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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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.