Stations of the Cross

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, our Stations of the Cross really came home (for more Q and A about them and where they came from and why, see this from January. For pictures from St John’s Bowdoin Street and the installation at Christ Church, see my own blog, SaraIwrites.

They are striking and surprising and brand new and at the same time look like they’ve been there since the church was built. They are, in fact, from the same time period—they’re dated 1888, but the woodwork that David Moseley created for them matches the church in a completely phenomenal way. (David is a longtime friend of Christ Church—he did the repair work in our new combined outreach space for Diaper Depot/Grandma’s Pantry and is married to Cathy Hughes’ older daughter Betsy). As happens so often, the thing that surprised was not the thing that I thought would be remarkable. I expected to react more strongly to the overall sight of them, but that’s not the most interesting thing.

This week I was here for Tuesday evening formation and had my kids along. For whatever reason, the only other person who came was Andrea, so we chatted for a while but by 7:30 figured no one else was planning to come. I told my kids to pack up their stuff, we were leaving, but 6 ½ year old Adah declared that she was not ready to leave church. I asked her if it was because she wanted to have communion and she said no, she just thought we should have church. So Adah and Andrea and I decided to do the liturgy for Stations of the Cross. (Older brother Isaiah decided to hang out for a while and play video games for a few minutes, but ended up joining us later).

So, so often, my children make me see things I wouldn’t otherwise, and that’s what happened that night. After having been dragged along during the installation of the frames for two hours on Sunday, they had already spent a lot of time with the pieces and they were over it. “Art,” Adah had declared on our way to Waltham that afternoon, “is boring.” I don’t know what it was that made her not ready to leave, but as we stayed and went around the church, I heard the words of the liturgy in a different way. By the time we got to the station where Jesus meets his mother, Adah was beginning to regret her desire to stay. At that moment, though, I became profoundly grateful to be there with them. To look at Jesus trying to hold both his cross and take his mother’s arm while my own kids bounced around, I imagined her thinking of the days when Jesus was small. I thought about her wanting to protect him and being unable to. The line “A sword will pierce your own soul, too” in the prayers made me think about how much all of those we love face, and how we can’t protect them. We can only trust God for them and on their behalf.

The thing about our particular stations of the cross that continues to show me new things is how they offer a wider lens on the events of the Passion. You can see the two criminals along side of whom Jesus was killed. You can see the detail of Jesus and his mother and all the people around them. There are people everywhere all around in them—how often have you thought about all the people who just were around when Jesus was on his way to the crucifixion? It’s not just him and the Romans and Simon of Cyrene.

The Stations of the Cross do change the dynamic of the space. I suspect it will take us a while to figure out exactly what they mean. I do know that in seeing the events of the Passion displayed as they are, that I also see the events of the Resurrection in a new way. The other thing in the church that is that same light color is the baptismal font. It no longer sits by itself in the corner, but ties in with the movement around the church. Also crucially, the Stations of the Cross circle the space, but the altar is still at the center. That’s the place where we still meet Jesus in the Eucharist. By seeing the crucifixion in a new way, by really seeing it, we see the Resurrection in a new way. They go together.

Again and again, that’s what I’m most grateful for about being a Christian. It’s not some happy pastel fantasy that everything works out in the end and we should just keep our chins up. Jesus weeps and suffers. He loves. He fears. The Stations of the Cross help me see all of those aspects. We are all here because we believe, or want to believe, in resurrection. But we all also know pain. Walking the events of Christ’s passion, we see where God has gone before.

Blessings,
Sara+

Miss the sermon on Sunday, March 13? It’s here.

More pictures from moving the Stations of the Cross from St John's, Bowdoin Street, to Christ Church, Waltham!

We Are Worthy

Dear People of Christ Church,
I recently had some time to spend with my kindle, and found Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. I’ve read a lot of her stuff before, but hadn’t spent much time with this one. Brown’s research started out being about shame—our fear of being unworthy of love and belonging. Since love and belonging are two of the most central human emotional and spiritual needs, shame feels profoundly dangerous to us, and we try to avoid it at all costs. What’s worse, we have a tendency to further isolate ourselves when we feel shame, by bringing in secrecy, silence, and judgment of others to insulate ourselves from the pain. This then spirals out again, which leads to further isolating, further judging, and further suppressing of our feelings. The good news is that we can do things differently—if instead of nurturing our shame we nurture ourselves and remember our inherent worthiness, that cycle is broken. Reaching out to others, reminding ourselves that we aren’t defined by our failures, that we are worthy of love no matter what—Brown calls the capability for that work “shame resilience.”

It’s striking to think about shame in this way as we head into Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday on March 20. Though we often forget it, Scripture can be profoundly psychologically insightful. Unfortunately we often do profoundly un-psychologically insightful things with Scripture!

In thinking about the crucifixion, we sometimes say that Jesus took on our shame and sin, to offer it to God, to heal us. The liturgy for the Stations of the Cross is full of this. That’s true, but Jesus didn’t do that as though we had a dirty shirt on and he took it off of us and put it on his own body. Instead. Jesus’ transformation of our humanity comes from the inside; his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection (yes, all four) symbolize God’s insistent, constant presence with us. It’s true that Jesus’ peaceful response to the violence he faced saved us. That’s true. In a very literal way, yes, we are saved by the cross. But we’re not “more saved” because it was “more worse.” We just are saved. Because God loves us. We just are worthy. Again, because God loves us.

Much is made of the crucifixion as being a particularly grisly and fear-inducing method of enforcing capital punishment. Many people were put to death in the Roman Empire, some by crucifixion, but by no means all. Crucifixion was a warning sign—it served to instill fear. That was its purpose. Yes, it was also shameful. But to say that Jesus’ death was uniquely shameful I think misses the point. The point is that Jesus’ death was not uniquely shameful. It was a way an abusive regime kept its people in line. That’s part of what’s salvific about it—that God experienced, from the inside, the worst of humanity. And God’s love would not be defeated.

We are all worthy—shame doesn’t have the last word for Jesus or for us. I’m getting ahead of us and close to Easter—there is a ways to go—but the resurrection is always true, even in the depths of Lent.

Blessings,
Sara+

"I Will Come the Rest of the Way to You"

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’ve been spending a lot of time with the prodigal son, part of our Gospel Passage for Sunday. On Tuesday nights our Bible study is on the Scripture for the coming Sunday, so we spent time listening for what this passage says to us now. Usually we read the prodigal son by itself, but in a happy accident we heard the parables it follows: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the woman who has lost a coin. All three stories, taken together, have a bit of a different sense than they do individually, which is how we usually hear them.

Hearing it as we did next to stories about lost sheep and lost coins, we have an opportunity to see the story as not being about the son’s repentance, but instead about the father’s pure love and forgiveness. A sheep can’t say it’s sorry. A coin doesn’t go off and enjoy itself under the couch and then “come to itself.” Is the son actually sorry? Maybe, maybe not. What’s at stake, if so? Maybe the father loves him so much it doesn’t matter. He “comes to himself.” But maybe it’s not his volition or his repentance that are the point.
The Jewish Bible Scholar Amy Jill Levine says that we get it all wrong when we read this text by itself, because that focuses too much on the son. Instead, it’s actually all about the father. What’s more, there’s also nothing especially Christian about how he reacts; it’s not like Jesus was reflecting some new innovation in the love of God, trying to set up the father as acting somehow contrary to how he’d normally react in his cultural context. Instead, Levine says, fathers love—that’s just what they do, there’s nothing unusual about it. She quotes similar rabbinic stories like this:

Pesikta Rabbati (184–85) recounts: A king had a son who had gone astray from his father on a journey of a hundred days. His friends said to him, “Return to your father.” He said, “I cannot.” Then his father sent word, “Return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to you.” So God says, “Return to me, and I will return to you.”

Returning to God, allowing God to find us, being forgiven even when we don’t repent—one of the translations we heard on Tuesday night has the father calling for the ring and the robe before the son has even had time to say anything at all. It’s just his son. He just loves him and is thrilled to have him back.

I’m sharing here images from our own stained glass windows. Yes, it might not actually be “about” the son, but look at the suffering on the younger son’s face—look at the rage on the older brother’s, seeing the party in the distance—see how broken they both were, and in such different circumstances. More than one person mentioned how we remembered former beloved parishioner Marcia Luce’s frank distaste for the story, thinking the older brother go ripped off. Maybe it’s because I identify too much with the younger brother, but I can’t muster up too much sympathy for his anger. I just love this father too much, thinking about how much I need unconditional love like that, thinking about how far God has come to find me.

Blessings,
Sara+

P.S.—thanks to Heather Leonardo, who is offering the children’s sermon this Sunday!

Blessings,
Sara+



Miss the sermon from Sunday, February 28? It’s here.

One Wild, Precious [Rule of] Life

Dear People of Christ Church,
Last Sunday both of our Lent groups were full steam ahead, with hearty conversations and good thinking. Our Sunday 9:15 group is on ssje.org, a series of daily videos from the brothers mailed to you on creating a rule of life. What’s a rule of life? The same idea as a ruler—it measures—a rule of life is a way of intentionally considering how you want your life to reflect your relationship with God. Crucially, though, it’s up to each individual to create their own. I could no more write a rule of life for someone else than they could move into my house and take over my spouse and children. The rule of life is about your life, to pinch Mary Oliver’s explanation, your one, wild, precious life, which is yours to do with it as you are called. That’s the thing about having a rule of life that is liberating, not confining: it’s only yours. No one can make you want to pray the Lord’s Prayer eighteen times a day or train for a marathon before you turn forty. A rule of life begins with looking at the life you actually have—that amazing gift—and listening for where God is leading you there.

In our later group (Sundays, 11:45), we listened to the first of several talks from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry about racism. Talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, Bishop Curry said in response to the “all lives matter” rejoinder, “of course all lives matter. But if somebody’s house is on fire, you have to respond. You don’t just run down the street saying that all houses matter.” As with the rule of life conversation, the most important part is the having of the conversation: no one at that table comes to it with the right answer, all ready to fix America for everyone else. White America has a lot of reflecting and repenting to do, one by one, prayer by prayer. It is, after all, Lent. And there’s a concurrent kids’ program on social justice! Come on, everybody!

Finally, the Tuesday group starts on Tuesday, pending enough sign ups! PLEASE let me know if you are interested, 7pm Lenten Bible Study. We’ll be looking at the Gospel for the coming Sunday. All ages welcome, but readers and up will be most comfortable. 7pm conversation, 8pm Eucharist, again, if there’s interest.

Continued Lenten blessings!

peace,
Sara+

ps—sermon from last Sunday is up!
soundcloud.com/sara-irwin-530951447/lent-1-c-2016

Swimming During the Rain Storm

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week I’m looking forward to talking with our kids about Lent in the children’s sermon this Sunday. It’s such an interesting opportunity to think about moving toward Lent with kids, who don’t have any of the same baggage as many of us end up with about the season. We are invited to observe Lent with the same intimacy with God as Jesus did—he went to the wilderness after his baptism to spend time with his Abba. That’s what it’s about for us, too.

But… Intimacy with God for us is a bit trickier than it was for Jesus. When we enter Lent longing for intimacy, we are necessarily called to look at the things that block our closeness with God. The word for that, of course, is sin. The hard part about sin (as if there were only one) is that in trying to figure out sin, we are already wrapped up in it. It’s like trying to get dry after a swim during a rain storm—you can get out of the pool and use as many towels as you want, but it’ll still going to be raining on the walk home and you’ll get wet again. Sin gets us stuck in our own stories about our innocence and others’ guilt. In shame. In paralysis. Vulnerability is embarrassing. We don’t want to ask for help, even from God who loves us more than anything. So even in trying to look honestly at our sin, we end up doing it in kind of a sinful way. Examining my white privilege makes me feel stuck, so I do nothing. Thinking about my lack of compassion for others, I deflect blame on to their slowness, not my impatience. My car uses too much gas and I let my kids watch too much TV. I squeeze prayer in at the margins of my day, not the center. There are many sins. You have your list, I have mine.

This Sunday will be the second time we hand out “Lent in a bag” for kids at the children’s sermon. None of the symbols in it have anything to do with how terrible we are. They’ll get sand, as a reminder of Jesus’ time in the desert wilderness. Two clothespin people: one larger (Jesus), one smaller (that’s us). A seashell. Are there seashells in the desert? Nope. But the Holy Spirit always has a surprise or two up her sleeve, and we need to remember that. Also: a rock, since things can get hard, and a candle, for light. Also a heart for God’s love.

I was talking to someone recently who commented that they felt in need of Lent, that it had been feeling like a very tender time in their life. I so appreciate that articulation—when we are feeling fragile and sensitive, what better time than Lent to come and remind us of whose we are? The life we find in Lent is real—that list of sins doesn’t go away—so it’s true that it’s not all seashells and hearts and clothespin people. If we are trusting God, though, really, really trusting, it becomes possible to confront our frailties and selfishness and occasional just-plain-being-a-jerk-ness with God, rather than muddling through on our own. Trying to fix all my sinful ways on my own is a sin, too—I’m not going to be able to save myself.

Times like this, I am especially grateful for our liturgical church. I don’t have to understand everything. Next Wednesday, we’ll put ashes on our heads and pray on our knees. God will do the rest. Kids know that, and I look forward to listening with them on Sunday.

Blessings,
Sara+

Trying Again, Turning Around

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week we had our first meeting of our Lent program, following along with the brothers of SSJE in their series on time. In the introduction to it in the workbook, Brother Geoffrey Tristram talks about how concerned their founder was about how trains could move people around at the stunning speed of new train travel. How would we keep up? How could our humanity sustain such a change? I read it for the sermon time during the Eucharist and paused for drama before naming the speed—thirty five miles an hour! The lunacy!

I can imagine fifty years from now when our grandchildren will laugh at our current fixation with our smartphones. “Really, Grandma? You really checked your email on that thing in your pocket? All the time? Why?” I read a book a few years ago called Hamlet’s Blackberry in which the author talked about how nervous people got when you could make little notes to yourself on paper in your pocket, the stress of it all. The only sure thing is that people will continue to be nervous about things, concerned we’re doing it wrong somehow. But God sustained humanity then, and God will sustain humanity now, too.

My Lenten discipline over the last few years has been car silence; I succumb to temptation often enough, but in general I try to build in more quiet in my drive, which is around 25 minutes each way from home to church (sometimes less, sometimes more). Mulling over the monks’ meditations from SSJE, I thought about my own relationship to time. I get anxious about being late, I imagine everything will take less time than it does, I always accomplish just about one thing less than I thought I would in each work day. Time as Brother Geoffrey says, has long been an enemy to many of us, instead of the holy gift God intended.

Listening to my yammering mind in the silence, I had this ridiculous epiphany as I was driving—“If I figured this “time” thing out, it would really change my life!” After I had the thought I burst out laughing; of course I’m never going to “fix” my relationship to time. It’s not about fixing anything, it’s about acceptance: accepting that I have human limits and can only do so much. Accepting that God loves me no matter what I do in the first place. Accepting that if I’m late, I’ll ask for forgiveness (maybe even, too, receive it). Accepting that I have a jackalope monkey mind that swings from thought to thought and distracts itself from its distractions. Accepting that there is always silence beneath everything. And the hard one: accepting that I can change my behavior. I can decide to go to bed and get up earlier, I can decide to turn off the internet, I can decide to work differently. And I can forgive myself when I fail and start again. And again. And again.

Lent is the “try again” season; the word “Repentance” means to turn around. I can turn around now, and I can try again to turn around later.

Where are you trying to turn around? What’s your ridiculous insight of the day?

Blessings,
Sara+

A sacrifice of thanksgiving

Dear People of Christ Church,   

This week, I'm still mulling over what it means to "do" Lent-what offering could we possibly make, what could possibly be meaningful to God?  One idea from Scripture that has struck me particularly forcefully lately is a line we heard from Psalm 50 from our Tuesday Eucharist:

For every wild animal of the forest is mine... 'If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High.

And again, the prophet Isaiah on Ash Wednesday-we don't really quite know how to honor God. On that day, we hear that God chooses a fast of justice-making, not just a fast of abstinence. God wants service to the oppressed, not liturgies and ritual. 

Psalm 69 says something like this, too:
I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify God with thanksgiving.  This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.

We don't offer sacrifices of animals anymore, but that doesn't mean this comparison has nothing for us.  As I wrote in this space last week, there is something "to" giving things up, not so much for stopping that particular behavior, but to make us more mindful of what we might experience without it.  On another level, though, somehow it can feel more 'worthy" to do things that are hard.  Making a sacrifice of just "thanksgiving" somehow doesn't seem like it would be enough. (note that I'm not even getting into all the theology about Jesus' sacrifice-for sure it's linked, but let's leave it off the table for now)

But, but, but. What if we took seriously the idea that we can offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving? What if gratitude to God could shape us more and more in God's image? What if offering thanks actually is hard because it's so simple?  Or if we were really thankful for the fact of our own lives,  maybe we'd spend more of them doing the work of God?   Thanksgiving for gift of life is something that everyone-of every circumstance-can offer. Gratitude to God for life isn't about the stuff of our life-not about your house or your car or lack thereof.  It's about understanding that it's not that you would have nothing if not for God, it's that you would be nothing. Let me say that again: it's not about having nothing if not for God, it's about not being in the first place.  And that's quite a paradigm shift.

So give whatever you can-obviously. Give your money, give your time, give your abstinence from whatever it is you're giving up. But remember, too, as winter turns to spring, the pleasure of oxygen drawn deeply into lungs, the strength of tiny crocuses coming up from underground.  Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, for your life and for all there is.

Blessings, 
Sara+

Praying as you can

Dear People of Christ Church,
  
One week in, I hope you've been able to enter into Lent in a peaceable way. I almost wrote offering hopes for a "good start" to Lent, which sounds like it's a race or something we're trying to accomplish, which it's not, exactly. But we are going somewhere.

So what is it? This time of year, I often remember Dorothy Day's desire in her work in creating the Catholic Worker Houses-she said she wanted to create a society in which it was easy to be good. I think Lent is a time when we try to take on practices that make it easier to be close to God; of course we're not distant from God at other times of year, but in Lent we're invited to a certain sense of quiet intimacy with our Creator that the dynamism of Easter or the long days of summer Pentecost don't exactly share. A colleague's wife, Joy Howard has written about the traditional Lenten practices of giving alms, praying, and fasting. She recasts them as "three C's"--compassion, connection, and clarity.

Compassion: we give to others because we are moved by the Spirit of God and see Christ in them. Compassion is different from pity-compassion moves us to respond to the needs of others, whereas pity keeps them at arm's length, separated from us. Pitying "the poor" makes "them" different, not "our kind." Being compassionate, though, allows God to move through my heart in action, not just words.

Connection: we pray. We pray to be more deeply connected to God, and we pray to be conncted to each other. We had some wonderful conversations in our Lent groups this week (you can still join!) about how we are made in the image of God-and how it can be hard to remember that. In prayer, we remember who we are-beloved children of God. That opens our hearts to each other (see: compassion) and allows us to respond with grace. The 2014 www.prayworshipserve.org challenge invites us to give 20 minutes a day to prayer, one hour a week to going to church, and four hours a month to service. If you can't pray for 20 minutes, what about ten?

Clarity: we fast. You don't have to give something up for Lent, but if you were to, what could it be? Think beyond the usual stalwarts of chocolate and alcohol. What about excess noise? What about shopping for stuff you might not need? What about gossip or complaining? Is there anything that would help you simplify or look more clearly at your life? My Lenten discipline for the last three years has been fairly minor, in that I give up the radio in the car. I'm an NPR junkie with a 20-30 minute drive to work, so taking that extra sound out of my life has created 40-60 extra minutes of silence in my day.   There's nothing wrong with knowing what's going on in the world-it's really important!-but to spend some extra time witnessing the chaos and noise of my chattering brain is always kind of sobering, an effect that usually lasts for a while even after I happily return to Bob Oakes in the morning.

I'm a big fan of the phrase "Pray as you can, not as you can't"-don't spend too much time regretting what you think isn't possible. But don't take it as an excuse that your life doesn't permit you to do one BIG thing to get you off the hook of doing the little things you can.

Here are a few other resources:
The Daily Office online: also a  podcast.  
Hear Scripture and the ancient prayers of the church. Pray together with others knowing that they hear and say the same words, whether or not you're in the same room. (it's in the Book of Common Prayer, too-you can even do it without a screen!) Also check out our local monastery, SSJE, and their Give us a Word series.

How's your charitable giving? Is your pledge to church really where it could be? Could you add some extra giving to a community charity like the Community Day Center or the Waltham Family School?   

Blessings, 
Sara+

From Feb 28: Economic Justice

Dear People of Christ Church,


As I do every so often, this morning I was with the Sisters of Saint Anne in Arlington, saying Mass for the convent. Our Gospel was the story of Lazarus and the rich man-Lazarus who suffered at the gate of the rich man's house, poor and begging, and the rich man, who after death found himself in burning flames while Lazarus and Abraham snuggled together in heaven. As I wrote last week, I'm pretty agnostic about an individual "Big Bad" (i.e., Satan/the devil) but I do believe that there must be some sense of wholeness and restoration for us in the passage from life to death, and that must certainly include a sense of sharing in the suffering that we've inflicted.

Let me explain a little more.

I don't think that everything is unicorns and fluffy clouds after we die. Even for the purest in heart, our puny minds can't even imagine how grace-filled and beautiful it is to be united with God. I think we are fully known-that we will see "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13.12) and know as we have been fully known. As we are known, now-then we will know. And part of that knowing surely must be how we are linked to others, how the suffering of one person hurts us all. In our life together now, we hide those connections; we don't see the suffering of the animals we eat, or the panic of polar bears losing the ice they depend on. We don't visit the factories that make our stuff, don't feel the depth of the unending fear of those who live in war zones and suffer genocide. We allow them to stay far away-frankly, we prefer it that way.

How would our world change if we enacted Christ's call to love our enemies? We barely even try to imagine because we're too afraid they'd shoot first.

But in that "face to face" encounter? All of that has to fall away. The cost of our lives comes into focus. Suffering will no longer be invisible. And yes, I think it's going to hurt. Not because God wants to punish us-and likely not with literal flames (IT'S A METAPHOR!)-but because seeing the real nature of reality that we can only dimly imagine now will show us how we are linked. And if a Pakistani woman whose husband has been killed by a drone strike really is my sister, those unicorns and fluffy clouds are going to feel pretty far away.

Still, the heart of the Gospel is forgiveness; still Jesus forgave even from the cross. I also don't believe that what we do is forever. Only God can "do" forever. All we can do is pray with our hearts and our hands, asking God for the grace to be bold enough to witness suffering and strong enough to do something about it. We're called to inhabit the space between, of grieving and seeking to right the injustices of the world but also thanking God for full bellies and access to health care.

But getting back to the rich man-the specific question of economic justice is still an important one, and I don't want to get too far away from it. In our Tuesday Lenten conversation on Scripture quite a bit of energy was generated by Jesus' words about how it's harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. As Jose said, God doesn't want us to be poor-but as Sasha said, God's not quite letting us off the hook, either. What do we make of our own comparative wealth, or the American economy that so lavishly rewards a very few at the expense of everyone else? Compared to a Somali orphan, I'm doing pretty well. Compared to the CEO of Google, it's a wonder I can survive in this world at all driving my little Toyota by myself instead of having a personal limo driver.

Our bishops have invited the diocese to read together a book by the theologian and activist Cornel West and the journalist Tavis Smiley called The Rich and the Rest of Us-I've created a short online survey to discern how it might fit into our spring and summer plans for adult education at Christ Church. Please take a few minutes to fill it out here. I promise it's short!

As part of that same endeavor, they've also invited the diocese into the "B Peace" endeavor, a partner to B Safe in response to the murder of Jorge Fuentes, a B Safe graduate, last year. They're inviting congregations to be part of organizing in partnership with schools and against gun violence-also let me know if you want to hear more about their plans.

A lot is wrong, but a lot is possible, too. And we know we're not working alone.

Blessings,

Sara+



PS: Follow Jesus, but also look at what I post on twitter: your rector has joined the 21st century @revsarai

From Feb 21: The Journey in Lent

Dear People of Christ Church,

I hope you're having a fruitful start to your Lent; have you stuck to your chosen paths toward Easter? I was reading an article recently that asked this question: If you said you were going to pray for 15 minutes every morning for Lent and you already missed two of them, is God annoyed that you've already failed twice, or is God delighted that you set aside time for prayer five times?

I think if you had to pick one, you'd probably admit that you first focused on the failure, not the success. There are a lot of reasons it's hard for us to see how God sees or love how God loves, and one stumbling block has to be the uniquely human burden of so frequently turning toward negativity. Whenever I find myself favoring harsh self-criticism over compassion, I struggle to remember to ask myself: does this come from God, or from somewhere else? It's good to hold ourselves accountable, but not if it blinds us to the intimacy we already share with God in our lives.

Historically, the name for the "somewhere else" has been the devil. Satan. To be honest, I'm pretty doubtful about the existence of anything at all like a red cartoon character with horns and a tail. At the same time, I also reject the old Michelangelo image of God as an old white man with a beard, however majestic looking *he* is reaching across the Sistine Chapel.

The thing is, I feel like I actually have experienced God in my life; I have been embraced by oceans of love and acceptance, I've heard the still small voice guiding my steps and I've been moved by the suffering I've seen in the world. I've been bodily fed and restored by our sacraments, made one with all of you in Christ at the altar. I don't have a visual image for what that's like, apart from the experience of being in relationship.

I've not had a personal experience of any sense of anthropomorphized evil. I have seen it in action: the hopelessness of our culture in our "debate" about gun violence while children are dying. The extreme poverty of Sub-Saharan Africa while governments insist that nothing can be done. Racism and homophobia. Passivity in the face of suffering. Rape. These are all evil. There's no dressing it up to make it reasonable, but still I have a hard time naming it as Satan. CS Lewis wrote that the devil's greatest success is convincing us that he (sic) doesn't exist. There are quite a few things that CS Lewis and I disagree about, but I think that sounds about right. I have just as much trouble with it as anyone else.

What's even harder is seeing how, in my own life, I succumb to the "not from God" stuff on a smaller level. How can I ask God's help to withstand the temptation to scold myself for not being good enough? How can I ask God's help to withstand the temptation not to give up on my spiritual practices when they get hard? How do I ask God for help in resisting the evils of complacency in our church community, in being too comfortable with how pleasant it all is?

Our First Sunday of Lent Gospel is very clear about how Jesus is tempted; he withstands the devil's invitation because he trusts in God. How do we also trust in God to withstand evils both great and small? How do we support each other in the journey?

Blessings,

Sara+

PS Did you miss our first Lent series conversation? It's not too late! For the next four Tuesdays, members of the congregation will lead us through a series of conversations on prayer. Next Tuesday, Daniel Keleher on Jesus, while Erin Jensen teaches the Godly Play series on Knowing Jesus in a New Way for the younger set.

From Feb 14: Holy Lenten Season

Dear People of Christ Church,


A holy Lent to you, and a happy Valentine's day! My wedding anniversary is tomorrow, so in my household we have a universal "pass" on celebrating today, but I hope you will do something special. I have heard a few moans about the coincidence between the beginning of Lent and Valentine's Day-all those usual treats of chocolate or champagne are often on the chopping block when it comes to Lent. For the record, I don't think that our general discomfort is much of an offering to God, but I do think the invitation of simplicity that Lent offers us is something to follow after.

Our bishop, Tom Shaw, has started a video blog series: "Monk in the Midst," and he released one this week for Valentine's Day. He says that Lent is a little like a Valentine to God. If it's possible to take Valentine's day in an un-cynical, un-commercialized way, and observe it as a centering-in on love, then I think it works...being a monk, Tom does not have a lot of experience with romantic love, but he does know God (I wrote one of these pieces several years ago about Valentine's Day and the Church here)

Tom says that Lent can be a time to tell God who we are, what we desire. It's a time we can admit our unfaithfulness, and ask about all the things we don't understand. In my sermon yesterday, I quoted Dorothy Day's comment about wanting to create a world in which it was easier to be good. One of the invitations of Lent, going on that theme, is an experiment to see how we can structure a life in which it is easier to be near God. What are the places we can clear out in order to make room for God? Where can you add in some silence, or take away some "stuff," in order to see God's face?

Lent is not necessarily an occasion for general self-improvement; if you need to drink less, you should go ahead and just do that-but I find that the limited scope of it makes it easier to try something out that I might want to do for longer. My unexpectedly transformative activity last year (which I'm doing again this year) was having no radio in the car. It takes me between 20 and 35 minutes to drive from home to work, so adding in an average of an hour of silence each day was big. I'm a total NPR junkie; even bad call-in shows on topics I'm not actually interested in-so to break the habit of always having that distraction shifted a lot for me. I found even in the non-Lenten parts of the year that I was able to turn off that episode of Fresh Air with Paula Dean-how to contract diabetes and then control it isn't an improvement on silence. There's nothing wrong with listening to public radio, but if it's crowding out my awareness of where I actually am-and the present is the only place God can find you-it's not worth it.

What practices will bring you closer to God this Lent? What can you add, or take away?

Blessings,
Sara+

Bishop Tom's video is at diomass.org

For 40 days of ideas, check out Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber's page here


Local friends
Our friends at Chaplains on the Way are offering labyrinth walks at First Presbyterian Church at 34 Alder Street in the evenings on the second Tuesday of the month (7:30-9) and on the second Wednesday from 3 to 4pm.

COTW also offers a Centering Prayer group right here at Christ Church every Wednesday from about 9:15-9:45.

The Wider Church
Want to learn more about the saints? Rev. Norm wrote about them in this space last fall; take a different approach and see who will win the "Golden Halo." The "saintly smackdown" is at www.lentmadness.org.


And of course, join US here at Christ Church for Lent education for all:
Dinner at 6pm; children's and adult education at 6:40, Eucharist in the choir room at 7:30.

More on Ashes to Go
See the Waltham News Tribune
My personal blog at saraiwrites

From March 15

This week, I pass on vestry notes from Michele Driscoll, our clerk, and also wanted to share quickly with you a passage of Scripture discussed at our Lenten Tuesday evening this week. This Sunday we observe (it feels strange to say "celebrate") the fourth Sunday of Lent-we're in the middle of it. Traditionally, this was known as "Laetare" Sunday: in Latin, rejoice. Its cousin is Gaudete Sunday, in Advent-both are halfway-through resting points, and both days when pink vestments may be worn. While it would certainly make my son Isaiah's heart soar to see the whole church decked out in his favorite color, it seems like a hard argument to make to buy all those vestments, so we're sticking with purple.

The idea of the day, though, is to remember that Easter is coming; its light is shining, and we're now more than halfway there. Another thing to entice us forward is that our windows are back in! You'll see new leaded glass in the hall, sacristy, and Main Street entryway, but we're keeping the stained glass under wraps for now. Suffice it to say that the colors and detail will knock your socks off...at the appropriate time. They'll be uncovered in time for Palm Sunday, our joyful procession at the palms being supplemented with the new light from the Good Shepherd.

For your Lenten practice today, though, take a few minutes to climb up into the tree and see what Zacchaeus is after--and how Jesus finds him.

[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.' So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, 'He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.' Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, 'Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost' (Luke 19:1-10).

How are you lost? Found? Where is the journey of Lent taking you today?

Lent with Ephraim the Syrian

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week we had our second “Lent Tuesdays for All” and it was delightful. It does make my kids’ bedtime a bit later, and the morning a bit harder, but the time together is a blessing. This week the kids decorated gift bags for Easter for Grandma’s Pantry clients. The theme for adults was Alexander Schmemann’s phrase “Bright Sadness”—Let has a certain atmosphere of sorrow for sin, but also joy for redemption. There is much to repent, but there is more to celebrate. We looked at the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian, a fourth century monk whose prayer is done multiple times in Lenten liturgy in the Orthodox church, as well as many times in private prayer:
O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King!
Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother;
For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen

The first time I read it, it didn’t do a lot for me. I spend a lot of spiritual energy moving away from “master” language—it just doesn’t feel nourishing to envision God as a faraway ruler. But Schmemann, the Orthodox priest whose text I’m reading this year, says that it comprises the whole of the spiritual struggle. All of it. So I gave it another chance, and as he explains the prayer, I agree that it does cover a lot.

Sin begins with sloth, more poetically rendered in Latin as acedia: that feeling that we may as well not even try to pray. [Evelyn Waugh said its malice “lies not merely in the neglect of duty (though that can be a symptom of it) but the refusal of joy. [Sloth] is allied to despair.] Faint hearts filling with darkness, we lose the desire for God’s light. Not following God, we follow ourselves—fleeting desires and flashing satisfactions. Desiring our own way, we become the center of our own worlds, selfishly seeing others as the means of our own self-satisfaction. We hunt for power. Whether it expresses its desire in the urge to control others or in indifference and contempt, my spiritual universe shrinks in on itself.

Ephraim’s reference to “idle talk” struck me as a bit beside the point at first; surely there are worse things. Schmemann, though, puts our speech in theological context. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” Word and words are not unrelated. If God is revealed as Word, then, he says, our speech is the “seal” of the Divine Image in us. But as we abuse our power, the supreme gift becomes the supreme danger. Our speech reinforces our sin and we use the gift of expression to slander, to lie, to judge.

Four “negatives” give way to four “positives:”
Chastity: Not only sexual control, more like whole-mindedness. A counterpart of sloth—if sloth is dissipation and brokenness, the splintered vision that cannot perceive the whole, then its opposite is the ability to see toward God, not only our own urges and alienation. We pray for humility: truth wins. We are able to see God’s goodness in everything, understanding ourselves in right relationship to our creator. We are created, not our own masters. Patience is a fruit of coming near God—in sin, we measure everything by ourselves, wanting everything here and now. But nearer to God, “the more patient we grow and the more we reflect that infinite respect for all beings which is the proper quality of God who sees the depth of all that exists.” Infinite respect for all beings leads us to love—the ultimate purpose and fruit of all spiritual practice and preparation, which can be given by God alone.

Finally, positive and negative brought together by the last line: to see my own errors and not to judge my brother. Even knowing our own sins can be turned to pride, as we compliment ourselves for being so self-aware. Only when we do not judge are wholeness, humility, patience, and love made one in us.

So there you have it…which is your favorite temptation, your stumbling block? Where is Light looking for you? Where will you be found, and what good gifts will you receive?

From March 1: Wild Beasts and Old Habits

Blessings on this grey, wintry day! However disorienting I have found this snowless winter to be, going outside in the flurries has made me appreciate the relative warmth of the last few months. I love the cycle of the seasons, but I cannot say I also love having numb toes.

Our winter-free winter has, in any event, made me pay attention more closely. One of the blogs I read regularly in preparing my sermons is written by a Methodist minister in Florida, Jan Richardson. I was recently struck by an observation she made about the wilderness text from the Gospel of Mark. The text says, quite straightforwardly, “Jesus was in the wilderness with the wild beasts.” (Mark 1:13). Richardson points out that there is no threat, no menace implied: they are just there. She wonders whether they might be companions, witnesses, protectors of solace and silence.

Lent, this year, is for me all about questioning my habits: those things I do and think without even realizing it. Living a fairly routinized life, it’s easy to stop paying attention to the unconscious choices I make. But what happens when I don’t fill my commute with radio noise? What happens when I don’t march my children to bedtime like a general, trying to get rid of them into their rooms as quickly as possible? What happens at dinner without that glass of wine, washing the dishes without that piece of secret chocolate? I’m not giving anything up explicitly (except the radio in the car—that one I’m trying really hard on)—so much as really observing what nourishes me. Sometimes it IS a glass of wine or a piece of chocolate—but oftentimes I find I’m fine going without, and those resources can go somewhere else.

Being with the wild beasts: not controlling or panicking, but coexisting, recognizing real threat where it is. Also vital to Christian practice is faith in God’s transforming grace: love is always more powerful than death. In the Daily Office lectionary we’re making our way through Genesis, currently spending time with Joseph (of the fabulous coat) and his brothers. They sell him into slavery in Egypt but he ends up working for Pharaoh, ultimately saving them from famine. As Joseph forgives his brothers, he says, “Though you intended to harm me, God intended it for good.” (Gen 50:20). In the same way as the Trinity’s 1+1+1=3 makes us have to forget how to count, the redemptive power of God makes us have to forget how follow sequence.

The life of faith is not linear. It was a terrible thing that Joseph’s brothers kidnapped him and sold him. It was a terrible thing that God surely would not have planned. At the same time, would Joseph have been able to save his family from the famine that gripped his homeland had he not been sold into slavery in the first place? They all would have died. This is the power of redemption that comes from the cross: not a suffering God had planned or intended, but still an opening of wonder and grace. So, too, with the wild beasts; how often do I perceive something as a threat that actually invites me closer to God? How often do I see something as an exciting option, when actually it distracts me from my path?

Dear People of Christ Church,

This Sunday is the last Sunday of Epiphany Season, the Feast of the Transfiguration, the story of Jesus taking his friends up to the mountain top and being greeted by Elijah and Moses (needless to say, those friends were pretty alarmed). It has become a custom here at Christ Church (whether by the convenience of the liturgical calendar or intentional theology) that we have had baptisms every Transfiguration Sunday for as long as I've been here, I think. This Sunday, we baptize Lila Nolte, little sister to Griffin (almost 5) and Henry (2) whom we baptized when they were babies.

We hear the story of Jesus' baptism on the first Sunday after Epiphany, the kickoff for this season of illumination and healing. For Jesus, though, his baptism immediately preceded his time in the wilderness; for forty days, he struggled and was tempted, always to be sustained by his beloved Abba God and kept safe. It's a gift for us to celebrate for Lila and remember our own baptism right before our own Lenten season, our version of Jesus' forty days in the wilderness.

It's a gift because our baptism is so easy to forget. That we were made for more than what we just see with our eyes, but that there is so much power and promise and healing in the life we share with Christ. Jesus went into the wilderness with the fact of God's love for him firmly planted in his heart; at his baptism, God thundered, "This is my Son, the beloved." You, too, are God's beloved; the sustenance that Jesus felt, hungering after stones, is granted you as well.

Our Lenten class, "The Lenten Journey," is based around themes from the Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann. He talks about Lent as a "bright sadness;" he says the purpose of Lent is to "soften our hearts" to open them to the Spirit. In Lent, we are called to be quiet: "it is as if we were reaching a place to which the noises and the fuss of life, of the street, of all that which usually fills our days and even nights, have no access-a place where they have no power" (32).

The water of baptism soaks down to that quiet place-Schmemann wrote in 1969, and how much noisier life is now! (not that I was alive in 1969, but I'm guessing...) Life is full of such wonderful, good gifts-rich food and wine and leisure and joy-but sometimes it's good to put those down, to take some time apart. But we aren't sent off without a party-Sunday, of course, but also Tuesday, when we celebrate our Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. The tradition for eating pancakes on that day is that it's a time to use up all the indulgent stuff in the cabinet-eggs and sugar and cream-before the leaner days of Lent. The word "shrove" is a relative of "to be shriven," to receive penance and absolution. RSVP to office@christchurchwaltham.org or to the office (781 891 6012).

As you begin to pray your Lent, ask yourself what will bring you to Christ; what can soften you to reach that silent place within? Is it something to take on, something to give up? How will you bask in the deep love of your Creator, in coming near to God in the wilderness?

Blessings,

Sara+

Coming closer to God

Dear People of Christ Church,

I hope your Ash Wednesday is yielding some fruit for the beginning of Lent. We just finished our noon service, and will have another at 7 pm. I'll see you then.



There are some marvelous ways of coming near to God this year here at Christ Church, and I hope you'll take advantage. I'd like to share something with you I wrote in this space a few years ago-about this quote from Jeremiah.



Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit (Jeremiah 17:7-8).



Lent is a season of evaluating. We are asked to take a critical look at the way we live our lives. It's specific; Lent is emphatically not about 40 days to remind ourselves that we are sinners. It is, the words of our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, a time for a tune up; like checking out all of the parts of the car to see if they operate correctly, Lent is a time to look at all the parts of ourselves and ask if they are working effectively.



Do you need to make more time to talk with your spouse? What about how you take care of yourself? Do you need to eat better, or exercise more? Do you need to give more money to global poverty relief or to community organizations, or your church? Where are you in your family relationships? In your work?



One reason it's so hard to do this work of self-evaluation is that we are afraid of what we might find. We're afraid we won't be able to change (or, perhaps more frightening, that we will). I think that's why I find today's text about trust from Jeremiah so compelling. It's almost as if the very grammar of our language can't accommodate the magnitude of God's intimacy with us. All of our usual ways of thinking will have to go. We tend to think of trust in terms of transaction; when someone has disappointed us, we say they have to "earn" our trust. If you do something nice for me, then you deserve my trust. I then give you my trust-as if it were a set of keys. I can then take the keys back-or, more aptly, change the locks-whenever I want. Christian faith is different. The love of God is so broad and so deep that God's very self can be our trust and God's promise can be our hope. We can become constituted by the trust of God-that trust can be as part of us as the blue in your eyes or the brown in your hair. That trust can permeate each cell. As Jeremiah writes, our roots will spread wide and our leaves stay green, even in seasons of drought.



That trust gives us the courage to take stock of our lives and to know that God will love us and be with us no matter what we find. The love of God isn't just something that makes us feel good; it empowers us to love each other and ourselves more deeply. It gives us the boldness to make change in the world and in our lives and catches us when we fall. It impels us outward as well as inward. What does it look like? The answer to that question is up to each of us to discern for ourselves. I think it is something to do with living courageously. A priest I know told me a story about a teenager who was going to be baptized. When she asked him why he wanted to be, she thought he would say something about pleasing his mother, or pleasant ritual. But he told her that it was because he wanted to know that the future could be different from the past. That faith in God's power of transformation for the future is as good a vision as I can imagine of what it means for God to be your trust. What is it for you?



Blessings,

Sara+

Lent

Dear People of Christ Church,

As I mentioned in my email last week, plans for Lent are underway, but we still have two Sundays of Epiphany. This week, we celebrate the baptism of Theodore Edward Drozd. It will be a wonderful day, and I'm especially glad we get to celebrate together before the Drozd family move to the DC area this spring. We will miss them! March 6, we will have another of our big children's Sundays, with kids doing readings, singing in the choir, sharing the sermon with me, and helping at the altar. The last time we had a big kids' service was for St Francis Day, way back in October, so it's about time.



It's not Lent yet, but we can feel it coming. The word comes from the Old English "lencten"-the days lengthen-and it's in the air, that heady excitement for the thaw and the light, but also still an awareness of how much is still grey, seemingly dead. You'll read more in weeks to come about the meaning of Lent and the many ways there are to observe it. This Sunday, we'll have our annual "Ministry Fair," where you can learn about all the things that happen at Christ Church and talk with representatives from different ministries about how to get involved. Lent is often a time when people take on a spiritual discipline; maybe it could be a time to try out a new ministry here at Church. With Michelle's departure, we will need a new person to schedule the greeters!



Before Lent, though, there are many occasions to celebrate. Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday" ("Shrove Tuesday," if you want to sound more religious) is the day before Ash Wednesday, traditionally a time to eat up all the fatty foods in the house before the austerities of Lent begin. We're starting early, though, with a Friday concert the weekend before, with the big band sounds of Steve Taddeo and the Suburbanaires. Steve and his band have used our lower hall for rehearsals for some time now, and are offering this concert as a benefit to us at no cost-the proceeds all go to Christ Church and supporting our ministries here. We'll have beer and wine available that night, and you can even pre-order a pizza. So buy your tickets now, (on our website,) and invite your friends-it's a week from tomorrow!



We celebrate here, but are always aware of those in other places who are not-I've been much in mind of the people of ChristChurch New Zealand. Tuesday, February 22, a 6.3 quake hit the city, still recovering from an earthquake in September. The Anglican Cathedral's tower collapsed, and people are still feared to be stuck in the rubble inside. At this point, 98 people are confirmed dead, 226 still missing. With our twitter name CCWaltham, a lot of our followers are looking for the Waltham neighborhood of ChristChurch, New Zealand and ended up on our page, so I have been sending prayers their way-a very 21st Century-style closeness.



And, of course, the Middle East. I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday that people in Egypt's Tahrir Square had been reading Ghandi and MLK (for more on that, visit fellowship of reconciliation here. The fall of Mubarak and the violence in Libya, the political standoff in Wisconsin-so much is happening in our world! So much is worthy of our prayers and attention. God is in the midst of it all.



Blessings,

Sara+

Preparing for Lent

Dear People of Christ Church,

This past Monday, we had our first vestry meeting with our new 2011 team. It was great! This parish is lead by such a talented group of people, and it is a gift to be able to work together discerning the dream of God in this community.


This Sunday, a group will be meeting at 8:45 AM to plan for Lenten liturgy. We observe the changes in the season in many ways as part of our worship-the music, prayers, even the colors used serve to draw us into a particular experience. Why are we meeting at 8:45? Choir begins at 9:15, so we want as many people as possible to be able to come. It's early, but I promise there will be coffee. For Lent, (starting March 13) we'll convene a spiritual practice group, also at that hour, to invite conversation on how our Lenten disciplines are treating us...or, maybe, how we are treating them. Choir members can leave for choir at 9:15, and others can either continue talking or move into the church for silent meditation. We'll have some beautiful photographs of the stations of the cross from (Roman Catholic) Westminster Cathedral to hang in the church to pray with as well.



Our Lenten Tuesday night series, beginning on March 15, will meet as we always do for Eucharist at 6:30 and dinner and conversation at 7:15. This year, we'll be reading Archbishop Rowan Williams' Resurrection. It is a little dense, but it's also short, so we'll just be reading about 25 pages a week. I'd like us to begin with chapter one, so please let me know if you'd like to participate and I'll order you a book. It's $11.00. The book is an amazing meditation on resurrection-not just "THE resurrection"-an event in a distant time-but resurrection in general. Williams writes, "To speak of the resurrection of Jesus is also to speak of one's own humanity as healed, renewed, restored, recentered in God." In Easter season we'll celebrate confirmation/reception of new Episcopalians-please let me know if you're interested in this or the introduction to the Episcopal Church class.





For more information on Lenten doings, please visit the Lent and Holy Week page on our website.


Blessings,

Sara+

From March 25: Looking towards Holy Week

Next week is Holy Week: A high point of drama in the church year, leading toward the biggest holiday of the year--a holy day, Easter. I find myself feeling a little like Jesus might have as he sat at the table with Martha and Mary and Lazarus and his friends, in the Gospel story we heard for Sunday. They are having dinner together--Jesus has returned, in his inexorable walk toward Jerusalem where the confrontation will take place, a confrontation between him and the empire, the religious hierarchy and his own example of peace and equality. He knows that it's coming, but he doesn't quite know how it's going to go down--I feel a little like that about Holy Week, too, though of course I'm not confronting the powers and principalities of death and sin in such a dramatic way.

Still, I know something is going to happen. Our liturgies don't just tell us "about" what happened to Jesus, they bring us into the reality of those events in a material, as well as spiritual, way. We don't hear a story about some other people having washed each others' feet, we wash the feet of those who gather here, now. My Priest's Handbook (yes, that's the name of it) says, "If the time between Palm Sunday and Easter seems endless, it is meant to. Time is suspended as we ponder and celebrate the great mysteries of our redemption." (D.Michno). These liturgies, from the sweeping high of the Palm Sunday procession to the low of the reading of the Passion on that day, to the contemplative foot washing of Maundy Thursday and reverential procession of the Good Friday cross, to the exuberant Alleluias! of the Easter vigil bring us through these events. And it takes a long time. Our liturgical experience is designed to "get us" both in our intellects, as we think about the events of Christ's passion and resurrection, but also in our bodies and in our hearts as we enact those mysteries.

There is an independent spiritual reality to these liturgies--or, rather, liturgy--the great "Triduum," or "Three Days" of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil are, technically, one service. There's no final blessing or dismissal until the end of the Great Vigil of Easter. Sitting here a few days before Palm Sunday, we know it's coming, but can't predict what it will really be like. I can edit and re-edit the bulletins--I could even start writing the sermons (though let's get real--there's little chance of that happening yet), and still, I won't know what it's really like to encounter Jesus at the last supper until I am on my knees in front of someone's bare feet. I won't really know what it's like until I go.

But I know I won't be going alone; as St Paul wrote to the church in Rome, Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 26-27)

That Spirit is with us... but for now, we have a few more days of regular old Lent. Like Advent, the other purple season, it's one of preparation--we have a few more days to reflect on what we need to bring with us, or put aside, as we meet Holy Week. What do you need to do to get ready to go there with Jesus? To join in that parade with the palms, and then to acknowledge the depth of betrayal of the Passion play as we all shout, "Crucify him!"? Where do you need the Spirit to accompany you?

Blessings,
Sara+

How to pray?

This week, I'm still working out a bit for myself what it is to enter Lent. I mentioned at our Tuesday supper and Bible study that I find myself looking for a discipline, but that everything seems so trivial; I am saving water with 4 or 5 minute showers, but it feels short of transformative. I could try to eat less or skip dessert more, but then I'd just be focused on losing my pregnancy weight, not the fasting of Christ in the desert. So I am still trying. In general, I'm trying to pay attention more, to move a little more slowly, in spirit if not in practice. And praying.

But how to pray? A while ago I was listening to the radio program Speaking of Faith (http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/), where they interviewed one of my favorite writers, Roberta Bondi. Her books bring together contemporary life and theology with the early monastic desert fathers and mothers. She says,
We often have a kind of notion as part of this highfalutin, noble picture of ourselves as pray-ers that when we pray we need to be completely attentive and we need to be fully engaged and we need to be concentrating and we need to be focused. But the fact is, if prayer is our end of a relationship with God, that's not the way we are with the people we love a large portion of the time. We simply are in their presence. We're going about our lives at the same time in each other's presence, aware and sustained by each other, but not much more than that.

She went on to tell the story of how exhausted and lifeless she felt when she began teaching (she's now retired from Emory University). She said she came home from work and felt totally useless to her family. She was already so tired, and would then be overwhelmed by all the things they needed her for--the washing machine had overflowed, or there was too much homework, or whatever. And she'd just want to run away. What she also knew, though, was that the important thing was that she was there--that part of being a family was showing up for meals. She continued, "However we are, however we think we ought to be in prayer, the fact is we just need to show up and do the best we can do. It's like being in a family."

I certainly know my prayer is like that--I have joked about how the dog's crate in my office had replaced my meditation cushion, but that since the dog died, the meditation cushion is back. For a year, most of my prayer time went to walking in the woods with him. Now, I'm back trying to sit down there in the corner--both examples of a certain kind of holy "showing up"--not always so regular, not always so focused, but doing the best I can.

Here is a line from TS Eliot (I found myself quoting him in my Transfiguration sermon, too).
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
Amen.

Blessings,
Sara+