From May 15: Presence and Pain

Again, this week, I find myself in a place of lament.

As I picked my son, Isaiah, up at daycare yesterday NPR broadcast a story of a family finding out that their 2 year old and elderly parents had died in the collapse of their apartment building. (see link below) The story began by introducing us to the couple, and told of the woman leaving for work at a department store leaving her son with his grandparents. The baby cried and wanted to come along, but she left him, and minutes later the earthquake struck. It’s every parent’s nightmare—“I should have brought him with me!”—come vividly and terribly true. The NPR host spoke with them as the excavation equipment began working, and they hoped against hope to find the boy. Finally, a rescue worker brought the news that they had found the bodies of an elderly man cradling a small boy, with an older woman right beside. The couple dissolved in tears, and as I drove, Isaiah staring contently out the window, I did, too—all of the frustration of the day dissolved away. I was with that woman who had lost her child.

I had been late to get Isaiah—I rode my bike to church but discovered as I was leaving that the tire was completely flat, so I set off to walk home—just over 2 miles, to retrieve the car and pick him up. On the walk, I’d been hurried and occupied, but also startlingly aware (as I had also been riding my bike that morning and the day before) at how little I actually perceive as I go about my day. Driving, I am so intent on speed—getting through the next stop light, getting in the correct lane to go fast, fast, fast. Time in the car is wasted time, the reasoning goes, and so I want to minimize the waste. Logical, right?

The thing is that time in the car isn’t wasted time—there is no wasted time. The only wasted time is time that we spend spiritually being somewhere else. The only waste is our absence from our own lives. Slowing down by riding my bike or walking allowed me to perceive what I’ve always “seen,” but never noticed.

We so frequently don’t engage with what’s around us. News on the radio of bombs going off in faraway places, of disasters and terror, don’t touch us. We go about hurrying, on to the next task before having completed the last. Hearing about that couple in China who had lost their baby, I was put in mind of all of the people who have lost children and parents both in China and in Myanmar and places of desperation all over the globe and close to home. I’ve listened to all the reports of thousands dead, but wasn’t able to actually hear it until I was invited into the story of a single family. I was able to be present in a way that had escaped me before, just as my unexpected walk home from work helped me to see what I never do.

It’s a deeper truth than just “stopping to smell the roses” (lilacs in this case). Being a Christian is about being present both to the pleasure as well as the pain that is all around us. Being a Christian is about being open to God, and God is to be found in the depth of the present. As I walked past the lilacs and wisteria on Bacon Street yesterday afternoon, God seemed everywhere. As I cried for that family in China, God, too, came near. The challenge of the Christian life is to be willing to bear witness to all that life offers us. We all have ears to hear—will we have the courage?

Lament for Myanmar

This week, as perhaps you are, I’ve been feeling stunned about what’s going on in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Cyclone Nargis, with winds of up to 120 miles per hour, swept through the country last Saturday. The preliminary estimate of 25,000 dead could actually be closer to 100,000 people. The UN estimates that 1 million people could be left homeless. Last September, the world’s attention turned to the area when the government violently suppressed pro-democracy protests by Buddhist monks. Now, the government is only slowly permitting humanitarian aid to enter the country, but many aid workers are still unable to secure visas even as the disaster mounts.

Now, as with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as with the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean 2004, we simply cannot understand why things like this happen. We try to explain, of course. Both here and abroad, we can point to the inadequacy of human response, and political and environmental factors that caused the disaster in the first place. Human activity causes climate change, which in turn impacts water temperature, which in turn makes for more severe hurricanes. Political systems fail, self-interest clouds the judgment of those in charge, and leaders make bad choices. But none of our explanations suffice. At the bottom of those questions, we’re still trying to understand why God would create a world in which such things happen. They are “natural” disasters—but why are they natural?

The scale of global inequality, too, is mindboggling. We Americans are anticipating our “free” cash from the government, encouraged to buy things to spur on the consumer economy. In Burma, a representative from the American embassy has said that there are no nails in the capital city. How do you go about recovering from a natural disaster with no nails? When you have to ship in just a simple chainsaw from neighboring countries?

I don’t have any answers today—all any of us can do is pray, listen, learn, give what we can. I think there is something holy in offering witness to tragedy—certainly, try to improve the situation—but also simply open ourselves to the grief of others. Lament is as strong a Biblical tradition as repentance. Many of the psalms are psalms of lament, telling stories of pain and suffering of sackcloth and ashes. The psalmist writes in vivid imagery, “I have become like a vulture in the wilderness, like an owl among the ruins…I have eaten ashes for bread, and mingled my drink with weeping.” The book of Lamentations tells the story of the perceived rejection of Israel, but ends with hopeful lines of faith in God. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’

There is hope, but it’s an active hope—we are called to do what we can, and to trust that life can come from the ashes. We cannot know why these things happen. But we can know that God is never absent from those in pain. So today, I invite you to pray in hope. For Myanmar/Burma, and for us. For wise leaders and diplomatic solutions to crises all around the world. Let us pray for our own hearts, too, that we have the courage to be open to others’ pain and to give what we can to alleviate their suffering.

For more on the Anglican response to the disaster, visit http://www.er-d.org

God's Transforming Grace (From May 1)

This morning, we celebrated a funeral service for Dottie Wessell. Dottie donated the statue of St Francis here at Christ Church in memory of her son, who died when he was 30 after being infected with rabies when working in Africa. Dottie hadn’t been in regular attendance here for some time, but I met her 2 years ago when I was visiting someone at the former Waltham hospital, where she’d volunteered for 35 years. We exchanged greetings that day, but I only got a chance to start getting to know her in the last few months, as she was dying.

I always find funerals to be so moving (whether I knew the person or not) because there is a sameness in the way we all remember each other. Our grief almost becomes a sacrament of our love for the person we’ve lost—an outward sign of an invisible grace. This morning at her funeral, we heard several eulogies, people choking back tears remembering her. They spoke of her love for her children, and laughed as they remembered how she’d been stubborn and strong-willed, and not a little set in her ways.

The most moving remembrance, though, wasn’t given by her niece, or her daughter. It was given by a man whom she’d come to know only in the last few years of her life. Dan worked at Waltham hospital, and he and Dottie got to know each other. He was half her age, but they struck up an incredible and deep friendship. One day, Dottie showed Dan a picture of her son, Kevin, who had died. The similarity was eerie. Dottie told me that she felt that God had sent Dan to her, to be another son to her, since she had lost her beloved Kevin. As he spoke to the congregation this morning, Dan talked about how Dottie had wanted to see the magnolia blooming one last time. She didn’t make it out of bed to see, but he took pictures of her garden and showed them to her. Dan shared these positive memories, but he also told a story of a harder time. Dan is gay, and he spoke of how afraid he was of telling her. I think everyone in the church cried as he told the story of taking her out to dinner and mojitos, laughing as he tried to convince this 78 year old dyed in the wool Irish woman to try a Cuban cocktail. “She was always worried about what people would think—did she like younger men, or did I like older women!?” He said that when he told he was gay, she exclaimed, “Why would such a thing happen to such a wonderful young man?!”

Whatever prejudice Dottie had grown up with, she loved Dan, and so she came to love Dan’s partner, Mario, and love the life they built together. She came to see that being gay wasn’t a tragedy that befell him, but just part of who he was. He was still the same person who called her on the phone and could talk for hours. He was still the same person she’d come to love. When I went to visit Dottie, she showed me a framed picture of Dan and Mario and said that she hoped she’d be able to attend their wedding next fall.

Dottie will miss their wedding, but it is sure that she lives on in them, in that unconditional love she showed. I do believe that God sent her Dan to be a comfort in her lonely last days, but it wasn’t just comfort—it was transformation. It was the Holy Spirit, whirling in through each of their lives, bringing them life and joy. The Holy Spirit never leaves us the way we were—we are always transformed nearer and nearer into the image of God in which we were all created.

The preacher at the funeral this morning was the Rev. Marya DeCarlen, Dan and Mario’s priest from their church in Groveland. She talked about how at a time like this, our grief is a sacrament of our love for the person who has died—it is an outward sign of the invisible, inward grace of that relationship. We mourn because we love. Our sadness can be as much a gift as the ways we enjoyed each other in life. The Eucharist wasn’t the only way we knew God this morning. In hearing the story of Dan and Dottie’s unlikely friendship, we were all invited into the live-giving grace of God’s transforming love. Pray that we may each be as open to that grace as she was.

God's good creation

I hope you are having a blessed week. Earth Day was on Tuesday, and with weather like this it is not hard to appreciate God’s good creation! We had vestry that evening, and I invited the group to share for them how they saw God in creation. One person said, “It’s just so clear—God is everywhere!” One talked about how intricate and carefully-arranged the world is—no human could possibly explain the beauty of what is. For another, it was about action—how we can take care of the planet. For me, I see it in the sense of wonder in my son Isaiah’s face when he sees animals (and also balloons, and also flowers)—it’s a chance to see the wonder of what is, again for the first time. “God in creation” also reminds me to see creation as all of what is—not just nature, but also each of us. We are part of creation, not distinct from it. As the frequently quoted phrase from Chief Seattle goes, “We do not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”

I think as a society, we are beginning to understand this more and more. With the visible impact of global warming, we can see in our lifetimes how our behavior is negatively impacting the earth. We can do little things to change this—use ceramic coffee cups, not Styrofoam (and recycle it when you do use it); bring your own bags with you shopping, eat locally. Drive less, obviously, and buy less, too—the most environmentally sustainable product you can find is the one you already own. Our culture has undergone a pretty big shift in our understanding of how we impact the earth, but with consumer spending still understood as THE solution to economic trouble, it’s clear that we have a long way to go. Just 25 years ago though, there were many who thought that the environment didn’t actually matter because God would save us in the end. Fortunately, I don’t think too many people would say that today (at least I hope not…).

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind^* in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^* and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ ²⁷So God created humankind^* in his image, in the image of God he created them;^* male and female he created them. ²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ Genesis 1:26-28

In Psalm 72, a hymn to King Solomon, that same word for dominion is used as in this passage from Genesis. A ruler has dominion—it implies the responsibility to care for, not the license to control and subjugate. Rulers are still part of whatever realm they rule—there’s no separation there. Creation was made good—and so were we!—this original blessing is stronger than anything we could do to separate ourselves from God.

How do you see God in Creation? In nature, or in our care for it? In science, all those tiny atoms working together to make a medicine to cure disease? In human ingenuity to understand the world around us? In sunsets and oceans and flowers? Take a moment now to thank God for all the good gifts we are given in this good creation.

To be a miracle

This week, I was away at clergy conference Tues-Thurs,--the annual gathering for all the clergy of the diocese. We have time to hear from our bishops and each other, to hear presentations on ministry and life in the church, and also a little time to relax. Every year I grumble about driving for 2 hours (it’s held on the Cape), but every year by the time I get there it turns out to be worthwhile (however grudgingly I may admit it!) This year, we heard a presentation by Richard Parker. An economist by training and an Episcopal “PK” (preacher’s kid), he talked about how the Episcopal Church has played a unique role in politics in the United States. One of the founders of Mother Jones Magazine, he is now a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he teaches a class titled "Religion, Politics and Public Policy."

Parker spoke movingly of his own spiritual journey, and about how the church is called to engage in public life. He said that after having done “enough church in my first 17 years to last an average person for 40,” he spent a long time away. One day, going past St Mark’s in the Bowery in New York City, he came inside. It was in the early 80’s, when AIDS was just beginning to be recognized as a deadly illness, but a time when people were still afraid that it was communicable by touch. The priest announced that a member was in the last stages of AIDS. As his life was ending, he wanted prayers for healing. So the priest invited the congregation to come up and lay hands on the man. Everyone in the congregation came to the front, but not everyone managed to lay hands on him—some reached out the arms and didn’t quite touch him. They were afraid. But they reached out their hands all the same. Parker said that the experience showed him the way that there is no good substitute for the church—we are not the Sierra Club at prayer, or Democrats or Republicans, or any other group of people at prayer. We are the church; a group of people stumbling forward together, seeking God and God’s grace and justice for us and for the world.

The image of those people reaching their hands toward that AIDS victim stuck with me. In our times of division, in times of anxiety and fear, not everyone will have the courage to lay hands on the person they fear. Not everyone will have that revelation of God’s love—sometimes we are just too afraid. But the church is a place where we try—we are practicing our faith here. And God is always delighted when we reach out to each other, even imperfectly. We practice our faith in the world, too. Being Episcopalians, our faith is not expressed by invoking inward feelings of personal salvation, but outer-directed impulses of Christian love—the love that has the courage to touch someone who is sick or stand on a street corner with a sign advocating an unpopular position. The love that is there for the dying and the destitute, and those who think they are unlovable. The entire world is there for you to lead a Christian life—it’s not just for Sundays. Parker quoted from Phillips Brooks, who was Bishop of Massachusetts in the 1890’s. (Parts of it may be familiar—I think JFK pinched a line)

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger people. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.

It will not be a miracle, he said, for us to end global extreme poverty and childhood death from preventable diseases, to stop genocide and global warming, to create a world of peace. It will not be a miracle to have a church where everyone is beloved as a child of God, whatever their sexuality, or race, or nationality or gender. But we will be a miracle for having done it.

Remembering Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear People of Christ Church,

Today is the feast day for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 and was executed by the Nazis in 1945. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer became a leading spokesman and, for a time, led the underground seminary for the Confessing Church, the center of Protestant resistance to the Nazis.

Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together describes the life of the Christian community in that seminary. He is known for the expression “cheap grace,” which he explained in his book The Cost Of Discipleship. Grace is cheap, he writes, when it is used as an excuse for failing to be ethically faithful to the Gospel—forgiveness with no conversion. The “costly grace” of the Gospel requires us to follow Jesus recklessly, wherever our faith takes us: all the way to death if necessary, as Bonhoeffer did. He wrote, “It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. . . Costly grace is the Incarnation of God."

Bonhoeffer spent time in the United States in New York at Union Theological Seminary, and was deeply impacted by the African American culture he met in Harlem, near the seminary. He taught Sunday school at Abyssinian Baptist Church and was moved by the “black Christ” he met in the writings of the Harlem Renaissance. His witnesses of racism in America would deeply shape his understanding of anti-Semitism at home. His friends encouraged him to stay in New York, but instead he returned home. In 1939, after the persecution of the Jews became more serious, Bonhoeffer was threatened due to his having spoken out against the regime. He returned to New York that spring, but by July was back in Berlin speaking out again. He wrote to a friend,

There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learnt to see the great events of history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled -- in short from the perspective of those who suffer. (Letters and Papers from Prison, 17)

Committed to peace, he nevertheless became involved with a group plotting Hitler’s assassination, and was send to the Buchenwald concentration camp when his allegiances were discovered. On SundayApril 8, 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came in, saying, "Prisoner Bonhoeffer, make ready and come with us," the standard summons to a condemned prisoner. As he left, he said to another prisoner, "This is the end -- but for me, the beginning -- of life." He was hanged the next day.

We’ll celebrate Bonhoeffer at our regular Tuesday service on April 15. Because I’ll be away at clergy conference, Paula Tatarunis will be leading evening prayer. Martin Niemoller, a colleague of Bonhoeffer’s in the Confessing Church wrote a poem you may be familiar with—this version is inscribed in the Holocaust Memorial in Boston.

They came first for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.

On this grey April morning, I invite you to take a moment to pray for all those, like Bonhoeffer, who speak up. Pray that we all have the grace to do the same.

Rummaging for God (from April 3)

This week, I’ve been thinking about ways to pray. Even though we talk abstractly about prayer in the church a lot, we aren’t always very specific about HOW we pray. In the April issue of our parish newsletter, the Fieldstone Crier, Jonathan Duce has written an excellent article about the Jesus Prayer, a method for focusing attention in prayer at all times. You’ll receive that this week. Another practice I’ve encountered recently is the prayer of “Examen.” It comes to us from the Jesuits, the religious order called the “Society of Jesus” founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the 16^th Century.

Ignatian spirituality is focused on the way that God is present to us in our daily lives. The prayer of examen or, more colloquially, “Rummaging for God,” is a way of reviewing the past 24 hours of your day and looking for the everyday, frequently overlooked, ways that God comes to us. As described by Dennis Hamm, SJ, (who also coined the phrase above), there are 5 steps (handily recalled as LTFFF—light, thanks, feelings, focus, future). It can take 10 minutes or a whole hour—however long you have.

1. Pray for light.

Ask God to be able to remember the last day. More specifically, pray for the grace to understand as well as to remember.

2. Review the day in thanksgiving.

The past 24 hours contain many gifts. What are they? It could be as small as a kind word from a stranger standing in line for coffee.

3. Review the feelings that surfaced in your recollection.

Where was there the most energy? Where was there anger or fear? Where was there joy and happiness? Where was there tension and pain? Peace and rest?

4. Choose one of the strongest moments and pray from it.

A particularly strong feeling is a sign that something important was going on at that time. Feelings aren’t good or bad; feelings are just information. If you felt a strong sense of nervousness or fear, ask God for guidance and for the grace to trust. If you felt intense joy, give thanks. If you felt intense worry over someone, hold them in your heart in prayer.

5. Look toward tomorrow.

How do you feel about the coming day? Are you excited? Are you dreading it? Are you feeling a sense of resolve and organization, or are you overwhelmed and out of control? Whatever comes, use it for prayer—for help, or guidance, or simply ask God to be with you for the day.

This way of prayer helps us not just to know abstractly that God is with us, but to cultivate the awareness of God with us and to bring God deliberately into our focus. Take a moment now and pray your day.

[5 steps from Dennis Hamm, SJ, “Rummaging For God: Praying Backward Through Your Day” published 5/14/94 in the journal America]