Sublime Fear

When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.
(Exodus 34:30)

The Lord is king; let the peoples tremble!
(Psalm 99:1)

But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside.
(2 Corinthians 3:14)

While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.
(Luke 9:34)

The characters in bible experience fear on a regular basis, and frequently the first thing that God or an angel of God says is some variation on: 'fear not'. However, in the readings for this last Sunday after Epiphany this is not the case. Each of the readings touches on a fear of the Almighty that is not set aside. Even in Moses's case, a veil is required before the people can face him without fear.

The psalm calls on God's people to tremble and the gospel shows us disciples doing something that causes God to put the fear of, well, God, into them.

This idea of the experience of God having healthy fear at its heart, put me in mind of an art exhibition I saw in Pennsylvania in 2002. Called "American Sublime:  Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880" it was put on by the Tate Britain, London and toured to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Like many of the best experiences in my life, it was a complete accident that I got to see it.

I was in town to attend a fan convention and found that that was a terrible idea for an introvert. I spent most of the time instead touring the city and walked into the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts on a whim.

What I found there were paintings that overwhelmed my senses. They were on a grand scale-- many large enough to take up entire walls in the museum, all of them trying to convey something about the awesome power of nature.

The images and feelings they invoked in me have stayed with me through the years, not the least because they introduced me to a concept I had felt before, but never had a word for: 'Sublime'. I came away with the idea that something that is sublime and awesome has, at its heart, the power to not only overwhelm the senses, but to provoke fear.

The term 'sublime' descries this imaginative response to immensity or boundlessness, a 'delightful horror' when faced by phenomena of great magnitude, by potential danger or the unknown."
(Wilton and Barringer, 2002, pg 67)

Several times as young person, I had an experience of God that left me trembling in the aftermath. I had no words for this feeling but when I saw the enormous paintings on the wall of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts I felt that same sense of overwhelming awe, a feeling that I was a very small speck in a very large universe.

The 'cloud [that] came and overshadowed' and left Peter, John, and James terrified matches my idea of the Sublime: something so awe-inspiring, terrible, and mighty in its aspect that it leaves the observer shocked and spent in its wake.

In the readings appointed for this Sunday, I see a God who feels that the disciples needed a reminder of the awesome and terrible nature of God after months hanging out with human-seeming Jesus. This is a moment when God overwhelms the Peter, John, and James and seems to say that a little fear is a good thing now and then

For me, this puzzling moment of fear sets the stage for what is to come. The disciples have been following Jesus, experiencing miracles, and hearing the parables and may have been thinking (as humans tend to) that their life with Jesus would go on indefinitely just as it had been.  But in this moment, God brings them up short and reminds them just how high the stakes are. God comes right out and says: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" (Luke 9:35)

This revelation shows me that God is trying to get the disciples to take seriously all that Jesus has been saying about his upcoming suffering, rejection, and death.

Buried in that experience of fear, however, is one of hope. If God, the Almighty is trying to get the disciples to take this seriously by making them quake in their boots; God is also declaring God's unwavering support for Jesus and Jesus's message by making it clear that God expects Peter, James, and John to really listen to Jesus.

As we stand on the cusp of Lent, about to enter the dark times of the persecution and death of Jesus in our liturgical calender, it is a good time to be reminded that God the sublime and awe-inspiring has thrown God's weight fully behind Jesus in this moment.

Acknowledging that there is a very real reason to feel fear is the first step toward the courage to take up the message of Jesus.

As the writer of 2 Corinthians goes on to say:

...but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

May we all have our fears turned into sublime glory.


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Bible quotes are from the NRSV on Bible Gateway

Wilton, A., Barringer, T. J., Tate Britain (Gallery), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts., & Minneapolis Institute of Arts. (2002). American sublime: Landscape painting in the United States, 1820-1880. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

This essay was originally published at The Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on February 7, 2016.

Anna, the Last Prophet

As I was doing research on the readings appointed for 2 Feburary I was struck by the role Anna, daughter of Phanuel plays in the presentation. She is the first woman, outside of Mary's family, to see Jesus in his role as redeemer.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition Anna and Simeon are considered to be the last of the Old Testament prophets. But while Simeon takes Jesus in his arms and speaks to Mary and Joseph, Anna "began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38)

In a sense, she is the first evangelist.

She straddles a turning point in history. Like may of her people she has lived her life in anticipation of the arrival of a messiah. Along with Simeon she realizes that the redeemer has come into her life. Unlike Simeon she was not promised that she would live to see this day.

So here we have two elders of the faith, Simeon the righteous and devout and Anna the ever-faithful coming together to welcome the baby Jesus and his parents. Simeon, expressing a private joy and a dire prediction, and Anna calling out to all who would hear about this child and the redemption of Jerusalem.

I wonder Anna's vision for Jesus was. Did she see him as a potential 'modern-day' David? Or was she, as someone who fasted and prayed everyday, aware of the potential Jesus had to become the Redeemer to all people. A messiah whose message would reach out beyond the confines of his original family, temple, and religion. A god-made-flesh whose followers would spread across the globe and carry with them the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup that would become the central feast and ritual of the new Christian faith?

She saw his potential, that is all we know.

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 Bible quotes are from the NRSV on Bible Gateway

Mom

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."" And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come."" His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."  ~John 2:1-5

Supposedly Jesus was around 30 years old when he mouthed off to his mother at the wedding in Cana. Reading the passage from John this week made me laugh out loud-- perhaps the first time I have ever laughed a a bible passage.

The reason for my laughter is Mary's response to Jesus when he basically tells her that he's not going to do anything about the wine situation. Instead of getting into a fight with him about his timing or his recalcitrance she just acts as if he graciously offered to help her by instructing the servants to do what he says.

This is such a universal 'mom' moment. I have a teenager of my own. He has many sterling qualities and is frequently both cheerful and helpful; however, like all parent-teen relationships, ours has had it's ups and downs. There have been times when I told him to do something and he refused. I learned a long time ago that he best thing to do in those situations was to acknowledge the resistance, but expect him to follow my request regardless. Much like Mary in the quote above, I make it clear that I expect him to act on my request.

My son was a December baby, so I have felt kinship with Mary in the past, but this is the first time I really connected to her as a mom who has expectations of her son that may not fit his idea of himself.

Much like the Canaanite Woman in John 15:21-28, Mary, in this moment, is pulling Jesus up short and encouraging him to really think about what he just said to his mother (possibly in front of all of her friends). She doesn't get into a fight with him, she doesn't call him on the carpet, she just pretends that he answered in the way she would expect a polite and dutiful son and guest to do.

In the chronology of John, Jesus already has some disciples and might be feeling much like a youngster out on his own for the first time-- unshakable in his certainty and disdainful of his elders' life experience. I still remember that feeling of 'knowingness' that carried me through my early twenties. Sometimes I even miss it. However, I also remember when my lack of life experience would prove that my parents still had a thing or two to teach me.

In this brief moment, we see Jesus choosing to respect his mother's request. We see him realize that, while he may be God-made-man he still has to answer to his mother for his behavior in certain circumstances. We also see the beginning of a pattern where, when he is called out on his grand proclamations, he is willing to stop, think, and even reconsider his words and deeds in the light of another person's experience.

This is a side of Jesus that I don't think can be stressed enough. Even though he is the Son of God incarnate he is not immune from the errors of mortals. He is sometimes arrogant, definitely a know-it-all, and prone to believing he is always correct. These two, very different, women both stand and remind him that just because he is the Son of God doesn't mean he has all the answers.

In these times of turmoil in both the world and the church, I don't think it is a bad thing to believe in a God-made-flesh who we can stand up to and argue with. In fact, even in the old testament God has been willing to be argued with and talked out of some of God's plans.

Going back to my own son, when he was little we would ask him if he would like to do "A" or "B" and most of the time he would say "C". His third option was frequently better than the ones his father and I had come up with, so we learned to listen for 'Option C' before making up our mind. Perhaps God is also listening for that third option and we just need to be willing to speak up and maybe even argue a bit.

We would be in good company if we did so.

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 Bible quotes are from the NRSV on Bible Gateway

Named and Claimed

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
Isaiah 43:1

The wise men have been and gone; now the readings lead into the baptism of Jesus and the start of his time as an earthly teacher to those that follow him.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
(Luke 3:21-22)

Jesus is named by the Holy Spirit in this moment. He is clearly called out as the Son in this moment and claimed as the beloved. My first experience with the idea that names have power was through Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Series. At the time it was a trilogy consisting of "The Wizard of Earthsea," The Tombs of Atuan," and "The Farthest Shore" (she has since expanded the series). In the novels, the fundamental way that magic works is through naming. It starts with the idea of a 'true name,' that is given to a person as they leave childhood behind:

On the day the boy was thirteen years old, a day in the early splendor of autumn while still the bright leaves are on the trees, Ogion returned to the village from his rovings over Gont Mountain, and the ceremony of Passage was held. The witch took from the boy his name Duny, the name his mother had given him as a baby. Nameless and naked he walked into the cold springs of the Ar where it rises among rocks under the high cliffs. As he entered the water clouds crossed the sun’s face and great shadows slid and mingled over the water of the pool about him. He crossed to the far bank, shuddering with cold but walking slow and erect as he should through that icy, living water. As he came to the bank Ogion, waiting, reached out his hand and clasping the boy’s arm whispered to him his true name: Ged. Thus was he given his name by one very wise in the uses of power.

Throughout the series, Ms. LeGuin builds on the idea that the basis of all magic is the knowledge of the true names; and that: "A mage can control only what is near him, what he can name exactly and wholly."

As a youngster, this idea impressed me and encouraged me to see all things as worthy of their own names with secret power that was beyond my understanding. It also dovetailed with my emerging faith. Even then I could see parallels between Ged's naming ceremony and the baptismal rite. The idea that names hold power reaches back at least as far as Genesis, where nearly the first thing we see is God using the power of naming to call the world into being: "God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day." (Genesis 1:5) In the readings coming up for the Feast of St Peter we see Jesus not only name Simon 'Peter' but claims him as the rock and foundation of the church.

And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Matthew 16:17-19

In both the New Testament and in Ms LeGuin's work the new name is not given by the family. Instead it is given by God or by a person of power. In order to enter into his ministry, Jesus was named as both Son and Beloved by the voice from above. In order to enter into an apprenticeship with a mage, Ged is first named. Ged sheds his childhood name and adopts two new ones-- a 'use name' that is his everyday name and his 'true name' which he is told never to share.

This where the two texts diverge. Ged is reminded that his 'true name' is private and that sharing it will give other mages power over him. Jesus is named as the 'Son' in full view of witnesses and that naming marks the beginning of his ministry. It is only after he is baptized and named that he goes out among the people to preach, draw followers to him, and do miracles.

It is not until he is named that he can claim his place in the world. It is not until he his named that he can claim others as his followers and name them. They in turn, take their new names out into the world to share his word.

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  BibleGateway 

 Le Guin, Ursula K. (2012-09-11). A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle Series Book 1) (pp. 16-17, 56). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

  Lectionary Page

Call to Action

As I was reviewing the readings for December 30th, the Feast of Frances Joseph Gaudet (Educator and Prison Reformer) I was struck by how often God requires a human act before God's power is loosed in the world.

In the story of the crossing of the Red Sea, God doesn't act alone to part the waters for the Israelites and then bring the water down upon the Egyptians, God requires that Moses "Stretch out your hand over the sea" (Exodus 14:15 & 21) before God will act.

This is the case in many of the old testament stories where God is called upon. Before God acts, God requires that the agent perform a specific action.

The gospel appointed for this feast is Matthew 25:35-46 where we have the tally of actions that are signifier of 'the righteous':

for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
(Matthew 25:35-40)

It is the choice to do, to reach out, to act that sets the righteous apart in this situation and the failure to act condemns the others to eternal punishment.

I personally don't worry to much about what will happen after death, and tend to think of heaven and hell as present among us now and brought into being by our own choices.

One of my favorite works of fiction is "Curse of Chalion" by Lois McMaster Bujold. It is the first in a fantasy series in a world of five gods. The gods can only act in the world through humans and saints of each god are really just people who are willing to open their souls to let the gods reach through them into the world.

Umegat [a saint] grinned, and desisted. "But have you really understood how powerless the gods are, when the lowest slave may exclude them from his heart? And if from his heart, then from the world as well, for the gods may not reach in except through living souls. If the gods could seize passage from anyone they wished, then men would be mere puppets. Only if they borrow or are given will from a willing creature, do they have a little channel through which to act. They can seep in through the minds of animals, sometimes, with effort. Plants… require much foresight. Or—" Umegat turned his cup upright again, and lifted the jug— "sometimes, a man may open himself to them, and let them pour through him into the world." He filled his cup. "A saint is not a virtuous soul, but an empty one. He— or she— freely gives the gift of their will to their god. And in renouncing action, makes action possible."

"If the gods are making this path for me, then where is my free will? No, it cannot be!"
"Ah." Umegat brightened at this thorny theological point. "I have had another thought on such fates, that denies neither gods nor men. Perhaps, instead of controlling every step, the gods have started a hundred or a thousand Cazarils and Umegats down this road. And only those arrive who choose to."

I find this idea of a god needing a willing vessel to be helpful when I think about God; and a good counter to the idea that "God let X-bad-thing happen." God doesn't let things happen. God asks us to invite him in to our lives.


Like Moses or Aaron-- we must stretch out our hands in order to allow God to act in our world. If we fail to act, if we stand to the side, then there is little God can do for us or with us in our world.
So consider giving your hands and mind to God as we stand upon the cusp of a new year.

How is God calling you to act?

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  "Curse of Chalion" quotes from:
Bujold, Lois McMaster (2009-10-13). The Curse of Chalion (p. 199 &p. 228). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Bible quotes from https://www.biblegateway.com

Finding Stillness

Advent

av: Inger Hagerup (1905 – 1985)

Så tenner vi et lys i kveld, vi tenner det for glede
Det står og skinner for seg selv og oss som er tilstede
Så tenner vi et lys i kveld, vi tenner det for glede

Så tenner vi to lys i kveld, to lys for håp og glede
De står og skinner for seg selv og oss som er tilstede
Så tenner vi to lys i kveld, to lys for håp og glede

Så tenner vi tre lys i kveld, for lengsel, håp og glede
De står og skinner for seg selv og oss som er tilstede
Så tenner vi tre lys i kveld for lengsel, håp og glede

Vi tenner fire lys i kveld og lar dem brenne ned
For lengsel, glede, håp og fred, men mest allikevel for fred
på denne lille jord, hvor menneskene bor*

On 2 April 1904 my grandfather and his mother arrived in New York from Oslo, Norway. They had $5.00 and a train ticket to Portland, Oregon and were on their way to join my great-grandfather who had come over with his brother in March of 1903. My grandfather was 10 months old when his father left Oslo for the United States and was 19 months old when he arrived in New York with his mother.

All of this is information that I learned in the years after his death in January of 1979. The only part of his heritage that I had from his own lips was that Friday the 13th was lucky for him because he was Norwegian.

I had not had a lot of experience with death at that age and was devastated by his loss. In 1976, a friend of mine died of leukemia. She was 9, I was 7. I don't remember much about her illness. I remember playing with her (and looking up to her-- she was the oldest of four siblings and my oldest friend at the time). I do remember being taken to her grave and not understanding why she didn't have a headstone. It was my first experience with some of the logistics of death, namely that it takes time to have a headstone made.

(Something I never realized until researching dates for this essay is that both my friend and my grandfather died in the month of January just 8 days apart-- which might explain a lot about why I tend to feel down this time of year.)

In contrast to my foggy memories of my friend's death, I remember exactly where I was when my parents told me my grandfather had died. I remember sitting down on the steps that led up from our basement and crying. I also remember being enraged at my parents for not letting me go to the funeral. This was my first experience with the complex feelings that come as a part and parcel of grieving.

As an adult, I now understand my parent's reasoning. We lived in Wyoming. My grandparents lived in Oregon. It would have been expensive to take me and they thought at the time for a number of reasons that made logical sense, that it would be best if I didn't attend the funeral. However, for all that I understand things now, at the time I was angry. I felt that my parents didn't understand how important my grandpa was to me. I had this weird sense that he might not really be dead and it took me a long time to really 'believe' in his death.

As I grew up, I became fascinated with my grandparent's story. My grandmother was a 1st generation American. Her mother, my great-grandmother, had emigrated from Scotland in 1888 when she was 13 years old.

Throughout the years, we kept in contact with the Norwegian side of the family. My great-grandfather returned to Norway once in the 1960's to visit his family. My great-grandmother was an only child of a single mother and never saw her family again after coming to the United States. In the 1980's my grandmother brought my grandfather's cousin, Rolf, and his wife to visit us in Norway. For several years afterwards Rolf and I wrote letters back and forth. He sent me a collection of Norwegian coins and he always put little stickers of the Norwegian flag on his letters.

In 2000, my mother and I decided to go on a family pilgrimage to Norway. We met my Rolf, who was then in his 80's, and his children (who were of age with my mom). We had a grand time touring Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim and meeting family and friends that mom knew from her time at Harvard. Rolf scared us to death driving us around Oslo in his car that had a tendancey to just stop running at random stop signs.

I came home with a love of Norway and a desire to learn the language. I found a community school in Ballard and started taking classes and learning not only about the lanuage but about the culture as well (both Norwegian culture and Norwegian-American culture).

It was there that I learned about the tradition of lille juleaften. Celebrated on the 23rd of December, it is the day that Norwegians spend in preparation for Christmas. In the past it was the big day to clean the house, take a bath, and put on clean Christmas clothes. Now it is frequently the day when Norwegians decorate their Christmas trees and settle in for the Christmas season. It is also a celebration of Thorlákr Thorhallsson (Saint Thorlak, patron saint of Iceland), bishop of Skálholt in Iceland from 1178 until his death on December 23, 1193.

In 2005, I returned to Norway after 3 years of community classes and a summer intensive course at the University of Washington. I spent 3 weeks immersed in Norwegian life. I stayed with my relatives in Oslo for part of the time and they took me around with them to meet friends, attend events, and generally share in their life. I spent time in Bergen on my own and managed to stick to speaking Norwegian the entire time. My best memory from that visit was sitting with Rolf in his garden, having coffee while he quizzed me on Norwegian nouns. He was tickled that I knew some of the trickier plural noun formations. It was a delightful afternoon, and I felt as if the spirit of my own grandfather was there with us.

At this point in my life I am about as Norwegian as I am Episcopalian, they are both tribes that I am descended from and they both have influenced my life greatly. In the past 15 years, as I have learned more about Norway, I have also learned more about my faith and the ways I choose to express it.

From what I have learned, the idea behind lille Juleaften is as the deep breath before plunging headlong into the celebration of Christmas. According my my Norwegian teacher, it was customary in Norway for lille Juleaften to signal the last day of frantic preparation before Christmas. All the food would be baked, the cleaning done, and everyone would take the 12 days of Christmas off from much of their daily routines. It was a time of rest and relaxation after the harvest and the rush to get everything secured for the winter.

So, though I came to it late in life, and through a very circuitous route, I invite you to celebrate lille Juleaften with me this year. Finish your chores, put on your Christmas finery, and take a moment's rest before the feast to come.

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Advent *rough translation by me:

So light we a candle this night, we light it for joy
It stands and shines for itself and for those who are present
So light we candle this night, we light it for joy

So light we two candles this night, two candles for hope and joy
They stand and shine for themselves and for those who are present
So light we two candles this night, two candles for hope and joy

So light we three candles this night, three candles for longing, hope, and joy
They stand and shine for themselves and for those who are present
So light we three candles this night, three candles for longing, hope, and joy

We light four candles this night and let them burn down
For longing, joy, hope, and peace, but most of all for peace
for this little earth, where people live

A Norwegian teacher reciting the poem in both english and norwegian: "Advent" (this video is in four parts)

Little children singing another variation on this Advent theme "Nå tenner vi det første lys"

And finally, just because it is so pretty (and because we are still in Advent), a danish choir singing another song on the theme of lighting the four candles in Advent: "Det første Lys" (the first candle).

Fear Not

For the lead player, for the Korahites, a psalm.
Here this, all peoples,
hearken, all who dwell in the world.
You human creatures, you sons of man,
together the rich and needy.
My mouth speaks wisdom,
my heart's utterance, understanding.
I incline my ear to a saying,
I take up with the lyre my theme.
Why should I fear in evil days,
when crime comes round me at my heels.
~Psalm 49: 1-6*

One of three possible Psalms for the Wednesday of the third week of advent, Psalm 49 is fundamentally about how death makes rich and poor, wise and foolish, famous and obscure, all equal. We all spend eternity in our graves an our lives are just brief moments by comparison.

In the midst of this psalm is the phrase: "Why should I fear in evil days, when crime comes round me at my heels." or from the Book of Common Prayer: "Why should I be afraid in evil days, when the wickedness of those at my heels surrounds me,".

That phrase caught my attention, to the point that I had difficulty concentrating on the rest of the psalm. There has been a lot of evil, crime, and wickedness in the news this year. There are times when I feel like a guttering candle that has been left in a strong breeze-- at any moment a strong gust will put out my flame.\
Then I read a passage like this one and I realize how easy it is for me to take on the fears of the world and forget to see the beauty and love that continues even in dark days.

What do I have to fear? More importantly of those things I might fear, what can I do anything about?
Someday I will die, but I don't know when or how. The only thing I can do is make sure my legal affairs are in order so that those who love me will have one less thing to deal with during their time of grief. There are a few things I can do that might help my quality of life should I be one of those who lives to their 80's or 90's but while there are many things I can do to hasten death, there is very little I can do delay it once it is time.

Someday I will likely be seriously ill. I've already dealth with the after effects of childbirth, major mouth issues, a wonky gall bladder, a sezuire disorder, mystery fatigue, and several broken bones and I'm only in my 40's. However, other than a weird sleep schedule, I'm not currently ill or injured. There is little I can do to plan for future illnesses-- with the exception of making sure to keep up on my routine doctor visits for screening.

Someday something terrible will happen to me and my family. The mere fact that everyone dies, means that someday I will loose people close to me through illness, violence, accident, or just plain age.

However, that day is not today and that day will come in a way that is outside of my control.
One thing I think this psalm is saying is that I should be careful about what fears I give life to. There is so much to be afraid of in life that it can seem overwhelming at times.

I have a teen-aged son who is on the cusp of adulthood and adult responsibilities and the sheer number of things I am afraid might happen to him can be paralyzing.

Add to that modern media that can show me all the wrongs in the world, regardless of if I can do anything about those wrongs and I feel weighted down by the feeling that all is darkness and death.

I must remember that this is the time in our liturgical calendar when the angels said "Fear not" to everyone they met. From Zechari′ah and Elizabeth to Mary and Joseph, and to the shepherds watching their flocks the angels say over and over again: do not fear, fear not, do not be afraid.

I think I need to take the angels at their word and let go of fear in order to fully live the brief life I have on this earth.

------

*Translation from "The book of Psalms" by Robert Alter, pg 171
This essay was originally published at Speaking to the Soul: Fear Not on 16 December 2015.

Cover-to-Cover

I first read the bible cover to cover when I was 13 years old. To this day I am not certain what prompted me to do it. I was into Shakespeare at the time and the version of the bible I choose to read was the King James Version-- so maybe it was the language that attracted me.

I do remember deciding to read the entire thing, because I remember the moment I hit the first of the 'begats' and feeling my eyes roll back in my head. It was the first time I had to, force is the wrong word, choose to read. I don't remember learning to read and I have never not read what was in front of me, from books, to magazines, to cereal boxes to lists of ingredients on lotion bottles. So for me to hit a wall while reading was a new experience. As was choosing to read on.

As I grew up, I encountered the bible in different ways. In my Junior High Sunday school we spent an entire year on the gospel of John (which oddly was featured as the verse of the day at Biblegateway when went to look up which gospel it had been). The opening verse has stayed with me all these years as a result. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-2, NRSV)

During the summers I would attend Vacation Bible School where we played endless rounds of a game where the leader gave you the book, chapter and verse and whoever found it first in their bible won. I got really good at it and it was a useful skill later in life.

In High School I took a "Bible as Literature" class and while I didn't learn a lot of new things in that class, it did give me a foundation in writing about the bible and exploring my own thoughts about what it was saying in a secular classroom. I wrote my final paper on books of the Apocrypha and had a great time actively looking for stories that featured women.

A few years ago I helped my mom edit her book, "Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible" and I spent many days checking each of her quotations against the bible to ensure that we had transcribed them correctly. That meant that I put my bible racing skills to the test as I flipped back and forth from New Testament to Old and dove deeply into the Psalms.

All this has given me my own take on the bible. I don't take it as the literal word of God and I try very hard to balance my modern take on the stories with information we learn from archaeologists, historians, and cultural anthropologists about what the context might have been for the people who lived during the times certain parts of the books of the of the bible were written.

Reading the bible in it's entirety gave me an understanding that there is more to it than just the verses that get read in church on Sundays. Three of my favorite stories get very little air time during the church year. They are the story of the Judge Deborah who said: "I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." (Judges 4:9), the story of Ester who risked everything to save her people, the story of Judith (and her unnamed maid) who not only cut off Holofernes head, but had to stand up to her own people to do it.

In addition to finding stories that spoke to me, reading the bible cover-to-cover (including the begats) gave me an appreciation for how much of the story we fill in from our own experiences. In some cases, the stories are mere sketches, just a broad outline of events, in others they are oddly detailed and include references to customs and things that I have no personal experience with.

In the church, the bible not only gets read, the stories with in it get re-told and re-interpreted, to the point where we sometimes need to strip away hundreds of years of our own story-telling to see the old stories in a new light.

I encourage everyone, regardless of their faith, to read the bible through for themselves at least once. There is so much of our received culture that, much like Shakespeare, is influenced by it to this day.

As we say in our family, the more you read, the more jokes you will get.

Reading the bible gives access to a cultural touchstone and exposes the reader to stories that have been told for centuries. And reading the bible oneself rather than hearing stories about what the bible says can be it's own form of revelation.

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 This essay was originally published at Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on 2 December 2015.

The World is Big Enough

Recently I've been listening to the soundtrack for "Hamliton", the musical that opened on Broadway in September of this year. The musical covers the life and death of Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton and was heavily influenced by the book: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chrenow.

The show has been in development for years, but the first I ever heard of it was when my son plugged his phone into the stereo system and blasted the first lines of the opening song.

My first thought was that this wasn't my type of music-- it is heavily rap and hip-hop influenced and just about the only rap I've listened to was Queen Latifa. That said, by the second song I was hooked and wanted to hear more.

I've since purchased the album and listened to it several times-- usually in the background while I was doing something else. This week I was visiting my parents and just hanging out and took some time to listen to the entire recording while reading the annotated lyrics at genius.com. When I got to the penultimate song in the show where Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton duel, and Hamilton is fatally wounded, I was struck by the last line-- in Burr's words: "The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me." Curious, I went and looked up his wikipedia entry and found that he was quoted later in life as saying: "Towards the end of his life, Burr remarked: "Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me."

All of this struck me because I have been thinking about two related ideas this week.
One is compassion fatigue. The idea that there are only so many things that I can care about before I begin to care about nothing.

The other is the disaster shell game where I see people saying 'but what about our veterans' when we are talking about refugees, when they never seemed to care about veterans before this. (See this for a more detailed overview.)

I realized a long time ago that I cannot care about everything that is important and I can't donate to every organization that is doing good work. There is only one of me and the world and it's miseries are so much bigger than I am.

This has not stopped me from giving my time and money to some of the organizations that I see doing good in the world. Instead I find that I am one among many and that while my little drop cannot fill a bucket on it's own, my drop adds to everyone else's drop to make a respectable dent in the bucket.

So when I see people saying that one cause is more important than another, or that we should solve X's problem before we tackle Y's issues, I find myself raising an eyebrow in disbelief. The thing with human beings is that we can't put one group on hold while we deal with another group's issues. We are temporal beings, bound in time, aging and dying from the moment of our birth. I can't say to children under 5, 'you must wait for safe daycare until we have homes for all of our homeless', because they might be 55 by the time we solve that problem. And that is assuming we actually put the resources we promised into ending homelessness and don't use the money to build ourselves a new stadium instead.

We have to work to solve the worlds problems concurrently, we have to say yes to 'both / and' instead of believing that we are stuck with 'either / or'.

There are enough of us that care.

The world is wide enough for not only our sins but for our redemption.

'Either / or' is the world of Aaron Burr, a man who had many fears and who seemed to live his life for the main chance, changing sides as needed to get ahead. 'Either / or' is the life of people who think there is only one right way (theirs) to solve problems.

'Both / and' makes room for many ideas and says that there is no one right way to get things done-- the only wrong choice is to do nothing.

I wonder if that is a the heart of one of the parables I have always found most difficult to get my head around: the parable of talents. A naturally conservative person, my sympathies were always with the servant who buried his talent in the ground. But now I see that that servant, in his own words, confesses to letting fear drive his actions: "Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours." (Matthew 25:24-25, NRSV)

It had never occurred to me that the third servant's true failing was not the lack of ability to make money for his master, but letting his fear drive his decisions. Unfortunately the parable lacks a counter example of someone who tried to do the right thing but lost all the money, so we don't know how the man going on a journey would have reacted to the loss of all of the money. But for the first time I can see this parable in a different light.

This leads me back to media and one of my favorite movies, "Strictly Ballroom." "Strictly Ballroom" is a romantic comedy about the amateur ballroom dancing circuit in Australia. It's heart, however, is the idea that a life lived in fear is a life half-lived. It also plays with the 'fear of the other' motif as the protagonist gets to know his dancing partner's family who are Spanish speaking immigrants. Suffice to say that it has a lot of layers for a frothy dancing comedy.

When I live my life in fear, I lose sight of how the small contributions of my life, when added to the contributions of others, can have a big impact. I forget that while my cause may not be your cause, they likely intersect in a way that makes each of our work more powerful. I forget that the world is wide enough for many roads to lead to the same goal.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I will, with God's help.

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This essay was orgininally published at The Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on 25 November 2015.

Bible Gateway is an excellent web resource for reading the bible in a myriad of translations. I used the New Revised Standard Version in this post.

Prosperity and Peace

One of the things that sends me right up the wall are people who preach the prospertiy gospel or any variant of the idea that if I live by the 'right' rules, pray the 'right' way, or give money to the 'right' person God will bless me and I will prosper. The converse being, of course, that if I don't do these things correctly the evidence will come in the form of failure, illness, poverty, and death.

Not only do I think that the magical thinking behind such beliefs is wrong, I belive it is the anti-thesis of what the Jesus experince is all about.

I was thinking about this in the context of all of the war, death, and tragedy that we have seen in the news this past week. Between terrorist attacks, earthquakes, and major storms many good people have suffered and died. Prosperity gospel would have us think that these people were somehow unworthy rather than just unluckly.

Jesus says to us that no one is unworthy. His words and actions, his stories and parables speak to the idea that those society are most likely to shun will come first in his Father's house.

No only do I belive that. I also belive that we have gotten the wrong end of who is supposed to be providing the prosperty. We know (or we should know by now) that poverty and distress are some of the major drivers of war and destruction. We know that when we join together to create jobs, communities, and a sense of stablity peace has a chance to grow and thrive. When we right injustice, remove oppressive forces, and provide opportunity we quiet the siren song of violence and make space for peaceful differences.

The psalm appointed for this Wednesday is number 122:

I was glad when they said to me, *
"Let us go to the house of the LORD."

Now our feet are standing *
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is built as a city *
that is at unity with itself;

To which the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD, *
the assembly of Israel,
to praise the Name of the LORD.

For there are the thrones of judgment, *
the thrones of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: *
"May they prosper who love you.

Peace be within your walls *
and quietness within your towers.

For my brethren and companions' sake, *
I pray for your prosperity.

Because of the house of the LORD our God, *
I will seek to do you good."

To me this pslam, at its heart, speaks to the idea that prosperity is the good earth that lasting peace grows in and that without prosperity we are at risk of losing peace.

By prosperity I don't mean outrageous wealth. I mean a sense of shared resources, a feeling of hope for the future, and the idea that we are all riding on this fragile earth, our island home, together.

Every person is created in the image of god and none are unworthy of his love.

Rather than looking to God to provide individual prosperity based on arbitrary rules, we should look to ourselves to provide prosperity to others. We should be wary of people who link wealth with worthiness and poverity with worthlessness.

None of us get to choose where or when we were born, what we can do is try to share what we have, to lift others up, and to follow the example of Jesus in whose eyes no one was unworthy.

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This essay was originally published at the Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on 18 November 2015.