neocappadocians

au revoir

2011-11-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

it has been six and a half years since i started this blog, and i think it's time for a last post. when i started it, i was all new to the blogosphere, and i hung out with a lot of 'emergent types' and people for whom the da vinci code was not the fifth gospel but the gospel. i still hang out with a lot of types of people, but i am no longer a stranger in the world of blogs: i have two others that are 'finished' and two others that are active.

so, i'm keeping this one around as an archive for the many linked blogs and other sites that seem to participate in the discussion in which i was interested when i started it, but will make my posts either to peregrinations with st. chad or to the orthodox pagan.

au revoir.

some thoughts on the world trade center

2011-09-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Genesis 11: 'And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

4And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one anothers speech.

8So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.'

29 july: translation of william laud, archbishop of canterbury, sometime bishop of st.david's, sometime chancellor of oxford

2011-07-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

although charged with several crimes again and again, laud was always found innocent by the courts. the puritan parliament had to pass a special bill to have him executed. let us hope the long parliament will not soon return.

laud pretty much embodied everything the puritans opposed, and he did it insistently. it was i suspect his determination most of all that led to his death. tyranny can more easily overlook principled opposition of the quiet, scholarly type than it can embarrassment of those who simply do not recognize its authority.

i wonder what we would say about laud today. i am not going to speculate on what he might have to say about contemporary politics, if for no other reason than that they probably could not have been imagined by him, although i suspect he would have been horrified. i suspect we would see him as someone who was trying to impose his opinions on a diverse culture. he did not himself see what he was doing as any such thing. he saw himself, i believe, as one who was trying to preserve an old and wise culture from the fifty-one per-cent approval rating of the day.

it is fascinating that if he were alive today, laud would be considered a homosexual. he was not so-called in his own time; then there was no such term. it would have to wait for the more clinical nineteenth century, when sexuality began to replace love as the object of desire. (i always wonder how our discussion might change if we used a term i prefer, homophilia, rather than homosexuality.) he was well known to have 'male favourites,' one of whom was buckingham, also a favourite of the king. so far as i know, no one wanted to behead james for his 'sodomy.' and charles, who would lose his head, was one of the most chaste and faithful husbands to have worn the english crown. (the present monarch seems also faithful, but then she is literally a queen.)

of course one could make a sort of jest that it was laud's fondness for decoration and dress-up that got him in trouble. then of course we are left with a number of embarassments, one of which is what must we say about benedict and st. peter's. but then of course we know what some already say about them, and the most vicious charge against laud, from the viewpoint of the puritans, was that he was a papist. again, he saw himself as no such thing. he saw the church of rome as discontinuous with the medieval church, and sought to assure the continuity of the church of england.

laud has been called bigoted, but in his defence it must be said that he opposed again and again the harsh sentencing of prominent puritans. they would not oppose a harsh sentence for him.

the american episcopal church's lesser feasts and fasts 2006 has this to say about laud:

'Laud's reputation has remained controversial to this day. Honored as a martyr and condemned as an intolerant bigot, he was compassionate in his defense of the rights of the common people against the landowners. H was honest, devout, loyal to the king and to the rights and privileges of the Church of England. He tried to reform and protect the Church in accordance with his sincere convictions. But in many ways he was out of step with the views of the majority of his countrymen . . . .'

Lord forbid that anyone be out of step with the views of the majority. parliament seems particularly unable to deal with one who notices that the parliament is naked.

lesser feasts and fasts continues:

'He made a noble end, praying on the scaffold: "the Lord receive my soul, and have mercy upon me, and bless this kingdom with peace and charity, that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them."' (p. 124)

he is buried under the high altar at st. john's college, oxford.

my apocalyptic summer: note one, the two kingdoms

2011-07-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

last summer, i was walking about downtown victoria and in a little esoteric bookstore found zachary f. landsdowne's the revelation of saint john: the path to soul initiation (san francisco, ca/newburyport, ma: weiser books, 2006). it was the shape and format of its pages, actually, that made me handle it for a few minutes. it felt good. i thought to myself, hmmm, self. you're about old enough to try to read john's vision with perhaps some understanding. why don't you buy this book, and spend the fall reading the apocalypse? besides, it was only about $3.98 canadian, two doonies and some change. but i didn't read it last fall. instead, over the fall and winter i gathered translations and commentaries of the last book in the bible, and have been working through them this summer.

it's been a wowser experience. i've avoided as much as possible the obvious lunatic fringe stuff (please read 'lunatic' with the accent on the second syllable, and consider that by it i mean those folks whose understanding is limited by the lunar sphere in the classical understanding of the cosmos.); so, no left behind or late great planet earth. what i have read has been very interesting. much of it has mostly brought together some vague understandings i had had over the years but never considered together. one of the first is that john of the revelation is a prophet. by that i mean, as walter harrelson, in whose seminar i studied old testament prophets, would always insist, that john describes what will be because it what always is. when he says these are ' the things which must shortly come to pass', they are the things which always must shortly come to pass. the interpreters who say that john is writing about his own generation and the mysterious beast whose number is 666 is nero, the interpreters who say that john is writing about some specific time in the future and the mysterious beast whose number is 666 was napoleon or is whoever, and those who say that the situations john described are always coming to pass and the beast is within each of us, are all correct.

the kingdom of our god and of his christ is, as jesus said, at hand, here among us. it is not out there in the future, only. like the lord whose presence creates that kingdom, it is and was and is to come. but the other kingdom, the one in which only those who serve the beast can trade in the great city of babylon, is also here. and it was. but it is not, in john's vision, to come. the knowledge that it cannot last is what makes its citizens most desperate. we must drill, drill, drill, because we know that in a day, it will all be gone.

i have been impressed how much contemporary art is influenced by the imagery of john's vision. i knew of course that it had had a huge influence over the years. some of the most beautiful illuminated manuscripts from the middle ages are of the apocalypse, and especially of manuscripts of the commentaries of beatus of liebana, an eighth century spanish monk. but the images remain influential. one of the more interesting one i found was a work by the rock band aphrodite's child, called 666. lead by vangelis parathanssiou, it is a fairly straightforward representation of the revelation in song and word. track 13, 'do it', as good a theme song for the kingdom of the beast as one might find.

la fiesta del santiago

2011-07-25T03:06:00.000-07:00

el fumiero at the cathedral of saint james, compostela

'i am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' (jesus of nazareth)

life is more abundant at the edges, and more various, and more nourishing. there one finds the live that is low on the food chain, that sustains the other life that sometimes seems much more 'important.' (we were reminded of this often-over looked fact, over looked by us who think we find life in saran-wrapped packages at trader joe's, by last summer's oil spill in the gulf of mexico, one of the world's productive edges.) i knew this well when i was a hunter. the fence rows were where the game was. now the fence rows have been cut to make room for more wheat fields, but those wheat fields that fill the bags at trader joe's are at the edges of 'civilization' and beyond.

the same thing is true of life in the spirit. the lives that sustain the rest of us, or the portions of each of our lives that are sustaining, are at most often, most abundantly, at the edges. the shamans of the world live at the edges of their villages. moses, in the reading for the vigil of the feast of st. james, finds the holy one revealed not in egypt but in the wilds of midian, in a burning bush. the desert fathers follow the same tradition. and on the edges of the empire are to be found the places and practices that sustain us.

those who would 'rule' from the centers of the empire either don't understand the true nature of abundant life or try to ignore it. the irony of the eternal smoke that rises from babylon in the revelation to st. john (19:3) was lost on those who tried to build the roman papacy into a replacement for the roman caesaeracy. no matter. on the edges, in edessa and the thebiad, on the isles of glastonbury and lerins, there were places where the abundant life jesus had brought flourished. such a place, i suspect, was compostela, the pilgrimage site for st. james, at la finisterra, the end of the world.

spain would by the time of the 'renaissance' become more and more encumbered with papal relationships in her struggles against england and france, but for centuries she enjoyed being at the end of the earth. i suspect that she offered a european alternative to romanism, an alternative whose remainders are still visible today. mozarabic chant, the gallican rite, and the popularity of the pilgrimage to santiago, the cockle shell pilgrimage, all remind us of the abundance of life that flourished in the spanish church.

there is a tendency to explain some of the varied life of the spanish church by the long period of islamic rule. but the variations predate the islamic invasion, and are connected to many other strands of the life of the church outside the roman tapestry. the legend of st.james, with its complicated story of the voyage of the relics of the apostle to a creek at the end of the world, covers as much as it uncovers. the celtic church made much of being the church of st. john. what we easily forget is that st. james the brother, the other of the three who were constantly with jesus, also probably carried the same traditions to spain that the irish cherished in britain.

this year, therefore, i suggest we look at the feast of st. james the greater as a celebration of life in its abundance, of the practices of the church that include the acts not just of the apostles and their successors (and of those who would claim to be their successors), but all the wonderful folk acts, the acts of the abuelas, the acts of the rustic pilgrims who made and still make the pilgrimage to the end of the world, where the largest dispenser of smoke in the world, the great botafumiero at the end of the journey, and remember that the holy one is most often found not in blazing lights, but in clouds of streaming glory.

mary magdalene, apostle to apostles

2011-07-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

the relics of the woman with the alabaster jar,

at the basilica of s. mary magdalene, vezeley

long before she had been the basis for an industry, i found mary magdalene important, even if my devotion to her was based on feelings i did not quite understand. so over the past two decades i have read much of what has been written about her. even when it has been historically nonsense, it has been fascinating, because it seems that many others of her devotees are as non-linear in their approach to the apostle to the apostles as i am.

but i was particularly annoyed by what i found on the back of cynthia bourgeault's new book the meaning of mary magdalene: 'was jesus' most important disciple a woman?--a thorough and provocative analysis of the evidence by one of today's most respected contemplative teachers.' now let me say, first of all, that i realize that author's are not responsible for what publishers put on the backsides of their books to boost sales, and that from what i can tell from perusing the book, it is not what ms. bourgeault was really analysing. more than that i will not say until i read the book, except that she does not seem to be particularly interested in the sort of understanding of the apostolic office as a competitive sport that so fills the pages of writers like marvin meyers. rather she seems to be interested in exploring the role of love in the relationship of mary magdalene to the messiah, and the nature of that love.

much more helpful to understanding why there is no one disciple 'most important' is this passage from s. bernard of clairvaux' sermons on the song of songs, '23, in the rooms of the king." bernard seems particularly helpful to our understanding mary magdalene's relation to jesus, because although he is primarily discussing the anointing which the king grants his beloved, mary magdalene of course is the one who anointed the king. 'in speaking of the ointments i mentioned that many varieties of them are to be found in the bridgegroom's presence, that all of them are not for everybody's use, but that each one's share differs according to his merits; so, too, i feel that the king has not one bedroom only, but several. for he has more than one queen, his concubines are many, his maids beyond counting. and each has his own secret rendezvous with the bridegroom and says, :my secret to myself, my secret to myself." all do not experience the delight of the bridegroom's private visit in the same room, the father has different arrangements for each. for we did not choose him but he chose us and appointed places for us; and in the place of each one's appointment there he is too. thus one repentant woman was allotted a place at the feet of the lord jesus, another--if she really is another--found fulfillment for her devotions at the head. thomas attained to his mystery of grace in the savior's side, john on his breast, peter in the father's bosom, paul in the third heaven.' (23,9)

i would, however, like to point out one particularly beautiful part of the mystery of mary magdalene. we speak of jesus as the christ, the anointed one. and it was mary magdalene who anointed him. it was she who chrismated our lord. this role has continued to be central to the apostles in succession ever since, as each new christian is encorporated into the body of the royal priest and king by the application of oil on our heads and breasts and hands and feet. mary truly is an apostle to the apostles.

a little more about sin, it's being so popular

2011-07-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

catastrophically, it seems to me, much of the west that calls itself christian has lost any concept of the holy one who self-reveals as the holy trinity. i walk around my little town of eureka springs, and find there a big 'christian store' devoted to jesus. one of the historic 'churches' is the unitarians--there is no jewish synagogue--devoted to the one god, although the unitarians these days are not so sure it's the god of abraham. out on the highway there are several 'charismatic churches'--we don't have a quaker meeting--devoted to 'the spirit.' most of the protestants i know are historical jesus appreciators, including the episcopalians. only the roman catholics and the nine remaining presbyterians, all around 80 years old, seem to hold to some understanding of the trinity, and for the presbyterians, it's an idea they mean and not the person of the holy one. what has this to do with sin, i hope you're asking.

my summer with the apocalypse of st. john and its images led me to richard of st. victor's book of the twelve patriarchs, which in the edition i found (trans. & intro. grover a. zinn. (new york/ramsey/toronto: paulist press, 1979)) is included with book three of the trinity. i found it a very insightful work, even though i am only beginning to plumb its depths. to quote zinn's introduction, 'in reflecting on the nature of divine perfection and the presence of charity, [richard] shows that not only are two persons necessary for love, but three are necessary for the fullest of all loves, charity. unless love is not only given and received but also shared in community it cannot be called true charity.' (p.9)

now if man is created in the image of god, and if sin is falling short of the glory of god, then we see that the original sin, the origin of all sin, is the breaking of communion with the rest of creation and its creator which the first parents choose in order to 'know.' they make clothes because they have become ashamed to be seen by the animals in the garden. they hide from the holy one in the evening rather than walk with him as they have done previously. they have become the community of two which is the basis for the modern nuclear family, a smaller community than even the extended family from the time we dismiss as 'patriarchal' or 'tribal.' at least those communities were more inclusive than those in which we find ourselves today.

it is ironic that one of the most popular readings for weddings is paul's paeon to charity in the 13th chapter of the first letter to the corinthians, a passage part of which reads, 'whether there be knowledge, it shall pass away. for we know in part . . . . but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall pass away. . . . for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now i know in part' but then shall i know even as also i am known. and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." (vv. 8-10, 12-13)

it seems that a recognition of the essential community of the holy trinity is necessary if the church is going to be a bearer of the good news of the kingdom of god. otherwise she will never recognize the kingdom, even though it is at hand, it is near, it is within us. our recognition that we are created to be the image of the holy one can be the beginning of our 'being perfect as our father in heaven is perfect.' without that recognition, we will continue to live against the world and against its creator.

a little bit about sin

2011-07-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

and a little bit about the conversation many of my friends have been having about ron bell's little book love wins: my contribution is the suggestion that what sin is, and how far the stain is found,and perhaps most importantly, how sin has been conquered, are not topics about which we all agree when we use the same words. so, a link to a little essay about the sin or sinlessness of the theotokos, from the website of the monastery of st. tikhon of zadonsk. what applies to the mother of our lord is a model for us all. here's the link . i hope it adds light to a world that often seems dark, and hope in a world that can seem hopeless.

the holy apostles: ss. peter & paul

2011-06-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

lately i have been pondering the friendship between peter and john. they are the two disciples who are most often portrayed together both in the gospels and in acts. john's affection for peter seems to have exceeded even that for his own brother, james. and it seems that peter returned the affection. that would explain, for instance, his concern for the fate of john in the last chapter of the fourth gospel. but peter and john have no feast day in common (although there is a gospel for such a feast, shared with mary magdalene, which we read on easter morning: the resurrection story in the twentieth chapter of john, and an epistle for the feast we might introduce, in the third or fourth chapter of acts;).

but to the feasts of peter, paul gets to come, a sort of new kid on the block. in january, after the ancient feast of s. peter's chair (called by some the confession of s. peter) there is an octave, the baptism of s. paul (called by some the conversion of s. paul, the some being protestants who are uncomfortable with apostolic succession or baptismal regeneration.) and at the height of summer, amidst the celebrations of john the baptist and james the brother of john mary magdalene and before the transfiguration of our lord and the dormition of his holy mother, peter shares a feast with paul. an odd couple, it seems. that paul is an addition is obvious from the readings for matins. they are all about peter (with a bit of john, from the third chapter of acts). paul has his own commemoration on the 30th of july.

but an importantly odd couple for a church that would come to be catholic, not in the sense of ruled by one man who lived in the capital of the empire and sits in peter's chair, but in the sense of embracing all the peoples of the world. this feast recognizes that it is not just the home boys, the twelve who wandered around galilee with jesus for years, who are called to be apostles, but that such folk, to borrow from a children's hymn, as doctors and queens and sherdesses on the green are also and equally called to be saints of god, are called into the apostolic fellowship.

this feast has another importance of, i think, which is recognized in the traditional icon, a portrait of two very different men embracing. they are instantly recognizable by the traditions of iconography: peter has his trademark blond hair, paul is bald. we call them saint peter and saint paul, but their friends knew them as rocky and shorty, which is what their names meant. peter, as is remarked in the fourth chapter of acts, was unlearned, but a passionate follower of his lord. (and is so often true of passionate followers, given to periods of infidelity.) paul as he proudly mentions from time to time in his letters, was educated in the best schools of judaism. but there they are in the icon, embracing, an embrace we celebrate on 29th july each year.

the insight to the importance of that embrace, i suggest, is provided by john's understanding of the importance of peter. for much of the church, peter's 'primacy,' as it is called, depends on his 'confession' celebrated on the 18th of january, when we remember jesus' saying, 'thou art peter, and on this rock i will build my church,' a statement which has been used as much for division as building. but for john, who probably in his gospel says more about peter than does even matthew, the importance of peter is built on that last breakfast scene on the seashore, when jesus asks peter, three times, 'dost thou love me?' it is peter's love for jesus that qualifies him to feed jesus' sheep.

peter and paul both have spotted histories. peter right after his 'confession' tries to talk jesus out of the crucifixion, cueing jesus' remarkable statement 'get thee behind me, satan.' peter denied jesus three times during the trial before the crucifixion. paul was first famous as saul, who held the coats of stephen's stoners, and who was a sort of prime grand inquisitor. that makes their embrace even more significant, and it reminds us what sort of love is expected of us. anyone can love the seemingly perfect, the obvious saints. but to forgive and to love those who have famously failed is not only more difficult, it is redemptive. it is the sort of love which lets the unlearned and unfaithful and the torturers become transformed into holy apostles.

98 days and counting later: trinity sunday and after

2011-06-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

how do we know "god"? what do we mean or begin to mean by that three-letter word, these days as often as not profaned by a three-letter abbreviation that is popular with young girls when they see particularly unusual shoes, or receive a surprising tweet?

for the christian church, the answer is the holy one who has self-revealed as three persons, the son whom we have known in the man jesus, the father of the son, and the spirit who proceeds from the father, whose arrival amidst the church we celebrated last week at the festival of pentecost. and we can know him because he has revealed himself and in the ways that he has revealed himself.

this is dogma, which we so often forget is not something which and only which must be believed to be "go to heaven," but as even wikepedia notices, is rooted, in a greek word that means the best we can imagine. so we do the best we can, and use the the words of the athanasian creed. if we would be whole, holy,( the concept behind the latin word salvus which transliterates into our english "saved") what we "need before all things" is the catholic faith. for us, this is good news: the holy one, the almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, shows himself to us as a communion of love.

you know how we have belittled such understanding in our modern, self-centered way of looking at things. (indeed, has it ever been otherwise?) the door bell rings, and there's the (undeniably brave and probably sincere) man in the cheap suit and unfashionable tie holding a hand-full of tracts containing the 12-step program to salvation and the niv translation of the gospel according to john. "are you saved?" i try to invite such folks in for a nice cup of tea and a discussion of why one would want to be saved. because i always answer, "yes, but do you know what for?" the quote from the gospel according to john that makes is so convenient for the man with the tracts is of course "3:16." i see those numbers on bumper stickers or window decals of sub's and giant pick-up trucks and the usually rather large t-shirts of harley-davidson riders. it has become a short-hand for our misunderstanding of the good news, a reduction of the whole of the wonders of the creation and sanctification of the whole of creation, to one of st. anselm's sentenced--although i suspect that few of the people with the bumper sticker/t-shirt theologies would know about the castratti's sentences

eternal life. that's what jesus tells nicodemus people who believe in the son of god will have. that's what it says in the final verse, the 15th verse, of the gospel reading for trinity sunday, and of course it is repeated like the theme in a song in the 16th verse. and the theme returns in the seventh chapter of the gospel, with the third verse: "and this is life eternal, that they might know god, and jesus christ whom thou whom thou hast sent." now jesus said these words in a prayer as he began 'the one oblation of himself once-offered' because he recognized that they would soon experience the same contempt from the world as he did, that their witness to them would cost them their lives. a martyr is literally, a witness. so this eternal life would be a mystery from the beginning. we certainly seem to die. they words he spoke before this prayer were, 'in the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, i have overcome the world.'

tribulation, indeed. the photograph at the head of this post is of holy trinity monastery at meteora, in thessaly. many western christians forget about thessaly after paul's letters. the church at thessalonika was having tribulation when paul wrote to her, and the tribulation continued. the monasteries on the tops of the rocks were built to escape, among other tribulations of the world, pirates.

but be of good cheer. despite the horrors of the world, and anyone can come up with a list as well as i, the holy one, who is love, reveals himself to us, not as one who engages in the conflicts which lead to piracy and envy and hatred, but as love: a community of love. and so on the sunday after trinity we continue to hear from s. john, the beloved disciple, who listened to the heartbeat of god, these words: 'beloved, let us love one another: for love is of god; and every one that loveth is born of god, and knoweth god.' we know god, the holy trinity, a communion of love, by loving. more than that is not required.

pentecost: the first fruits (of the spirit)

2011-06-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

at soup night thursday, which was a fruit salad night in a pun on some of the meanings of the feast of pentecost, a fruit salad served on a bed of newly-harvested grain, we discussed some of the layers of meaning of the feast. as "scholars" these days are so happy to point out, it started as an agricultural festival, to which they say were "added" religious meanings. as if harvest is not religious, as if the holy one does not bring from the earth grain to strengthen our heart, as if really religious people do not hold the parts of their lives together--that, to bind back together, being the basic meaning of religion.

the second layer of meaning is the giving of the law on sinai's height, graven on tablets of stone by, as the advent hymn reminds us, by the lord of might. but ezekiel prophesies that the laws will eventually be graven on our hearts, our living hearts, by the lord of love. we read, many of us, that prophesie about fifty days ago at the paschal vigil.

and on the feast of pentecost, when it is, as s. luke writes, 'fully come,' suggesting that the events in the upper room in jerusalem is the climax, ezekiel's and joel's prophesies are fulfilled.

but of course what is true for the church in the first century must be true for us today, and for each of us. as s. gregory the great reminds us, it is when we ascend to the upper room of our own hearts, in the communion of all the saints gathered about the theotokos, we too wait for the gift of the spirit, and we will not be disappointed.

but there is a smaller part of pentecost that struck me this year, although in many ways it is the most important. it is the conclusion of the epistle for the feast in the western lectionary: 'we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of god.'

if as s. john reminds us so often in his many writings that we have heard over the fifty days, the most important, indeed the decisive, the definitive, gift of the spirit is love, then it is love which let the church speak in the tongues of all the assembly in jerusalem, and which will allow the church to speak to the world today. love involves patience, as s. peter's epistles remind us, and waiting, as s. luke reminds us. when the church speaks in the love of god, she will witness to the resurrection of christ and people will hear the good news of 'the wonderful works of god.' when she speaks in any other voice, whether it be condemnation or revenge or simply impatience, she stifles the spirit. how are we doing today?

rogation days: taking the prayers of the earth to heaven

2011-05-31T07:33:00.000-07:00

the 'meaning' of the days before the ascension, the rogation days, pretty much depends upon how we understand the ascension. the more thoroughly we ponder and understand the wonder of our lord's taking the human body he received from the blessed virgin, taking our very nature as the human one, into heaven, the richer the rogation days become.

one tradition expressed on rogation days is prayer for crops, for agriculture, for 'the garden.' in many places there are processions around the fields, and prayers for rain in due season, and general fecundity.

but they are also days to ponder prayer in general. so on these rogation days, as i weed my garden, overgrown with strange things that appeared while i was out of town, and plant new seeds to replace those washed away in the recent deluge, i am also considering prayer, using fr. lev gillet's wonderful little book, in thy presence (crestwood, new york: st. vladimir's seminary press, 1977). i would love to put the whole thing in this post, but i will be content to one short chapter:
'first thing in the morning, lord . . . .
'lord love, may my first word this morning go out to thee, blessing thy name!
'as this day begins, i believe, i feel, that thy immense goodness is falling on all that exists. the spring of love continues to pour forth even when we seem to see nothing but evil and suffering around us. whether it be visibly, whether it be secretly, thou art never weary of helping and of loving. today, again, thou wilt b fighting for us.
'we await from thee the graces needed for this day. with our earthly bread, give us thy heavenly good, the pure wheat of thy limitless love, the true sustance of our life. with trust, we place in thy hands our practical difficulties, our sorrows, our fears born of little faith.
'we have no other succour, we have no other hope than thy love. may it guide our steps today, a column of light going forward into the heart of apparent darkness!
'lord, a sense of life that is given, of sacrifice, inspires everything which, each day, comes to us from thee. redeeming love wished to suffer for us, to die for us. make me share this desire to give the live i have received.
'lord, may the purifying action of redeeming love wash from my soul the multitude of my sins. unite around thy love, in thy love, those who know thee, those who seek thee without kowing thee, and those for whom thou seekest. we want to be thine. take us.' (p. 31)

the holy ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, and the resurrection of the body: st. venantius

2011-05-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

venantius is one of my favourite kinds of saints. his legend starts, "venantius is said to have been a martyr at camerino during the third century, but nothing whatsoever is know for certain about him." yet he remains on the calendar, being called to mind every year, with a proper hymn for both matins and vespers, even if neither has yet made it to youtube, and this collect:

"o god, who has consecrated this day with the triumph of thy blessed martyr venantius: mercifully hear the prayers of thy people; and grant that we who venerate his righteousness, may imitate the constance of his faith in thee."

now, you might wonder--i hope you wonder--why such as venantius would be one of my favourites. first, i don't need to know anything about him to enjoy the benefits of his life. he is one of the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before without whom i might not be at all. in that sense, he resembles, for instance, my welsh ancestors who sometime left wales and went to michigan--i imagine much like one of the sons let off from the mines in how green was my valley, or one of the englishmen in my mother's family who, probably to pay off debts, left for georgia. the opportunities i have today are the result of the consance of the faith of venantius and of them.

but also he is one of my favourites because of s. john's image of the prayers of the saints around the throne, rising like golden bowls of incense, longing for their number to be complete. venantius is one of their number. and, he prays for me. by that i don' mean so much that he intercedes for me but that he with the others who have finished the race pray as it were in my place all of those times when i am lax or sleepy or forgetful or just lazy.

but perhaps most importantly, venantius and the others in his great cloud--do we get the idea of saints in clouds from the book of hebrews--are truly witnesses. if the son is the witness to the father, and the holy ghost is the witness to the son, it is the church in her fullness who is the witness to the holy ghost. the sequence of the creed, which i borrowed as a title for this little essay, is i think very important. the resurrection of the body is only possible because of the forgivenessof sins (love does indeed win), and the forgiveness of sins only happens within the communion of saints, which is the product of the holy catholic church, which is filled with the holy ghost.

i don't need to know much about venantius to rejoice in his triumph, but i can rest in the assurance that his triumph ultimately benefits us all. thanks be to god.

islam and harvard and princeton and boston

2011-05-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

i am deep in the heart of texas for a few weeks, visiting friends and enjoying the hospitality of the booher library at the epscopal theological seminary of the southwest. sunday after "making my communion" as episcopalians sometimes say at all saints church, rite one in an historic building, i went with friends to st. michael's, which is properly on a hill appropriate to it's patronage, and where there were lots of bells and whistles and howard galley's "star trek prayer," as it's fondly called, which i thought had found a happy rest.

there was also a guest preacher, the rev. jeffrey samuel, of the diocese of peshawar, in pakistan, who has been working on a diploma in theological studies at the seminary. although english is not fr. jeffrey's first language, he was very eloquent. one of the things he discussed was "the islamic concept about jesus." there are, he said, two concepts. the first concept held by many muslim people is that "they don't believe that he died on a cross. why--because prophets were innocent people. this insulting death is against their prestige." the second concept, "accepted by the ahmadi sect of the muslims [is that] . . . jesus [was]brought to the point of death on the cross, but he did not die on the cross. jesus was just unconscious on the cross due to his suffering and persection. people thought that jesus was dead, but he was not. so they took jesus from the cross and after a few days jesus was healed and jesus went to kashmit. and he lived 120 years in kashmit and then he died a natural death."

this, i thought, sounds familiar. over the past several months i have read several books claiming to be "christology," written by professors at universities as harvard and princeton and boston, which have suggested the same or very similar ideas. these books were published by respectable publishing houses, and someof them are used as text books in respectable seminaries. indeed the lesson from acts was described in the service leaflet as "written by the (unknown) author of luke-acts sometime between 90 and 110 ad. . . . it is 'late second generation' and begins to reflecton the history of the jesus movement and how far it has come since the days when the church was founded . . . " l. michael white. from jesus to christianity (harpersanfrancisco: 2004), p. 252.

fr. jeffrey concluded: "we all are called to be witnesses about jesus. we, you and me, have to proclaim the good news not only to the christians, but also among the non-christians and save their souls for christ. we are working very hard in pakistan to keep our faith and give testimony to non-christians. we need your prayers and support. thank you."

it does not seem that we are working very hard in this counry. we need prayers and support, too.

friday in bright week: the life-giving spring

2011-04-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

one of the many wonderful things about living in eureka springs is, of course, the springs. so i am particularly pleased that on friday in bright week the icon of the theotokos as the "life-giving spring" is celebrated.
my more or less "official" icon of the mother of god, as a monk, more or less, in the british tradition, more or less, is our lady of glastonbury, surrounded by celtic saints:

that icon has its own little shrine, where i also commemorate the seasons and feasts.

but the icon of the life-giving spring is in my beautiful corner. here is the story of this icon, as described by st. isaac of syria skete.
"it shows how god is merciful and compassionate towards all men. once a soldier named leo assisted a blind man who had lost his way. while looking for water for him, he heard a voice from an unseen person say, 'emperor leo, take water and give it to the thirsty man; then dake some of the slime by it and put it in his eyes.' to the soldier leo's surprise, a nearby spring gushed out before him. when he did as the voice commanded him, the blind man received his sight. this soldier later became the christian east roman or byzantine emperor leo i (457-473).

"when leo became the emperor, he erected a church in honor of the mother of god as this life-giving spring near the 'golden gates' in constantinople, where the spring had come up. later the church was destroyed by the turks, but in 1835 a new church was built at the same site and consecratd by the ecumenical patriarch constantine. this spring still flows for the salvation and healing of all who come there to visit mary's son."

the troparion for the feast (third tone): "as a life-giving fount, thou didst conceive the dew that is transcendent in essence, o virgin maid. and thou didst pour forth for us the immortal nectar. and as ever-flowing streams from thy fountain, thou broughtest forth the water that springeth up unto life everlasting; wherein, taking delight, we all cry out: rejoice, o life-bearing fount."

and the kontkion (eighth tone): "from thine un failing fount, o maiden full of grace, thou dost reward me by pouring forth of the unending streams of thy grace that passeth human understanding. and sinc thou didst bear the word incomprehensibly, i entreat thee to refresh me with thy grace divine, that i may cry to thee: rejoice, o water of salvation."

and here is a link to a greek hymn for the feast.

thursday in bright week: s. mary magdalene and easter eggs

2011-04-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

thursday in bright week is the day the church takes special notice of s. mary magdalene. in the gregorian lectionary of the west, today's gospel is from john (20:11-18). although the orthodox gospel for today is from the third chapter of john, it is nevertheless the traditional day for easter eggs, which are first attributed to mary magdalene's missionary trip to rome, much before peter and paul.

i have long been fascinated by mary magdalene; in fact i made a small contribution to the writing of the icon above, by robert lentz, which is not in grace cathedral (episcopal), san francisco. i had some knowledge of the importance of the role of mary magdalene, at least in the eastern church, when that icon was installed, around 1990, but i did not begin to understand how widespread her importance was. so i was excited when a friend who worked for bear publishing gave me a preview copy of starbird's the woman with the alabaster jar  . i was however, horrified when i read the book and found her history so hokey. more horrified was i when i found so many people accepting her mis-history as it was presented in the da vinci code.    there is so much more that is available about mary magdalene than seems to be known by the princeton pharisees (by whom i mean the self-appointed "scholars," not all of whom are at princeton, who claim to know far more about scripture than the church. hereafter i shall refer to them simply as pp"s.)

consider, for instance, the contrast so often drawn between s. gregory's description of s. mary m. as a reformed prostitute and the supposed supreme role of mary in what is called "the gospel of mary magdalene." again and again i have heard or read the pp's telling us that the connection between the woman from who was a known sinner--the woman with the alabaster jar who starbird claims to be not only mary madgalene but mrs. jesus of nazareth--is not assumed because the first naming of mary magdalene comes in the eighth chapter of luke right after the woman with the jar is described by simon, the host, as "a sinner." but then the pp's never seem to tell us that indeed the document they call "the gospel according to mary magdalene" is not really a gospel at all, nor is the mary of the document identified as mary magdalene.

it is therefore, i think, interesting to look at some of the things s. gregory wrote about s. mary magdalene which are included in the readings for this day in the benedictine lectionary:

"mary magdalene, (if we may be permitted to identify her as) the woman of the city who was a sinner, through love of the truth, washed away by her tears the befoulment of her sin; and thereby the word of the truth was fulfilled which he spake: her sins, which are many, are forgiven: for she loved much. . . .
"in connection with this matter, we ought to ponder on this, namely, the great store of love which was in that woman's heart. for she, when even his disciples were gone away, could not tear herself from the grave of the lord. she south him whom she had not found there, and as she sought, she wept. and the fire of love in her heart yearned after him, who (as she believed) had been taken away. and so it came to pass that she, who had lingered to seek him, was the only one who then saw him.  for . . . the voice of the truth himself hath said: he that endureth to the end shall be saved." (as found in the anglican breviary (mount sinai, long island, new york: the frank gavin liturgical foundation, inc., a. d. mcmlv), pp. c333-34)

now, i want to cut the pp's some slack. they are victims, not of the catholic church, or of orthodoxy, but of the sort of confusion that inhabits so much of this post-human era. i was struck by this on easter sunday night, watching "jesus christ superstar" on turner classic movies. it seemed to me to capture the essence of both the popularity and frustration of the "historical jesus project."   mary magdalene is the first one in the movie to sing "i don't know how to love him", but it is really judas iscariot who captures the real problem, who sings " i don't know how to love him," and then < "only want to know." we fail to understand what real love is, or what real knowledge is. it struck me that really all of the questions raised by the "historical jesus project" are pretty well contained in the movie. in a time when love means sex and sex means, mostly, rape, then it is easy to understand how we cannot understand how mary can be said to love jesus without having sex with him. we only want to know. we're gnostics of the most materialistic sort. (and i want to add a disclaimer here about one of the princeton scholars, elaine pagels, whose work has consistently exhibited an intellectual and emotional honesty despite her ignorance of the real traditions of the church.)

so i was very happpy to find that this link" to "love is come again" is illustrated by mary speaking to peter. but i am also reminded that in the gospel according to john the most important question jesus will ask peter is not "do you know me?" or "do you think i am who they say i am? but "do you love me?"

we are all hard-hearted egyptians

2011-04-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

i have been reading the second book of moses, the book of exodus as the days approach pascha. this morning was chilling. i read chapter seven, which tells of the first sign, the turning of the waters of the nile into blood. i of course am reminded of the first sign of our lord, who turned the water of cana into wine. i know where this is headed, and am amazed every time by the parallels of the exodus with john's gospel. next friday, as the firstborn of the king of egypt is killed, we will read in the gospel according to john of the killing of the firstborn of god by the sons of aaron. chilling stuff. then on sunday i will read the fifteenth chapter, the song of miriam, and it will be part of the mass as well.

the psalms of the morning were 79, 80, and 81. psalm 81 pretty much tells the story of all of us, the egyptians, the first israel, and the second israel, the church, as well:

Psalm 81. Exultate Deo.

SING we merrily unto God our strength; * make a cheerful noise unto the God of Jacob.

Take the psalm, bring hither the tabret, * the merry harp with the lute.

Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, * even in the time appointed, and upon our solemn feast-day.

For this was made a statute for Israel, * and a law of the God of Jacob.

This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, * when he came out of the land of Egypt, and had heard a strange language.

I eased his shoulder from the burden, * and his hands were delivered from making the pots.

Thou calledst upon me in troubles, and I delivered thee; * and heard thee what time as the storm fell upon thee.

I proved thee also * at the waters of strife.

Hear, O my people; and I will assure thee, O Israel, * if thou wilt hearken unto me,

There shall no strange god be in thee, * neither shalt thou worship any other god.

I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: * open thy mouth wide, and I shall fill it.

But my people would not hear my voice; * and Israel would not obey me;

So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, * and let them follow their own imaginations.

O that my people would have hearkened unto me! * for if Israel had walked in my ways,

I should soon have put down their enemies, * and turned my hand against their adversaries.

The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him; * but their time should have endured for ever.

I would have fed them also with the finest wheatflour; * and with honey out of the stony rock would I have satisfied thee.

i only wish i did not have such a large selection of children we are killing now, putting their blood in our gas tanks, selling their "governments" and them weapons, glutting our bellies and our cars with grain while they starve. this nigerian child came on the first row of pictures of such children on google:

lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep thy law.

crones, wise old men, and calvin klein padded bikinis for infants

2011-04-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

as many of you know, i am intrigued by the character of merlin. in one of his many insightful essays, r. j. stewart, who seems merlin as a prefigurement of christ in many ways, reminds us that to think of merlin only as a wise old man is to miss the real importance of what his story has to tell us. before merlink became the wise elder, he was a bright youth and a mad prophet. (there are limits of course to merlin-christ parallels. before moses was, jesus says, i am; but he was crucified as the beginning of his career as a mad prophet.)

but in most times and most places, it is expected that life will be a sort of on-going initiation, with each phase of our lives contributing it's own gift. (for women, the phases are often described as maiden, mother, and crone.) we often say of some one that he or see is "just going through a phase," but we seldom recognize the importance, indeed, the necessity of those phases. and because sexuality is such a power in our lives, the phases are often described sexually. often i am reminded of their necessity when some friend or another "comes out" as a lesbian or a homosexual. my half-uncle frank told me wisely many years ago that when this happens, one must first relive one's teen-aged years. painful, and foolish looking, but true. also, it is important to remember that the wisest of us can be caught up in yearnings to skip the earlier phases, or to return to them. the story of merlin and nenue is perhaps part of that temptation.

we seem to live in a time when the sexual part of the phases is the only one we really value. if you doubt this, go to the grocery store and read the magazines in the check-out lane. watch cable news as the story of something important to the lives of thousands of people, such as the earthquake in japan recently, has a footer about some movie star who has a new boy friend.

another part of our time's discontinuance with history is that we seem to value not only the sexual part of the phases of life, but only the mature first phase, the time when one is still a maiden or a bright youth, but has reached puberty and is in the full grasp of sexual desire. as many writers have noted over the years, although because it is lent and it is the book i am reading right now, st. john climacus' book of the ladder, i tend to think about he has to say about the ability of appetite for good to open sexual appetite which opens us to other appetites. advertisers well understand this, and make a lot of money from keeping us thinking we are still 19. and, they put those sexually seductive magazines in grocery stores.

this leads us to all sorts of traps. as moore and gillette noted in the king within, we tend to elect boy kings as presidents. and it seems that we have far more boy bishops now than we ever had in the middle ages. and we think that sexuality has benefits, that being proud of our desires is like having an american express gold card.

so we hear of people claiming that homosexuals have the right to be preists, or bishops. one of the arguments is that they have always been ordained "gay" people, so we should continue the practice. but there is an important difference between our attitudes and the way we live and that of say, sixteenth century britain, and how they lived. william laud was a bishop, and a man who had a fondness for men. indeed it is reported that he had a particular fondness for the duke of buckingham, james (vith and ist)' "favourite." but no one claimed that laud had a right to be bishop because of his sexual appetites. it was not then the defining part of one's life. sometimes i wish it might have been more important: charles was sexually about as pure as any english monarch known, but it didn't save him his head.

now, laud was not a perfect bishop. i and many others find his goals for the british church to be correct and congruent with truth. but laud never became a wise old man. he remained a mad prophet, and that would cost him his effectiveness, and perhaps also his head, although of course the puritans were taking heads like wild men of borneo are accused of doing.

it therefore seems to me, given the general flavour, shall we say, of contemporary society--or "the economy"--that we should not be the least bit surprised when the lords advertisorial not only want grandma to have her wrinkles removed but baby girls to have fake breasts.

of course, there is an easy solution, although not a popular one. don't buy it. what is "it?" well, most nearly everything. it's very rare for me to buy anything i really need. perhaps you're a better"consumer." and recognize that desires do not necessarily need to be immediately or even eventually satisfied. of course there is not a lot of support for such an attitude. am i foolish to think that the church might consider it?

the visitation, f. d. maurice, and dammed justice

2011-04-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

can anything good come out of gallilee? well, mary, the mother of our lord, did, even though the church from early centuries found pious legends to put her in jerusalem. last year i was wondering whether there were any cradle anglicans in anglican seminaries. i am reminded by j. f. d. maurice that it is often the converts who make the most important contributions to the big church.

maurice was born into a unitarian family, although not a confident one, it seems: he was baptised by his unitarian father in the name of the trinity; two of his sisters became baptists. but he eventually was himself ordained in the anglican church, and although he is probably most widely remembered for his role in christian socialism, his teaching covering many areas have become influential in the decades since his death. while marx would claim religion to be the "opiate of the people," maurice suggested that "we have been dosing our people with religion when what they want is not this but the living god."

the controversies which caught up maurice seem to recur: he was dismissed from his post at king's college for positions similar to what is today getting rob bell in trouble. but the beginning of maurice's thought was always the creation of mankind in the image of god, and our restoration to the same in what the collect for his feast calls "the perfect obedience of our saviour jesus christ." it is the recognition of the image of god in all people which requires our reponse to all people with "a passion for justice and truth."

in the celtic orthodox calendar, the visitation of the blessed virgin also occurs on 1 april. it seems good to remember the fierce call to justice that mary sings as she visits elizabeth:

"my soul doth magnify the lord, *
    and my spirit hath rejoiced in god my savior.
for he hath regarded *
    the lowliness of his handmaiden.
for behold from henceforth *
    all generations shall call me blessed.
for he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
    and holy is his name.
and his mercy is on them that fear him *
    throughout all generations.
he hath showed strength with his arm; *
    he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
he hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
    and hath exalted the humble and meek.
he hath filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he hath sent empty away.
he remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant israel, *
    as he promised to our forefathers,
    abraham and his seed for ever." (the holy gospel according to st. luke, 1: 46-55)

these are fearsome words, even though we often make them into   conforting-sounding songs . but then the fear of god is the beginning of wisdom. i am convinced that there is much more to christianity than social justice. but we must start there. otherwise when we seek the kingdom of heaven, we are like the arkansas traveler, who when he asked for directions from the old geezer on the porch, was told, "you just can't get there from here."

here is the collect for frederick denison maurice from the american book of lesser feasts and fasts:

almighty god, you restored our human nature to heavenly glory through the perfect obedience of our saviour jesus christ: keep alive in your church, we pray, a passion for justice and truth; that, like your servant frederick denison maurice, we may work and pray for the triumph of the kingdom of your christ, who lives and reigns with you and the holy spirit, one god, now and for ever. amen.

amen!

joseph and st. patrick

2011-03-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

in my wandering through the book of genesis, i have come to the story of joseph. he is seventeen, and sold into slavery. since it is the feast of st. patrick, i started to put off joseph until tomorrow and pay more attention to the propers for the feast. but then i realized that their stories had enough in common that they might illuminate each other.

so, joseph is seventeen when he is sold into slavery, just a year older than patrick. both came from well-to-do families more accustomed to having slaves than being one. both are outstanding dreamers. both, in their youth, are less that perfect sorts of folks. joseph is famously arrogant; the exact nature of patrick's big sin of an hour remains unknown to us. patrick at least recognizes that he deserves his fate, that he had been sinful. joseph's repentance of his attitude towards his brothers is not spoken, but made very explicit by their tearful reunion.

in both of their lives, their period of slavery allows them to bring great benefits to many people. unfortunately, in joseph's case, and perhaps this is part of his non-consciousness of his own attitudes towards his brothers, he ends up leading many others into slavery. but, even for them, the children of israel in the larger sense, their period in bondage gives them a basis for compassion for other people.

the proper gospel for the day in the 1963 episcopal lesser fasts and feasts is from the sermon on the mount:

ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. but i say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. for if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? and if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.

a bit more challenging response to st. patrick's day than drinking too much green beer--although i confess i do look forward to sharing a guiness with some friends tonight--but one with a much better after effect.

hanging out with abraham on his feast day.

2011-02-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

i've been reading the book of genesis since epiphany, and i've reached the stories of abraham. i may never get through them, they are so rich. and since today is his feast, i thought it would be a good time to try to clarity some of my findings from his stories, and posting a blog usually helps me clarify my thought.

there are many books of varying value about abraham and the other genesis stories. particularly i enjoyed reading bruce feiler's abraham: a journey to the heart of three faiths. feiler mentions that one of the things about abraham that is much noticed by jews today is that he argued with the holy one. but it struck me that the reason abraham had the standing to argue, as he famously does when the holy one told him of his plans to destroy the cities of the plain, is that abraham had been faithful in following the holy one's command. indeed again and again the biblical text says that abraham immediately did whatever he had been asked to do. only when he is asked to send ishmael and hagar into the wilderness did he even wait until the next day.

this makes me wonder whether the first thing we, or at least i, might learn from abraham is that in order to become a friend of the holy one, whose voice he might recognize when i say "here am i," is to recognize his voice, and say "yes" to his requests.

angels, peace, and yoko ono

2010-12-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

four days ago, as friday night turned into saturday morning, more people were gathered in churches around the world than any other time, except, perhaps, pascha. and most of us heard the reading from the gospel according to luke, about 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 i bring you tidings of good news which shall be to all people. and suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising god and singing, glory to god in the highest, and peace on earth to . . ."

and then we heard a sermon which probably pitched us the hope of peace, or the need to work for peace, or some such thing that is several notches below peace. and now it's the following monday, and we go back to watching our sheep.

and we do not have peace. more often than not, we are sore afraid. we do not really believe the tidings of good news brought by the angel. we rather look at peace as a promise, as a hope, something that perhaps will be helped along by a new arms treaty with russia, or killing pakistanis with bombs from drones rather than bullets from soldiers.

we do not take seriously the message of the angels: "fear not . . . peace on earth . . . ." bernard of clairveaux said as much in one of his sermons: "notice that peace is not promised but sent to us; it is no longer deferred, it is given; peace is not prophesied but achieved." bernard goes on to say "it is as if god the father sent upon the earth a purse of his mercy . . . . it was quite a small purse, but ti was very full. as the scripture tells us, 'a little child has been given to us, but in him dwells all the fulness of [the holy one].'"

but we are sore afraid. we do not open the purse. rather than grow the fullness of the holy one in each of us, we teach one another the things of which we should be afraid. when people ask us to join their war, we are more afraid of being called a coward than we are to follow the angels to the manger.

do you remember a famous photograph from a few decades ago now, with john lennon and yoko ono holding a sign that says, "war is over?"

it is easy to make fun of it, but it is the same message the angels brought. we who would not want to listen to music that is "over," or watch a television show that is "over," or wear a coat that is "over," nevertheless continue to live in war rather than in peace.

how does one do that? one may ask. the answer was the first thing the angels said, a thing that is said 366 times in the christian bible: fear not.

old dudes: zachary and elizabeth

2010-11-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

if one looks at modern "culture," it seems the only people who have anything to teach are teen-agers wearing their underwear and not much else, and going into or coming out of drug rehab, on the way to the premier of their new movie.

the bible has different role models for our consideration, old dudes, often, beginning with abraham and sarah, if we wish to jump over the long-lived folks before noah. again and again very important events happen because of the constancy of the aged. the church makes much of peter's declaration that jesus is the messiah, but s. luke records that thirty years before peter, simeon and anna recognize that the infant brought to the temple, the son of mary, is the messiah, without seeing any miracles or hearing any parables.

today the church remembers zachary (zacharias) and elizabeth, the parents of john the forerunner. their story reminds us that mary, the maid of galillee, and jesus, her son, are like david, unusual in their youth. as someone who is entering the evening of life , i find this remembrance very encouraging. i am not ready to be thrown away, even if the songs of zachary and simeon take on more poignant meanings for me every day (especially for me personally the nunc dimittis, the song of simeon). in my old age i might yet do something useful. but it is also wonderful to hear zachary, each morning, saying that, "though, child, shall be called the prophet of the highest."

together these songs remind me of the wisdom of the blessing s. paul sent to the church at ephesus:

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely
more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from
generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus
for ever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20,21

s. frumentius

2010-10-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

the church in ethiopia is very ancient, and has remained true to the faith as she understands she has received it for at least 1600 years--longer if the ethiopian eunuch who was baptized by philipp is counted. but the official religion of the country has been christianity since s. frumentius was tutor to the king aeizanas and baptized him. it has been a difficult position for the ethiopian church, caught as shirley hughson describes it, between islam and paganism.

one of the really unfortunate results of western colonialism is that the church is probably under more pressure now than it has ever been, largely as a result of european (and now chinese) efforts to control the oil and other resources of the region. this is a good day to consider how our actions, which are seldom so gentle as the fluttering of a butterfly's wings, have effects all around the world.

authority in the church

2010-10-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

many years ago now, i started my formal theological education with education for ministry, a program of the dubose center of the university of the south. it consisted of three parts: (1) a liturgical component, which combined praying together with study of the liturgy as part of (2) an academic component, which began with studying the old testament and continued through contemporary church history; and most importantly, theological reflection. theological reflection, as taught by efm, was a method of looking at the thoughts, acts, or beliefs that we use in ministry within a quadralateral of "authorities:" hooker's "three-legged stool of scripture, reason (by which he meant a concept more closely related to nature than to what we might consider scientific reason), and tradition, to which was added wesley's experience.

a few years ago, i recommended efm to a friend, and was surprised and disappointed (why does disappointment with what is happening within the church continue to surprise me?) to find that these four sources of authority had been replaced by some things much more loosey-goosey, which i don't quite remember, but which translated fairly closely to the winds of current pop culture. the notion of revelation being any sort of authority seemed to have dropped out entirely. of course within the orthodox tradition, revelation is the beginning, and it takes three primary forms: creation (similar to hooker's reason), scripture, and the incarnation (about which the church's most important tradition is concerned). and of course all of these we experience in various ways.

i find i fascinating that for the most part the authorities which seem to operate in the "american church" today are none of the above, but two: vatican ii, and the academic establishment i tend to call princeton.

almost every part of the american church is following in some way or another the pronouncements of the second vatican council. some of these ways are obvious: the liturgican revisions of the episcopal, united methodist, presbyterian, lutheran, united church of christ, american baptists even, are fundamentally in accord with the revisions of vatican ii. i am not suggesting that this is always a "bad thing." it seems, in my opinion, perhaps an improvement for presbyterians, but an impovershment for episcopalians. but it is the acceptance of vatican ii as an "ecumenical council" which i find so fascinating. i visited last summer several friends of mine who are pastors in evangelican fringes of the church that would never consider themselves "catholic," and always on their book shelves were the volumes of decrees of the second vatican council.

now, almost none of these groups have considered the findings of the first vatican council attractive. the actual authority of both of these councils is, however, the same.

the second source of authority seems to be the academic establishment exemplified by princeton: the pharisees of the day. i pick princeton because it is not only home to some of the most influential folks in the new non-orthodoxy, such as elaine pagels, but also because it is the same school from which came, a century ago, the fundamentals. again, the authority of the princeton that gave us fundamentalism and the princeton which is giving us the da vinci code is the same.

i am forced to conclude, therefore, that it is the winds of current popularity which seems to be driving the church. i will only mention the influence george barna has had. but i will conclude this post with two questions: would jesus have conducted a poll to see if he should go up to jerusalem? or am i significantly wrong in my conclusion.

emerging church part three: the emerging jesus; the great shepherd of the sheep and bishops

2010-09-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

on my trip this summer i visited many cathedrals and met many bishops. i was struck by the variety of splendour and pomposity, or lack thereof, that attended these various pastors and their thrones.

(actually, the first "bishop" i met was just a cardboard cutout of the real thing, at a party for a new seminarian; the actual bishop was off doing something more important, i suppose. i was fascinated by the bemused hostility which it seemed to me the flock showed to the office, if not the person, iconized there. perhaps i inferred more than was implied.)

i should first confess that it has taken me a long time to wrap my mind around the existance of more than one bishop in any one locale. in seattle, for instance, there are at least five cathedrals with their bishops of which i know. as my understanding of the nature of the episcopacy has, i hope, matured, that has come not to bother me. but it is the prominence of the idea of the imperial bishop, illustrated in seattle by st. james' roman catholic cathedral, or by st. mark's episcopal cathedral, which has muddied my understanding for a long time. despite pious denials to the contrary, the episcopacy in the roman church has long ceased to be a servant role, and if one thinks the pope is nowadays the servant of the servants of god, one should look at how the pope dines. the imperial episcopacy is reflected in the imperial cathedrals.

st. mark's episcopal cathedral in seattle is a fascinating study in the history of that idea, and how it must sometimes be modified. the present building, which i admire very much, is just a fragment of the original proposal. the stock market crash of 1929 meant not only that a smaller edifice would be necessary, it even resulted in a foreclosure; for many years the building did not belong to the diocese.

on the poorer side of capital hill, st. nicholas russian orthodox cathedral is no larger than the houses around it. the bishop of that cathedral seems to be quite beloved by the congregation, for whom he is very clearly a pastor.

at an even smaller "level of episcopacy" were the bishops with whom i met at the end of the summer in gig harbor. we met at a tiny chapel.

none of the bishops there had any expectations of building a great cathedral. rather they were wondering how in this insane time in which we live the sacramental, pastoral ministries of the church, for which bishops are responsible, could be made not only available but known to a nation of people for whom macdonald's seems a restaurant and a mortage home ownership.

now, i am not suggesting that say, the episcopal bishop of olympia is not concerned with the same thing. but i am suggesting that one of the hopeful things i saw this summer wandering through the emerging church is a growing understanding that the edification of the church is not about monumental edifices. in victoria, for instance, i met the russian orthodox bishop of all canada in a little chapel in a storage unit in the most unfashionable part of downtown, an area inhabited mostly by homeless people. from victoria to gig harbor to santa fe, i met church men and women who were seeking to find what we need to be that is acceptable to the holy one, to find the things that make for peace, to be the body of christ broken in this broken world. i am assuming that you, dear reader of this rather scattered blog, are one of those men and women, and so for you i repeat the prayer that concludes the epistle to the hebrews:

i pray that the god of peace, who brought our lord jesus back from the dead to become the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood that sealed an eternal covenant, may make you ready to do his will in any kind of good action; and turn us all into whatever is acceptable to himself through jesus christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever, amen.

emerging church part two: seminaries

2010-09-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

during the past three months, i visited several seminaries and talked to many seminarians or would-be seminarians. one of the major things the seminaries and asperants had in common was that by far the majority of them were "converts" to the big church from some protestant group.

this makes me wonder: does no one who has grown up in the catholic, orthodox, church want to become a priest? (or almost no one: i did meet a few seminarians who had grown up orthodox.) there are, oddly enough, many roman catholic women seminarians, who will not become priests. this situation i will have to ponder more before i can convince myself i understand it.

i also am struck by what the converts find at seminaries. again and again i heard discussions of what they bring to the schools, and from a casual and unscientific review of the church history/doctrine courses at most seminaries these days, there doesn't seem to be very much emphasis on what they will receive from the church that is older than the latest edition of the paperback textbooks. as one who thinks that the way to do theology is prayer, i'm not too concerned about the current texts when they are read in the context of a solid spiritual practice, and that does often seem to be supported in the seminaries.

but i also wonder how all these emerging students will change the understanding of the church. it seems that nearly all of today's seminaries, except for the few that remain very traditional, have become emergant seminaries. there was a time when those coming to mother church for baptism were asked the question, "what dost thou ask of the church of god?" the answer was expected to be, "faith." it seems that the same question might be asked of in-coming seminary students. i hope the church still has enough faith to share it.

emerging church part one: a patron saint

2010-09-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

it has been a summer of post-modernism and emerging church for me. duh. it's in the water. no one will actually claim to know what either of those phrases means, but everyone uses them anyway.

i'm going to ignore defining "post-modernism" for the moment, but i will suggest a take on the emerging church. it seems that the emerging church most importantly is protestants realizing that protestantism was a mistake. again and again i have heard stories from people who have grown up in some splinter of protesantism who have come to reject "christianity" as it had been presented to them, but who have come back to the "big church" whether they had thought out the theological nuances of that move or not. (sometimes who have come back are lapsed roman catholics, but perhaps the orthodox understanding of roman catholicism as profoundly similar to protestantism is correct.)

if that's true, then i would like to suggest that the patron saint (a patron saint) of the emerging church might well be john henry newman. it is interesting to me that of the oxford movement tractarians, it was usually the ones who had started in some dissenting sect, as had newman, who "went over" to rome. those who had been baptized in the anglican church tended to remain in the anglican church. to make newman the patron saint of the emerging church muddies what i said above about roman catholics, and makes my own broad acceptance of the "big church" as encompassing eastern churches "orthodox" or "nestorian," western churches "roman" or "merely" catholic. but then consistency is still something i haven't received.

but newman's journey remains as that of a bright-shining (that's what brilliant means, isn't it?) pioneer on a path towards recovery of the great tradition paul speaks of ("what i have received from the lord jesus christ, i pass on to you") that many seem to be taking.

the legacy of john of shanghai and san francisco: what words may we use at the altar

2010-07-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

saturday was the feast day of st. john the wonderworker of shanghai and san francisco. much beloved for many reasons, and villified by some for many of the same reasons, father john has long been one of my most important companions among the saints. it has only been recently that i have read of his and his predecessor st. tikhon's work to reclaim and restore the orthodoxy of the early church in the west.

part of that work is to encourage ancient liturgies which were used before the schism. this is of course not always easy. in that context i found this blog posting fascinating. it contains some cogent considerations, i think, but it also assumes a continuity of the "eastern" church, even at its most "orthodox," which unfortunately is not supported by the events of history. alas, there was a time when many of the eastern bishops were arian heretics. there was a time when many if not most of the russian bishops were lutherans. the old believers find the current russian liturgy unacceptable.

it is in this context that the love and patience of blessed john seems most important. the words of the liturgy, just as the words of scripture, are human words: inspired, but not beyond our comprehension. alas, again and again schisms surround our trying to say the same things with different words.

this morning i read psalm 18 (ev 19) from the new jerusalem bible of some friends for whom i am house-sitting. the line i am accustomed to hearing as "preserve thy servant from presumptious sins" it translates "from pride preserve your servant, never let it be my master." this is certainly a sentiment father john would be quick to second.

"i will go unto the altar of god

2010-06-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

even unto the god of my hope and of my salvation."

i have been reading catherine pickstock's after writing over the past few weeks. i intend to reread it again this fall when i'm back home and i can sit with it in the bathtub and soak it up by candlelight. it's an important, even if obviously horrenedously-written book. it might be much clearer, and one hopes in better style, if she wrote in latin. and my old latin vocabulary would probably be more up to the task.

the main thrust, if such a rounded book may be accused of having a thrust, is that the liturgical revisions of vatican ii, and therewith all the little vatican ii tag-alongs such as the american book of common prayer 1979, were scarcely better informed than the reformers of the time around the council of trent, whom they were so quick to criticize. moreover, she suggests that the western church has cast off what was left of a liturgy that would be accessible in a "post-modern" age to replace it with something that is so 1976.

as one who came to the "big church" only around 1980, and who has only gradually come to explore the much richer fare of the pre-vatican ii west and of the non-vatical east, i am delighted that she supports my inclinations with such carefully nuanced research. unfortunately, it seems that for the most part the post-vat church is fairly reluctant to say, "oops, we goofed." (benedict may be an exception, but unfortunately his plate has so many rotten potatoes on it it makes it difficult to hear him when he speaks of strong meat.)

meanwhile, i am happy to continue with using the book of common prayer 2009. perhaps black is the new black.

st. basil's feast

2010-06-14T16:39:00.001-07:00

basil was, of course, one of the paleocappadocians, as it were. as one of the doctors of the eastern church, he spoke and wrote much. but perhaps nothing he is credited with is so basic as this:

"the shoes in your closet are stolen from the barefooted man;
the clothes hanging there are stolen from the one who is naked."

more thoughts on same-sex marriage

2010-06-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

let me say up front that i have presided at the celebration of same-sex "unions," and i do not regret that. at the same time i should say that i have always used the united methodist rite for such events, and the methodists don't really look upon marriage as a sacrament.

but i need also to say that i scandalized some of my younger friends about a year ago by mentioning at a pre-nuptial dinner that i did not really think that same-sex unions were "sacramental christian marriage." they are young and hip and accepted such a thing as an "of course." i'm old and a fogey and think too much, so my hangup was on the vocabulary and the nature of sacraments.

the argument is often made that the church blesses battleships and the queen's carriages, so why not two people living together in a committed relationship. of course the church can bless such people, but just as the blessing of the queen's carriage is not a sacrament, i have wondered whether such a relationship is a marriage as a sacrament. in one of the most important books on the subject of same-sex marriage in the church, the late yale scholar john boswell took some length to discuss how marriage and the church's attitude towards it had changed over the years.

in most discussions of sacraments, at least in the west, we've more or less agreed with augustine that a sacrament is an "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." in the west the "celebrants" of the "sacrament of marriage" have been the couple themselves, and the "outward and visible sign" has been what we have euphemistically called "consumation." the east has taken a somewhat different view of marriage. indeed in the eastern church has not felt the necessity to list and number the sacraments as has the western, and "sacraments" and "sacramentals" have been viewed in a somewhat wider context of possibilities. and marriage in the eastern church has not been so often about sex. marriage as a spiritual path to union with god has been given much more attention. in the west the tendency has been more to focus on the union within a marriage as a sign of the union of god with the church: it is a pointer towards something rather than a road towards something.

now, if find myself somewhat hoist by my own petard. when i officiate at weddings, i usually talk about the "matter" of the "sacrament" as being the taking of each other's hands. this is a "sign" that has a multiplicity of significations. but i have usually thought about "operation" of marriage as the union of opposites: a man and a woman. therefore the union the union of people who are not opposites has not seemed quite marriage. but i'm seeing that this poses problems for one who thinks too much. men and women are not opposites, but complements. nor are god and mankind opposites. very different, but not opposites. if i see marriage as a spiritual path in which two people join hands to walk together, then they do not need to be opposites; they need only to be helps meet for each other.

now, i know that this could bring up all of the "not adam and steve" or "traditional family" objections. but the description of the creation of adam and eve is about its revealing the image of the holy one, not about suburban denver families. and if we look to the "judeo-christian tradition" for our family values, then the closet is full of all sorts of oddities. should we all arrange to kill the husband of the next desirable sex-object we see in order to marry her and make the offspring of that union our heir? are we to think that would be all right if of course we said psalm 51 afterwards?

it seems to me that the description of same-sex marriage from "the right" has been almost entirely hateful, and therefore not useful to a real discussion. i watched, with a group of gay friends, the free video jerry falwell sent us about the gay agenda. we were horrified to realize that we had never known about such an agenda at all, and were of course thankful to mr. falwell for his gay 101 course.

but it seems to me that much of the discussion of same-sex marriage from "the left" has been almost entirely informed by the level of thinking explored by people magazine, and therefore not very useful to a theological discussion.

this little essay is already becoming something of a rant. i suspect it might be one on which i will have some response, which i welcome. and it is one i will follow up on as i prepare to facilitate a discussion of "homosexuality and the church" in a parish.

pentecost ember days

2010-05-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

we have just come through the great fifty days, the church's annual reliving of what michael carroccino calls "mind-boggling" events. now we come to the pentecost ember days, three days to consider, once again, who are we, where are we, what are we doing here? we consider these questions once again in a context that exists both in time and in eternity, both on earth, and in the kingdom of heaven.

once again the great circle of time as the church observes it has come around to a place from which we can, perhaps, know

"when the tongues of flame are in-folded
in the crowned knot of fire
and the fire and the rose are one."

we are invited, by the one who became flesh, died in flesh, rose in flesh, ascended in flesh that the holy spirit might come to dwell in our flesh, to eternal life. at its simplest, most literal meaning, eternal life simply means life outside of time. but to participate in that life outisde of time we must allow our life in time to be sanctified as well. that is how the circle in time becomes the ascending spiral into eternity. we must comprehend time before we can live in eternity. i always find t. s. eliot's four quartets helpful at the ember days. eliot ceaselessly sought to understand time, and knew, as he wrote in what must be the most oft-quoted english words of the past century,

"we shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time."

nor will we be ready for the kingdom of heaven until we welcome god's will on earth. eliot said "history is now and england." until we understand life here on earth, we will continue to be the children in the apple tree, eating the pre-mature fruit.

how slow we human-kind, who cannot bear very much reality, are to admit that

"time present and time past
are both perhaps present in time future."

we eat now the forbidden fruit, and the thrush and all creation groan. we bore now holes in the floor of the sea and the fishes and all creation groan.

"we die with the dying:
see, they depart, and we go with them.
we are born with the dead:
see, they return and bring us with them.

. . . a people without history
is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
of timeless moments. . . .
history is now and england."

history is now and the gulf of mexico. time present will remain far into time future, as we continue to be born with the dead.

the matins readings this week have been from john's gospel. on monday, "jesus said to nicodemus, 'god so loved the world . . . god sent not his son to condemn the world.'" on wednesday, "jesus said to the multitudes . . . : 'no man can come to me, unless the fther which hath sent me draw him.'"

what shall we seek? for what shall we explore?

"with the drawing of this love and the voice of this calling

we shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and to know the place for the first time."

(quotes from four quartets ("burnt norton" i, "little giddding, "v", copyright 1937, t. s. eliot.)

cur deus homo: ascension and pentecost

2010-05-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

ascension day has been down-graded in the western church since vatican ii. caught up in the great-history-of-religion-only understanding of christianity that seems to prevail in so many seminaries and popular "theologians," the gargamel of the "early church's" celebration of the great fifty days has taken all. i first noticed this when i first began to enter the great church, but i didn't know it. the rector at my parish was old-school, and blew out the paschal candle on ascension day. i, having read all the lastest stuff, was of course horrified. (and of course octaves have been "suppressed," so not much mention was made of ascension in the days following, a situation that has become more true with the new common lectionary.)

but there is, i have found, wisdom in the older understanding of the importantce of the ascension, which was brought home to me yesterday in a wonderfully non-western-arrogant way. a friend, who is vicar of a near-by episcopal church, was having tea with me, and said that in that church she held an ascension day service, to which only two other people came. one was an elderly chinese woman, whose father had been a priest in china. indeed he seems to have been a priest in the old nestorian succession, which still exists in china and which has continued to maintain its lineage even though the government denies its existence. he had taught her that the feast of the ascension is the most important feast of the year, even more important than christmas.

if god became man so that man might become god, as anselm of canterbury and many other theologians have suggested, then then ascension of christ is the moment, if there is only one moment, when our humanity is taken into the kingdom of heaven. god the son takes on our humanity, and takes it to the right hand of the father.

this is not the only moment this happens, of course. it happens each time we celebrate the liturgy. we who represent the cherubim, leave beside all earthly cares. only after our nature has been purified by the "life creating trinity" can we receive the gift of the holy spririt.

the wedding feast that is the pascha

2010-04-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

one of the many haunting texts of the great three days through which we have just passed (over which we have just passed?) is the question that mary the mother of jesus asks her son as he stumbles with his cross towards golgatha. unfortunately, i did not bring my prayer book with me to the library, so i'll have to paraphrase:

where dost thou hasten, o my son? is there another wedding in cana where once more thou wilt turn water to wine? should i accompany thee, o my son? though thou art crucified, still thou art my son.

oddly one of the other texts which seems to embrace some of the richness of the wedding feast is, i think, a song from 1993 by kate bush called appropriately "the song of solomon." it makes very clear in a way that christians sometimes find uncomfortable the demands of the risen lord, of whom the church is the bride. if indeed, he can demand our sexuality, what else might he demand?

holy week: give me this stranger

2010-03-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

as we enter holy week, i find the hymn attributed to joseph of arimathea, which the eastern church sings at vespers on good friday, haunts me:

"give me this stranger, who has no place to lay his head.
give me this stranger, whom his evil disciple delivered to death.
give me this stranger, whom his mother saw hanging on the cross,
and with a mother's sorrow she cried weeping:
'woe is me, my child! woe is me,
light of mine eyes and beloved fruit of my womb!
for what simeon foretold in the temple is come to pass today:
a sword pierce my heart,
but do thou change my grief to gladness by thy ressurrection.' "

may the light of christ shine in even the darkest places of our sinful souls and our sinful world

please listen to the beautiful chant, and pray for all the sons of all the mothers who go each day to calvary, whether as the crucified or the crucifiers. we still seem to know not what we do.

24 march: gabriel archangel

2010-03-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

tomorrow is the feast of the annunciation, one of the most important events in the church year, and one which is sadly ignored by many. it is the commemoration of the incarnation. it is the day on which the archangel gabriel first said to the virgin, "hail mary, full of grace: the lord is with thee." in the west gabriel is commemorated the day before the feast; in the east the day after. since angels are immortal, there is of course no day of their repose; they are instead commemorated in connection with their messages.

i have not read angels and demons, so i do not know if there is a lot of nonsense going around about angels which dan brown has popularized as he did with the nonsense about mary magdalene in the da vinci code. i will not therefore try to enter into any big discussion of angels, but rather focus on the message.

the message, of course, is that mary was to bear a child who would be the son of the most high, who would save the people from all their sin. this child, whom the angel gabriel said would be called jesus, was a wonder to mary: "how can this be, since i have known not a man?" he continues to be a wonder, even to us today.

in that child god took on flesh, as the church believes is described in one of the psalms for lauds of gabriel's feast: "the lord is king, and hath put on glorious apparel; the lord hath put on his apparel, and girded himself with strength." the apparel which the high king of heaven put on was flesh, and in that apparel he showed the true glory of man.

the writer of the hebrews would describe the role of the virgin by quoting psalm 39 (ev40):8: "a body thou hast prepared for me."

in the fourth century when the church struggled mightily with the wonder who was this child, she produced the nicene creed, expanding on gabriel's claim that "that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of god," with the words "the only begotten son of the father, god from god, light from light, very god of very god." in the fifth century at the council of ephesus the church would insist that the child born to mary was truly all that the creed claimed, from his conception. mary would henceforth be called the "theotokos," the one who bore god.

it is easy to lose the humanity of jesus in these words, especially when the creed is separated from the liturgy. in the liturgy, you see, we say that not only do we receive at the communion "the only begotten son of the father," who sounds to be very spiritual, but we receive the body and the blood: body from body, blood from blood, born of the virgin.

now sadly enough, we sometimes disdain the very flesh which god took on. (see te deum: "thou, having taken it upon thyself to deliver man, didst not disdain the virgin's womb.") we have bumper stickers claiming that "we are spiritual creatures trapped in a physical body," or "spiritual creature having a physical experience." we become jealous of angels. this has especially been true in the time we call "the enlightenment," when milton would make satan the real hero of his epic poem. it is helpful to recall what jung said about heroes: that they are boys, not real men.

but real men (including women) are made in the image of god. when that image became tarnished, god took on flesh to show us once again what our true glory could be.

next week we will observe the great three days, when more than any other time that glory was revealed. looking forward to that time, enjoy this basque carol.

shrove tuesday

2010-02-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

shrove tuesday is fascinating because it is celebrated by many activities by many people who don't necessarily know why they do the things they do except that they have always done them. in northumberland, for instance, as in many parts of britain, the day includes a football match. as carnival it is "celebrated by many people who seem mostly to be looking for an excuse to enjoy drunken excess. in the united states even, it is still celebrated with pancakes by many who will not participate in any real lenten fasting.

the name of the day, shrove tuesday, comes from the old english word "shrive" meaning to confess one's sins and have them forgiven. that was of course when we still thought there were sins, and found the burden of them intolerable. now what makes us miserable is most often not our sins, which we quite enjoy, thank you very much, but the downturns of the new leige lord of our lives, the economy. if there is anything we recognize as sin, it tends to be part of the society, for which we are not responsible.

it is against this background that i find these words of oscar romero insightful:

"how easy it is to denounce structural injustice, institutionalized violence, social sin. and it is true, this sin is everywhere, but where are the roots of this social sin? in the heart of every human being. present-day society is a sort of anonymous world in which no one is willing to admit guilt and everyone is responsible.

"because of this, salvation begins with the human person, with human dignity, with saving every person from sin. individually there are among us here no two sinners alike. each one has committed his or her own shameful deeds, and yet we want to cast our guilt on the other and hide our own sin. i must take off my mask; i, too, am one of them, and i need to beg god's pardon because i have offended god and society. this is the call of christ.

"how beautiful the expression of that woman upon finding herself pardoned and understood: 'no one, sir. no one has condemned me.' then neither do i, i who could give tht truly condemning word, neither do i condemn; but be careful, brothers and sisters, since god has forgiven us so many times, let us take advantage of that friendship with the lord which we have recovered and let us live it with gratitude."

candlemass eve: a hinge of the year

2010-02-03T08:41:00.001-08:00

in a room filled with the smoke of incense, i leave the candles burning on the altar for a long time. there is a lot going on this night, and i want to savour it. we have celebrated the consolation of israel, the coming of the messiah, recognized by the prophet simeon and the prophetess anna, proof that there were those in israel who recognized their glory. this feast is the hinge between the completion of the old testament and the beginning of the new.

the presentation of our lord in the temple is also the hinge feast between christmas and easter. it is a bittersweet time. amidst the joy of the meeting of mary, carrying the infant lord, and joseph with simeon and anna, after simeon sings of the light to the gentiles, the glory of israel, represented in our procession around the chapel with blessed candles, comes the chilling line in the gospel, spoken by simeon to mary, "yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also."

"also."

the mass of candles: the light of the world will truly be extinguished. john will mention tht darkness in his gospel, saying simply, "it was night." (13:30) we will represent that darkness again with candles, during holy week at tenebrae. what we remember in this candlemass in what we remember in all our eucharists: "as oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the lord's death till he come."

"even so, come, lord jesus."

benedict biscop

2010-01-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

benedict biscop sought to romanize the church in britain, and therefore one might expect me to find him to be "the enemy." however, it is important to realize that the roman church in the seventh century was certainly not the roman church of novels such as the da vinci code, nor even the roman church of the nineteenth century. in the seventh century it was more orthodox than constantinople, which was nearly taken over by the current new thing, monotheletism.

what benedict seemed most taken with about roman christianity was the rule of st. benedict, which he encountered at lerins, where he was tonsured. his understanding of the rule included perhaps most importantly the chants used at rome, and books. so wonderful did the british church find the gregorian chants that when benedict's prior at wearmouth, ceofrith, was the only person at the monastery not sick with the plague except for one young boy--whom we know as bede of jarrow--he could not bring himself to leave off the chants. and of course it would be the british church's love of books and learning which would start the educational centers that would end "the dark ages" in europe.

he also, for better or for worse, brought stone building techniques to britain. the remains of st. peter's at wearmouth are still standing today, a much different sort of structure than the mud and waddle buildings that had preceeded it.

and, benedict brought icons. we hardly think of british christianity as being iconographic today, because of the thoroughness of the roundheads' destructiveness. but at one time, following the lead of benedict biscop, monasteries and parish churches and cathedrals were all as frescoed and full of icons as the churches of the east. whenever benedict started a new building project, he undertook another trip to rome to bring back books and icons and vestments, bringing the british church into the cultural world of the one holy catholic and apostolic church. when the light of christianity culture was nearly extinguished by the invasions that would follow, that culture would be taken back to europe by misssionaries from britain. but that is the story of later saints.

christmas in the old testament

2010-01-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

i suspect many of us think of christmas as a "new testament" event, and of course it is insofar as it inaugurates the new testament. but much if not most of our understanding of the event comes from the old testament. the ox and the ass are from isaiah; the answer to the question of the wise men to herod's advisors comes from micah. but i think my favourite prophecy that has shaped our understanding of the nativity is the passage from wisdom that is the introit for the second sunday of christmas (wisdom 18:14-15):

"while all things were in quiet silence
and that night was in the midst of her swift course,
thine almighty word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne."

it is the image that informs my favourite german, perhaps favourite of all, christmas carol, "lo, how a rose e'er blooming."

advent ember days: our king and saviour draweth nigh

2009-12-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

christianity is not a democratic religion. recent liberal protestantism seems determined that it should be, and if one's understanding of christianity comes from the history of religion school that dominates many seminaries, the popular press, and the popular media, one would think that the divinity of christ and his messiahship were the results of a vote held at nicea in 325.

the traditional propers for the advent ember days present a different view.* in the older western lectionary it is on the third sunday in advent that our attention is turned from the last things, the coming of christ at the end of the world, to the coming of christ as jesus of nazareth with a gospel from matthew, and "our ministry" is put into that context with an epistle from 1 corinthians. in contrast, there are no seasonal ember days propers in the newer lectionaries, and the emphasis has, not surprisingly, moved almost solely to the inclusive nature of the people of god and away from the exclusive sovereignty of god. (see, for example, the collects "for the ministry" and "for the mission of the church," pp. 205-206, 256-257, book of common prayer 1979.)

but still we have the advent antiphon on venite, "our king and saviour draweth nigh: o come let us adore him." and this is the true context in which we live our lives and die our deaths.

i have included this rather lengthy historico-polemical introduction because it is easy to forget that the one whose coming we celebrate this season is not an elected official, but the absolute sovereign of the universe. true, we may elect to serve him or to oppose him. but either way, "he cometh, he cometh to judge the earth; and with righteousness to judge the world, and the peoples with his truth."

jesus insistently reminded us that no on can serve two masters. it is remarkable but not coincidental that at no other time of the year than advent does mammon make such inticing claims on us. so, these advent ember days are a sober opportunity for each of us to consider whom one recognizes as king.

*these include isaiah 2:2-5, psalm 24, isaiah 7:10-15, luke 1:26-38, psalm 119:151-152, isaiah 9:1-5, psalm 85, luke 1:39-47, psalm 53, isiah 19:20-22, psalm 19, isaiah 35:1-7, isaiah 40:9-11, isaiah 45:1-8, the song of the three holy children 26-30, benedictus es, 2 thessalonians 2:1-8, and luke 5:1-6. one might notice that there is no lack of mention of the inclusion of all peoples in the kingdom of the holy one.

advent: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the world

2009-12-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

one of the problems of starting blogging is that one feels one should continue blogging, especially during the big times of the year. so, i have been thinking i should say something about advent, but have been hesitant to jump to it. advent is a multi-layered season, because the coming of christ is a multi-layered event, and our celebration of it brings together many parts of that coming at one time.

the earliest observation of advent by the church seems to have been in the fast preceeding not christmas but the ephiphany, which from very early times in the eastern and celtic church has been a time of baptism. that is where the penitential layer, which is much less popular in the west particularly today, comes from. we are not in our "culture" very comfortable with penitence; we tend to focus more on the coming of the new-born king. more and more we use blue advent candles. and the birth of christ, at christmas, is of course also part of the season. but the earlier emphasis in the west was on the second coming, on the last things as we used to say. this is made very clear in the propers in the pre-vatican ii lectinary and missal.

i have been thinking about whether i might write a little something about each of these emphasises, but i think what is suggested by folklorists as an even earlier understanding of this time of the year is something most of us need most, and which would allow us time to explore some of the other gifts of this season, the gift of a new king who would give us a new heart, so that all would be well.

that earliest understanding is reflected, some think, in the advent wreath. the story is that at this time of the year, the dark time with long and cold nights, people would actually take the wheels off their wagons to turn them into chandeliers to light their times together as they waited and encouraged the return of light, telling stories in the glow of the candles.

few of us would not benefit from something similar. rather than make advent a time of making a list and checking it twice, we could sit down and tell each other stories, read to one another, or curl up with candle light and a novel. (i just finished hermann hesse's wonderfully provocative and ironic the glass bead game, a wonderful meditation on, among other things, both penitance and the last things, although i did not expect that when i picked it up.)

there is a beautiful collect in the family prayers section of the book of common prayer we might find helpful:

"o god of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength; by the might of thy spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art god; through jesus christ our lord. amen."

i confess i was even more pagan after reading hesse: i had a little campfire last night to celebrate the beautiful advent vesper light, and the encourage the return of light and warmth.

st. john of damascus

2009-12-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

john of damascus would probably have a much harder time these days than he did in the seventh and eighth centuries. in the seventh and eighth centuries the struggle between christians and muslims was hardly off the ground. he is famous for his hymns, but even more famous for his defense of icons.

what i find so fascinating about his defense of icons is that he was able to write his treatises, usually called on the holy images, because he had the protection of his muslim friends. he had been born in damascus, his father had worked for the caliph, and he had as well before he retired to the desert of palestine. he, as did many of his contemporaries, thought of the muslims as another christian heresy.

ironically, it is usually thought that the orthodox aversion to icons at this time was because the muslims looked upon the holy images as a violation of the second commandment.

had he remained closer to the centers of power and orthodoxy during the iconoclastic controversy, john would probably been severely punished; almost certainly his treatises would not have been published. but working at the fringes of imperial power, he was protected by the caliph and produced the work that led to his often being called "the last of the fathers."

a great week of saints

2009-10-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

st. cedd, st. alfred the great, st. frumentius, st. neot and sts. simon and thaddeus all have come up this week. oddly enough, there are quite a lot of connexions between them.

cedd of course is the brother of my patron, chad, but he was also one of the most southern-traveling of the northumbrians, and worked in the territory of which alfred was king. (if alfred had not won at edington, you might be reading this in a language which, even if after 1066 and all that sounded much the same, would be called danish.) alfred was the patron of neot of glastonbury, a scholar and monk who was very influential on alfred. at a time when most kings were pretty bloody even if they were christian (think of my patronymic ancester, cadwaladr, who was a "christian" but who allied himself again and again with the pagan penda in wars against the christian kings of northumbria), alfred truly was a kinder and gentler sort of ruler.

neot shares his feast day with ss. simon and jude, who amongst other things were missionaries to persia. jude is also known as thaddeus, and in persia is called addai, the composer of the liturgy of sts. addai and mari, also used by the church in abbysinia, whose founder was st. frumentius.

the old testament reading for today's feast of simon and jude from isaiah (28:9-16) seems appropriate to all of these saints: "precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; . . . i lay in zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste."

and of course with all of them the collect for today is appropriate:

"O ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone; Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

commemoration of st. frideswide

2009-10-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

with the feast of luke the evangelist and iconographer and the new martyrs of russia available for consideration, why should i choose to mention the somewhat obscure 8th century mercian abbess frideswide? i chose to write about her because the history of the modern western church seems to be described by the history of her foundation. i can probably do no better than to quote her story from fr. beverly c. hughson o.h.c.'s athletes of god, pp. 335-336:

"this saint was a mercian abbess, the daughter of a prince who lived at oxford early in the eighth century. the old story is that algar, a neighboring prince, sought her hand in marriage. fearing lest her father would compel her to accept his addresses, she fled from oxford with two nuns in a boat, rowed by an angel in the likeness of a young man clothed in white, and took refuge in a wood near abingdon. many stories similar to this are told of this holy virgin. there is no question, however that she founded a convent at oxford and for many years devoted herself to the service of the poor and outcast. her convent was in later times given to the augustinian canons, and it was acquired by cardinal wolsey for his cardinal college, which afterwards became christ church. the chapel of this college, which was built in the twelfth century, is now the cathedral church of the oxford diocese. the bones of the saint were cast out of their tomb [see photo above] in the chapel in the reign of edward vi, and those of the wife of peter martyr, the reformer, enshrined in their stead. under queen mary the bones of the intruding lady were removed, and the relics of st. frideswide restored. when elizabeth came to the throne, she ordered the former to be returned to the shrine without disturbing those of the saint. so now it is said that they both rest in the same shrine, and those who go to venerate the relics of the saint have opportunity of contemplating the remains of her strange bedfellow."

monasticism in its early days was often an attempt to escape from the growing worldly politics in which the church was becoming engaged. frideswide's refusal of a political marriage and the privileges it would provide were well understood and appreciated in the early british church. consider the legend of the seven desert fathers who brought monastic christianity to wales and cornwall, and the popularity of the visit of st. anthony to st. paul as the bottom image on standing crosses.

but monasticism, too, came to be a source of power, rather than of seeking one thing: to know god. st. frideswide's abbey became an augustinian house. then the royally established episcopacy took over, and cardinal woolsey made it into a "college." at first colleges were legitimate institutions for christian learning, one may hope. but the despotic rule of henry, which the reformers thought they could turn to their advantage, made cardinal college a royal establishment instead, although cleverly named not king's (that would happen at the even more protestant cambridge) but christ college.

now even the bones of the monastic foundress were removed, and those of a foreign-born scholar replaced them. with the elizabethan settlement, all the bones were thrown in together, a somewhat macabre pre-curser of the claims of the history channel, for example, which claims that truth is to be found simply by considering everyone's "opinions." it is sad to consider that the pharisees have prevailed in so much of the modern church.

st. thais

2009-10-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

i admit right up front that one of the reasons i decided to post on the commemoration of st. thais is to have a link to joshua bell's playing of the interlude in massenet's opera. but the real life of the penitent saint and the story as told by the romantic massenet are slightly different. paphnutius was not so distracted by her physical beauty as to be driven mad. rather he was given a vision of a throne awaiting some saint in heaven. he assumed it would be for s. anthony, but he was told instead that it awaited s. thais, the penitent, who reposed only fifteen days after entering the desert monastery.

praying the scriptures

2009-10-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

a letter from a friend arrived yesterday with a very useful problem. ryan knight is a campus minister at a large state school. he is thinking of introducing praying the scripture to his students, but they are already having trouble understanding praying the psalms. so i thought about this as i walked out to the county's highest ridge, with a view of the kings river.

i had recently sent him one very practical book on the subject, which i did not yet know he had not read. oh well. but i thought, another book is probably not going to be much help anyway.

and it dawned on me that praying scripture is really very simple:
think about someone you love very much.
imagine that person in serious trouble.
think of yourself praying for that person.
think how you would want the holy one to listen to your prayer.
read scripture listening that way.

we are the ones whom god loves very much.
we are in serious trouble, and not for our sins only, but for the sin of the world.
the holy one speaks to us in scripture.
our listening is praying the scripture.

the next problem ryan came up with is that many of his students are still in denial that they are in serious trouble. but that is why so much of the scripture is stories. they catch us up in ways we aren't expecting. but that's perhaps the subject of another post.

eucharist & christology

2009-09-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

the past few days i am thinking about the eucharist (ian t. ramsey, ed. london: s.c.m. press, 1972), particularly about the anglican eucharist in ecumenical perspective (edward p. echlin, s.j. new york: the seabury press, 1968), because i am starting a mission and the eucharistic rite we use is an ecumenical version of an anglican usage.

my thinking has led to several observations.

in times of great change in our understanding of epistemology and ontology, such as occured at the time of the reformation and is occuring now, in what we often call the post-modern era, the church is forced to rethink its understanding of the euchrarist in a very fundamental way if she is going to be able to make that understanding "understanded of the people." this seems obvious, but what may not be so obvious is how comprehensive eucharistic theology is. our understanding of the eucharist is interwoven with our understanding of the world.

as those understandings change, we look for authorities to support our new understandings. archbishop cramner looked to the continental reformers, especially martin bucer and peter martyr. the archbishops of york and canterbury in these days look to a "commission" drawn from the various academic "disciplines." the editors of "the liturgy of st. tikhon" looked to the russian church, which is seen, perhaps wrongly, as having preserved the tradition without the controversies of the reformation.

but seldom is eucharistic theology discussed in clearly christological terms. (welcome exceptions are the essays by j.l. houlder and h.e.w. turner in thinking about the euchraist.) it seems that much of the argument that accompanied the reformation and counter-reformation, as both the "catholic" and "protestant" parties of the western church tried to adjust their understanding of the eucharistic events to the new science, might have been helped by thinking of the bread and wine in terms of the definition chalcedon: the statements that are made about jesus christ as both man and god apply also to the bread and wine.

the "moment" of consecreation is not much discussed in the archbishops' book, but it has remained a point of contention for many who have written about the eucharistic event. father echlin, with fine jesuitical understanding, insists that oblation, anamnasis, and epiclesis are all necessary for the consecration. if we extrapolate from this to the acts of our lord, on maundy thursday, good friday, and either, in the johannine tradition, easter evening, or, in the lucan tradition, pentecost, then we have a parallel suggestion of events, actions, that are necessary for our salvation. then, of course, it may well be suggested that our salvation is the prelude and requirement for our sanctification.

so, i am led to another observation. one of the matters of contention during the reformation, brought up again in england during the oxford movement days, but now not getting much ink, was how the eucharist is a sacrifice, and if it is, is there an immolation. one of the reasons i am partial to the english rite is that it includes a self-oblation. it makes very clear that not only the bread and wine which are the body and blood of christ are made holy (which is the basic meaning of sacrifice), but the body of christ as the church gathered is made holy. our old selves are immolated, as we are sent out in the power of the spirit to be christ's body in the world.

the feast of the exaltation of the holy cross

2009-09-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

today is one of my favourite holidays. when i first read the collect last night during the first vespers, i was at first a little disappointed. the old western collect is patterned after traditional jewish blessings: we thank god for giving us this celebration, and pray we may receive the benefits of it. but as i thought more about it, it seemed a wise way to approach such a complicated feast, with its look back to a wide range of old testament prophecies, and forward to a wide range of their fulfillments. in a way this feast is a recapitulation of all the old testament, not only a reminder that we're halfway to pasch, but also that we're halfway to the readings of the paschal vigil.

i found two of the posts at the blog, full of grace and truth to be particularly rich for this day. the first is for the day itself, and the second recognizes moses in the feast.

the first feast of the new year

2009-09-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

on the eighth day of the first month of the year we celebrate the nativity of the blessed virgin mary, the theotokos.

the collect for this day is rich:

"we beseech thee, o lord, to bestow on us thy servants the gift of thy heavenly grace: that as the child-bearing of the blessed virgin was to us the beginning of salvation; so the devout observance of her nativity may avail for the increasing of our peace. through jesus christ thy son, our lord: who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the holy ghost, ever one god, world without end. amen.

of course it makes sense to pray for the gift of grace on a feast of the one who is full of grace. and the collect recognizes that the beginning of our salvation is the incarnation of our lord. but the next part has more references than we might immediately recognize. in part the petition for peace is an allusion the prophet ezekiel's description of the temple with the closed gate, which is a source of much of our imagery regarding the theotokos. but it is also a reminder of the role the blessed virgin plays in the whole church. she is, as the one who both hears and does the word, as the one who bears the christ, the model for the whole church. (think of her central place in the icon of pentecost.)

and so it is for the peace of the church that we pray in this final petition of the collect. what we do not have, we cannot share.

a footnote to this feast and the peace of the church is provided by the association for the promotion of the reunion of christendom, a short-lived organization which urged the church to pray for peace during the octave of the feast.

a new year begins

2009-09-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

the orthodox church, following the calendar presented to moses, starts the new year this month. it is the month of the anniversary of creation (which actually comes at the 14th, on the lunar calendar, but it's the spirit that counts, or something--i personally start my year on holy cross day, the 14th, which is close to the lunar date.)

in honor of the new year, i thought this link to patriarch bartholomew's encyclical might be appropriate.

st. bartholomew's day: a wonder for nathaniel bar tholomew

2009-08-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

"may the words of mouth always find favor,
and the whisperings of my heart,
in your presence, YHWH,
my rock, my redeemer." psalm 19:14, (jerusalem bible)

what, i wonder, were the words
whispering in nathaniel's hearts as
he sat under his fig tree.

i wonder if they could have been
jacob's dream of the ladder, well
before he became israel without guile.

(i wonder if even in john's gospel
jesus knew such things
as this. yes?)

i wonder how long nathaniel
would keep his ironic humor:
"rabbi, you are the son of god."

i wonder if it were jesus'
ironic humor,
"there is an israelite who deserves
the name, in capable of deceit,"
that drew nathaniel bartholomew
to follow.

i wonder, was it the search for the ladder
that would take this israelite to india,
carrying the gospel book in his native tongue.

i wonder, that spring day by the gallilean sea,
if nathaniel's heart murmered to wander
so far, even with the king of israel.

and, i wonder if it were only in albana,
by the caspian sea,
that he saw the ladder,
as his guileless skin
was pulled from his
faithful body.

call me historian, not christian

2009-08-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

i read too much, and seldom do i listen.

lately i have been reading fredrick denison maurice's work. he is a rather unusual historian in that he is not so interested in learning the past that we might avoid the mistakes, but that we might enjoy the wisdom. and he is especially interested in christian unity, as i am, too. (see my posts from february, 2008.) but he still speaks in terms of the wisdom of quakers, and lutherans, and unitarians.

there is a little group that meets on friday nights for soup and bread, sometimes pie, and the gospel of mark. i am usually the historical arse, finishing people's statements with historical insights. history often is just the academic word for gossip. (think of footnotes: the most pedantic way of saying "he said 'she said'".)

last night, in that modest little group, i heard the word of the lord. it came, not surprisingly, gently, with no elaboration. the denominational backgrounds of the little group are varied, and therefore actually a help to each other. but, i the historian, have difficulty letting go of the past. so as we were casually ending the discussion, i referred to two very dear friends as "the lutherans."

marilyn quietly said, "we are not lutherans, dale, but christians." wow! the meaning in the depths of simple words has been been echoing in my hollow head all the hours since. i thought i needed to look for the unity of the church, and here it was, gathered around my little table, as we broke bread together.

there are none so deaf as i, who will not hear.

the dormition of the blessed virgin mary

2009-08-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

there have of course been many thousands of pages written about the theotokos, and some of the earliest are accounts of her dormition, starting with evodius, the second bishop of antioch. i don't need to add much to the pages; a good review of many of the topics are clearly posted at a byzantine christian. i would direct you to the reading for celebrations of the blessed virgin on saturdays after trinity in the traditional benedictine missal:

"and it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. but he said, yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of god, and keep it." (luke 11:27-28)

the first part of this gospel is the part picked up in discussions about mary that center, as most of them do and as lance discussed in his post, on the nature and person of her son. but the second part, the words spoken by jesus, point us to the nature and person of jesus herself. it is her hearing the word of god, and keeping it, which is at the heart of her singular role in our salvation. a few years ago there was a book by marina warner, alone of all her sex, which traced mary as, among other things, a model of feminism in western culture. it could however as easily been titled "alone of any sex," so singular is she.

i can't end without posting a link to my favourite hymn of this fest, "ave stella maris", here in a setting by monteverdi. it is the hymn in the benedictine second vespers for the feast.

musings on evangelism, 2

2009-08-12T08:55:00.001-07:00

now for the good news: the spread of the kingdom doesn't require that my life is remarkable. it wouldn't hurt, but the good news is not that some of my friends are worried about their real estate investments, or not, nor that i, who live on social security, am worried about how many books my stipend will buy this month, or not.

rather, of first importance, the good news is that god was in christ, reconciling the world to himself. we are more accustomed to hearing that as god so loved the world that he gave his only son. indeed, that's on quite a few of the t-shirts walking round eureka springs on any given saturday.

god so loved the world: me, with all my books; my friends who find their real estate investments more enslaving than liberating; the earnest young man on the plaza clinging to his bible as he spoke; the lesbian couple who came to stand by me because, they said, i was peaceful.

what people need, what "saves us" (i.e., heals us, makes us whole), is to know the love of god, and to love in return. some of us remember when each sunday the anglican rite started with the words, "hear what our lord jesus christ saith. thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. this is the first and great commandment. and the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

i said that if i were to preach at the park on a saturday morning, i would start with the eighth chapter of the gospel according to john. that's the story of the woman caught in the actual act of adultery. what jesus says to her, after all her accusers have gone, is remarkable: "neither do i condemn thee. now go and sin no more." as all gospel stories do, this one seems rather hard. likewise hard is the reading from the eighteenth chapter of st. luke in this morning's daily office. a certain ruler comes to jesus to find out what he needs to "do to inherit eternal life?" jesus tells him that he must "sell all tht thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. and when [certain ruler] heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich."

we do not really know the responses of the woman caught in adultry or of the ruler. perhaps they followed jesus' command, even if the ruler were sorrowful at first. if indeed they did, their lives would probably have been as remarkable as anthony of the desert's. but we do know that jesus said about that the difficulty for those of us with richest to enter the kingdom of god, that "the things which are impossible with men are possible with god." and we do know that not all of us achieve sanctity immediately. remember that st. mark, whose gospel we have been reading on friday nights, was sent away by paul. but he went on to accompany peter in jerusalem, to write the gospel, and to become the first bishop of alexandria.

even if the life of christians are not always so remarkable as we might wish, the total life of the church neverless is. we are part of that great cloud of witness which includes the blessed virgin mary, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and those of us who worry about our mortgages and retirement funds. the holy one may have finished the work of creation, perhaps even the work of salvation (in the sense that if i were to tell someone the time and date of my salvation, i would probably say 3:00 p.m. 4 april a. d. 31, judean local time), but the work of sanctification continues, and the inclusion of more and more of the people the holy one loves into the body of those being sanctified continues.

there is, your see, nothing intrinsically wrong about t-shirts or houses or books, or love of another human being. but as we come to know and love the holy one, our love for all of these other things falls into perspective and is rightly ordered. that is good news indeed.

musings on evangelism

2009-08-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

the topic of the past week has been evangelism. i had not invited it, at least not consciously, but i suppose my pretensions to starting a congregation has its own invitations. anyway, the topic first presented itself when i was the luncheon guest of the new episcopal vicar. we were talking about the attraction of eureka springs. i suggested that it has always been a place of healing, and that is still it's attraction, even for those who come on harley-davidson's, even though we have overlaid it with great numbers of greedy t-shirt stores and motels.

it was usual for desert monks to have a few books. st. athanasius' cell was remarkably free of books. when he was asked about that, he said that creation is an open book to those who have eyes to see. eureka springs seems like one of those places, and the opposition to its role as a revelation of the creator seems much like the same sort of opposition that occurs to other forms of the holy one's revelation, especially in scripture and in the incarnation of god the son.

friday night, as the little group that meets at my house for soup and the gospel of mark were discussing the fourth chapter of that gospel, one of the participants said, in real surprise, "why are we talking about evangelism?" for most of us evangelism has become a discomforting word, and we wondered why. it was, i suggested, because the word has been coopted by those whose take on evangelism is the question, "if you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?" the gospel of mark, the good news of our lord jesus christ according to mark, starts with jesus saying, "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." there is no suggestion that the kingdom needs to wait until we die.

the little group also recognized, however, that the church often falls far short of actually living in the kingdom. we wondered whether there were any noticeable difference common to those of us who considered ourselves christians and those of our neighbors who do not consider themselves christians. it was certainly difficult to see much difference in morality.

one of the participants suggested that she had been taught as a young lutheran in catechism class that a christian is one who knows whom to thank. i added that for orthodox christians, it is also how to thank. we have again and again noticed in reading mark's gospel that people gathered in great numbers around jesus, who often was trying to escape for a while.

there was a fairly large gathering saturday morning in downtown eureka springs' basin park. it was one of the four annual "diversity weekends," and although i usually avoid downtown on weekends (for reasons alluded to above under the heading of greedy t-shirt shops), i thought it wouldn't hurt me to see more of the town in which i have come to live, and i was particularly curious about a group called "jericho riders" who have noticeably appeared on diversity weekends to perform "street preaching"--in other words, something that probably would be described by its practitioners as "evangelism." i listened to one of the earnest young men for a little while, went off to write a rather depressed letter to a friend, and came back to talk with the "preacher." i confess i find what he and the jericho riders were doing to be about as far from evangelism as i could imagine. to start with, they were "proclaiming" certain passages from paul's writings, mostly from his letters to the corinthian church, with no concern for how the passages they quoted worked within the structure of paul's letters and thought, nor with any appreciation that the audience in the park were mostly not church members. paul's letters were pointedly to church members. i thought that if i were going to preach to that crowd, i would probably start with the eighth chapter of john's gospel.

but evangelism i expect seldom occurs when some one decides that some group of "others" needs a good preaching. evangelism happened in the new testament, and it could happen still, when people who call themselves christians live lives that are remarkable enough to make people curious. jesus pointedly reminded us that where our treasure is, there we will find our hearts. for those of us whose main concern is the value of our real estate or retirement investments, or whose christianity consists of motor-cycle jackets with crosses decorating them, there's nothing to make anyone curious.

a prayer for the church

2009-07-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

really, i am not picking on the episcopal church. it is merely a rather visible example of what one finds in so much of the protestant world today, in which one may receive the communion cup from an avowed hindu after not having recited the creed because it is no longer found relevant.

it is in this context which i offer the following prayer for the church, compiled in 1799 by the rev. dr. william smith for the diocese of connecticut as part of the service for the installation of a rector:

"ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; Grant that, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, all Christians may be so joined together in unity of spirit, and in the bond of peace, that they may be an holy temple acceptable unto thee. And especially to this Congregation present, give the abundance of thy grace; that with one heart they may desire the prosperity of thy holy Apostolic Church, and with one mouth may profess the faith once delivered to the Saints. Defend them from the sins of heresy and schism; let not the foot of pride come nigh to hurt them, nor the hand of the ungodly to cast them down. And grant that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness; that so they may walk in the ways of truth and peace, and at last be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting; through the merits of the same thy blessed Son Jesus Christ, the gracious Bishop and Shepherd of our souls, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen."

Although written to be used in a particular congregation, it seems useful for the wider church as well.

thoughts towards independence day

2009-07-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

in bellingham, on elm, waiting for a bus to take me to fairhaven. the view towards the north is a regular rhythm of porch piedments. the counter rhythm is runners making the most of this long day in a short summer.

the bus comes and transfers me to fairhaven: everyone is speaking the patois of the pacific northwest to a soundtrack of sufyan phillips. we are all heartbreakingly cool, spiraling around a core of nihilism. the headlines say we are more optimistic this week, but i feel as if i am at a new masque of the red death, where the little face-masques on bamboo elegant handles have been replaced by bmw's or saabs or mercedes-benzes. we handle them by power steering wheels, but they just let us feel we're in control. all the roads we follow so carefully lead to baghdad.

around the world this sunny morning, bombs are falling, dawn's early light still challenged by the rocket's red glare.

here in the cafe, we are safe. smoking is not allowed.

reading numbers after easter

2009-06-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

in december last year i started using the 1943 american daily office lectionary because i wanted to go through the book of ezekiel again. these days we're reading the book of numbers each morning.

reading numbers these days after easter is a very wise choice. after the miracle of deliverance that is the passover ("the horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!") comes not the promised land but the desert, the wilderness. of course the people of god do our usual bitching and moaning. but as the readings this week remind us, the enemy never doubts the reality of what is happening. although the children of israel then just as we now complain about just about everything, doubting their and our salvation, balak and company never seem to doubt for a moment the necessity of stopping us and them.

i am disappointed that the wiser-than-the-writers-of-genesis editors of the lectionary decided to demythologize the story, leaving out balaam's ass. alas. we forget that the holy one loves not just us folks who smugly call ourselves, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, homo sapiens. we would do well to pay attention to what the rest of creation is revealing to us.

pentecost ember saturday

2009-06-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

i was somewhat amazed when i did a google image search for priest to find an illustration for this post. i know that the christian priesthood is little regarded these days, but i didn't think it would take me to the fifth page to find a suitable image.

but that difficulty only points out more the appropriateness of this prayer written by father william doyle,s.j., m.c., on this pentecost ember saturday:

"o my god, pour out in abundance thy spirit of sacrifice upon thy priests.
it is both their glory and their duty to become victims,
to be burnt up for souls,
to live without ordinary joys,
to be often the objects of distrust, injustice, and persecution.

the words they say every day at the altar,
"'his is my body, this is my blood,'
grant them to apply to themselves:
'i am no longer myself, i am jesus, jesus crucified.
i am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself,
but by consecration another."

o my god, i burn with desire for the sanctification of thy priests.
i wish all the priestly hands which touch thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to thee,
that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

"let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions,
let every man find them simple and great, like the holy eucharist,
accessible to all yet above the rest of men.
o my god, grant them to carry with them from the mass of today,
a thirst for the mass of tomorrow,
and grant them, ladened themselves with gifts,
to share these abundantly with their fellow men. amen."

if this prayer were fulfilled, the it might more easily follow that the same "level of their lofty functions" might also be fulfilled in all the body of christ.

a new project

2009-06-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

for the past two years or so i've been blessed to attend, when in eureka springs, a writers' group that meets at studio 62. besides enjoying the fascinating diversity of the group's writings, i've been disciplined to write something every week. part of the results have been the blog the ring of the lord.

having finished that series, i've decided to try to emulate john keble, whose series of poems, the christian year was very popular in the 19th century. i don't expect my work to become as popular as his, but i do think that the kind of thinking it will make me do will be very helpful in at least my own formation in the mind of christ. i hope that the blog will be helpful to others as well.

pentecost ember days

2009-06-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

one of the reasons j. michael matkin and i became such good friends was discovering that we both read t.s. eliot's four quartets at the ember days. for a while we put on public readings of them in a coffee house in bellingham at the four seasons, within an evensong with readings. i was delighted therefore to find this string quartet by patrick handler based on east coker.

it makes me want to do the same thing in eureka springs. (by the way, michael's not-updated-frequently-enough blog is at aidan's ghost.

whit-week

2009-06-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

and what, you might well wonder, is that picture. it is a sheep door. i am posting it because it illustrates today's (whit tuesday's) gospel. and i like that whitsunday, pentecost, lingers a bit, that it has an octave.

you see, for me the fifty days have passed rather too quickly. they have been great big ol' days, starting with a huge rain which, although it certainly could remind one of one's baptism and the need to be thankful, also moved the lighting of the new fire inside, where i was so excited about the eve of easter that i forgot the psalms in the vigil.

now, fifty-two days later, i find myself still on pivot rock road, where i had not expected to be able to stay, and where i celebrated the eve of pentecost amongst the green fire of beltane and said the kneeling prayers of pentecost vespers and still found that i wanted more of this amazing season.

so i am happy that the gelasian sacramentary and the apostolic constitutions gave us proper readings to celebrate monday and tuesday of this week. then pope gelasius reiterated the importance of the ember days this week, and a few hundred years later proper readings for thursday were added, making this a week for considering what happened, how were we changed during the great fifty days, and what lies ahead of us as ministers of the glory of the holy one. (the first octaves were in the west those of easter and pentecost, in the east that of the epiphany; pretty clearly days of recollection for the newly baptized.)

it is in this context that i found perhaps the most meaningful readings of these last few days amongst the texts for the first vespers of pentecost:

". . . thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondsman in egypt." (deuteronomy 16:12a)
and
". . . reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (romans 8:18)

i am no longer in egypt; i may find myself in a desert, i may chose to be in a desert, but i am free. the revelation of the glory awaits.

rogation days

2009-05-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

the three days before the feast of the ascension have been called since the sixth century rogation days, which many of us have probably forgotten if we had ever heard of them. yet they are days which seem to have considerable spiritual significance beyond what appears, perhaps,on the surface.

their background is fascinating in itself, since both their time and the usual content of their prayers--rogation means praying, or supplicating--originally had very different associations.

in 470 there were devastating earthquakes following a volcanic eruption, and mamertus, bishop of vienne, called for three days of "litanies" for relief. the prayers were considered successful.

the christian tradition of litanies seems to have originated around 375, when they are spoken of by st. basil the great as innovative penitential services. their wider content as more than penitential prayers seems to have been originated by st. john chrysostom as an orthodox response to arian responsive, sung, processional prayers.

as prayers on the three days before the ascension, however, they quickly lost their connection to volcanoes and earthquakes, and their popularity spread through gaul to england, where they were adopted by the council of cloveshoo in 741.

the most usual prayer for the days in the english world is thomas cramner's english litany of 1544, as it has been adapted through the years and throughout the english speaking church.

we have come to associate that litany--"the great litany" in the english prayer book tradition--with days of penitance, and it is now most often sung on the first sundays of advent and lent. but it originally was used as a sort of general intercession in the vernacular as part of regular sunday worship, a position it still holds, in theory, in the church of england. cramner was aware of the role of litanies in the eastern church, in which the deacon and congregation sing responsive prayers. his liturgy, however, combined intercessions from eastern sources with roman and lutheran prayers, as well as those of his own composing.

in the reign of elizabeth 1, the praying of that litany, in procession around the parish boundaries, was required on the rogation days of each parish. in the gallic countries, the litany most often included requests for the prayers of many saints which were dropped from the english litany by the reformers. these days we are much more likely to pray the litany along a much smaller route, with such changes as our current theological squeemishness seems to require.

and, the rogation days have come to be more and more concerned with the prospering of our crops, with the fruit of the earth, not about avoiding earthquakes, although one could i suppose argue that those are two sides of the same coin. one can seen this in one of the 1928 american prayer book collects for the days:

"almighty god, who hast blessed the earth that it should be fruitful and bring forth whatsoever is needful for the life of man, and hast commanded us to work with quietness, and eat our own bread; bless the labours of the husbandman, and grant such seasonable weather that we may gather in the fruits of the earth, and ever rejoice in thy goodness, to the praise of thy holy name; through jesus christ our lord. amen."

but there is i think an appropriateness to praying for the earth on these days which recognizes part of the vastness of salvation. just as the incarnation was not only for us sinful men, neither was the ascension just for us redeemed men. all creation takes part in this great salvation, and our prayers on these days recognizes that wonder.

moving feasts

2009-05-11T09:17:00.001-07:00

i was surprised saturday to find the ninth of may listed as the feast day of gregory of nazianzus, who is usually called in the orthodox church gregory the theologian. i am accustomed to celebrating his feast on the 25th of january, just before the feast of the the three holy heirarchs. a check in wikipedia told me it was just a mistake: the western church once thought gregory had died on the ninth of may.

but i was particularly glad to be reminded of gregory because i am currently reading a clumsily written but insightful book by ephraim radner and philip turner, the fate of communion. one of the most important things the book says, i think, is found in one of turner's notes: ". . . the most serious issue in respect to ecclesial integrity and tolerable diversity that faces the anglican communion does not concern women's ordination or the ethics of sex, but attempts to diminish or rid ecusa's book of common prayer of the use of the trinitarian name, father, son, and holy spirit." (n. 21, page 125)

some of the most shocking words in the liturgy of st. john chrysostom, one of the holy hierarchs, called a doctor of the church in the west, come after communion, when the faithful chant, "we have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly spirit; we have found the true faith, worshiping the undivided trinity, for the trinity has saved us." unfortunately, even among those who call themselves christians in these days of post-modern non-dogmatic absolute dogmaticism, the idea of there being a "true light," a "true faith," is an anathema. even more unfortunately, within what calls itself christianity these days there is very little real belief in salvation. we are not saved. we have just become inculturated. we want to be seen as just as nice as anyone else.

turner has succinctly described this situation in an article in first things.

most unfortunately, this concern for our own acceptance rather than concern for the salvation of the world lets the devil take the hindmost. we can always use a good dose of gregory's passionate concern for truth, true light, true faith, and true love, which is not willing that any should perish.

the creation of the earth

2009-04-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

today in the religion of american consumerism is "earth day." i have been amazed at how many products, from television networks to aluminum foil manufactuers, have become "green" this week.

the church takes a somewhat different view of the earth. it is part of creation, the part of creation over which mankind is given dominion. this dominion of the earth is of course a problem for us, and has been for a very long time. never willing to curb our consumerism, we want the very things we are told are not ours. you have probably heard this story. it is sometimes called "the fall."

proper dominion is revealed to us in what most translations of the gospels call "the kingdom of god" or in matthew's gospel, "the kingdom of heaven," the sacred name being considered by matthew too holy to even insinuate. a better translation might be "the dominion of god," not only because it means much the same thing but even more importantly because then the parables of the kingdom become parables of the dominion and we are told how we should exercise our relationship to the rest of creation.

the liturgy has a daily reminder of our role within creation, not as something apart of it but as particularly iconic creatures. each day we are given the opportunity to sing:

Benedicite, omnia opera Domini:
"O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.

O ye Heavens, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Waters that be above the firmament, bless ye the
Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O all ye Powers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Sun and Moon, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Showers and Dew, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Winds of God, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Fire and Heat, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Winter and Summer, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Dews and Frosts, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Frost and Cold, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Ice and Snow, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Nights and Days, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Light and Darkness, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.

O LET the Earth bless the Lord: * yea, let it praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Mountains and Hills, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O all ye Green Things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Wells, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O all ye Beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Children of Men, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.

O LET Israel bless the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Servants of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye Spirits and Souls of the Righteous, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
O ye holy and humble Men of heart, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.

Let us bless the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost: * praise him, and magnify him for ever."

maundy thursday: night-ruler

2009-04-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

"and god made . . . the lesser light to rule the night." (gen. 1:16)

this moon,
this full, nisan moon,
is full as no other moon can be.

it is brimfull,
as cana's stone jars.

this full moon,
"the fourteenth day of the first month,
at even,
is the lord's passover."

by this moon's light
the angel of death saw the blood
on the door posts
and the mothers of egypt saw the death masks
on their first-borns.

this moon lighted the way for judas,
and it was night.

this moon, rising, watched joseph of arimathea
entomb the messiah,
sealing the entrance with moon-round stone.
this moon, setting, watched the myrh-bearing women
hurry to the tomb,
finding the stole rolled away.

is, i wonder,
is this full moon willful?
has, i wonder,
has this moon chosen such sights?

i think not.
rather i think this full moon,
night-ruler though she be,
groaneth with all creation
to see the redemption of all.

how often, i wonder, does this same full moon
whose cold light fell on james, and john,
and peter, sleeping,
how often lightens me,
sleeping despite the groans around me?

"my ways are not your ways, says the lord:" thoughts in the night about the feast of st. gregory the great

2009-03-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

my earliest introduction to the church bigger than the enlightenment congregationalism of walnut street baptist, a severely georgian building filled with the hymns of watts and, at least in the evenings or wednesdays, of crosby, was in the modestly romanesque blessed sacrament (roman catholic) church. at walnut street the choir entertained us with anthems and contatas by handel and stainer, standing up front behind the pulpit and in front of the baptistry, all the while attired in robes that coordinated well with the adam green walls. at blessed sacrament the choir was invisible, but filled the dark red brick space with ethereal, heavenly, music that wounds its way amongst the plaster virgin and attendent saints to join the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in one great hymn of unending praise.

i knew this was holy music because on the christmas eves i attended midnight mass at blessed sacrament, snow would be falling when we left in obedience to "ite. missa est. alleluia."

that music was of course gregorian chant, not written by pope st. gregory the great (ca. 540-604) but developed and systemized and encouraged by him.

these days neither gregorian chant nor gregory the man are so widely appreciated as they were from the time he, among other achievements, saved rome from the lombards, until my childhood, a period of thirteen and a half centuries.

it is about this change of attitude towards gregory that is so much of and so representative of our "modern thought" that occupies my meditation in the night watches early in the morning of his feast.

he really did exhibit in his own life the humility that let him honestly call himself the servant of the servants of god, yet he exercised the office of the roman papacy in a way that tenaciously upheld the primacy of the roman see. he did this largely because he had been an ambassador, the apocrisiarius, of pelagius ii to constantinople and was convinced that the eastern empire was hopelessly decadent.

he was very successful in strengthening the church in spain, baul, and north italy. he encouraged the spread of benedictine monasticism. he was most successful in the conversion of the english, sending augustine with forty monks from his own monastery.

his writing was extremely influential, ranging from topics such as his "liber regulae pastoralis," which described his vision of the pastoral life of a bishop, the pastor of souls, to the organization of the entire roman catholic order and worship, which in part continues even after vatican ii.

i cannot imagine a contemporary movie about gregory which would not introduce the necessary jungian, neo-gnostic darkside which we would assume for the pontiff. we just do not make movies with heroic early medaeval popes. we are so profoundly anti-nomian that the world "regulae"--rules--of pastoring is an immediate turn off.

yet gregory was only taking seriously what jesus had said. "no one can serve two masters," and he recognized thirteen centuries before dylan that "everybody has to serve someone."

we often, it seems, pretend that this is not true. few of us any more pray each day the "collect for peace" from gregory's sacramentory (no. 1345), describing god as the "author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom." (the original latin is more vivid and terse: "whom to know is to live, whom to serve is to reign.:)

rather we prefer what we sometimes call, oxymoronically, "chaos theory." after all, it releaves us from any nagging feeling that we should pick up our bedroom. but, to continue with the words of gregory's collects, we are left not only at the merch of "our unruly wills," (no. 1120), but abandoned to the "fear of any adversaries."

so i wonder, as i lie fearlessly and snugly in my bed this cold lenten morning (lent may mean spring, but it's a mostly cold spring so far), whether i have any of gregory's many writings. i find i have only this one lenten hymn, no longer set to gregorian chant:

"O Kind Creator, bow thine ear
to mark the cry, to know the tear
before thy throne of mercy spent
in this thy holy fast of Lent.

Our hearts are open, Lord, to thee:
thou knowest our infirmity;
pour out on all who seek thy face
abundance of thy pardoning grace.

Our sins are many, this we know;
spare us, good Lord, thy mercy show;
and for the honor of thy name
our fainting souls to life reclaim.

Give us the self-control that springs
from discipline of outward things,
that fasting inward secretly
the soul may purely dwell with thee.

We pray thee, Holy Trinity,
one God, unchanging Unity,
that we from this our abstinence
may reap the fruits of penitence."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Words: attributed to Gregory the Great, sixth century;
trans. Thomas Alexander Lacey, 1906

9 march: the feast of st. gregory of nyssa

2009-03-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

the first reading for the synaxis of st. gregory in the western rite:

wisdom 7:22-2822

for wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me: for in her is an understanding spirit holy, one only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good, kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and going through all understanding, pure, and most subtil, spirits. for wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness. for she is the breath of the power of god, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her. for she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of god, and the image of his goodness. and being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of god, and prophets. for god loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom.

9 march: song of two saints

2009-03-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

awakened by moonlight, i boil water, dress, pulling my hood over my cap and my mantle over both, carrying my coffee through the crunch of last fall's needles to my vantage point on the edge of the void, beneath the tall pines. the not-quite-full moon on this not-quite-spring not-quite morning gives not quite enough light to see the not-quite-blooming forsythia to my right, but i imagine at least that i feel the yellow promises.

i sit here with the moon's brightness and the pines' darkness,trying to sing a songs of the saints of god. i want it to be a simple song, but the saints are thomas acquinas and gregory of nyssa, and i think it may be all day long before i can quite harmonize them, if at all.

thinking of them takes me back forty-four years to the fall i acknowledged myself a wise fool. that semester was plato's. yes. sign me up. i want to be a philosopher king. let me out of this cave. spring brought aristotle, whom i found to be a bit pedantic. the following year was to have been thomas acquinas, but the thomas-professor went off to yale, and i suppose found fame, while i went off to roosevelt and such second lights as ernst cassirer and teilhard de chardin and obscurantism. i never read st. thomas.

ah, but gregory of nyssa: his works, some of them anyway, i have read. sign me up. i want to see the world his way. cappadocia may be a land of caves, but gregory saw the light. his moses is no charlston heston, projected into the cave by phantoms, climbing a fake mountain with a fake beard as edgar robinson shows aaron how to make a molten calf. gregory's moses shines in the pure light of mount tabor.

somehow i was able to separate thomas whom i knew as the angelic poet of pange linguam and verbum supernum from the doctor of the summa. but i sat under the pine trees this morning after having read, well, not st. thomas on his feast yesterday, but chesterton's dumb ox biography of acqinas, and i was reminded both that, as plato had recognized, kings may pretend to be philosophers, but philosophers do not want to be kings, and that the methods of the enemy are subtle and pervasive even when simple: julius caesar has taught well; divide and conquer. i am easily carried along by the prejudices of my ignorant times even as i flatter myself that i work against them.

i find a friend who is opposed to private confession caught up in the lutheran heresy because her reason to reject that sacrament is that "roman catholics do it," but i never see past the log in my eye that keeps me from reading thomas because i have swallowed the more respectable heresy of hegelianism, never even tasting its bitterness amongst the sugars of modernism.

i was reminded of my dismissal of acquinas' thought as pedantic aristotelianism in a wonderful way this morning. pedantic is, after all, a sort of pun, combining the pedestrianism of walking with the pediatrics of childhood. the moon's brilliance was obscured by clouds as that lesser light approached the horizon. then, i could see more stars, stars which i wanted to place in constellations, but could not because of the pine trees. then, in the great darkness before the dawn, i began to hear the foot-fall, the pedantry, of a doe and her fawns browsing on the forest flood. i could even see ever so slightly the forms of the forsythia blossoms. the pines lost what chesterton might call, even if i do think wrongly, their byzantine flatness.

how easy it is not to see the pine trees for the stars.

2 march: the feast of st. chad

2009-03-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

there is snow under the pine trees this morning, reminding me of the snowy morning by the pine tree at amelia white park in santa fe eighteen years ago when i took chad as my patron in my journey with christ. chad the barefoot walker who recognized that fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom.

my faithfulness in that journey has been far from consistent. i have again and again excused myself for my faltering inconsistancy by the ease with which i can find fault with the church. there must, i tell myself, be a better way. i want the church to be one, to be holy, to be catholic, to be apostolic. when i fail to see her so, i like john the forerunner ask, should i look somewhere else.

one year i took a leave from my duties in the parish to "explore native american spirituality." i was living in santa fe at the time, where there actually is some survival of the old indigenous ways. i also returned to arkansas to try to find what had been the "beliefs" of the peoples indigenous to my natal soil before they had been driven out by my ancesters. i didn't find much, and yet i found enough.

the local religions were just that, local. they were many. they were natural, not holy, and entirely unconcerned about including others. despite what rich white women in navajo skirts and pawn silver said about the wonders of praying for "all my relations," all those relations were one's own family tree. the hopi might dance for the good of the whole world, but there was no place for a european in the dance, or a syrian, as the syrian church had made european bishops, and the european bishops had made navajo bishops. "native spirituality" was many, natural, local, and ethnic. i returned to the church, and found myself much to my surprise being made missionary bishop to the ozarks. (i had only enquired about how to make the order of st. chad canonically independent of new mexico.)

so, for a while, i was faithful again, returning to arkansas, even if it were to jonesboro rather than to fayetteville, trying to lead a life remarkably different enough from the world that people would ask me, what gives, when i could tell them of the faith "once delivered to the apostles."

my next crisis, once again, was with that collection, assortment really, of buildings ranging from repulsively hideous to sublimely beautiful, with signs out front saying "church." i had no interest in starting another one, but i felt that i should find them, if not on the same page as i, at least in the same book. then came the 2000 "election," in which many christians professed their faith in george w. bush as their lord and saviour, and even worse, almost non called that action heresy. there would follow the events that have come to be known as 9/11, and the cathedral church of sts. peter and paul, both of which were martyred by the empire, the more aptly named national cathedral, came to the service of those who said "let us bomb our enemies back into the stone age," a phrase for which i have looked without success in my strong's concordance. they rolled out creaky old billy graham, the kindest and gentlest of those who present the gospel as a "get out of hell free card." the apostate empire was singing "onward, christian soldiers," and from building after building signed "church" came the great amen.

i cried. in my tears i thought, there must be something better. as i was packing to return to new mexico, through my tears i read an old friend's name on the return address of a letter that arrived on the last day i was in jonesboro, a friend from the old parish in santa fe who then lived in seattle. come, he said. you'll like it here: ocean; mountains. this was my introduction to the none-zone.

the none-zone, western oregon and washington, is the area where most people, if asked their religious preference, say none. i bought a kayak and started exploring. people would ask, what do you do? i would say, i'm looking for clues. people pretended to understand. bellingham, home of western washington university, became my home port. there i met some brilliant young students of arts and sciences. if anyone had a clue, i thought, they might. they were brilliant but clueless, sacrificing four years of their lives in residence at an institution which taught that there were no real clues. many of them would sacrifice more years paying off student loans. i quickly realized that "the faith delivered to the apostles" is as good as it gets, is indeed as good as it needs to be. the problem is that we resist receiving it.

once again i resisted "starting a church," although i danced around the idea. i had a congregation of sorts: students who came to my tent in the night like nichodemus, students i catechized and baptized and buried, who were intrigued by jesus and a strange old man they thought might look like jesus--jesus if he and mary magadalen had really been married and had become grand parents. but mostly, they did not join me on sunday mornings at the church where i worshipped. (a few did, but the church was not very welcoming to them, nor did they understand why i would waste my time there.)

the worst moment came one easter morning, soon after the death of tim, a 29-year-old graduate of western washington. his was the first death, the first, funeral, many of these young people had known. in my pew sat nine kids who had known tim. they had been moved by the faith expressed during tim's death and wake and funeral, and they wanted to see where i worshipped. i was horrified. the "service" was one of those laurence-welk-show type of things so common with protestants these days: lots of special music that excluded the congregation. no silence. no room for the holy. and the most anti-resurrection sermon i had ever heard. and i was stuck. afterwards, i couldn't say, no this isn't church, this isn't easter. there was a big sign in front of this big building with stained glass windows claiming church. the brass band had played special easter music.

the next sunday i started worshipping at st. paul's episcopal church. it was two miles further from my house, and up a long hill, but at the easter vigil there had been a real proclamation of the resurrection, and the gathered people of god had been encouraged to do their work, to worship. so for the next several years in bellingham, without meaning to, i became a casual missionary for the episcopal church. as one young man, raised mostly methodist, who had asked, but where do you worship, dale, a young man, now exploring priesthood in the episcopal church, says, "in my church we worship the way christians have for 2,000 years. i pray that there might be more churches like st. paul's.

but now i am back in the ozarks, back to the place i was sent 14 years ago, on a morning with snow under the pines once again. the pine underneath which i took my first vows of obedience, poverty, stability, and chastity, has been cut down. in its place is an ugly statue. that's it in the picture above. one that statue is plaque that i can only paraphrase: be careful what you do here. simple acts can have great consequences. i came back to the ozarks on what i thought to be a retreat, to spend some time in silence, listening to the wind words. ah, that can be a dangerous thing to do.

on this second day of march, the feast of st. chad, bishop of mercia. i find myself once more hoist by my own petar. if find the wind words saying, inconveniently at this time when once again there is no king in israel, albeit the new israel, and every man does as he pleases, to return to the faith that has been given to us by the apsotles, to call us to receive it. alas, this morning's matins reading for a patron saint who is a bishop is from the tenth chapter of the gospel according to matthew: go to the lost sheep of the house of israel. so, i pray this morning, under the tall pines among which i know dwell, for the grace to be cunning as serpents and yet as harmless as doves. amen.

my lenten koan

2009-02-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

lent very clearly means spring this morning. at 6:00 i am able to read the psalms with my first cup of coffee, seated under one of the tall pines at the edge of the holler.

if animals indeed have animae, souls, then the souls of the world en-fleshed in the creeping and flying creatures are waking from the sleep of winter well before the grass, herb yielding seed, or fruit trees, which are just beginning to swell with buds while the squirrels and frogs and birds are rampant in their lauds. even a vulture is aloft, circling in the light above the shadow of this round world, light which remains only a promise here in the pines.

my lenten koan for this year seems simpler than some years past: it is from the eighth chapter of luke,at the conclusion of the parable of the sower:

"having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with abundance."

i am very seldom good ground, with an honest and pure heart. but those times when i get all puffed up and feel pure, good, and honest, i tend to lose all patience--proof i was merely pridefull.

yet am i hopeful. the holy one will not fail to hear my cry, "lord, i am thine, o save me."

only three weeks ago, these pines, this holler, was as quiet and frozen as narnia in the grasp of the white witch, each branch, each needle, each blade imprisoned in ice. no creepers crept, no winged creatures flew. we, my neighbors and i, huddled in the cold darkness.

but just a little while, and i sit in this warm bright morning as the song of the turtle is heard in the land.

"having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with abundance."

quadragesima: a reply to the serpent

2009-02-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

great lent is observed somwhat differently in the eastern and western churches. there are, i think, some peculiar advantages to each method of preparation for pascha, for easter.

the east has no mardi gras, no great "party" to end "carnival," no headaches on ash wednesday. instead, orthodoxy gradually takes up the lenten fast, first with meat-fare sunday, the last flesh-eating day before great lent, then with cheese-fare sunday, when dairy products are last eaten before pascha.

on cheese-fare sunday is commemorated the expulsion of adam of the first creation from the paradise of bliss. first vespers remembers our creation from "dust from the earth," and recognizes that satan "deceived me through eating."

we pray, "lord, when i disobeyed thy command at the counsel of the adversary, i wretched one, was stripped of my god-woven robe." these are words looking forward of course to the new robe of the second creation, the chrysom that we are given in our baptism into that new creation, and to the gift of the holy spirit, the true counselor, that we will celebrate at the end of the great fifty days of the pascha.

in the liturgy we are told in the epistle, from romans, "let not him that eateth despite him that eateth not; and let him which eateth not judge him that eateth . . ." in the orthodox church, there is not so much of "what will i give up for lent." the fast is proscribed, so there is less opportunity for pride in giving up some favourite thing. easter therefore is less often reduced to getting chocolate back.

the gospel includes the same passage as the catholic west reads on ash wednesday:

". . . when ye fast, be not,as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. . . . but though, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face."

in the second vespers comes this prayer, which is repeated every sunday evening during lent:

"let us all hasten to the subjugation of the flesh by abstinence, as we approach the divine battle-field of blameless fasting. let us pray the lord, our saviour, in tears and prayers, turning away completely from sin, and crying, we have sinned against thee, o christ the king. save us, therefore, as of old thou didst save the people of ninevah; and make us partakers of thy heavenly kingdom, o compassionate one."

and because we know our own weaknesses, we ask also the interecessions of all the saints, especially of the most blessed theotokos.

monday morning the forty days begin.

in the west, which counts the forty days somewhat differently, it is on wednesday, ash wednesday, that the prophet jonah is read at matins, telling of the fasting and the repentance of ninevah. the collect asks for that second creation which comes with the second adam:

"almighty and everlasting god, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent; create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the god of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through jesus christ our lord. amen.

then, after hearing matthew in the liturgy, those of us who have been beguiled by the words of the serpent, "ye shall not surely die," hear instead these words:

"remember, o man, that thou art dust, and unto dust shall thou return."

quadragesima sunday (new calendar)

2009-02-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

i have friends for whom i admit an occasional jealousy. they, although in most ways practicing christians,are able to speak of the church in the third person, to distance themselves from her, to accuse her of shortcomings they do not share. sometimes this condemnation is of "the organized church," or "the visible church," as if christ desires a disheveled, invisible bride. such an understanding of the church seems not only completely at variance with the new testament, but also unable to carry out the mission which christ jesus has given her. to take a single example, if we are to be in the world but not of the world, how can we witness to the world if we can not be seen?

i am unable to think this way. my identity, my existence, is in the body of christ, the church. i was baptised in the church, confirmed in the church, ordained in the church. by the grace of god i hope toe ventually join my voice with that "great voice of much people in heaven, saying, alleluia; salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the lord our god.

but already i pray in and as the church. each day i confess my sins, not only in the words of psalm 51 (et), "have mercy on me, o god . . . gor i acknowledge my faults and my sin is ever before me," but also in the words of "a general confession" from the book of common prayer: "we have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts . . . ."

my sin afflicts the whole church, and the sins of the whole church are mine. indeed the sin of the whole world is mine, is ours, for as christ's body we continue to take on the sin of the world, thus, as paul wrote to the church in colossae, "in my own body to do what i can to make up all that is still to be undergone by christ for the sake of his body, the church." (1:24)

alas, surely there is no affliction of the church more painful than her present state, "by scisms rent asunder, by heresies distrest." (s. j. stone) this seems to be a huge sin, which i find myself confessing each lent, sadly ignored again and again by those of us who never consider what we see as the current voice of the spirit, so conveniently in concord with the spirit of the times, might be prelest.

i have been encouraged these past few weeks before great lent by three books written by members of christ's body who have experienced great suffering, but who have also found themselves therein participants in christ's glory. the books are not of this world: the life and teachings of father seraphim rose, by monk damascene christenson; fragments of my life, by catherine de hueck doherty, and the candlelight kingdom, by ruth korper. they are all three infused with the suffering of russian christians, a circumstance conveniently overlooked by my "liberal education" of the 1960's and '70's, events i would be surprised to find known by many american christians even today. but they do describe the church, organized, visible, and very much alive under the most difficult of conditions.

last week in the daily office were the stories of peter's confession and of the lord's transfiguration. (in churches using the new common lectionary, this sunday was heard the story of the transfiguration also.) in both of these stories the climax is "that the son of man must suffer many things."

may we who confess and call ourselves christians often find ourselves during great lent using this prayer composed by william reed huntington, who with his 1870 book the church idea was on of the pioneers of the recent search for church unity:

"almighty god, whose most dear son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified; mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same thy son jesus christ our lord. amen."

new blog

2009-02-13T10:35:00.001-08:00

on a cold march morning in 1992 i earnestly presented a rule and made vows to bishop richard gundrey for something to be called the order of st. chad. i had chosen chad as our patron (at that time, my patron) because he lived in times just as confusing and transitional as ours, and had managed to remain faithful to his lord and the traditions in which he had been trained (by st. aidan, no less) and to remain humble even when he was made bishop.

at one time there were six of us in this little order, trying to follow a rule of life as we lived in the busyness of the modern, urban world. we dwindled, more or less, over the years. one who still follows the rule is now the directress of an orphanage. two became benedictines, and left the busyness of the modern, urban world. one decided to return to the native american traditions of his adopted father. one i have lost track of. and then here am i, in a small town in the ozarks, but certainly in the buzyness of the world.

in the early days of the order, we had a quarterly newsletter. now it is much easier, and i hope not too much against the spirit of st. chad, to do something similar on-line.

the icon that heads the first post of the the new blog is of st. john the wonderworker (of shanghai and san francisco). it is he who has encouraged me to start up again taking seriously the need for what st. chad and the other orthodox celtic saints have to offer us. i have followed the rule, at times less faithfully than others, for eighteen years now, and i have no regrets.

so here i will post lives of celtic saints, suggestions for a rule of life, and stories of my wanderings trying to follow my patron.

septuagesima sunday: out of the wilderness into the arena

2009-02-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

septuagesima may not be a term familiar to you, but it is a term which has come back to me this year as a special gift. i had been wanting to revisit ezekiel, so since ephiphany i have been following the 1943 american episcopal lectionary, which provides readings from ezekiel for the first four weeks after that feast.

that lectionary also includes septuagesima sunday, which the newer, post-vatican ii lectionaries have abandoned. in 568, the lombards began to threaten italy, and john iii, bishop of rome, appointed three pre-lenten sundays for supplication against the impending peril. the first, which was celebrated at the church of st. laurence outside the walls, was (only approximately) 70 days before easter, hence the term septuagesima.

we of course begin the post-epiphany season reading about jesus' baptism in the jordan by john the forerunner, and "immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness." (mark 1:12) for the past three years i have been in the wilderness, driven by the spirit to seek answers to questions that keep me awake long into the night.

the first reading for matins of septuagesima is the beginning of the book of joshua. joshua (jesus in greek) leads israel through the jordan so they can begin the struggle for the promised land. i am grateful that although i fall short of our lord, who came to understand his mission in forty days, that by his grace it has not taken me longer than forty years.

the gospel for septuagesima is jesus' story of how "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard." he hired other laborers also throughout the day. "and when they came that were hired about the eleventh hours, they received every man a penny."

thanks be to god for this good news. there is still a bit of time for me to work. the good man of the house says, "i will give unto this last . . . ." (matthew 20:1ff)i can still pray with psalm 39 "lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days."

but there is more in this day's wonderful propers: psalm 40, with its claim, "i waited patiently for the lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my calling"--not that i have always been so patient as i should be. but in some ways the best is the encouragement from the blessed apostle: ". . . run, that ye may obtain. and every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

"i therefore so run, not so uncertainly . . . " (i corinthians 9:24ff).

6 february: st. titus

2009-02-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

st. titus was the first bishop of crete, and the letter to him from st. paul is an important document in understanding how very early the ministry of the church assumed the form it has today.

that letter is not very popular among many in the church today, however. i don't want to think it is the reason that the american episcopal church, for instance, downgraded titus from having a day of his own to merging him with timothy on 26 january. the letter is important enough (i mean, it is part of the new testament) but challenging enough to the way we often do things today, to be worth a read.

23 january: phillips brooks

2009-01-23T09:51:00.001-08:00

i sit sipping coffee before sunrise. the stars are all washed away by he dawn's spreading light. it must be full sunrise in the stratosphere. down here in the holler, i still need a candle.

it is the commemoration of phillips brooks. it's hard to get excited about phillips brooks, stuck as he is in this week of dramatic martyrs like agnes and fabian and vincent of sarragosa, all of whom died heroically in times of great tribulation.

brooks died in fashionable boston comfort, after 22 years as the rector of trinity parish and 15 months as the bishop of massachusetts. yet, as david l. veal writes, "he preached sound christian doctrine to listeners who ostensibly had no interest in such." he is therefore, i think, a much more helpful saint for most of us today , especially those of us who try to live lives based on sound christian doctrine in a world that clearly has very little interest in such. he is one of the candles most of us need.

(he also wrote the christmas carol, "o little town of bethlehem".)

prayers for the president

2009-01-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

before today's commotion surrounding who would pray for the president, there have been prayers, both for the person and for the office.

the first american book of common prayer included this prayer:

"O LORD, our heavenly Father, the high and mighty Ruler of the universe, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee, with thy favour to behold and bless thy servant THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and all others in authority; and so replenish them with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that they may always incline to thy will, and walk in thy way. Endue them plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant them in health and prosperity long to live; and finally, after this life, to attain everlasting joy and felicity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

it is a revision of the english prayer for the monarch, but it was moved to its position in morning prayer rather than in the communion service because george washington liked to hear it, but almost always left christchurch, alexandria, before the litany and communion.

later was added this prayer, which is less concerned with the occupant of the office as with the functioning of the office:

"O LORD our Governor, whose glory is in all the world; We commend this nation to thy merciful care, that being guided by thy Providence, we may dwell secure in thy peace. Grant to THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and to all in Authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do thy will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness; and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in thy fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen."

either or both seem appropriate prayers to remember and use, however we feel about the occupant of the office of the president or whom he asks for prayers.

the chair of peter and the week of prayer for christian unity

2009-01-19T10:08:00.001-08:00

18 january, the feast of the chair of st. peter, called by protestants the confession of st. peter, has for more than 100 years now been the beginning of a week of prayer for christian unity. (the week ends on 25 january, the feast of the conversion of st. paul.) the week has sometimes been more attended, sometime less.

the differences between the parts of the church seeking union is illustrated in the way the feast that starts it is considered. from the roman catholic side unity seems possible by accepting the authority of peter's successors (even though his chair is actually from his documented time as bishop at antioch, rather than rome). from the protestant side unity seems possible by accepting the confession that "jesus is messiah" with an amazing variety of what is meant by that in the thousands of splinters of protestantism.

but there has been a unity within the church which i lament, and which seems often to prevent her recognizing the real unity which is her gift from her founder. it is fascinating to note that the story of peter's confession is set in caesarea philippi, a town which, celebrating both the greek and roman empires' rule in "the land," was a sort of twin towers of its day, with greek culture and roman politics. by recognizing the lordship of christ jesus, both of these towers were destroyed.

but both the roman catholic and protestant followers of jesus have tended to rebuild the towers (think babylon here if you haven't already). the roman catholic church quickly became a very worldly political power, and the first thing almost all of the protestants did, with a very few wonderful exceptions, was to try to force the government to accept their "confessions."

the church has often been united in wanting the kingdom of christ jesus to be the successor to the roman empire. no wonder jesus again and again told his disciples not to mention that he was the messiah. he knew we would get it wrong, again and again.

this is a prayer from the anglican tradition which seems appropriate for the week:

O GOD, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace; Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly, union and concord: that as there is but one Body and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

14 january a.d. 2009

2009-01-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

the moon waning in the pine tops demands i rise to witness the splendour of its slow slivering. spring is approaching: the pines' winddance is clearly visible now at 6:30, against the sky's pre-dawn day-glow grey, tempting me to join them for lauds. "o come," they choir, "let us sing unto the lord; let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation."

they know i will come. i pour my coffee back into the pot on the warmer, to regain heat after the chill of the night-cooled mug, roll a cigarette for the morning incense offering, and vest in scarf and poncho and warm wool socks.

i envy the pines' perfect reedom, serving as they do the lord of the dance while rooted in one perfect, holy place. they each hold rings of knowledge of this hillside beyond anything for which i hope.

and yet, i try to console myself, and yet i in my warm cell am also surrounded by leaves, the leaves of writings of a great cloud of witnesses. indeed most of them have come from the great red barn of witnesses called hillspeak on grindstone mountain just to the south, a few miles beyond my laundry room.

and yet i know also why i buffer myself with that cloud. the pines dance sky-clad in the mighty wind; i sit shrouded in wool and coffee. with awe i watch the pine boughs dance, rejoice to see the great silver-winged vultures give themselves yet another day to the wind. but i also shudder a bit, trepid as i chant the words "today, if ye will, hear his voice . . . ." i know that even the towering loblollies will join their brethren who have danced themselves into windfall. three of them lie behind me, their tops pointing towards grindstone mountain, their roots still clinging to great clumps of the rocky soil from which they towered.

above us all the vultures gyre in the growing light, their silver wings flashing gold and bronze as they catch the day springing from on high.

the sunday after the epiphany: the baptism of our lord

2009-01-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

"in the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succour but of thee, o lord, who for our sins is justly displeased?"

i sit on the edge of the valley
brimful with brown bare ruined choirs
winter cold winter dead.

the ground below packed skeletons
of dead creatures of the deep.
on the first day the spirit of the lord brooded
over them.
this first day they are shrouded with oak mould,
jordan's waters a memory ancient and legendary.
yet here begins the gospel of jesus
christ the son of god:
jesus comes to the jordan to be baptized.

"we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out."

i have brought bits of potatoes thinking
to feed the birds,
but winter's wind has frozen them hard as
the limestone.
therefore sit i only,
and watch.

"he shall feed his flock like a shepherd."

in the midst of this death there is
yet life:
flickers and cardinals and nuthatches
have found a table prepared.
they fly through the deep of
light on this first day.

"grant to us who are still in our pilgrimate, and who walk as yet by faith, that having served thee with constancy on earth, we may be joined hereafter with thy blessed saints in glory everlasting."

(quotes are from the burial office of the book of common prayer 1928).

7 january a.d. 2009

2009-01-08T12:21:00.000-08:00

epiphany evening, after evening prayer with frankincense, and before dipping into the kings' cake, crowned with golden rings of pineapple and marischino rubies, a friend asked what we wanted for the new year.

the answers were mostly easily obtainable, ranging from "just to get by," to "a passionate new lovelife." but i have been feeling quite hopeful about my desire: i want psalm 72 to be filled as full as the stoneware jugs at the wedding in cana:

Give the King your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the King's son;

That he may rule your people righteously
and the poor with justice.

That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people,
and the little hills bring righteousness.

He shall defend the needy among the people;
he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.

He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure,
from one generation to another.

He shall come down like rain upon the mown field,
like showers that water the earth.

In his time shall the righteous flourish;
there shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.

He shall rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

His foes shall bow down before him,
and his enemies lick the dust.

1The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall pay tribute,
and the kings of Arabia and Saba offer gifts.

All kings shall bow down before him,
and all the nations do him service.

For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress,
and the oppressed who has no helper.

He shall have pity on the lowly and poor;
he shall preserve the lives of the needy.

He shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence,
and dear shall their blood be in his sight.

Long may he live! and may there be given to him gold from Arabia;
may prayer be made for him always, and may they bless him all the day long.

May there be abundance of grain on the earth, growing thick even on the hilltops;
may its fruit flourish like Lebanon, and its grain like grass upon the earth.

May his Name remain for ever and be established as long as the sun endures;
may all the nations bless themselves in him and call him blessed.

Blessed be the Lord GOD, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous deeds!

And blessed be his glorious Name for ever!
and may all the earth be filled with his glory.
Amen. Amen.

the feast of the epiphany

2009-01-06T11:33:00.001-08:00

epiphany is a triple mystery: christ accepts his bride the church as water becomes wine at cana, christ washes away our sin in the jordan, and kings come to the brightness of his dawning. but it is the coming of the kings which has prevailed as the image in the western church, and which has resulted in one of my favourite comments on the day, this poem by t. s. eliot:

Journey of the Magi

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death. (from ariel poems--1928)

feast of stephen

2008-12-26T17:04:00.000-08:00

in the readings for the feast is this wonderfully quaint sentence from the wisdom of solomon: "for the bewitching of naughtiness doth obscure things that are honest; and the wandering of concupiscence doth undermine the simple mind." (4:12)

ain't it the truth? and does not every minion of the deceiver know this very well, but don't we in our assumed sophistication ignore it?

i have been pondering the past few days how the mysterious and perfect celebration of the nativity of our lord sink so low as the american christmas. ah! naughtiness is bewitching, and we listen to "christmas music," which is full of the wandering of concupiscence. and we simply find it shiny and bright. santa claus comes to town on an interstate highway paved with the obscurity of the true light which enlightens all human beings.

therefore i rejoice that the church celebrates this feast for twelve beautiful days, giving us time to get over the vulgar greediness of the shopping days, so that the dawn from on high can indeed lead us in the paths of peace.

In the Bleak Mid Winter - Lichfield Cathedral Choir 1995

2008-12-24T16:29:00.001-08:00

this christmas eve i am in santa fe, new mexico, with snow on snow, so this carol from my patron, chad's, cathedral seems nearly a perfect christmas card to all of you.

an advent question: what is true christianity.2

2008-12-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

i still feel i have fallen far short of giving a good answer to my friend's question, and although i could probably go on and on without making much more sense than i have, i want to come to a conclusion. i had thought of including a part describing some "real christians," of whom i think there are very many, but who never show up on cnn news. and, i had thought of discussing some of the worst aspects of american religion, such as inflatable santa clauses in front of "christian churches." but i think none of these things are as helpful as looking at the question from an entirely different direction.

instead of considering "real christianity" from the viewpoint of real christians, i want to look at it from the real revelation of god the father in jesus christ his son. real christianity accepts this revelation as true, and builds on it. from that viewpoint, all christianity is about recognizing who the person of jesus, the christ, is. it means that no matter how well we respond to that revelation, if we recognize that god was in christ reconciling the world to himself, then we are on the path of true christianity. the work of real christians then becomes opening ourselves to this revelation. the work of the church then becomes making this reconciliation known to the whole world.

an advent question: what is true christianity?

2008-12-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

a friend asked me the question, and i mostly blew it off, with my usual joke about having pencils made with john 17:3 printed on them. you know that verse, don't you? it's the punch line, as it were, to that sentence from john's gospel that is printed on pick-up trucks and radiator shops and pencils given to grade school children. there are "christian tee shirts" that say just "3:16."

but i find that in most even large groups of self-professing christians, asking them to quote john 17:3 evokes blank looks. but then so does the question, "what is eternal life?" here's jesus' definition as recorded in the gospel according to john, spoken in a prayer: "this is eternal life: to know thee who art truly god, and jesus christ whom thou hast sent."

of course, this is not true christianity. it is the goal of true christianity, the treasure hidden in the field of true christianity.

and of course this definition of true christianity leaves much of what calls itself "christianity" or "church" far short of the truth. "imposters will come claiming to be messiahs or prophets, and they will produce great signs and wonders to misleed even god's chosen, i such a thing were possible." (matt. 24:24) "not everyone who calls me 'lord, lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my heavenly father. . . . many will say to me, 'lord, lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out devils in your name, and in our name perform many miracles?' then," says jesus, "i will tell them to their face, 'i never knew you: out of my sight, you and your wicked ways.'"

that anyone might be excluded from the kingdom of heaven is one of the few anathmas of the modern psychosis. but if christianity means following jesus christ, then true christianity means truly following him, despite our contemporary prophets such as oprah winfrey or joel olsteen or john spong, even if they are recognized by broadcasting networks and american "churches." "narrow is the way."

to be a true christian, as has been recognized by great saints since the first century (matt. 19:27-30), one must take the call of jesus seriously. "if anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; day after day he must take up his cross, and come with me." (luke 9:23) there is more: "there is still one thing lacking: sell everything you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; and come, follow me." (luke 18:22)

need one say more? much more certainly has been said, and written. how does one sort through all the verbage that someone claims is christian? one simple way of course is not to bother. the desert fathers, who took the following of jesus very seriously, prayed the psalms and the gospels, and that was enough. francis of assissi heard the gospel from the 18th chapter of luke and did it. the pilgrim in the russian classic, the way of the pilgrim, read the gospel and the writings of the desert fathers and their succesors, most of whom lived in mountain fastnesses.

but for many of us, much of the time, it seems, we follow all sorts of paths that lead almost anywhere except to the cross. then we are surprised to find that our lives are not full of joy or peace. we do not recognize the wisdom of this prayer from the leonine sacramentary:

"almighty god, whose most dear son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and
peace; through jesus christ our lord. amen."

the season of advent is not really about making ready for christmas. it is an annual reminder for us to make ready for the coming of the holy one, in our lives and in final judgement. the english book of common prayer is wise to suggest this prayer for daily use during the season of advent:

"almighty god, give us grace to cast away the works of
darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of
this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to visit
us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come
again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the
dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives
and reigns with you and the holy spirit, one god, now and
for ever. amen."

this is also the season when we spend much time with psalm 85, which includes the wonderful lines,

"mercy and truth are met together:
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
truth shall flourish out of the earth:
and righteousness hath looked down from heaven."

true christianity recognizes that we are not alone, that the same jesus whose seemingly outrageous commands also says to us, ". . . be assured, i am with you always, to the end of time," (matt. 28:20) true christianity is the source of the "joy to the world" in which "heaven and nature sing." why should we settle for anything less?

advent friday in kansas city

2008-12-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

accustomed as i am to the towns and cities of the pacific northwest, kansas city took me a bit by surprise: i had to walk blocks and blocks to find a starbucks. but find one i did, and sipped a grande christmas blend while muzak played "chestnuts roasting on a open fire." at the next table a japanese free-lance marketeer (mostly wireless networks, i guess) was networking with an indian marketeer, who used to work for "fairy dust." in the new economy (read post-meltdown) no one is hiring, so free-lancing sub-contractors have to hustle.

it's a strange new world. in topeka the police and their dogs inspected the luggage on our bus. they took off and questioned a seemingly exceptionally nice grandfather based on the smell of one of his checked bags. the man who had spent the entire trip talking to condoleesa rice and robert macnamara about the vice president's need to leave the earth on december 15th, left the bus when we arrived in kansas city. a concerned fellow rider had asked him whether he would like to go to the hospital."robert" told "oboy" that he should get off the bus, because the man was definitely a secret agent. although he (they) had a ticket to new york, he left with his powder blue blanket and pillow, quietly talking so the other people on the bus would not hear where they were going. a woman, nearly totally hidden in a black leather coat with a fur-lined hood, had fled in terror into the laramy cold. her ticket had been to michigan, but she felt hot.

so, in this culture of make believe in have pretended to eremeticism, but i am eating ginger bread rather than fasting. i can cast out no demons. here in the starbucks of the kansas city financial district i am surrounded by people who in their worship of the economy are much more devout than i.

lo, he comes with clouds descending

2008-11-29T12:06:00.001-08:00

the first sunday of advent is often celebrated with that wonderful charles wesley hymn, lo, he comes with clouds descending. many times when we see rainbows, we remember the promise to noah. but how often when we see clouds do we see them as a reminder of the coming again of our lord? living in the pacific northwest as i have done much of the past eight years, i am constantly surrounded with signs of his eminent return. mara na tha. even so, come, lord jesus, come.

hilda, whitby, and the beloved disciple

2008-11-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

the past month, the readings in celtic daily prayer have been about "the house that john built"--the celtic form of church that saw itself as the work of followers of the beloved disciple, john, who listened to the heartbeat of the holy one. at the council of whitby, overseen by hilda the abbess in the late seventh century, the church of peter imposed its order upon the church of john. the "house that john built" went underground, as it were, surviving in all sorts of practices that we today sometimes call "celtic christianity."

there are many today who are trying to recover such a gentle, less imposing form of the church. celtic daily prayer concludes the series of readings with these encouraging words:

"so,is there a house that john built--today? is it being built again? if so, it will be through leaning as beloved john did on the breast of jesus, through hearing his heart-cry and uniting our hearts with his. it will not be through the establishing of some radical alternative structure that breeds schism or becomes another fast-decaying denomination awaiting fossilization. it may be through living in a way that is recognizably different, as hild and cuthbert and the others did, working in and alongside the structures presented to them--with simplicity and fervour. if the structures fall, so be it--whatever is of lasting value will endure.

"as columba said to his community when he was dying:

'see that you be at peace among yourselves,
my children, and love one another.
follow the example of good men of old,
and god will comfort you and help yo
both in this world
and in the world which is to come.'

"and this was the peace that columba found:

"the peace of christ." (p.794)

on the other hand

2008-11-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

what was i saying about the
glories of orthodoxy?

perhaps when peter wanted to build three little shrines on mount tabor, jesus knew what such a tourist attraction could lead to. i suppose clothes don't necessarily make the man.

hoist by my own petard

2008-11-09T01:21:00.000-08:00

a few weeks ago, in my ongoing search for the church, i decided that the correct criteria were probably found in the story of john's disciples who came to jesus just before john was beheaded:

"when john heard in prison what the messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ jesus answered them, ‘go and tell john what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. and blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.'" (matthew 11:2-6)

i confess i'm having a lot of trouble finding such a church. oh, i hear plenty of mouthing about "healing of relationships," and "metaphorical blindness," and i find cheese sandwiches and instant coffee brought to the poor, but almost everyone i meet is offended by jesus and what he says. more often than not the sermons i have heard these past months, when the new revised common lectionary months has featured the difficult parables from matthew's version of the gospel, have begun with asking something like "are you offended?" and then continued to say why we should be offended, because these stories aren't about "the real world."

so, into this search dropped a slightly worn copy of the mountain of silence by kyriacos markides. the church, the ekklesia that markides finds on cyprus as he chauffeurs and questions the gerontos maximos is a kingdom of god in which the events of the gospels and acts that so embarass us modern merely rational folk are commonplace. indeed, "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. and blessed is anyone who takes no offence at [jesus]."

so, i am ready to give up on all the western divisions of the church and to singularly embrace orthodoxy. the problem is that the orthodox church in this country is as fragmented as protestantism. there is a greek orthodox church just a few blocks from my house. the liturgy is in greek, and my hair is not black enough to let me pass for the right ethnicity. the wall between greek and jew may be broken down in that church, but the wall between greek and welsh is still standing.

markides is satisfied, as a sociologist at least, with a concept of the church as a mystical body, not identified with any visible part of the institutional church. i am not. but i may have to live with it.

meanwhile, i am faced with the fact of how feeble my search for the holy one really is.

on being a priest today

2008-11-07T05:25:00.000-08:00

it is five o'clock in the morning, raining. usually i would be praying psalms at this hour, but i am going to get on my bicycle in about 45 minutes and ride to a friend's house to share psalmody this autumn friday as the dayspring from on high visits us.

last night i finished reading nora gallagher's amazingly honest and painful book practicing resurrection, in which she describes her life while she was "discerning" her call to the priesthood in the episcopal church, three years during which she spent a lot of time flying back and forth between california and new mexico to visit her dying brother, and a lot of time driving back and forth between santa barbara and los angeles, and into the hills behind santa barbara, to discern and be discerned. as the book closes she has been discerned by the church to be fit for priesting, but she remains in what she calls the in between, no longer "just laity," but not quite a priest. she has not gone to seminary.

two nights ago i spent some time with a friend, ryan welch, who introduces himself as an "independent poet and thinker." he said that there are not many things he knows, but he does know that he is a poet: "i go to sleep a poet; i wake up a poet." now, ryan is not the most usual sort of person. he spends his days walking around the town, doing a little volunteer work, drinking coffee, thinking of his poems. he has no job, and he acutely feels that most of the people he meets consider him of doubtful socially redeeming value.

i'm a lot like ryan, although i consider myself profoundnly dependent: a profoundly dependent priest and thinker. (i try to rebel in my gentle way against the thinker part, but the monkey mind is always full.) i go to sleep a priest; i wake up a priest. during my days, i walk or bicycle around town, do a little volunteer work, drink coffee, and think about the book of genesis and pray for the folks i meet. i have no job, and feel acutely that many of the people who know me think better of me than they should. i am of very doubtful socially redeeming value.

gallagher, bless her heart as she drives hundreds of southern california miles musing about her home parish's concerns for cutting-edge environmental issues, does a wonderful job of expressing the confusion so common in the church today about laity and ordination. priests are the ones who get to wear "those beautiful robes" and stand behind the altar. the laity are those to whom those "privileges" are denied. she feels that to don the robes would be an abandonment of the laity.

i spend little time "behind the altar," and almost of none of it vested in those beautiful robes. so, what do i do that's priestly? the model of priestly activity is seen in the eucharist, when the priest takes the offerings of the people--offerings which unfortunately are often not really noticed except as the money, and that's often whisked away rather than placed on the holy table--thanks the holy one for them, remembering the actions of christ's incarnation as the model for the sanctification of all our lives, and then gives them back to the people. (i would add that a priest never stops being laity, a member of the people of god, a status given in baptism; the priest's job is a particular part of the work of the people--the liturgy).

in gallagher's book she experiencees priestliness in a situation that surprises her. at a book store, she receives help from a clerk. she is profoundly thankful for the help, acknowledging it with gestures and attention, giving back to the clerk their time together with a recognition of the holiness that is our true nature. this is the job of a priest. taking what the world has, giving thanks for it, giving it back with the acknowledgement that the holy one is making all things new.

this is how forgiveness works. things, actions, persons who have become tarnished by sin are made new by giving them to the holy one and receiving them back. there is nothing too tarnished, too distorted by sin, that the holy one cannot redeem them. the priest is empowered, ordained, set apart, to proclaim that that redemption, that forgiveness. it takes the whole people of god to make eucharist. each member has a role. all of the people bring something--most importantly, ourselves, our souls and bodiiwa. the priest leads us all in thanksgiving and gives it back, forgiven..

so, i wake up a priest, looking for what the world is offering today, giving thanks for it, and giving it back forgiven. as i finish writing this little post it's nine o'clock at night, and time for me to think over the day and give thanks for it again.

now of course the whole people of god, the whole body of christ, are a priestly people, a royal priesthood. so i invite you to join me this night and each night in giving thanks. you might consider this thanksgiving, written by an english priest during a time of great turmoil, as a start:

almighty god, father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
we bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our lord jesus christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
and, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through jesus christ our lord,
to whom, with you and the holy spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages. amen.

it seems to be a helpful way of looking at the parts of the day that we might have chosen to avoid as becoming part of "all the blessings of this life" as we give them to the holy one in thanksgiving.

all saints

2008-10-31T14:35:00.001-07:00

especially in modern america, where religious holidays have been reduced to consumerism for children, it is easy to lose track of the close connection between all saints day and pentecost. but the connection is real, and important. in the eastern church all saints day is the sunday after pentecost; in the west it is six months from pentecost, the other pole of the axis of the holy spirit at work in the church.

at pentecost we celebrate the first coming of the holy spirit; at all saints we celebrate the continuing coming of the holy spirit into the lives of all believers.

so, how might we celebrate this most wonderful feast? i suggest we might take some clues from the instructions our lord gave the first very small group of believers: wait and pray. so tonight i some friends and i are going to gather together and wait, praying with the saints who have gone before, waiting for the spirit which opens our eyes to see the great cloud of witnesses which surround us.

who are we, this small group of friends in one room and the great cloud of witnesses which john in the revelation reading for the feast says is "a great multitude no one could count?" perhaps we would well to see how they are described in the psalm for the feast:

"i will alway give thanks unto the lord
his praise shall ever be in my mouth.
my soul shall make her boast in the lord
the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
o praise the lord with me
and let us magnify his name together.
I sought the lord, and he heard me
yea, he delivered me out of all my fear.
they had an eye unto him, and were lightened
and their faces were not ashamed.
lo, the poor crieth, and the lord heareth him
yea, and saveth him out of all his troubles.
the angel of the lord tarrieth round about them that fear him
and delivereth them.
o taste, and see, how gracious the lord is
blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
o fear the lord, ye that are his saints
for they that fear him lack nothing.
the lions do lack, and suffer hunger
but they who seek the lord shall want no manner of thing that is good.
come, ye children, and hearken unto me
i will teach you the fear of the lord.
what man is he that lusteth to live
and would fain see good days?
keep thy tongue from evil
and thy lips, that they speak no guile.
eschew evil, and do good
seek peace, and ensue it.
the eyes of the lord are over the righteous
and his ears are open unto their prayers.
the countenance of the lord is against them that do evil
to root out the remembrance of them from the earth.
the righteous cry, and the lord heareth them
and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
the lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart
and will save such as be of an humble spirit.
great are the troubles of the righteous
but the lord delivereth him out of all.
he keepeth all his bones
so that not one of them is broken.
but misfortune shall slay the ungodly
and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
the lord delivereth the souls of his servants
and all they that put their trust in him shall not be destitute. (psalm 34, coverdale translation)

a flagrant emdorsement of the psalter

2008-10-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

from dallas willard's the divine conspiracy: "if your bury yourself in psalms, you emerge knowing god and understanding life." (p. 65)

parochialism re-invented

2008-10-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

i had the honour to be present last evening at the "kick-off event" for a new "church plant," which in this case took the plant metaphor seriously, with an image of a banyon tree: northwest community church.

although much of their theology i might consider far from orthodox, mainly in terms of their intense concentration on the second person of the trinity, a concentration which seems shared by much current american protestantism, there is a part of their understanding of what it means to be church that is i think very important and very orthodox and which more of the church could learn from them with benefit.

northwest community church wants to be a church in and for and with the community. the church poured out, to put words in their mouth, or in the mouth of the pastor, for the life of the world. once upon a time, before the church saw herself as so splintered, the church in constantinopole or rome or alexandria or salisbury organized herself into parishes, and saw the care of the souls within each parish as her pastoral duty. we might call this the good old days. and it seems that northwest community church is calling us again to good days. let us pray they will succeed "beyond what we can hope for or imagine."

on the reading of books: a flagrant advertisement for the daily office

2008-10-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

i suspect that you know several people who are "short for time," who have trouble finding enough hours in a day to do all the things they want to do. perhaps you are one of those people. i have friends in that category, and i am always a bit saddened to find that they are reading books about the problems of the world but do not find time for the daily office. you know the sorts of books they're reading: jared diamond's works, or naomi klein's; the books of people who have a firm grasp of the obvious, and who have the footnotes to prove it.

my plea, my flagrant advertisement for the daily office, is that one would do much better to read books that have a firm grasp of the sometimes-not-so-obvious, but who have the testimony of the church to prove it: the books of scripture which we are encouraged to read in the daily office.

those of us who follow the two-year cycle of readings that is recommended by most of the church in north america are just finishing up micah. this is a quote from this morning's reading:

"he hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
the Lords voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.
are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?
shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?
for the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
therefore also will i make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.
thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.
thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.
for the statutes of omri are kept, and all the works of the house of ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that i should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people. (amos 6:8-16)

not only does it, as northrup frye says prophets always do, describe what is always true, but it starts rather than ends with the prescription for correction of the problem. since of the making of books there is no end, why not start by reading the best? books aren't read for 2600 years because they're of merely historical interest.

the mystery of faith and the election

2008-10-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

each sunday in the liturgy, "we proclaim the mystery of faith: christ has died, christ is risen, christ will come again." this "proclamation" is not i suspect something we think very much about, although it certainly merits consideration.

i have been asking "self-professing, practicing christian " friends this question the past few days: "what is the best-case scenario you see for the next five years. i keep hoping someone will answer in terms of the mystery of faith, or in terms of what we all pray each day when we say, "your kingdom come." but i have been considerably disappointed that so far the answers have all been in terms of who is hoped to win the next u. s. presidential election and why that wouldn't be so bad as it would be if the other candidate won.

so i wonder which we have lost, the mystery or the faith? or both?