We will be asked to participate in a miracle.  Like Mary, we will be asked to say YES to God, even though people may judge us unkindly. 

Fear not! We will not be alone.  We will be surrounded by Mary and Elizabeth, Miriam and Hannah, and Deborah, Judith and Yael, as well as the four women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy: Tamar and Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba and a whole host of holy women and men, the saints of old, who arrived into a holy moment on their own steam.

At Christmas, we will enter that time and space when time stands still and holiness happens.

 

And when we do, we, too, will be blessed among women and men. 

 

Amen

 

Amen.