clergy families

The Longest Night

Advent reflection for the Longest Night service at Trinity Episcopal Church

December 16, 2017

The Longest Night service at Trinity Church in Houston takes place on the Saturday evening closest to the winter solstice during Advent. We gather together in Trinity’s beautiful quiet chapel to acknowledge the sorrows and struggles that can appear during this season, along with the joys and hopes. In community, we reflect and share and pray, and we gather around the table to share Eucharist together. I was asked this year to prepare and offer a reflection and I am sharing it here as well. As we approach this winter solstice, our longest night, may we all know, each in our own hearts, that light is already on the way. Know that I wish you much peace this holy season and always.

Prayer:

Gracious God, we come before you this night as your family, as community. In this very holy season, we await the Light of your coming. We also know our woundedness this longest night, and we wait in the dark. Help us to know and remember that you are already here with us. Help us to not be afraid to hope and to yearn for the light that is You. Help us to come to your table with open hands and an open heart, open to the wholeness and healing that only You can give.

We ask all this on this longest night, in the name of your son and our brother Jesus,

Amen

 

Reflection:

“The only thing I know about the Second Coming is that it is going to happen because of God’s love. God made the universe out of love; the Word shouted all things joyfully into being because of love. The Second Coming, whenever it happens and whatever it means, will also be because of love.”

Madeleine L’Engle

“Time and Space Turned Upside Down”

 

I have a good friend whose sister is an Episcopal priest in California. Her sister has told my friend that whenever she meets with a bereaved family to prepare for a funeral, she always asks them to “look for the miracle.” In her experience, a miracle always follows a death, sooner or later.

I have seen this in my own life.

In the spring of 1994, I was pregnant and suffered an early miscarriage. Later that year, I became pregnant again. When Christmas came, I was in Cincinnati visiting my husband’s family. I was at the same stage of pregnancy where I had lost our first baby. I was anxious and sad and afraid that I would miscarry again, this time far from home. As I sat in church with my husband and his family that Christmas Eve afternoon, my eyes fell on a statue of Mary. I remembered her words (Luke 1: 38) when the angel Gabriel came to tell her that she would conceive and bear God’s son…”Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  I remembered the words of Amy Grant’s song “Breath of Heaven, Mary’s Song”: “Breath of heaven, hold me together, be forever near me, breath of heaven…breath of heaven, lighten my darkness, pour over me your holiness, for you are holy.” Everything felt very risky that day, and I couldn’t help but feel sad, knowing that I would have been holding a baby in my arms if it hadn’t been for the miscarriage. The miracle came about six months later when our daughter was born the next summer. She was, and is, and will always be, our miracle.

Ten years later, my father died after many years of suffering from a slow-growing cancer that eventually made his breathing difficult and brought heart failure. He had been a hospice patient for three years before he died…and he loved life so much. After his death, there was much work to do including helping with caregiving for my mother who moved across the state to be near us. As Christmas approached, I found myself sad and almost dreading the celebration I had always loved. We were in a new church, my husband’s first parish as an Episcopal priest, and were still adjusting to this friendly but new to us community. As I sat in church on Christmas Eve, my mind was filled with thoughts of my father and how much I missed him. After the service, as we went outside, I suddenly heard shouts of joy from the kids. Then I saw the snow. White flakes falling everywhere and sticking to the cold ground. My first thought was that my father had sent the snow from heaven. That he had sent the snow to let us know that all was well and that we should indeed be celebrating Christmas and the birth of our Savior. You all know that we don’t usually have a white Christmas around here. Not in southeast Texas. But that year, the year I felt so sad, we did. And it stayed all through Christmas Day. This was my miracle that Christmas.

And now, here we are in 2017. The year of Hurricane Harvey, the year of so much loss and sadness. This year our community has suffered, as in every year, private sadness and loss that is always present. This year our community suffered through Harvey together, and we are still suffering. We have both private and communal sorrows. We sit here tonight this year as in all years, broken sometimes in ways that no one can see and no one can know. It has been a hard year to be a church community with so much loss in our country…loss from mass shootings, loss from wildfires, loss from secrets that we hold in our hearts. This church and this community and we who call this place home have all suffered, each in our own way.

And then the Astros won the World Series. A miracle, no?

The truth is that we are waiting this very night, this longest night, for that miracle. The miracle of Advent, of Christmas, is that Jesus is born. Of all the ways that God could have entered humanity, in what Madeleine L’Engle calls “an invasion of holiness”, God chose to come as a baby. A helpless naked newborn infant. Someone who would depend on us frail humans for his own sustenance, his own life.

I think that God may have wanted to be sure that we wouldn’t be frightened by the coming of his son. After all, there are so many other ways to imagine the coming of Christ. The scriptures are filled with images of how Christ might return again to us in the Second Coming. But he came in Bethlehem as a baby. A weak and tender baby, and we were not afraid…because the angels themselves told us to “fear not.”

This baby came because of Love. This Jesus entered our world in Love. And it is this Love that brings us together here in this church we call home, over and over and over again.

We know our own brokenness this night. We know well our personal darkness and something as well of our communal darkness. It is by faith that we are here, waiting for the Light to come and to shion this longest night.

If there were no Light, we would not know that this is darkness. We hold both darkness and our belief in the Light this night, even as we hold both our sorrow and our joy during this most lovely of seasons. Every birth is inevitably a death, and we believe that every death is also a birth.

We are here together this night and we bring all of who we are to this table. We bring our sorrows and our joys, we bring our brokenness and our willingness to be made whole in Jesus.

May we always remember that the darkness of this night, of all nights, is only part of the story, only part of the reality of our lives together. May we know the wholeness of embracing all of who we are, all of our experience. May we prepare for the Light to come, knowing well that it is Love and only Love that calls us into being, this night and all the days of our lives.

Amen

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Lift your hands…and your hearts

20131130-175150.jpgThe back story is this…this picture was taken by the Reverend Hannah Atkins, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston.  We were sitting in the pews in the midst of the Thanksgiving service at Trinity for Lord of the Streets (LOTS) Episcopal Church.  My husband is the vicar at LOTS, a congregation of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas that serves Houston’s homeless population.  LOTS has a weekly Eucharist at 7:00 am each Sunday that is attended by almost 300 homeless men and women.  Trinity Church hosts the Sunday Eucharist each week.  This service was a special observance of Thanksgiving last Wednesday morning.

So, my husband and Bishop Andy Doyle and Fr. Michael Roeske were vested and at the altar.  Hannah and I sat in the pews among the congregation.  At the offertory, the soloist was singing “Give Thanks” by Don Moen…”and now, let the weak say I am strong, let the poor say I am rich…”  A few of the participants in the pews began to raise their arms and wave them.  We sat in the very midst of God’s daughters and sons, those who had slept in shelters and on sidewalks the night before, those who carried all they owned in plastic or paper bags.  We sat in the midst of those who were sick, those who were frightened, those who were faithful.  “Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One…”

And then the soloist proclaimed “Raise your hand if you are thankful” and my arm shot up.  Hannah’s arm shot up.  All around us, arms shot up.  All the people in the pews, all the people serving.  A church full of arms in the air.

And what was left, except to say thank you.  Thank you for life, thank you for health, thank you for food, thank you for our beautiful earth, thank you for love, thank you for calling us all to care for each other.

May we lift our hands and our hearts today.  Advent begins now.  We wait for the light.  Grace is all around us…may we wait in peace and in joy, with thankful hearts.

It’s Not Over Until It’s Over: Lent and the Home Stretch

My friend and teacher Jennifer Louden (see her amazing work at www.jenniferlouden.com) often tells retreatants that they may feel tempted to begin to “check out” toward the end of a retreat experience. I have experienced this myself many times in different contexts: beginning to mentally move into the “next thing” while an event is still unfolding, thinking of what to say next in a conversation rather than listening to who is speaking, thinking about my grocery list near the end of a TV program… Jennifer counsels her retreatants to “not leave themselves” and to stay with their experience of being on retreat until the retreat is over. This is important counsel and helpful encouragement at this stage in the season of Lent for many of us.

A week from tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday. In many Christian traditions, this begins the most sacred time of the liturgical year, the Triduum. Three liturgical experiences–Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil of Easter–all connect as one service, one worship experience. Those of us who are drawn to practice being pilgrims will follow the thread of the Triduum, being present to the events in the final days of Jesus’ life before and during his death and resurrection. There is great power in these experiences and we are given the opportunity to ponder and pray through the meanings of death and rebirth in our own lives and in our world.

But today, and all the next seven days, it is still Lent. Only a few more days until the celebration of the solemn and sacred Triduum mysteries in the Christian tradition–but the time is not here yet. Especially for clergy or clergy families or church leaders, it can be very tempting to leap ahead a week and give up this last week of Lent in exchange for anticipating or planning Easter and its celebration. Yet, isn’t there something important about being patient and seeing this season of Lent through till its end? How many times have I learned that the most surprising things I discover arrive at the very end, or almost at the very end, of any experience? Missing these surprises is the risk we take when we lean too far into the future.

I would like to suggest that, over these next few days, maybe we can breathe a little more deeply into the desert space that is the season of Lent. Maybe we can sit still in the silence of our own hearts and listen for the Holy One. Whether we have “given up” something for Lent or have practiced “prayer, fasting, and almsgiving” or have just done our best to keep our boat afloat, there are still a few more days to visit the deep corners of our heart and to keep company with our spirit.

If we can find time and space to be still over the next few days, even for a little while, we can know the grace of being present to what is. We can find our way back to the moment that is now (which is of course the only moment that we have).

Let us wait with patience and tenderness; let us not forget to visit our own hearts during these last days of this gift we have been given, the season of Lent. Let us continue to hold our world and those we love in our prayer and let us continue to await resurrection in hope.

Lent, So Far

Today is Tuesday following the third Sunday in Lent…  So far, here is my Lenten experience:  Ash Wednesday at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Fort Worth (noon service among hundreds but no one I knew), First Sunday of Lent at St. Stephen’s Episcopal in Houston (I was a little late after picking up relatives from the airport), the following Wednesday evening reconciliation service (again I was a little late–they started earlier than planned so I was late even though really a little early), Second Sunday of Lent skipped church with my priest husband (who was OFF after weeks and weeks of multiple liturgies) and slept in, and last but not least, the Third Sunday of Lent (last Sunday) back at St. Stephen’s and once again a little bit late…  Kind of a ragamuffin effort so far.  And, I had plans to blog my way through Lent–writing daily?  Writing weekly?  Reflecting on scripture?  Or, I wondered, what about a digital sabbatical?  Taking a real break and no Facebook, Twitter, or WordPress…

Well, none of the above is the answer.  “None of the above” is the right answer, at least for me.  If nothing else, I have learned over the years that the season of Lent comes with its own opportunities, sought or not, intentional or not, to stare in the face of our own humanity.  I have joked before that for me it makes no sense to “give something up” for Lent (even though I usually do, in fits and spurts) because somehow each year, it works out that Lent takes something from me whether I give anything up or not.  And so, I wonder if this desert season isn’t in the end really about just being with who we are–with all our good intentions and all our frustrations and perhaps even all our broken promises.  There is not much in our culture that supports immersion into the Lenten path.  And yet, staring at the news on TV, we have seen earthquakes and tsunamis and bombs falling and death and darkness and budget cuts and lots of suffering with little solace available.  So, the starkness of Lent seems to echo the angry and sad chaos of our planet.  It is not so easy to be who we are after all.

We wait for Resurrection.  It seems a long time coming, though we know It has already come and in fact is already here.  The Texas wildflowers alone proclaim it.  Bluebonnets, snapdragons, buttercups all beginning to bloom…  In another three weeks, we will be in the midst of Holy Week and approaching the Triduum celebration of Maundy Thursday/Good Friday/Holy Saturday and Easter.  There will be time for candy and tulips and singing Alleluia in church and a day off from work and school (unless of course you are a clergy person), and it will be the very climax of our common liturgical year.  New life all around and for everyone…

So, I am hanging in there–blogging or not, writing or not, trying to catch the balls that are thrown my way as best I can. And even in the very middle of Lent, I see the grace apparent when we allow ourselves to be just who we are, even when we are not sure who that is.  God knows, God sees, Grace abounds. 

When simply showing up becomes our spiritual practice, we can open to what lies in front of us.  The unexpected surprises us, even in Lent. There is room for all of us and there is no such thing as not doing Lent “right.” And so, I wish you a holy Lent and the space and time to behold Light and Grace in your heart and in your life…just as it is.

Self-Care for Caregivers and Everyone Else

Last November I had the opportunity to write a column for the Medical Journal Houston about physicians and self-care. It was published in the December issue. Although the article focused on doctors, the issue of self-care seems to be a pretty universal conundrum for anyone who cares for someone else, either professionally or personally–which as far as I can tell is just about everyone.

The article suggests ten ideas for self-care…take a look and see what you think (as the airlines say, put on your own oxygen mask first…) and please comment if you feel so led. Here is a pdf link that hopefully works.

medical_journal_houston_flick_column_december_2010

Hanging at the Top of the Roller Coaster

What a jumbled up week this has been…  Things I have noticed:

  • Feeling very attached to news from and word about the Arizona shootings/tragedy on January 8.  Sharing the moment of silence during the televised memorial service on January 12 and wanting to be a good person, to be kinder and gentler and stronger and braver.  Horrified at the scope of misery and so very frustrated by how mental illness–a biological illness, treatable when detected and responded to early enough–can still in 2011 be demonized and bear the stigma of carrying accountability that in truth we all share.
  • Finding myself wanting to control everything else possible in my world, just to see if I can.  Knowing that this is futile and not being able to stop trying to do it anyway.
  • Wanting to winter-hibernate.  Feeling like I need more sleep and rest and so not exercising and not journaling.  As if they were mutually exclusive.
  • Our Christmas tree is still up.  I am not ready even now to take it down and put everything away.  The lights remind me of  joy and hope and I still need to be able to see them.  And, it is kind of weird to still have everything up.  This is a familiar annual struggle for me.
  • I spent all of yesterday practicing handbells to play last night at church during a friend’s ordination to the priesthood and found humble satisfaction in actively celebrating.
  • I didn’t honor my own instinct earlier last week and felt sad when I missed a gathering that I really wanted to attend.
  • Rejoiced at the power of medicine and surgery to restore sight to those who cannot see.
  • Kept telling myself “it’s only the second week of the New Year and there is still time to figure 2011 out.”
  • Keenly felt the approaching transition as today we attend our church for the last Sunday (having been part of this community for seven years) and prepare to move with my priest-husband to a new church and a new as yet unknown community.  Knowing a mixture of sadness and excitement as I give thanks for these past years in our family’s life and feeling quite clueless about what lies ahead.  Understanding that this kind of transition is a regular and expected part of the clergy family path.

And so, today, we observe the eve of the day that we celebrate and honor the life of  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Even as I juggle interiorly the random notings above, I can feel something centering within me as I recall the loss of this great man.  I think about peace and non-violence and the terrible paradox that took his life and the lives of John and Robert Kennedy.  I think of how much I have been blessed by the many “beloved communities” that have supported and nurtured and challenged and loved me.  I think of how much time is still left for me to grow braver, grow kinder, grow more patient, grow more peaceful and I give thanks. 

This week has felt like ratcheting my way up the giant hill of a roller coaster and now pretty much feels like hanging at the top and waiting for the ride down–kind of scared, kind of excited, hoping/knowing/trusting that the rails will hold me up and that in that security I will be able to fly.  My prayer today is to let off the brakes and say yes to riding down the big hill and to all the holy moments that lie ahead.

Let us honor the memory of Dr. King and let us hold hope for the future like the radiant beacon and shining treasure that it is.