Tag: Gospel

Burn it down: we are called to live differently

Lead in: I am about to begin my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are in seminary. August 13-14 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.

Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.

The Gospel reading for August 14 was Luke 12:49-56, which begins with Jesus saying “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already ablaze!” and then gets more confusing from there.

For my last two preaching weekends, I have had demoniacs and fire-casting Jesus, both of which ask us to get our thinking caps on. The upside to getting the more obscure or confusing Gospel passages is that I generally have a lot of room to work with. We’re all kind of left scratching our heads and wondering what Jesus, and Luke, are talking about.

I think it is safe to say that the disciples were doing the same thing. I can imagine them looking back and forth to each other going, “I have no idea what he is talking about…”

And that is a theme throughout the Gospels: Jesus delivering a message that people didn’t understand or weren’t ready for. Or in some cases, that people didn’t want to hear.

One of the things we find Jesus talking about repeatedly is the way the world is…and the way the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God is. And he wants to help us bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. Which is not how things were, and not how they in the world now. But they could be.

Jesus was not one for the status quo. He didn’t want things to just keep going the way they were. He came to be different and to show us how to be different, and how to live differently.

Thinking about Jesus’s strange message in today’s Gospel, I thought it might be helpful to point out a few things that Jesus IS NOT KNOWN TO HAVE SAID.

Here we go:

Jesus never said, “It’s all good.”

Jesus never said, “You do you.”

Jesus never said, “As long as you don’t hurt anyone.”

And Jesus never said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Jesus followed more in the sandals (not shoes) of John the Baptist, who said, “Repent.” Turn around. Stop doing what you are doing and live differently.

It’s important to put today’s message in context of Luke’s Gospel and the passages that are going on around it.

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve heard Father Charlie Barton distill the preceding Gospel messages to a few key phrases:

“Be rich toward God—don’t make your life about material things or treasures.”

And “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

I am a fan of a Franciscan Friar/Monk named Richard Rohr. In talking about Luke 12, he says:

“The simplest rule of thumb for each of us to ask, ‘Where do we spend our time and where do we spend our money?’ That’s where our treasure is, we can be sure. The focus of your time and money will tell you what your God is and what is important in your life. As others have wisely said, your checkbook and your calendar reveal your true belief system.”

Where we focus, what we value most, that will determine who we become and how we act in the world. So focus on God. Don’t focus on the things of this world, but on what Jesus has been telling us is more important. Things like caring for the poor and the sick, lifting each other up, loving God and our neighbor.

So when Jesus says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze”—he is talking about the way the world was, those who are storing up earthly treasures, those who are focused on power and not on love.

Burn down the old ways, Jesus is offering something new.

“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” And what happened to the people of Israel who decided to follow Jesus: division.

Even in and among households. If you are living in the old house and can’t picture what the new one looks like yet, you might not be ready to burn what you’ve got. Or maybe you think this guy is full of nonsense, you have no desire to do what he says or follow where he leads. Some followed, some didn’t. And households became divided.

Well, it’s a good thing we don’t have divided households now [raised eyebrow, pulls at collar] Glad they got that out of the way… or maybe what seemed like a strange, bombastic reading has some relevance.

How many people have family members or close friends who you aren’t speaking to or can’t talk to about religion or politics? How many have divided houses when it comes to big, important issues?

Maybe Jesus was on to something.

We all know the peace-and-love Jesus, and that’s the Jesus we hold dear. That’s the Jesus we want to study and to emulate. And that’s what we should do.

But we also need to remember that Jesus was not afraid to call people out.

Blessed are the peacemakers, absolutely. But the status quo then, AND NOW, isn’t peace. We have a lot of work to do.

Here at Christ Church, in our Bible studies we’ve used commentary by a bishop and theologian named N.T. Wright, and we have found him to be helpful for making sense of Scripture. In talking about this passage, Wright says that there may come a time when Christian teachers and leaders find people have become too cozy and comfortable.

He says that maybe churches might start to omit the Bible readings that talk about judgment, or warnings, or the demands of God’s holiness, because they ask something of us. And that maybe there are times when, like Jesus himself on this occasion, we need to wake people up with a crash. There are, after all, he says, plenty of warnings in the Bible about the dangers of going to sleep on the job.

Cruise control does not serve us well when we are heading in the wrong direction, or off a cliff.

 “It’s all good” doesn’t work when it’s not all good for a lot of people, or when power and security are held closer to the heart than love and compassion.

Jesus talks to the crowds about how when you see clouds, you know it’s going to rain and when you see the south wind blowing, you know it’s going to get scorching hot.

Granted, weather forecasters don’t get much credit in our world today, but there are so many things we can know, we can predict, we can figure out. Look at all the technology around us and what we can do. On the simplest scale, I was blown away recently with the thought that I can send my family pictures while I am in Alaska and they get them instantaneously back here.

If we can do so many things, how come we can’t step up for those who can’t stand for themselves? How come we still store up earthly treasures but aren’t rich toward God? Let’s look where our treasure is, where our priorities are, and try to see where our collective heart is?

Jesus came to change the direction humanity was heading.

He came to show us a different way to be—one that isn’t easy, one that not everyone will get… a way that will cause division, and will call for the burning of some of our current, misdirected ways.

And he gave his life for that cause, and in today’s reading, he knew that that’s where he was heading.

Maybe it was fair to call out the crowds. And guess what?

We’re the crowds. Maybe it’s still fair to call us out.

N.T. Wright says:

“If the kingdom of God is to come on earth as it is in heaven, part of the prophetic role of the church is to understand the events of the earth and to seek to address them with the message of heaven.”

Maybe we need to do a better job of addressing the world with the message of heaven.

Maybe we should help burn down some of what’s broken for a new way, for a more loving way, for a more caring way.

For Jesus’s Way.

Amen.

A Sermon in the Books

Prologue

Sunday morning, I walked up to the church about an hour before the 8:00am service. The evening before, I preached a sermon–still a very new-to-me experience–on Luke’s gospel story of Jesus healing a man possessed by demons.

Christ Church Easton has multiple worship services each weekend and Saturday is the most casual. People in the service, priest included, wear regular clothes. I was myself–talking in jeans and a Hawaiian-ish shirt and Vans. On Sundays, those serving are vested/robed. I was on my way inside to get robed up for three Sunday services.

The sunlight was dancing in the garden next to the church and I almost walked by it, feeling like a needed to be on task. And then I thought about being in the moment, for as many moments as we can, and I stopped and walked over. And perched on a flower was a dragonfly, who stayed, and didn’t fly away.

The dragonfly, the sunlight, and the flowers set the tone. Be in the moment.

A little background.

This past year, I became a first-year seminary student discerning a call to the priesthood. I’ve been a full-time church educator for the past five years. Our rector/pastor is giving a co-worker/fellow seminarian and I opportunities to preach, each of us being scheduled one weekend every other month. We have an incredible congregation/community, who are encouraging us.

So there’s that.

In the Episcopal Church, what the readings are each week comes from a common lectionary, which rotates over a three-year cycle. Generally speaking, an Episcopal service on a given weekend anywhere you go, will likely have the same Gospel reading. And if you are preaching, that is the Gospel you want to make sense of for folks in some way.

The reading for my preaching weekend was Luke 8:26-39, the story of Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac. You know, a story that anyone would be keen to talk about 🙂

But as I thought about the reading during the week, an angle presented itself–talking about why a seemingly dated, archaic reading, which to many people might not seem to be at all relevant, actually matters here and now.

So I set out to look at demon possession through a modern lens. And here is what I came up with.

Personally, I retain more by reading than I do from listening. So the text is below. A friend was able to record the sermon portion of our 10:00am traditional music service, which you can watch here. Bear in mind that this is among the earliest sermons of someone not inclined to speak in front of gatherings of people.

An alternative to being demon possessed

Leading up to today’s reading, in Luke’s Gospel story, Jesus has been walking through cities and towns “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”

The crowds are everywhere around him, so much so that when his mother and brothers come to see him, they can’t even get to him.

So Jesus does something that plenty of people on the Eastern Shore can relate to: he gets on a boat.

And he says, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” Jesus falls asleep in the boat, and Luke gives us his account of the storm coming up, the disciples waking Jesus and Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are blown away that he can even command the wind and the waves.

So in our reading for today this boat ride takes them to the country of the Gerasenes. Jesus has gone over to the other side of the lake to get away from the crowds. And as soon as he steps on land, a man with demons meets him.

The funny thing, reading about the demon-possessed people in Scripture is that I think we dismiss these stories. Because we don’t talk like that anymore. Most of us aren’t worried about demons when we go into the grocery store or walk across town. So we say, okay, this story doesn’t apply to me. It’s not relevant.

Let’s think for a bit on this man and his demons. Here is a guy who is not in his right mind. His mind has been taken over by so many demons, they identify themselves as “Legion.” Here is a man on the opposite side of the lake from Galilee, meaning he is a gentile, not Jewish, which we further see by the fact that there are pigs around, which anyone Jewish wouldn’t have had. But what this area did have in common with Galilee, Jerusalem, the whole region, is that it had been taken over by Rome. And legions of Roman soldiers. So here is a man whose people had been conquered by foreign powers, and whose lives would have been affected accordingly. We might say that he was dealing with the spirit of the times.

Do we feel like the spirit of the times, of our times, might take over our minds sometimes? As Fr. Bill mentioned last week, do we feel like an unholy trinity of fear, leading to anger, leading to violence might carry us away with it sometimes?

Social media offers us more than a peek inside something like this. I have seen people who I know to be loving, caring, do anything for anyone people, say things on social media that certainly point to something taking over their minds and hearts—things full of blame and hate and anger and fear. Those are things, especially when they take over people who are otherwise loving and giving and caring, that lead us nowhere we want to go. And I get it, I feel those things too, I can be overcome with thoughts and feelings I don’t know where they came from and I wish they weren’t there.

We have dear friends and brothers and sisters at Christ Church who have shared their addiction stories and their journeys in recovery. Addiction is a disease that takes over someone, in a way that someone in Jesus’s time might well have described as demon possessed.

And when we look around the country at a new mass shooting each week, now including St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Alabama—it is not hard to make the case that we have people, here and now, who are not in their right minds; we are struggling and trying to understand and to help people through mental health crises, to help them know that they are loved and valued, at times when they are having trouble finding themselves.

We can see all around us that there are forces at work that have nothing to do with love, grace, forgiveness, or God.

All of this is to say, when we run into the demon possessed in Scripture, don’t be so quick to dismiss these stories—they still happen today, to us, just as much—with things taking over the way we think, feel, and act—which cause us to act in ways we normally wouldn’t.

And so in today’s reading, what do we see immediately with Jesus: these demons know him, and know that he has authority over them. They know he can get rid of them. Which he does and puts this man back into his right mind. And that is a great line, I think, when the people came out to see what happened, “they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

And then there is one of the most curious, interesting lines. Seeing this guy back in his right mind, how did this make the people feel? “They were afraid.”

Let’s circle back to our times. If we know that love conquers all; if somewhere in our hearts, we know we could live differently, be more loving, but we would have to put down this armor, this way of seeing and being that we’ve become accustomed to… if we were asked to stop blaming people we disagree with, if we were asked to love our neighbor who lives differently or votes differently than we do: would we? If we are asked to love and forgive and do something about the state of the world around us—will we?

If we get so used to looking at the world through certain lenses, taking those lenses off, and trying on a different way of seeing, of living, can be scary. It requires us to change. It asks something of us.

So into this demon-possessed way of being, Jesus comes, and frees this man from the legion of things that cloud his heart and mind. Jesus, with power and authority, gives him, and gives us, an alternative way to be. A different way of seeing things and being in the world.

Jesus restores the man who was possessed by demons. And in the next chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus calling the twelve together and giving them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sending them out.

We are called to be disciples of Jesus, right? I am going to speak for probably most of us, when I say I don’t know how well equipped I am for casting out demons and healing the sick. But there is some good news for those of us who don’t feel up to those tasks. And this season of Pentecost gives us a clue: He hasn’t left us alone to do this kind of work. He has sent us the Holy Spirit as our advocate, as our comforter, as our helper. We are never alone, especially when we are doing the work that God has given us to do.

A number of us have begun a three-week study of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples.” And at the end of the first chapter, Williams has this profound thing to say about discipleship. He says:

“A disciple is, as we have seen, simply a learner; and this, ultimately, is what the disciple learns: how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.”

We are learning how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.

No pressure, right?

Let me tell you a quick story. Over the past month and a half, I have taken 20 minutes each morning for centering prayer. What that is, at base, is breathing, clearing my mind, and being in the presence of God. One of the ways I try to keep that focus is when I breath in, I think about breathing in God’s love. And that makes me smile. And when I breathe out, I think about filtering God’s love through me, and breathing out compassion, empathy, and love for others. And if I sit with that for a minute, and wrap my mind around spending more time breathing love into the world, than I do fear, or hate, or anger, that should certainly change how I act, how I see other people, and how I treat others.

This is maybe the exact opposite of demon possession. Instead of taking in all these things of the world that keep us from God, I try to take in, to dwell on, to feel God’s love and grace.

I’m not saying that centering prayer is the answer to evil in the world. But let’s ask ourselves, what are those things we can do to help us focus on God, on love, on healing and forgiveness, rather than the different forces at work that want to keep us from the power of God’s love.

Rowan Williams has a few suggestions as to things that can help. He says: 1) attending to Scripture, following the Gospels so we can better understand this life we are called to live. 2) He says coming together to worship, to baptize, to celebrate Communion together and to welcome others to do the same. 3) And he says looking to the lives of others around us that help us to have faith. We need each other for that, to help us focus on God.

And so what if all of us who think of ourselves as Christians spent even a little time each day trying to focus on God’s gifts for us; on God’s grace and his love, in whatever ways we find most nourishing.

And then what if, by our breath, by our thoughts, by our actions, we tried to put more love into the world—taking in God’s love for us—and putting that love, in our own special and unique ways, into our community, into our world. Would that make a difference? And if it would, are we willing to put the time in, to put the work in, to do it?

We are called to be those people. We are called to be that community. We are called to further this work.

Today’s story of a demon-possessed man should resonate with us in today’s world, if we use the language of our time. And Jesus having the power to heal, to drive out the demons that tormented this man, and many others, is still as true today as it was then.

The world we live in is a frightening and heart-breaking place too much of the time. Helping to set it right, helping to be places where the acts of God can happen in the world is the work we have been given to do.

But we don’t do it alone. We have each other, and we have the Holy Spirit. And that is enough.

Amen.

Oh, also. It helps to wear your preaching Vans.

Sediment, Tents, Hot Dogs and the Holy Spirit

Shake a snow globe full of sediment and you’ll have to wait a while for the sediment to settle. Only then can you see through it. Clarity comes from letting the sediment settle. Now think of the sediment as all the demands and distractions in our daily lives–and there is always something or someone shaking our snow globes.

The weekend retreat during The Alpha Course is designed to help us settle, unwind, and unplug so we can plug into something that will recharge us. It’s a time to connect with the Holy Spirit and with each other.

Five years to the weekend after Christ Church Easton‘s first Alpha retreat, we took a group of more than 20 people to Pecometh’s Riverside Retreat Center outside Centreville, MD, for a weekend to reconnect. The weather was in the 70s during the days, the night skies were starry and clear, and the waterfront campus is full of trails, woods, and structures to get you dialed-in to creation.

Saturday morning, we had a group gathered on benches outside by the river for morning prayer. We read from Padraig O’Tuama‘s “Daily Prayers,” in which we pray, in part:

We resolve to live life in its fullness:
We will welcome the people who’ll be a part of this day.
We will greet God in the ordinary and hidden moments.
We will live the life we are living.

We set our intention to be present, open, and to appreciate one another and our lives.

Weekends like this are about moments; they are about relationships; they are about laughter and tears from being overfilled; they are made up of sharing meals, of taking hikes and walks or going skateboarding; they are built around small group discussions and big questions and shared experiences and being vulnerable.

The Alpha Weekend five years ago is the first time I reflected on advice that St. Paul gave in his letter to the Romans where he said:

“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Romans 12:2 (NIV)

In a world that wants us to conform, we are encouraged to live differently. In a series of videos over the weekend, we meet Jackie Pullinger, a missionary who went from England to Hong Kong more than 50 years ago, who has worked to help prostitutes, gang members, and the poor. She has done amazing work and points out that what we need to spread God’s love in the world are “soft hearts and hard feet.” And she says that maybe the only way our hearts soften is by being broken.

An Alpha Weekend is about relationships and downtime and making memories, including the debut of a non-existent band called “Skater Dads.” It’s skipping stones at sunset and exploring the campus for the camp’s famed outdoor chapel.

The Alpha Weekend is about sitting around a campfire singing songs, roasting marshmallows and hot dogs and being awestruck when someone reaches their hand into the fire to successfully rescue a fallen hot dog and comes out unburned (don’t try this at home or around a youth director) ; it’s about feeling seen simply by someone noticing that you are almost done cooking your hot dog and being asking if you want a bun.

It’s what happens when a group of people gather in a beautiful place for the sacred purpose of being together, worshipping God, and being open to the Holy Spirit.

Sunday morning, the ending of such a powerful and peaceful weekend, the big feelings were about not wanting the weekend to end. A conversation made me think about the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop, this absolutely incredible experience of Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, and Peter’s immediate response is to build tents–“Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings” (Luke 9:33)–he wants to stay in that moment, he wants to keep it going, just like each of us wanted the weekend to keep going. But Jesus knew differently. He knew that as incredible as those experiences are, it is not about building tents and trying to hold the moment–it is about carrying the moment back into the real world, because we have work to do. We have to spread that Holy Spirit experience. I mentioned all this to our collected groups. Which gave Rev. Susie Leight an idea.

Susie expounded on the theme of leaving, going back to the world, by opening our Sunday morning worship service with a blessing/prayer from Jan Richardson:

Dazzling

A Blessing for Transfiguration Sunday

“Believe me, I know how tempting it is to remain inside this blessing, to linger where everything is dazzling and clear. We could build walls around this blessing, put a roof over it. We could bring in a table, chairs, have the most amazing meals. We could make a home. We could stay. But this blessing is built for leaving. This blessing is made for coming down the mountain. This blessing wants to be in motion, to travel with you as you return to level ground. It will seem strange how quiet this blessing becomes when it returns to earth. It is not shy. It is not afraid. It simply knows how to bide its time, to watch and wait, to discern and pray until the moment comes when it will reveal everything it knows, when it will shine forth with all it has seen, when it will dazzle with the unforgettable light you have carried all this way.”

This weekend was a blessing made for coming down the mountain, back into the world; it was an experience, it was moments, it was deepened relationships. It is a blessing for us to share with those we meet, with those who are a part of our days.

Connected to God’s Family

The evening before Christmas Eve, two of us were asked by our Rector if we’d be willing to pinch-hit and lead prayer services and give short sermons on December 25 and 26. The 26th was my day. The Gospel reading for the day, which I needed to discuss was John 1:1-18, “In the beginning was the Word.” Not the one I would have picked for a first-ever sermon, but it was the right one. Part of a continually unfolding story.

An 11th hour, first sermon seems like something worth documenting and sharing, so here it is, with a few edits. And a quick note explaining the top photo: A few years back in a class led by Fr. Bill Ortt, he drew two circles–one with arrows all pointing inward, one with arrows all pointing out. And he asked, which circle looks like love?” The one with the arrows pointing out, away from ourselves to others. And (now) Rev. Barbara Coleman put her hands on her head, fingers out, looking like the circle showing apostolic, outgoing love. And her “apostolic antlers” have been a symbol/sign with a number of us since. Her husband John, pictured on the right, led prayers of the people at the end of the service, and Barbara told him he needed to get a picture of the two of us giving the sign. So there it is 🙂

“Connected to God’s Family”
December 26, 2021

Being called to do something is to be invited. It’s always an invitation. Studying Scripture, we learn that there is actually a right answer to being called—“Here I am, Lord.” When you try to make a point to answer, “Here I am,” you find yourself in some situations you aren’t prepared for. Like being asked the night before Christmas Eve services if you would lead morning prayer the day after Christmas. And have something to say about the prologue to John’s Gospel.

And here we are.

So what can we say about the opening of John’s Gospel?

If someone was to make a nativity play out of John’s introduction to the good news, it would not be a hit with families and kids. There are no shepherds, no wise men, no manger. It’s just words. But John is up to something at the beginning of his story that might just give us the most hope in the end.

Each of the four Gospel writers does something different with how they begin their stories.

Matthew gives us Jesus’s family tree, wise men traveling from afar, and does his best to make sure his readers know that this is the guy who is fulfilling prophecy; he is the King of Kings.

Mark skips any kind of birth narrative and gets straight to the story. I like to think of Mark’s storytelling approach as pulling up to the curb, opening the car door and saying, “Get in… Immediately!”

Luke is where we get shepherds and some of Mary’s joyful experience as an expectant mother, and Jesus’s connection to John the Baptist.

John goes back. Way back. To the Beginning. And he does it with incredible poetry. When I first sat down to really study the Gospels, John’s prologue gave me goosebumps. I am a sucker for language, but there is more.

The beginning John takes us back to is Genesis.

When you read Matthew, his genealogy for Jesus goes back to Abraham. Luke traces Jesus’s family tree back to Adam. One of the things John is telling us is that Jesus goes back even further—to the very beginning.

There is a Franciscan friar or monk named Richard Rohr who has written about the “Cosmic Christ.” He points out that Christ is eternal, that he has always been here. And that the incarnational Jesus, when he became human and lived with us in bodily form, happened at a particular time and place. But Christ as part of the Trinity is so much bigger than we can comprehend. And that’s where John takes us.

In our Bible studies, we have found NT Wright to be a wonderful guide for making sense of Scripture. He says this about John:

“that’s the theme of this gospel: if you want to know who the true God is, look long and hard at Jesus… The rest of the passage clusters around this central statement. The one we know as Jesus is identical, it seems, with the Word who was there from the very start, the Word through whom all things were made, the one who contained and contains life and light.”

That’s the goosebumps part of John for me. When I read him, I get that sense of awe, that sense of Jesus as the Word, Jesus as God. And that he has given us that same gift, of knowing God through him.

Do you ever get that sense of being connected to something so much bigger than yourself? There are times when I am watching a sunrise or a sunset; or it could be reading poetry—it actually happens a good bit here at Christ Church, listening to music during a worship service, or finding myself trying to scribble down notes about something Fr. Bill or Fr. Charlie mentions in a sermon. I have a sense, something I know but can’t explain, that I am, that we all are connected to the Divine.

I woke up today and learned that Archbishop Desmond Tutu died yesterday at the age of 90. I have a good friend and mentor that spent part of a semester at sea with Archbishop Tutu and he has such wonderful stories to share from that experience. Desmond Tutu is one of those people who I point to as being a huge inspiration and who has made me look and listen to what a calling in ministry might be. This summer and fall we had an outdoor evening prayer service on Thursdays, one of which fell on Archbishop Tutu’s 90th birthday and we included several of his prayers to honor him.

Tutu spoke to this exact thing, that transcendent feeling of connecting to God in different moments of our lives, if we pay attention. He said:

“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew… Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful… and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”

These things, these experiences are reminders that we are wired to feel something more than just going through the motions of daily life.

I’ve talked recently about crying at Christ Church—and about how I have cried more in the past five years than maybe any other time. That it’s the kind of crying that comes from your heart being too full, so that something has to come welling up and out. And that welling up comes from being connected—both to God and to each other. That’s part of the package deal about loving God and loving your neighbor.

And that connection is what caring about each other looks like. That caring is love. And that love, that’s what was there in the beginning, that creative force that built and sustains the universe and that built and sustains us.

And that’s what John’s about. And that’s what God’s about. And that’s what we are supposed to be about.

I’ve seen that connecting and caring on full display at this church. We have all seen it in Bruce Richards and the last 18 years—it’s what the (pastoral care) Stephen Ministry is all about. That kind of caring, that kind of loving is what we are here on this earth to do. That’s the gift we are given of this life, the one that goes back to the beginning, goes back to the Word, goes back to Christ.

But it’s not meant to stop inside these walls. It’s meant to go out, apostolically. It’s the work that God has given us to do. And it feels right to end this morning’s message with words from Desmond Tutu to that effect:

“We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God’s family.”

Amen.

One bloom might hold it all

The magnolia in the front yard is a ten-day tree. For maybe ten days at most, there is nothing like it; it’s in full blaze glory. Then it drops its bloom and doesn’t say much the rest of the year. But those ten days.

As our unplanned retreat/social distancing kicks in, we are in the middle of ten-day Magnolia time. It’s an excuse to sit on the bench under the tree, to walk around it, to put my head between blooms and breathe in. If I’m honest, I don’t need a virus to do this, it’s life everyday as long as I’m paying attention.

The sky is still dark, but the birds are noisy. It’s transition time, just before the sun changes the horizon’s color. Morning routine: coffee, prayer, reading, writing. Cat purring on the armrest against my left arm, dog curled up against my right thigh–demanding bookends with fur. As it warms, morning time will be on the deck or in the writing shed.

This early dark time matters. It frames the day with attention. It sets the tone before the day’s demands start. Lately, I’ve been thinking about writing, storytelling, the force of words that point to something words can’t really get to.

One of the books currently traveling with me–in the car, in waiting rooms, to work, the spare minutes picking the girls up from school.

In the preface to “The Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction,” the Rose Metal Press folks point to Bernard Cooper’s notion that short nonfiction needs “an alertness to detail, a quickening of the senses, a focusing of the literary lens… until one has magnified some small aspect of what it means to be human.”

Mull that last phrase as you sit to pray, read, or write, “some small aspect of what it means to be human.”

Overshadowed by the Coronavirus these days, is Lent, a season where we look to pare away those things that distract us so that we can draw closer to God. When I spend time in the Bible, it’s the Gospels that sing. It’s not Paul’s letters, it’s Jesus’ stories. Christ tries to show us and tell us what it means to be human in a way we too often overlook.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Matthew 13:31-32

Ummm… thanks, Jesus. What the heck are we supposed to do with that? Even his followers want to know why he always talks in parables. And this is a parable told after the Parable of the Sower and after Jesus broke it down for them. It was part of our reading in N.T. Wright’s “Lent for Everyone,” on Saturday. Wright points out that, Jesus, “told parables because what he was doing was so different, so explosive, and so dangerous, that the only way he could talk about it was to use stories. They are earthly, and sometimes heavenly, stories with an emphatically earthly meaning. They explain the full meaning not of distant, timeless truths, but of what Jesus was up to then and there. This is what is going on, they say, if only you had eyes to see. Or, indeed, as Jesus frequently says, ears to hear… Jesus’ parables invite the hearer, to look at the world, and particularly at Jesus himself, in a whole new way.”

I am guilty of not catching anything the first time, or first several times, I hear it. It takes time for me to learn things, to let them sink in. I need seeds. I need seeds that take time to take root, take time to grow, but once they are there, they stick, and maybe they bloom in each of us uniquely, in ways that can only be made manifest in the exact way, with our particular eyes and ears.

Often my eyes and ears work against me. Words I’ve heard or used too many times or sights that have become ordinary and overlooked. We don’t see God if we don’t look, or take the time to make the connection. Maybe the more we connect, the more we awaken ourselves to His presence.

American Goldfinch, by Michael Brown. Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Reading further in the Flash Field Guide, there is an essay by Lia Purpura called, “Augury.” She walks up on a dead Goldfinch hanging in a tree, caught up in fishing line. It’s jarring, disturbing, unexpected, confusing. It’s wrong for what is supposed to be there, how things are supposed to be.

Her description of this moment, this encounter is eerie and uncanny and beautiful all at once. In maybe a why moment for the experience, she latches onto, “It’s good to stand beneath a thing that takes words away. It’s good to be in a place where thought can’t form the usual way.”

Experiencing things that take words away, where thoughts can’t form the usual way.

I prefer my encounters to be with live Goldfinches, as I am sure Purpura does as well. But I appreciate her flash essay in the way it helps me to look at Goldfinches with new eyes. It helps me to look at writing with new eyes. Hopefully it helps me look at life with new eyes.

Life and death loom large. While I sit here, for the time I have, life looms larger. It’s part of the ten-day tree time. New birds, Goldfinches included, are appearing at the feeders, and at the edge of woods where I hike or trail run. Crisp, spring sunrises and sunsets are punctuated with cool, clear night skies full of stars. in the midst of it all, the magnolia makes a statement.

If I have eyes to see, one bloom might hold it all.

Making Space for Hope

“In the beginning…” seems like a solid place to start. It’s how both Genesis and the Gospel According to John get going. Genesis opens with “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and John with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

That’s not an accident or coincidence–John knew Genesis and sends the reader back to it in our minds, at the same time revealing something new to us.

A number of churches use a common lectionary, a common set of readings, so that the readings are prescribed and the same for a given day, and they change each year, rotating through a three-year cycle. This year, on Christmas Eve, we read/heard the birth story from Luke, the one that Linus used when explaining the meaning of Christmas to Charlie Brown. And on Sunday, Dec. 28, the first Sunday following Christmas, we read/heard the “In the beginning” prologue of John’s Gospel. If you are curious, here are the readings laid out for the Christmas season.

A number of years ago, I sat down to read the New Testament on my own, to see what the fuss was about. It was all fascinating (it must have done something, I work for a church now) but it was the beginning of John’s Gospel that gave me goose bumps–it sent me somewhere in the way that poetry and Scripture is designed to do. And as timing would have it, at Christ Church Easton, we currently have three classes in the middle of a chapter-by-chapter study of John’s Gospel. As we listened to yesterday’s reading, I found myself wishing everybody there had the perspective of a slow read and discussion of the Gospels, making them relevant, making them personal, giving you more to reflect on, and opening you up.

Scripture is one thing, inspired words meant to point us to something bigger–to God, to community, to each other. What we do with Scripture, how we relate it and relate to it is equally as important. In his sermons and discussions, Fr. Bill Ortt has been pointing us toward hope.

Earlier this month, Fr. Bill talked about how it getting dark so early in the evenings affects him, throws him into a funk, and that a slight, almost imperceptible turning point, the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year,is a game-changer for him. That after that day, he knew that each day after it was light out for just a little bit longer. The change is “imperceptible, but real,” he said.

“Learning to find the signs of hope is my spiritual discipline during this season. As long as there is any light in the world, there is hope.”

Fr. Bill Ortt

The Christmas season is a thin place, a place where the Holy Spirit is close and also a place where memories, heartache, pain, family, stress–you name it, are all right there. For me, it’s a time where my emotions and my psyche are on a roller coaster–from high highs to low lows and back again.

Yesterday, Fr. Bill walked us through connections from Genesis to John. He walked us through the creation narrative:

“…the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light;” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness…” (Genesis 1:2-4)

The biblical Hebrew word for chaos, the formless void is “Tohu wa-bohu,” which is a word that has stuck with me since first hearing it a few years ago. So when dealing with this chaos, this formless void, this tohu wa-bohu, the first thing God does is shine light on it. The second thing He does is create space, separates light from darkness, day from night. This is key.

And it’s something we can do as well, when faced with chaos–we can shine a light on it, and create space around it. Fr. Bill points out that “chaos is the condition for new creation.” Shine a light, make space, create/start something new. God can help us use the chaos in our lives to begin something new.

“Allowing for this new creation that He will make in our hearts and our lives. It’s the same truth, the same love, the same hope for us today in our lives as it was then. It’s something we can see, feel, and know; that we might become what God intends us to be: just children on earth.”

Fr. Bill

This isn’t always easy. I saw friends on Christmas Eve who are going through their first holidays without a family member who was a huge light in their lives, and in the life of our community. Yesterday a friend was found dead in his car, who leaves behind a young son. There is pain and heartbreak everywhere we look. And sometimes it’s too much.

And at the same time, there are weddings, births, people in communities reaching out to help others. There are days getting longer. There are chances. There is light. There is hope. This morning, as I sat down to write about hope, there was an e-mail in my inbox with the subject, “The Wild Hope,” from the Frederick Buechner Center. As often happens with me, Buechner’s words give voice to my mind and my heart. So we will finish with him:

“TO LOOK AT THE last great self-portraits of Rembrandt or to read Pascal or hear Bach’s B-minor Mass is to know beyond the need for further evidence that if God is anywhere, he is with them, as he is also with the man behind the meat counter, the woman who scrubs floors at Roosevelt Memorial, the high-school math teacher who explains fractions to the bewildered child. And the step from “God with them” to Emmanuel, “God with us,” may not be as great as it seems. What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born again even in us and our own snowbound, snowblind longing for him.” – From “A Room Called Remember.”

Being Neighbors: Our Sacred Call to Empathy

If you take Jesus at his word, loving our neighbors is a big deal. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they record the same to-do list from Jesus, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV)

These are important. And if we take to reading, studying, reflecting and meditating on, and praying on Scripture, we’ll find new depths and heights for how to connect to and love and obey God.

I’ve got to say, the Bible is my favorite book. That is not a statement I could have made 10 years ago. And part of the reason I say that is that I’ve spent the last three years reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s versions of the Gospel, slowly, chapter by chapter, studying with different groups, using the help of N.T. Wright’s “New Testament for Everyone” commentaries. And we’ve prayed, laughed (a lot), cried, wrestled with things, been confused, found grace, found ourselves in the stories, found God and Christ in the Scriptures, found poetry, and soared to new heights of feeling and depths of understanding. I can’t recommend it enough and it has become one of my favorite things to do. We’re currently studying John’s Gospel and, wow.

But about this loving our neighbor thing: what if our neighbor has no interest in the Bible? And there are plenty of big reasons they might not (disdain for organized religion being one). One of the best things we can do is look to Jesus for an example. Jesus is constantly reaching out to the lonely, the outcast, the disenfranchised, the unclean, the sick, the marginalized–the people who the “church people” of the day wouldn’t have anything to do with. And when he reached out, he didn’t tell them to go to church, read their Old Testament, etc. He heard them. He met them where they were. He healed them. He loved them. He knew them and spoke to them. In the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, who society would have told Jesus he had no business talking to, Jesus talks to her, tells her things about who he is and who she is; the woman is amazed and tells others he “told me everything I have ever done!” He told her HER story.

At a time where we don’t know our neighbors, or their stories, and in many cases, maybe we don’t know ourselves the way we should, it’s our sacred duty to recognize the divine in each of us. In a 2018 sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, Brene Brown reminds us that,

“If you are a person of faith, you are called to find the face of God in every single person you meet.”

Brene Brown

Sometimes that is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when we disagree with someone, maybe don’t like them; or if they look, think, love, or act differently than we do. A key way to know someone is to hear their stories; to understand who they are. Brown shows one way of doing that in a short, narrated cartoon video about empathy. Sometimes it is no more simple, and no more profound, than just being there.

Brown says that empathy fuels connection and cites Theresa Wiseman’s four qualities of empathy: perspective taking, staying out of judgment, recognizing emotions in others, and communicating that. If we want to love our neighbor as Christ both told us and demonstrated, this is a pretty solid beginning.

Part of the problem is that this isn’t an easy thing to learn. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone. And it isn’t always easy. We need all the help that we can get.

This fall, we’ve had two evening classes reading and discussing Brown’s book, “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.” It’s been interesting, hearing some folks who are not church-goers, who say, “A church discussing a Brene Brown book? Wow, that’s really cool, I’d love to be a part of that.” And some folks at the church, who wonder about discussing a book that isn’t the Bible and doesn’t talk directly about the Bible or God in the way that we are used to. And both of those things are great and right and fair discussions to have.

I love the idea of thin places–places where heaven and earth are closer, or places where we are closer to God. There are absolutely physical places in the world where that space exists. But I think it that space can also be a state of mind or emotion. And when we feel vulnerable, that is one of the places–being exposed, and truly seen and heard, where we feel our need for God and for each other. Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”And she points out that love for us feels uncertain, incredibly risky, and leaves us emotionally exposed.

She points out that, “vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

This is not easy stuff and it’s not necessarily a feel good book, in that it asks us to look past all the barriers we build to protect ourselves and be open with ourselves, each other, and with God. Being open to God is to be vulnerable, to put our hearts out there, which is the business God is in: the battle for our hearts.

Brown gets the title for her book from Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech, about the “Man in the Arena:”

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”

God calls us not to be on the sidelines, but in the arena. He tells us that Jesus has come so that we may “have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He wants us to get to know Him and get to know each other. And He knows it is a struggle, a journey to get there, one where we lay down our old lives to have a new life in and through Him. And that it’s worth it.

What keeps us from having that life in all its fullness? The life that we might dream of, or that God dreams for us? What, in our culture, are the things that most stand in our way? If most of us had to name it, it would probably involve fear, shame, vulnerability. We are often afraid of failing, afraid of falling, afraid of being ridiculed, afraid of being exposed. This is true in our personal lives, in our education system, and at work. And in Daring Greatly, Brown helps us to look at this, to name and understand it, and talks about how we can connect with one another and develop a resilience that could allow us to try; to dare.

In the Gospels, Jesus compares himself to a physician, who is not here to help the healthy, but here to help the sick. He asks Peter and his disciples to continue his work. He asks us to continue his work today. And when we can diagnose something that keeps people down, keeps us from knowing each other and knowing ourselves; keeps us armored up, numb, and therefore not open to God or His love for us and what plans He might have for us, maybe He asks us to reach out to people where they are. Maybe he asks us to open ourselves up and help others connect to us and to Him.

And maybe we need to use every tool, every language, every means that He has given us to help do that. It’s a sacred call, to love our neighbors. And to love them, we have to know them, and know ourselves.

There are different paths to come to faith. I know my own did not involve the Bible until it did. And that has begun one of the coolest lifetime adventures there is. And our paths also involve finding God in all of creation, in other people, and in books, some of which are obvious, some of which are subtle, but all of which are part of God.

At our best, maybe we are called to synthesize secular and sacred texts, or to view everything as sacred, seeing with the eyes of a Creator who loves his Creation. Maybe we can create a language and a vision with room for both. I appreciate folks like Rev. Arianne Rice, who in her practice is both an Episcopal priest and a certified Daring Way instructor, bringing together Scripture, faith, social work, research, vulnerability, and empathy. And who may be able to help us, and others, do the same. It’s cool to see Christ Church Charlotte offering classes, lectures, and an evening with Brene Brown; Stonebriar Church in Texas talking about healing from shame; and the Episcopal Church and United Thank Offering talking about return, practice, and gratitude, citing Brown’s work. The point here is not about Brown, but about cases where churches are looking to engage their congregations and communities by being open to new ways of thinking about connection, empathy, vulnerability, and how to be neighbors. It doesn’t change our sacred calling, it engages it on the ground.

I have so much to learn from so many different people. And so much to learn about God’s love, and grace, and Word. And I am grateful for all those in the arena, trying to do God’s work , through their unique gifts, perspective, and place in the world.

Prodigal in Flux

Two kids. One is out of control, squanders opportunities, messes up, fails repeatedly, doesn’t know which way is up, goes off track, loses track, what track? Tries to find their own way in so many ways they get lost. The other child doesn’t question, stays in line, is dutiful, doesn’t stray from home. And a father (or parent) who loves them both. That’s a set up of the parable of the prodigal son that Jesus lays out in chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel. And it’s a story, and family dynamic that is familiar to a lot of us.

I have always been the first example; I am much more prodigal than prodigy. I’ve taken more wrong turns, wasted time and money, and been clueless enough to be dropkicked more times than I can count.

But a funny thing happens to the wayward, reckless prodigal son in Jesus’ parable. When he is lost and at his lowest, he humbles himself. He swallows his pride, casts off his son-ship, and looks to return home to his father to beg to be a servant or slave, no longer a son. The father is overjoyed, knows in his bones that his son was lost, but now is found, welcomes him home and celebrates.

Meanwhile, the other son, the one who was there all along, didn’t stray, stayed in line, is furious. And we get that, we recognize it, we see that tendency in ourselves. When Jesus told his parable, he used it as a way to talk about groups and types of people, but man, can we feel it personally and emotionally. It works both ways. We recently discussed it in our Luke studies and it is remarkable what it stirs up in us. It’s the parable in the Gospels that I most identify with.

Writer and theologian Henri Nouwen had an encounter with Rembrandt’s painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” which changed Nouwen’s life. It started him on a long spiritual adventure, got him thinking about his own life and calling in terms of the parable, and sent him searching inside himself in new ways. He took his reflections and experiences and turned them into what he calls his favorite of the many books he has written.

“For many years I tried to get a glimpse of God by looking carefully at the varieties of human experience: loneliness and love, sorrow and joy, resentment and gratitude, war and peace. I sought to understand the ups and downs of the human soul, to discern there a hunger and thirst that only a God whose name is Love could satisfy.”

Rembrandt’s painting helped him find God’s home in Nouwen’s own heart, showed him to look inside himself as well.

“I have to kneel before the Father, put my ear against his chest and listen, without interruption, to the heartbeat of God… I know now that I have to speak from eternity into time, from the lasting joy into passing realities of our short existence on this world, from the house of love into the houses of fear, from God’s abode into the dwellings of human beings.”

Jesus invites us into his story and Nouwen invites us along for his journey of personal discovery. This March and April for five weeks, I am stoked that we are going to make it a group adventure. Wednesday evenings at 6:30pm, from March 20 through April 17 at Christ Church Easton. If it’s the kind of adventure that you are looking for, you can sign up here.

I like this from the back cover of the book, “For all who ask, ‘Where has my struggle led me?’ or for those ‘on the road’ who have the courage to embark on the journey but seek the illumination of a known way and safe passage, this book will inspire and guide each time its read.”

And I am a big fan of Charlie Mackey‘s bronzes and drawings of the prodigal son (below).

Ultimately, I wonder if we are each of the characters in the story–the prodigal when we are reckless, self-destructive, stray and feel lost. And when we humble ourselves and look for forgiveness. The other brother when we feel resentful of others, entitled to what we feel we deserve, and maybe when we go through the motions without putting our hearts and souls into things. And we are asked to be the father when we forgive, welcome back, and celebrate those who were lost, but now are found.

The Tree Which Moves Us

William Blake’s writing and artwork inspired my first tattoo, 21 years ago. This morning he reminded me to see God in all things. And it turns out today (Nov. 28) is also Blake’s birthday.

Reading him in a British romanticism class at Washington College changed the way I thought about writing. This morning, drinking coffee and reading, a letter Blake wrote to a patron-turned-critic popped up:

“I see everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eye of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

I didn’t set out to read Blake this morning, the letter was  in a chapter of Eknath Easwaran’s commentary on the Beatitudes. I came across the same letter again, referenced by Maria Popova’s Brainpickings, pointing out his birthday. I like it when God makes it obvious that you are supposed to read and think about something today.

Walking around Tuckahoe State Park on Sunday, I kept taking pictures because the sun was setting and bouncing light beautifully off the trees and the water. We live in a place where we can be frequently reminded to stop and look at amazing things. If we make time. It’s all around us: yellow ginkgo leaves covering the ground, Great Blue Herons in flight, seldom seen birds at the feeder outside the window.

Blake’s point is that we don’t all look at things the same way. For someone looking to clear land and build a house, or someone who is late to work, a tree might be just something in the way or background scenery. For others, it can be the tree which moves us to tears; overwhelms us with gratitude and wonder at being out in nature.

After quoting Blake, Easwaran goes on to quote Thomas a Kempis, saying:

“If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.” The pure in spirit, who see God, see him here and now: in his handiwork, his hidden purpose, the wry humor of his creation.

Every creature a book of holy doctrine. Wow. It comes back to being able to look, being able to see things that way, see each other that way. We determine how and what we see in the world. Seeing the tree which moves us, seeing God’s handiwork in nature and people in our lives, is the reminder I take today.

It’s cool to have Blake surface while studying Luke’s Gospel and the Beatitudes. Jesus was calling for people to see and be in new and different ways than what was going on around them. In his art and writing, Blake saw in new ways, broke from tradition, and conveyed the prophetic and the wondrous. He opened my eyes to writing being able to break free from form and constraint.

Since it’s his birthday, let’s walk toward Blake a bit more. He illustrated religious texts; it’s moving quickly into Advent and Christmas; and we have groups who have studied Luke’s take on Jesus’ birth narrative where angels appear to the shepherds. So this struck me today: Blake drew and painted scenes for a John Milton poem, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.”  Blake illustrates Milton’s words, which describe a scene we know better using Luke’s words:

And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” (Luke 2:14)

Today, on Blake’s birthday, and every day, whether we need angels to point it out to us, or whether we can use our own eyes, maybe we can see the divine in the everyday, the tree which moves us.

Weekly Reader: Luke, Linus, Fred and Gary

I hear Linus Van Pelt’s voice in my head. We are two chapters into our study of Luke’s Gospel at Christ Church Easton and there is Linus.

“And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this [shall be] a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” – Luke 2:8-14

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. – LVP

That last line might not be in the Bible. But it applies. I still well up a bit anytime I watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special and the feckless search for the meaning of Christmas leads to Luke and Linus. And I will say, just two chapters into Luke, it is beyond cool to get a deeper sense of Luke’s good news and what he is doing as essentially a journalist, making sure we don’t miss the story of Jesus.

Yesterday morning, I opened up Frederick Buechner’s quote of the day and found my mind in an upward spiral thinking about this:

“Some moment happens in your life that you say yes to right up to the roots of your hair, that makes it worth having been born just to have happen. Laughing with somebody till the tears run down your cheeks. Waking up to the first snow. Being in bed with someone you love.

“Whether you thank God for such a moment or thank your lucky stars, it is a moment that is trying to open up your whole life. If you turn your back on such a moment and hurry along to business as usual, it may lose you the ball game. If you throw your arms around such a moment and bless it, it may save your soul.”

Buechner’s context with salvation, love, and gratitude is key, but that is the part that spoke to me.

This morning I returned to Gary Snyder’s “Mountains and Rivers Without End,” a book/meditation it took him 40 years to write, and which I never keep far from reach.  I’m trying to read Snyder and Jim Harrison in the mornings with coffee, to stoke my sense of wonder and to remember to look at the world around me with eyes and a heart to take everything in. Snyder’s meditation goes throughout the world, history, into our minds and souls, and was begun looking at a scroll of a landscape.

I had a picture in my head this morning of Weekly Readers, a weekly newspaper/magazine we got in elementary school that told us what was going on the world that we might want to pay attention to.

The week is just starting, but I like the notion that this week, the things I am reading, that I want to pay attention to–Luke, Linus, Fred, and Gary–help keep my mind connected to God, nature, blessing everyday moments in our lives, creativity, incarnation, and love.