 |
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
From May 23: Trinity Sunday
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’m writing from “Gathering 2013,” a meeting of
youngish clergy from across the whole Episcopal Church. We’re a diverse group
of “Gen X” and “Millennial” folks, ranging in age from our mid twenties to
early fifties—I’m about in the middle third. We serve in cities and the
country, in cathedrals and small parishes, and all the range in between. We’re
talking about our churches and our lives, our hopes and fears, and discovering
all the ways our stories intersect—and don’t.
We long to take risks, to be more comfortable with speaking the truth of
the Gospel rather than succumbing to our fear or desire to be liked. We long to
DO a little less and BE a little more, which is why, in place of staying up
late to finish my letter to you, I offer instead this blessing for Trinity
Sunday (this Sunday) from Jan Richardson.
I hope you can take a moment to pray, to be, and to reflect on where the
mystery of God is with you today, as always, and how you are ready to receive
it.
Poured Into Our Hearts: A Blessing for Trinity Sunday from
Jan Richardson - Read her whole piece
here
Like a cup
like a chalice
like a basin
like a bowl
like a chalice
like a basin
like a bowl
when the Spirit comes
let it find our heart
like this
shaped like something
that knows how to receive
what is given
that knows how to hold
what comes to fill
that knows how to gather itself
around what arrives as
unbidden
unsought
unmeasured
love.
Sara+
PS:
Curious about Brene Brown, whose work on vulnerability I
mentioned in the sermon last week? Watch her 20 minute “TED” talk here.Wednesday, May 22, 2013
From May 16: The Pentecost Experience
Dear People of Christ Church,
As I write, I’m sitting at Café on the Common: my second office. It’s lively, bright, and sunny, with the whole spectrum of our city sitting and drinking their coffee. Fat/thin, young/old, black/white, business-serious and summer-casual: everybody’s here. I wonder if this is what it felt like on that day of Pentecost, 2000 years ago—the disciples just hanging around, doing what they had to do, and then, boom! Tongues of fire and a riot of languages, everyone met by the Holy Spirit exactly where they were, finding them each in their own languages, but also uniting them in a common experience. This Sunday, we’ll have our own linguistic Pentecost moment, with Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Hebrew, and even Welsh portions of readings (all of it will also be printed, as usual, in English so you can follow along).
The Pentecost experience of unity in diversity was something we experienced last Sunday at the Mother’s Day walk for peace, too. Thousands of people had gathered in Dorchester from all around—we had our Christ Church sign, just as there were banners from Episcopal Churches in Walpole and Sudbury, Unitarians from Lexington and Chelmsford, and individuals from all over with T shirts or buttons memorializing those they had lost. The day was pervaded by a deep sense of mourning, as well as a deep sense of possibility. Terrible things have happened. But newness and grace are possible.
First, we can start asking some different questions; the usual narrative we tell around tragic violence puts the focus on the victim. We talk about how someone was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” with the subtext that it could perhaps have happened to anyone. This is a natural response; it is, strictly speaking, true: Jorge Fuentes was walking down his own street, and had someone else been walking down that street at the same time his killer pulled out a gun, that person could have been shot instead. There was nothing about Jorge that would have made someone single him out. Yes, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it didn’t “just” happen. It’s more complicated than that.
While we think we are preserving the innocence of the dead, we’re still putting all the focus on the victim, not the perpetrator. Tina Chery, the founder of the Louis Brown Peace Institute, said on Sunday that we should instead ask: “Where did they get the gun?” These crimes are perpetrated by individuals who are, themselves, part of a wider context. There is a whole web of poverty and violence and poor education that brings them to that point. And a whole other system of criminality and commerce that brings the gun that they pick up.
The police have not arrested the person who killed Jorge, but what about the other 6,000 youth nationwide who have been killed by gun violence since he was in September? That’s 12,000 parents whose children have died. What about those guns? What about those communities where 1% of the population terrorize the rest? What if there were the same level of outcry whenever any person, anywhere, were killed? What if, as a culture, we really and truly valued the life of every person? What would have to change? How would each of us have to change?
I don’t have all the answers—not even close. There was something so holy, though, about all of us pouring through the streets of Dorchester, just for a morning, to stand with Tina, and Jorge’s mom, and Scarlett, whose six year old son was killed in Newtown, CT who also walked that day. As Rev. Tim Crellin, priest at St Stephen’s, Boston, said, “These are the first of many steps.”
Last night, at our Alewife Deanery meeting, we talked about how to move forward in this work for peace in our cities. All of our contexts are different; Waltham and Burlington won’t need the same thing, and neither will Bedford and Cambridge. Below, you’ll see an announcement about a community meeting that’s happening in Newton that our own Heather Leonardo heatherleonardo@gmail.com plans to attend. So please be in touch with her if you want to be part of that. Finally, mark your calendars for September 28, when the annual diocesan resource day will host workshops on nonviolence organizing. And feel free to give money--we’ve so far raised $200 for the Louis D Brown institute, and will collect donations for one more Sunday; write B Peace on your check.
And pray! This Sunday the disciples were gathered in one place praying, when they were surprised by the Spirit. It can happen to us, too.
Peace,
Sara+
As I write, I’m sitting at Café on the Common: my second office. It’s lively, bright, and sunny, with the whole spectrum of our city sitting and drinking their coffee. Fat/thin, young/old, black/white, business-serious and summer-casual: everybody’s here. I wonder if this is what it felt like on that day of Pentecost, 2000 years ago—the disciples just hanging around, doing what they had to do, and then, boom! Tongues of fire and a riot of languages, everyone met by the Holy Spirit exactly where they were, finding them each in their own languages, but also uniting them in a common experience. This Sunday, we’ll have our own linguistic Pentecost moment, with Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Hebrew, and even Welsh portions of readings (all of it will also be printed, as usual, in English so you can follow along).
The Pentecost experience of unity in diversity was something we experienced last Sunday at the Mother’s Day walk for peace, too. Thousands of people had gathered in Dorchester from all around—we had our Christ Church sign, just as there were banners from Episcopal Churches in Walpole and Sudbury, Unitarians from Lexington and Chelmsford, and individuals from all over with T shirts or buttons memorializing those they had lost. The day was pervaded by a deep sense of mourning, as well as a deep sense of possibility. Terrible things have happened. But newness and grace are possible.
First, we can start asking some different questions; the usual narrative we tell around tragic violence puts the focus on the victim. We talk about how someone was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” with the subtext that it could perhaps have happened to anyone. This is a natural response; it is, strictly speaking, true: Jorge Fuentes was walking down his own street, and had someone else been walking down that street at the same time his killer pulled out a gun, that person could have been shot instead. There was nothing about Jorge that would have made someone single him out. Yes, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it didn’t “just” happen. It’s more complicated than that.
While we think we are preserving the innocence of the dead, we’re still putting all the focus on the victim, not the perpetrator. Tina Chery, the founder of the Louis Brown Peace Institute, said on Sunday that we should instead ask: “Where did they get the gun?” These crimes are perpetrated by individuals who are, themselves, part of a wider context. There is a whole web of poverty and violence and poor education that brings them to that point. And a whole other system of criminality and commerce that brings the gun that they pick up.
The police have not arrested the person who killed Jorge, but what about the other 6,000 youth nationwide who have been killed by gun violence since he was in September? That’s 12,000 parents whose children have died. What about those guns? What about those communities where 1% of the population terrorize the rest? What if there were the same level of outcry whenever any person, anywhere, were killed? What if, as a culture, we really and truly valued the life of every person? What would have to change? How would each of us have to change?
I don’t have all the answers—not even close. There was something so holy, though, about all of us pouring through the streets of Dorchester, just for a morning, to stand with Tina, and Jorge’s mom, and Scarlett, whose six year old son was killed in Newtown, CT who also walked that day. As Rev. Tim Crellin, priest at St Stephen’s, Boston, said, “These are the first of many steps.”
Last night, at our Alewife Deanery meeting, we talked about how to move forward in this work for peace in our cities. All of our contexts are different; Waltham and Burlington won’t need the same thing, and neither will Bedford and Cambridge. Below, you’ll see an announcement about a community meeting that’s happening in Newton that our own Heather Leonardo heatherleonardo@gmail.com plans to attend. So please be in touch with her if you want to be part of that. Finally, mark your calendars for September 28, when the annual diocesan resource day will host workshops on nonviolence organizing. And feel free to give money--we’ve so far raised $200 for the Louis D Brown institute, and will collect donations for one more Sunday; write B Peace on your check.
And pray! This Sunday the disciples were gathered in one place praying, when they were surprised by the Spirit. It can happen to us, too.
Peace,
Sara+
Thursday, May 16, 2013
From May 9: Dialogue on Faith
Dear People of Christ Church,
Last Friday, I had the wonderful opportunity of joining friends from the Massachusetts Council of Churches at Friday Prayers at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. The director of MCC, Laura Everett, has long been a friend, and she invited colleagues to join in an ecumenical witness of support for the Muslim community in the aftermath of the Boston bombings and recent Islamophobia. Hands down, it was one of the best sermons I've heard; at least with preaching, I tend to regard brevity in highest regard, but Imam Suhaib spoke for 45 minutes and I was more focused on taking notes than clock watching. From the moment we walked in the door, too, the welcome was incredibly warm, and we were invited to stay after for lunch. When there was an extra chicken curry, Loay, their director of development, sent that home with me for dinner, too!
The theme of the sermon was American Islam-which both is and isn't "a thing." How we relate to our culture is something we all grapple with-as we were mulling over in our recent Christ Church Quarterly, as Christians we've sort of forgotten how important it is to stand apart from culture. As Muslims, Imam Suhaib said, maybe they've emphasized that separation too much. As for American Islam? On the one hand, "Imam Will" shes/(who actually grew up Baptist in Oklahoma City and was a DJ before converting to Islam) said that it's wrong to talk about American Islam. God made everyone-every society. The universality of Islam is to care for everyone. At the same time, he said, we recognize that there are many cultures, and many different ways to honor God and share faith. American Muslims live differently from those who live in Bangladesh, and will express their faith differently as well. The most important thingis to challenge ourselves to be relevant to the world as it is now; don't talk about medieval conflicts, talk about contemporary narcissism. Don't define yourself by a disagreement that happened 1000 years ago, apply the reasoning that helped people of faith live through it to contemporary problems. Fundamentalism, Imam Suhaib said, is a modern problem-it comes from a modern desire to see everything in an absolutist way. The premodern view was much more flexible. This is true for Christians, too-the early church was much more committed to Scripture in terms of metaphor and allegory than those who claim the label "orthodox" do today.
The contemporary world can be a hard place to be a person of faith; so much about the world now is about instantaneous answers and incontrovertible truth. Faith, though, takes time; it takes time to nurture a relationship with God. It takes time to be in that relationship with God. It takes energy-it takes all of what you have and all of who you are. We are converted by experience, Suhaib said, not by cognition. That's pretty counter cultural, and something we all need to spend some time with. What is converting you right now? Where are you being transformed in your life, right now? Jesus said, "Come and see," not "Decide right now or else."
I left the mosque feeling not just like I'd listened in on some really good thinking, but also profoundly grateful for the diversity of so many experiences of holiness. Of course, there are some serious bedrock differences between Christianity and Islam, but (and I know it sounds trite), there really is so much that unites us in terms of how we live in the world. Being in dialogue makes us better at being who we are. And being supportive of brothers and sisters in faith-no matter what faith-makes us better, period.
Blesings,
Sara+
Last Friday, I had the wonderful opportunity of joining friends from the Massachusetts Council of Churches at Friday Prayers at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. The director of MCC, Laura Everett, has long been a friend, and she invited colleagues to join in an ecumenical witness of support for the Muslim community in the aftermath of the Boston bombings and recent Islamophobia. Hands down, it was one of the best sermons I've heard; at least with preaching, I tend to regard brevity in highest regard, but Imam Suhaib spoke for 45 minutes and I was more focused on taking notes than clock watching. From the moment we walked in the door, too, the welcome was incredibly warm, and we were invited to stay after for lunch. When there was an extra chicken curry, Loay, their director of development, sent that home with me for dinner, too!
The theme of the sermon was American Islam-which both is and isn't "a thing." How we relate to our culture is something we all grapple with-as we were mulling over in our recent Christ Church Quarterly, as Christians we've sort of forgotten how important it is to stand apart from culture. As Muslims, Imam Suhaib said, maybe they've emphasized that separation too much. As for American Islam? On the one hand, "Imam Will" shes/(who actually grew up Baptist in Oklahoma City and was a DJ before converting to Islam) said that it's wrong to talk about American Islam. God made everyone-every society. The universality of Islam is to care for everyone. At the same time, he said, we recognize that there are many cultures, and many different ways to honor God and share faith. American Muslims live differently from those who live in Bangladesh, and will express their faith differently as well. The most important thingis to challenge ourselves to be relevant to the world as it is now; don't talk about medieval conflicts, talk about contemporary narcissism. Don't define yourself by a disagreement that happened 1000 years ago, apply the reasoning that helped people of faith live through it to contemporary problems. Fundamentalism, Imam Suhaib said, is a modern problem-it comes from a modern desire to see everything in an absolutist way. The premodern view was much more flexible. This is true for Christians, too-the early church was much more committed to Scripture in terms of metaphor and allegory than those who claim the label "orthodox" do today.
The contemporary world can be a hard place to be a person of faith; so much about the world now is about instantaneous answers and incontrovertible truth. Faith, though, takes time; it takes time to nurture a relationship with God. It takes time to be in that relationship with God. It takes energy-it takes all of what you have and all of who you are. We are converted by experience, Suhaib said, not by cognition. That's pretty counter cultural, and something we all need to spend some time with. What is converting you right now? Where are you being transformed in your life, right now? Jesus said, "Come and see," not "Decide right now or else."
I left the mosque feeling not just like I'd listened in on some really good thinking, but also profoundly grateful for the diversity of so many experiences of holiness. Of course, there are some serious bedrock differences between Christianity and Islam, but (and I know it sounds trite), there really is so much that unites us in terms of how we live in the world. Being in dialogue makes us better at being who we are. And being supportive of brothers and sisters in faith-no matter what faith-makes us better, period.
Blesings,
Sara+
Thursday, May 9, 2013
From May 2: Writing as a Sacramental Gift
Dear People of Christ Church,
This Sunday, we welcome Bishop Gayle Harris, so we'll have just one service at 10am to greet her. After the service, she'll stay for a short congregational meeting, so please bring your questions. Finally, before departing for her next visit (at Good Shepherd, Watertown), she'll meet with the vestry. Bishop Gayle has visited several times over the near-eight years I've been at Christ Church, notably at the blessing of our front altar, installed in 2006 in memory of Robert Hughes, Sr.
Later this Sunday afternoon (at 3), I hope you'll join me at Bethany House of Prayer in Arlington for a poetry reading. Alex at Back Pages Books here in Waltham helped me publish the work I did on sabbatical (with our own Kristin Harvey's cover design), and I'm part of Bethany's "Spring Celebration of Poetry and Art." I will read with another poet, Sandy Stott, who works with the Thoreau Farm and chairs the English Department at Concord Academy. Art by Rev. Judith Clark will also be on view.
I'm excited, and nervous-I picked up my books from the printer this morning (Ashes/What Remains will be for sale for $10.00, first at the opening and later at Back Pages and online). Seeing everything out in black and white makes it seem so real. I know I wrote the poems-I stared down blank pages and an empty computer screen all fall. But something about poetry more than prose, seems so vulnerable-it's all me on the page, my joy and my anxiety, my sense of blessing and my sense of lack. I can't take it back. "Ordinary" writing feels much safer; one wrong word out of 500 is less risky than one wrong choice out of 40. And, of course, poetry isn't for everyone. It's ok not to "get it"-just slow down long enough to see if you can get something. The title, "Ashes/What remains" is an allusion to the idea that the life of faith involves a certain stripping away, trying to get at what's most important. Sabbatical time is Sabbath time: abstaining from traditional work, you can't hide from yourself anymore with all of those crucial tasks. Staring down into not-doing can feel awfully close to staring down into not-being, which is terrifying, and certainly the reason so many of us are so busy all the time.
What came up for me at the center are my deeper vocations-of being a priest and a parent. I recently got my kids' names tattooed in a half-sleeve of my upper right arm (along with some birds and flowers, as children are wont to do it took up more space than I'd planned), which I jokingly called my "mommy tattoo"-some of these are definitely mommy poems. And they are all priest poems. Writing as a sacramental gift; when we celebrate the Eucharist, we take very ordinary things and ask God to come into them, to make Christ alive and to feed us with his body. In my poems, I feel something similar; I'm taking very ordinary things-a sibling squabble, a bird staring at a pond-and asking them to translate God's presence in the world. I see the heron; she lets me recognize my instability, inviting me to be quiet and still. I see my kids complaining at each other; they show me all the traps of self-absorption and scapegoating we never seem to grow out of. A fair number of "first world problems" are catalogued in there, too. Packing school lunches is a drag, but it beats no lunch at all.
So come! And buy the book...though a few of the poems are already on my blog, and you can see them there for free.
Blessings,
Sara+
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
From: April 25: Journey towards Peace
Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, I find that I'm finally ready for some perspective.
I wrote last Thursday in this space about how I wasn't; all I wanted to do was sit in my sadness for a moment. Everything was so unsettled then, obsessively clicking "refresh" on bogus CNN stories about how a suspect had (not, it turned out) been arrested. My soul got a little healing preaching psalm 23 last Sunday and celebrating Carlos and Elena's baptisms, so it feels a little safer to come up for air. Now that I'm not just feeling hurt, I can take a look around me and see what's there.
So-what's there?
Hurt, yes, still. But also more sad than angry. Learning more about the Tsarnaev brothers, it seems that they have more in common with Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the Columbine shooters, than they do with some international or domestic terror network. I spent the first three days of this week at our annual clergy conference for the diocesan (our is the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, which includes east of Route 495 and the Cape)-most of the priests and some of the deacons, gathered for some learning and working time together. It was striking to hear the reactions of the clergy from the Cambridge churches-kids at their parishes attend Cambridge Rindge and Latin, and knew the suspects, or at least the environment they grew up in; they knew how normal life seemed, until it wasn't. There's always a tendency to "other" those who experience violence; we hastily explain to ourselves how it simply couldn't have happened to us. When random violence strikes, we're forced to realize that it could.
Part of yesterday's presentation was also a more in depth conversation about the B Peace for Jorge endeavor we've been invited into. Next Tuesday we wrap up our conversation on The Rich and the Rest of Us, and then on May 12 there is the Mother's Day walk, which feels like it has all the more resonance. Jorge Fuentes was killed while standing on a porch across the street from his house. His mother heard the shots while she was cooking dinner. Jorge was the only one hurt; he had just pushed someone out of the way. We saw a segment from Fox 25's "Unsolved" murder segment about him (you can see it here)
where we meet his mother showing off his ROTC uniform; he wanted to join the Marines.
From Jorge's death on September 10, 2012, to the death of Martin Richard on April 15, whatever appears to motivate violence, it's still that-violence. We can disagree on all the details about how to respond on a political level. Some will want to outlaw handguns (me-don't get me started on Congress last week), others will want to be sure that every man and woman has one concealed in their jacket. I will grieve the use of torture by our government in the aftermath of 9/11, others will declare that that is the only reason another massive-scale attack didn't happen. In Christian community, we bring our whole selves to the table, and we don't always agree as we meet one another there. Still, wherever we place ourselves around the table, the call to the compassion of Christ pursues us all. Violence wins a second time if we allow our opinions about it to drive us away from one another. If God can raise a crucified Christ, surely God can handle us.
Blessings to all of you, wherever you find yourself on this journey,
Sara+
PS There is more going on with the B Peace effort! Let Rev. Sara know if you'd like to be part of deanery efforts at responding to violence in our community.
This week, I find that I'm finally ready for some perspective.
I wrote last Thursday in this space about how I wasn't; all I wanted to do was sit in my sadness for a moment. Everything was so unsettled then, obsessively clicking "refresh" on bogus CNN stories about how a suspect had (not, it turned out) been arrested. My soul got a little healing preaching psalm 23 last Sunday and celebrating Carlos and Elena's baptisms, so it feels a little safer to come up for air. Now that I'm not just feeling hurt, I can take a look around me and see what's there.
So-what's there?
Hurt, yes, still. But also more sad than angry. Learning more about the Tsarnaev brothers, it seems that they have more in common with Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the Columbine shooters, than they do with some international or domestic terror network. I spent the first three days of this week at our annual clergy conference for the diocesan (our is the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, which includes east of Route 495 and the Cape)-most of the priests and some of the deacons, gathered for some learning and working time together. It was striking to hear the reactions of the clergy from the Cambridge churches-kids at their parishes attend Cambridge Rindge and Latin, and knew the suspects, or at least the environment they grew up in; they knew how normal life seemed, until it wasn't. There's always a tendency to "other" those who experience violence; we hastily explain to ourselves how it simply couldn't have happened to us. When random violence strikes, we're forced to realize that it could.
Part of yesterday's presentation was also a more in depth conversation about the B Peace for Jorge endeavor we've been invited into. Next Tuesday we wrap up our conversation on The Rich and the Rest of Us, and then on May 12 there is the Mother's Day walk, which feels like it has all the more resonance. Jorge Fuentes was killed while standing on a porch across the street from his house. His mother heard the shots while she was cooking dinner. Jorge was the only one hurt; he had just pushed someone out of the way. We saw a segment from Fox 25's "Unsolved" murder segment about him (you can see it here)
where we meet his mother showing off his ROTC uniform; he wanted to join the Marines.
From Jorge's death on September 10, 2012, to the death of Martin Richard on April 15, whatever appears to motivate violence, it's still that-violence. We can disagree on all the details about how to respond on a political level. Some will want to outlaw handguns (me-don't get me started on Congress last week), others will want to be sure that every man and woman has one concealed in their jacket. I will grieve the use of torture by our government in the aftermath of 9/11, others will declare that that is the only reason another massive-scale attack didn't happen. In Christian community, we bring our whole selves to the table, and we don't always agree as we meet one another there. Still, wherever we place ourselves around the table, the call to the compassion of Christ pursues us all. Violence wins a second time if we allow our opinions about it to drive us away from one another. If God can raise a crucified Christ, surely God can handle us.
Blessings to all of you, wherever you find yourself on this journey,
Sara+
PS There is more going on with the B Peace effort! Let Rev. Sara know if you'd like to be part of deanery efforts at responding to violence in our community.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)