29 December 2018

Gifting Burdens

As regular readers know, I'm not a regular church go-er even though I have significant connections to it.

Mom used to tell me that I was the reason she got back into the church (a path that lead to national leadership and eventual ordination). I was closing in on my second birthday and she felt the need to get me baptized (or 'done' as her priest-friend said). 

Through her I was active in church through my teens. I attended church every Sunday, was the first girl to be an acolyte in my church. I was active in our youth group, went to diocesan convention as a youth delegate (and had one of my resolutions adopted), was a counselor at church camp and then took all of those good habits and off with me to college. I found a church and went regularly (though no longer every week as transportation was an issue). My husband was baptized and confirmed at that church and we married there.

Then we moved to Texas and had a very mixed bag experience at the church we attended there. We met some great people who were friendly and welcoming but it was also the church where the priest stood up and gave a sermonabout AIDS being god's punishment to gay people. I met with him that week to tell him I how incredibly hurtful his sermon was. 

Looking back on it that was the beginning of the end of my having a regular church home. It was another 10-15 years before I came to terms with the fact that weekly church attendance and all the attendant relationships just weren't for me.  I would come away from every service feeling like a burden to 'do more' and 'be more' was being piled on me.

I have had similar feelings since my mom died. I have been surprisingly okay since her death. She and I had a good relationship, I was able to help and support her (and dad) in the way that she needed and in a way that gave her comfort, which in turn gave me comfort. I do miss her and have the occasional sneaker-wave of grief when I see something that reminds me of her, but I have successfully reframed those times as it being a good thing that I miss her and still wish I could share my life with her—because those feelings are a manifestation of my love for her.  As I've written elsewhere, she told me directly that she didn't want me to be spending my life pining for her, she wanted me to be fully present for the people who are currently in my life.

However, some folks project their own loss and grief onto me. They say things like: you must really miss your mom, or you must be devastated, or I miss her so much I can't imagine how you are coping.

Part of me understands that they are trying to be supportive and empathetic, but another part of me bristles at being told what I 'must be' feeling. Much like my experience being a weekly church go-er I am being burdened by the expectations of others. Or in this case, by their projection of their own feelings on to me.

Something to think about as we move into the new year (both church and secular) is what burdens we place on others because we aren't really taking care of our own needs.

Jesus says: "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

It can be easy to place burdens on those around us without realizing it. From telling people what they should feel, to how they should act, or what the 'right way' is-- it is frequently easier to project our feelings and needs onto another person than it is to confront our own feelings and needs and deal with them constructively.

While Jesus was not always an easy person to live with, he was consistent in three ways: he didn't ask more of his disciples that he, himself was willing to give, he understood that not everyone could follow in his exact path, and he welcomed the outcast and downtrodden to just be. He gave them much-needed permission to lay down their burdens—especially those imposed on them by the greater society. 

I personally don't believe there is only One Right Way of doing things, but I do believe that the story of Jesus shows us A Right Way and that way has love at its heart, not expectation and not projection, just Love.

Maybe as the New Year begins and the sun returns, we can learn to recognize when the gifts we try to give are really burdens in disguise and learn to let go of them loving ourselves and others in all our brokenness.


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© 2018 Kristin Fontaine

15 December 2018

Expectations


We are coming to the end of Week 2 of Advent and as I write this, I'm reflecting on spending this season without my mom.

My experience with Christmas has varied a great deal through my life. There were the early, childhood years where my focus was mostly on the gifts I would receive. However, Christmas also meant snow, the annual children's Christmas pageant, and refurbishing the giant papier-mâché nativity that belonged to the church. 

The nativity was about 1/3rdlife-size and included a camel. Each piece was made with shaped chicken-wire coated with papier-mâché and then painted. Every year all of the pieces would be moved from storage to the parish hall where they would be inspected for damage (there were always new holes to patch), repaired and then placed. I don't remember now if they were used in the sanctuary or set up in the parish hall, but they came out every year for several years in a row at least. I also don't remember how long this particular tradition went on. 

Looking back on it, the refurbishing of the communal nativity was both an early crafting experience and a way I connected with the story of the nativity. Part of cleaning and repairing the figures included talking about them and their part in the story to come. I still remember the smell of the aging paper, glue, and the paint used to cover new repairs.

Christmas was never the most joyful of holidays in my family.  As I grew up, met my husband, and formed my own family I created my own Advent and Christmas rituals. One thing that was constant through all of the change was contact with my mom. We would talk about setting up our nativity sets, her latest sermon, my plans for my daughters December birthday, what gifts to get the next generation as they came along, and anything else that caught our attention during the season. 

This year I am facing a change in that fundamental part of my life. Mom died back in April and even then, I wondered what the holiday season would be like without her. 

I don't have a full answer to that question as yet but so far, I'm at peace with my life. I spent a week with my Dad helping him get his house ready for my east-coast brother and family who will be spending Christmas with Dad. We got a tree and put lights on it and got the box of ornaments out so my nieces can decorate the tree when they arrive.  We put the lights out around the door and Dad made a lovely swag out of cedar branch's, holly, and a red bow he saves to re-use from year-to-year. 

Going through this process of re-examining and re-inventing a major family event reminded me of Mom's work around the Blue Christmas movement. Blue Christmas services are way to acknowledge the fact that Christmas can be a tough time for people, especially people who have lost or are losing loved ones, or who are facing other major stresses in their lives that make living into a "Merry Christmas" difficult-to-impossible.

Back in 2007 Mom wrote an essayabout Blue Christmas and how it can be used to help people find a way to be present during the Advent and Christmas seasons without feeling like they must be 'merry and bright' to fit in. The last thing people who are feeling sad, anxious, and overwhelmed at any time of the year need, is to feel isolated and like they are the only ones who are struggling. 

So, in memory of her, I encourage everyone to live into your messy, complicated lives. Don't worry about being perfect or trying to create a perfect experience. The cat will break the glass ornaments, no matter what you do and Christmas will still come into that brokenness.

You don't have to be merry for God's grace to surround and uplift you.

You don't have to be whole for Christ to come.



17 November 2018

Active Waiting

As I wend my way through this year I have seen over and over again the power of waiting. It has not been so much a matter of 'good things come to those who wait' more a series of erratic stoppages in my life.

In the early part of the year it was waiting with, and on, my mom as she entered fully into dying. I had brought several knitting projects with me because I always bring projects down to my parents' house to work on, often times more than I could ever do in the week or two I plan to stay. Dad sometimes teases me about the number of bags or boxes in my car, but he also helps me carry them in the house when I arrive.

As I have written elsewhere, I found certain types of knitting a great antidote to waiting to do the Next Thing for Mom. I could feel like I was getting something done and keep my mind active, even as I was waiting for Mom to express her next request.

Several times she said variations on "I'm sorry to interrupt your work…" before asking me for help or to get her something. My answer was always that the project was only to fill time between requests, I was there for her first and foremost. We eventually agreed that she could say she was sorry for interrupting me as often as she wanted, as long as she went ahead and asked for what she needed with worrying. It sounds strange now, but it worked for us.

Over time, I came to realize that, for me, knitting a simple project that didn’t require my full concentration was helping me to stay in the moment. It gave my naturally worrying brain something to focus. If I was going to spend energy worrying anyway, I might as well focus that worry into keeping an eye out for dropped stitches; rather than what the next day or two might hold. I can (mostly) control the stitch count of a knitting project, I can't control how well someone will sleep or what the side effects of medications will be.

Having a focus that was outside of myself filled the waiting minutes but didn't distract me from the moment that I was needed to take action.

Other forms of waiting this year have been less fraught. I took over a crafting project to repair a blanket and for several weeks I was able to work on it actively as I figure out what stitch pattern and gauge was used to make the pattern. However, once my investigation was finished, I was left with the difficult part of the project: finding yarn that matched the existing project. Not only did the color need to match, but the fiber content, sheen, and weight needed to be close to the original. Commercially produced colors change from season-to-season and from year-to-year. Colors that were everywhere suddenly vanish into thin air. Add to that the fact that colors fade and change over time and finding a match becomes as much a waiting game as anything. I couldn't will the yarn I needed into existence, but I could keep an eye out for it, waiting as stock changed, or as I spotted new places to look for older yarn. I was actively waiting for the right yarn. Letting time pass while also keeping myself open to finding the right thing in an unexpected place.

Now I am in a new time of waiting. My favorite season of the church year, Advent, is almost up me. I have started my own tradition of getting out my Advent candles and my nativities in the week before Thanksgiving. This year Advent in the Episcopal Church starts on Sunday, December 2nd, so if I stick to my schedule, I'll be ready to light my first candle ten days early. 

I started my practice of setting up early for Advent because I frequently would miss the first week in the confusion and busyness surrounding Thanksgiving. Having everything set up in advance of the first Sunday in Advent make it easier to intentionally mark the start of the season and enter into the quiet the season brings.

Back when my own daughter was born, I wasn't a knitter. I did sew, and I made her a little, slightly weird, baby outfit of my own design. Maybe this year, I will spend some time knitting while my Advent candles burn through the dark time of the year.  They can light the way as I actively wait for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

03 November 2018

A Road to Guide Me

He drew me up from the desolate pit,
   out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
   making my steps secure.
~Psalm 40:2

This time of year, in the Pacific Northwest the sun sets by 6:00 p.m. and it gets very dark very fast. This is in stark contrast to the late sunset and long lingering twilight of summer, when I can frequently see well enough to work in my garden past 9:00 p.m.

I was reminded of this as I drove from my home in Washington State to visit my dad on the Oregon coast. I was on the road by mid-afternoon, but typical terrible traffic meant it took 2 ½ hours to go the first 50 miles of my 200 mile trip. So instead of having daylight on my side for most of the drive, I ended up doing the darkest and most rural sections of the road in rainy, winter darkness.

The up side of being out on the road later on weekday meant there wasn't much traffic on the roads, however that also made me feel incredibly isolated. At times, it seemed as if my headlights were not just illuminating the road in front of me, but bring it into being before my eyes. This was especially true on the twisty and hilly sections of the road as I got closer to the end of my journey. As I approached a hill the road reflectors would glow from a long way off, but as I crested the hill or approached a sharp turn the road would seem to disappear, giving the impression that it would drop out from under me if I kept going.

Needless to say the lack of road was an illusion that was revealed as I started down the hill or around the curve and my lights caught the next set of reflectors. However, for the brief moment it lasted, it was disturbing.

I had faith that the road would be there. (Though I did sensibly slacken speed on some hills and curves-- there is faith and then there is being reckless).

As I was driving I thought, how in my faith, the trinity of Jesus/God/Holy Spirit is the road at night. I can't see beyond my headlights, but the road is still there. The road can't keep me from having an accident or doing something ill-advised, but it will not vanish from underneath me just because my headlights are no longer on it. The road exists independently of me, but I depend on it to keep me out of the ditch. I follow the fog line faithfully, even when I am blinded by the high-beams of on-coming cars.

And sometimes, even on an infrequently traveled rural road, I gain a companion in the darkness. For some time I am followed, or I follow another car. I can see their glowing lights in front of me and together we light up more of the darkness than we could alone. Or I am the leader and, as with tonight's drive, I spot a hazard in time to stop and warn the driver behind me with my brake lights*.

Time passes and my fellow travelers peel off to their own destinations and I am left alone again in my pool of light with the road firm beneath me. Without the road, I would be lost. With the road I am guided safely to my destination.

-=-=-=-=-

*A deer or elk was crossing the road in the dark and I spotted it in time to stop safely.

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gateway unless otherwise noted.

20 October 2018

Eternal Stories

My daughter and I watched a lot of nature TV shows about human evolution. As a species, we seem to have been telling stories through art since the dawn of our time. Cave paintings, jewelry, body art, pigments, stone circles, and carvings are all things that have been left behind by human and proto-human societies.

We have a drive to make art, to tell stories, and to develop rituals that goes back to our beginning.

It comes to us at our end as well. One of the many things I learned as part of helping to take care of my mom during her last weeks was that it is common for people to start using metaphorical language. They talk about: going home, packing for a trip, or they might ask about their passport or airline tickets.

This happened to me when I was sitting with my mom in her last days. She suddenly asked me if she was all packed for her trip. Even though I had read the hospice guide many times over the previous week, I was still caught off guard by how clear and cogent she sounded when she asked the question. This was one of the few times I was unsure of what to say. However, since she seemed worried about it, I decided to address the worry and not the words. I told her that everything was taken care of and that she didn't need to worry. She relaxed after that.

Even though I had been prepared for the idea that Mom might use a journey or travel metaphor as she neared the end of her life, it still hit me harder than I expected. We had already had a lot of frank and sometimes difficult conversations about her coming death. She and I were able to talk about death and dying in a very straightforward (if sometimes darkly humorous) way; and, while it made me sad to reflect on losing her, I rarely had a problem talking about death and all of the related logistics. So I was surprised when I had such a strong reaction to Mom's almost unconscious use of metaphorical language to tell me that she was ready to go.

This past week, my husband heard from his parents that his grandmother has started talking about 'going home' and she pretty clearly isn't talking about trying to move back to her apartment from the nursing home.

It makes me both wonder and appreciate our human ability and need to tell stories.

Humans throughout the ages have made up stories to explain the world around them, we have created rituals to re-tell and re-enforce those stories. We use just about anything we can get our hands on to make art that tells stories. Even Jesus tried to communicate his teachings through parables, telling stories to try to get his disciples and followers to more fully understand what he was trying to say.

And when we reach the end of life, our minds, bodies, and spirits work together to tell one last story. The story of leaving everything behind and going on one final journey.

Neither Mom nor I really believed in an afterlife-- at least not the ideas of 'heaven' that seem to have grown up around Christianity over the past 2000+ years. Mom was a big proponent of living and working in the here-and-now. She said many times that we should be working to create heaven on earth and not be waiting around to go to heaven after death.

I don't have any good answers to what might happen after death. I don't know if Mom's spirit went anywhere or if she lives on only through the love of her family and the friends that remember her.

I do know, like millions before her, she set out on a journey and for once I couldn't go with her.

However, while she may be traveling beyond my reach on earth, I maintain my connection with her and with all of our human and proto-human ancestors by telling stories.

-------- Kristin Fontaine is an itinerant Episcopalian, crafter, hobbyist, and unstoppable organizer of everything. Advent is her favorite season, but she thinks about the meaning of life and her relationship to God year-round. It all spills out in the essays she writes. She and her husband own Dailey Data Group, a statistical consulting company.

06 October 2018

Why does my garden grow?

I have been fortunate enough to live in the same house for over 21 years; enabling me to completely transform our suburban yard into a haven for my family.

I turn 50 this year and have started to think about a two-pronged reality. One, even if I am lucky enough to live the classic four-score and ten, there are some plants that I will never see fully mature. Admittedly at my age, those are mostly trees, but still, the point stands. Two, if I ever have to move or when I die, I will leave my garden behind and the next people to live in our house might rip it all out and start over. Both prospects include melancholy (which my-dad-the-Buddhist would tell me is a sign of attachment and, likely, ego, so I probably should work on that). However part of the reason the idea of leaving my garden behind makes me sad is that it is not just a garden, it is memories of love made manifest.

Nothing in my garden beds or in the yard is planted just because I like it. Almost every plant has a second, emotion laden, meaning behind it's place in the yard.

The roses come from my Dad's attempt to keep roses alive in Wyoming winter after winter and from my husband's grandmother, who gave me a cutting from a rose that had been planted by my husband's, grandfather's, grandmother after she bought it from a peddler.

The twenty-plus evergreen huckleberry bushes come from my husband's side of the family. His grandfather would go huckleberry picking every fall and come home with gallons of berries to be made in to preserves for the coming winter. He had his own secret locations he would head off to each fall. Even when he needed two sticks to walk with he would climb into his truck and disappear for the day to fill his gallon buckets with berries.

The raspberries were planted after a trip to Norway with my mother where we met my grandfather's cousin. He took us to his hytta (basically a cabin) and we picked raspberries from the long lines of bushes he planted and carefully tended. Both my mother and my grandfather's cousin are dead now, but I still have the memory of that moment and it comes back to me every year when I eat raspberries from my own bushes.

The herbs in pots on the deck and nestled in some of the flower beds were planted when my daughter wanted to have an herb garden. I've continued to keep them both because they remind me of her and since I have started to do a lot more baking and it seems _right_ to have herbs to use.

There are many more, for as I say, all of the plants have a meaning beyond the fact that they are native, or good for bees and hummingbirds.

My plants allow me to commune with memories of my past, remind me of the contribution others have made (and continue to make) in my life, and ground me to the hear-and-now with the continued care that they require.

Working in my garden, reforges connections with people who are dear to me. Weeding is never just weeding. As a work around the plants I want to keep, I automatically think about why I planted them, what I love about them, and what love inspired me to plant them in the first place.

In some ways it is my own 'Communion of Saints'; a place where I go to relive memories of past joys.

I hope, when it is time to put my trowel and garden knife down for good I will remember that, while I am leaving my physical garden behind, it is the memories and sense of connection to my family and friends that I have truly cultivated.*

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*Though I do hope those who come after me keep the huckleberry bushes, because nothing else will grow very well under the big evergreen trees in our front yard and it takes 20 years to grow them from gallon- sized plants to three-foot tall bushes.

27 September 2018

Change we can start now

When abusers violate consent, the burden should fall on them. Women carry a huge burden in that we are expected to restrict our lives in order to 'protect' ourselves in ways that men are not. We need to raise the next generation of women to say no to living in fear and restricting their lives. We need to teach them from day one that anyone who violates their consent is responsible for that behavior. Women as a group have been silenced and shamed by the actions of men who have treated them as props rather than people. The burden of shame and guilt currently falls on the survivor rather than on the abuser. That has got to change. We may not ever stop sexual assault but we can stop, as a culture, accepting 'boys with be boys', giving males (especially wealthy, white males) a pass when they abuse. We can start believing survivors when they tell their stories. We can press for rules that make it more likely that abuse that is reported gets investigated. We can make sure that laws actually cover all forms of sexual assault. There is a lot we can do to curb sexual assault and pretty much none of it is: make potential victims live in fear that this might happen to them and that it is their fault if it does.

22 September 2018

Whom have I in heaven but you?

A friend of mine and I were spending time together working on our knitting and chatting and we got on the topic of the things we do to try to stay healthy. We are both big women and I know I've struggled all of my life with feeling judged when I was out in public, which makes being willing to leave the house for exercise emotionally daunting.

It wasn't until I was in my forties that I realized that I carried a lot of that judgment within me and that many other people were also wandering in the world feeling like everyone who looked at them was judging them and that those same people were too busy worrying about themselves to really spend much energy judging me.

(I will take a moment here to say that just enough jerks in the world that have catcalled, make snide remarks in my hearing, or otherwise fed my feeling of being judged that there is a basis in reality for my anxieties. The seeds that it was normal for people to judge me and find me wanting were planted early, and took a long time for me to overcome.)

I carried the weight of what I thought other people thought about me for years and it weighed me down. I don't know at what moment I realized that I didn't have to carry the weight of the (mostly imaginary) expectations of others any more; but once I did it was a revelation.

Like the psalmist from the Daily Office readings for Friday, Proper 19, before I had that revelation, my focus was on other people. I worried about what they would think of me, how they would act towards me, why they would be judgmental, and what they might say to me. I had conversations in my head, trying to prepare myself to go out in the world and make a space for myself.

But when I thought how to understand this,
——it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
——then I perceived their end.
~Psalm 73:16-17

In short, I spent a lot of energy worrying about futures that never came to pass and that would not have played out in any way I could have imagined even if they did appear.

When my soul was embittered,
——when I was pricked in heart,
I was stupid and ignorant;
——I was like a brute beast toward you.
Psalm 73:21-22

When I started to work on re-framing my own thoughts to let go of both projecting imaginary judgment from people on to myself and from giving too much weight to the judgment of, frankly rude, strangers, I felt like a flower opening up and turning toward the sun.

Nevertheless I am continually with you;
——you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
——and afterward you will receive me with honor.
~Pslam 73:23-24

That feeling of being able to be open to the world rather than closed off in a permanent defensive crouch is how I feel about the grace God has given us through Jesus and his teachings. God gave us a person we could relate to, someone we could exchange stories with, someone who suffered our kind of pain and passed through death just as we all will and the message Jesus brought was not one of having to be ritually pure, rule followers to win over God; rather, that it was okay to be messy, sinful human beings who flailed (and failed) around trying to find the right path.

Jesus's message, told over and over again in parables and straight from the heart was: love. Love one-another, love God, love enemies, love strangers. If you do nothing else on this earth: love.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
——And there is nothing on earth that I desire
——other than you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
——but God is the strength of my heart and my
——portion forever.
~Psalm 73:23-26
-=-=-=-

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gatewayunless otherwise noted.

08 September 2018

Elevator Pitch

I've been a member of many organizations over the years that have had or developed mission statements. One of the concepts I learned during the process was that the mission statement should be short and pithy. It should be akin to pitching a story idea to a producer in an elevator. You have short elevator ride to get your story idea across and to get the producer interested enough to meet with you about it for a second time, aka the Elevator Pitch.

Christianity, as a religion, has had 2000-plus years to accumulate a massive backstory; starting with the basic tales of Jesus in the four gospels, adding the Acts of the Apostles, gaining a plethora of saints, staining and straining that faith by mixing it with temporal and political power, and trying to make that power accountable for the abuses that have been done in its name. There is a lot of history to explore and learn from, and it can be difficult to know what to start with when exploring even our own small branch of the Christian faith.

In the readings for the Daily Office, Year 2, Proper 17, Friday we have an example of an evangelist boiling down a huge chunk of history as a basic introduction to where Jesus sprang from:

“You Israelites, and others who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. After he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance for about four hundred fifty years. After that he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel. Then they asked for a king; and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years. When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’ Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised; before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.’
~Acts 13:16b-25

Paul covers the history of the Jews from Moses to the coming of Jesus in one short paragraph. If not quite an elevator pitch, it is definitely a quick summary of the major events that have lead to this moment in time. This summary places Jesus in a particular context for this particular audience; paving the way for sharing the good news.

We have examples of Peter and Paul customizing the message for their current audience. Given the success of the early disciples at spreading the word about Jesus and building the early church I would guess that many of them were excellent at meeting people where they were and conveying the message of Jesus to very diverse groups throughout the region.

The fact that the ideas were shared and claimed by enough people for it to grow from a small group, to a sect, to a whole new religion that survived the fall of Jerusalem, the split between the eastern and western followers and became one of three traditions that share a beginning in the stories in what became our Old Testament says something about both the effectiveness of messengers and the longing for the message.

For a story to have an effect, two things must be in place: the story must have an internal power-- there must be something compelling about it to catch the attention of the listener; and the listener must be ready to hear that particular story-- there must be a way for them to see how they fit in the story, or how it makes sense in the context of their own lives. If the storyteller does not have a compelling tale or the hearer is not ready to listen the story dies.

Something about the story of Jesus, his experience, and his followers has caught the attention of millions of people over the past 2000 years. Some people have had Paul's Road to Damascus instant conversion experience, some have been raised in the faith and have carried it on to the next generation, some have had a long and winding journey to find a spiritual home within the Christian faith.

Given that it is flawed humans that carry the faith from the time to Jesus to the ever-moving-present, it is something of a miracle that the message of Jesus still has power to speak to new generations.

Like Paul summarizing the history that linked the past history of the Jewish people to the life of Jesus, each of us has the power to carry the message of Jesus out from our churches into the world.

This does not require showing up on strangers doorsteps and asking them about their personal relationship to Jesus Christ. Honestly, I feel nothing could be more off-putting. Instead, it requires that we live our faith and be open to sharing it with people who express an interest.

Paul responded to an invitation from the officials of the synagogue who said: "Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, give it."

Like the script-writer trying to sell an idea, the elevator pitch of our faith will be most effective if it is customized, contextualized, and compelling to the individual listener.

Not everyone is ready to hear the Good News, some will never be ready, but for those who are: we have a humdinger of a story to tell.

25 August 2018

Silence

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
Job 2:11-13

Earlier this year, when I was helping my dad take care of my mom in her last weeks, there was a lot of room for silence.

One of the side effects of mom's last illness was severe shortness of breath. She was on oxygen full time and between a lack of stamina and the fact that talking was a big effort, we spent a fair amount of time with whatever baseball game we could find playing. But, even with the deluxe baseball package my dad bought for her every year, there wasn't quite enough baseball to fill the hours.

When mom didn't have the energy to talk, and didn't need me to fetch and carry for her, I would sit with her and knit. Keeping my hands busy by knitting, turned into a form of meditation. It allowed me to be present and ready at any moment for my mom-- either to talk or listen, to make her lunch or dinner, or to bring her things she wanted. I'm not very good at just being still.

Job's friends were able to be still and silent with him and for him. His suffering was so great and inflicted on him in a way that no mere human could control that their presence was the only gift they could offer their friend.

It can be very difficult to sit with someone else's suffering. But sometimes is the only thing to do. It may not help in the sense of bringing physical healing or fixing the problems a person is facing, but it can bring a person who is suffering back into the fold of humanity.

Mom had a hard time sharing the fact that she was not only ill, but that what she had was incurable. This was not because she was in denial, but because she did not want people treating her as if she was her illness. She did not want to lose her unique humanity to her illness. Most of all, she did not want people talking in hushed voices to her in the 'oh, it must be so dreadful' way.

In her last weeks, mom had a lot in common with Job. She most need just a few trusted friends and family who would treat her as a person and her illness as just a practical thing that had to be dealt with. Dad and I did our best to keep her and her choices about how to live in the center of our own lives and sometimes, what she needed most was our constant and silent presence.

11 August 2018

The People

Often in the stores told in the bible there is a main character the story revolves around and it can feel like it is their actions or their sole relationship with God that is driving the story.

However there is another, sometimes misguided, sometime powerful voice in the stories of the Old and New Testament: the people.

In the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation of the bible, there are 1558 references to "the people" listed in the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament. Sometimes 'the people' are just background characters, there to give flavor to the story. Other times they are critical to the path the story takes.

'The people' as a character in the story, are very often foolish and make terrible choices. The entire book of Exodus is full of the people as a whole making choices that irritate and enrage God; misunderstanding God's purpose for them; or sometimes, more rarely, thanking God for giving them what the needed, praising God and promising to be ever-faithful.

The people in the New Testament are just as fickle. Some days they are following John and Jesus around hanging on their every word. In others they are calling for Jesus to be put to death.

So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood;[a] see to it yourselves.” Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
~ Matthew 27:24-26

Later, in Acts, 'the people' have swung around to another opinion and oppose the "...rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family" (Acts 4:5) when these high-status people want to punish Peter and John for healing and speaking in Jesus's name.

There is no way to know if this group of 'the people' was composed of the same folks who shouted for Jesus to die.

After threatening them again, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all of them praised God for what had happened.
~Acts 4: 21

What we do see over and over in stories in the bible is that 'the people' are an actor in the narrative and that they frequently drive the powerful, be it God or human leaders, to distraction.

The people, either when acting as a concerted mob or just as individuals that happen to support a specific goal in the moment, often change the course of the story.

The people, by their presence in the stories, also serve to remind the readers that the 'named' characters weren't the only actors in the unfolding drama of the relationship between God and humanity.

It is never just Abraham and Sarah, or Aaron and Miriam, or Saul, or David; it is not just Peter and John, or Mary and Martha, behind all of those named in the stories is a universe of unnamed people who are sometimes central and some time peripheral to the story, but who will all be impacted by the choices made in the stories.

Just like the named characters, sometimes 'the people' get to act directly in the story and make terrible choices that must be recovered from or atoned for.

To me, the fact that 'the people' are not just passive background in the stories is a reminder that God's relationship is not just with the named characters that appear in the bible, but with all of us. The new covenant God made through Jesus is not just with the disciples but with everyone.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
~Matthew 4:23

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All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gatewayunless otherwise noted.

Kristin Fontaine is an itinerant Episcopalian, crafter, hobbyist, and unstoppable organizer of everything. Advent is her favorite season, but she thinks about the meaning of life and her relationship to God year-round. It all spills out in the essays she writes. She and her husband own Dailey Data Group, a statistical consulting company.

28 July 2018

The Book Written for Me

Because I am one of the many people who cannot read any of the ancient languages the books of the Old and New Testament are written in, I depend on the scholarship of others to translate those books into English.

Translators work hard not just to capture the meaning of ancient words that we no longer have context for, but also to phrase the meaning using a structure readers can understand. It doesn't take much of a change in wording to change the sense or emphasis of a biblical passage.

The first biblical translation I ever read was the King James Version (KJV). Here is the King James version of Psalm 40: 6-7, part of one of the readings for today.

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,

Here is the same passage from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the translation that I default to.

Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
  but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering
  you have not required.
Then I said, “Here I am;
  in the scroll of the book it is written of me.

Other than updating the language from Early Modern English to Modern English, the change that catches my attention is the one from 'Lo, I come' in the KJV to 'Here I am' in the NRSV. This may only be an artifact of my own limited understanding of Early Modern English, as 'Lo, I come' might mean exactly the same thing as 'Here I am' to a native speaker of Early Modern English. However, to me, there is a difference in the energy of the phrases. 'Lo, I come' indicates movement, a sense of departure, and a decision to take action on the part of the speaker; while, 'Here I am' indicates stopping, a sense of arrival, and a past decision brought to completion.

The King James Version was published in 1611 and the New Revised Standard Version was published in 1989. In the 378 years that elapsed between these two publications there were advances in biblical scholarship and an increase in the number of original sources discovered that scholars could use. That discovery and scholarship continues to this day.

In 2007, Robert Alter published his translation and commentary of the book of psalms. His commentary includes explanations of his translation choices, notes about the meaning of some phrases, and notes of areas of the text that are fragmentary or challenging to translate.

His offering for Psalm 40:6-7 is:

Sacrifice and grain-offering You do not desire.
  You opened ears for me:
    for burnt-offering and offense-offering You do not ask.
Then did I think: Look I come
  with the scroll of the book written for me.*

The changes of note between this translation and that of the NRSV are the phrases: 'opened ears for me', 'offense-offering', and 'the book written for me.'

He notes that: "'You opened ears for me' literally means, 'You dug open ears for [or, to]'--that is, vouchsafed me a new acute power of listening to the divine truth. In later Hebrew, this idiom karah 'ozen comes to mean 'listen attentively.' It is also possible to construe this--because 'ears' is not declined in the possessive--as God's listening attentively to the speaker."

It is interesting that the other two translations give the ears to the psalmist while Alter shows that the ears have just been opened. There is no clear ruling on whose ears they are. That opens up many possible meanings for this on phrase. The newly opened ears might be those of the psalmist, those of God, or even those of a third party or parties. I love the visceral power of 'you dug open ears' giving the sense as it does of a lot of work going into getting those ears to open.

The other change of Alter's that speaks to me is the change from a book written 'of me' and a book written 'for me'. A book written 'for me' by God that I carry with me has a different sense than a book written 'of me'. If the book is 'for me' it is a gift given directly to me, something I can refer to and use as a reference going forward in life. If it is 'of me' then it is about me, making me an object of the book rather than an active user of the book.

Spending time looking at different translations made to fulfill different purposes, allows me to embrace and analyze the text from different points of view.

King James gave his committee of translators instructions that "intended to ensure that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology of, and reflect the episcopal structure of, the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy."+

The guiding principal for the New Revised Standard Version was: “As literal as possible, as free as necessary.”

Robert Alter is trying to capture the compact and unique poetical structure of the psalms in English while using modern scholarship.

Each of these translations is impacted by the underlying goal brought to the translation process by the people working on the project. I think there is great value in looking a different translations, not only because it is interesting and expands my idea of what a particular passage might mean, but because this multiplicity of voices reflects how difficult it is to hear the voice of God.

We are so very tiny in the vastness of the Universe and therefore in the Vastness of God. As we see in the the story of Moses in the Old Testament, meeting God face-to-face changes a person irrevocably. God is too big for us to fully comprehend first-hand.

Jesus, coming to us 'incarnate from the Virgin Mary' as we say in the Nicene Creed is something we can comprehend, even if we aren't great at always following his teachings. Through Jesus, God shows us how we can live in relationship with God and with our fellow humans.

For me, translations of the biblical texts, helps add to that faceted nature of God. The Old Testament God is one facet, Jesus another, and the stories humans have told about both of those facets are further expressions of the nature of God. There is a fractal nature to it that allows for infinite expression of our understanding of God.

The book written for me, is not just one book and not just one understanding of that book. My book is is shimmering multifaceted jewel that reflects one understanding of a story when the light hits it one way and another when the light changes.

What does not change is the stone itself, my understanding that while God, while vast, is the at the heart of the book written for me.

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*Alter, R. (2007). The Book of Psalms:: A translation with commentary (pp. 142). New York: W.W. Norton.

+Daniell, David (2003). The Bible in English: its history and influence. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09930-4. via Wikipedia

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gatewayunless otherwise noted.

Kristin Fontaine is an itinerant Episcopalian, crafter, hobbyist, and unstoppable organizer of everything. Advent is her favorite season, but she thinks about the meaning of life and her relationship to God year-round. It all spills out in the essays she writes. She and her husband own Dailey Data Group, a statistical consulting company.

14 July 2018

Gathered In

Today the Daily Office reading that caught my attention was from the Old Testament.

In Deuteronomy 31 we have reached the point in the story where Moses must hand over power to Josuha as God has made it clear that Moses will not live to cross the Jordan into the promised land.

For some reason the assigned reading skips the most poignant part of this story. Not only has God already told Moses he will die soon, but God keeps referring to Moses's imminent demise throughout the conversation between God, Moses, and Joshua.

Earlier this year my mother died. I was with her through her final weeks as she slowly released each of her responsibilities as she found she could no longer do them. The one she held on to the longest was co-ordinating Speaking to the Soul and while she did not want to give it up, she reached the point that she just wasn't mentally able to work that used to be easy for her. Letting go was made easier because a new editor volunteered and Mom got to see that the project would carry on with out her.

Still, it seemed to me that the hardest part of the process of dying for Mom, was when she reached the point where she had given up all of her responsibilities and regular interaction with friends.

Reading the passage from Deuteronomy, I wonder if that is how Moses felt in this time of transition. The time of his death had been appointed. He was, with God's encouragement, giving up his primary role and was seeing something he had been involved with for most of his adult life moving on without him.

As my mom was going though the same process, I was impressed with her strength and grace. Yes, she was mad this was happening to her, but she never took that anger out on me or Dad as we cared for her. She took care to let go of things when she could no longer do them and kept her own failing powers from sabotaging projects she loved. She didn't hang on until the bitter end and that made the end more full of grace.

In reading, Moses had one last job to do before he died. At God's direction, he wrote the Song of Moses and he and Joshua, together, recited it to the people.

He did his last job to the best of his ability and didn't rail against his fate or sabotage the succession of Joshua to his place.

Once the recital was finished, God told Moses to Mount Nebo where Moses would die and be gathered to his kin.

Having seen my mother give up one responsibility after another, all of them things she had loved doing, it did not surprise me that she died only a few days later. Maybe it should not then surprise me to see Moses make a similar end.

I will always miss my mom. I think of her every day. However, one of many great gifts she gave me was living into having the grace to let go. She, like Moses, did her last jobs and then left us to be gathered in with all those who went before.

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All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gateway

Kristin Fontaine is an itinerant Episcopalian, crafter, hobbyist, and unstoppable organizer of everything. Advent is her favorite season, but she thinks about the meaning of life and her relationship to God year-round. It all spills out in the essays she writes. She and her husband own Dailey Data Group, a statistical consulting company.

30 June 2018

Saints Peter and Paul

The idea I took away from my Sunday school days, was the idea the saints Peter and Paul were very much like brothers. The fought like cats and dogs about the fundamentals of the nascent Christian faith but both passionately believed in what they were building. That shared passion is reflected in the letters that tell their stories.

Today's lessons for their shared feast day encouraged me to broaden my understanding of the ideas Peter and Paul brought to the communities they worked with.

In the reading from Acts, Peter tells the story of two visions that brought him to a Gentile family. He had a vision in which he is told, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." (Acts 11:9b). At the same time, men from Caesarea had their own vision of an angel who said: "Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved." (Acts 11:13b-14)

When Peter met and spoke with them, he saw the Holy Spirit come down on them as it had with his fellow disciples. He tells this story to help his fellow apostles and the believers in Judea who were critical of him for eating with the uncircumcised.

I had always thought that it was Paul that lead the way among the Gentiles and who opened up Christianity for all who wished to follow the teachings of Jesus and that Peter was deeply opposed to it.

I think part of that idea came from the other New Testament reading for their shared feast day. In this reading, Paul comes right out and says: "On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised..." (Galatians 2:7).

Given their histories, it makes a lot of sense that Peter, one of the first disciples of Jesus, would work among the circumcised; while, Paul, a Roman citizen with his 'road to Damascus' conversion, would serve the uncircumcised. They had very different life experience and had come to their faith in very different ways.

However the passage from the book of Acts is a good reminder that these two saints, while being so different, did work in tandem. The shared the goal of getting the Good News of Jesus's message of the Grace and Love of God into the wider world.

I wonder if Peter had taken to heart the experience Jesus had with both the Samaritan woman at the well and the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter.

Peter had also had the experience of hearing Jesus's parables first hand, and it would not surprise me if the vision he related in the book of Acts sprang directly from from the parable found in Matthew 15.

Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” ... But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
~Matthew 15:10, 15-20

So while Paul would later come to see his role as that of the main missioner to the uncircumcised, Jesus had already planted the seed in Peter's mind that his message had the potential to reach far beyond the original disciples.

The story Peter tells also acts as a conversion experience for his audience in Judea:

And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
~Acts 11:16-18

The apostles and the believers in Judea go from criticizing him for spending time with the uncircumcised, to being stunned into silence by the power of Peter's story, to praising God for giving the Gentiles such a gift.

I suspect this conversion effect could only have come from Peter. Peter had a shared background with the group in Judea and a rapport with them that Paul probably didn't have. Paul had, after all, spent the first part of his life persecuting any Christians he could get his hands on. If the same message prompting acceptance of Gentile believers had come from Paul, even if by then the Christians in Judea trusted his conversion, it might not have had the same underlying power that Peter's telling of the story had.

Peter and Paul figured out that the messenger can matter in their shared ministry of spreading the Good News. There were communities that Peter could more easily reach because of his Jewish background and his direct connection to Jesus. There were communities that 'got' Paul better because he was a citizen of Rome (and therefor of the Known World at that time). There were communities that would trust Peter because they had known him all their lives and there were communities that better related to Paul's 'road to Damascus' conversion story.

For all that the narrative of Peter and Paul can be one of battling it out for the soul of the early church, from the passages appointed for their shared feast, it is clear that they agreed on at least three things: the message of Jesus was important enough to spend (and risk) their lives on; all are welcome to follow Jesus and enter into the community of believers; and sometimes, the messenger matters.

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All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gateway

Kristin Fontaine is an itinerant Episcopalian, crafter, hobbyist, and unstoppable organizer of everything. Advent is her favorite season, but she thinks about the meaning of life and her relationship to God year-round. It all spills out in the essays she writes. She and her husband own Dailey Data Group, a statistical consulting company.

16 June 2018

The Dust of God

There is a lot to work with in the readings for Friday in the season of Pentecost, Proper 5. Not the least because it is interesting to look at the difference and similarities in translation between the Book of Common Prayer and Robert Alter's The Book of Psalms.

Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
  Lord God of hosts;
let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me,
  O God of Israel.
...

The afflicted shall see and be glad;
  you who seek God, your heart shall live.
~Psalm 69:7, 34 Book of Common Prayer

Let not those who hope for You be shamed through me,
  Master, O Lord of armies;
Let those who seek You be not disgraced through me me,
  God of Israel.
...

The lowly have seen and rejoiced,
  those who seek God, let their hearts be strong.
~Psalm 69:7, 33 The Book of Psalms by Robert Alter*

The words that arrested my attention are similar in both texts. The psalmist is suffering from many afflictions in this psalm and is calling out to God to save them while also naming all of the suffering and uncertainly they are experiencing.

However in the midst of their own suffering, they take a moment to hope that their shame does not reflect badly on other people who wish to follow God. They express the hope that their visible suffering will not dissuade others from finding a relationship with God.

I think of this in relation to my own private theology and in a modern context. For example, I don't believe in prayer as a vending machine: put prayer in, get results out. I believe that prayer is a way to talk to God about what is going and, in the process, to bring my thoughts and desires into line with what I believe. Prayer doesn't change God, or make God act. Prayer changes me.

I also don't believe that God saves people from harm. If I believed that, it would mean everyone who dies or is hurt does so because God chose for it to happen. To me, that negates the entire concept of free will. If God is doing the choosing then nothing we can do has any meaning.

That does not mean that our will can override our circumstances or the randomness of the universe. If I die from getting run over by bus, or get cancer, or live to be 99, none of that is in my direct control, but neither is is God's choice for me. I think that God hopes I will make good decisions with my life, but in order for it to be my life, God can't step in and 'save me' from myself or from just plain bad luck. I am tiny, the universe is unfathomably large and will affect me in strange and unpredictable ways-- it the same way that a breeze blows a dust mote around. I can't choose actions of the breeze, but I can choose to remain in relationship with God while being blow along.

Going back the psalmist: if people know that I worship God and try to live by the rules God gave me, and I still visibly suffer, how can I hope to be a helpful representative of God to others?

I think the psalmist answers their own question in verse 34: The lowly have seen and rejoiced, those who seek God, let their hearts be strong.

The path to God is not easy. Life itself, with God or without, is hard. It is full of 'the slime of the deep', 'the water depths', and '[our] folly.'

But God, while respecting the boundaries of our free will, can still be a companion in our distress. The psalmist calls on God's kindness, clear sightedness, steadfastness, and compassion. God's attention to our prayers can help us rescue ourselves, not from death and destruction as that comes to everyone in time, but from losing our faith in God's abiding love for us.

One day we will all return to God. But while we are here on Earth, God lets us all find our own way, painful though that process might be. God always "listens to the needy" (Psalm 69:35a) and makes space for us inhabit as we offer ourselves in prayer.

...and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.
~Ecclesiastes 12:7
-=-=-=-=-

*Mr Alter uses a different numbering system on this psalm than is used in the Book of Common Prayer.

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gatewayor the Book of Common Prayer. A pdf of the Book of Common Prayer which contains both the lessons for Sundays and the Daily Office can be found at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/book_of_common_prayer.pdf

Mission Clare is a good resource for daily morning and evening prayer online.

01 June 2018

What Price Love

In reading for the daily office for today, I found verse 15 of Psalm 31 speaking to me.

My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies,
and from those who persecute me.
~Psalm 31:15

I noticed how the psalmist made a distinction between 'enemies' and 'those who persecute me' and it made me think about how often the worst damage done to people is not by enemies by friends or family.

How many of us actually have 'enemies' in reality? I would guess very few.

On the other hand, how many have had a relationship go bad, or had to learn how to create and enforce boundaries with people we thought we could trust, or had to cut off contact with a family member or friend because the relationship had become toxic? I suspect a great many more people have gone through this than have ever had an enemy.

The Psalms have a lot to say about enemies. There are over 80 references to enemies in the NRSV translation alone. Interestingly there are only 11 references to 'friend' and nearly all of those are the psalmists complaining about friends who have done them wrong*.

Looking at this, it feels like it was easier for the psalmists to complain to God about all of the evils their 'enemies' were doing to them, than to bring up issues they were having with their friends.

This is not surprising to me. It is much easier to dehumanize someone from a distance and put them into the category of 'evil enemy' than it is to stand up to friends or family who 'done you wrong' especially if those people are deeply enmeshed in your life. It is feels easier in the moment to make excuses for their behavior and hand wave it away than it is to confront them.

This is very true in close-knit communities where everyone knows everyone else and risking being the one to speak up can mean risking, not one, but all of your relationships in that group. It gets even more complicated when that group is a faith-based community that tries to take seriously Jesus's command:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
~Matthew 22:36-40

If we are called to put love first, what do we do when someone in our community acts badly? The temptation is try to preserve the community by sweeping the issue or behavior under the rug and pretend that it didn't happen.

Or, if you were ever like me as an earnest 20-something, spend hours working with the person and the group to try to find a solution. Not realizing that in some situations there is no good solution that will work for everyone-- especially if any of the people involved are acting in bad faith.

It took me a long time to learn that not every relationship is worth saving. Part of what delayed my learning was the idea that I should love my neighbors, all of my neighbors. In part, my issue was a lack of understanding of the complexity and fierceness of love. My early ideas of love were a lot like the fiction I wrote at the time: everyone hugs at the end and feels better. That rather one-dimensional view of love left no room for dealing with the damage a close friend or family member could do. If there was no way to 'hug it out' because the relationship was toxic, the person was spiraling out of control, or they were abusive, what then?

How to protect myself from "those who persecute me" when those people are my friends and family and not an isolated 'enemy'?

The key, I think, is in Jesus's command itself-- we are to love others as we love ourselves. We are to love our neighbors, yes; but not at the exclusion of caring for our own needs. When we find ourselves in a relationship that is damaging, then we need to love ourselves enough to take action.

Embracing love as Jesus calls us to, does not mean embracing being passive. I firmly believe that the love Jesus talks about is an action not a feeling. It is something we are meant to do not just experience. Part of loving our neighbors and ourselves is setting healthy boundaries and calling out destructive behavior when we see it.

Jesus called us to make heaven on earth through love. To do that we need to make it clear that abuse, bad actions, and bad faith are not, and never have been, any part of love.

-=-=-=-=-

*Which makes me think that the Pslams and the Blues have a lot more in common than I ever realized.

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gateway or the Book of Common Prayer. A pdf of the Book of Common Prayer which contains both the lessons for Sundays and the Daily Office can be found at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/book_of_common_prayer.pdf

Mission Clare is a good resource for daily morning and evening prayer online.

19 May 2018

Endurance

They shall perish, but you will endure;
they all shall wear out like a garment;
as clothing you will change them,
and they shall be changed;
~Psalm 102: 26

Once, long ago, I wrote ElfQuest fan fiction. I fell in love with the stories as a young adult and they were some of the first comics I ever read.

When I started college, one of the first friends I made came from our shared interest in the ElfQuest series. This was before the Internet, so finding people with shared interests was more a matter of luck than diligent searching. This friend introduced me to the idea of fan fiction: that people could like something so much it would inspire them to write their own stories set in the same world.

Some of the characters we were writing about were both artists as close to immortal as makes no never-mind. I became fascinated with the idea that they would outlive any artwork they made. More than that, that their subjective experience of time, might cause them to feel like a tapestry they spent years making turned to dust in the blink of an eye.

Would they go back an re-make a favorite piece that had been destroyed by time? Would their aesthetic have changed so much in the intervening decades that they would not be able to imagine re-creating something, even if it was beloved? Would they even miss something that had vanished while their attention was elsewhere?

At the time, I had a lot less life experience and a lot less knowledge about how fragile most art is. Thirty-years on, I have seen moths go through my closet and snack on handmade woolens, I have worn favorite socks until they can no longer be darned, and I have made garments that I have worn until trying to patch them leads to the results cited in the Gospel of Matthew that is part of today's Daily Office:

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made.
~Matthew 9:16

Nothing tangible can endure in its original form forever, even million-year-old fossils are rock-shadows of more transient forms of life.

Like our garments, we will wear out in time. The things we make, the events we plan, the actions we take will all fade away from the world; sometimes before we ourselves do.

I wonder if that is the reason that in the same passage from Mathew that is cited above, Jesus says: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. (Matt 9:13)

Sacrificing an object, an animal, or even some of my time to God may be seen as transactional and short term. In this moment, I do X in exhange for Y. The relationship does not have to persist past the moment of sacrifice. Both sacrifice and relationship are transitory and temporary.

When Jesus calls for mercy rather than sacrifice he calls us into a state of being. Instead of giving a thing that moth and rust can destroy, he asks us to give our attention and focus; to use our energy to show mercy rather than to judge.

When we judge we put a wall between ourselves and other people. This wall of our own opinion can make it impossible to see people as human. As with the Pharisees, judgment turns fellow humans into "tax collectors" or "sinners" instead of Zacchaeus or Mary or any of the other followers who Jesus called to him by name.

We shall all perish, we shall all wear out like our favorite pair of socks but until then we can take on Jesus's request to hear and show mercy to those around us.

Doing so might be harder than making a one-time sacrifice, but it has a great potential to open our hearts and allow us to hear Jesus call us into his love by name.

-=-=-=-

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gateway.

The psalm is from the Book of Common Prayer. A pdf of the Book of Common Prayer containing both the lessons for Sundays and the Daily Office can be found at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/book_of_common_prayer.pdf

Mission Clare is a good resource for daily morning and evening prayer online.

22 April 2018

Ann Fontaine, Rest In Peace

My mom, Ann Fontaine, passed away peacefully on April 18th at home after several weeks of hospice care.

We have set up a Memorial site where I can post the latest on the plans for her memorial service,  friends can share memories of her or post the dates of any local celebrations of her life they are hosting, and where we can preserve her "What the Tide Brings In" blog posts.

The site is: http://seashellseller.org



Come, Thou

As most readers already know my mom, Ann Fontaine, passed away earlier this week.

To say I will miss her greatly is an enormous understatement. I don't think I even realize how much I will miss her. I know from the many cards, emails, texts, and social media contacts that I am not the only one.

Her favorite hymn was Come Thou Font of Every Blessing". It is where she got the title for her book of reflections on daily office and it captured her feeling of being found by God.

In one of the last in-depth conversations I had with her she said she felt that her entire life, especially in the church, was all about the serendipity that was created by her relationships.

All of the opportunities she had to be active in the church came from people she already knew either inviting her to join a project or introducing her to other people.

She built relationships all her life. I knew she was ready to go the day she told me she couldn't have any more visitors.

She also said, about politics in the church, to fight the good fight for what you believe in but never make it personal and always do what you can to keep or restore relationships with people.

Her vision of the church was that you are beloved of Jesus no matter what; and there is always a place at the table for you.

She worked to help the church be a place where people could build intentional communities. She worked hard to bring Education for Ministry (EFM) to even more people through on-line gatherings, she was a strong supporter of the movement to allow for the ordination of local priests who are raised up to serve small communities that would never be able afford a full-time priest. When she ran HR Camp in the 1980's she had the kids design the rules they would live under; in the process, teaching them that many of the 'rules' in society that we take for granted can actually be changed through human effort.

The reading from the New Testament for today, speaks to the idea that it's not a bad idea to question the rules we make for ourselves, or that we become enamored of:

...why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”? All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings.
~Colossians 2:20b-23

As I go forward in to the world without my mom, I hope to carry with me her understanding that much that seems fixed in the world can actually be changed with effort; that people and relationships are precious; and that standing up for what you believe in is difficult but worth doing.

I leave you with the text to her favorite hymn. She wanders no more. She is deep within God's infinite love and grace.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount, I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I find my greatest treasure;
hither by thy help I've come;
and I hope by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for Thy courts above.

~Robert Robinson set to Nettleton
Hymn #686 1982 Hymnal

-=-=-=-=-=-

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gateway.

A pdf of the Book of Common Prayer which contains both the lessons for Sundays and the Daily Office can be found at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/book_of_common_prayer.pdf

Mission Clare is a good resource for daily morning and evening prayer online.

07 April 2018

In Waiting

I have settled in 'for the duration' with my Mom and Dad at their home on the Oregon Coast. I am helping my Dad care for my Mom as she is in the final stages of her illness.*

In our church year, we are in the time of the disciples just beginning to realize the the promise of the Resurrection has been fulfilled.

In the reading for Friday, 6 April we have the Gospel of Luke 24:1-12 where Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them see the angels at the tomb who tell the women that Jesus is no longer among the dead, but has risen.

I don't really have time for the story of the resurrection this year. My attention is focused on doing my best to keep Mom comfortable and to work with Dad so neither of us burn out while caring for her. No only are we living day-to-day, but from moment-to-moment, and from task-to task.

Mom and I were watching the new series of Call the Midwife and a line jumped out at me:

Waiting for a death is like waiting for a birth, we must find ways to occupy ourselves.
~Call the Midwife, Season 7, Episode 1.

Helping out in a household where someone needs full time care is all about doing the next thing in front of you: doing little jobs for them, washing dishes, making meals, washing laundry, picking up the mail, buying groceries, running errands all have to be done and done in a way that fits in around the energy and schedule of the patient-- because her comfort is the paramount reason all of these chores need to get done.

The thing I have found, which is reflected in the quote from 'Call the Midwife,' is that each of these necessary tasks becomes its own small ministry for my mom or dad.

At home, my husband does the laundry and I fold and put it away. Here, I not only wash, dry, fold, and put away, I spend time prepping the whites the way I know Mom likes (treat for stains, soak in Oxy-clean, wash on the bulky setting). I do each step mindfully and try to give it my full attention and it becomes a spiritual practice of its own.

When Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women came to the tomb with the spices they had prepared for the body of Jesus they were dealing with the practical reality of the work a death entails. In Luke's telling of the story, the women had seen Jesus at the crucified. They had watched as his body was taken down and given to Joesph of Arimathea. They had seen it laid in the tomb and they had gone home to prepare what was needful for such a burial.

They had gone from task to task, maybe not thinking beyond the needs of the immediate moment, until it was time to go to the tomb and do the work of preparing the body of Jesus according to what was proper and would do him honor in death.

When they got to the tomb, all their plans and ideas were thrown into disarray. The body of Jesus was gone and here were two angels telling them that the promise of resurrection had been fulfilled.

I wonder if some of them weren't angry at this revelation. Grief is a strange beast and I, personally, am not great about having my plans upset-- especially if I am emotionally invested in them. I could see myself being bewildered and angry at Jesus for upending my plans for the day by not staying dead.

I don't know what feelings the women had as they saw the angels and heard the good news of Jesus' resurrection; just as I don't know how I will feel when my Mom eventually becomes to weak to stay in this world with us.

I am pretty sure she won't rise on the 3rd day. (If she was planning on it, she would have told me in no uncertain terms by now.) Other than that I have no idea of what life without her will be like.

For now, I don't have to think about that. Mom, Dad and I have a pact: We live in the present moment and don't think much beyond the needs of the day.

Like the women who went home and prepared the spices after they had seen Jesus laid in the tomb, I am occupying myself and not thinking about the moment I must go to the tomb.

-=-=-=-=-

*I am very lucky to have a husband, housemate, and daughter who support and encourage me in this. I am also lucky that my Dad, my Mom, and I all seem to work well with each other in various combinations.

All bible quotes are from the NRSV text at Bible Gateway.

A pdf of the Book of Common Prayer which contains both the lessons for Sundays and the Daily Office can be found at: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/book_of_common_prayer.pdf

Mission Clare is a good resource for daily morning and evening prayer online.

24 March 2018

My Own Personal Holy Week

I am writing this week from my parent's house on the Oregon Coast. I've been down helping my Dad care for my Mom for the past two weeks. This week she entered hospice care.

Uncertantly is all around me.

I am wondering if I am feeling like the diciples felt when Jesus told them:

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; 34 they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”
~Mark 10:33-34

The disciples had seen Jesus doing miracles. They had seen him make the lame walk, free the demon-ridden, and bring Lazarus back from the dead. Suddenly he's telling them that he will be betrayed, beaten, spat upon and killed and that it will all happen very soon, when they come to Jeruselem.

None of them really knew what was going to happen. They had the words of Jesus but had not yet experienced the reality of his death and resurection.

I face my mother's inevitable death but I don't know when or how it will occur. Like the diciples I have been told what is to come but I have no actual experience of the reality. I won't know it until I meet it.

My Dad has been studying Buddism for years, working to let go and live with impermance. It has revealed his wise, kind, gentle self. I'm doing my own best to live in the moment and not worry about what is to come. This is made easier by being with my parents and being able to help from moment-to-moment.

Jesus disciples were able to stay with him until he was betrayed and taken into custody. From that moment on they could only be onlookers as Jesus was taken around the city, shuttled from authority to authority until he came before Pilate and was condemed to death by the crowd.

It is that way with my mother. She has started a journey that I can not join her fully in. I can stay by her physically and help where I can, but I can't truly understand how she is feeling and where her spirit is going.

She has always been good about living in the moment, it is natural to her. I'm trying to follow both my parent's examples and not worry about the future, but be fully present now.

Maybe like me, some of the disciples tried to live in the moment when they realized their remaining time with Jesus was short.

Based on the story of the betrayal, none of them were really prepared for the end when it came. The moment in the garden when Jesus was taken from them seems to have come as shock, even though he told them in advance that it was coming.

In the past, when I have read the gospel passages where Jesus tells the disciples about his death to come and the ressurction that is to follow, I have had the luxury of focusing on the resurection. The resurection has been a fact of my faith since I first learned to sing "Jesus Loves Me" in Sunday School.

My mom's entry into hospice care reminds me that the disciples didn't know how their time with Jesus would come to an end. Even though he told them he would rise again in three days they didn't really accept it.

We see that in the moment when they didn't believe Mary Magdalene when she told them she had seen Jesus resurrected. Nor were they any more open to the idea when the two disciples saw him next.

According to the Gospel of Mark, it was only when Jesus appeared to all eleven of them and told them to: 'go out into the world and proclaim the good news' that they believed.

To me, the story of the diciples in the lead up to the death of Jesus shows me how very human it is to not really comprehend a thing until it is actaully happening.

There is a huge uncertain gap between theory and practice. My mom and I had many discussions about death after she was diagnosed but now that we are walking the actual walk much that seemed certain is no longer so.

What does give me comfort, is the fact that the disciples, for all their faults, fears, and disbelief managed to muddle through it all.

If they could do it, so can I. I will live on 'in sure and certain hope of the ressurection', one of my favorite phrases in our Book of Common prayer.

Even more so, it is my hope that I will be able to live on in my mom's example. To live as fully as I can in the moment, to let the future take care of itself, to speak truth to power, and to try to make the world we live in now a better place and not wait for the hereafter.