Ember Day Letter Three

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Mark Twain.

Dear Bishop ---l,
Greetings in the name of the baby Jesus - whose mother would have been in the ‘just get it out’ phase of her pregnancy on this date. I must admit that I experience this particular place in life more than just in pregnancy. Sometimes and from some perspectives, usually called the long view, everything is unfolding nicely and at a pace I can actually assimilate and grow with. Other perspectives are not so easy. My husband’s perspective in particular is very frustrated and impatient right now. Although we knew even as we made the decision to attend
seminary, particularly at the time in the life of the institution and my own process, that this separation at the end was both possible and likely, he struggles with being part of the migrant labor class.

Although this is increasingly common in the current economy, the knowledge doesn’t make reality any easier. He particularly asked me to convey to you, the sense of betrayal he feels that the Vocation’s Conference will be 6 months later than it was planned at the time we made these decisions. I don’t know that we would have made different decisions, but there is a sense of the broken contract for him, and frustration that the most indeterminate phase of my process for our family has been extended by what might be another year. I suppose it
says something about my own relationship with the institution that after an initial sense of dismay, I was unsurprised. The shifting sand is moving throughout far more than one diocesan discernment process.
The profound moment of change that the whole world is experiencing began before I was born and will still be sorting itself out after I have met my reward. I wonder about institutions, about tradition. What is the nature of
change in them? I think about wheels. Perhaps the wheel is fine, perhaps the material it is made of is what needs to change. Wood, to rubber, to steel radials, we are still using wheels and we are still fitting them to the ruts in the road left there by Roman chariots. I wonder if our institutions and traditions will really look as
different as we imagine they will when we re-enter a period of cultural stability. What I think will change is what they sound like, what story will they tell, when they have re-interpreted the tradition into the new culture.
As with most things, I tend to enter this story telling through the lens of power and authority. I was intrigued and excited by the feedback the Commission to End Racism received from the December 3 training. Several people reflected on power and authority and how/where they are utilized in diverse leadership. Our commission
meeting was very well attended last Wednesday, with many new faces excited to take up the work, to realize the vision of a Gospel world. There were so many of us that our usual 2 hours was not enough time to contain it. I think I am never so happy as when I am able, in some way, to help the Spirit catch fire and I find myself inspired out of a job. I see this happen over and over, although I have to admit, Chicken Little is still my patron saint. I always have that moment, that day, that month, where I am sure that God has left the building and it is all on me. When I imagine the ocean of God’s patience, it is in this context. God calls us to do our part, and our part is to be the place where joy overcomes fear. So many of us seem to run around gathering up fear, as though it were perhaps finite, and if we hoard it there will be less to go around. Hmm, I hope someday to live into even a fraction of the wisdom I surprise myself with when I am still and let God be God.

Which leads me, naturally I suppose, to self care and how I am living into God’s promise. Because I feel so called to moments of profound transition, I am paying particular attention to how I am experiencing this transition. I know, for example, that I am prone to fall into a depression at times of transition if I do not attend to the grieving that needs to occur at times of loss. And that for all transitions are moments of opportunity, they are also by definition times of loss. So, far, I have not found myself in any extended funk from this transition, and this is a fantastic expression of the metanoia that God brings to my life. It has also brought into focus some of the ways the Protestant work ethic finds expression in my life, because I find myself frustrated with how much time it takes to take care of myself, and I find a thread of guilt that I am privileged to have that abundance of time. It is ironic to me that I feel this way about my own life, when one of the biggest gifts to ministry I bring is the living of the maxim, “things are going to take the time they take and that we have all the time we need.” I am trying to learn the gifts of starting and stopping times, but not through my own will, and I am grateful if sometimes disgruntled by the people helping me learn this gift. I must say one of the very best things about non-American ministries and friendships is that they allow me to live in a different sense of time that flows more naturally with my own inner clock. (And everyone talks about Americans and their busy sense of time.) Speaking of clocks, my external clock tells me that it is time to close this letter. And so I leave you with a blessing that was given to me this year and that I share as often as I can. It is a quote from Barbara Brown Taylor, told to me by David Schlafer. “God says to us, ‘Belong to me, be what you want.’” When we remember to whom we belong, so much of the rest falls into peace.
Blessings of the Incarnate God,heather lee
December 15, 2011John Horden, Bishop and Missionary in Canada,
provisional in HWHM

Reply
Dear Heather:

I do thank you for your Ember Day letter. While on the long side it is
well written and expresses a good deal of where you are and what you are
experiencing at time point in your process. I do thank you for your
honesty and the time and attention you put into the letter.

I do realize that there are challenges in every institution and that
power and authority can at times be oppressive, or at least seem so. I
myself had an additional year in seminary simply because my bishop
thought I was too young to be ordained! Quite a challenging year for us
living on campus after my middler year and not going to classes and then
watching my original classmates graduate and get ordained a year ahead
of me! I suspect there is something of this story in your story. In my
case patience did pay off and while I as still not convinced my bishop
was right, there were good lessons learned in that year of working
outside the church.

I do sympathize with you and with your husband as you wait longer than
expected for the conference and for all the challenges that are in the
way of the goal you have.

If my memory serves me well I believe you have completed seminary and
that you have some work to do related to your GOE scores. I heard you
when you said that you did not want to retake the exams and so I will be
talking to the examining chaplains of the diocese about how to proceed
in your situation. As a general rule I have asked the examining
chaplains to retest those who received a score of one in a particular
area. I do not have your results at my fingertips right now but I do
believe you had a number of ones on your exam. For those areas in which
a person received a score of 2 the examining chaplain is asked to read
the exam answer and then determine what work, if any, is needed in that
area. Scores of 3 or higher are considered to have passed and no further
work in those areas is needed.

You and I should talk about your exams and make a decision about how and
when to go about whatever work is required. The challenge is that you
have not been approved by the COM, thus making retesting at this time a
bit premature; however waiting also does not seem like a great idea. I
would like to hear your thoughts about this issue.

My prayers and Blessings to you in the Holy Season,
---

Reply
Dear Bishop ---,

In response to your inquiry, I have been thinking about GOE's, in no
small measure because I have several friends taking the exam this
week, but also because my hard drive crashed this week, before I
migrated my data to my new machine. And I apparently failed to back up
my last semester, which would include my GOE exams and results. While
this isn't entirely surprising, I was busy graduating and moving at
the time I would have done my backup and I assumed later that it was
backed up, it is frustrating and I am wondering if I should just
concede the point and plan to take them next year, after I meet with
the COM and know if the work is even necessary.

When I was perhaps 20, I collected sarcastic and ironic lapel pins,
including one that says, "great, another ***ing growth opportunity."
God has pushed, pulled and otherwise accompanied me through so many
metanoia moments since I took off my shoes in the holy place (a la
Moses) that perhaps we will be on top of this iteration of my social
anxiety disorder by then as well.

In other news, I have had a wonderful three weeks of my husband home
which has done a world of good for our sense of family and we should
be able to proceed from here better grounded in the reality of living
in two states.

Thank you for your attention to my particularities and I expect I will
see you soon since the Commission to End Racism is planning to occupy
the library at The Close again in order to prepare for the second
training.

Blessings,
heather lee

Reply
I do have access, I think, to your GOE tests so all is not lost in the
hard drive crash! I also think I have a document on which I noted what
each of the three of you taking the exams did on each of the questions.

I believe the lapel pin would have read "AFGE". I am well acquainted
with that saying as parish ministry is full of them. My reading of
scripture suggest that God never quits pulling and pushing us, and also
that God is Ok often with our making a variety of responses to God's
call. As long as we are faithful to God's call to serve the world in
which we live.

I am glad you have had time to be better grounded in your family life. I
was not aware that you and your husband were not in the same state at
this point. Can you help remind me of your situation?

I do hope to see you soon, if the meeting of the committee is next week,
I will be away for most of it in LA.

Blessings,
--

Reply
Bishop ---,
I suppose the short answer is that there are no jobs for my husband in
Portland, complicated by the reality that there is unlikely to be a
job for me in Portland regardless of the outcome with the COM.
Since my husband is at a point where his career is about to step up to
management, and his vocation is becoming obsolete (sys admins are
going the way of dinosaurs) it didn't seem prudent to step down in
order to get a job in Portland, especially when my own prospects are
so amorphous at this time. And since what interests me most about
parish ministry is the least likely to even cover my loan payments, it
seems best to not lose the one income we do have.
When we made the decision, it was at least a year apart but more
difficult, a year of not knowing how to make plans at all, so when we
discovered that the COM was moving the conference out another 6
months, it just added even more time to the unknowing.
And, just to complicate matters, it isn't just the GOE's that will
need to be remediated, I will still need to do my CPE unit. I was
intending to find a position for the summer but there aren't any in
Portland at all anymore. This complication came about because of my
children, (now 14 and 11). I just didn't have the resources to see
that they were taken care of for a summer program while I was in
seminary and the solution I had hoped for isn't available anymore.

That seems to be the bulk of my discerning difficulties. My call is
still strong, if anything it seems to have a settled feeling in my
heart contrary to the rest of my reality, if that makes any sense.  My
discernment committee at --- is meeting monthly and I think
those meetings are going well. I check in with --- regularly and
she is an absolute rock for my anxious moments. --- has agreed to
help me with my spiritual autobiography, since the last one I wrote is
pre-seminary and I've been pretty deep in the growth opportunities the
last few years. And i am grateful for them, even if I am not feeling
particularly grateful for my student loan payments, but that time and
that education is already absolutely worth it.

And here I have sent you an entirely new ember day letter. Have a good
trip to LA, bring back some warmth, we have plenty of sunshine
somehow.

Blessings,
heather lee

December 12, 2011

I am still trying to figure out how this exchange was hostile, her exact word. And the meeting never did happened. And when this exchange took place, I had no idea the the various members of the committee were supposed to be meeting with me.

1. Hey Heather,

I don't know if you have any time for coffee this week.  I wondered if you are available this Thurs, 12/15, at 11:00 AM or after 2:00 on Thursday.  Let me know if there is a time that could work.

Hope you are well and surviving the thriving in this advent season.

Take care,

---

2. ---,

I could probably get together briefly, really briefly at 11 am on
Thursday, but this week is pretty busy. Just out of curiosity, I
thought --- was my go-to person? Or is this about something else?

heather

3. Heather,

You are right about --- being your go to person.  I thought it may be useful
to have coffee and chat, but we could meet in January as well.  Let's not do
this week and look to the other side of Christmas.

See you Sunday.

4. Ok, I'm not complaining, I was just wondering. This week is pretty
swampy, though. See you Sunday.

Proposed schedule for Discernment Committee

We never had all these meetings. And this is all the information I got about them. And there was this whole other part where the committee members were supposed to have lunch with me and conduct further conversations., that I never had, and only learned about from one of the members the Sunday before the meeting where we canceled the rest of the meetings. Received November 20, 2011.

Proposed schedule for Discernment Committee

Proposed Topics

6 Proposed Areas of Focus:  have 5 – 6 questions within each area for the 45 minute discussion time:

Pastoral

Word

Sacrament

“Tough Topics of Being a Priest”

Interpersonal skills

Entrepreneurial skills

11/20/11:  Focus:  Pastoral

3:00 – 3:15   Committee meets

3:15 – 4:00   Committee meets with Heather Lee

4:00 – 4:15   Committee debriefs

4:15 – 5:00 Committee meets with Matt Addis

5:00 – 5:15 Committee debriefs

Feedback to aspirants:  Identified liasons

12/18/11:  Focus:  Word

3:00 – 3:15   Committee meets

3:15 – 4:00   Committee meets with Heather Lee

4:00 – 4:15   Committee debriefs

4:15 – 5:00 Committee meets with Matt Addis

5:00 – 5:15 Committee debriefs

Feedback to aspirants:  Identified liasons

01/15/11:  Focus:  Sacraments

3:00 – 3:15   Committee meets

3:15 – 4:00   Committee meets with Heather Lee

4:00 – 4:15   Committee debriefs

4:15 – 5:00 Committee meets with Matt Addis

5:00 – 5:15 Committee debriefs

Feedback to aspirants:  Identified liasons

Committee will schedule a time for discussion and reflection over dinner to assess how the process is going and clarify and revise aspects of the process where deemed useful and necessary.

02/19/11:   Focus:  Interpersonal Skills:

3:00 – 3:15   Committee meets

3:15 – 4:00   Committee meets with Heather Lee

4:00 – 4:15   Committee debriefs

4:15 – 5:00 Committee meets with Matt Addis

5:00 – 5:15 Committee debriefs

Feedback to aspirants:  Identified liasons

03/18/11:   Focus:  “Tough Topics” of being a priest

3:00 – 3:15   Committee meets

3:15 – 4:00   Committee meets with Heather Lee

4:00 – 4:15   Committee debriefs

4:15 – 5:00 Committee meets with Matt Addis

5:00 – 5:15 Committee debriefs

Feedback to aspirants:  Identified liasons

04/15/11:   Focus:  Entrepreneurial skills

3:00 – 3:15   Committee meets

3:15 – 4:00   Committee meets with Heather Lee

4:00 – 4:15   Committee debriefs

4:15 – 5:00 Committee meets with Matt Addis

5:00 – 5:15 Committee debriefs

Feedback to aspirants:  Identified liasons

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1093

(another reflection for Peace Mass)

Deuteronomy 15:7–11 

Psalm 112:1-9

 2 John 1–9 

 Luke 4:16–22a 

The gospel for this day cuts off in mid-irony. You wouldn’t necessarily know this unless you were already familiar with this pericope (to use a fancy academic term, which just means section). As it stands, Jesus makes a bold statement and the people are amazed. Just the reaction we expect, just the reaction we wish we would have in the presence of the Messiah. But if you read just a little further, we hear the rationalization of the people. First there was amazement, then they reasoned it away. Jesus finally leaves town, muttering how prophets don’t get any respect in their home town.

This reading seems particularly applicable to Margaret. As the English bride of a Scottish king (a bit before the nation-state idea develops, but the animosity is in full flower already), she is remembered as a beloved saint to the Scottish people. Why would the Scots fondly remember an Englishwoman who wanted peace between the kingdoms? I think this might be for two reasons - one, she wasn’t speaking prophetically in her home town, so to speak. Two, she didn’t actually effect much lasting change. It was a sadness to her that she was unable end the hostilities between the Scots and English. Margaret dreamed of peace for these countries like the peace she had made in her own heart. Through Margaret, the Scots were able to love the dream of peace without doing the hard work themselves. As an outsider, Margaret didn’t challenge the self identity of the Scots in her dream of peace. 

I wonder if this is what Jesus is talking about? It’s hard to see the miracle right in front of you. When someone just like you does something, says something, miraculous, it is hard to take it seriously because then you might have to be miraculous, too.  I wonder, too, if it’s easier to believe in miracles that happen outside our own context, if it’s easier to control how seriously we take them, if it means not having to change except on our own terms. 

What are you afraid of?

Proper 28 - 

Zephaniah 1:7,12-18

Psalm 90:1-8(9-11), 12

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

I hate scheduling dental appointments. Sometimes, I skip prayer before bed and fall asleep with an episode of Star Trek Voyager instead.  I have been known to cheat on my budget by using my credit cards. 

What is it about knowing what we ought to do, then not actually doing it? Do you have some things that you know you ought to do, things that are even good for you, like exercising and eating more salad greens, that you just can’t seem to actually do?

 Sometimes, we know what we ought to do, but we don’t the resources or the energy to do it. Often, however, it’s not a matter of resources at all; it’s a matter of perception. Why is that? Why is it so hard to overcome perception so we can do those things we do have the resources and energy to do? Every one of those things I mentioned is something that I would actually benefit from. So, why am I so afraid to do the right thing? Because sometimes, the fear of the possibility of failure is greater than the consequences of failure itself. Let me say that again - The fear of the mere possibility of failure is greater than the actual consequences of failure. And I’m only talking about salad greens. 

Still, did any of you hear this mornings readings in this fearful way? Did you hear Zephaniah talking about days of wrath and the Psalmist talking about being consumed by wrath and Paul with his sudden destruction and Matthew’s weeping and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness? I admit, that was what stood out for me when I first looked at these lessons. Stuff like this makes it really hard to trust God - makes it really hard not to worry too much about failure - makes it hard to trust that actual failure isn’t as scary as the possibility of failure. 

All that doom and fear does makes the servant with one talent from today’s gospel a lot more sympathetic. Believing his master to be “a harsh man, reaping where he did not sow and gathering where he did not scatter seed” he took his talent and hid it in the ground, rather than use it. For this servant, the fear of the possibility of failure was greater than anything else he could imagine. 

I think that the difference between this slave, with his one talent, and the other slaves with their two or five talents is an imagined scarcity. One doesn’t sound like a lot. One doesn’t sound very abundant. But I think that depends on what you have one of. 

The parable talks about talents. It is a trans-literation rather than a translation of the Greek word talanta. But where English uses the word talent to mean those things we have natural aptitude for and can enhance with skill and training, talanta is a monetary term for about 15 years worth of income for a day laborer. Life expectancy being what it was, this was the equivalent of a lifetimes worth of skill and talent and money. 

Think about that for a minute, a lifetime of labor. 

Jesus is using money as a metaphor in this parable but he’s talking about faithfulness. That one talent is no small thing.  We receive this parable at the very end of his earthly ministry, at is a time when he is investing heavily in the faithful relationships he has built with his disciples. If the in-breaking kingdom of God that his life and ministry have begun is going to continue, it is going to be in the context of human lifetimes, in the context of human faithfulness.

A lifetime of faith. It’s all we can do sometimes to take things one day at a time, but what might those days be if we considered our faith, our labor, in the wonder of a whole lifetime? And in this parable, some are given as many as 5 talents. What might that even look like?

I think it looks like us. It looks like liturgy. Within the context of our faith, we are handed from generation to generation, lifetimes worth of faith. Not just our own lifetime and it’s potential, but the work of the whole communion of saints. It’s in the Lord’s Prayer that we have directly from Jesus, it’s in the Creeds that connect us to the clarifying moments of the fourth century, it’s in the sacraments of baptism and eucharist, where inward grace is made explicit for the whole community. 

Does it change the size of your faith to know that it is composed of the investment of lifetimes of faithfulness? It changes mine. 

The lessons today were full of this trust and faithfulness. Zephaniah says we are consecrated guests of the Lord. The psalmist says God has been our dwelling place since before the earth was even formed. Paul says that we belong to the day, so awake or asleep we live in Christ. Two servants in this parable have entered into joy. 

So why is, then, that when I listen to Scripture, I hear so loudly the fear of the saints who have gone before? This because I have stopped listening to God and to Scripture in faithfulness and start listening in fearfulness. Sometimes it seems easier to hear the bad things that could happen than to hear the trust in the good things that do happen. 

If we believe that all there is to God is a master who demands much and offers little, who doesn’t have room for failure, then it’s not surprising if we don’t notice these parts. If we believe that we have only one talent, and don’t believe that talent is worth a whole lifetime of faithfulness, then it’s not surprising we are afraid to grow that faith.

But, I wonder, what might we be missing, because we are afraid of the possibility of failure, afraid of letting God down?

Because our lives matter. And because there are consequences to how we nurture and maintain the kingdom of God, there is a lot of fearful talk in the Scriptures. As so many parables remind us - the harvest is not complete, the kingdom is now and not yet, the first fruits have been resurrected but not the last.

The full abundance of our faith is not the work of ourselves in isolation. It is the heritage of the whole communion of saints. It is the faithfulness of those who have come before to enrich us, and it is our legacy to enrich those who come after. Our children and grandchildren, our neighbors and friends, people on the other side of the globe and people on the other side of the century. 

In truth, none of us who have even a mustard seed of faith have only one talent of faith. We have this abundant cornucopia of faith. And even if it were one talent, a lifetime is so much bigger than we can even imagine. 

I look around this space, at all of you, and I see this abundant faith. The results of New Consecration Sunday reinforced for all of us that we have abundant faith, abundant grace. Our one lives are bursting with the abundant talents that we bring, that we receive, that we share. Listen to the faithfulness and know that it matters.

Henry Martyn

Henry Martyn, Priest and Missionary to India, 1812

Isaiah 49:1-6

Psalm 56:8-12

Romans 1:8-15

John 4:22-26

Did you know that there were Christians in India before the British came in the 1700’s? When the British arrived, they discovered a Christian community in Malabar who are said to have been founded by the apostle Thomas. 

Henry Martyn is known as a founder of of the modern church in India. I would probably quibble with this, but Henry did establish parishes and schools in India, as well as translate the Book of Common Prayer into Hindi. He even learned Persian so he could translate the New Testament into that language and was studying Arabic when he died. 

What came to mind in studying about Henry, and in looking at the Gospel reading, is that the Spirit is the foundation. Last week at Peace Mass we had a great conversation about evangelism, in particular about how the Spirit acts before we arrive on the scene, and about evangelism as accompanying people on their journey towards God. 

In that sense, the work we do is second string, it’s the organizing and connective tissue of the work the Spirit has already begun. It’s the companionship along the way. The gospel today is the final exchange between the Samaritan woman at the well and Jesus. She tells Jesus about the Messiah that she is waiting for, and Jesus says, “I am he, the one you is speaking to you.” 

I wonder how our idea of evangelism changes when we consider even Jesus had the Spirit out in front? Does it become more possible or probable? How many people and places in our lives are already infused with Spirit, just waiting for us to provide the connective community. 

St Philip, Deacon and Evangelist

St. Philip, Deacon and Evangelist

Isaiah 53:7-11

Psalm 6

Matthew 28:18-20

Did you know that Steve Jobs used to speak of his sales associates as evangelists? I know when I have taken my MacBook in for service, or purchased a new iPod, I have encountered people with great enthusiasm and passion. I, too, am quite clear about the ways that my quality of life, and the life span of my electronics, has improved since I switched to Apple. 

Why is it so easy to talk to my friends and people in the check out line about Apple Computers but so hard to talk about Jesus and the church?  For me, it has to do with things unseen. While it is perfectly acceptable to talk about productivity with anyone in this culture, Jesus generally makes me less commercially viable. Because the fruits of the Spirit, which have a lot to do with being present to the here and now, stand in opposition to doing more, being more, making more, selling more. So, while there is certainly going to be enthusiasm and passion for the Gospel, what it means to evangelize the Good News is going to happen in a different way.  

Philip, named as a deacon and evangelist, is perhaps best known for being the evangelist to the Ethiopian eunuch. Holy Women, Holy Men says that on the way to Gaza, “he encountered an Ethiopian eunuch, a servant of the Ethiopian queen, reading the Isaiah text on the Suffering Servant. They traveled together, and in the course of their journey the Ethiopian was converted and baptized by Philip.”

The first thing I notice is that the Ethiopian was already struggling with the scriptures. From this, I take evangelism to be something that the Spirit is already doing in the lives of people. It’s less about us selling the Gospel, and more about noticing where it is already working. The second thing I notice is that they traveled together, which takes time. Having someone who will walk with you as you struggle, that is good news. That is the Good News. Matthew 28:20 says to “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” That’s hard to promise in a check out line. 

What ways and in what places are you walking with someone who is struggling? How do you notice God in those places? What fruits of the Spirit seem to accompany you? 

St Francis

(there are two reflections on St Francis here, one is for me and one is for Peace Mass, but I thought I would stash them together.)

St. Francis of Assisi

Jeremiah 22:13-16

Psalm 148:7-14

Matthew 11:25-30

St. Francis day was actually yesterday. So I am a day late, a dollar short as they say. Yet, I still have too many dollars to be a companion of St. Francis. In truth I have spent the last month with St. Francis, using one of those ‘spend a month with a saint’ guided meditations. I have started a new budget during this new time in the life of my family, and am helping with the stewardship campaign at church. And since I was feeling a bit poor to begin with, I thought Francis might be just the guy to help me with my perspective.  

It turns out, I was wrong about that. You see, Francis had something that I can admire, especially from afar. He walked the walk. Every day. And by choice, not by necessity. He was embracing a path to God, making a free choice of this, every day. Francis wasn’t just trying to feel better about his poverty; he wasn’t poor. 

Francis knew that joy was the key to poverty. The key to the kingdom as it were. And Francis spread joy so far and so wide and so infectiously, that he founded a whole monastic order, spun off a women’s auxiliary group and inspired Pope Gregory IX, a former patron, to build a great basilica to his honor. And all of these things caused Francis no end of grief. I expect that for whole swaths of time, his joy had a ‘fake it till you make it’ quality. 

 Holy Women, Holy Men has assigned Matthew 11:29-30 to Francis. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I can never read this passage without thinking, this is some piece of used car salesman truth. And I wonder if Francis struggled with it as well; when people wanted to walk the path with him in over engineered high tops and carrying an extra coat for when the wind picked up. I wonder if our fascination with Francis is that he keep choosing poverty, long after we would have said, that’s a good show, but what about health care? Vision and dental? 

I don’t think that I will ever approach Francis’ commitment to follow Christ, and I expect that I will miss out on some of the joy that he knew in companionship with God. But I will miss out on those extreme highs and lows that he experienced as well. I think I can be ok with that. Because there are joys that I have been given, and they require me to make choices every day, opportunities to turn towards, rather than away, from God every day. Like Francis, I am being asked to bring myself before God, exactly who I am, and so are you. 

(second)

St. Francis of Assisi

Jeremiah 22:13-16

Psalm 148:7-14

Matthew 11:25-30

My daughter is named Francis, with the ‘i’ not the ‘e.’ I didn’t name her for a saint, I didn’t go to church then and I wasn’t raised in a church that acknowledges saints. But now that we do, she often received tokens from loved ones about St. Francis. We have several books about him and his life. Invariably, these books start with his boisterousness and generosity, then tell of his conversion in the road, coming face to face with a leper. They tell of his parents shame and embarrassment at the life of poverty that Francis chose after that fateful meeting. 

We probably know quite a lot about Francis in our family, thanks to all these wonderful gifts. But I wonder what everyone else knows about Francis. Why does he wear that brown robe? Why is he surrounded by all those birds? What’s the story with that wolf?What was it really like to choose poverty? 

The key, I think, to understanding Francis was his infectious joy. He did absurd things because he was blown away by the wonder of all creation. And for Francis, the way he chose to come close to God, and let God come close to him, was to embrace poverty. Many people were drawn to that joy and voluntarily joined Francis in his poverty, his generosity, his joy. 

The gospel for today comes from Matthew and ends with these words, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (11:29-30). I wonder what it means to voluntarily embrace poverty? I wonder how these words might be an enticement or a comfort in that choice?

September 30, 2011

I am so sorry to take so long to get back to you. I hope that you will infer that I am both busy and thoughtful. Probably, the equation errs towards busy, but I have been using your inquiry to ponder what I have been up to, and how God is working in my life.

We are back in Portland and back at ---. I have a discernment committee that begins meeting the Sunday after next and we will meet for several months until the next COM. I have spoken with everyone on my committee and they seem to be both honored and excited to journey with me as I discern what God is calling me to next. My understanding of my call to work sacramentally with congregations remains clear to me, but exactly how that call sets itself out is more open to pondering than it was before school, if only because I know a lot more about the ways we come together in communities. That’s fancy for, I’m thinking about interim work as the work I am called to do, rather than the available work between longer calls. 

The transition back to Portland has been somewhat challenging. My children have first claim on my attention these days because they have had to wait so often while I was in school. They believed me when I said, after I get done with school I will pay you more attention than you want. I haven’t been able to do that yet, but they are both in middle school right now, and middle school is hard, hard work, both academically and socially. They go wherever I go these days, which might not have been true at this age if our family had a different experience up to this point, but there are certainly worse relationships I can imagine with my children than their desire to have me around all the time as they go through the difficult transitions of new school, new home, old friends who have changed as much as they have. We have the added challenge that Shannon is still working in California 3 weeks of the month and is home with us 1 1/2 weeks. 

I am slowly falling back into the swing of life within the context of a parish rather than a school. I feel quite blessed that I have no doubts that my call to ministry is not within academia. My friends in school who loved the parish but were really drawn to the rhythm and flow of school as well had a more interesting time of discernment in school as they wondered if they should look into school chaplaincy or, for some, the academic context. I continue to breathe the rhythms of parish life, where most of the work of the church is work out in the complexity of the world. In particular, I have taken over the Liturgy of the Word for a Wednesday evening Eucharist. If you like, I can send you the weekly reflections I do in preparation, we have a discussion so it isn’t actually a sermon, from Holy Women, Holy Men. They are quite short but they often better reflect how I am thinking about God these days than update letters. I am also serving on the altar on Sundays and on the stewardship committee. I am thinking about starting a small group for theological reflection, but that will be Portland wide, not just at ---. But that is still in deep thinking about phase. 

I continue to pray and my interest in reading is coming back to me. Some days I am antsy like the squirrels my dog loves to chase, trying to settle in for the winter. Other days, I rejoice in lounging on the couch for 3 hours reading a novel that has no pretense to redeeming values at all. I am blessed. 

Margery Kempe

(my wednesday morning was too busy and I forgot to post this before I headed out for the day. Peace Mass was wonderful this evening, and we had some good discussion about Margery.)

September 28, 2011

Feast of Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, and Margery Kempe

Job 26: 1-14

Psalm 63:1-8

Matthew 5:43-48

I’ve never been quite sure what to do with mystics or monastics. I have such a ‘let’s go build something together’ (thanks Lowe’s) attitude about my faith that I am unsure what to do with people who want to go off by themselves. It seems anathema to what Christianity is about. Mystics fare no better with me. Either I am sure that they are getting some special communication from God that I am not or I blow them off with the sure and steady knowledge that they are to be pitied as sufferers of something out of the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. 

This attitude has been shifting in the last year. I have spent some time exploring my unmediated relationship with God. Not God and me and a soup kitchen, or God and me and an academic assignment, not God and me and my children, but God and me and me. The first thing I got was a dark night of the soul. I interpreted this as an absence of God, then I decided it was an absence in me. Eventually, I heard the noises that I make to fill the spaces of my silence. Some of them were quite unpleasant. Until finally I found the place that gets called “still small voice.” And I discovered that there is almost no point in trying to write this down. It is truly a place beyond words and the words don’t make any sense at all until after the experience. Of course, having been to that borderland, as William Countryman calls it, I am searching out and spending time with all the mystics I can find in order to find some words that resonate with my time there.

So, I am pleased to have discovered Margery Kempe today. This is a woman I can relate to. A woman who didn’t lock herself into a monastic community or a room off of a church. This is a woman who had to negotiate a husband and children and social strictures with that still small voice. This, and if you know me you will laugh, is a woman who was “gifted with tears.” This is a woman who just kept doing what she was called to do no matter how awkward that looked to the rest of the world. I would call her a first class fool for Jesus. 

And the question Margery helps me answer is this. How can mysticism or monasticism counter the tendency to “do something” FOR the kingdom of God rather than “be someone” IN the kingdom of God? I think that perhaps, whenever we belong to God while we are doing nothing at all, we are well on our way to living in the mystery. 

St. Matthew the Evangelist

(for Peace Mass, Wednesday September 21, 2011)

Psalm 119:33-40

Proverb 3:1-6

2 Timothy 3:14-17

Matthew 9:9-13

In that particular way that tradition builds up around things until we don’t know the truth from the facts anymore, we really can’t be sure that the St. Matthew associated with the Gospel of Matthew is the same Matthew that is the tax collector in the gospel reading. Whether or not this is the same person, we do know that the tax collector did answer the call to “follow me” by getting up and going.

And we know that it wasn’t the done thing to hang out with tax collectors. Or fishermen, really, if one were intent on being an up and coming in the religious institutions of the day. But these are some of the people we know Jesus was hanging out with. And we know what they were talking about, too. Money. Jesus spent most of his ministry talking about economics and I imagine that with tax men and fishermen and women, there were some really interesting conversations.

I suspect that for some, those conversations weren’t the done thing, either. In some circles, they still aren’t. We often have a hard time talking about our deepest values and money. We really don’t want to look at our debit card statements and see, in black and white, what our deepest values really are. Because where we spend our time and where we spend our money are the showing forth of our respect and care for our incarnation and all of creation.

There are a lot of opportunities in the next few months to think about how we spend our time and money as a reflection of our deepest values. The stewardship campaign is coming up soon here at St. David’s (stay tuned for Celebration Sunday) and the holiday season, with it’s overeating and over shopping are coming along as well. For myself, I have the debt servicing of my student loans coming up to take a big dent out of what I now consider “my money.”

What are some of the ways you spend money that reflect your deepest values? What are some of the ways you don’t? Who do you have those conversations with? Do you have them at all?