Pilgrimage

This is not a sermon. I am just processing my trip to New York. And wondering how this is going to evolve into a paper on the church's response to trauma.

I did not intend to go on pilgrimage over spring break. I went to a prophetic preaching conference and gave myself an extra day in New York City to visit a friend and play tourist, since I had flown all the way out there. So, with my free day, I did what any liturgy nerd Christian would do – I found a weekday Eucharist. The only one I knew of was Trinity Church, and I like the magazine they publish, so I went.

Now, I am a liturgy nerd, but I am not a church architecture nerd. I live in a context, and was raised in a context, where the building is primarily a roof over head, and the walls are for keeping in the heat. It ought to be attractive, but not distracting. You might describe my personal favorite worship spaces as Danish Modern meets American Mid-Century. So, if you have been to Trinity Wall Street, a very old church by American standards, it was pretty mind boggling (and a little distracting) with all the carvings and stained glass and pillars. And don’t forget the stalls, which are like pews, but also like for horses.

What I did not expect, probably could not expect from my own context, were the crowds of non-participating spectators during the Eucharist. Truth to tell, my preferred worship spaces aren’t much for post card pictures, but even so, even before I was a practicing adult Christian, I would have felt a little weird watching people ‘do church.’ Sort of like cooking or going to the bathroom; some parts are not part of public life. I felt like a cultural artifact, and I am never going to be able to watch a documentary in the same way again. But I also got a glimpse of what I imagine a large catechumenate would have felt like. Since the table was offered as an open table, and I have no actual idea if the people standing along the back of the church did or would have come up to the front steps for communion, I don’t know if anyone broke through their watching and participated.


What is the quality of longing? How does it develop? Are we afraid of it because of our instant gratification society, or did your societal response to longing create this instant gratification life style?

I spoke with the priest after the service. Fr. Simons is the one who put the word pilgrimage into my head. Then he sent me down the street to St. Paul’s chapel to see what was going on down there. So I went walking down the street. I was thinking about Canterbury Tales and Taize and the catechumenate. I was wondering if people who worship in the cathedrals in Europe or Buddhist monasteries experience the weird feeling of being a cultural artifact, too.

Then I happened on the chapel, larger than most of the churches I have worshipped in. I went up the steps reluctantly, there were dozens of people milling around the property and doorways. Chapel, to my mind, says quiet, and there is nothing quiet about this place. On the front porch is a display and when I walk over to it, expecting a capital campaign or a history of the building.

It is a timeline for the year after 9/11.

I was not a practicing Christian on September 11, 2001. I was a recent college grad considering library school. I was living in a 5 floor (mostly) walk up with two small children. I remember shuffling out of the bedroom to ask my husband to turn down his movie. I remember when the airplanes were all grounded and the fighter jets were the only thing in the air, circling over my downtown apartment. Ten years later, I am still jumpy when I hear unexpected airplanes. I remember being completely ok with combing through every nook and cranny of Afganistan in order to find Osama Bin Laden. I rarely think of his name anymore.

I certainly did not know anything about St. Paul’s Chapel. I didn’t know that the Twin Towers were ‘out back’ and I did not know churches had anything to do with the cleanup and recovery, let alone acting as forward command. I did not know that we had a national shrine.

What is the nature of longing? What does it mean to offer healing and redemption to people who might not even believe in God, or that think the belief in God is why this happened?

I left St. Paul’s and walked along the back of the property to Ground Zero. I say the Freedom Tower being built and it looked no different to me, evoked nothing different to me that the usual feelings of industrious American building. On the ground, it didn’t look any different than the construction of a skyscraper in downtown San Francisco.

I walked on.
I took the subway to Penn Station.

Considering the time that I had after my visit to Ground Zero, considering my flight time, considering my promise to bring tourist swag to my now pre-teen children, considering my son asked me to ask for the 600th floor of the Empire State Building, that’s where I decided to go. I forgot to ask for a ride to Mt. Olympus.

Before going in, I decided to sit down for some lunch, read a book, and give my mind a rest from pilgrimage. It is tiresome work, especially making meaning and identity out of collective trauma.

I decided to splurge on the Sky Ride, an interactive video of New York from a helicopter, and narrated by Kevin Bacon. I was trying to have a silly tourist experience, and I unwittingly made another stop on pilgrimage. We were ushered into a dark circular room, lined with video screens, where we were given a narration of New Yorkers as survivors of tragedy, of people as brave and proud and resilient as the Greatest Generation, the people who rallied after Pearl Harbor. Firefighters and Police officers were lifted up as brave heroes. We were told that the Twin Towers would be in the video, we were warned of the emotional response they would bring.

I thought, that is sort of tacky –it’s been 10 years, they could edit the video.

The video had been edited. The towers were not in the full video, but there at the end, we heard the story of the Empire State building as the big brother, standing in their honor. We saw the twin lights shining into the night, then the towers.

I was brought again to longing. What is the function of longing in our lives? How does longing relate to mourning?

After the ride, I went to the elevator banks and went to the observation deck. I tried to find my hotel, but it wasn’t tall enough. I braved the wind and went to the front, to see the downtown skyline.

There was a guide, talking to some of my fellow pilgrims, about he skyline and where the towers would have been. Where the Freedom Tower is coming up. It was identifiable by the crane on top – as all new buildings have – and I remember thinking that building should always have a crane on top, so we will always have that visual symbol of building and re-building America. I remembered something a friend of mine from Sudan once said to me about America. Americans never leave buildings to decay in place, we always tear out the old and clean it up, and build something new. Something better.

I didn’t think about skylines until I was on the airplane that night, watching re-runs of TV. The show I was watching was so old, the Twin Towers are in the opening credits. And I realized that the New York skyline isn’t my skyline, not like San Francisco. Not like Portland or LA. This was my first trip to New York.

I wonder how it is that skylines are a symbol. How can one skyline become the symbol of collective trauma? Skylines change all the time. America is always changing. American is always replacing itself with something better.

There was nothing about this airplane ride that activated any traumatic consciousness for me. I fly often. The airport security did not make me feel safe – just annoyed as usual. My Persian cab driver is more a New Yorker than I will ever be. I spent some time wondering how to pronounce his name properly but mostly I slept. It never occurred to me to wonder about terrorists the entire time I was in New York.

As I flew across America, this was only my second trip to the East Coast, I was reminded again how big this country is. It is too big. We are too far apart, we speak too many dialects, we have too many recipes for Buffalo Wings. We are so scattered and so diverse, we can barely share a collective trauma.

How do we go on? How do we cross-pollinate with ourselves? How do we pilgrimage? How do we lift up the very idea of pilgrimage? How to support it? Do we even want to?

Ember Day Letter - Negative 1

4/1/11

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who forgives all our sins.

Including, one hopes, a delinquent seminarian, unsure if she should be writing an ember day letter at all.

I have, in fact, spoken with Mother Sara+ about the appropriateness of writing to you, cognizant that we have made a decision to move through a period of parish discernment this summer and fall but knowing as well that in sponsoring the General Ordination Exams for me, you have invited me into relationship around the discernment of my vocational call. So, if this letter is unwelcome, I do indeed apologize, and if it is not, I welcome the chance to begin what I pray will be a fruitful relationship between us.

I am quite grateful to be in my final semester of seminary. The formation of Christian vocation, encompassing but not exclusive to the vocation of ordained ministry, is a passion that developed in my return to the Christian life and has flowered profitably in my work with the Commission to End Racism. Residential seminary has given me a great deal to think about and I fully expect the next several years to be an intense period of integration - at least as intense as the last several years of disintegration. 

The General Ordination Exams, as part of that overall formation experience have been fruitful as well. I have spoken with Alice Speers on the telephone about my results from the GOE's, and I believe she has some understanding of myself and the gifts and challenges I bring with me into ministry, and the ways in which the pedagogy of the GOE's don't show forth my best advantages. I am willing to do what remediation is required to fulfill this requirement and have already requested my seminary transcripts be sent to Canon Neysa+. As I told Alice, I have the papers and tests from my time here at seminary and am willing to send them along as well. I am also able to take a stab at those tests again. Janet Roth, one of my anamcara, let me know after the fact that this process might have been accommodated for my anxiety disorder, however I did not know that before I took the exam. It is a new place in my life to identify and learn to adapt my strategies so that this anxiety is not a god in my life, setting limits on the ways I am willing to let God use my life to good purpose. I leave the consideration of remediation in the capable hands of the Commission on Ministry, focusing my attention and discernment to the work in front of me.

My family is well. As expected, we are not thriving in all areas; my husband's commuting and the transition of my children from childhood to adolescence were places we knew would be challenging. I think that we are all looking forward to a time when my work/home boundaries are not bleeding into each other in this particular way. I finished college while my children were toddlers and the quantity and quality of attention they require now is something I did not anticipate in my considerations. I thought about how capable they are with their physical needs but pre-teens have a wholly different emotional and social need than toddlers. There is frustration and cross communication, but I suspect that we and the faith of our family will rebound from this experience. One frustration I am looking forward to alleviating is one that I purposefully caused for my own educational needs and it will be wonderful for us to find a church home together again. 

My own faith life, throughout discernment and seminary has been a liminal experience. I feel quite called to something I describe as Saturday ministry, that moment in the transformation process that we reside in when we await the promised third day of resurrection, but cannot imagine it. What did the disciples do on Saturday? I think they went to seminary. I know this one did. I have spent considerable attention while in seminary to exploring authority, how it originates and perpetuates in the church as well as in my own life. I think I may be able to frame my seminary experience as a relationship with authority, beginning in confusion, trailing for a year in grief and mourning, and now finding it's voice in ways that existed before, but are newly clarified. As a listener of the null lesson, the lesson we do not intend to teach, as a voice for the marginalized and the dissenting opinion that does not feel free to speak up. As a change agent, an adaptive leader, who is brave enough and loved enough by God to say the unpopular or impolitic or unimaginable and willing to hold the safe place for others to speak their voice as well. This knowing was recently clarified for me from a conference leader at the Beatitudes Society Preaching Workshop I attended this past weekend. And I hear, also, as I write, the book on adaptive leadership that I am reading for my capstone class. In December, I had an idea that I had gathered enough sunshine to begin integrating, and many of my days do in fact feel like watching time lapsed photography of tulips - peeping up from the soil and unfolding leaves and flowers. 

And so I will close, with that image that tickles my mind (and is playing out on my neighbors patio) and pray also that your time in Kanuga with the House of Bishops was Spirit filled with the springtime of integration. I pray you find yourself refreshed and invigorated in your own leadership as our bishop and as your own person, on a journey through this life with God and Spirit and Son as your constant companions.

A fellow servant in Christ,
heather lee

Senior Sermon

This is the showcase sermon. It should be up on the CDSP website for at least a little while, but as of yet, I don't know how to access it.


Sometimes, there are no words. Sometimes, there is nothing to say. Sometimes, we need to just sit down, be still and know that there is God.
Yet, this seems to be impossible for the average human. When something catastrophic happens, we engage in a cacophony of words – who, what, why, when, where, become vitally important. The answers don’t have to be helpful, sometimes they don’t even have to be true, but we need to hear them all the same.
For it seems the less we know, the less control we feel, the more we need to fill the world with our presence, with our words. Now, lest you think I am advocating for pure silence, this constant checking in does two very important things for us –
First, it tells us that we exist.
Second, it tells us that someone else is witness to our existence. Humans don’t work very well without other humans and perhaps this is especially true in crisis. We do not like to feel alone.
Not only do we direct this feedback loop to other humans, we humans direct it to God as well. Because when we aren’t sure of ourselves, of our own existence or place in existence, we get very concerned that God might be confused as well. We need to make sure that God remembers us – hears us – finds us. Our prayers get louder and longer and more public. They build into forms, and we name them. Litany, Lamentation, Thanksgivings and Prayers of the People. We call to God, over and over again. We get so busy calling out our existence, that we forget the second part, we forget to listen for the response.
It is because of this forgetfulness that Jesus gently rebukes us in today’s Gospel.
Do not heap up empty phrases.
Your many words will not get you heard.
It turns out more is not better. Because God knows what we need before we even ask.


This can be incredibly hard to believe, because no one else seems to know what we need before we even ask. Chances are your teachers and students don’t know what you need. Your parents and partners don’t know. Employees and employers don’t. Your children don’t. Your friends don’t.
You know it’s ok that I can’t read your mind. And, I know you can’t read mine. As humans, we have invented all sorts of ways to communicate with each other, to acknowledge each other’s existence, to help fulfill each other’s needs.
It is not just with each other that we use these tools. We translate these communication strategies to our prayer lives as well. So, not only do our prayers get complicated, how we deliver them does too. We pray in church, we pray in houses, we pray in cars and classrooms and shopping malls and on beaches, trains and airplanes. We use song, dance, beads, bells and candles. We use bracelets and poetry and labyrinths.


The ways in which we make ourselves known to God, and do so visibly to other humans, is probably infinite. And I suspect that most of the time, we get that all important second step, that acknowledgement, from the humans who witness our prayers.
This is where we must ask ourselves,
are we praying so others can see us, affirm us,
or are we seeking that response from God?
If the answer is God, then you can save your empty phrases for your resume. You can save your heaps of words for your children. God does not need them. God already knows what you need, even before you do.
If you pray a litany or a lamentation or a thanksgiving or a prayers of the people, remember what it is for. Remember whom it is for. More often than not, we pray these prayers for ourselves. We pray these prayers for the first part. We pray these prayers to know that we exist.
But do not forget the second part.
When looking for a response from God, less is more. When we seek confirmation that God is aware of our existence, our prayer posture needs to be one of listening.
And a prayer for listening is the prayer that Jesus gives us. Listen.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours. Now, and forever. Amen.
It’s all there. The work, the reason, the plea, the good and bad and ugly that we bring before God, it all fits in here. And it is just enough. So that the rest of our prayer can be the second part, the listening to God, who knows what we need before we ask. Who answers our plea for recognition even before we finish the Amen.
As you pray the rest of this service, this day, this season, pray for the second part. Pray you hear the answering acknowledgement of your existence, in love, in peace, in joy and even in your sorrow. There will be time for action. There is much to do. But first, there is time to pray. Pray for the second part.

March 1, 2011

Musings on the GOE's from an email


The further I unfold into who God desires me to be, the more I know that desire is not to be an academic. I speak the truth of broken things, and I hold up the mirror gently, if persistently, so we can see those things broken in ourselves, our community, our society. And I speak of God's love for broken things, and the yearnings of reconciling and peace. I speak of the joy, thanksgiving and salvation that comes from letting go of fear. And I speak the truth that all of God's creation participates in this, and that in our baptism, we seek to live our lives especially and intentionally as beacons of God's reconciliation and peace. 

But I don't speak any of that in particularly fast or academic or theoretical ways. And I speak almost nothing in 3 hours. (I've nearly spent three hours responding to this email as it is.) 

My scores were all 1's and 2's. I haven't gone back and read what I specifically wrote down. I meet with my spiritual director on Friday, and I have committed myself to re-reading my papers before I go. But I stand by what I remember writing, or intended to write, some historical and factual inaccuracies aside. And the experience of thinking through the questions was God filled, even if reading the results wasn't. 

All that said, I recognize that I have failed the shibboleth. And I have no idea what, if anything, that means. I am not even sure that I want to pass it, for all that it implies the priesthood supplies the church with independent and external experts. I think I can imagine a time or place where that model would be beneficial (when people took ships to England to acquire an education, and all the resources they may ever have at their disposal were the SPCK books in their trunk). But I don't understand the world to work that way anymore, and I don't understand our ecclesiology to ask that of us, lay or ordained.

Epiphany 7, YrA, RCL

I don't think this makes much sense as a sermon, but it is the notes I put in my pocket for a sermon that, like the rest of the family service at St. John's, requires full participation from everyone in order to make happen. There is something beyond satisfying to share the scriptures with people who have not already made up their minds about what it says and how they feel about it, and who want to have a conversation.

What are Rules?
ordering for life
how to live
best practices
Example – Rules for crossing the street
under 10?
10-20?
over 20?
Rules get more nuanced as we get older. We can make more decisions based on our experience once we have some experience, but when we don’t have a lot of experience, we have something like this service – we help each other with what comes next.

God has rules for us too.
Jesus – 2 rules (love God, love our neighbors as ourselves)
Moses-10 rules (love God, no false idols, honor mother and father, don’t covet what our neighbors has, etc)
Leviticus – book in the Hebrew Testament, the Older Books in the bible. It is full of rules, and like the crossing the street rules that we make for kids under 10, they can seem excessive or so particular that we can’t see how they actual relate to either Moses’ rules or Jesus’ rules. The section from Leviticus that is in our lectionary today is about lies and stealing.


“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.”

I admit, I am not a farmer, so really, to explain don’t lie or steal in this way doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. So, there’s more…

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD.
“You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
“You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.
“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18

God gives something that my mom didn’t when she gave me all those specific rules about crossing the street – God tells us why.

“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

We are holy. Just like God is holy. Like Jane says in Godly Play about holy people. They come close to God and God comes close to them. Holy is what we are because we are God’s people. We don’t ever have to wonder about that. God does love us. And in some sense, we have God right inside us, just like the whole world has something of God in it. But, we aren’t God, and we don’t always know what the right thing to do is. So, just like our 9am service, we tell each other what comes next, and we help each other do the things God asks so that we can act in holy ways, as God made us. Sometimes, we need really really specific directions, like Leviticus, and sometimes we can carry a shorthand list, and sometimes, when we get some experience, we can just carry around Jesus’ two rules, and we are able to be holy and act holy more often than not. But until then, it is good that we have each other and we have the rules, the best practices of holy people who have come before, to help us along the way.

January 29 and February 1, 2011

For the record - there was only one meeting, hardly regular, and the committee wasn't formed for 3 months after I got there, and met 4 times, a total of 3 hours, when it ended, and was a series of cold interviews, much like the GOE's that I failed, now that I think of it.



Dear Heather,

Sorry to be so long in replying to your emails about this. Christmas was a gloriously full time, and for the past few weeks I've been dealing with some minor but all-consuming ...

I had a good conversation with --- this week and I have a clear sense of a path forward, assuming you plan to return to Portland post-graduation. --- believes, and I concur, that you need to start a formal discernment process toward postulancy that looks exactly like it would for someone who hadn't already been to seminary. I believe she reiterated to you, what you and I and others have talked about as well, that going to seminary on one's own doesn't change our diocesan process. 

I would like you to spend the next few months enjoying post-GOE CDSP and the end of what I believe has been a rich and growth-filled time for you. Then I hope you will come back to --- and let us begin with a parish-based discernment committee to work with you as the first step in the process toward postulancy (possibly) and toward discerning and celebrating God's call, whatever that call may be (certainly). If it is helpful to you to gather with members of your former committee as a way to support and bless you as you begin a new process, there is nothing wrong with that, but your official discernment committee would be parish-based. As such, I don't see any value to you or to the process to begin that parish-based process long-distance, prior to graduation. 

--- believes that such a discernment process, which I hope would happen in tandem with developing some good visible ministries at ----, providing the whole parish (now about 70-80 strong!) opportunities to get to know your many gifts, along with regular meetings with me, should take at least six months. At the end of that time, if I and the discernment committee and you jointly discern a call to ordination, you would begin the process of paperwork, recommendation letters, psychological exams, etc. If the community discernment process continues in that direction, the circle of discernment would then expand to include the Bishop and Commission on Ministry at a future vocations conference, and probably a CPE experience.   

I know that this process may not be the one you've hoped for, but it is a way forward that ---and I agree on. It is based, however, on the assumption with which I began this email, that you will be coming back to Portland after graduation. If that is not the case, I would be happy to talk with you to explore other options, but those options would not include beginning an ordination process here at ---. 

I wish you many blessings in your own discernment and I look forward to catching up soon.

Faithfully,

---

Dear --- and ---,

I am profoundly grateful for this email. A deep sense of rightness settled on me as I read it and it resonates as the best way forward to me as well. As I told --- when we met in December, my discernment committee helped me find my way to school, and this time has been fruitful and what it needed to be. However, I do not feel that my discernment committee was an adequate exploration into a call to ordained ministry and I look forward to returning to ---- in the summer and exploring and integrating these last few years of my life into the life of the community and seeing where God might be calling me in the future.

Thank you both for the thoughtfulness you have offered me in the last few months. Classes start for me tomorrow, and has been the case for 2.5 years, I will quickly be subsumed in books and papers. While I never feel that school has all the time it needs, I am comforted to know that discernment does.

blessings,
heather lee

Post GOE Blues

A newsletter article for one of my supporting parishes. January26, 2011

When jazz musicians talk about the blues, they don’t mean the doldrums or depression, but a realistic and persevering sense of hope, even when the reason for hope seems unlikely. My pervading hope comes from Christ, and the face of God revealed to me. Much of my work here has been coming to conscious and complete understanding that God loves me only as myself, not for what I can do or who I know or where I can go. Only me.

The GOE’s were an interesting experience. I am unsure what I was intended to get out of these tests. It seems is the intended outcome is to ensure that I, individually, know enough information to lead a congregation. My understanding of God and of the church of God is such a contextual and communal experience that I hope I never get confused into thinking that my education sets me above the gathered community. I hope it never confuses me into thinking that it can replace the essential loved experience of my relationship with the one who made me.

I have been to speak with Canon ---. She and I are working towards gathering all my paperwork so that I can attend Vocations Conference in May. This really means that I am doing a lot of work and she is happily helping me with the snags and questions that come up. On one hand, I am going at the process a bit backwards, on the other hand, given the time and effort and patience required to walk this path of discernment, it isn’t unique to go around the long way, either.

In this journey, prayer has surrounded me, and I know that Holy Spirit and St. David’s have been part of that. I am grateful and appreciative of the many people who have remembered me when I was not always able to remember myself. It turns out I am able to be both ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ and ‘out of sight, out of mind’ at the same time. So while I long for home and the sort of people I know and love there, I get caught up in the ever-present deadlines and concerns of the day. I look forward to the end of school, in some measure, because I will be back with people and their real concerns, and no longer speculating wildly on the uses of this or that aspect of schooling.