from a long time ago

(This post is from early on in my blog. But it seems to match the time we were in then except it wasn't the economy but the Trump-amy today. Things feel off kilter in the same way.)

Thursday, March 26, 2009

sweet smells of spring

It's raining outside--the first real 'spring' rain--slow and tender and sweet and bringing out the smells of humus and vegetation and trees and the very air.

I've been noticing how anxious everyone is. It may be the economy and our inability to get away from it--don't turn on a TV or radio or go on-line...it's 'all economy all the time'. And it makes us anxious.

I told someone today, "everyone who is 'edgy' already is over the edge; everyone who was leaning toward 'edgy' has arrived there and those who weren't 'edgy' at all are getting there."

Harriet said to me, after three passing weird calls and a couple of way beyond weird drop-ins, "it's not even a full moon but it feels like it."

If you have no opinion about the full moon affecting human behavior come hang out at St. John's--probably any urban church--for the days before and the days after. I don't follow such things, but I know--really KNOW--when it is a full moon. Things get dicey quick. Folks who are a little crazy get full blown, honkin' crazy. The really crazy get disturbing. Folks like you and me (unless you fit into one of those two categories, which you might...) get anxious, edgy and lose what little inhibitions we have.

Lately, though, is a different deal. Anxiety is running riot through the population and making even the sane a bit nuts. Scott, the Senior Warden, and I talked about it this morning and decided that it is so: something in the ether is freaking people out. In all my years of parish ministry I have never had so many experiences of people on the edge as in the last six months.

I'll tell you what I told both Scott and Harriet--our job is to be what psychologists call "a non-anxious presence" in the midst of this time of anxiety, stress and edgy-ness. I told a committee just a few days ago that they have to resist getting sucked into the craziness of one of our members. Craziness is seductive and energy eating. I think of those creatures in the Harry Potter books that suck life-force out of people. I'm not real adroit at recognizing craziness up front, but when I talk to a crazy person (which I do a lot, by the way) I find myself drifting off to sleep. All my energy gets sucked out and away and I am seduced into the un-conscious level of being.

Maybe spring--in spite of the Stock Market and the Economy and Global Warming and pestilence, plague and war--will bring the smells of the re-birthing earth to us in such a way that anxiety will be overcome. But I doubt it.

We have to keep our heads when all around us are losing theirs. We have to be calm in a time of frantic thinking, we have be be present in a non-anxious way when many are so anxious they're a little crazy.

Go outside. Smell the rain and the smells it calls forth. Spring is coming.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Something is about to be birthed.

Meeting week

I have two meetings this week. One was tonight--the Cluster Council meeting. And tomorrow night is the Cluster Lenten program.

Just between you and me (and whoever else is reading this) I hate meetings.

Tonight, saying not much unless I was asked a question, I figured out why.

Meetings I'm not leading bring out my introverted side. On Meyers/Briggs tests I am about 50/50 as an introvert and an extrovert. Church services, meetings I'm leading and talking to one or two people bring out the extrovert in me. Meetings I'm not leading make me draw back and feel uncomfortable speaking.

I give a 'report' at each Cluster Council meeting and I usually hem and haw a while and say I'm finished. And I'm not leading the Lenten study--another of our three priests is--and I'll be hesitant, I already know, to say much.

Leading meetings makes me an extrovert. Just being 'one of the crowd' makes me an introvert.

I actually like both my extroverted self and my introverted self. But I don't like being an introvert in the presence of other people.

That's for 'alone time'--like reading books and looking at the Internet and walking the dog and, well, writing this blog.

Introvert time is for being alone or with Bern but not talking.

Meetings are difficult when I'm in introvert mode.

Just like that.

I'm glad I finally figured out why.

Na-da

St. John of the Cross referred to God as "na-da"--or as we would say., "nothing".

What he meant, I think, is that God is beyond language. We can't talk about God because we have no words to have that conversation.

That speaks to me.

Maybe, just maybe, we should shut up about God and just absorb and ponder the silence.

Sounds good to me.

What about you?

lost in time

I've been blaming the time change for today feeling like Monday.

Then I realized it felt like Monday because I didn't go to church. I know two of the three churches in the Cluster closed because of early snow and ice. Haven't heard about the third.

I often tell people who ask why I became a priest that I knew that would make me go to church.

"Why did you?" by the way is a question no ordained person likes to hear. That's the question  you are asked hundreds of time in seminary--or, in a different tense: "why do you want to be a priest?"

I had a friend in seminary who answered that question by telling an unsuspecting lay person, "I was sleeping naked and lightening came through the window and hit me in my penis and I didn't die. I thought I had to pay God back."

This was at an open house for Episcopal lay folks at Virginia Seminary. We were all sipping sherry and being charming but everyone has a breaking point.

By the way, he pronounced 'naked' "necked" because he was that southern.

Another friend--a seminarian at Yale who worked with me in New Haven--once asked what he should say to the standing committee when they asked him why he wanted to be ordained.

Off the top of my head, I said, "tell them you want to be 'magic'."

He did and they bought it. He's an artist so he make me a pen and ink piece of art I still love based on wanting to be 'magic'.

I'll stick with "it makes me go to church".

That's why I'm still doing this priest thing part time though I'm officially retired and have been getting my pension payments for seven years.

I'm really not sure I'd go to church to sit in the pew. I never go when on vacation.

I do think going to church is a very good thing--so continuing to practice priesthood makes me do 'a good thing'.

That's a good enough reason.

Though 'being magic' isn't bad either....

Daylight Savings Time

I'm a bit of an agnostic when it comes to DST. I'd probably, if I were in charge, have it in the winter so the days wouldn't end so early.

But Bern hates it.

She gets up earlier than me, so it won't be as bright as usual for a couple of months. And she worries about the lost sleep side effects.

They do it in most of Europe and in some of the southern most countries in South America and in one province of Australia (in the southern hemisphere 'summer' in the last two). But there are some states that don't do it and most of Africa never has.

There are vast areas of Asia that tried it and stopped.

George Hudson, from New Zealand (which uses it--in their summer, our winter) introduced the concept in 1895.

Ben Franklin had toyed with time change but never endorsed it.

There's a fascinating history of DST and lots of disagreement on its value and drawbacks (Bern is far from being the only opponent!).

Look it up and read about the history if you're interested.

All I know--agnostic as I am about it--is that it starts at 2 a.m. tomorrow. Just as the snow is about to begin here.

We're not setting back the clocks tonight to give us the illusion that nothing is changing.

And, because of the weather forecast, St. James has cancelled church tomorrow. It usually starts at 9 a.m. and is 40 minutes away so I would have had to get up at 7 (6 the time it is tonight) which I don't do well. So, I won't set the alarm and will deal with DST tomorrow.

Best to you as time becomes relative....

Lent I

I haven't written my sermon for Sunday yet--but here is an old Lent I sermon.

LENT I 2/14/16

          I walked for many days,

          Past witches that eat grandmothers knitting booties

          As if they were collecting a debt.

          Then, in the middle of the desert, I found the well….

          In the first Century, the Judean Wilderness was called Je-SHIM-mon, which means, literally, ‘The Devastation.’  The wilderness of Judea is an area 35 miles by  25 miles—almost 1000 square miles of devastation. From Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, the desert drops down 1200 feet to the lowest point on the face of the earth.

          The Judean desert is one of the most rocky, empty, inhospitable places you could imagine. It looks more like the Moon than it looks like Connecticut. There is an otherworldliness to that place. The heat of the arid afternoon is brutal, but not surprising—what is surprising is how cold it gets when the sun falls out of the sky like a ball rolling off a table.

          And though rain seldom falls in that place, when rain comes it comes in cloudbursts that flood the wadii’s with such force that human beings can be knocked to the ground and drowned in the desert.

            

    

          According to Matthew’s gospel, after Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit led him into the 

Devastation—into the Judean wilderness—to be tempted by the devil.

          Matthew does not refer to Satan as “the Evil One” or “the Enemy”: instead, he calls him ‘o di-ab-oy-os, which means the slanderer…the one who tells lies.  Jesus’ “temptation” is the challenge of slander, of lies, of the “un-true.”

          In English, we tend to think of temptation as something “drawing us into sin or evil.”  But the Greek word is peir-a-zein, which is more akin to “testing” or “trying.”  Peir-a-zein does not refer to a purely negative action. “To be tested” contains the possibility of learning and growing…the chance of finding unknown strength.

          Then, in the middle of the desert, I found the well.

          It bubbled up and down like a litter of cats

          And there was water, and I drank,

          And there was water, and I drank.

          In the midst of the devastation of the desert, The Slanderer tempted Jesus with three lies.

          The first lie was this: personal longings and needs are more important than patience and endurance.

          Jesus was hungry and the devil dared him to turn stones into bread. But Jesus knew it was a lie and grew stronger.

          The second lie was this: quick results and instant success are better than wrestling with reality.

          To leap from the Temple and be unharmed would cause the Jews to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. Jesus knew it was a lie and learned wisdom.

          The third lie was the most seductive of all: Power and Control will win hearts.

          To worship Satan and rule the world would have let Jesus “control” the people of the world. Jesus knew it was a lie and learned faithfulness and powerlessness.

          Then, in the middle of the desert, I found the well.

          It bubbled up and down like a litter of cats

          And there was water, and I drank.

          And there was water, and I drank.

          Then the well spoke to me…..

          Jesus’ time in the Wilderness is a metaphor for our own journey, our own “testing” and trial and temptation.

          The desert, the Wilderness, the Devastation—it is not ‘OUT THERE” anywhere.  We are not called by Lent into a place “out there….”

          The desert of Lent is a metaphor for the inner journey we are called to make—the wilderness places of our soul we are called to visit and be tested by and drink from.  And the Wilderness is where the Well of God can be found.

          The Light dwells beyond our inner darkness. Life and Hope can only be discovered if we will walk in the Shadow of Death and Hopelessness. There are no short-cuts, no easy ways, no simple answers.

          The Slanderer within us whispers lies. And the way to Truth is through un-Truth.  The Well of God, the Water of Life is in the desert places of our hearts.

          Lent calls us—as individuals and as a community—to self-reflection and prayer. That way is the Wilderness Way. And it is the only Way to Freedom and Life.

          There is no Holy Week without Lent. There is not Easter without Good Friday.

          We live too much on the surface of things. Lent calls us down deep—down into the unconscious life, into the bone and the marrow of life, into the deepest Darkness where the light will truly Shine, into the driest desert where the Well of God bubbles “up and down like a litter of cats….” Where there is water and where the Well speaks to us.

          Then the well spoke to me.

          It said: Abundance is scooped from abundance,

          Yet abundance remains.

          Then I knew.

          Abundance is scooped from abundance, yet abundance remains.

         

          In the desert of Lent, we will know….we will know…..

         

The sort-of Omar resolution

So the House of Representatives passed, by a huge majority, a resolution today, condemning all hate speech against any minority.

And 23 Republicans voted nay.

Why is that?

Well, it began as a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism, prompted by some remarks of Rep. Omar (a Muslim) from Minnesota, saying Israeli money was prompting support of Israel in Congress. I happen to agree with that, but it was construed as anti-Semitic by some.

But when 23 people vote against a resolution condemning hate speech, you've got to wonder why.

Oh, and Steve King of Iowa, accused of White supremacist comments, voted "present".

I have grave doubts about America's unrelenting support of Israel vs. the Palestinian population. But I am not an anti-Semite.

And I profoundly believe hate speech against any minority is not only heinous but anti-American.

And just last week, our president called Rep. Adam Shiff, a Jew, "shifty"--which is a well known anti-Semitic term referring in years ago to Jewish bankers. What about that?

Our president has engaged in speech that is racist toward Africa and Latinos in many ways.

Hate speech is wrong, evil and deplorable.

And 23 (24 if we count Steve Kings's "present") voted against a bill condemning it.

Go figure.

Well, you don't have to figure--this is where we are in America today.