spirituality

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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Waiting for Peace

This year I had the opportunity to travel to the Holy Land with my family and friends from our church.  I knew I would enjoy the trip.  I had no idea how much my spirit would be touched.  I am still pondering our experiences over and over.  This day, Christmas Eve, I cannot stop thinking about Bethlehem.  About the silver star on the floor in the deep cellar of the Church of the Nativity, of kneeling down to reach out to touch the star that marks the spot believed to have been the birth site of Jesus.  About the wall which belies all our wishes to believe in peace in this land that is home for us all.  About singing Christmas carols in the church near the shepherd’s field.  About community, about justice, about love.

I wrote this to share with my church for its Advent devotional booklet…it is the writing chosen for this day, December 24:

Waiting For Peace

 

These final days, the light begins to return.

It seems the whole world is waiting for peace.

We give thanks for darkness beginning to wane, even a tiny bit.

 

As the year draws to a close, we wait for Christ to arrive,

To come, as each year, in our hearts and in our world.

We wait again for the peace of Jesus.

 

Christmas almost here, and hearts still break.

We wander deep and dreamless streets.

Waiting for peace is hard work, we try to be patient.

 

This world, still waiting, as hope moves closer.

This tender love inside our hearts, broken, bruised, healing.

How much longer to wait?

 

We will know the glory of our desire.

We will dance in the midst of mystery

We are waiting for Jesus, waiting for peace.

 

Say yes, beloved, only say yes.

Our peace and our Jesus are on the way

And will arrive with our next trusting breath.

 

Amen. May it be so.

Alchemy

Sometime one thing becomes another thing and yet stays the same,

Like lovers who marry yet name themselves whole.

The waters can lift us over and over,

As a mother lifts her tired child again and again.

A camera stops time and gives us back to ourselves,

Like a kiss from a lover we know only in dreams.

Our lives are made simply of earth, water, fire, and air,

And yes oh yes of Spirit that brings us life itself.

All these things change and remain and always return

As we walk home again alone with the moon.

 

The Holy

The holy

Invites you to laughter so secret even the angels may not get the joke

Sleeps beside you at three a.m.

Stands next to you in the shower

Smiles back at you from the dressing room mirror.

***

The holy

Crowns you with fire so she can find you

Tells you stories of desire

Sings to you when tears fall unbidden

Swims in the creek under the bridge you cross.

***

The holy

Makes mystery with morning coffee

Delivers the mail and all other messages

Creates with abandon

Promises only union.

***

The holy

Sees the scars of every fear lying folded in our skin

Touches the memory of pain dimpled in our bellies

Smooths the asters burned on the surface of our hearts

Lifts every moment all the way to the sun.

***

Knowing what you know can save your life.

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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.

This Moment

This moment
When the world is
Jingling with carols
Sparkling with tinsel
Shining with ribbons
Overflowing with anticipation

This moment
When our
Hearts long for loved ones
Souls ache for our wounded world
Minds spin with frustration
Bodies throb with exhaustion

This moment
Let us pray for all who are
Sad
Hungry
Lonely
Angry
Frightened
Cold
Abandoned

This moment
Breathe
Breathe again

This moment
Close your eyes
Breathe one more time

This moment
May our hearts open to Light
To the Love for which we wait
May the Holy One abide with us all

This moment

Kissing Lepers

Today is October 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi.  We often celebrate this day by blessing animals in our churches as we remember the St. Francis who loved the birds and other creatures…and that may be all some of us know of Francis. Yet this one man, born hundreds of years ago, lived a life that inverted all expectation, transformed the church and religious life, and continues today to inspire men and women who long for something more, who yearn for God.

I have been married for almost nineteen years to a follower of Francis.  It has been a journey filled with wonder and love. While in medical school, I met my future husband and his fellow Franciscans in Galveston, and all were friends on my journey.  A Franciscan priest was my spiritual director while I was a Jesuit volunteer in Washington, DC before medical school had even crossed my mind.  There have been lovers of Francis befriending me for years and years now in an almost mystical procession of serendipity.

I first saw the movie “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” as a college student in Austin in the 1970’s.  The film captured my heart and my spirit and never really let go. It is a beautifully filmed story of the life of Francis with a soundtrack sung by Donovan. One scene that has stayed with me is an image of Francis washing the limbs of people with leprosy (Hansen’s disease) while Donovan’s melody sings of mercy and joy. That mercy, that joy, has followed me through years of seeking and searching and wandering and ultimately, finding love and faithful companionship with others who love Francis.

St. Francis did love animals. He also loved God, and watched and listened to the Spirit.  He knew fear and loneliness and pain.  In embracing all of life, he found grace and blessing.  In Francis’ time, persons who suffered from leprosy were exiled to remote and isolated geography, and although the story is that Francis was frightened by leprosy…the story is also that Francis kissed a leper and in doing so, found freedom and peace.  Nothing was denied, all was welcomed. This life of Francis of Assisi has much to teach us about truth, about the holy, about our own hearts.

So, as we honor the memory of St. Francis today, I wonder how our lives can teach us and lead us more and more toward grace, toward loving kindness, toward justice. The world we live in cries out for mercy, cries out for joy.  I give thanks for the life of Francis, and for all the love that has flowed from his friends and continues to grace our world today.  May we too embrace all of life, casting nothing away, and know the holiness and grace that only love can bring.

Inclusivity?

Recently I have been listening to a number of conversations in and around our church about inclusivity…and I have found myself thinking about inclusivity as a spiritual practice.  Many who endorse the title of “progressive Christian” also endorse the virtue of inclusivity and endeavor to be a haven for those who may have experienced discomfort or injury in the context of religion.  And, almost everyone who aspires to inclusivity sooner or later runs into a brick wall where she or he might think “I can include everyone except…” It is almost as though the intentional practice of inclusivity involves encountering Russian nested dolls–until one appears that we can’t “un-nest.” One that we can’t include.

Where is the place for limits, for boundaries? And where is the place for unconditional inclusion? Is there ever a place for unconditional inclusion? If we proclaim “all are welcome” in our churches (and in our hearts), where is the place when we say “except”? How do we find balance in this place–can we? Is this the place where we might ask (along with our evangelical friends) “What Would Jesus Do?”

It seems to me that communal spiritual practice might be best supported by individual spiritual practice.  If we proclaim an inclusive community, are we also each called to be inclusive persons? If so, how do we practice inclusivity, not just at church but at work, in our neighborhoods, in our families?

Reflecting on inclusivity, it occurs to me that:

  • It is a longitudinal organic and dynamic process–hearts change in relationships over time. We change each other and are changed in our connectedness.  Our experience of each other today will not be our experience of each other tomorrow.
  • Our particular contexts of inclusivity are always imbedded in a larger (sometimes much larger) context where Spirit is active and alive. We are not likely to be aware or conscious of all the implications of our decisions in the larger web of our communal life.
  • Many spiritual teachers (in A Course in Miracles and other resources) have suggested that all our experiences come down in the end to allowing ourselves to choose to respond in any moment from love or from fear.  The question arises whether those of us who name ourselves followers of Jesus are called to exercise a preferential option for love.

In chronos time, we are faced with our perceptions of reality and we bump into obstacles to the practice of inclusivity, many of which can be described as reasoned and reasonable.

In kairos time, we remember to consider the Kingdom of Heaven, the one that is right here, right now. The kingdom that is wild with apparent grace.

When we reach our limits of inclusivity–and being human, we will–instead of standing in critical judgment of another, perhaps we can humbly acknowledge, in a context of grace, that we ourselves fall short in our capacity to love, and that it  is our own lack of wholeness that keeps us from reaching out to our brothers and sisters. Perhaps we can pray that our own hearts be changed, that we ourselves can be healed and forgiven in our very humanity.

In the end…maybe we can seek wisdom as we remember that hearts change in relationship over time, that our context is always embedded in a greater context beyond our knowing, and that if we listen, we are quietly beckoned and invited to choose love over fear, every time that we can. May we know the blessings of open hearts and open minds and joyfully accept the challenges of being human, in the knowledge of grace that abounds–apparent grace.

La Luna

I drove home tonight in the glow of a full moon, like a pearl shining, like a marble with a rough place where the man in the moon peeks out.  The moon teaches us that things aren’t always what they seem–if they ever are at all.

Last week I dreamed about my father.  He was alive again (although the seventh anniversary of his death will soon pass).  Strong, walking around, talkative, cheerful.  I woke up smiling.

Some years ago a poet I knew in Austin fell and hit his head and hours later, died.  Beauty silenced.  His words have lived in my head for years.

So kiss your husband, hug your child, feed your dog.  Cross yourself when the next ambulance passes.

How are we to understand?

Just this:  Only because of the greater light of the sun can we see the beautiful moon at all.

And this:  Only an infinitely more tender love and mercy, beyond all our knowing, releases us to touch each other, in hope, with unforgettable joy.

Resurrection,Redemption: Beyond All Reason

So much is stirring in our world these past days…  A fairy tale royal wedding in London.  Two days later the death of Osama bin Laden with avalanche outpouring of relief, celebration by some and confusion by others.  Tornadoes and flooding in the Midwest and the Southeast areas of the United States.  Meanwhile, a record drought in Houston and the high school tennis court ground near our house looks like this:

Dry cracked earth that is supposed to have grass growing.  And summer, the hot hot hot Texas summer, is just around the corner.  Three weeks ago in Pennsylvania I saw this, and this, and this:

Green and growing, prayers flags blowing in the wind…so different from the cracked dry earth.  As different as the fairy tale wedding is from the death of a terrorist.  If we believe that God is everywhere and that the Spirit is moving, then we can know that the events of our lives, the death and resurrection and ultimately redemption, are sacred texts for us to read, to ponder, to unpack, unravel, maybe even understand. 

Like reading tea leaves, we listen to all around us…  Will we see the holy?  Will we hear the call?  Beyond all reason lies all we are and all we have been and all we will ever be: resurrection and redemption and apparent grace in our lives.